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Red Sea crisis will affect global trade

There is no sign of an end yet to the troubles faced by commercial shipping through the much-used Red Sea to and from the Suez Canal. Usage of this crucial link between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indo-Pacific has been thrown into uncertainty, thanks to the Israel-Hamas war in and around the Gaza strip. As a consequence of the war, the Iran-backed Houthi rebel alliance in Yemen has begun attacking ships in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, between Yemen and Djibouti. The rebel alliance is no longer a rag-tag group but is surprisingly well-armed. It has used anti-ship ballistic missiles — which