U.N. says U.S. blacklisting of Yemen group may hinder bid to avert oil spill

FILE PHOTO: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, U.S., January 12, 2021. Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United Nations is concerned that a U.S. plan to blacklist Yemen's Houthi movement on Tuesday will hinder its efforts to assess a decaying oil tanker that is threatening to spill 1.1 million barrels of crude oil off the war-torn country's coast.

The tanker Safer has been stranded off Yemen's Red Sea oil terminal of Ras Issa for more than five years, and U.N. officials have warned it could spill four times as much oil as the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster off Alaska.