Yemen’s president transfers power to new leadership council

Yemen's president announced on Thursday he had formed a new council to lead the war-wracked country, state media reported, a major shake-up in the coalition battling Houthi rebels.

"I irreversibly delegate to this presidential leadership council my full powers," President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi said in a televised statement early on Thursday, the final day of peace talks held in Saudi Arabia's capital.

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Hadi's internationally recognised government, supported by a Saudi-led military coalition, and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels have been locked in a violent power struggle since 2014, when the insurgents seized the capital Sanaa.

A United Nations-brokered truce that started on Saturday — the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan — has offered a glimmer of hope in the conflict considered the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Yemen's 30 million people are in dire need of assistance. A UN donors conference this month raised less than a third of the $4.27 billion target, prompting dark warnings for a country where 80 percent of the population depends on aid.