Prudential Financial might have been founded in 1875, but its IT stack is definitely next-generation.
The 150-year-old company has 38,000 employees who serve 50 million customers in more than 50 countries. Bob Bastian, chief information and technology officer, leads the company’s agentic AI initiative, which is built on Salesforce’s Agentforce for Financial Services.
We discussed with Bastian the company’s deliberate approach to rolling out AI services for its various insurance, retirement products and mutual funds.
How would you describe Prudential’s AI strategy?
Bob Bastian
Bob Bastian: Because we’re a regulated business, we give a lot of thought to how we’re using AI. Our main strategy is thinking about how to build governance so it does exactly what we need it to do for our customers and stakeholders, but at the same time, it’s protected, it’s governed and we think about data management right out of the gate.
Then we say, “Where would it provide the most value for our customers or advisors?” We’ve created various use cases that help us understand that value proposition. Or, in the case of something like underwriting — something we’ve been doing for quite a while — we have multiple tests [of AI tools] against our underwriting to make sure that we’re getting valid results.
When you saw generative AI for the first time, did you immediately see use cases?
Bastian: I enjoy technology overall. I just love to understand how things work. My first thought was, “Okay, I need to understand more about how this is coming together.”
After understanding about LLMs [large language models] and RAG [retrieval augmented generation] and all the other technical details that go into it, I started to think about how this can apply itself to the insurance, annuity and advisor spaces. Everything that we’ve come up with focuses on a human in the loop, just because of how GenAI is structured. It’s important for us to make sure that we still have humans thinking about what is happening. We are a company that generates a lot of documentation. We want to ensure that we get the right policy, contract and type of products out there in production. It necessitates a lot of information, and GenAI can help pull that information together. Many of our use cases are set up around that.
What are examples of operational use cases?
Bastian: We have a use case for group insurance claims. They’re different based on each company’s contract and the company’s state regulations. So if I’m on the phone with a customer, I have to go out to different places to pull that information together. With what we’ve done with GenAI, we know who the customer is, we know what company they work for, and we know what state they’re coming from. We gather all that information so that, instead of trying to find different documents, CSRs [customer service representatives] can focus on the customer and be very empathetic.
We also have another use case for advisors. It pulls together information about who they’re meeting. We have wholesalers [who support financial advisors] as well as advisors. In the wholesaler space, we’re pulling together information about the people they’re meeting with so that they can come well prepared. That makes them a lot more productive.
Do you employ multiple LLMs for different functions, or are you a one-LLM shop?
We give a lot of thought to what the right LLM is for the job. Bob BastianChief information and technology officer, Prudential Financial
Bastian: We are not a one-LLM shop. Different LLMs are optimized for different things. We give a lot of thought to what the right LLM is for the job. We also give thought to how we’re going to apply it; what is the right risk for our customers, stakeholders, advisors, whomever else. So we’re very protective how we’re using LLMs, which ones we’re using and which ones are the best for any given use case.
What are you doing with Salesforce agents and Financial Services Cloud?
Bastian: They have done some great things in our wholesaler space, as mentioned above. We consolidated our customer service across all our businesses onto Salesforce. We consolidated all our claims — except for disability claims — onto Salesforce. Our retirement business, our U.S. life insurance business, group insurance business and everything is on Salesforce.
On the sales side, we’re using agentic AI to help with call logging. If a CSR meets with a customer or a wholesaler meets with an advisor, it logs what happened during that meeting. The agents can go off and deal with follow-ups. Agentic is great at summarizing how we met with [an advisor], how they want to do these types of cases in the future and what follow-ups are needed, then it will set those up in Salesforce and deal with those background pieces. We think we can save at least half a day per week, just on different follow-ups and setting up other things in Salesforce. So that’s a great use case beta that we’re starting.
On the service side, there’s a lot that goes on after a call. When a customer calls up and has a service request, there are a bunch of other things, different follow-ups, different background things that happen with administration systems and others. We’re in a beta there where an agent can do some of those things. [This allows] the CSR to get on the next call and be more empathetic to the conversation that they’re having — as opposed to having to think about the call log, follow-ups or the things that they have to do in the background. This agentic force helps us get through many of the background [tasks] so that our advisors or CSRs can stay focused on the customer.
What advice do you have for your peers experimenting with or evaluating agentic AI?
Bastian: One thing is to keep customers at the heart. How do you make your CSRs better with the customer? How do you make them more empathetic? How do you make it a great relationship, so when a client calls up Prudential, they feel like the agent is listening to them? Design your agents keeping in mind how to enable better interactions.
The other thing, especially for our industry — whether it be bank, financial services or asset management — is that we’re regulated, so you’ve got to think that through first. Don’t go off and create a bunch of agents that do a bunch of things that could get you into trouble. Think through the governance before you get down the path of thinking about agentic.
If you focus on a customer at the heart of it and you really balance yourself with governance and regulatory, that space in the middle that allows the human to do the best that they can when they’re on the call or when they’re meeting with an advisor. That’s the path to greatness on some of this.
Don Fluckinger is a senior news writer for Informa TechTarget. He covers customer experience, digital experience management and end-user computing. Got a tip? Email him.
Three years ago, when England won their first major trophy at the expense of Germany, Bühl could only watch on from the sidelines, unable to step in and help her teammates.
Her standout form came to a crashing halt before the semi-finals, when she tested positive for COVID-19 and, as a result, missed out on the rest of the tournament.
Since then, the 24-year-old has gone from strength to strength as she continues to live up to expectations.
Considered one of the most exciting wingers in the game, Bühl arrived in Switzerland on the back of a career best campaign in the Fauen-Bundesliga.
Seven goals and 14 assists in the league alone proved a remarkable return for a player with limitless potential.
Now she is being looked at as one of the nation’s brightest hopes; someone who sparks belief that their ninth European title is coming.
With captain Giulia Gwinn ruled out for the remainder of the campaign, it has never been more important for each and every player to step up.
After missing those crucial stages of 2022, there will be added incentive to get the job done this time around, with Bühl ready to lead the way.
Performing in the spotlight did not always come so naturally to the international no.19, though she was forced to confront it as a teenager.
Making her Frauen-Bundesliga debut aged 15 for former club Freiburg, the tricky two-footed attacker had to become accustomed to life at the top fairly quickly.
“I felt like I had to pretend at first; cameras, media – I first had to learn to get to know myself,” Bühl confessed to Queenzine.
“I had to learn how to deal with successes and failures and still maintain my values.
“Over time, I realised that the most important thing is to stay true to yourself.”
The pressures of club and country can be palpable, so there’s no wonder Bühl turns to slow and steady activities like crocheting in her downtime.
She knitted mascots for the national team at both the 2023 World Cup and the 2024 Olympics, the second of which saw them to a bronze medal.
It looks as though the forward didn’t have the time to crochet one for EURO 2025 – but the weaving remains, this time on the pitch as Bühl glides in and out of opposing players in pursuit of a ninth German title.
Polarella has only been isolated from polar regions, though through -omics techniques, we have been able to identify the genera in a tropical oxygen deficient zone. Our data suggests that as oxygen and light declines, Polarella shifts from a phototrophic lifestyle (green) to potential heterotrophy (orange). At depths where oxygen is depleted and light level extremely low, Polarella upregulates genes involved in the uptake of both inorganic and organic nutrients and stress response.
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Credit: Birch Maxwell Lazo-Murphy designed the concept image and was finalized by the OLAR editorial office/graphic design team
A tiny single-celled organism may have a big impact on how the world’s basic chemical building blocks cycle between living things and the non-living environment. Called Polarella, the algal genus was thought to be restricted to polar cap regions of Earth, but a team has revealed that it is abundant and influential in the Eastern Tropical North Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico.
The researchers, based at the University of South Carolina (USC), published their findings on May 26 in Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research.
Polarella is a type of dinoflagellate that makes up a major portion of marine microbial communities and contributes significantly to global primary production, said first author Birch Maxwell Lazo-Murphy, a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in marine science in the laboratory of Xuefeng “Nick” Peng, the corresponding author and an assistant professor of in USC’s School of Earth, Ocean, and Environment.
“Understanding the roles of free-living dinoflagellates — as opposed to those that live in symbiosis with other organisms — in dynamic environments is critical, as these habitats often harbor high microbial diversity and niche differentiation,” Lazo-Murphy said. “Gaining a deeper insight into these environments will enable more accurate predictions of how these globally important groups will respond to environmental changes.”
One such dynamic environment in marine systems are oxygen-deficient zones (ODZs), where oxygen levels are so depleted that oxygen often can’t be detected even by state-of-the-art sensors. This results from a process called remineralization, which involves living matter decaying into its basic chemical building blocks. According to Lazo-Murphy and Peng, these zones account for less than 1% of the ocean area on Earth, yet they are responsible for losing 33% of biologically available nitrogen — which is critical for plant growth, human health and more — across the globe.
“ODZs have been expanding in size in part due to anthropogenic warming, so the role of ODZs and their respective microbial communities in global nutrient cycling is becoming increasingly important,” Peng said.
To better understand the specific microbial communities in these areas, including how they respond to change and potentially impact nutrient cycling, the researchers used a technique called metatranscriptomics. They collected seawater samples from the oxygen-rich surface, mid-depths and oxygen-depleted depths of the Eastern Tropical North Pacific Ocean, which houses the world’s largest ODZ. They extracted and sequenced genetic material, from which they identified the specific organisms present in each sample.
“We found unexpectedly high relative contribution of Polarella, which is thought to have bipolar distribution, to the microbial communities in the Eastern Tropical North Pacific Ocean,” Lazo-Murphy said. “Once we established their abundance, we set out to understand the functions and gene expressions of Polarella, as well as their impacts on the nutrient cycles, in the ODZ.”
Further analysis revealed increased expression of stress response genes in Polarella, ranging from the lowest stress in surface samples to the highest in samples from oxygen-depleted depths. The researchers also found that the closer to the surface, genes for photosynthesis — converting sunlight into energy — were more highly expressed. In addition, they found that, while the overall gene expression was low for Polarella from low-oxygen or oxygen-free areas, the genes involved in transporting organic and inorganic nutrients were more highly expressed. Lazo-Murphy said this suggests that Polarella has an opportunistic lifestyle, taking advantage of available resources wherever it exists.
“Collectively, these findings suggest that Polarella thrives beyond polar regions and likely plays a more significant ecological and biogeochemical role in the ocean than previously recognized,” Lazo-Murphy said.
The Simons Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Marine Microbiology and the Simons Early Career Investigator in Aquatic Microbial Ecology and Evolution Award to Peng supported this research.
Journal
Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research
Method of Research
Data/statistical analysis
Article Title
Unexpected Abundance and Gene Expression of Polarella from a Tropical Oxygen Deficient Zone
Article Publication Date
17-Jun-2025
COI Statement
There are no conflicts of interest to declare.
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has learned to do backward rolls to give its onboard radar better opportunities to find water-ice beneath the red planet’s surface.
“Not only can you teach an old spacecraft new tricks, you can open up entirely new regions of the subsurface to explore by doing so,” Gareth Morgan of the Planetary Science Institute and co-investigator on MRO’s Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument, said in a statement.
MRO is something of a veteran now, having been in orbit around Mars since 2006. It carries five instruments still in operation (a sixth, the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, CRISM, was shut down in 2023). The spacecraft typically points these instruments at targets on the surface by tipping itself over by up to 28 degrees. If MRO performs one of these rolls so a particular instrument can get a good view of something, it usually means the other four are inconvenienced, hence why the roll maneuvers are planned weeks in advance so as not to interrupt other observations.
Things usually work out — however, the SHARAD instrument has always been at a disadvantage.
SHARAD fires pulses of radar at Mars that are able to detect water-ice buried as deep as 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) below the surface. Yet, SHARAD is positioned on the rear of the spacecraft, playing second fiddle to the likes of the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), which has the best views in the house from the front of the spacecraft. From the rear, SHARAD’s radar beams typically catch part of the spacecraft’s structure, resulting in interference that reduces clarity and how deep underground it can probe.
“The SHARAD instrument was designed for the near-subsurface and there are select regions of Mars that are just out of reach for us,” said Morgan. “There is a lot to be gained by taking a closer look at those regions.”
So, starting in 2023, MRO’s engineers began experimenting with the spacecraft by performing what they describe as “very large rolls” of 120 degrees, spinning the spacecraft backwards so it is almost upside down relative to Mars. During the large roll, SHARAD gets an unencumbered view of Mars’ surface, which permits the radar signal to be 10 times stronger.
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There is a caveat to these very large rolls, though. During a standard roll of up to 28 degrees, MRO’s high-gain antenna can remain pointed at Earth and its solar arrays can keep tracking the sun to maintain power. During a 120-degree roll, the high-gain antenna isn’t pointed at Earth and the solar arrays lose sight of the sun.
This means that a 120-degree roll requires even more planning before it is performed.
A video showing how MRO can tip backwards to improve the view for its Shallow Radar (SHARAD) (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech)
“The very large rolls require a special analysis to make sure we’ll have enough power in our batteries to safely do the roll,” Reid Thomas, who is MRO’s Project Manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in the statement.
As a result, the MRO team is limiting the spacecraft to just one or two very large rolls each year, but they hope to be able to streamline the process and perform these maneuvers more often in future. It could really be worth it: Finding large pockets of water-ice close to the Martian surface would be vital for future astronauts who could use it for drinking water as well as for producing oxygen and rocket fuel. Plus, the very existence of the water at different latitudes can tell us more about the history of water and the past climate of Mars.
There’s also another benefit to the rolls. There is one instrument on MRO that was not designed to require rolls to point, and that is the Mars Climate Sounder, which measures small changes in temperature over the course of the Martian seasons. The Climate Sounder has to be able to point both down at the surface and at the horizon where it can peer through the thin layers of Mars’ atmosphere; to aid it in these observations, the Climate Sounder was affixed to its own gimbal. However, by 2024, this gimbal had grown unreliable due to age, and so the Climate Sounder now relies on the standard 28-degree rolls to make its observations. The very large 120-degree rolls give the Climate Sounder more flexibility.
An artist’s impression of MRO over Mars (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech)
Where it used to be the case that the rolls limited MRO’s science output because they only gave a good view to one instrument at a time, the rolls are now helping the aging Mars probe to maintain its science output. It’s not quite cartwheels, but it shows that MRO still has a lot of life left in it yet.
An assessment of the success of the large rolls is described in The Planetary Science Journal.
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Exceptionalism has been one of few constants in the otherwise sinuous story of the English state. The nation split from the Catholic church, clung on to monarchy, evolved into an empire spanning a quarter of the globe and introduced its de facto lingua franca. Even after its domain dwindled, self-belief lingered sufficiently to persuade a majority of its voters to separate themselves from their closest trading partner.
Despite proudly carrying the baggage of centuries of invasions, conquests, dynasties and destinies, a newly unmoored England lacks friends and a direction of travel. It is hard to know what the country represents — has England lost its identity?
Two new books go searching for answers in different places. In their respective histories of English cricket and Christianity, both Brendan Cooper and Bijan Omrani hit upon a history of exceptionalism that once fuelled the country’s ascent as a global power and now leaves it pining for the past and paralysed in the present.
Cricket was born in England. Its etiquette and eccentricity are emblematic of much of what the country takes pride in. In the imagination, it plays out on some mythical village green of a peaceful past — little wonder that Cooper should look to the history of the sport, as he does in his book Echoing Greens, in an attempt to define Englishness.
Anthony Trollope claimed in 1868 that “it is the English alone who take part in the game” — despite the fact that the first ever international cricket match had taken place two decades earlier between the US and Canada. By the Victorian era, the game had become a byword for England’s competitive but courteous aspirations. As Cooper puts it: “Cricket was no longer just a sport. It was philosophy; it was virtue; it was an imagined ideal of nationhood. The game had been remade as a fiction, a metaphor for all the things England wanted itself to be.”
WG Grace, perhaps the most storied of the country’s cricketers, was so revered by fans that tickets to games in which he played cost twice as much as usual. Yet to rivals he was associated with underhand tactics or outright cheating. “His name will become a synonym for mean cunning and systematic fraud,” complained The Sydney Morning Herald after England’s inaugural tour to Australia in 1873.
For every attempt at generalisation, Cooper finds proof to the contrary; for every temptation towards nostalgia, there is a reality check. And it is not so different a picture when we turn to Omrani’s God Is an Englishman.
Omrani — barrister, academic, churchwarden — uses his book to chart the exceptionalist approach that has defined English Christianity over the centuries. As early as the 7th century, Pope Gregory sent a letter to the third Archbishop of Canterbury permitting pagan slaughter of animals on the newly Christian realm’s feast days: “It is doubtless impossible to cut out everything at once from their stubborn minds,” he wrote.
The attitude prevailed, from public unwillingness to give up Catholic festivals in the 16th century to Oliver Cromwell’s insistence on keeping his Quaker household staff. The response to the trauma of the Reformation, Omrani believes, was the kind of nostalgia and exceptionalism that continues to plague English politics: “Successive generations looked back to an era they usually placed just before their own, where England was a country of cheery yeomen and maypole dancing, social order and plenty.” He might well add cricket to that list.
God Is an Englishman eventually falls victim to the nostalgia it so convincingly chronicles. Omrani laments the “tragic” loss of hymn singing in schools and the decay of Christian values in national identity, treading a fine line between questions of church and state. His account of how Christianity came to underpin the laws and landscape of England is thorough; more contentious is his assertion that if social cohesion is in decline, the decay of Christian values has played a “significant part”.
Cooper also sometimes loses sight of his task, drifting into cricketing miscellany. Echoing Greens never quite lives up to its promise of being “a book about England — about the disorderly workings of the English imagination, its visions and ideals as well as its vexed relationship with the blunt reality of life”.
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Neither cricket nor Christianity really reflects the country as it is now. The 2021 census was the first time that less than half the population of England and Wales identified as Christian, with the proportion of atheists at an all-time high. English cricket, meanwhile, finds itself squeezed by low uptake in schools and big-budget international competitions such as the Indian Premier League. “In the twenty-first century,” admits Cooper, “the legitimacy of the Englishness of cricket feels more doubtful than ever.”
But in two subjects so bound up with questions of tradition, it is all too tempting to tend towards nostalgia. “I have no patience with the man who is constantly saying that cricket is not what it used to be,” wrote the Guardian’s Neville Cardus in 1933. “The Golden Age is always well behind us. We catch sight of it with young eyes, when we see what we want to see.” The same could well be said of England.
Echoing Greens: How Cricket Shaped the English Imagination by Brendan Cooper Constable £12.99, 352 pages
God Is an Englishman: Christianity and the Creation of England by Bijan Omrani Forum £25,400 pages
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UNIMÁS will air its first ever K-drama, starring Korean actors Gong Yoo and Kim Go-eun.
TelevisaUnivision/UNIMÁS
In a push to attract younger viewers and diversify its programming strategy, UNIMÁS is betting on the global Korean drama phenomenon, bringing K-dramas to its Spanish-language audience for the first time.
TelevisaUnivision’s secondary U.S. broadcast network — formerly known as Telefutura — will premiere Goblin, el guardián (Guardian: The Lonely and Great God) on July 9 at 10 pm ET, followed by W, Dos Mundos this fall. Both series will be dubbed in Spanish.
Goblin, el guardián follows Kim Shin (Gong Yoo), an ancient warrior who was betrayed, killed and cursed to live forever as an immortal Goblin until he finds his destined bride to break the curse. When he meets Ji Eun-Tak (Kim Go-eun), a young woman who can see spirits, their love story unfolds alongside supernatural dynamics with a Grim Reaper roommate. Fans of Squid Game may recognize Gong Yoo as the recruiter from the hit Netflix series.
Barbara Musa Ruiz, TelevisaUnivision’s SVP of Programming Strategy and Scheduling, says the decision to bring K-dramas to UNIMÁS is rooted in the genre’s global appeal and production quality.
“K-dramas stand out due to their high production quality, including impressive cinematography and settings, and visual effects that enhance the viewer’s experience, in addition to their emotional stories with surprising twists that will deeply connect with our audiences,” she explains.
The selection of Goblin and W, Dos Mundos was intentional.
“These titles reflect the emotional depth and cinematic storytelling that have made K-dramas globally appealing, while aligning with the kind of character-driven narratives that perform well on our network,” says Musa Ruiz.
UNIMÁS has already begun promoting Goblin with a 360-degree campaign, aiming to build anticipation and awareness among viewers.
“We aim to offer innovative and culturally enriching content that resonates with our diverse audience, especially the younger demographic, who represent the natural target for this phenomenon,” notes Musa Ruiz.
UNIMÁS Looks to Diversify and Evolve
While this marks UNIMÁS’s debut in airing K-drama series (Univision has never aired one), Korean content isn’t entirely new to Spanish-language television. The now-defunct MundoFox network previously broadcast the Korean drama Escalera al Cielo (Stairway to Heaven) in 2013.
International programming, however, has been a staple for UNIMÁS. The network has aired numerous Turkish series over the years, including Entre Dos Amores (2018), ¿Qué Culpa Tiene Fatmagül? (2020), Pajaro Soñador (2020), Las Mil y Una Noches (2021), La Hija del Embajador (2022), Amor Prohibido (2023), and Pecado Original (2025). Sister network Univision has also embraced Turkish content, airing series starting in 2019.
Musa Ruiz emphasizes that the introduction of K-dramas is a natural extension of UNIMÁS’s ongoing commitment to offering diverse storytelling and evolving alongside its audience’s interests.
“International content has always played a key role in UNIMÁS’s programming strategy. While this marks our first launch of K-dramas, we’ve previously introduced acclaimed series from Brazil, Colombia, Turkey, and Mexico,” she states. “Our mission remains the same: to deliver powerful, relatable stories, no matter where they come from.”
The move also serves to differentiate UNIMÁS from its sister network Univision.
“UNIMÁS programming strategy is designed to push creative boundaries, offering diverse content that’s distinctive, edgier, and often more experimental in format or origin,” explains Musa Ruiz. At the same time, the goal is “to keep viewers engaged within the TelevisaUnivision ecosystem by offering complementary content experiences.”
So, why introduce K-dramas now? Musa Ruiz says that after monitoring trends and the global popularity of Korean content over the past decade, particularly in Latin America, the timing felt right.
“In Mexico, for instance, K-dramas have strongly resonated with audiences, providing a solid foundation for introducing this genre to UNIMÁS viewers.”
A new study by scientists at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) projects the future burden of gastric cancer, including that attributable to Helicobacter pylori infection – the primary cause of gastric cancer – among a cohort of individuals born in 2008–2017. The expected number of gastric cancer cases, in the absence of intervention, was quantified across 185 countries by combining national age-specific incidence rates from GLOBOCAN 2022 and cohort-specific mortality rates from United Nations demographic projections. The article was published in Nature Medicine.
Worldwide, assuming no change to the current gastric cancer control measures, 15.6 million gastric cancer cases are expected to occur within these birth cohorts, of which 76% are attributable to H. pylori infection and are therefore potentially preventable. Asia accounted for two thirds of the expected cases, followed by the Americas and Africa. Whereas 58% of future cases were projected in regions with historically high gastric cancer incidence, 42% were expected in lower-incidence regions, driven largely by demographic changes. In particular, a significant increase in the burden of gastric cancer is projected in sub-Saharan Africa, where the future number of cases will be up to 6 times those estimated for 2022.
Gastric cancer is a disease with high morbidity and poor prognosis, although it is largely preventable. Most gastric cancers are attributable to chronic infection with H. pylori, and this burden worldwide is one of the highest of any cancer-causing infection. Despite ongoing global initiatives aimed at eliminating cervical cancer and viral hepatitis, gastric cancer remains relatively neglected, with limited interest and investment in many parts of the world, leading to public health inaction.
This study highlights the growing burden of gastric cancer with shifting global profiles. The projections offer policy-makers critical information for cancer control planning at both regional and national levels and underscore the urgent need for the implementation of prevention strategies to reduce the global burden of gastric cancer.
Park JY, Georges D, Alberts CJ, Bray F, Clifford G, Baussano I
Global lifetime estimates of expected and preventable gastric cancers across 185 countries
Tracking the ship attacked in the Red Sea on Sundaypublished at 14:42 British Summer Time 7 July
14:42 BST 7 July
Emma Pengelly BBC Verify journalist
Image source, MarineTraffic
Image caption,
The journey of bulk carrier Magic Seas from China towards Egypt before it was attacked in the Red Sea
A Liberian-flagged bulk carrier, Magic Seas, came under attack on Sunday in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen. In the last hour the Houthi rebel group has claimed responsibility.
The attack involved small arms fire, self-propelled grenades and missiles – tactics previously used by Houthis against commercial shipping passing along the Yemeni coastline.
Vanguard Tech, a maritime risk company, said fire and flooding caused the crew to abandon ship. All 22 people onboard are now safe, according to the EU Naval Force, which was involved in the rescue.
The last recorded position of Magic Seas – according to vessel tracking site MarineTraffic- was sent at 17:00 local time (15:00 BST) on Sunday, and showed it west of the Yemeni port of Hudaydah.
Magic Seas had started its journey from Zhuhai in China on 11 June, and its tracking data showed its recorded destination as the Suez Canal, with no onwards details.
Since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, the Houthis have regularly launched missiles at Israel and attacked ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
The Magic Seas is owned by Allseas Marine. A second bulk carrier affiliated with this company is currently docked at Ashdod in Israel, according to MarineTraffic data. Vanguard Tech has identified two further ships linked to Allseas Marine that visited Israeli ports in April and June last year.
“These factors put the Magic Seas at an extreme risk of being targeted,” Vanguard said.
BBC Verify has contacted Allseas Marine for comment.
