UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Six Arab countries are urging the U.N. Security Council to exercise “maximum efforts” to persuade Yemen’s Houthi Shiite rebels to allow the United Nations to inspect a tanker moored in the Red Sea while loaded with over a million barrels to prevent “widespread environmental damage, a humanitarian disaster and the disruption of maritime commerce.”

In a letter to the council circulated Thursday, they warned that in the event of an explosion or leak “the possibility of a spill of 181 million liters of oil in the Red Sea would be four times worse than the oil disaster of the Exxon Valdez Exxon, which took place in Alaska in 1989.”

The tanker Safer, which stayed moored to operate like a mini-terminal to store

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