Senate rebukes Trump
The Republican-led US Senate on Wednesday approved a resolution seeking to end US support for the Saudi Arabia-led coalition in the war in Yemen, in a rebuke of President Donald Trump's policy toward the kingdom.
The vote was 54-46 in the Senate, more than the 51 needed to pass in the 100-member Senate, as seven Republicans joined Democrats in backing the measure. The war powers resolution seeks to end any US military involvement in the conflict, including providing targeting support for Saudi air strikes, without authorisation from Congress.
The four-year-long civil war in Yemen, which pits the Saudi-led coalition against Huthi rebels backed by Iran, has killed tens of thousands of people and spawned what the United Nations calls the world's most dire humanitarian crisis, with the country on the brink of famine.
Backers of the resolution, including a handful of Trump's fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, argued that US involvement in Yemen violates the constitutional requirement that Congress, not the president, should determine when the country goes to war.
"We're helping a foreign power bomb its adversaries in what is undoubtedly, irrefutably, a war," said Republican Senator Mike Lee, who sponsored the resolution, urging a 'yes' vote.
The Yemen vote could be only the first of two major setbacks for Trump this week, as senators were due to vote today on a resolution disapproving of his use of his emergency powers to pay for a wall on the border with Mexico, even though Congress has not approved it.
The resolution must still be approved by the House of Representatives to be sent to the White House, which said earlier on Wednesday that Trump plans a veto. It would be the first of his two-year-long presidency.
Many lawmakers also want to push Trump to demand a stronger response from the Saudi government to the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi consulate in Turkey in October.
Meanwhile, the head of the state-backed Saudi human rights commission dismissed an international investigation into the killing of Khashoggi as interference yesterday, and said everyone accused was already facing justice in the kingdom.
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