In the News
WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of 48 lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday asked the Obama administration to brief Congress "as soon as possible" about a 2015 Yahoo program to scan all of its users' incoming email at the behest of the government.
On Tuesday, US Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) wrote a remarkable letter to Secretary of State John Kerry. Citing the “civilian carnage caused by the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition in Yemen,” Rep. Lieu expressed concern to Kerry that the US government might be “liable for war crimes in Yemen,” based on continued US material support for the ongoing Saudi attack on its southern neighbor.
Americas
- Pressure has continued from US lawmakers opposed to continued arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Rep.
The Obama administration has been supporting a Saudi-led campaign there for 18 months.
WASHINGTON — U.S. partners are almost certainly committing war crimes in the ongoing conflict in Yemen, a U.S. congressman argued in a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry.
The U.S. launched missiles into rebel-controlled territory inside Yemen late Wednesday night, the first time the U.S. has directly made such an attack in the Yemen war. The strikes targeted radar sites along the coast.
Rep. Ted Lieu (D – CA), a former lawyer in the US Air Force, today urged the Obama Administration to suspend all arms sales to Saudi Arabia and to suspend cooperation with them on the war in Yemen, saying that the growing civilian death toll in the country “appears to be the result of war crimes.”
The U.S. may be drawing closer to a confrontation with Iran over involvement in Yemen’s civil war.
Houthi rebel forces in Yemen backed by the Iranian government apparently fired a missile on Wednesday at the USS Mason, which is stationed in the Red Sea. On Sunday, two missiles were fired at the same ship from Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen.
The missiles hit the water in both cases.
Yet the provocative launches against the ship, which carries about 330 sailors, are raising questions about how the U.S. will respond.
A Democratic lawmaker is calling on the United States to immediately stop supporting a Saudi Arabia-led coalition fighting rebels in Yemen.
WASHINGTON, Oct 12 (Reuters) - A U.S. lawmaker called on the Obama administration to suspend cooperation with a Saudi-led coalition conducting airstrikes in Yemen, saying in a letter released on Wednesday that civilian casualties from the strikes "appear to be the result of war crimes."
Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat, wrote in a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday that the coalition has conducted more than 70 "unlawful airstrikes" in Yemen.
The lights are off in the Committee on Science, Space and Technology room — once the last stand for Bob Inglis. The conservative climate change believer had lost to a tea party challenger, and, on that day six years ago, he was indignant.