Earlier, Trump National Security Adviser John Bolton said that the recently released audio recording allegedly depicting the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in no way implicated the top leadership in Riyadh in the crime.

The Senate is working on legislation to cut off all US assistance to Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen, and in reaction to Riyadh's response to the killing of a dissident journalist, Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker has said.

According to the senator, the resolution targeting the Saudis could be voted on before the end of the year.

"Senators are looking for some way to show Saudi Arabia the disdain they have for what has happened, with the journalist, but also concerns about the way Yemen has gone," Corker said, speaking to Reuters on Tuesday.

Heavy fighting between invading Saudi-backed forces and the Shi’ite Houthi movement continues to escalate, with medics saying at least 150 people killed on Monday in just a 24 hour span. This is an increase of weeks of deadly fighting in and around the vital port city of Hodeidah.

Hodeidah is the main aid port into Yemen, and the last port under Houthi control. This means it is effectively the source of food for millions of Yemenis in the Houthi-controlled north, and aid groups warn the fall of the port could lead to famine.

The death toll is rising as the fighting moves deeper into the city, and its residential areas. The fall of the city’s main hospital over the weekend led to medical staff fleeing the area, and thousands of civilians remain trapped in the neighborhoods nearby.

Hours after the New York Times reported that Turkey's long-rumored audio recording of Saudi journalist-turned dissident's murder inside the Saudi consulate included "strong evidence" that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered the killing, National Security Advisor John Bolton said Tuesday that no such link existed, according to the Wall Street Journal.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian stated Monday that France was in no possession of recordings related to the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi as far as he was aware, with the remarks provoking utmost fury in Ankara.

The Turkish side has branded French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian's statement on the Khashoggi tapes inadmissible.

"We find it unacceptable that he accused President Erdogan of 'playing political games'," communications director at the Turkish presidency Fahrettin Altun told AFP.

"Let us not forget that this case would have been already covered up had it not been for Turkey's determined efforts," Altun stressed adding that the comments do not "reflect the facts."

Given the anger in Washington over the Jamal Khashoggi murder case, there is a real possibility that the Democrat-controlled House will be able to garner the votes to achieve what scores of lawmakers unsuccessfully sought to accomplish in March. The stakes are high regarding weapons sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Any effort to cancel, delay, or freeze arms deals could undermine the White House’s “special relationships” with Crown Princes Mohammed bin Salman and Mohammed bin Zayed, the de facto rulers in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi who are at the helm of Saudi and Emirati foreign policy. At risk are pending Saudi and UAE purchases of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile defense system, the F-35 fifth generation fighter jets, and precision guided munitions.

Saudi-backed invasion forces are pushing deeper into the vital Yemeni aid port of Hodeidah, with heavy fighting on Saturday killing at least 80 across the city. Hodeidah’s main hospital has fallen and now the fighting has reached the residential area surrounding it.

Medics reported that among the 80 killed, 61 were Houthi fighters and the other 19 were pro-Saudi soldiers. There were also reports of civilian casualties from several airstrikes in the area, though exact numbers are unclear.

This is the latest of several major military offensives against the port. The most recent push was said to include thousands of additional fighters, including Yemeni factions and the Sudanese military.

Even as the humanitarian crisis precipitated by Saudi Arabia’s more-than-three-year war in Yemen has deepened, the Pentagon earlier this year launched a new classified operation to support the kingdom’s military operations there, according to a Defense Department document that appears to have been posted online inadvertently.

The existence of the new classified operation, code-named Yukon Journey, was partially revealed in a Defense Department inspector general report posted online earlier this month, which noted that “the Secretary of Defense designated three new named contingency operations: Operation Yukon Journey, and operations in Northwest Africa and East Africa.”

The three operations, which focus on al-Qaida and ISIS, are classified, the report notes, and the Pentagon has not publicly disclosed their location beyond saying they are in the Middle East and Africa.

A month after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, an international consensus is emerging about how to respond: deplore the crime, demand justice, but don’t cut ties with the kingdom. In particular, don’t cut off Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the man widely believed to have ordered the killing of the dissident journalist.

The ambitious, impetuous crown prince, known as MbS, is probably damaged goods as a person. He’s unlikely to receive another lavish welcome in Silicon Valley any time soon. But he has become the diplomatic equivalent of some big banks: too big to fail.

The US demand for an immediate ceasefire in Yemen never happened, with US-backed factions continuing to attack the port city of Hodeidah. US promises of Yemen peace talks in November are also now being postponed.

Officials are presenting the talks, despite initially being presented as happening some time this month, as being set for early December. Now, they say if the talks happen at all, it will be in late December.

Some diplomats are suggesting the postponement is because of concerns that the Houthis won’t show up. The Houthis did not attend the previous talks, because they could not get assurances from the Saudis that their delegation would be allowed to safely travel, and the US seems no more willing to offer such assurances.

At least 15 civilians were killed on Thursday after Saudi-led coalition aircraft and artillery carried out strikes against a residential area in Yemen’s strategic western province of Hodeida and the border areas of Sadaa.

A local source told MintPress News that Saudi jets conducted airstrikes against the al-Jabaliyah area in the al-Tuheita district in southern Hodeida on Thursday afternoon, killing 45-year-old Hassan al Ameri and his four daughters Sumiah, Hunood, Laila and Hend, who ranged in age from eight months to nine years old. Al Ameri’s twelve-year-old son, Ali, was also killed in the attack.

On Friday, three women were killed when Saudi border guards targeted their village in the Razeh district with artillery fire. The village has been under intensive artillery and missile attack since the Saudi-led coalition, supported by the United States, renewed its large-scale offensive weeks ago.

The Trump administration is ending the practice of air refueling Saudi-coalition aircraft and its decision is expected to be made public in the next few days, US media reported.

The decision would end a tangible and controversial aspect of US support for the Saudi coalition’s war in Yemen, the Washington Post newspaper said on Friday.

he US, UK, and French governments are behind millions of people starving in Yemen because they are “supporting this war,” an Oxfam representative told RT, urging London to stop beefing up Saudi Arabia’s military.

“We have 14 million people starving,” Richard Stanforth, Oxfam UK’s regional policy officer for the Middle East, said.

British, French, American governments are all behind this, they are all supporting this war.

Stanforth blamed the British government in particular, saying that London should stop its arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which is accused of targeting food supplies and even no-strike locations in Yemen.

“We’ve seen attacks on water infrastructure, on hospitals, warehouses of food. This pattern is continuing. Certainly, it’s the airstrikes that are killing most civilians,” he said.

Just weeks after promising to back a peace effort in Yemen, the Trump Administration is reportedly considering labeling the Shi’ite Houthi movement in northern Yemen, one of the principal forces, a terrorist organization.

The move appears unrelated to US policy in Yemen itself. Rather, it reflects the Trump Administration’s desire to go after perceived Iranian allies. Saudi Arabia, who is attacking the Houthis, has accused them of being in league with Iran.

In reality, the Houthis have always had limited connections to Iran. But making them a US-labeled terrorist group would not only greatly undermine the Houthis, it would complicate the peace talks to the point of making them nearly impossible.

Perhaps even worse, a terrorist label would make it even harder to deliver humanitarian aid into northern Yemen.

Is the search on for a country to give Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman refuge with international guarantees? That is the gist of a news report circulating in the West, which explains a lot of information in the international arena regarding the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October.

According to Al-Quds Al-Arabi, an anonymous Western source suggests that there are ongoing efforts to find a country willing to grant Bin Salman asylum and protect him from possible prosecution over the Khashoggi killing and several other crimes, including the detention of Saudi princes and businessmen last year and the war in Yemen. Eastern Europe or Asia appear to be the likely locations of such a country.

Russia and Saudi Arabia are discussing the date of delivery of the Russian air defense systems S-400 to Riyadh, the Saudi ambassador said on Tuesday.

“The negotiations are ongoing, they are not over,” Raed bin Khales Qrimli told reporters after being asked when deliveries will begin.

The sale of defense systems to Riyadh is part of an agreement signed last year between the Saudis and the Kremlin after King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud’s first visit to Moscow.

The S-400 Triumph are Russia’s new generation of air defense systems. The system can carry three different types of missiles capable of destroying a variety of near and distant aerial targets ranging from reconnaissance aircraft to ballistic missiles.

US-backed forces loyal to the Saudi and UAE governments continue to attack the main Yemeni aid port of Hodeidah Wednesday. While the city itself remains unbreached, ground troops have seized the main road leading into the city, even more tightly restricting flow to and from it.

The Saudi-led naval blockade has put Yemen, which relies on food imports for over 90% of its food, on the brink of a major famine. Hodeidah is the main import site for food, and the last port under the control of the Houthi movement. If the port falls, there will be no way to get food to almost the entire north of the country.

The Houthis are using snipers to keep ground troops from entering the main port area after weeks of offensives. In recent days, they’ve also started tire fires to try to obscure visibility of the port, in an attempt to make it harder for Saudi warships to target the city.

Saudi Arabia had informed Turkey that it would pay financial compensation to the family and Turkish fiancee of Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi who was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul by a Saudi hit-squad on October, 2, Al- Jazeera channel reported a Turkish official as saying.

The Turkish official said the Turkish authorities have evidence on the fate of Khashoggi’s body, but the Saudi authorities are putting obstacles to reach it.

According to the source, when the Saudi prosecutor, Saudi al- Mojaab was asked about the fate of Khashoggi’s body, he said he had no information about the matter.

The source added that the suspects’ statement handed by al- Mojaab to the Turkish authorities were useless and did not help achieve any progress in the investigation.

Saudi journalist and writer Turki Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Jasser has died after being tortured while in detention, the New Khaleej reported yesterday.

Reporting human rights sources, the news site said that Al-Jasser was arrested and tortured to death after Saudi authorities claimed he administered the Twitter account Kashkool, which disclosed rights violations committed by the Saudi authorities and royal family.

The sources said that the authorities identified Al-Jasser as the admin using spies in Twitter’s regional office located in Dubai. He was arrested in March.

???? Authorities believe that the writer Turki bin Abdul Aziz al-Jasser (TurkialjasserJ) is the Twitterati KASHKOOL (coluche_ar), private #Saudi security sources asserted to us. The source confirmed what ALQST tweeted about using personal information in Jasser's PC to blackmail him pic.twitter.com/qkNmZe0e2w

— Prisoners of Conscie (@m3takl_en) March 18, 2018

British-backed Saudi bombing destroyed Oxfam facilities in Yemen, said the United Kingdom charity. The information about the destruction of facilities of the humanitarian organization emerged during last week’s parliamentary debates in the House of Commons where U.K. ministries were evaluating the impact of the country’s arms sale to Riyadh.

A vital cholera treatment center in Abs, in the Hajjah province, was hit in June in airstrikes which are supported by British intelligence, according to British news outlet Independent.

The location of the treatment facility was notified 12 times. In April, coalition air raids damaged an Oxfam supported water supply system that provided water for 6,000 people.

“On the one hand, British aid is a vital lifeline, on the other, British bombs are helping to fuel an ongoing war that is leading to countless lives being lost each week to fighting, disease, and hunger,” said Oxfam’s head of advocacy, Toni Pearce.

In but the latest after an insane month of news featuring the kingdom since the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the AP reports Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman laid the ceremonial foundation stone for Saudi Arabia's first nuclear research reactor on Monday.

The site is the first of 16 planned reactor sites to be built over the next two decades, and is raising fears that it could mark the start of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, especially given the timing as November 5th was the very day severe U.S. sanctions on Iran targeting the energy industry took effect, precisely over the White House accusation that it is not serious about de-nuclearization.

Saudi journalist and writer Turki Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Jasser (not a US-resident writing for The Washington Post) has died after being tortured while in detention, the New Khaleej reported yesterday.

Reporting human rights sources, the news site said that Al-Jasser was arrested and tortured to death after Saudi authorities claimed he administered the Twitter account Kashkool, which disclosed rights violations committed by the Saudi authorities and royal family.

The sources said that the authorities identified Al-Jasser as the admin using spies in Twitter’s regional office located in Dubai. He was arrested in March.

Is the radical Israeli government helping the Saudis build nuclear weapons? According to a new report in the online news and commentary website “Middle East Monitor,” an Israeli writer is blowing the whistle on a secret deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia to sell detailed information on how to build a nuke.

“This information should shock us,” Ami Dor-on wrote in a whistle-blowing column posted online at the “News One” website, “as we see the world is changing for the worse, following the race for the possession of nuclear weapons that pass right over our heads in the Middle East.”

The surgical dismembering of Jamal Khashoggi has sent the military establishments of several countries into a tizz. Arms manufacturers are wondering whether this is an inconvenient blip, a ruffling moral reminder about what they are dealing with. Autocratic regimes indifferent to the lives of journalists are wondering whether the fuss taken about all this is merely the fuss endured, till the next bloody suppression. But importantly, those states notionally constituting the West may have to reconsider the duping strategy that the House of Saud has executed with the deft efficiency of the dedicated axeman.

The surgical dismembering of Jamal Khashoggi has sent the military establishments of several countries into a tizz. Arms manufacturers are wondering whether this is an inconvenient blip, a ruffling moral reminder about what they are dealing with. Autocratic regimes indifferent to the lives of journalists are wondering whether the fuss taken about all this is merely the fuss endured, till the next bloody suppression. But importantly, those states notionally constituting the West may have to reconsider the duping strategy that the House of Saud has executed with the deft efficiency of the dedicated axeman.

Nguyen Van Tu grasps my hands in thanks as we end the interview. His story is part of a hidden, if not forbidden, history that few in the U.S. know. It’s a story that was written in blood in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos during the 1960s and 1970s and now is being rewritten in Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s a story to which new episodes are added each day that U.S. forces roll armored vehicles down other people’s streets, kick down other people’s doors, carry out attacks in other people’s neighborhoods and occupy other people’s countries.

It took nearly 40 years for word of Nguyen Van Tu’s hardships at the hands of the United States to filter back to America. Perhaps a few more Americans will feel remorse as a result. But who will come forward to take responsibility for all this suffering? And who will give Pham Van Chap a new leg?

A Saudi diplomat yesterday confirmed to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that the kingdom is investigating the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, adding that those responsible for his death will be prosecuted.

President of the Human Rights Commission of Saudi Arabia Bandar Al Aiban said: “The prosecution initiated the necessary investigations to unveil all the facts, bring all the murderers to justice, and punish those guilty of killing Khashoggi.”

After denying Khashoggi’s death for three weeks, Saudi Arabia confessed he was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October.

Saudi Attorney General, Saud Bin Abdullah bin Mubarak, visited Istanbul last month as part of the investigation into Khashoggi’s assassination.

Khashoggi was last seen entering the consulate in early October. Turkey says it has audio recordings which prove he was strangled then dismembered however it has yet to release the evidence.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has laid the foundation stone for the kingdom’s first nuclear research reactor as calls grow in the US for a halt to nuclear talks with the Riyadh regime, which has been rattled by a scandal over the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The official Saudi Press Agency reported that the project had been launched during bin Salman’s visit to King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology in Riyadh on Monday.

The reactor was among seven projects launched by the prince during the visit, said the report.

It did not provide details on when the reactor – which is said to serve research and development purposes – would be constructed

Bin Salman, also known as MbS, has been pushing for an atomic deal with the United States that could pave the way for the Saudi regime to enrich uranium, prompting speculation that the regime might be planning to develop nuclear weapons in the long run.

Benjamin Netanyahu has made no secret of his concern over the fate of Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman in the wake of the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October. According to the Washington Post, the Israeli Prime Minister intervened with the US administration in order to relieve some of the pressure on the prince. Netanyahu also stated publically in Budapest that the US must maintain the stability of Saudi Arabia under the [de facto] leadership of Bin Salman.

Of course, Netanyahu’s defence of Bin Salman is not born out of love, but rather a desire to use him in order to promote Israel’s objectives in the region. The most important of these are to confront Iran, pass the “deal of the century”, normalisation with the Kingdom at a later stage and the elimination of political Islam.

Here’s an astonishing failure by two otherwise excellent New York Times reporters: they wrote a long, valuable analysis about why the U.S. is “standing by” the murderous crown prince of Saudi Arabia — but they only mentioned Israel’s support for him twice.

In a front-page story in today’s paper, David D. Kirkpatrick and Ben Hubbard explain why the kingdom’s de facto leader, 33-year-old Mohammed bin Salman, is in no immediate danger of losing power despite (almost certainly) ordering the murder a month ago of the dissident journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. They report that the U.S. government is continuing to support the crown prince, and that “Major figures in [American] finance signaled that they, too, intended to look past the killing.”

Billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal - who was reportedly strung up and beaten by US mercenaries during the Saudi Arabian "purge" exactly one year ago Sunday - said on Sunday that an official investigation into the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi will exonerate the Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) "100%".

Speaking with Fox News's Maria Bartiromo, Alwaleed said "I ask Saudi Arabia now publicly, through your program, to have the investigation made public as soon as possible," adding "I believe the Saudi crown prince will be 100 percent vindicated and exonerated."

President Trump's long-running vendetta against Jeff Bezos, The Washington Post and Amazon got an unexpected supporter over the weekend, when Saudis, furious at The Washington Post’s coverage of the kingdom in the aftermath of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, have called for a boycott of Amazon.com because of its shared ownership by U.S. billionaire Jeff Bezos.

As Bloomberg reports, "Boycott Amazon" was the top trending hashtag on Twitter in Saudi Arabia for several hours on Sunday, as users circulated images showing the deletion of the Amazon smartphone app.

At the end of the same week that the Trump administration announced a 30-day deadline to reach a ceasefire in Yemen, it was revealed the United Kingdom is planning to introduce a United Nations Security Council resolution that seeks to end of the war.

According to a Friday ABC News report, citing diplomatic sources, the British could introduce the resolution as early as this coming week. ABC reports that "one source said it would call for a humanitarian ceasefire and the safe passage of food and other aid, for support for the cratering Yemeni economy, and on both sides to fully engage with the U.N. Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths."

Last week's ceasefire proposal by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been widely seen as the result of heightened media pressure and international outrage over the October 2nd killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi likely upon the direct orders of Saudi crown prince MbS.

US and Israeli officials “have expressed concern” that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman “may have less leeway to pursue the gradual warming of relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours”, following the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, reported the Washington Post.

According to the paper, US President Donald Trump’s chief Mideast envoy, son-in-law Jared Kushner, “has discussed with diplomats and others how the crown prince’s position might affect US plans”.

The Post observed how “Israeli officials have become more vocal about separating the killing from the kingdom’s strategic value.”

“What happened in the Istanbul consulate was horrendous and it should be duly dealt with,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday.

Houthi rebel fighters have stepped up attacks against the Saudi-led coalition forces as more Yemeni civilians fall victims of indiscriminate deadly airstrikes.

Drone footage captured by the Houthis’ media wing shows the moment a ballistic missile sit a compound for the Saudi-backed militants on the western coast near Hodeidah city.

The missile struck a convoy for the Saudi mercenaries while preparing to move.

No exact information has yet been disclosed about the casualties.

One interesting outcome to the Saudis brazenly murdering journalist Jamal Khashoggi is that world leaders and the determined allies of Saudi Arabia have dropped all pretense of finesse when discussing the matter, such as when President Trump told Fox News last month that while Khashoggi's death was tragic and should be investigated, the prospect of blocking arms sales to the kingdom is "very tough pill to swallow for our country" because American jobs are on the line.

Another world leader who's been blunt on ensuring his relationship with the Saudis weather the storm of media and international outrage is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who argued in public statements this week that while the killing of the Saudi journalist at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was “horrendous,” stability in Saudi Arabia is vital to global security.

A group of U.S. evangelicals, including former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), held a rare meeting Thursday with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman at his palace.

The delegation to Riyadh was led by Bachmann and communications strategist Joel Rosenberg, who are each known for pushing an apocalyptic worldview relating to events in the Middle East, and the heads of other Israel-tied evangelical organizations, reported Al Jazeera.

“We’re under no illusions about the challenges that are in Saudi Arabia and that remain,” Rosenberg said. “But I think it’s respectful to go and listen to leaders who have the opportunity to make life better for Christians and Muslims and potentially for Israel as well and who are against the crazies in Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

“I’d ask people to pray,” he added. “Pray for the (Jordanian) king, pray for the crown prince, pray for the people of Saudi Arabia — and I think it’s the right thing to do.”

Saudi Arabia should get a pass for murdering US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi because the kingdom is an ally of the Jewish state against Iran.

“What happened at the Istanbul consulate was horrendous and it should be duly dealt with. But at the same time, it is very important for the stability of the region and the world that Saudi Arabia remain stable,” Netanyahu said in Bulgaria, the Times of Israel reported.

Khashoggi reportedly was strangled and then dismembered on Oct. 2 by a Saudi assassination squad under orders from Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman because the journalist was critical of the Saudi regime.

Netanyahu declared that his killers should somehow be punished, but that his overriding concern was the kingdom’s role in thwarting Iran’s Mideast ambitions, which include the destruction of Israel.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has met with a delegation of pro-Israeli advocates in Riyadh amid reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked the US to keep supporting the young prince against international criticism.

In a new sign of growing ties between Riyadh and Tel Aviv, bin Salman hosted a group of Evangelical Christians in Riyadh on Thursday, Israeli media reported.

Leading the group was Joel C. Rosenberg, a dual US-Israeli author and activist who runs the Jashua Fund pro-Israeli charity. Mike Evans, founder of the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem al-Quds, was also among the participants of the meeting.

A starving Yemeni girl, whose searing portrait from a hospital bed brought the world’s attention to the ongoing and growing humanitarian disaster in the country, has died. Meanwhile, the Saudi-led blockade of supplies continues.

The photo of an emaciated Amal Hussein was published as part of a story in the New York Times last week, highlighting the growing human tragedies caused by the ongoing fighting and the devastating impact the Saudi Arabia-led bombing campaign has had on civilians.

On Thursday, her family told the paper that Amal had died in a refugee camp, several miles from the hospital that had tried to treat her. She was seven years old.

The Saudi Air Force unleashed a massive attack across the Sana’a Governorate over the last 24 hours, Yemeni activists reported from the Yemeni capital.

According to the reports from Sana’a, the Saudi Air Force heavily bombarded the capital city and its surroundings, hitting a number of sites that allegedly have a Houthi (var. Ansarallah Movement) presence.

In addition to striking civilian neighborhoods, the Saudi Air Force reportedly attacked the area around the Sana’a Airport.

The Saudi regime is one of the most brutal and authoritarian anywhere in the world. It is the main protagonist of the terrible war on Yemen.

The Saudi led war has already devastated Yemen and killed tens of thousands of people. Aid agencies warn that if it continues it will cause the worst humanitarian catastrophe since World War Two.

Yet the British government continues to back the regime. However, the Guardian reports that "Conservative backing for the war in Yemen has been badly damaged by the Khashoggi murder".

Ending arms sales to Saudi Arabia is now essential and urgent. It could help to avert catastrophe. Come to one of our public meetings near you and join us in our campaign to make it happen.

Both Republican and Democratic senators asked U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday to suspend civilian nuclear energy talks with Saudi Arabia after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Five Republican U.S. lawmakers, led by Senator Marco Rubio, said in a letter to Trump they would use the Atomic Energy Act to block any U.S.-Saudi nuclear agreements if Trump did not cut off talks.

“The ongoing revelations about the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as certain Saudi actions related to Yemen and Lebanon, have raised further serious concerns about the transparency, accountability, and judgement of current decision makers in Saudi Arabia,” the senators wrote.

This is an enormous breakthrough for the anti-interventionist movement, closing off one of the major spigots of murderous conflict left open by the previous administration. It confirms the high hopes of those of us who bet the America First anti-globalist faction would win out against the pro-Saudi group centered around Jared Kushner.

There was a debate within the administration over US support for the Yemen war, with the hardcore nationalists opposed, but they were outvoted by the generals, whose closeness to the Kingdom is traditional. Yet the Khashoggi killing wasn’t the only factor dooming the Saudi lobby to defeat: it was also the slow drip of atrocity stories, disturbing photos of starving children – and a famine deliberately induced by the Saudis.

On Tuesday, two major reports on the Yemen War emerged.

One was that Saudi-backed forces are planning a massive offensive against Hodeidah port, with tens of thousands of troops rallying in the area. The other is that the US officials demanded an immediate ceasefire and a halt to all airstrikes in populated areas.

That combination clearly doesn’t work, but while US officials continue to talk up the peace talks they envision happening next month in Sweden, the Saudi-backed forces continue to mass. Yemeni military officials are now claiming around 30,000 troops are south of Hodeidah for the planned push.

There has been no comment from the Saudis on the ceasefire front, and all indications on the ground are that it went in one ear, and out the other. The arrival of thousands of Sudanese troops in Yemen was intended to be a major turning point for the offensive against he Shi’ite north, and it seems that offensive is happening, come hell or high water.

wo senior US officials have publicly called for a ceasefire in Yemen. But apparently US allies are not expected to be the first to stop the violence, even if Washington has the clout to make them.
Hours apart, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Pentagon chief Jim Mattis rolled out statements supporting a UN-sponsored ceasefire in Yemen. The country is currently devastated and on the brink of famine as the US-backed coalition of Arab nations, led by Saudi Arabia, fight a war with Houthi rebels.

"The time is now for the cessation of hostilities, including missile and UAV strikes from Houthi-controlled areas into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates," Pompeo said. "Subsequently, Coalition air strikes must cease in all populated areas in Yemen."

The Saudi-led invasion of the vital Yemen aid port of Hodeidah has been slow going, and that’s fueled a lot of complaints from aid groups about the disastrous consequences of them taking the city. This has the coalition planning a major escalation.

Official are now saying that more than 10,000 additional troops will be sent against Hodeidah, both trying to shore up parts of the province already captured, and starting a new offensive against the city itself “within days.”

This new force is going to be heavily built around the Sudanese military, which has just recently dispatched thousands of troops to join the war. Sudan was part of the Saudi-led coalition from the start, but this is their first major involvement in the ground war in Yemen.

The New York Police Department (NYPD) is investigating the deaths of two Saudi sisters after discovering the bodies of both young women washed up on the Hudson River bank last week.

According to The Guardian, the corpses of Tala, 16, and her sister Rotana Farea, 22, were found on the river bank on October 24, bound to each other by a duct tape, more than 360 kilometres away from their residence in the city of Fairfax, Virginia.

Tala and Rotana have gone missing since August. However, the girls’ mother told the investigators who were looking into the case, the day before discovering the bodies, that an official in the Embassy of Saudi Arabia contacted her and ordered the family to return to the kingdom because her daughters had sought political asylum in the United States.

The war on Yemen moved towards the most violent form of war. A siege on a whole country with the obvious intent to cause a genocidal famine of the resisting population.

The attacking nations, the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Britain and the UAE, planned to grab Yemen's resources but failed in their war. They are now making first moves to end the war. They finally recognized that they are unable to win while the financial and reputational costs of the stalemate steadily increases.

It is not by chance that this move comes after clown prince Mohammad bin Salman's recent Khashoggi disaster. It was that murder that moved the attention to his leading role in the genocidal war on Yemen.

Saudi Arabia has come under fire once again after it executed an Indonesian female migrant worker without notifying her family or the Indonesian government.

Seven years after being sentenced to death for killing her employer in an act she claimed was self-defence from sexual abuse, Tuti Tursilawati was executed on Monday in the city of Taif.

President of Indonesia Joko Widodo criticised the decision today, saying the government has officially protested to Riyadh and demanded better protection for Indonesian workers in the country.

Tursilawati was executed just a week after Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister, Adel Al-Jubeir, met with his Indonesian counterpart and President Widodo in Jakarta to discuss migrant workers’ rights.

Former Saudi intelligence chief, to whom Jamal Khashoggi once served as an adviser, has warned against an outcry in the US over the murder of the dissident Saudi journalist, saying that the “onslaught” against Riyadh poses a threat to the “strategic partnership” between the two sides.

Prince Turki bin Faisal made the remarks during an address to the 27th annual Arab-US Policymakers Conference in Washington on Wednesday.

He denounced attacks on Saudi Arabia in the wake of Khashoggi’s murder inside the kingdom's Istanbul consulate on October 2.

“The tragic and unjustified” slaying of Khashoggi “is the theme of today’s onslaught and demonization of Saudi Arabia in the same fashion as the previous crises. The intensity and gleefulness of it is equally unfair,” he said. “Subjecting our relationship to this issue is not healthy at all.”

US President Donald Trump has been urged to suspend nuclear talks with Saudi Arabia after the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Trump received a letter Wednesday from five Republican lawmakers, led by Senator Marco Rubio, in the wake of “ongoing revelations about the murder.”

“The ongoing revelations about the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, as well as certain Saudi actions related to Yemen and Lebanon, have raised further serious concerns about the transparency, accountability, and judgment of current decision makers in Saudi Arabia,” wrote the senators, also including - Cory Gardner, Rand Paul, Dean Heller and Todd Young.

A former cabinet minister has said Britain is “complicit” in creating a famine in war-torn Yemen because of its support for the Saudi-led coalition, amid growing calls for the UK to halt its sales of arms to the group.

Andrew Mitchell, who was international development secretary in David Cameron’s government, has urged foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt to reassess the government’s stance on the issue.

It came as opposition MPs have also criticised the government for maintaining arms sales to the Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-aligned Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Theresa May has failed to back US calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Yemen, where a three-year civil war has led to the “most terrifying humanitarian catastrophe on the planet”.

The prime minister was urged to support a United Nations resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in the war-torn country after the US ramped up pressure by calling on both the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthi rebels to end their airstrikes.

Ms May told MPs that the UK supported calls for “de-escalation” in Yemen but the government’s position remained that a ceasefire would only work if there is a political deal between the conflict parties.

Prince Ahmad bin Abdulaziz is reportedly hoping to oust his 33-year-old nephew in the wake of an allegedly state-sanctioned murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. MbS has virtual control over Saudi Arabia after a June 2017 shakeup in which King Salman removed Muhammad bin Nayef as heir apparent.

Reportedly a Saudi tiger hit squad was formed in 2017 by crown prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS) to covertly assassinate regime critics internally and abroad.

Its existence is well known to US and other Western intelligence – comprised of dozens of highly skilled intelligence, security, and military operatives – loyal to MBS.

Methods include abductions and murders the way Khashoggi was eliminated; staged car, plane, or helicopter crashes; fires claiming targeted individuals, poisonings, or administering lethal injections during routine hospital or other medical visits.

Key MBS loyalists from his personal security detail reportedly run hit squad operations – taking orders either from him directly or someone relaying his instructions.

Saudi Arabia has demanded that aid agencies operating in Yemen should provide favourable publicity for Riyadh’s role in providing $930m (£725m) of humanitarian aid, an internal UN document reveals.

Saudi military intervention in the three-year civil war is widely regarded as a prime cause of the humanitarian disaster that has seen 10,000 civilians killed, and left millions close to starvation. The kingdom intervened in Yemen to restore a UN-recognised government, and push back Iranian-supported Houthi rebels.

Although many donors seek publicity in return for grants, the extent of the Saudi demands are highly unusual.

Saudi dissident Prince Khalid Bin Farhan Al Saud says he expects a coup to be orchestrated against King Salman and his heir, Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

“The coming period will witness a coup against the king and the crown prince,” he said while commenting on the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Khashoggi’s is known and all that is happening now are attempts to postpone a direct accusation of those who had issued the orders to have him killed, which Khalid said could be none other than Mohammed Bin Salman.

According to the prince, Khashoggi was planning to write his memoirs which could be one of the reasons that led to his murder.

Saudi Arabia has executed an Indonesian maid who killed her employer during a rape attack, sparking outrage in Jakarta.

Ms Tursilawati, who was working in the city of Ta'if, was found guilty of killing her employer in June 2011.

Indonesian President President Joko Widodo called Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, demanding to know why Jakarta had not been informed about Monday's execution of mother-of one Tuti Tursilawati.

It was the fourth time in three years that Saudi Arabia had failed to notify Jakarta before executing an Indonesian migrant worker.

The angst over the Jamal Khashoggi murder in the Saudi Arabian Consulate General building in Istanbul is already somewhat fading as the media has moved on in search of fresh meat, recently focusing on the series of attempted mail bombings, and currently on the mass shooting in Pittsburgh. But the affaire Khashoggi is still important as it potentially brings with it possible political realignments in the Middle East as well as in Europe as countries feel emboldened to redefine their relationship with Saudi Arabia.

Last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo certified that the Saudi-led Coalition fighting a war in Yemen is taking sufficient steps to reduce civilian casualties in its military operations. The Secretary’s decision whether to issue a certification is required by a recent statute: section 1290 of the McCain National Defense Authorization Act. Under that provision, a failure to certify (or issue a waiver in its stead) would have automatically triggered suspension of congressional appropriations for the refueling of Coalition aircraft conducting missions in Yemen.

The U.S. continues to support the dictatorship of Saudi Arabia—as a key ally—even after the horrific murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the horrendous five-year bombing campaign on Yemen, writes Ann Wright.

The latest information leaking from the Turkish government indicates that the dismemberment of Khashoggi was filmed and Skyped to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s senior aide, Saud al-Qahtani, who has since been reportedly sacked from his position. Al-Qahtani was reportedly Mohammad bin Salman’s right-hand adviser/enforcer in the kidnapping and interrogation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri and of the detention and shakedown of many wealthy Saudi elite in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh.

The White House is still “weighing options” on what to do about Saudi Arabia murdering US permanent resident Jamal Khashoggi. President Trump clearly isn’t inclined to do very much, but that doesn’t mean some pressure won’t come to bear.

Officials are already reporting some minor pressure on the Saudis, centered on 16-months of Saudi isolation of Qatar, a vital US ally. Administration officials are reportedly urging the Saudis to quickly resolve Qatar.

Officials also say they want the Saudis to take certain unspecified “steps” on the wildly unpopular war in Yemen. The US has been getting a lot of flack for backing that Saudi war, and the Saudis are committing a lot of war crimes.

The U.S. continues to support the dictatorship of Saudi Arabia—as a key ally—even after the horrific murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the horrendous five-year bombing campaign on Yemen, writes Ann Wright.

In addition to thousands of civilians in Yemen who have already died in a war between a Saudi-led coalition and Iran-backed Houthi rebels, less documented war tactics may also push the poorest Arab country into a catastrophic famine. Declan Walsh wrote in an interactive essay for The New York Times that the insidious warfare is waging a far greater human toll

Tel Aviv hasn’t confirmed the reports, nor has the Gulf kingdom, which doesn’t have official diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.

Saudi Arabia and Israel held covert meetings “in Washington and London,” which resulted in an estimated $250 million deal, including the transfer of Israeli espionage technologies to the kingdom, Israeli media reported on Sunday, citing an exclusive report by the United Arab Emirate news website Al-Khaleej.

The report has it that a number of the said spy systems, the most advanced ones that Israel has ever sold to any Arab state, have already been successfully deployed to Saudi Arabia and put into practice, with Saudi technicians having previously received professional training in how to operate them. Neither side to the alleged deal has confirmed the information.

A fascinating FT article suggests Western intelligence agencies have now dumped Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman after he's been personally accused by world leaders — foremost among them Turkey's President Erdogan and US President Trump — for ordering the brutal murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Implicit in the article, rich with quotes from current and former US and Western intelligence officials, is the further suggestion that these very intel operatives appear to now be actively seeking MbS' ouster.

A backlash prompted Facebook to stop removing posts featuring a photo of an emaciated seven-year-old Yemeni girl, which accompanied a harrowing New York Times report from the war-torn country.

The atrocities in Yemen don’t make poignant headlines in Western mainstream media as often as stories about chemical weapons in Syria or ‘Russian meddling,’ as the conflict usually gets sidelined in the press, but there are notable exceptions. ‘The Tragedy of Saudi Arabia’s War’ was the title of a grim report published by the NYT on Friday.

An image of a starved child named Amal Hussain was chosen by the journalists to illustrate the horrible death toll and suffering inflicted on the small Arab nation of Yemen by the armed intervention of its Saudi neighbor.

Dissident Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, who was recently murdered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, was about to disclose details of Saudi Arabia’s use of banned chemical weapons in its imposed war on Yemen days before he was killed, a report says.

One reason Saudi Arabia and its allies are able to avoid a public outcry over their intervention in the war in Yemen, is that the number of people killed in the fighting has been vastly understated. The figure is regularly reported as 10,000 dead in three-and-a-half years, a mysteriously low figure given the ferocity of the conflict.

Now a count by a non-partisan group has produced a study demonstrating 56,000 people have been killed in Yemen since early 2016. The number is increasing by more than 2,000 per month as fighting intensifies around the Red Sea port of Hodeidah. It does not include those dying of malnutrition, or diseases such as cholera.

Turkish prosecutors have issued extradition requests for 18 people from Saudi Arabia suspected of participating in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi earlier this month at the Istanbul consulate.

Specifics of who is being requested is unclear, but it is believed to include the 15-man kill team that Turkey identified as having arrived in the country for the killing and departed more or less immediately thereafter.

Riyadh is ready to invest $5 billion in the LNG 2 (liquefied natural gas) project in the Russian Arctic, the head of Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Kirill Dmitriev, said at the Saudi Arabian investment forum on Tuesday.

Earlier, Saudi Minister of Energy Khalid al-Falih said the kingdom was considering the possibility of becoming the second biggest investor in the project led by Novatek, Russia’s biggest independent gas producer. The minister didn’t provide details on Saudi Arabia’s potential share in the project.

Riyadh is planning to provide major investments into the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) with the fund expected to be renamed, according to the head of RDIF, Kirill Dmitriev.

“In the near future, we will announce that Saudi Arabia is investing in RCIF and the fund will be renamed as the Russian-Chinese-Saudi Fund,” Dmitriev said at the Future Investment Initiative (FII), Saudi Arabia’s international investment forum.

The leaders of Russia, France, Germany, and Turkey met in Istanbul on October 27 to discuss issues of the Syrian peace settlement. They also discussed the case of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that the European Union might make a collective decision to halt all arms sales to Saudi Arabia over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. At the same time, she agreed with her French counterpart Emmanuel Macron that the decision should be made after more is known about those responsible for his death.

Prince Andrew has come under fire after insisting he wants to build closer links with Saudi Arabia, via his Pitch@Palace initiative, despite the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the ongoing war in Yemen.

The Duke of York was addressing a host of entrepreneurs at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi on Thursday when he made his comments - declaring that he hoped his initiative would expand into other Gulf states and also Saudi Arabia.

Now that Saudi Arabia has become a P.R. liability, Samantha Power and Ben Rhodes have quietly condemned the war in Yemen. But when they had the power to stop it, they were complicit...

And of course it is a good thing that nobody has been hurt by these devices. Obviously targeting anyone with packages containing explosive materials is terrible, even if those devices were not rigged with the intention of detonating and harming anyone, and it is a good thing that not a single one of them has done so. It is a good thing that none of America’s political elites were targeted by the sort of explosive device that America drops on people in other countries every single day.

You know, the kind that actually explode.

Apparently some Acme comedy bombs mailed to a number of extremely rich people, which thankfully did not hurt anybody at all, are infinitely more newsworthy than the real bombs which maim and destroy children in Yemen on an industrial scale.

— Craig Murray (@CraigMurrayOrg) October 24, 2018

Germany's leading right-of-center daily Die Welt this morning reveals that Jamal Khashoggi was not a journalist, but a high-level operative for the Saudi intelligence service, an intimate of Osama bin Laden, and the nephew of the shadiest of all Arab arms dealers, the infamous Adnan Khashoggi. John Bradley reported last week in the Spectator that Khashoggi, who allegedly met a grisly end in a Saudi consulate in Istanbul, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist organization that among other things wants to replace the Saudi monarchy with a modern Islamist totalitarian state.

So much for the whining in the Establishment media about freedom of the press and protection of the rights of journalists.

Tony Blair has resisted calls to end his multi-million dollar deal with Saudi Arabia despite allegations that the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi may have been authorised by the Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman.

Accounts published last month by the Tony Blair Institute confirmed that Blair had received donations of up to $12 million from the kingdom for a deal with the Crown Prince to support his modernisation programme for the kingdom.

The agreement was said to be the first major deal to have emerged involving the Tony Blair Institute, which Blair established in 2016 after winding down his commercial operations.

While there had calls for Blair to end his arrangement with Mohammed Bin Salman over the ongoing war in Yemen, the killing of the Washington Post journalist earlier this month in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, has put further pressure on the former prime minister to cut all ties with Riyadh.

The response of the Trump administration and many U.S. politicians to Khashoggi’s disappearance is largely being guided by the military-industrial complex — in this case Lockheed Martin — but masquerading as a response motivated by “human rights.”

The disappearance and alleged murder of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi continues to strain relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia. On Saturday, President Donald Trump warned the Saudis of “severe punishment” if the Saudi government was found to have been responsible for the journalist’s alleged murder.

Saudi Arabia's King could have his Crown Prince son replaced to restore the credibility of the monarchy amid turmoil over the Jamal Khashoggi murder, Britain's former defence attaché to the kingdom has claimed.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has faced claims he may have been behind the death of the journalist who went missing after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Saudi Arabia first denied any role in Khashoggi's disappearance before blaming his October 2 death on a botched attempt to return him to the kingdom.

As the Crown Prince battles to contain the fallout from the killing, Saudi prosecutors said today that the murder was pre-planned and suspects were being interrogated.

According to Colonel Brian Lees, once the UK's defence attaché to Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the Crown Prince's days as de facto ruler are numbered and his father, King Salman, may now look to replace him following his disastrous handling of the case

U.S. military veterans say Qorvis Communications tricked them into unknowingly lobbying on behalf of Saudi Arabia

Campaign against law enabling 9/11 victims to sue kingdom used unregistered agents, failed to provide required disclosures