and i don't think the president believes it's ok the question is what to do about it to me it is a defining moment for us as a nation for the future of saudi arabia and for the mideast in general there are a lot of bad actors in the mideast and we just don't need to condone any more than we have to and this is a situation where you don't have to they need us a lot more than we need them. and not realize that i think is a mistake nine percent of our all imports come from saudi arabia will find moral here and other places to make up for that and when it comes to military assistance if you think russia and china is going to provide you better protection than the united states against iran and other common enemies in go down that road if you like so i just believe that the relationship qual valuable in the past has become too much of a burden and as long as m.b.'s is around. don't think it will ever be normal again . oh. oh.

oh oh oh you're in the wrong. oh. well. you know there. are. many here you know. well look first of all there are those who believe that this resolution that senator murphy and senator sanders and lee have been pushing would never get there and it's going to be a vote on this today and i think it's going to be a very robust vote. so that's an example secondly you know i have used my leverage whenever i can as a ranking member so i have stop saudi arms sales by virtue of the comedy that exists in the committee where the chair and the ranking can stop an arm sale. the administration doesn't change that that longstanding practice i don't envision

myself releasing arm sales until we have a different change in what senator graham has talked about in the kingdom. and then . right now there are a series of leverage points that the ranking member has on the foreign relations committee with it to even have a hearing whether to go through nominations whether to allow somebody to have a hearing for a nomination i intend to use everything i can. and. and effort to make sure that we get votes on this legislation and i am thrilled that this is a bipartisan effort which i think will only grow you know senator graham's on the legislation senator young as on the legislation several others have talked to us about getting on and we have a slew democrats who have not signed on because we're just simply trying to create parity as we go along but otherwise we have a good chunk of the united states senate over this we will find a way

a process a procedure to make sure that we get a vote and i would expect that. that will send the most defining type of action we can to saudi arabia but i continue to insist as also a global message. if you can kill with impunity and nothing happens to us our ally then to that send this messages to walk in the philippines sends messages to others in other parts of the world that if you just have some strategic relationship with the united states you can do anything almost anything you want that is not. the america i know it is not in the national interests of the united states to abandon our commitments to human rights democracy and international rules of law when those are observed we all to believe have the best deepest and most secure relationships in the world we need to aspire and continue to work towards

that the legislation i believe not only deals with yemen and saudi but deals with there will be a message as well so we're going to do everything we can and i just under score a point to me whether we like it or not. arms sales are a big part of our relationship with saudi arabia and you cannot continue arm sales without congressional support and approval in the past. the motions were privileged in the senate but not in the house of representatives. it's going to be difficult to find the votes to approve arms sales with saudi arabia in the senate and the house next year given what senator graham has said and what others have said if this policy doesn't change so it's it's hard to maintain the relationship with saudi arabia without a willing congress given the powers and the privilege resolutions that are available even to those that are in legislative leadership so

a number of us said this is that discussing relations with saudi arabia in the light of the mud. and this on the day that the u.s. senate has defied president trump and voted to advance a resolution to end u.s. military support for the saudi led coalition on the war in yemen becomes a growing outrage of the murder of a saudi journalist. or. in one of our top stories on our jazeera britain's prime minister has survived a confidence vote within her party by two hundred votes to one hundred seventeen a leadership challenge was triggered by m.p.'s unhappy with the reason may's plan for britain's withdrawal from the e.u. may says it's time to get on with the job of delivering bricks it this has been a long and challenging day but at the end of it i'm pleased to have received the

backing of my colleagues in tonight's ballot whilst i'm grateful for that support a significant number of colleagues did cast a vote against me and i've listened to what they say that following this ballot we now need to get on with the job of delivering bricks it for the british people and building a better future for this country the u.s. senate has defined president trump and voted to advance a resolution to end u.s. military support for the saudi led coalition in the war in yemen a similar vote was struck down last march after donald trump voiced strong support for the saudis but the latest resolution appears to have more backing on capitol hill after the outcry over the murder of saudi journalist. the us president's former lawyer has been sentenced to three years in prison michael cohen pleaded guilty to paying hush money to two women over their alleged affairs with donald trump he was so nice to congress about

a possible business deal in russia cohen told the court that he carried out his actions out of quote fierce loyalty to donald trump. french prosecutors have named the man they suspect shot and killed at least two people at a christmas market in the french city of strasburg hundreds of police are searching for twenty nine year old named sherriff shakeout who has a long history of gun crime he was injured a female seen on tuesday night. a member of africa's top football governing body has been arrested in france accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity a. sauna is also a former militia leader and political coordinator of armed groups in central african republic he was controversially elected to the board of african football in february international criminal court had recently father warrant for his arrest do stay with us people in power is up next thanks for watching so using.

china could be facing a debt iceberg that's according to s. and p. global the trumpet ministration just been insisting towards the saudis and other oil producers that they want to have more production to cool down the prices we bring you the stories that are shaping the economic world we live in counting the cost on al-jazeera. the commodore hotel was safe and then you went out into a very grave civil war. kind of a commodore there's a more beautiful have the advantage to be felt. if the commodore hadn't been there the israeli invasion would not have been so well . it was

a great museum and overall was this godfather of the journalists because of nasrallah. the next room i was in was underground in a tiny filthy dirty prison cell basically as a hostage. we've . welcome to nineteen sixty's beirut. for several decades

this cosmopolitan city attracted international jet setters who could get from the ski slopes to the beach in no time. the hotel district was at the heart of its a luxury tourism economy and in its heyday hotels like this and george the funny sure on the holiday inn were full of wealthy tourists businessman journalists diplomats and the occasional spies. travelers on a tighter budget stayed at hotels like the commodore and in the mid one nine hundred seventy s. it became host to the world's media when the lebanese civil war erupted. in one nine hundred seventy a young arab millionaire use of mizzle took the commodore hotel on a twenty year lease from the kuwaiti royal family. in the zone was

a leading investor in the hotel industry in the region and responsible for attracting thousands of tourists to lebanon. mohammed should borrow worked with ms ali in ticketing and still runs a travel agency near the commodore with the same name. but that. one of the ballot. they it was the those that fund the. atlantic. or canal or foot the telephone or the office. but the luxury beirut lifestyle obscured the gap between rich and poor that was white new york the time. the international press used beirut as a barometer of what was happening in the middle east. and one of the foreign correspondents who predicted the violence in lebanon was i t.v.'s jonathan dimbleby . i first went to lebanon in nine hundred seventy two as

a young reporter and i wanted to see whether something was happening there or not i stayed in what was then relatively modest hotel called the commodore hotel the overall impression was of some some some as a society which was held together by a rather loose series of ropes and it didn't take much for that to. shatter. the thirteenth of april nine hundred seventy five mile to the official start of the civil. it was a proxy conflict for during the cold war. on one side never anees christian right wing parties backed by the us wanted to end the armed palestinian presence in lebanon and. on the other one muslim left wing parties allied with the p.l.o.

and backed by the soviet union they saw the right wing christians as simply an extension of israeli and american influence in the country. when the war broke out an army of foreign journalists headed to beirut including the former b.b.c. middle east correspondent tim llewellyn all of whom wanted a safe place to stay. in november one thousand nine hundred seventy five i was taking what turned out to be one of the last n.e.a. flights into beirut from london which was virtually empty except for a few journalists and use of. who i didn't know but of course it was them it was to turn out that he was the manager of the commodore. so he drew me he took out a piece of paper and a pen and he drew from me the various sections of beirut who controlled what

where you could go safely i said the use of what we needed was a base the next time i went to beirut. use of it created this fantastic hotel in the space of a few weeks the commodore had become that journalistic center. nine hundred seventy five and seventy six with the fiercest two years of the civil war with sectarian killings massive destruction and the division of beirut into the christian east and muslim west. the former times correspondent robert fisk decided to base in south permanently in beirut in one nine hundred seventy six. so when i came to bear i already knew the city but i knew it before when i went downtown here i could not believe the extraordinary destruction i mean it takes you can destroy a city very quickly if it's an awful long time to rebuild it. i

casually went to the commodore with a piece stuff just to have lunch sometimes or meet other journalists but i didn't stay there i didn't like it very much when i thought it was another seedy hotel with extraordinary high prices the commodore hotel was safe and so you could be there and it was quite bizarre really you could be in this it'll save enclave and then you went out into a very grave civil war. and the use of management the beirut commodore became a global center for news and information. for years and as i was a young man then and he seemed to have an extraordinary uncanny ability to know what journalists wanted and he realized quickly and brilliantly that the

journalists would need first of all all above. good communications what the commodore had no or else had was communications and you know if a journalist has a story and he can send it he might as well go home and you had three working tax machines and they could get your call to london. use if desired started by using lines and telex machines from his private business in beirut's london a man in cyprus but as reported demands grew he had to get hold of extra lines at any cost. that's a lot of watch. or. is that accounts. for the fluff. in a lawn. as the war spread the

militias took control of different neighborhoods the challenge for the commodore was to keep the hotel safe for its media guests. i was there on one occasion. when we were down in the bar and suddenly there was a fantastic noise of gunfire from inside the hotel everyone ducked down i'm ok you know everyone was on the floor and the better like that stopped silence the only sound was of the parrot which had a peculiar position on the edge of the bar and the parents. talked quite freely while everyone else was sound which made you half you know in in when you're in when you're frightened you wanted to laugh it wakes this funny squawking parrot was going on talking. the african parrots name was coco and his party tricks became legendary. this parrot used to do various things it could do the opening

notes of the beethoven's fifth symphony and various other things but it's it's b.s. the resistance was to imitate an incoming show. on the sixth of june one thousand nine hundred eighty two israel invaded lebanon. israel claimed it wanted to take out the p.l.o. the rocket launcher positions but there was more than that to the israeli action. these. brayley siege of beirut was one of the bloodiest episodes of the whole sorry conflict. the destruction was enormous and twenty thousand lebanese and palestinians were killed and nearly fifty thousand wounded. amid the mayhem the commodore hotel became the de facto ministry of information. lebanese photo journalist ramzi hyder was at the commodore jury in the israeli

invasion. but. given this there's a. mess. at the moment to people. in the early days of the israeli invasion of lebanon use of the zone stockpiled large amounts of fuel food and cash millions of dollars he said enough for the hotel residents and stand for the months to come. also lent journalists money.

money. flows better. life for the commodore based journalists jeering the invasion was tough. west beirut was under siege with constant israeli air raids and reportedly indiscriminate shelling. but they told the real story. i think the beirut siege as i said was a big eye opener for many correspondents who only in the israeli story but until then. and they were able firsthand when they went out to see the suffering of lebanese and palestinians and they really went after the story very very hard very hard and harshly and well. i think at that stage though if the commodore hadn't been there the israeli invasion would not have been so well reported and you can

fact the commodore in a way for this and the people in it and the use of i think the the israelis had at that stage in the early eighty's the worst press they've ever had before or since. the seventy day israeli siege of beirut was lifted on the twenty first of all because nine hundred eighty two and the p.l.o. pulled out of lebanon. there were immediate presidential elections and the leader of the right wing christian phalangist but sheer gemayel who had supported the israeli incursion became the president elect of lebanon. but gemayel never took office he was assassinated twenty three days later. for the following three days the sixteenth seventeenth and eighteenth of september

one nine hundred eighty two christian militias supported by israel took part in a massacre at the palestinian refugee camps of sub or and shatila. when news of the massacre reached the commodore hotel on the eighteenth dozens of local and foreign journalists headed straight to the southern beirut suburb robert fisk was one of the first to enter the palestinian camps. i've never before had to walk on carpets of dead bodies in my life and the smell pause was a. and we went on the saturday morning when the could time the financials were still there the motors were still still in the camp. was back in the air and one of the nestle our own was the subject of the them mobile. deal been able commodore. who are you know them as they were what. or how kind of us all of. us long ago lived or. was the subject at the though we were marcus to some of us

after he came he said that the national. the sabra and shatila massacres so over two thousand palestinian and lebanese civilians killed i started writing and writing and writing. unfortunately the times didn't come out on sunday so i had to wait for the next day's paper. but i got all the story going to the. news of the eighteenth of september massacres shocked the world and the international coverage angered the israelis and the story that those organizations. the same day they arrested use of and took him to their base at the st george hotel. the journalist became a she marry the french typically french organized a petition. signed petition to get down to the israeli commandos demanding that the

use of messiah will be released yes i wasn't surprised he was arrested because they realized this was a communications center and they didn't want it to operate i think the purpose of arresting yourself was to close down the comment of. eight years into the fighting on the night of the thirtieth of august nine hundred eighty three the commodore took a direct hit shattering its eastern side. with a month a shot in the. middle of the us of what or at the what it there what the what if it's the being of some of the you know some of the huffing. or that level you have a bit of both. new and inexperienced reporters were sometimes unable to handle beirut. and use of office sometimes doubled as a psychiatric unit. as the israeli withdrawal continued into nine hundred eighty

three lebanese militias immediately filled that vacuum and vied for control region by region. the commodore had continued as an international news home field below our work as a cameraman for c.b.c. and took these photos of life inside the hotel at that time. but in one nine hundred eighty full a new development in the conflict upset that life even mole. kidnapping. the commodore had so i think was beginning to lose its attraction as a journalistic enterprise around the time of the mid one nine hundred eighty s. around the time of the kidnapping. i think the fear of kidnapping started around eighty four. kidnapping on me in mind i'm curious st very close to the

comet. i said remember that was the first time i started getting really frightened . and then of course afterwards terry anderson was kidnapped longest held hostage with seven years and then we all realized we were in trouble. terry anderson was the senior associated press correspondent on the sixteenth of january nine hundred eighty five he was kidnapped on his way to the commodore hotel. three years into his detention his kidnappers released this photo of him wearing a commodore hotel t. shirt designed by use of for his journalist guests. anderson was the first journalist to be kidnapped in beirut that would be the last to be released in one thousand nine hundred ninety one. several different groups carried out the hostage taking but the most prominent was islamic jihad and i wouldn't advise

any foreigners to stay here at the moment was atrocious order in november one thousand nine hundred five which the special envoy to the british archbishop of canterbury terry waite arrived in lebanon to negotiate hostage releases he stayed at the riviera hotel but often went to the commodore to meet journalists. on the twenty first of november fighting known as the battle of the flag between different leftwing allied lebanese militias controlling west beirut reach the commodore hotel. terry waite was trapped inside with dozens of local and foreign journalists including ransey haidar.

but why are you. there. ramsey hyde of photographs these images of journalists pulling the man's body out of sniper range then moving it into the back of a car. that image encapsulates the horror of events outside the commodore hotel. that night terry waite stayed at the commodore and these rare pictures show him making phone calls in the hotel lobby. negotiations for the release of hostages had so far failed and the

kidnapping continued. on the sixteenth of march nine hundred eighty six the british journalist john mccarthy arrived in beirut as w t n bureau chief it was his first assignment to a war zone. he checked into the commodore opposite w t ends office is excited to be staying at the now legendary hotel i think that had a rather a mental view of what the commodore would be like. i have heard from other colleagues who've been there and stayed there and was very aware that it was a famous hotel where all the great journalists stayed. so when i got there i was surprised because it was nearly empty. the street fighting and fear of kidnap drove many foreigners out of west beirut to the christian east side or out of

lebanon to neighboring cyprus. so i was told you must be careful if you know you'll be a target possibly for one of these kidnapped groups so stay close to the office. in the howard district and stay close to the hotel the commodore. by april nine hundred eighty six thirty foreign nationals had been kidnapped in lebanon it didn't occur to john mcafee that he might be next it seemed like an era for this photo for lebanon for the foreign journalists working there it was coming to an end it was closing in around around me but also it felt as if the hotel was sort of closing down to. mccarthy was then ordered by his w t n bosses in london to leave beirut immediately. on the seventeenth of april nine hundred eighty six he checked out of the commodore and headed for the airport. but

within minutes armed men intercepted his car grabbed him and took him away. john mccarthy would be the last foreign journalist to stay at the commodore. so it's extraordinary i started off from work that morning in a promotion eighty six leaving this rather grand if dilapidated suite at the commodore hotel and then the next room i was in was underground in a tiny filthy dirty prison cell basically as a hostage and i was to remain a hostage for the next five and a quarter years. nine months after mccarthy's abduction on the seventeenth of january nine hundred eighty seven hostage negotiator terry waite was also kidnapped . he was last seen on the beirut corniche surrounded by government from the druze progressive socialist party who were acting as his bodyguards in my last year of captivity i was held with the two americans terry anderson and tom sutherland and

also with the. englishman terry waite who'd gone out to lebanon to try and negotiate our release a few years earlier but himself being kidnapped was very strange that there we were in a cell with the guy who'd try to rescue us and he'd ended up being a hostage to. within hours of terry waite abduction a fierce battle ensued in west beirut two hundred people died in the five days fighting. and the commodore was almost completely destroyed by fire. and there was another kidnap victim this time koko the parrot. hotel manager our maid should borrow checked on the staff and damage the next day. he contacted the owner youssef mazhar who was abroad to reassure him the star for ok but that the hotel was so damaged it was now uninhabitable.

then in your the. lovely. or they opened. up with. how early. in two thousand and two a new investor bought the commodore it was completely refurbished and revived as a five star luxury hotel in the heart of beirut. american journalist nicholas touch wrote perhaps best summed it up when he wrote during the israeli siege of beirut. in a city of survivors the commodore hotel has proven itself to be a survivor with a touch of class. there is no conflict which is simple goodies versus baddies it's always more complicated than that. and i'd

add one more thing find a good safe to tell. him going to slay my people have been killed to be what we in the united states have privatized the old macumba junction war this was a deal with saudi arabia things were done differently saudis other arabs when they came to britain for be all to help the past bombs deal's off you will rumsfeld was meeting saddam isn't that interesting there are a shadow coming soon. the war on drugs in the philippines is pushing jails to breaking point a record number of inmates languish behind bars for years awaiting trial one on one

east philippines locked up on al-jazeera. it's a daunting climb to one of the holiest sites in bhutan tigers nest ball astri seems to defy gravity every beauty's is expected to complete the pilgrimage to ensure peace and happiness when it became a democracy in two thousand and eight the time put happiness at the center of.