US senator Mark Hatfield dies aged 89

PORTLAND – Liberal Republican senator Mark Hatfield has died in hospital in Portland, Oregon, aged 89.

PORTLAND – Liberal Republican senator Mark Hatfield has died in hospital in Portland, Oregon, aged 89.

Hatfield, who served with the navy in the Pacific during the second World War, became an opponent of abortion, the death penalty and war - a "consistently pro-life" politician, said Oregon political scientist Bill Lunch, "who took the religious injunction not to do harm to others seriously".

An opponent of the Vietnam war, he spent three decades on Capitol Hill, where he was often allied with Democrats like George McGovern and Edward Kennedy.