♪ john kerry meets european foreign ministers ahead of talks ending the war in syria and stopping the flow of refugees into europe. ♪ hello you are watching al jazeera, i'm jane and live from our head head quarters in doha and regional elections in three states and investigators reveal the pilot who crashed the plane killing 350 passengers that he

needed psychiatric treatment and another donald trump rally disrupted after 24 hours in chicago it had to be abandoned. ♪ let's go first to the conflict in syria, the on going efforts to end a conflict that is about to enter its sixth year, u.s. secretary of state john kerry is in paris to meet his european counterpart ahead of landmark talks in geneva on monday and want an end to a conflict that displaced 10 million syrians and field an exodus of refugees into europe and diplomatic editor james base is live from geneva and james how difficult are these talks expected to be? >> they are going to be extremely different, jane. i think they are going to be different from previous talks we have seen on syria, remember we had talks in the last few weeks

that collapsed as soon as they started because of russian and syrian bombardment. we had talks two years ago whether to arose the agenda the syrian government trying not to talk about the future governments of syria and the role of assad and now it's going to be different and the central issue according to staffan de mistura of the special envoy and wants to talk about the governments of syria and wants to talk about getting a transitional government and two elections as the main substance of his talks which he wants to start on monday. already we heard from the syrian government and, in fact, the syrian delegation arrived in the last hour here in geneva. they say they will not negotiate about the role of president assad these days. meanwhile the negotiation and high negotiation of the high negotiation has been telling al jazeera that they have a red line and that is president assad

and he must go. >> translator: there is a simple rule in this universe, in this whole existence, at the end of the day no one can trade the will of the entire syrian people for a gang of criminals and mass murders. the people are the only one to determine the fate of future and it's clear when the russians stopped bombing and people down to the streets about the regime and want to topple the regime after five years of killing and barrel bombs and heavy shelling. >> reporter: james expecting a press conference in about 15 minutes and what can we expect with john kerry meeting foreign ministers in paris? >> i think he is going to be optimistic, optimistic because they got to this stage of getting both sides back to geneva and this time both sides have said they are not just going to come to geneva they are going to the u.n. and take part

in proximity talks but he and foreign ministers will be aware there is a central problem the two sides are not prepared to compromise on and what diplomates begin to term assad not which is the central issue of syria and that i think is going to be a problem so i think he will be asked what do you do if these talks collapse and if he will get an answer about plan b is not clear and of course he and the european foreign ministers will be discussing issues in the world and spill over from syria and other conflicts, the refugees that are reaching europe's door at ever increasing numbers and also the situation in yemen and the situation in libya, the idea that there is a new transitional government now taking control and that is why i think the italian presence at this meeting in paris is important because there has been talk of international troops being sent to libya and talk of italy taking the lead on that.

>> all right thank you for that james base. underway in regular elections across three states in germany, the vote is expected to be a test for angela merkel's refugee policy. the german chancellor has defended her open-door policy which has seen an influx of refugees arrive in germany but the issue divided the electorate and a platform for the right wing asd party that opposes the current refugee policy and the ard has been tracking the popularity of angela merkel since the refugee reached crisis levels and last year merkel had a solid approval rating of 67 percent and by february it dropped to a low of 46% and recently low the german chancellor has approval rating of 54% and we have the chief europe correspondent at the

affairs of politico and refugees in the balkins boosted her popularity even though she opposed that move. >> it's fair to say the refugee policy at large is really the only issue people are thinking about today because it affects every aspect of german life at the moment, every conversation resolves around the issue, the country is roughly split down the middle in terms of wanting to continue along with merkel's strategy and people wanting a different strategy and some people are generally in favor of what she is doing but don't like the way the government has handled it and they have been ham handed in the way they have dealt with the issue so these elections will give us our first indication from the ballot box of where germans stand on this really crucial issue for germany and europe at the moment. >> now psychiatric treatment had been recommended for the copilot

that killed 150 passengers on a german wings aircraft two weeks before the crash. french investigators have released their final report into last year's strategy and found a physician who treated lubitz and informed authority of his mental disorder and there are rules for doctors and pilots to be screened when they are on antidepressant medication and paul brennan joins us now from london, interesting developments there paul, what will the impact be? >> indeed. well the impact will be far reaching jane. we knew about the mechanics of this crash very early on, the black box recorders were recovered from that hill side in the french alps and the preliminary report issued two months after the crash in may of 2015 so we knew exactly how the copilot locked his captain out of the cockpit and calmly steered the auto pilot of the

german wings plane into the hill side killing 149 people aboard the plane, what the final report from french air accident investigators have gone in wide and systemic issues that allowed it to happen and ways they recommend can be changed to prevent it from happening again, there are 11 recommends they have issued. they have said that lubitz was consulting doctors for some period of time, for years before the fatal crash but there was an issue because the doctors were not obliged to tell the regulators or indeed his employer that he was having mental problems. one of the recommendations of the air accident investigators is there should be europe wide clarity when doctors are obliged or should be obliged to break their oath of confidentiality of

patients because of the danger posed to the wider public and want clear and tighter rules and that and recommendation condition for follow-up interviews where a mental problem has been identified. it should not be annually as was in the lubitz case and is other cases but three or six months cases and lubitz certificate to operate was issued on an annual basis and taken away in 2009 and reissued conditionally but the bea and air traffic investigators is saying that is far too long and needs to be a quicker process and regular inspection. other recommendations include the regulations to define the terms when a pilot is fit to fly even if he has depression should be more closely defined. there are differences between european countries, some take a very hard line and say any pilot exiting depression should be

grounded and others another view and say if it's controlled and regularly treated he should not use his career. bea wants clear european guidelines. there is a fear there a pilot with depression would perhaps be motivated to hide that depression because he or she may fear losing his career so there is a balance of safety of the passengers and the needs to protect the privacy and the career if you like of a pilot. and finally the armored system of the cockpit, the door which the effectively kept the passengers and the captain from breaking in and taking lubitz away from the controls and saving that plane, the bea acknowledged that these armored cockpits introduced after 9-11 were intended to keep people out of the cockpit and can't also at the same time allow people in the cockpit to save somebody, a suicidal pilot, it's just incompatible so far reaching recommendations and now it's up to international regulators to

decide how and when to adopt these. >> understood and paul brennan thank you. afghan families whose relatives were killed in a u.s. strike in a hospital last year say they are not getting enough commendation and 42 people were killed and nearly 100 injured during the attack on the facility run by doctors without borders and berkeley has more. >> reporter: a broken man and body scarred and battered from when an american ac30 gun ship attacked a humanitarian hospital in northern afghanistan and lost a hand and one eye in the attack in kunduz and 42 others killed, nearly 1 # 0 injured now the u.s. military is offering what it calls condolence payment between 3-6 thousand dollars. >> i received 3,000 dollars and this is a small amount and looks like a joke, an insult to us and it's not acceptable to anyone. >> reporter: this lady lost her

husband and he was a bread winner for her and her four children and says the american money is not enough. >> translator: if a woman doesn't have a husband or someone to take care of them how can they live? the money they are giving is not enough to raise even one of my children to the age of 12. >> reporter: he was working as a security guard at the hospital operated by doctors without borders. they said they had given nato forces the hospital's coordinates. >> an accident is difficult to believe but we are trained to understand how much the mistake was or how many mistakes were done and which type of mistakes were done but again today i mean it's only questions that we have. i think that we can have all the assumptions but the answers are with the american army today. >> reporter: the hospital was destroyed the u.s. plane fired 211 shells in the 30-minute onslaught and witnesses said people were shot from the air as they tried to escape.

president obama has apologized for the attack, u.s. forces said it was a mistake but have resisted calls for an independent investigation preferring their own internal probe. those findings have yet to be released but we understand that several military personnel are due to face some kind of action and won't be in the afghan courts or any international court for that matter and leave afghans if justice really will be done, 11-year-old daughter was a patient in the hospital the day of the attack. he watched helpless as she died engulfed in flames. >> translator: they have given us $6,000 which is nothing for us. it will cost more to take care of my own injuries and i'm still in a psychological shock. they need to help us more. >> translator: for the families here the money will help a bit but can never replace a daughter or a loved one, al jazeera, kabul. still ahead on al jazeera.

>> translator: it's like we started to raise our voices, i mean we finally started to raise our voices. >> reporter: five years after anti-government protests began in syria we meet some people who took part in the arab spring. ♪

♪ hello again and welcome back to the al jazeera news hour. the top stories, u.s. secretary of state john kerry is meeting his european counterparts in paris, the war in syria and the

refugee crisis has caused it high on the agenda and talks in geneva to end the syrian conflict are due to begin on monday. voting underway in three german states and regional parliaments and are seen as a test of angela merkel's refugee policy, the influx of more than a million refugees last year has been a key issue ahead of the vote. french investigators released their final report into the german wings plane crash which 150 passengers were killed and found psychiatric treatment had been recommended for copilot two weeks before the crash. five years of war in syria has left as you can imagine the country in ruins. the u.n. estimates more than 250,000 people have been killed since the start of the war but it stopped counting back in 2014. the syrian observatory for human rights says more than 270,000 people have been killed. the u.n. also reports that more

than 6 1/2 million syrians have been forced to leave their homes the largest number of displaced people in the world right now, in total 13 1/2 million people are in need of humanitarian aid inside the country and nearly 5 million syrians registered worldwide as refugees. back in march 2011 syrians inspired by the revolutions in tunisia egypt and elsewhere came to the streets demanding reforms and government responded to the peaceful protest saying they were integrated by foreigners and m s and some people who believed in the arab spring. >> reporter: disappoints run deep and people in turkey turn to books when they can seeking comfort in the pages, solace in their chapters. an escape all be it a brief one from the reality of a looming

and horrific milestone. five years of a war that brought with it the kind of unmitigated misery no one here could have foreseen. at the beginning though the arab spring had spread hope. >> but what happened in tunis and egypt, this is all the area to go to the street. they give the courage to do this. >> reporter: syrian artist opened pages book store and cafe as a refuge for fellow citizens tired of conflict and thirsting for culture. he fled damascus and remembers very well how things spiralled out of control. >> the problem in syria because we think all the world will help us like tunis and like libya and in the end all the world leaves us alone. >> reporter: some attempt to bury their sorrows in these volumes but it's harder than it

looks. these days istanbul a city so full of the war weary it's hard to find syrians who feel a sense of optimism, certainly not the kind that was on display back in their home country a half a decade ago before peaceful up rising turned to all out war before hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives. in another part of town refugees whose lives were shattered by conflict tried valently to put some of the pieces back together. >> translator: with the help of the small projects istanbul ngo these women, many of whom are too afraid to show their faces are learning skills to help them survive. he used to own a jewelry store in aleppo is showing them how to make earrings and never forget the beginning when the fellow country men and women resistance yielded far more beauty than heartache. >> it's like we started to raise

our voices and finally we started to raise our voices and it was a good thing but nobody had any idea things would get so bad. >> he insists skills like these don't just help in making a living they often aid in soothing souls. >> translator: at the start syrian demends were simple and people were asking for reforms but the regime didn't know how to deal with people outside of using force. >> reporter: five years on these syrians still feel battered. for even those who managed to escape their country have not been truly able to escape the war. mohamed with al jazeera istanbul. >> at least 17 suspected al-qaeda fighters have been killed in air strikes in yemen, security officials say the strikes were a second stage to freeing in the southern yemen

port of aiden and several attacks on local security officials in the area. thousands of people attended rallies in vent what -- venezuela calling for nicholas to step down and angry about the state of the economy and we report from caracas. >> reporter: these are the streets downtown caracas today and maduro came with a renewal of decree of the u.s. saying it's a threat to their national security. these were the same streets when late chavez was in power, it was a time of plenty, funded by record-high oil prices and also a time when the larger than life leader was making the calls. today venezuela is ranked one of the worst managed economies in the world and food sold at regulated prices is hard to come

by and for some even harder to pay for it. >> translator: people are not going to these marches because they are standing in line outside of shops to find food and if you march you can't get food for your children. >> reporter: in this oil rich nation protesting has been come a luxury. this was known as the red tied with hundreds of thousands defending the revolution. but in the area of caracas where the opposition was holding its rally it was no different. just like it's no different today at the twin march that the opposition has called to demand the president nicholas miduro resign. >> translator: i came thinking it would be huge but there was a very poor turn out and maybe because the media is controlled by the government and people didn't know about it. >> reporter: street demonstrations and political

rallies have been a part of the political landscape for decades but today a lack of unified leadership, the memory of resent police repression and a desperate economic situation left people feeling powerless and unable to seek out change peaceful peacefully. in the u.s. marco rubio won the latest round of voting to be the republican presidential candidate and his rival donald trump changed the location for his rally because of security concerns and allen fisher reports. >> reporter: back on the campaign trail but towards the end of his event in ohio a moment of concern for the frontrunner. it appears someone tried to get on stage and donald trump quickly surrounded by secret service. >> thank you for the warning, i was ready for him but it's much easier when it comes to it, don't we agree. >> reporter: this is coming

just hours after an event in chicago was cancelled. >> tonight's rally will be postponed. >> reporter: after hundreds are in the hole and several fights broke out and when they cleared the hall there was violence with five arrested and police officers injured and trump seas he doesn't need to change his tune. >> mr. trump should get up and tell my people to be nice but they are nice. >> reporter: condemning the violence said trump was not blameless. >> political discourse should occur in this country without a threat of violence, without anger and rage and hatred directed at each other. >> donald trump created a toxic environment and a toxic environment has allowed his supporters and those who sometimes seek confrontation to come together in violence. there is no place for this. >> reporter: just this week a protester led from an event in north carolina was punched in

the face. the 78-year-old attacker charged with assault he told inside addition he did not repent. >> the next time we see him we may have to kill him. >> reporter: trump encouraged the behavior. >> who is protesting, anybody? get out of here. i'd like to punch him in the face, i love the old days and do you know what they used to do to guys in a place like this they would be carried out on a stretcher folks. knock the hell, i promise you i will pay for the legal fees i i promise. >> reporter: and ordinary candidates in an election would be a problem but donald trump is no ordinary candidate and this is no ordinary election, al jazeera, washington. the world's premier live

technology and film event is underway in austin, texas, the south by southwest gives a boost to the city finances but as rob reynolds reports the benefits are not trickling down to all the residents. >> reporter: danny thompson said god gave him a gift of music and over the decades he played with austin blues and jazz bands. >> you had people and musicians all over the place and used to sit on the corner every night and get together and have vocal groups and playing all around town that is basically how it started. >> reporter: a rich musical culture flourished in east austin and that music was a big part of the south by southwest festival when it launched 30 years ago but south by southwest grew into one of the world's hottest events and

commercialized and expensive and passes for music and films cost $1800 each and it bolstered his image as altra cool place and flocked to come here to live and say it has devastated neighborhoods and east austin big houses and coffee shops and yoga studios sprouted seemingly overnight, property taxes sored and many older residents can't afford to stay. people who lived in east austin for many years say the changes have happened so fast they hardly recognize the place any more. lisa bird works on cultural preservation. >> it's actually cultural displacement and we actually take a step further and say what has happened in this community is actually cultural genocide. as you go through this neighborhood now you will see remnants are very few and they will be the churches and a

couple barber shops. other than that everything is gone. >> reporter: the barber shop is a place where african/american men socialize. much of their talk these days is abchange. >> now you see a new ethnicity come in and new houses coming up. it has changed dramatically. >> reporter: ronnie jackson has been a barber here for 16 years. >> for taxes to push out grandpas and nannas who have been here for years and years i don't really think that is right. >> reporter: thompson played in south by southwest in the early years but it's dominated with acts from london and brooklyn and los angeles. >> i played with most of the best that came out of austin. i don't know any of them that actually benefitted from the south by southwest. >> reporter: south by southwest boosted austin's image as a

capitol of cool. but it helped to displace the very people whose god-given talents made it possible to begin with. rob reynoln reynolds, al jazeer. we are waiting for the press conference, in the meantime here is our website. ♪ hello. i'm richard gizbert and this is "the listening post." the med