as china's rapid economic development spills over into other asian nations. people in power investigates the consequences of a neighbor in laos. poverty stricken and hungry for foreign investment can this communist republic reconcile the needs of its people with the demands liberations benefactor. louts on the borders of empire at this time on al-jazeera. the doctors the nurses and all of the people doing the spittal have. a job that

indescribable painting first responders as heroes president needs police paramedics and firefighters who are on the scene after sunday's mass shooting in las vegas. down jordan this is out is there are live from doha also coming up senior republicans say they want to investigate devices to turn guns into rapid fire weapons in the wake of the massive. outbreak of the plague causes panic in madagascar as health officials call for calm and catherine and leaders called for mediation of their push for independence from spain madrid says there's nothing to talk about. the u.s. president has commanded the efforts of medical staff and police following sunday night smash hooting in las vegas fifty eight people were killed and more than five hundred injured in the massacre the deadliest in modern u.s.

history but during his trip to las vegas donald trump again avoided the subject of gun control laws rob reynolds reports from las vegas. president donald trump said he went to las vegas to pay his respects and honor doctors nurses police officers and civilian heroes who saved lives. his first stop was at a hospital where he visited privately for about an hour with gunshot victims and family members i just met some of the most amazing people we we met patients that were absolutely terrible the wounded and the doctors the nurses and all of the people of the hospital have done. their job that's indescribable las vegas is a city trump knows well his name adorns one of the high rise casino hotels on the famous strip but on this day he saw a different vegas a city traumatized and grieving at a sidewalk memorial hundreds of candles notes and toys gave physical shape to the

city's sorow the psychological wounds inflicted on the community run deep says resident shanta gibson everyone is feeling is whether you are a person that just likes to go out and enjoy a events which a family or else is really disturbing trump showered praise on las vegas police and firefighters as one eyewitness recounted this week while everyone else was crouching police officers were standing up as targets just trying to direct people and tell them where to go the traditional role of consoler in chief does not seem to come naturally to president trump and some have criticized the tone of his remarks and behavior on recent trips to hurricane ravaged areas of texas florida and earlier this week in puerto rico this time there were no jarring notes our

souls are stricken with grief for every american who lost a husband or a wife a mother or a father son or daughter we know that your sorrow feels and lists. we stand together to help you carry your pain back at the memorial shanta gibson was unimpressed by trump's visit i don't feel his sincerity at all the only reason i feel as if he's coming is a status quo you have to give the president you're going to look stupid if you don't step up and come down trumps stay in las vegas lasted several hours but the city's pain will last much longer rob reynolds al-jazeera las vegas you know stephen paddocks girlfriend says she had no idea he was planning sunday's shooting there in the donnelly has returned from the philippines where she says products sent to see her family she's been questioned by the f.b.i. and issued a statement through her lawyer describing panic as a kind caring and quiet. well to gallagher is live for us in las vegas and the

authorities there have given another press conference a short time ago what more did they have to say. well down not central question of the motive behind stephen products attack remains on no not maybe something people here in las vegas will have to wait a long time to find out we do know that he stayed at a previous hotel when there was another music festival on here before the one on sunday night the reasons behind that are still unknown but police also say this is a man that spent decades collecting weapons and meticulously planned this attack let's hear what the las vegas sheriff has to say. what we know is steven patrick is a man who spent decades acquiring weapons and ammo and lived in a secret life much of which would never be fully understood he meticulously planned on the worst domestic attack you know i think history.

the other thing the big question here is about the weapons and how they were modified this is brought up talk once again on that often a painful subject in this country of gun control but democratic lawmakers are now launching legislation to ban things like bomb stocks which made the weapon go from semiautomatic to automatic let's take a look. on sunday night the sound of rapid gunfire from stephen products hotel room was unmistakable police say the sixty four year old used a device known as a bump stock to via more rounds and inflict unthinkable tragedy. the device which is legal replaces the standard stock of a rifle for in the weapon to slide back and forth enabling automatic fire now that most sensitive issues gun control is once again being talked about democratic senator dianne feinstein tried to introduce a ban on assault rifles four years ago but that failed in the wake of the las vegas shooting she's proposing new laws that would ban modifications of already deadly

weapons when is the right time we hear that every time something happens when is the right time and i think this is the right time and since i've been here here just been incident after incident i thought it would end with combine you know i thought it would end with sandy. doesn't and. during his visit to last vegas president trump made it clear he's not ready to discuss gun control but some republicans may be on board yeah i would i would certainly look at the i'm not an expert on bombs dogs but all things that make america safer and don't infringe on the second amendment so you think now is the time to have this policy debate yeah i think so i think would be a good time to have a hearing many republicans say the legislation is premature and inappropriate so soon after such a tragedy the powerful national rifle association donates millions to republican

politicians and past mass shootings have done little to change attitudes democrats remain passionate about change how minimal much stuff. how many mothers and fathers sisters and brothers son. has been and why tell me what tell me and tell us what is the number how minimal did this letter take to wake up the congress. now as things stand only a few republican lawmakers have agreed to even discuss banning things like bump stocks that number will need to go up considerably if this more is to get any chance of passing but it's worth remembering that five years ago when a gunman walked into a school in sandy hook and killed children nothing changed meanwhile here in las vegas but stocks are no longer available the gun shops sold out all right i think

in las vegas andy thank you what david barnett is the former president of the group students for concealed carry that's a firearms advocacy group peace as a gun ban wouldn't have prevented the killings is just unrealistic to think that we could go door to door and prevent firearms are really confiscated firearms which everyone says we don't want to do we have an illicit drug trade in this country and drugs are enormously illegal and there's vast penalties available so again i wish that a law could fix this i don't think that an armed citizen could have fixed this that tends to be that the you know my side of the aisle says well maybe of someone a good guy with a gun could have stopped this you know he would've been there that's not something that i think would apply in this case and what i wish i could hear from the other side is also saying we're not sure that laws would have fixed this either again how do you stop a millionaire who's intent on murdering people and even if you didn't have the guns that the man was a certified fidelity he could have used that plane and flew into the crowd clearly this was a demented individual and he wanted it to conason to carnage i have yet to hear of

a law that would have prevented this man from doing what he did and i'm i'm willing to listen to possibilities. three u.s. special forces soldiers have been killed and two others injured in an attack in a jet a joint patrol of us and share in troops but ambush near the border with mali don estabrook is in washington d.c. for us well the pentagon at this point is not releasing a lot of details about this attack what we do know from other media reports is that three u.s. commandos were killed two others were wounded this attack happened in southwest new cher near the mali border what we understand is that there in this particular area there's a heavy presence of insurgents in that area some from al qaida some from the islamic state in greater so horror at this point though we don't know if one of those groups was responsible for this attack now the u.s.

has military throughout western africa we know that several troops are have been in share they have been assisting in counterterrorism efforts in reconnaissance and in training they were on a routine patrol when this occurred and as we understand president trump has been alerted and has been briefed on what has happened we are expecting more information about this attack tomorrow from the pentagon now madagascar's trying to contain the outbreak of the highly contagious plane at least thirty people have died in the past two months and almost two hundred suspected cases have been reported the government's banned public gatherings in the capital in an attempt to stop the disease from spreading. well since it wiped out half of europe's population in the middle ages the plague has become a rare disease but it does still exist in some parts of the world between twenty ten and twenty fifteen it killed five hundred eighty four people globally in africa four countries still regularly report cases madagascar is the most seriously

affected country in the world in the americas outbreaks occur in peru and there's even been some cases in rural areas in the united states the plague originated in asia there would still affects parts of china kurdistan and russia well world health organization officials are calling for calm but also warned be outbreak needs to be taken seriously. i would like to remind you that the plague exists in many countries including botswana kenya madagascar zambia algeria and the democratic republic of congo it's not only madagascar is important because what we've been hearing is that the situation in madagascar is like the end of the world we would just like to say that it is a disease like any other but we are lucky that there is a cure and this treatment is free. the leader of spain is catalonia region says he wants mediators to help resolve the standoff with the central government but spain says for that to happen the region must respect the law call pennell reports from barcelona. the head of the catalan government colors posed to monta used

a televised address to criticize the spanish government's handling of the political crisis he also said that he firmly disagreed with king philippe's address to the nation the previous day in that address the king accused the catalan of disloyalty and suggested they were almost on the verge of rebellion pushed him on tuesday measured. to say that the solution to the problems of catalonia is attempt to break away from the rest of spain was a political matter not a police matter he is once again suggested talks in mediation in this crisis the spanish government was very quick however to come out and say that the only way that they would consider such talks was if catalonia abandoned its attempts to session that is something that will be death very difficult for the catalan government both because of the referendum results but also because if the man tries

to back away from this proposed declaration of independence which could come as soon as next monday then effectively he could risk losing a process session majority in the catalan parliament a lot more still to come here in al-jazeera including find out what u.s. secretary of state rex tillerson had to say on claims he called donald trump a moron. and internet giant amazon gets an unwelcome item in a shopping basket tell you what it was later in the bulletin more of the state. hello again we've got some fairly heavy rain over parts of north america at the moment you can see quite clearly on the satellite picture is this area of cloud here the stretches all the way up into the eastern part of canada that's having a sim fairly heavy rain at the moment and it's not really moving anywhere in

a great hurry so chicago having rather a wet day on thursday and that rain sticking around as we head into friday just pushing a little bit further towards the northeast so we'll see some of that weather work its way into toronto now ahead of that system where you can see the air's all being fed up from the south so it's actually quite humid and quite warm for many of us here washington d.c. on friday still getting to around twenty seven degrees for the west largely fine and dry here but still hot in l.a. thirty three a bit further towards the south and there's plenty of cloud here as there have been over the past few days and we're now seeing a few more weather features develop there particularly just to the southern parts of mexico this is now a storm more and it's working its way away towards the west fortunately but behind it there still are a few more areas which we're watching very closely that could be developing into something a little bit more sinister i mean further towards the south and here we've got one system that is just easing now over the next one is brewing and that's going to

give us heavy rain for friday. the ingredient that bring smiles it's number one in. cardiovascular give. me the hardest part is. we think of. is the same if we throw sugar and. this is a. techno this time on.

welcome back a quick reminder of the top stories here on al-jazeera u.s. president donald trump has praised medical staff and police following sunday night's mass shooting in las vegas fifty eight people were killed and more than five hundred injured democrats and some top republicans are now calling for a debate on banning devices used to make guns fire like automatic weapons. three u.s. special forces soldiers have been killed and two others injured in an attack in the joint patrol of us on the jury and troops are ambushed near the border with mali. madagascar is trying to contain an outbreak of the plague at least thirty people have died in the past two months while the latest outbreak has spread to urban centers the world health organization is calling for calm. now u.s. secretary of state rex tillerson has denied ever considering quitting his role as the country's top diplomat he was forced to make the denial after n.b.c. reporter the tennis and publicly insulted president trump in a meeting state department correspondent particle hain has that story. already

a surprise statement from a secretary of state who doesn't make many. let me tell you what i've learned about this president whom i did not know before taking this office he loves this country he puts americans and america first. he's smart he was trying to refute this story in which n.b.c. news claims tillerson publically called the president a moron after a national security meeting he repeatedly didn't deny that he said that but his spokeswoman later did he did not say that tillerson did refute the other allegation made in the report that he was going to quit tennis and tried to quit but was talked out of it by allies there's never been a consideration in my mind i serve at the appointment of the president and i'm here for as long as the president feels like to be useful to achieving his objectives secretary tillerson would have good reason to be frustrated he's been contradicted

by his boss often and very publicly on issues such as the g.c.c. crisis and north korea foreign policy experts say it is hurting his credibility and american foreign policy if he's perceived to be in battle if he's perceived to be weak then. the officials that he's talking to that he's trying to persuade will not put as much credibility into what he says and he will be much less effective but the report apparently hasn't changed the president's view of tillerson young very honored by his guy who is fake news who is a totally phony thank you very much is made up made up by n.b.c. major jeff thank you thank you total confidence and the one thing we know for sure this is a president that cannot stand even perceived slights his secretary of state coming out quickly to say he didn't insult him making sure he doesn't join an already unprecedented and long list of people who the president has told your fired how to

call him al jazeera washington. let's get more now on our top story this week's mass shooting in las vegas and it's off to my office talk to james the porter he's a military porter at the daily beast is also a former marine and intelligence officer who joins us from portland florida james some observers seeing the high number of deaths in the shootings the use of something called a bump stock or even explain to us what it is and how it increases the right to fire a weapon. sure so basically what it does is it takes a semi-automatic weapon which basically means that every time i put depress the trigger or pull the trigger one bullet round comes out what a. basically what it does is it is a blood stock. excuse me attached to the weapon with the allow a person to use or non firing hand to manually continue to push more

bullets to come out of the to come out of the rifle and travel down range so essentially it turns a semi-automatic weapon into a legal automatic weapon without actually having. to fall into the classification of needing a what we need in the united states which is a class three license which you need to have to obtain that. a legal automatic. and a pound of james you can buy these things for less than one hundred dollars it's totally legal but if they're banned do you think it'll make a difference. well you know my question right now is how the you know i saw today that you know there are some g.o.p. senators and congressmen who are supporting the ban about stocks bonds stocks but i'm not sure if they realize that there's other items that are out there that do the exact same thing there is something called a trigger which basically it's

a drop in trigger that you can drop in to a lower receiver of a weapon and every time you fire the trick you pull the trigger one round travels down the travel out of the weapon but as you release another round travels so that would essentially fall into the same category of what we're seeing from the bomb stocks there's also another trigger mechanism which is a crank that you can add to a trigger mechanism so every time you you know crank it three or four different rounds come out so i mean there's many mechanisms ok not not just one particular bomb stocks so just a just in terms that because i wonder how broad the legislation is going to be yes i mean that's a that's a good point about the legislation because every time there is a mass shooting in the u.s. james everyone talks about gun control but if nothing changed after sandy hook where twenty school children were murdered is the las vegas massacre going to change anything really. right that is true so i mean dating back to after

the virginia tech shootings you know we saw that some states did limit. magazine capacities so in new york city for instance you can have i believe it's a magazine over ten rounds you know after that was really the only change after virginia tech after the newtown shooting you know congressional lawmakers turned down a bill that would expand background checks for gun purchases and even after the orlando shooting you had. lawmakers again. turn down a bill that would prevent. people terrorists that are on the terrorist watch list from purchasing firearms so it seems like every after every single massive shooting that we have there is really no ak a from congress so in this case with this one particular case with the bob stocks it does seem like there is

bipartisan support which may or may not you know pass but ok james let me get a final thought from you because the pro-gun lobby would say the right to bear arms is enshrined in the second amendment but this was drafted as we know in the late eighteenth century off of the revolution so it does seem rather bizarre to people outside the u.s. that people still have a convenient interpretation of a law that was made to raise freestanding militias hundreds of years ago. you are correct so there are actually i'm not a obviously i'm not a legal scholar but from what i've understood of the second amendment is that it's actually broken down into three different categories one category is that it establishes an individual right to bear arms so that that is your you know most of your gun lobby you have a second idea which is that this is only allowed more as long as it's a well regulated militia which is what the second moments states but there's also

a furred theory which is that the second image doesn't grant any of those in actually local state and federal governments can regulate. gun laws as they see fit without infringing on constitutional rights but it is worth mentioning that any time this is come up to the supreme court the supreme court does tend to side with strengthening the second amendment james reporter thank you very much for talking to us now the internet retail giant amazon has been ordered to pay almost three hundred million dollars in back taxes to the european union m s m so good some warehouses across europe for almost a decade and channel the sales to luxemburg the u.s. says it had a special deal it meant it paid less tax than other companies he was also taking action against ireland to make that claim back around fifteen billion dollars from apple. today's decision to order luxembourg to recover

unpaid tax from amazon and refer to the e.u. for failing to recover on pay tax from apple. i hope that. both this issue is that seen as a message that companies must pay their fair share of taxes as the huge my durex of companies do. saudi arabia's king solomon has arrived in moscow for a five day trip the first of a visit by a saudi monarch to russia king salmond will hold talks with president putin the war in syria will be top of the agenda along with bilateral investments and stabilizing oil markets turkey's president has met his iranian counterpart in tehran for talks on kurdish secession if it's turkey's vowing to take decisive steps to stop kurdish leaders from declaring an independent state from iraq both men oppose the move believing this could cause unrest in their own countries. at least fifty people

have been killed and eighty others injured by an airstrike in syria's darrow's or province is not clear who carried out the strikes and the tile of. this amateur video reportedly shows the nearby town of my own dean being bombed u.s. and russian backed forces are separately trying to retake the region from myself fighters russia says it's investigating and i saw a video which apparently shows two of its soldiers captured by the group and daryn's all the russian foreign minister says it's working to establish details about the men his defense ministry has previously denied any of its soldiers have been captured russia is supporting syria's government in its fight against eisel in the resort. well italian police have seized nearly thirteen million dollars in assets and arrested thirty seven people as part of a crackdown on the mafia the group's accused of running an extortion racket involving drugs fruit and fish police say one victim was the owner of a high end restaurant in rome two italian military police officers are among those charged they're accused of using the police database to threaten people now there's

a notable trend at this year's london film festival several of the films are focusing on disability but that's not been welcomed by disability supporters explains. a love story a tragedy the tale of a man who changed how society treats disabled people the film breed these things people are paralyzed. the true story of robin cavendish a charming adventurous struck down by polio in one nine hundred fifty s. his refusal to rot in hospital saw him become the pioneer of a new type of wheelchair a new opportunities for disabled people at the film's european premier spider-man actor and you garfield said his character was the ultimate hero what robin and diana did somehow they made such a joyous inspired. fully lived rich life experience out of terrible loss and we all go through a loss here at the london film festival

a number of films feature disabled characters the most under represented minority on screen. films like stronger the story of the victim of the two thousand and thirteen boston marathon bombing. but the casting of able bodied actor jake gyllenhaal is proving controversial so much of stronger is about the characters physical challenges that some critics believe a disabled actor should have been given the role. actor david proud was born with spina bifida he believes the industry is changing the disability is more authentic than ever before i think we need to look at the whole industry we have to look at how. the drama schools film schools those schools are actually actively looking for people you're not going to. having disabled talent you know people on the sort of buses promoting films here on the red carpet it's easy to get swept up in the

glamour of the silver screen but more than any other has the power to transform how people understand the rounding disability. but the authenticity audience is the grown ups a documentary following a group of adults with down syndrome. independent it's funny moments don't obscure the fact that they feel smothered by well meaning structure but if inclusion starts in film and media then this festival has just got off to a very positive start. london. all the news of course on our website there is on our screen the latest on the mass shooting in las vegas in which fifty eight people died about five hundred injured al-jazeera dot com that's al-jazeera dot com .

and a quick recap of the top stories here on al-jazeera u.s. president donald trump is praising medical staff and police following sunday night's mass shooting in las vegas fifty eight people were killed more than five hundred were injured are democrats and some top republicans are now calling for a debate on banning devices used to make guns fire like automatic weapons twelve of the gunman's rifles had these devices attached but investigators have started building up a profile on the gunman stephen had a sheriff joseph lombardo described him as disturbed and dangerous but we know it's stephen perry who is a man who spent decades acquiring weapons and ammo and lived in a secret life much of which would never be fully understood he meticulously planned on the worst domestic attack in united states history three u.s. special operations soldiers have been killed and two others injured in an attack in asiad a joint patrol of u.s. and jerry and soldiers were ambushed near the border with mali madagascar is trying

to contain an outbreak of the playing at least thirty people have died in the past two months while the latest outbreak has spread to urban centers the world health organization is calling for calm the leader of spain's catalonia region says he wants mediators to help resolve the standoff with the central government over its efforts to gain independence but spain says for that to happen the region must respect the law russia says it's investigating and i saw a video which apparently shows two of its soldiers captured by the group in damages or the russian foreign ministry says it's working to establish details about the men its defense ministry has previously denied any of its soldiers have been captured. iraqi forces have reportedly advanced into the heart of the isolette held city of how we put it to leaders say a group of troops police and a shia force and in the city center lost control of several cities in iraq this year including its former stronghold of mosul turkey's president has met his

iranian counterpart in tehran for talks on code a succession efforts to seize volume to take decisive steps to stop kurdish leaders from declaring an independent state from iraq both men oppose the move believing this could cause unrest in their own countries well those are the headlines the news continues here on al-jazeera off the technique thanks a lot and laugh it up. with every. supersized. scientists around the well to make a desperate plea to stop an epidemic of obesity. but now new research goes beyond fact to reveal the risks that could be even greater. techno expose the science

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