oh is it allison when our on line we were in hurricane winds for almost like thirty six hours these are the things that new york has to address or if you join us on sat i'm a member of the ku klux klan but we struck up a relationship this is a dialogue tweet us with hostile stream and one of your pitches might make an actual join the global conversation at this time on al-jazeera. you're watching al-jazeera peter with your headlines so far today the nobel peace

prize has been awarded to the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons the norwegian panel praised the group for working to prohibit the use of the weapons comes amid tensions around north korea's nuclear program. russia says it hopes the u.s. will make a balanced decision on whether to remain engaged in the landmark international deal to curb iran's nuclear program president trump has accused iran of not living up to the spirit of the deal in twenty fifteen and both sides in the war in yemen are strongly criticized in the u.n. annual report on children and conflict the study led coalition of the rebels are jointly accused of killing and maiming children. well the u.n. special representative for children and conflict said she wasn't put under political pressure over this report. i really have not felt the pressure i have mine my skin is so thick that i feel it but i i have not been pressurised by anybody on. earth i think. a. it's

always interesting to take on a new job i've taken these in may and it was gave me a if you look at everything i was able to read all the mit the years and all the issues and concerns and perhaps it was i was coming from a different space i did not perceive so much pressure on on the mandate then this mandate is so fresh so clear so straightforward it doesn't leave room for either believe they station or a division in interpretation of what it means the associated press is reporting that the u.s. military is halting some joint exercises with its gulf allies over the ongoing diplomatic crisis targeting cattle a u.s. central command spokesman has been quoted as saying we opting out of some military exercises out of respect for the concept of inclusiveness and shared regional interests will continue to encourage all partners to work together towards the sort of common solutions that enable security and stability in the region earlier our

senior political analyst marwan bashara told us the u.s. is putting more pressure on the gulf states to settle their differences. you know in the beginning the central command said that there are that the gulf crisis does not have any effect on its operations against eisel and so on so on so forth but certainly when it comes to military exercises and you need to do it with the countries of the region of the gulf region and you have a fifth fleet and by her a in and central command in doha qatar it's not very difficult to do it when the parties are in disagreement and basically are you know at the state of conflict so i think what's happening here is really putting a lot of psychological political diplomatic and operational pressure on the saudis and the monarch these do to back track and sometimes as they say you know when it rains it pours and clearly there's been

a lot of pressure on saudi arabia whether as far as its war in iraq and its human rights record or are on the question of qatar on the question of the support of terror and the american congress the so-called just a lot and all the like so i think there's more pressure on riyadh and i would be at this point in time by the americans to solve this issue and i think the central command is part and parcel of course of that piracy and i think in so many ways before the end of the year we'll probably see more pressure from the trump administration to get this thing settled in some way or another a funeral with military honors has been held in northern iraq for the betterment kurdish leader general taleban e crowds filled the streets of silliman ia to pay tribute as a convoy carried his body to the burial site taliban he was a champion of the kurdish independence struggle and served as president of iraq for nine years until twenty fourteen he was in a coma when he died in a hospital in germany on tuesday i mean is there. we were earlier

in the city center near the mosque where. prayers were being held and. thousands and thousands of people. still hasn't arrived here. he. didn't. have a voice. that was during his presidency. the kurdish. he said that. when he was. the kurds. and other western capitals and i think that's probably his biggest legacy here.

the over spill of refugees in central african countries around four hundred thousand people from burundi have fled fighting and political unrest in the past two years most escaped to tanzania the democratic republic of congo rwanda and zambia but zambia is also giving shelter to thousands of refugees escaping violence in the sea the reports now from a zambian refugee transit center. doesn't know if his wife is dead or alive they were separated when they village was attacked in the democratic republic of congo the security forces were fighting militia groups in the area in the chaos he grabbed his children and ran it took them weeks to walk to the zambian border he says traumatized his children. but people are dying their hands in his. pregnant women had the unborn babies.

die. other refugees also say they were forced to flee ethnic clashes aid workers of course this the largest influx of congolese refugees into zambia in the past five years. say. displaced more than one so you can have a million refugees and before and had referred to in their whole lives it would be safe and secure for them to stay but they have been displaced yet again their arrive tired exhausted. and in need of shelter and lifesaving humanitarian can't the united nations refugee agency says on average between sixty and one hundred people crossing into zambia each day sixty percent of the new arrivals are children the most recent arrivals day and communal structures until more resources are available on average for families in this one area. a day

one in the morning and one in the evening the men picked up by what the women do the cooking aid workers say there are more than three thousand registered refugees in this transit center and more are still coming. at the end of the day another bus arrives from the border with sixteen families people hope some of their friends neighbors and relatives are inside. it would mean their life and are relatively safe in zambia and unfortunately. his wife isn't on the bus either but he hopes he's still trying to get to zambia or she managed to reach tens in the league and the united nations is warning if the security situation in neighboring gets worse the humanitarian needs on both sides of the border will become more dire. al-jazeera challenges. well as the situation in zambia despite instability in neighboring democratic republic of congo it's giving shelter to forty thousand refugees from burundi the congolese army and the militia battled it out last week

in vienna which hosts a transit camp there for people who escaped from burundi as malcolm webb. recently arrived refugees are meant to stay in this camp for only three days but everyone we've spoken to has been here for months something that arrived as early as january the refugee camp where they're meant to be moved to after here is full to this place is overcrowded some people sleep on the floor at night luckier ones are crowded in tents like this when fighting broke out in the town of movie or last week hundreds more who are camped outside the gates were allowed inside for their safety but that means now this camp is meant for seven hundred people that's more than a thousand inside and the insecurity meant food rations are cut people are now here surviving on one meal a day everyone says that they're hungry and that the conditions are very poor. to train crash near russia's capital moscow has killed at least sixteen people a passenger train hit a bus that broke down at

a crossing point all the people on the bus mostly it was back nationals were killed because dan's foreign ministry says nineteen of its people were killed but russian investigators say that figure is actually lower than that. peacekeepers have lowered their flag in haiti thirteen years after entering the country to help it through political crises and natural disasters efficient peacekeeping mission will and later this month it will be replaced by a smaller force will focus on strengthening the judicial system. and i reports in the capital port au prince. symbolically ceremoniously the united nations stabilization mission said farewell to haiti it's a rifle thirteen years ago with a multinational force of hundreds of police and soldiers many good intentions. the work of the u.n. mission was very important for haiti helping us to adapt to modern realities on the

ground. the blue helmeted soldiers and police are heading home of the u.n. hoping it's been enough to stabilize haiti. and building the police and army pacifying lawless neighborhoods will heal the election process is in human rights but the u. it is also left having to clean up a number of problems which it created including a cholera epidemic caused by its own troops which killed more than nine thousand haitians. it was about time for them to go we are better off without them and we will be fine the un was here for its own purposes not to help the most vulnerable haitians. i think things are getting worse in this country everything's more expensive and you cannot trust authorities to do anything things are so bad i think that only jesus can help us. the stabilization mission will be replaced the day after its mandate ends on october the fifteenth by a new smaller one thousand three hundred strong u.n. force that will work to improve haiti's judicial system. i'm very pessimistic for

the future especially with the current administration which is not very interested in supporting human rights it's going to be up to the haitian society to stand up and ask for better. it's to raise taxes the rebuilding of that was regular protests from workers who can't afford to pay more in the suspicions of politicians they see as corrupt and self-serving others want jobs and investment in haiti's precarious infrastructure so haiti now being left largely to fend for itself which is what many here wanted all along the u.n. as an invading rather than a stabilizing force the test now whether the institution is being built up to cope with the challenges that lie ahead. haiti is the poorest country in the region a long time victim of homegrown and foreign oppression and earthquakes many here feel it's time they stood proud and independently but others are anxious about the uncertainties that the departure of the u.n.

mission will bring. port au prince. this is al jazeera these are the top stories both sides in the war in yemen are being strongly criticized in the united nations annual report on children and conflict the saudi led coalition and the rebels are jointly accused of killing and maiming children but the u.n. also says coalition forces have taken action to improve child protection the nobel peace prize has been awarded to the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons which in panel praised the group for working to prohibit the use of the weapons it comes amid tensions around north korea's nuclear program i can see executive director criticize the u.s. president donald trump's recent rhetoric against pyongyang the election of president don trump has made a lot of people feel very uncomfortable with the fact that he alone can authorize

the use of nuclear weapons and there's nothing people can do to stop him. and there you can be with a tweet. who seems to be taking rational decisions very quickly. and it's sort of not listening to expertise is it just puts a spotlight on our spotlight on what this is what nuclear weapons really mean. there are no right hands were for the wrong weapons russia says it hopes the u.s. will make a balanced decision on whether to remain engaged in the landmark international deal to curb iran's nuclear program president trump has accused iran of not living up to the spirit of the twenty fifteen deal and is expected to refuse to endorse it next week congress will then decide if it will impose new economic sanctions on tehran to deal involves iran receiving huge sanctions relief in return for restricting its nuclear program a funeral with full military honors has been held in northern iraq for the veteran

kurdish leader. crowds filled the streets of new year to pay tribute as a convoy carried his body to the burial site the taliban he was a champion of the kurdish independence struggle and served as president of iraq for nine years until twenty fourteen he was in a coma when he died in a german hospital on tuesday. a train crash near the russian capital moscow has killed at least sixteen people a passenger train has a bus that broke down on a crossing point all the people on the bus mostly nationals were killed. those are your headlines the news continues here on al-jazeera after the stream i'll see you at the usual times tomorrow by. you see the difference. in the similarities of cultures of.

al-jazeera. i am like of you and you're in the stream and then how do you rebuild an entire island one that's already under an enormous amount of debt after it's been decimated by a hurricane that's the challenge facing puerto rico after hurricane maria devastated the u.s. territory but government officials on the island have vowed puerto rico will rise again so what does that look like and joining us from san juan to discuss this we have renee vargas a lawyer and newspaper columnist in puerto rico is about the managing director of con p.r. maty those a nonprofit focused on the social and economic development in puerto rico in new york hector figaro a puerto rican activist and president of thirty two b.j. service employees international union also in new york kate aronoff she's a reporter with the intercept and a writing fellow at in these times welcome everyone to the stream now we also

invited the mayor of san juan on charge show she originally agreed but later declined due to her scheduling conflicts so let's start here on my laptop with this headline via the washington post when hurricane maria hit puerto rico everything collapsed simultaneously renee with a disaster of this magnitude where does the recovery even start to start with roads electricity grid water. well first of all we have to work to get things. they can then i don't think that they'll be back to normal anytime soon but at least. have a country that has drinking water. electricity that has been talked about this mass communications we migrate now most people can't even communicate with each other or messages to people that are accounted for like i. was talking about earlier but i think that the biggest holder right now is that this will require

a lot of investment in infrastructure. and the country is bankrupt and there are several. large why. they're trying to make perrigo. more of its income by more of its budget on a dead that has not been already to the people or we go frankly a part of we don't know when we went to so you mentioned a lot of things in the response but i just want to pick up on one which is that the u.s. government needs to give to puerto rico and isabel i want to read you these tweets but one from david he says for one the president should not be so passive aggressive towards providing a puerto rican or taxpaying american citizens and then also tweeted that she says we need a comprehensive recovery package from congress puerto rico was already in the hole financially it's going to take years and money to rebuild so isabel we know that

president trump since declaring it a state of emergency this has allowed the u.s. congress to work on a comprehensive aid package for puerto rico is about what do you hope to see in that aid package well i'm hoping to see nothing less that what they had to offer are other areas of the united states that have been suffering from something similar. and what does that mean yet i think. ok go ahead go ahead and jump in i think something that i've been looking at just as following what's been happening in puerto rico and of course i'm not there is just how to rico has responded to these sorts of crisis before in one thousand twenty eight a storm called sense to leave the island and i did thirty two a storm called. and between that was of course the great depression and the way that the united states government decided to respond to those three storms but it

had puerto rico then most often massive levels of relief and to really revolutionize america's public sphere and so in thinking about you know how to respond to this crisis and any sort of overlapping crises that are affecting puerto rico it's not just sort of austerity or really a kind of weak recovery that is what we have to offer but actually what the quarter goes on history and the way that you know that the united states government has helped clear it go recover and really rebuild not just thinking about immediate recovery but long term rebuilding and investing not just in revolutionising things like roads and electric company structure but also making that a democratic transition. may be different than what we're expecting today i mean i think he said to show that i need it is as important. for us so sure on this one a child really. you know study we did it with

a lot or the media at me that we're going to go if they. were cyber war and they would declare a show to these a fake yesterday that need to come to a quick conclusion that a. particular tragedy is going to be repaid and then the money that if he said oversight board. to trim the municipality if. these thirty poses need to be retired. that has to happen immediately and obviously we're going to get billions of dollars the damages are estimated to be over eighty five billion dollars and counting and adding two to provide for for they need we need now but but then you need a political solution. we need we need people to get those part of those billions of dollars to the island that was so rightfully deserve and that we have worked for paying taxes and serving in the military people need to apply for thema and the

team has to do a better job at getting out there to the people because right now what they're saying is you need to fill out the form online i mean people don't have energy people don't have water so we need to make it easy for people to be able to apply for this the monopoly cations that's step one. so i mean the first is that is to normalize as much as we can figure the chances for the people in puerto rico but on the question of rebuilding we're going to need nothing short of a marshall plan for the island the recognition that you need to have several components of economy developing here that really if you change the way of making decision making right now is on that has a physical oversight or that needs to be the market eyes and going back in the hands of puerto rico with support from the federal government because officials should not be running through this race caliber cyberwar in an emergency like this and then we also need to have a plan about what puerto rico should look like the energy sector needs to rely more

in renewable resources less on fossil fuels that is an opportunity here to have a sealion fossil you know free you know puerto rico just like mosaddeq has been doing very much in the infrastructure for tourism if we're to recall cannot become a place that trees can start to go in a relatively recent repeat of the time is going to listen. so i think that that is the question will they be normalised. or do we already know that my kids are good i'm just saying that i'm going to go into our international audience in case they haven't seen our other shows or in puerto rico you mentioned the fiscal oversight board that is probably sort of puerto rican puerto rico oversight management and economic stability and that's the board that's. by congress the u.s. congress and twenty sixteen to oversee the island detonates about seventy billion and a little over that dan i know the community has thoughts on that that they have not

because of that but one of the also one of the things hector mentioned that puerto rico needs a marshall plan we're seeing concerns that things might not go the way that he would like it to go renee i want you to listen to these tweets we had natalia she wrote as she said certainly expecting big contracts to be parceled out to politically connected happened after hurricane katrina will happen again and that also goes into the question renee that you mentioned of disaster capitalism of privatization happening after the shock of the hurricane this is something that naomi klein scholar has referred to how would you oppose that. well the only way. to suggested for for there to be investing in puerto rico but by by the u.s. government in the style of a marshall plan like afterward to and the reason is like if you let put a rico just on itself at this point put

a recall is going to be at the mercy of bone holders were just one holders of vulture funds who at this moment are just looking to make a quick buck out of the bonds that they re bought on the market and if were and put our we go and this is what actor was saying. we can not only focus on the immediate relief we have to think about the transformation of the relationship between put are we going to united states because that is the relationship that has brought us where we are where we can't manage to squeeze us off on our own because we don't have the opportunities we do not have the access to resources that other states has or that independent countries have so we're stuck in this back you and then we have bondholders sort of one on one side both your folks on one side we have what we need what we need to do to reconstruct our island and then we have a u.s. congress that does not seem to be interested in tackling this head on so definitely

there needs to be a combination. and the only way to protect put or we go from pound holders and from both your phones and for it to be able to actually get off the ground is for the u.s. government to step in order to be a transformation in our relationship with the u.s. either of the two major. banks from getting started on that now is about once a job and when and kate as well take go ahead yes and a colleague of mine at this time was talking to an organizer and you and other local here in the states on the left really need its own version of the shock and. shock and not to enforce the credit as a. bondholders and other corporations sort of looking at the wreckage of maria to make a quick buck are likely to do in the coming weeks and months really to see this as a way to democratize what he calls a column a democratized because government the fiscal control board is only required to help

one puerto rican member on it and so i think that this can be a real opportunity to really rethink part of the united states functionally that a lot of us in the united states have forgotten about for a long time and really think about this as an opportunity to rebuild and in some cases build a better relationship you know just how to puerto rico sort of whole history so one of one question i keep coming up year after year is a bill actually want to read the statement for you one question that keeps coming up is that of statehood for puerto rico and i know people are both for it and opposed to it take a look at the statement we got from jose fuentes he's with the puerto rico state council he says puerto rico destruction gives the u.s. a chance to do the right thing we build the struggling territory as a strong state and the long term recovery of puerto rico that does not resolve its status in favor of the statehood would be incomplete isabel are you in favor of statehood for puerto rico i am not going to get into state status conversations

right now i think that that's what i've been a part of the problem that process when we keep talking about the status and not about what are the best solutions for puerto rico in terms of economic development what i would say about that that is that. president trump said yesterday and fox news said he was just going to wipe away the dept i don't know what that means until we know what that what that statement means we can start understanding what are our cards on the table and what are our options and i also want to say in terms of rebuilding puerto rico we do have an amazing talented and knowledgeable human capital and that's our biggest asset and we have puerto rico is in the island and we have puerto rico outside the island that are ready and eager to jump and and help in any way possible it could be with their connections it can be with their know how and what i have what i am expecting and what i'm seeing that's going to happen is that civil society think towns nonprofits are going to come together and

want to work together as a team to rethink puerto rico in a sustainable way and so is about what you were talking about there i'm just going to i'm going to hold this up and i had to write here and i hear you have turn i'm going to go to you but i want to explain for our international audience who is about mentioned comments from this week trying to wipe out puerto rico's debt in an interview on fox news then this happened this is via the hill though a lot of other news organizations have it just in budget chief contradicts trump on puerto rico debt and this is a white house budget director mick mulvaney who on wincing said we're absolutely not going to bail them out this headline is he walking back trump's comments on wiping out puerto rico that so have to i know that you and your organization have been out on the streets i have this tweet pulled up here we have to restructure puerto rico so it works for the people not the hedge funds and banks and that's the b.p. of your organization the only i'm going to make good on you and i mean if you go back to the question of this so you need to that much about exports and how strong

the people who fight the institutions that lives with me whether this is efficient or the labor will be put to recall has been this he made a large fleet to buy the you know the suits that he. many stations are implementing austerity programs we need the labor movement in the state to help the labor movement put the ricoh to rebuild itself so we have a strong worker voice that informs how their restructuring and redevelopment is going to happen we also need to get the kind of institutions and organizations in the progressive movement foundations and on others to really really support the efforts on the grassroots you know neighborhoods are going to stations organizations and the environment organizations about affordable housing in the poorest communities a puerto rico they are being wiped out the imagine this year it came having of root it already for you know institutions that allowed these voices to be at least be

heard they are now being silent so we have to make sure that they put that he could be asked what are five of the hedge funds and the vultures funds that are trying to profit on the island we need to organize a political power of the political comedian allies that cross every country we needed to the man congress to take action on this damon correcting trial is shameful chapter eight but the rico cannot pay this that is not about bailing out but that rico is about doing what is right for three million americans and then we also need to strengthen the independence civil society organizations and sectors in puerto rico they are the cultures they are the labor sector advocates of the community level so we can build a strong counterbalance the but i don't know that it's going to happen i pulled out a couple of headlines here in this is on the intercept here to be seen because he worked on a few of these so this one puerto rican debt holders response

a catastrophic hurricane by offering puerto rico more debt that your colleague at the entrance that in earlier we saw hurricane earl a touchdown in puerto rico hurricane irma unleashes the force is a privatized ation in puerto rico some of these seem to be forces that are going to work against what health care is advocating what is a case. so exactly right i think something to really be paying close attention to and if we've learned anything from hurricane katrina is that there are going to be a lot of people making looking to make money off of what's stopping this human tragedy to stop and. and some of those people may be the same folks who created whatever goes debt crisis in the first place so mastery of banks engineered what may well do you know legal forms of debt and continue to issue these bonds and many of the same wall street banks have created massive infrastructure. over the last decade since the great recession one of them being goldman sachs which is already had a hand in public ties and. roads and highways through

a company called natural used us so really look out towards just that the cultures are going to sort of bend and they're already starting to do less with that was happening long before the puerto rican electric power authority and that was happening long before even hurricane erma hit they had just got control board had signed a contract with mckinsey company and had been very clear that it wanted to privatized electric power authority so something to really be watchful for is you know who is who is benefiting from these rebuilding efforts and is it the same people who have puerto rico in some of the same crisis that it's dealing with today so one of the consequences that we have citing those are those are huge factor i just want to read is one of the consequences that we've seen of the out my of the debt crisis and now people are worried that it's going to worsen with a hurricane is out migration people leaving puerto rico for the mainland rene take

a look at these tweets that we got from roe he says the last i heard my mom was trying to convince dad to come stateside leaving home due to his health he's been reluctant so far they are staying he also added that a couple of cousins he believes are moving from puerto rico to the mainland because of the hurricane renee. does this concern you people leaving puerto rico for the mainland because of the overlapping crises. it has been a concern for the last decade but a recurrence depopulating and we're not only you see we're losing our talented students saying we're losing university graduates are losing the cream of the crop in this country and they're leaving because they're looking for a better opportunity because our government koren situation. has not been able to provide good stable jobs for them i know of course now that's even worse because most companies that were operating and are operating in puerto rico do not do not have power didn't have ways to restart their business and so much need to get

decent have generators which is an additional expense especially for small commerce and some small business owners and entrepreneurs who are in puerto rico so this is this is you know this is going to make it worse and it is making it worse is that there's going to be people leaving but there's also going to be people coming back and i'm hoping that those aleve it's temporary but there's going to be people coming back we're going to need engineers we're going to need to reconstruct this country you know and we if we have something is good engineers and we've lost a lot of them that have left to the mainland u.s. but we're going to have to meet them back and that's going to happen in many other industries and i'm confident that we're going to get back on our feet so what we're going to have been said broken can you share with us why do you think that if. we go quarterly concern resilient people and we've been to the tough situations before but if there's something we do is we going to do they ask for what's going to station money focuses in connecting that they ask to local opportunities and no

matter where puerto ricans are they can help somehow and they will because they are helping right now and that's what we have to focus on. so we're together so speaking of his optimism i'm sure that yeah go ahead go ahead rene. i'm sure i'm sure that to help out they will come back and they might be a temporary but we need to create a party we need to create economic opportunity for these people and as long as we have a crystal fiscal crisis and an economic crisis our people are going to keep leaving at once again those are issues that we need to tackle at the local of the local with our government but also in congress would reforms to statutes concerning put a recall and as long as that doesn't change we're going to be stuck in the same place and i do share our optimism in the short term but i'm not so sure in the long term and i do hope that we're able to move forward and i'm we are we have recently but we are working right now but there is a reality if you can't get a job if there's no economic opportunity in the islands people are leaving everything gets worse i want to focus on how to change that situation it was

speaking of a speaking of how to change the situation some one idea that's been proposed is rebuilding the entire electrical grid for the island kate i want you to take a listen to this video kannan we got from martina to newquay he's a journalist with city lab so the main problem with her it was great is that it is pretty much an hour and rudimental system it is a system that has only regained six percent of its capacity since the hurricane strength fell over two weeks ago so now the challenge for the aland is to start rethinking reimagining how they want to be built a greener safer more sustainable and more efficient grid and one of the ways to achieve that is to start thinking about my parade's so buyable solution also the allens should start thinking about alternative sources of energy such as like solar power or wind power and drift away from oil and gas as

sources to power its electricity demand. so ok do you think this is what puerto rico needs to move to renewable energy sources and smaller scale grants i can be disconnected so that it doesn't affect the whole island. i think that's a huge part of a part of the solution to what what's going on going to go right now in part because what we've seen is that when one one power line goes down ten thousand people can lose power maybe more when one solar panel goes out that's not the same so not only is transforming transforming the grid a real chance to make the system more storm resilient to make energy cheaper in some cases but to call so put a lot of people back to work which can go to addressing some of the longer term crises that puerto rico has been dealing so i mean if you go into a house in the u.s. we're going to actually in the open sea they show that we have a nominee station that he advocated for more of those who feel that a more efficient of gas and coal.