a special program dedicated to this year's nobel peace prize laureates i can and their pursuit of a nuclear weapon free world and we look ahead to the big stories that could dominate the headlines in twenty eighteen. december on al-jazeera. the head of the september twenty fourth national election survey showed germany was satisfied with the state of their economy this is easily estonia's biggest tech success story the company was bought by microsoft in two thousand and eleven we bring you the stories that are shaping the economic world we live in counting the cost at this time on al-jazeera. air and sea ports remain closed in yemen despite the saudis promised to lift

a blockade and let him. go again from doha round kemal santamaria this is the world news from al-jazeera russia plans to scale back its military forces in syria and several sets of talks on the country's future move ahead continues navy raises the possibility there may have been an explosion on a submarine that went missing more than a week ago and zimbabwe's a stock market has lost six billion dollars in a week and a new president rescue the ailing economy. the un's the saudi arabia has not followed through on its promise to lift a two week blockade on yemen's main international airport and its may just seaport it is all putting millions of people at risk of starvation and disease. saudi led

coalition fighting in yemen had announced it would reopen two places some airport and the port of her day there as well by thursday to allow in much needed aid the red cross is five cities though are now without clean water because of the blockade son and her day to themselves and then in the north in the south as well that puts two and a half million people at risk of new cholera outbreaks and other water borne diseases and the u.n. says this blockade is really just aggravated an already done situation twenty one million people are in need of aid in what is being called the world's largest humanitarian crisis jim has a report. many expected that come thursday aid would be flowing once more through her data one of yemen's major ports saudi arabia announced on wednesday it would ease its blockade of yemen's air and sea ports and that within twenty four hours humanitarian supplies would resume arriving in her data where around eighty percent of yemen's food imports are delivered as well as via united nations flight to the

capital sanaa on thursday u.n. officials still weren't totally sure when they'd be given access to restart bringing supplies to yemen we were told that litigation received the system. so we could in the applications for the quest for the ships to come into the boards and also for flights to come into the political in c.d.o. to some also to bring it to us stocks so we would think things are normal procedures to get more out of line and we will play those plays in those in the mood for the recent opening of the ports as well as notifications it of the actual operational costs not. other aid workers have told ages either they welcome the saudi announcement but don't believe it goes far enough yemen the most impoverished country in the middle east is facing a number of crises. a cholera epidemic that has seen over nine hundred thousand suspected cases since april the largest outbreak ever recorded and the u.n.

says seven million people are on the verge of famine and that severe acute malnutrition is in danger in the lives of almost four hundred thousand children plus the latest danger an outbreak of the potentially fatal disease diptheria is threatening children and elderly in the central city of. not just human is it is said things are actually. the fuel shortage in the countries that he says you know . we want to try meeting the fuel is a comedy of this openness by the senate ghoulish and to allude to operations that. now as the u.n. grows yet more concerned and a humanitarian crisis becomes even more dire yemenis in desperate need wait for answers and aid. does either. alex develop is the executive director of the world peace foundation he told us earlier the international community has failed in its response to yemen yemen is the famine the crime of our

generation it is the destruction of an entire country true gradual degradation of its economic infrastructure its social welfare infrastructure the deprivation of food it's not as though the deliberate intent of the saudis and the reason that allies has been to create starvation but the way in which they have conducted the war has had that foreseeable result and their priority of conducting the war in the way they want to has consistently over written any humanitarian sensibility even up to today and clearly. unless nature so may not only to bring in urgently military assistance to open the port to open the airports to be sure to revive and rebuild the health care infrastructure but also to to rebuild the basic economy this is going to be a disaster that will last

a generation if the united nations declares famine in a particular place it does cause a humanitarian outcry it does call cause international agencies to say we must and to does generate publicity but there are no legal mechanisms there are no political or legal obligations on any government to act to prevent famine and this is clearly a shortcoming over many decades we have seen huge progress in overcoming famine in fewer famines less lethal famines and then in the last year or so that progress is being reversed because of the callous indifference of a number of governments around the world. two of the new syrian opposition groups have agreed to form a fifty member delegation that will attend next week's u.n. sponsored talks the agreement came during a conference in the saudi capital they also renewed their demand though for the resignation of president bashar al assad and condemned iran's role in the conflict accusing it of destabilizing the region told us as russia or announced it may

reduce its military forces in syria let me think that riyadh is one of several diplomatic efforts aimed at ending the syrian conflict we've got sochi in russia where president putin has been hosting the leaders of iran and turkey the kremlin wants to see assad support a political solution in the hands and it has planned a conference next month to try to achieve that but observers say it's unlikely outside would negotiate you've got as we say the next round of u.n. back to talks to begin in geneva that's tuesday and also in the cars like the capital the latest round of talks between opposition groups and government representatives scheduled for early next month the major outcome there has been the creation of the four so-called deescalation zones inside syria mohamad chatah is a professor of conflict resolution at george mason university we spoke to him on the news he said the agreements in russia actually raises complications for the geneva tolls. the question we should ask is what influence or what the

real power mr de mistura has in bringing an twistin some using all the possibility towards the same time we have. or the meeting that becomes like a precondition step before geneva at the same time and the other question that we also should we should also entertain is how far the russians the turks and the iranians are helping the geneva process so unfortunately the geneva process is. being challenged more and more because we have a major crisis within one we have the political crisis about syria and who should with that said should remain in power or not you have the humanitarian crisis half of the put a population is i.d.p.'s or even here is that alone about half a million of casualties then you have the security crisis that is now being here

out of the by all of the regional and international powers i'm talking about isis so everybody is trying to maneuver or to handle one segment of the crisis from this and the fourth one which is woodson in the or making it more difficult for journey of. their time if occasionally of the latent cold war between the regional powers between the saudis and iranians and turks. members of forty four families of the forty four crewmembers of a missing submarine a furious at the argentinian government as fears grow over their face the navy's announced a possible explosion was detected near the last known location of the plan but the vessel still hasn't been found. an emotional scenes of the. place where relatives are gathering many accuse the government of deliberately keeping them in the dark and letting the crew operate a submarine that was too old to navigate. you know the submarine wasn't found but

they say it's three thousand made his beloit. don't tell you anything that's why i say. they are wicked and have manipulated us they knew about it. covering this story for us from him. although nothing has yet been confirmed the news being relayed by the arjun sign naval or thor it is is looking increasingly grim for the forty four members crew members of the submarine the ira some one which disappeared which lost contact with your thor it is now more than nine days ago the naval spokesman there with the cable t.v. came out to say that they had received off information that an abnormal singular short violent no new killer event that was consistent with an explosion had been received has not spoken about the fate of the forty four crew members after that news was relayed to the family members some of them came out to say they were very angry with the arjen final authority first of all for taking so long to bring this

information to light and secondly about not being told anything any confirmed information about their family members that they are now many of them earing the word in the meantime the two search and rescue operation involving aircraft ships and undersea rescue equipment from at least nine countries is still going on in rough waters in the south atlantic around the spot where communication was last heard with the submarine something like four hundred thirty kilometers off the southeastern coast of argentina as they say information means the hopes and expectations are increasingly dire but nobody is giving up just yet until that information has been confirmed almost eleven the hundred migrants were rescued just on wednesday in the mediterranean sea by various a groups coast guards and patrol boats the german cherokee see watch so it's boats are now on their way to italy with two hundred fifty four refugees the group includes

a newborn baby picked up with its mother after being delivered on a rubber dinghy. libya is of course one of the main transit countries for migrants and refugees trying to reach your but many who are heard it on to those boats never make it across the med instead they are picked up and returned to libya without the lad reports now from a detention center in tripoli. these migrants were rescued by libya's coast guard in the mediterranean and brought here to this detention center in the libyan capital tripoli now they are from civil african countries and they say they have fled war poverty and unemployment in their countries some of them say they have nothing at all to live on in their own countries they have taken a tough journey through the desert and they have paid people smugglers to get to libya to try to cross the mediterranean to europe authorities here say that these

migrants add more pressure to the already troubled local economy the migrants are being taken care of by authorities here they also have to go through medical check and the international organization for migration helps deporting those who want a voluntary return to their countries with security and financial collapse in libya human trafficking and smuggling have become a groom trade not only african migrants who risk their life but also many libya locals paid people smugglers to get to europe through the mediterranean despite european efforts to monitor the mediterranean this crisis does not seem to be ending any soon until order and stability prevail in libya. for many migrants trapped in libya or often sold into slavery and rwanda's government is saying it will offer some of the refuge government simon didn't exactly say how many refugees would be willing to take there are hundreds of thousands of africans traveling

through libya often held by smugglers and forced to work for little or no money the libyan government is pledged to investigate those allegations that the migrants are being sold off. from the head of the presidential council to the interior ministry and the department working against illegal immigration dealing with this issue they have been instructions to form an investigative committee to find the truth and capture those responsible and take in the courts to be punished and the news ahead we look at why a statute in san francisco's chinatown a straining relations with the city in japan plus. music and three hundred fifty years now in the make the man trying to keep parts of the new york hold the line.

from cool brisk nose and fuel. to the warm trying to this of southeast asia. hello it's getting surprisingly wet in southern china once again we've had for couple of days rain focusing in the southwest you nine and where we've got great hard this a bit of snow or two but largely we're talking rain a lot of it and there's more rain still barreling into the coast of vietnam in housing the still existing flooding but if anything the rain might edge bit further east or form if you like further research hong kong's involved sixteen degrees but a wet sixty it's wet in land a long way as well thirty degrees in shanghai and a dry picture a cloudy one but this wind direction is wrong for this time of the year we should be seeing the northerly come back it's just temporarily taking a break to the south of that to the active wet season is very obvious big white clumps of cloud where the heaviest rain is now has been concentrated in singapore malaysia southern thailand recently malacca shows an example of hundred twenty

eight millimeters so now that i think in the last twenty four hours and that's a substantial about around even for the wet season there's more to come in the same sort of area with more of a concentrated i think developing concentrated in circulation a job or a lack equally bring a lot of rain in the next days or. that remains the monsoon have not gone to why the northeast breeze picks it up the concentrated rays like to be in sri lanka. the weather sponsored by qatar and always. one day for a rival to country club and they decide to play god. and if you can castro said to show you i shave you from good. bread source cubans are in this magnificent state a chronicle of the revolution and its aspirations through the prism of its architecture cuba's unfinished space at this time on al-jazeera.

you're with al-jazeera these are i had lunch the un says saudi arabia has not followed through on its promise to lift a two week blockade on yemen's international airport and a major seaport it had said it would reopen. the border today to by thursday the u.n. says the blockade is any worse and yemen's humanitarian crisis saudi backed syrian opposition groups have a very deforming fifty member delegation that will attends next week's u.n. sponsored talks in geneva. but i've also demanded the resignation of president bashar al assad during a conference on syria's future in riyadh. and the argentinean navy says

a possible explosion was detected near the last known location of a submarine that disappeared more than a week ago families of forty four missing crew members are furious at the argentinean government the fee is growing over their fate. now the first images. robert mugabe and his wife grace have been released since the form a zimbabwean leader resigned on tuesday my god he's been granted immunity from prosecution under a deal brokered as part of his resignation security and political forces sources have told al jazeera the agreement guarantees his safety in zimbabwe and it means he won't be going into exile as a mcgarvie wants to die in his own country the leader of the main opposition party the m.d.c. the movement for democratic change is cautiously welcoming the incoming president. my expectation is that. there's a lot of the must demonstrate that the nation is in the. main in the

mall this is. what we are poised. to. form of the. solution. for that. because you will. hear that if it were the country the reality is the stock market has lost six billion dollars in its main index some forty percent just since wednesday when the military sees power which led to mcgarvie stepping down people hope that who will be sworn in on friday can turn this economy around more from farming to my life anyway what w.'s been making cabinets coffins and doors and go to monsey for more than twenty years business is not always been great but it's worse than ever now the carpenters says a point kaname and political upheaval means rising costs and customers with less

money to spend i think. things will be james. no. it wasn't for. the. bin. you know the president things will be i think we'll be ok the small town like many others in rural areas is in desperate need of development a single tarred road runs through the town center there's no running water and not everyone has electricity many years say government economic policies meant to help the poor have been ineffective often only benefiting the political elite most people here farm and sell vegetables to make ends meet with about eighty percent of zimbabweans unemployed and many have few options some have stayed while others have left some bar where looking for work alongside the market shift but unlawful search for a pair of shoes for a living. i've got a wife i've got children. but look at my job what i'm doing after more than three

decades with one president there's no promise of change but many here wouldn't speak to us on camera believing it's not safe after years of political oppression in private they did say they want peace along with economic recovery and store to political freedom small to emerge overnight who can make policy changes. and courage investors invest. property rights property rights. very discouraging. investment for. job creation. most of the bracing is a plan and when emerson when god why is sworn in on friday but many zimbabweans are wondering whether a new face will bring meaningful transformation always it will be more of the same . al-jazeera borrow money zimbabwe. made in ma and bangladesh have signed

a deal for the repatch reaction already in jet refugees it is hoped this will now allow those refugees to go home once their work is completed by bangladesh but we've got more than half a million ranger who fled the army crackdown in rakhine state just in the past three months scott hyder has the details from yangon after days of negotiating bangladesh's foreign minister abdul hassan mahmud ali and myanmar leader on song suchi reach an agreement on a repatriation plan for the ranger who fled rakhine state over the last three months the memo of understanding was signed in a foreign minister level working group created as the leaders reached agreement some of the hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled the violence spoke of their concern about how the repatriation will work. i don't think we did they discriminate against us because we are muslim and rango if they accept us as running is and give us full citizenship and allow us to live in peace and harmony then we will consider returning obviously the fight we have really suffered they

have committed so many atrocities against us killed many of my family members been to homes and taken our land if they give us equal rights citizenship and security then we will consider going back added pressure on myanmar to move forward with the red crisis coming from washington a week after his visit to the country u.s. secretary of state rex tillerson called the army crackdown in rakhine ethnic cleansing that's the first time the troubled ministration has used that description in his first visit to the capital neighbored or last week to listen call the events in rakhine as just horrific he also said an impartial independent investigation is needed. russia's ambassador to me and maher says the ethnic cleansing label is unhelpful and an independent investigation is not acceptable for me. so many and gone i agree but now i'm waiting on you when you know in my opinion the statement by the u.s. secretary of state is one sided he's meddling in our country's affairs. even though

repatriation agreement has been reached it's not clear how quickly the refugees were turned to myanmar not to mention of they'll be going back to the villages they were a victim from or even if many villages which were left in flames still exist it's not hard to al-jazeera yangon. the most costly tropical cyclone in u.s. history where wind and flooding caused the two hundred billion dollars worth of damage nowhere was that devastation felt more than in iran's county in texas john hendren is there in the town of fulton. one reason so many people remain homeless three months after hurricane harvey struck is that there's no place left to put them take this hotel for example it would be a good haven for a lot of people but the roof is blown out the rooms are destroyed and it's in about the same condition it was when the hurricane hit and you can tell that people left in a hurry this is an x. ray from a medical proceeding someone left behind in a room and to give you an idea of how selective those hurricane winds are in the

room next door everything was blown out of that room except laying on top of a dresser as if it had been completely untouched by the storm was one of those magnetic hotel key cards we talked to a number of people who have been left homeless since that storm hit this woman had spent three months in a tent camp. it's dirty. if it weren't for the contributors but the donation was probably would have to shelter clothing offer clothing guiro and. as such it's not the most ideal situation to be living in it's called a fact comfortable. but at least it is shelter. a number of people have been living off the donations of well wishers since the hurricane struck but one thing we found on this thanksgiving holiday was that people said although they have less to be thankful for they are more thankful of what they have somehow to her again seems to have crystalized what matters in their lives. now

a decision by the city of san francisco to recognize the memorial to women forced into sexual slavery by the japanese women in military and world war two has strained ties with its sister city of all suck up the statue was part of a long running effort by activists to shed light on a dock tap that and the history of the conflict rob reynolds has the full story. the statue in san francisco's chinatown neighborhood shows three somber young asian women holding hands while an older woman looks on from below. activists say it symbolizes the hundreds of thousands of women and girls mostly from korea who were abducted and enslaved in imperial japanese military brothels before and during the second world war eighty nine year old young so levy is one of the few surviving so-called comfort women she was kidnapped from korea at age

fifteen and forced to work in a brothel in taiwan where one woman would be forced to have sex with as many as one hundred or more soldiers every day. activists in south korea and the united states say the government of japan has not issued a sufficiently sincere apology for that brutal war time treatment activists have set up dozens of similar memorials around the world angering the japanese government. the comfort women issue has been deviled japanese south korean relations for decades despite repeated efforts to agree on an acceptable apology and reparations for survivors now it has damaged u.s. japanese friendship as well the mayor of osaka japan's second largest city severed its sixty year old sister city relationship with san francisco mayor hero for me oh she morris said san francisco breached trust with osaka by officially accept. the

privately funded memorial as city property he called the decision japan bashing japan's prime minister shinzo abbay has called on south korea to remove similar memorial statues but south korean president. has refused moon also cast doubt on a twenty fifteen agreement and to settle the comfort women issue saying the korean people cannot emotionally accepted a traumatic legacy of war echoing down through generations robert oulds al-jazeera funny one of the oldest pipe organs in the united states may not be restored in time for its one hundred fiftieth birthday next year it's on the money to repair the instrument which is in new york city in the men's oh is the music director at the patrick's auld cathedral he's also become a mechanic trying to keep the pipes in tune. i'm gerald manzo i'm the director of

music here at the basilica of st patrick's cathedral in new york city. this organ was built by a man named henry urban back in eight hundred sixty eight and i like to think it was his finest work. it was boyce for this room he designed it for this room and that's such an important part of why this organ special. it's a wonderful combination of visual art and also sonic r. . and has almost two thousand five hundred pipes it is all mechanical so you can see how everything works so here we are inside oregon. down here we have the bellows and they go all the way underneath the instrument and they go up and down and. there is no electricity and eight hundred sixty eight

telegraph had just been invented in the little square so when i press down on a pedal air goes inside here and plays that no. the organ right now has some issues there are little things that happen but since it's mechanical i can go back there and fiddle with it and get it working again and have a lot of these around because this happens all the time when mechanical issues it's a lot of work it's done and all of those tens of thousands of services this played . now are approaching its one hundred fiftieth anniversary next year we're launching a fund raising campaign to preserve this instrument for future generations. it is a huge project but we want to conserve it as best we can with as much of the original materials as possible that's a wonderful connection we have with the past it's like this organs spoken to people

hundred fifty years ago and it speaks to us now with this beautiful town. maria these are the headlines on al-jazeera the u.n. says saudi arabia has not followed through on its promise to lift a two week blockade on yemen's main international airport and a major seaport it had said it would reopen the port and the port of had a device thursday the u.n. says this blockade has worsened humanitarian crisis. saudi backed syrian opposition groups have agreed to form a fifteen member delegation that will attend next week's u.n. sponsored talks they also demanded the resignation of president bashar assad during a conference on syria's future in riyadh but stepping down will not be a precondition for negotiations meanwhile russia has announced it will reduce the number of its troops by the end of the hear the argentinean navy says

a possible explosion was detected near the last known location of a submarine that disappeared more than a week ago many families of the forty four missing crew members are furious at the government accusing them of keeping them in the dark. you know the submarine wasn't found but they say it's three thousand mages beloit say no they don't tell you anything that's why i say. they are wicked and have manipulated us they knew about it. almost eleven hundred migrants were rescued just on wednesday in the mediterranean sea by various a groups coast guards and e.u. patrol boats the german charge sheet seen watch says it's boats are now on their way to italy with two hundred fifty four refugees a group includes a newborn baby picked up with its mother after being delivered on board one of those rubber dinghies and the first images of robert mugabe and his wife grace have been released first since the former zimbabwe in the resigned on tuesday mugabe's

been granted immunity from prosecution under a deal brokered as part of his resignation security and political sources have told al-jazeera and guarantee the safety in zimbabwe i mean he won't go into exile they say mcgarvie wants to die in his home country those are the headlines here on al-jazeera inside story is next. russia's plan to end the war in syria after six years of fighting is the kremlin now in the diplomatic driver's seat and is the white house taking a backseat.