you stand the differences. and the similarities of cultures across the world. al jazeera news has never been more enviable but the message is a simplistic and misinformation is rife listening post provides a critical counterpoint challenging mainstream media narrative at this time on al-jazeera. i think them and i think it's terrible you want to know the truth i think it's a disgrace a controversial memo in the trunk campaign a rush is released and across washington both sides claim vindication.

hello i'm down this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up dozens of pakistani migrants afia drowned after their boat capsized off the coast of libya. protests in kenyatta a mock inauguration of opposition leader plus. is a cesspool of flu. right now the u.s. suffers its worst flu outbreak in a decade. a memo criticizing the f.b.i.'s investigation into russian meddling in the twenty sixteen presidential election has been released after being declassified by president trump was written by republicans and says the f.b.i. and department of justice abuse their power and showdown to trump bias while investigating the alleged ties between the campaign team and the kremlin well the

f.b.i. had argued against its release saying it had grave concerns the document contained what it called material missions of fact in a statement the agency's director christopher wright told staff he stood by them democrats say the members and directing the special counsel robert muller's investigation into the trunk campaign's alleged links to russia white house correspondent kimberly hellcat reports. republicans promised a bombshell that would destroy any idea the trump campaign colluded with the russian government during the twenty sixteen presidential election but in the end he did not meet expectations president trump declassified the memo written by top republicans allowing for its public release even against the advice of his own f.b.i. director and the u.s. justice department. the four page report which is part of a larger intelligence document argues f.b.i. investigators looking into alleged truck ties to russia hit the fact some of their

research was funded by democratic party sources it also claims the entire investigation was biased against donald trump from the beginning and that some agents expressed views privately and i think it's a disgrace what's happening in our country and when you look at that and you see that and so many other things what's going on. a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves but democrats argue the memo is simply a summary of republican talking points based on in accuracies house democratic leader nancy pelosi says it's all part of a plan to distract americans from the russia investigation led by special counsel robert mueller and alleged truck campaign ties to president vladimir putin's government in a statement she said president trump has surrendered his constitutional responsibility as commander in chief by releasing highly classified and distorted intelligence by not protecting intelligence sources and methods he just sent his

friend putin a book a trump himself made the argument on twitter prior to the memos release that leadership at the f.b.i. and justice department are out to get him some analysts believe that's more evidence trump is actively obstructing the investigation if you look at the words out of mr trump's own mouth the very incriminating he said repeatedly i need somebody in the justice department who will protect me it's doubtful the memos released will change public opinion about the russia investigation still there is now an effort by some democrats and republicans to literally protect the russia probe from what many believe is a white house effort to derail the justice process kimberly held at al-jazeera washington. well millan the sloan is a former federal prosecutor who specializes in government ethics she says the white house appears to be drawn to distrust the public with the release of the memo i

think they're getting increasingly frightened about what robert muller is up to there have been other stories this week about bob mueller honing in on the pattern of the administration in trying to engage in a cover up we saw stories about the president's spokesperson hope picks saying that e-mails would never come out and we saw that in a previous spokesperson mark carollo had resigned because of his concern about obstruction of justice so i think that the white house is has that's all going on on one side so they'd much rather distract all of us with discussions about this memo which people who hadn't seen it said it would be one hundred times worse than watergate but yet as jim comey pointed out really there's nothing in it there's nothing new or particularly in lightning in it and so by the same token i think people will now say the people who support trump well see we've got this memo and this memo shows us how corrupt it is and i think a lot of people will never have looked at the memo or have no understanding about what's in it the democrats are going to vote to push

a vote again on monday about releasing their own memo and late this afternoon the white house said if it goes through attempted appropriate process there could be a way to release it but i think that that may be stalling for time to avoid actually having to release the memo so we'll see what happens with the democrats vote on monday. the u.s. military says it will modernize its nuclear weapons arsenal in response to concerns of a russia's expansion of its capability a new strategy unveiled by the pentagon and the obama in a push to reduce america's stockpile the defense secretary james mattis says the u.s. needs to see the world as it is not as it wishes it to been a defense correspondent particle hain reports from washington. u.s. president donald trump never criticizes russian president vladimir putin but the pentagon is doing just that moscow retains a large stockpile of non-strategic nuclear weapons and continues to modernize those as well as its strategic systems this report says aggression from russia concerns

about china and north korea and potentially iran are the reasons the u.s. needs to modernize its nuclear weapons and it's changing the wording on when it could use them saying the u.s. could use nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the u.s. what's new is they added this line extreme circumstances could include significant non nuclear strategic attacks the military was asked to clarify what that means it would that also involve the employment of biological weapons against the us population or allies would involve the use of chemical weapons against our people would involve a conventional task in other parts of the world the context in which an attack occurred on the united states or allies would be how we would evaluate the appropriate response the plan also calls for modernizing the nuclear arsenal that's something the last administration wanted to do and at the time they said it was going to cost more than a trillion dollars over thirty years this plan would undoubtedly be even more

expensive and that has not been something that congress has been really willing to fund at this point. u.s. also wants to build a new kind of weapon a nuclear warhead with less impact but critics say that could make nuclear war more likely they are literally having weapons that give the president more options to start a nuclear war and that is it could be dangerous piggly we have this president who we all know is impetuous irrational and not always unsound mind recently three high ranking former diplomats went to capitol hill with the warning that the massive destructive force of a nuclear weapon was no longer appreciated or even feared by some in those days people seem to have an appreciation of what would what would be the result of a nuclear weapon it ever used i fear people have lost that sense of dread the u.s. under president trump is trying to improve its nuclear arsenal and the potential

reasons to use it they say in order to improve the odds it won't have to political gain al-jazeera washington a former u.s. state department official simon the mob says the renewed emphasis on these types of weapons is troubling. i have no doubt that the professionals at the department of energy department of defense in the state department who analyzed those threats in developing the nuclear posture review had very good and important information were i defer with the final product that was rolled out the south after noon is it's. case that low yield nuclear weapons have any stabilizing or valuable role to play in today's today's threat context in fact i would make the opposite case that there is no real such thing as a surgical nuclear strike on a potential enemy i also have observed that over the last ten to twenty years there

is some very strong and compelling can conventional alternatives to a potential nuclear strike so this renewed emphasis on these types of weapons is troubling and does not leave our allies i think in a very strong position and i don't see how it compels china whose threat i think is somewhat overstated and certainly russia to alter their calculus. dozens of pakistanis are feared to have drowned off the coast of libya they were among more than one thousand people in a boat which capsized in the city of seawater only three people are known to have survived trying to cross the mediterranean and reach italy the limit doors on the international organization for migration he says the boat was probably overloaded. you know the weather was calm so that's indicating that indicating that the smugglers who are cavalier to say the least how huge lee overloaded this first so this is just really what happened and we need to get the word out to people

desperate people around the world who think they're coming to a better life and they're reading about it on social media that it's not the case at least two people have been killed and nine hundred injured in a bar odds of rocket attacks on towns on the turkish border with syria. turkey's government says the rockets were fired from a kurdish enclave inside syria it's been more than two weeks of intense fighting in the area since turkey launched an offensive to clear it of syrian kurdish forces known as the white turkey says the white b.g. is a terrorist group. and the y.p. g.'s accusing turkish crack fighters of mutilating and filming the corpse of a female kurdish fighter pictures of the victim are circulating on social media she is understood to be a member of the all female kurdish women's protection unit put it seen by al-jazeera appears to show free syrian army fighters standing over her body in a village near the turkish border meanwhile local media say air and artillery strikes in eastern guta have killed five people including

a child further north an airstrike hit a vehicle carrying a family trying to escape the fighting in aleppo southeastern countryside believe seven people were killed some of them children. there have been protests in kenya after the government arrested a second lawyer involved in tuesday's mock inauguration of opposition leader ryan loading the protesters clashed with police in the capital nairobi a lawyer maduna maduna was taken from his home in a dawn raid the government's also still preventing three private t.v. stations from assuming their broadcasts catherine sawyer has more from nairobi. it's four days and there's three television stations a steal off despite a court order for resumption of services until a case that has been filed by a human rights activist is hired and determined in the next two weeks we also know that three journalists went to court to block police from arresting them they've gotten some reprieve the court has ordered that they should not be arrested until

their case is determined and very early this morning police raided and arrested one of your position of politicians he's called me konami poor very fiery he's a self declared leader of this national resistance movement which is a movement that was started by the opposition coalition by odenatus opposition coalition a last year to push for lesser reforms through a peaceful resistance that movement has now been declared by the government as an organized criminal group i'm not a lawyer t.j. could administer this oath who presided over this more inauguration of ryan on tuesday and was arrested by police and wednesday has been released he set to appear in court next week and will be charged with administering an unlawful also all these creating a lot of consigned here in kenya with salsa since statements from the african union

we've seen statements from the european union and the u.s. condemning both loading does the swearing in and this media shut down for a time for a short break in our knowledge zero when we come back the global push to get some of that chunk of thirty five million children not getting an education back into the classroom plus. i'm wayne hay in the town where we'll tell you about a chinese mega project that's causing through here that the lao government hopes will help open this landlocked country of. how the weather slushy set fair for the middle east over the next few days it was a little more cloud and two were turkey that will slide is why a little further east words i see a little bit of cloud just watery sunshine coming into the levant then as we go on

through saturday nine hundred and by rotating celsius there for jerusalem elsewhere the sun will be quite brightly twenty celsius there for baghdad and also for kuwait city and similar values as we go through sunday by sunday northern parts of iran casea a little more clad in little less cloud into syria lebanon jordan inside first not likely to back over the next day or so with some pleasant sunshine plenty of sunshine across the radian peninsula but it's on the chilly side just twenty two celsius with that keynsham all winds continuing to blow hard here in doha twenty two over the next couple of days actually a little more cloud there just around southern parts of vermont but i think it will stay largely settled and sunny so you say settled we could do with the right for cape town no sign of that in the forecast for the forseeable future twenty four celsius here some of the value there for durban but a little more cloud still a chance of some showers creep in the way into that northeastern corner of south africa zimbabwe seeing some showers over the last few days was that over the next

few days with rain for mozambique. journey through memories by sri lanka's civil war. divisions and mental wounds still run deep. as a once exiled tamil guerrilla struggles to comprehend how things went so wrong. demons in paradise a witness documentary at this time on al-jazeera. for

a time for a quick check of the headlines here the f.b.i. director christopher ray has told his staff he stands with them after the u.s. congress released a memo saying the f.b.i. and department of justice have abused their power democrat seven members aimed at the reigning the miller probe into russia's alleged links to the trump campaign. the u.s. military says it will modernize its nuclear arsenal because he's worried about russia's expansion of its weapons capability the new strategy unveiled by the pentagon and is the obama era push to reduce america's stockpile. of dozens of pakistanis are feared drowned off the coast of libya they were among more than ninety people on the boat which capsized in the city of swat only three people on them to survive they were trying to cross the mediterranean to get to it and. now a un report has accused north korea of earning nearly two hundred million dollars last year by exporting ban commodities around the world pyongyang's accused of supplying weapons to syria and me and our exporting coal to

a number of asian countries and of getting help to set up front businesses and bank accounts under un sanctions north korea is forbidden to export coal lead textiles or seafood the sanctions are designed to limit funding for its nuclear program. the french president says education is the most important way to ensure security and progress he's been speaking at a conference in the senegalese capital as part of the global push to have every child in school by twenty thirty but as nicolas. only half the money needed to fulfill that goal has been pledged. they came to the conference of beat hoping donor countries would take the right steps and pledge more money to children's education because two hundred thirty four million children worldwide are out of school half of them are young girls. it is a former australian prime minister she heads the global education partnership a platform to mobilize funds to get children back to school she says funding from

door to countries has stagnated in some areas of africa it's dropped here trying to get the world community to let's solve the global learning crisis let's get the quarter of a billion children. into school and let's lift the quality of education for hundreds of millions more who are in schooling but i don't learn to read or write or do any math because the quality currently. world and african leaders came to the stage promising to make education a priority in the audience are children affected by the education deficit here and their advocates among them visually impaired from south africa she says these are all empty promises. well you can do that same situation with a little with our. very early on they are not given the opportunity to

lead the same situation again but chill with disabilities will be excluded from a good case and they won't have. enough trained teachers to defeat in the classroom it at fits of what he teaches the global education partnership school was to raise four billion dollars for the next three years with a commitment of two point three billion dollars the pledges have increased but they're still short of the target. big promises like these have been made before but have been left on for films now african and other developing countries are stepping in to ensure that their children can go to school. more than fifty developing countries announced they would increase their public expenditure for education to one hundred ten billion dollars. this is an unprecedented move developing countries are increasingly less dependent on western donor agencies and this for many at this conference is worth celebrating nicholas hawke al-jazeera the car. nationalists in the french region of corsica calling for big demonstrations

just days ahead of a visit by the president emanuel the area was once home to a violent separatist movement but recently those wanting greater autonomy from paris have taken their case to voters and as david chaytor now reports the having some success. in the full independence may still be a distant dream but nationalism has found a renewed force on this island the yeah. not so long ago just singing the course can national anthem was enough to get you beaten up by the french police here now the islanders are demanding official status for their language. expression of course you can roots was rapidly merge with the expression of political demands so the singing became hard for the political authorities to accept and not only the french but also some corsicans were supporters of great

affronts the confrontation then became violent extremely violence very extreme and . the brutal struggle for corsican independence lasted for four decades before weapons were finally surrendered three years ago the political fight to the ballot box is proving much more successful. a coalition of nationalists now commands forty one out of the sixty three seats in the corsican assembly one of their key demands is for the return an amnesty of what they call their political prisoners held in jails across france you can supersede this some say. what happened in the election last december was an earthquake it wasn't just the usual renewal of they are simply the corsican people revolted by an absolute in my yard for corsica nationality that's the fact there are thirty seven parties have to think about. but the nationalists have already served notice on president macron

warning him that unless he starts listening to them then hard and conflicting times lie ahead for paris and corsica course was the birthplace of napoleon the man macrorie is most often measured against in terms of his youth and grand visions the french president is due on the island next week will he choose a compromise will he defend the integrity of france and its language david chaytor al-jazeera corsica about ten thousand people have been told to leave their homes in argentina due to heavy rains and flooding the deluge sent a wall of mud and they began the cool calm my rhythm sultan out in the northwest forcing some residents to be plucked to safety officials said the river rose six meters out of the expected to continue rising over the coming days. and in bolivia at least six people have died following severe flooding in santa cruz off at least fifty thousand people have been left homeless after days of heavy rain the hardest

hit areas are near the southern border with paraguay and argentina. now laos is investing billions of dollars in a high speed rail line being built by a chinese company to run from the union in southern china to the ocean capital of the n.t.n. before eventually connecting with another line being built in thailand in the third installment of our series global trade routes al-jazeera is wayne hay reports for the long run in laos. these normally quiet previously untouched hills of northern laos and they are filled with the sights and sounds of heavy construction around the turn of the one problem rapid progress is being made on a chinese built high speed train line it will cut through here and cross the mekong river on its way from southern china to the lao capital vienna. the communist government of law says it wants the landlocked country to become land linking beijing sees this project as

a key part of its belt and road infrastructure plan linking china with the rest of asia europe and beyond when this line is completed it will run for more than four hundred kilometers more than sixty percent of which will consist of bridges and tunnels that makes it a very expensive project one that some say laos can't afford experts worry it will add to the government's already heavy debt loads the cost of the project is six billion dollars with most of the money coming from chinese grants and loans this is significant because. it is only folk involved in theory i'm so close to fifty percent of g.d.p. in this project we would be in five years time so that in an experiment. of public investment just for this process. one of the stops will be just outside long providing which is a unesco listed talent for its unique lao and french architecture there is concern

the new project will attract too many tourists putting a strain on the town's facilities and infrastructure. that many people and small businesses here survive off the tourism industry so the prospect of more visitors spending money is welcomed. about three years ago there were more tourists but now there aren't as many so we are earning less money so we're looking forward to the train. happening. some studies have found that china will receive most of the economic benefits from the large project it's involved in around the region laos is one of asia's poorest countries so when the railway is finished by late two thousand and twenty one it will be hoping its beginning this moment will start paying off straight away wayne hay al jazeera long laos and in the final part of our global trade routes series we'll be looking at the planned trans african railway line that will connect west africa with the east even

watch that on sunday. u.s. police have charged a man who allegedly sold armor piercing bullets to the last vegas gunman douglas haig is accused of conspiring to manufacture and sell the ammunition without a license fifty eight people died when stephen patton opened fire on a country music concert in las vegas in october the massacre was the deadliest shooting in modern u.s. history haile sold seven hundred twenty rounds to public in september but his lawyer says there were no modifications made to the bullets mexico's foreign minister says his country's relationship with the u.s. is closer under president donald trump than with previous administrations the receiver to get away was speaking alongside his u.s. and canadian counterparts he said that despite the u.s. and mexico's well known disagreements there working relationship improved he also called them venezuelans to find a peaceful solution to the ongoing political crisis a day after u.s. secretary of state rex tillerson raised the prospect of

a military uprising. well the u.s. is experiencing its worst flu outbreak in a decade fifty three children have died this winter flu related hospital admissions at an all time high health officials are urging people to get the flu vaccine despite questions over its effectiveness kristen salumi reports. hospital emergency rooms across the country are inundated with sneezing coughing sniffling patients in atlanta georgia grady memorial hospital opened a temporary mobile emergency room and closed in plastic tents to handle a twenty five percent increase in visits in the month of january the flu this year has been dangerous our volume in the emergency department has reached such a critical number and not only us but our inpatient colleagues we really need to bring in an additional resource the very old in the very young are the group that tend to be in the most danger from catching the flu is a cesspool of flu a cesspool of funky flu at the e.r.

right now in florida one tired nurse posted this now viral video after working a twelve hour shift as watch this i'm going to teach elementary trick it's. her advice is simple cover your mouth when you sneeze or cough wash your hands and avoid bringing healthy people to the emergency room the u.s. centers for disease control says the hospitalization rate for flu is at an all time high this year with forty nine of the fifty us states reporting widespread flu activity still the scale of this outbreak is dwarfed by one which occurred one hundred years ago this month one of the deadliest in history in one nine hundred eighteen spanish influenza spread around the globe in the aftermath of world war one over a period of two years it killed tens of millions of people globally including six hundred seventy five thousand in the united states alone this flu strain may not be as deadly but the national institute of health is still advising americans to get

a vaccine even though a canadian study found it was less than twenty percent effective we should point out that even though the vaccine is less than optimal it's efficacy that the small to moderate amount of protection you get against influenza by getting vaccinated is always better than no protection at all by not getting vaccinated that's very clear with as many as ten more weeks left to this flu season u.s. health care workers are looking for all the help they can get kristen salumi al-jazeera. is going to request recap of the headlines here on al-jazeera the f.b.i. director christopher ruddy has told his staff he stands with them after the u.s. congress released a memo saying the f.b.i. and the department of justice have abused their power democrats say the memos aimed

at directing the mulla probe into russia's alleged links to the trump company. the u.s. military says it will modernize its nuclear arsenal because it's worried about russia's expansion of its weapons capability the new nuclear strategy unveiled by the pentagon ends the obama era push to reduce america's stockpiles. dozens of pakistanis are feared to have drowned off the coast of libya they are among more than ninety people in a boat which capsized off the city of. only three people are known to have survived they were trying to cross the mediterranean to get to italy. at least two people have been killed in one thousand injured in a barrage of rocket attacks on towns on the turkish border with syria. turkey's government says the rockets were fired from a kurdish enclave inside syria as well in order to weeks of intense fighting in the area since turkey launched an offensive to clear it of syrian kurdish forces known

as the white b g turkey says the white b.g. is a terrorist group they've been protests in kenya after the government arrested a second law involved in tuesday's mock inauguration of opposition leader ryan loading the protesters clashed with police in the capital nairobi where lawyer megumi guna was taken from his home in a dorm raid on friday the gunas stood beside him when he proclaimed himself the people's president to protest last year's election three private t.v. stations that are planned to broadcast the event remain a fan despite a court ruling allowing them to resume operations. and a un report is accused north korea of earning nearly two hundred million dollars last year by exporting band commodities young is accused of supplying weapons to syria and meanwhile exporting coal to a number of asian countries and of getting help to set up front businesses and bank accounts under un sanctions north korea is forbidden to export coal i am led

textiles or seafood. the sanctions are designed to limit funding for its nuclear program well those are the headlines the news continues on al-jazeera after risking it all stage and that's a little better. news has neither the new i think but the message is a simplistic and misinformation is rife listening post provides a critical counterpoint challenging mainstream media narrative at this time on al-jazeera. itself and in the morning on the river that forms the border between what's a model of mexico these men and women come from salvador honduras and nicaragua they're crossing the river into.