creative thinkers. future innovate africa at this time. what makes this moment. so unique this is really an attack on truth itself is a lot of misunderstanding a distortion of what free speech is supposed to be about the context it's hugely important. to publish it. to be offensive will provoke people to setting the stage for a serious debate. up front at this time on al-jazeera. i think that i think it's terrible you want to know the truth i think it's a disgrace. a republican accusing the f.b.i. of abusing its power as raises questions about the rush or investigation.

this is just there are live from doha also coming up. a u.n. report accuses north korea of earning two hundred million dollars from banned exports including arms sales. facing a new reality the u.s. pushes the case to modernize its nuclear weapons triggering fears of a weapons race. plus a freefall for digital currencies bitcoin loses a third of its value in the past week. the u.s. congress has released a republican memo criticizing the f.b.i.'s investigation into alleged russian meddling in the two thousand and sixteen election it was declassified by president

donald trump but documents says the f.b.i. and department of justice abuse their power and showed anti trump bias while examining a legit ties between trump's campaign team and the kremlin the f.b.i. had argued against its release saying it had grave concerns the document contained material emissions of fact democrats say the memo is aimed at the railing special counsel robert mahler's investigation our white house correspondent kimberly halkett reports. republicans promised a bombshell that would destroy any idea the trump campaign colluded with the russian government during the twenty six thousand presidential election but in the end it did not meet expectations president trying to declassify 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 campaign ties to present a lot of your 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. a confidential united nations report says north korea earned almost two

hundred million dollars last year by violating un sanctions the report to a security council committee says north korea supplied weapons to syria and miramar and shipped coal to countries including russia and china the un sanctions banning such exports are designed to limit funding for north korea's nuclear program. the u.s. military is modernizing its nuclear weapons arsenal in response it says to concerns russia is expanding its capability the new pentagon strategy ends the obama era push to reduce america's stockpile defense secretary james mattis says the u.s. needs to see the world as it is not as it wishes it to be our defense department correspondent i think i am reports from washington d.c. . 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 tack 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 becoming dangerous particularly when you 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 ever 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 former u.s. state department official simon limit by the renewed emphasis on these weapons. i have no doubt that the professionals at the department of energy department of defense in the state department who analyze those threats in developing the nuclear posture review had very good and important information where i differ with the final product that was rolled out the south after noon isn't. the 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 or russian warplanes have renewed as strikes on the rebel held areas of it lived province in syria at least seven people were killed when the car was hit in the lap of the opposition it live have been bombarded for weeks by syrian government forces and their russian allies jets also targeted the rebel enclave of eastern the coltan the the capital damascus government forces have besieged the area for five years

four hundred thousand syrians trapped there. another bombing by russian jets in italy provinces supporting a major offensive by syrian government forces it's aimed at recapturing a strategically important road between the cities of aleppo and damascus troops have been fighting opposition groups for weeks there moving northwest trying to cut off rebel supply line the road between the lapper and damascus connects some of the few remaining opposition held areas of syria. joining me now here in the studio director of policy analysis at the doha institute good to have you with us so how important is it in this battle to secure that road between damascus and aleppo i think it's very important very important for the for the government they have been trying actually to do that for the boss few weeks and. i would it mean for them if they control because that would actually open their major road actually between damascus and aleppo or. the government is you know i mean the last year there was

a big there was a big battle about about the but this is the second largest city of syria and the government by having this road opened it actually means that it has controlled almost the whole. that is along the way. of the country except of course of which is in the hand of the syrian opposition so that should be a very important target for the government what would it mean for the opposition stronghold in it but i think that would eat another. piece actually of land that they are controlling right now this is perhaps the only governorate of it is the only piece that is now at the hands of the of the opposition if you have doubt very important or captured by government forces i think that would deprive. a very important leverage here what about the deer the escalation zone agreement i mean

fighting is raging in some of these areas where it's not supposed to be but that's the i mean that there's the that is the big question right now because most people actually are questioning whether i mean these discreation zones are actually the of but today i mean there are some people who are in fact wondering if there is a tacit agreement between the russians and the turks whereas the russians would actually give the green light for the turks to act in again. kurds in exchange for the russians and russian allies actually to capture parts of this of this. the government of edward mainly adored between the mosques and the nearby could the turks let fall. here we're not talking about it we are talking about part of it mainly they're all between the mosques and the beast afford to in damascus and the liberal. mind the rebel position you are talking here also about the i take

it out to be is in the is symbolic i think there are there are maps some are talking about maps that are daily need thousand. pieces of this of this of this region as the regime and its allies might be acting east of of the real way between the mosque and ball whereas the wisdom bought of the real way would be still actually at the hands of the syrian opposition so here actually there are so many. we have to watch on the ground i saw always a complicated situation thanks for making it a little bit more understandable thank you well still ahead on al-jazeera the. minding their language how corsicans are finding their voice in another nationalist battle plus. i'm sorry reporting from about lost for edition in a rapidly disappearing culture of the people. by

the sky knowing the. world coast of the italian riviera. hello there we've had some very heavy snow over parts of europe recently in finland where we're no stranger to snow but we've had up to forty centimeters which is a lot for us to go and even in helsinki school a little bit of disruption there but it's not the only place we've seen some snow also in parts of spain we've seen some very heavy snow these pictures from the northwestern parts and snow isn't really a stranger to this part of the world but maybe this amount of snow is a bit unusual but we've also seen snow in the southeastern part of spain and across some of the barreling auric islands as well so clearly it's unusually cold for some of us here that the system responsible is this one and that's gradually edging its way eastwards and it's still going to be bringing us

a fair amount of snow over the alps there as we head through the day today further south we're likely to see more in the way of rain but even here there feel that warm towards the west well here we got some rain that's being pushed away and behind it going to turn fresher than it has been so the temperatures in berlin and london both for lng as we head into sunday and down over parts of spain the cold spell continues with more snow likely here that's also affecting us in the northwestern parts of africa as well we're seeing a bit of rain there work its way over parts of iraq over but it's not will our maximum and sunday is just an eleven degrees. the with sponsored by qatar. news has never been more enviable it's a constant barrage that they put every day but the message is simplistic you have been trained good logical rational person crazy months and misinformation is right dismissal and does not. accusation and evidence is part of genocide the

listening post provides a critical counterpoint challenging mainstream media narrative at this time on al-jazeera. or going back you're watching al-jazeera time to recap our headlines now the u.s. congress has released a republican memo criticizing the f.b.i.'s investigation into alleged russian meddling in the two thousand and sixteen election it says the f.b.i. and department of justice abuse their power and show trump bias the u.s. military is modernizing its nuclear weapons arsenal in response to concerns russia is expanding its capability

a new strategy ends the obama era push to reduce american stockpile of confidential united nations report says north korea and almost two hundred million dollars last year by violating u.n. sanctions the report says north korea supplied weapons to syria and me and shipped coal to countries including russia and china. so estimated at least nineteen drowned off the coast of libya a boat carrying mostly pakistanis capsized early on friday only three people are known to have survived told aid workers they were trying to cross the mediterranean and reach ten bodies. of washed up on shore leonard doyle from the international organization for migration believes the boat was overloaded. we know that the weather was calm so that's indicating that indicating that the smugglers who are cavalier to say the least hugely 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 palestinian leaders are due to discuss ending the oslo accords and suspending recognition of israel a palestinian president declared last month for peace agreements of nine hundred ninety three and nine hundred ninety five word dead mahmoud. to reject u.s. mediation after dawn trumps decision in december to recognize jerusalem as israel's capital mexico's foreign minister says relations with the u.s. so close around the president donald trump and with previous administrations louise says a working relationship is improved despite trump's attacks on mexican migrants and who pays to build a border war. mexico is calling for peaceful solutions to the crisis in venezuela after the u.s. secretary of state raised the prospect of a military our pricing was the only class in the duras been officially named as the

socialist party candidate for the presidential election in april he could extend his role for another six years of free elected opposition leaders have been jailed or banned from running for election they blame a dürer for venezuela becoming a dictatorship with a widespread shortages. doctors in the u.s. are trying to manage the worst flu outbreak in a decade fifty three children have died this wind and flu related hospital admissions are at an all time high people lobbying to get the flu vaccine despite questions over its effectiveness christine 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 amounts 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 police in the u.s. have charged a man for setting ammunition to the gunman who carried out octobers mass shootings

in las vegas douglas haig is accused of conspiring to manufacture and sell the armor piercing bullets without a license fifty eight people died when stephen paddick opened fire in a country music concert the massacre was the deadliest mass shooting in modern u.s. history hailed sold seven hundred twenty rounds to paddock in september his lawyer says there were no modifications made to the bullets. a muslim scholar tariq ramadan has been charged with rape in paris the oxford academic has been in police custody since his arrest on wednesday two women accuse the fifty five year old of rape in two thousand and nine and two thousand and twelve in hotel rooms in france he denies any wrongdoing and is suing for false allegations france's president emmanuel macron heads to the french island of corsica next week where nationalists are calling for more autonomy it follows their victory in regional elections in december planning

a large demonstration ahead of the president's visit david chaytor reports from jack c.l. . the full independence may still be a distant dream but nationalism has found a renewed force on this island the. not so long ago just singing the course can national anthem was enough to get 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 was 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 greater fronts the confrontation then became violent extremely violence the extent of.

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 as you can see persil to 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 you're ready for corsica nationality that's the fact there are thirty seem to think about you but the nationalists have already served notice on president macron warning him that unless he starts listening to them then the hard and conflicting times lie ahead for paris and corsica corsica was the birthplace of napoleon the man macro is most

often measured against in terms of his youth and grand visions the french president is jew on the island next week will he choose a compromise will he defend the integrity of france and its language if you change to al-jazeera course. 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 debris down the river and in the northwest some people had to be pulled from the rising waters rescuers say the river rose six meters and is expected to continue rising over the next few days. and in bolivia at least six people have died in floods in santa cruz rescuers say at least fifty thousand people are homeless after days of heavy rain the hardest hit areas are near the southern border with part of why and argentina. cryptocurrency is in

freefall with investors worried over a possible global clampdown the value of leading currency bitcoin plunged thirty percent this week sliding below eight thousand dollars for the first time since november of the virtual currencies of also posted big falls as regulators question their reliability india's planning to ban all crypto currency trading and facebook says it will no longer allow adverts for digital currencies just over a year ago bitcoin was valued at nine hundred two dollars and twenty six cents at its peak on the sixteenth of december it stood at just over nineteen thousand two hundred dollars but by the end of january it had fallen below ten thousand dollars martin bacharach's is a financial analyst he said bitcoins real value depends on investors' confidence in it as a currency for my money the bottom could be zero and the upward limit of the price could be anything in the trillions if you believe in this as a currency as

a real alternative two dollars or two yen or to anything else in the world then you could theoretically say that the price could be infinite because everybody would pile into it they would use that as a principle form of exchange and its value would never stop increasing if you don't believe then it doesn't have any worth it or the proprietary technology behind because it isn't any different than what we know in payment systems around the world in fact it's slower it's more cumbersome it eats up tons of energy there are all sorts of issues with this transparency that people have a problem with so from a functional point of view it doesn't have a great amount of value but function doesn't always translate into what people would pay for a modern day life is threatening the existence of a tribe in a remote jungle region of indonesia people in power blaming the government for not doing enough to help them step vasser reports from i got so on the plight of the earth month people. children in this remote part of eastern indonesia are dying of

disease and hunger and missiles are breakers claiming lives infecting children's bodies week from malnutrition decades ago the us my people were proud and feared worriers well known for had hunting and cannibalism those traditions have now gone and only on this play in museums but the rest of the tribes unique culture is also in danger of being lost when. there is a halo our culture must not disappear we have abolished bad traditions and are focused on the good parts of our culture we used to like killing and eating people that was clearly not a good sign of our culture but our sculptures our cultural festivals we need to protect them they can't disappear the bad things have been taken by the winners. modern day goods have replace what nature used to provide in the jungle instant noodles and ice cream are on the menu instead of baked forests are no longer a source for food city style garbage is seen everywhere here it becomes painfully

clear how a unique culture is rapidly disappearing instead of psagot trees plastic waste dominates the habitat of the us my people many say it's a sign that indonesia needs to act fast if it wants to maintain its diversity and preserve this centuries old culture because of the lack of good nutrition diseases spread quickly many children have died because medical post in remote areas are unmanned. church leaders estimate the figure could be in the hundreds but it's still why you. have the money and we have to realize that this tragedy is a very important lesson to us it shows how we have failed our brothers and sisters and not managed to bring welfare and health care to them it shows that a lot has to be done. church workers provide information to villages about healthy food but proper education facilities are seriously lacking we visited a school with only one teacher present the head of the school had not shown up for work for four years the government admits its approach has failed. in

what we found is that the services we provided were not enough they did not reach the right people and were not affective or it was the wrong approach altogether now we are discussing with several ministries to see what is the best approach that suits their culture at that level of development president joking we dawdle suggested relocating the more than one hundred thousand members of the tripe to a town but that was immediately rejected the government now says it aims to preserve the us might culture and provide the medical care and assistance needed for the people to survive on the land they have always known step fastened al-jazeera. let's take you through some of the headlines here on al-jazeera now the u.s. congress has released

a republican memo criticizing the f.b.i.'s investigation into alleged russian meddling in the two thousand and sixteen u.s. election it says the f.b.i. and department of justice abuse their power and showed anti trump bias the document was the classified by the us president. the u.s. military is modernizing its nuclear weapons arsenal in response it says to concerns russia is expanding its capability the new strategy ends the obama era push to reduce america's stockpile the report also says concerns about china north korea and potentially iran are reasons to improve the arsenal a confidential united nations report says north korea earned almost two hundred million dollars last year by violating u.n. sanctions the report says pyongyang supplied weapons to syria and miramar and shipped coal to countries including china and russia it's estimated at least ninety mine brits have drowned off the coast of libya

a boat carrying mostly pakistanis capsized early on friday only three people are known to have survived they told aid workers they were trying to cross the mediterranean and reach italy though the dial from the international organization for migration believes the boat was overloaded we know that the weather was calm so that's indicating that indicating that the smugglers who are cavalier to say the least hugely 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 russian warplanes have renewed airstrikes on rebel held areas of province in syria at least seven people were killed when a car was hit in aleppo the opposition in libya have been bombarded by weeks by syrian government forces and their russian allies jets also targeted the rebel long flavor of eastern water near the capital government forces of besieged the area for

five years four hundred thousand syrians are trapped there the news continues here on al-jazeera after listening post so stay with us. facing realities growing up when did you realize that you were living in a special place a so-called secret city getting to the heart of the matter is activists to live in jail just because she expressed herself hear their story on and talk to al-jazeera at this time. rushed to. the office and. say i am. getting a lot. of stuff i said i talked to him but it's a child i asked about the west.