resources is already a source of heated debate nothing much has changed they still spend most of their days looking forward to full drive this one five years on the syrians still feel battered or even those who managed to escape their country have been truly unable to escape the earth. spoke to him he told me he was thinking of going to syria. to see syria's fighters up close and personal but those behind the camera pay the price filmmaker. chillingly intimate footage on and behind the front lines cost him his life his body was good and exclusive documentary series the last assignments at this time.

a u.s. judge rules that saudi arabia can face lawsuits from families who are accused of helping to plan the nine eleven attacks. also ahead another departure from the. veterans affairs secretary a south korean delegation heads north to a truce village for talks they hope. by a historic meeting in beijing several people are killed. family are demanding answers.

hello a u.s. judge has rejected saudi arabia has been to dismiss lawsuits which allege that it helped plan the nine eleven attacks the court in manhattan found that it has jurisdiction to hear the cases which have been filed by victims' families the saudi government has long denied involvement in the attacks in which hijacked planes crashed into new york's world trade center the pentagon outside washington d.c. and into a pennsylvania field nearly three thousand people died mike hanna covering the story joining us from washington d.c. so this is a development in what is still likely to be a very lengthy legal process mike. a lengthy process indeed what the judge has found by what he said was a very narrow margin is that he does have jurisdiction to hear this case brought by survivors and victims of those killed or injured in the nine eleven attacks the

judge was the same one who heard a similar case back in two thousand and fifteen and threw that particular case out saying that individual u.s. citizens could not bring legal action against foreign countries however he made very clear in his judgment on this day that this was changed by the justice against sponsors of terrorism act passed by congress in two thousand and sixteen which does permit u.s. citizens to bring cases against foreign countries should they suspect them of aiding or assisting terror attacks within the us itself but certainly there's a long process to hear this judgment likely to be appealed by lawyers for saudi arabia also. the act itself passed by congress may will be the subject of appeal it was strongly opposed by the obama administration at the time it was passed for congress along a legal route still to be wondered so what are the next steps after this particular ruling. well it all depends on the timing of various things whether these appeals

come in quickly were they to the judge decides to set to actually begin the hearing you've also of course got to have the process of discovery lawyers for the plaintiffs have made very clear that they want documents obtained from the government of saudi arabia obviously that is the thing that a process that will take time and have within it its own legal ramifications so certainly not imminent this case beginning a number of legal issues to be settled before it will and one must remember too that it stalled for the judge to set a date to begin this process of hearing on the basis of what he said is a very narrow decision indeed ok mike hanna thank you for staying in the u.s. and president donald trump has replaced yet another senior member of his team veterans affairs secretary david shelton is the latest to go he is the second

cabinet secretary to leave over a travel expense controversy around else has more from washington. the resignation of veterans affairs secretary david jochen was predicted for weeks even months before now it is been noted that president trump does have the habit of letting people who he has lost confidence in in terms of senior officials dangle slowly in the wind for some time before finally letting them go silken had fallen afoul of the press and the president when reports surfaced that he and his wife had taken some expensive european travel on the taxpayers' dime travel that looked a little bit more like tourism than the ship policymaking he also had required some senior official aides to run personal errands for him and that sort of thing so sulking is out and he's going to be replaced by the president's personal physician the rear navy rear admiral a doctor ronnie jackson ronnie jackson is not

a person who has any experience in running a huge bureaucracy which is the case in the the veterans affairs department is actually the second largest department in the u.s. government second only to the pentagon that is but dr jackson seemed to have made a positive impression on president especially when he gave a very optimistic and rosy assessment of the president's personal health both physical and mental in a after a presidential checkup in january this at a time when some commentators were raising questions about the president's physical and mental stamina and fitness for his job so just a little over twelve fourteen months in office the president has gotten rid of one secretary of state two national security advisers one white house chief of staff a senior economic adviser secretary of health now secretary of veterans affairs as

well as the numerous other figures who. or at lower levels in the federal government or in the white house this is a level of turnover unprecedented in any other administration prior to president trump taking office and it is said that trump likes to surround himself with officials who he personally gets along with deals friendly with who agree with him and who look good on television let's not speak to jeff houser in washington d.c. he's the executive director of the revolving door project with tracks executive branch appointments at the center for economic and policy research so you must be tracking this with a lot of interest jeff houser give me your immediate reaction to the removal off david soul can. there is so much chaos in the trumpet ministration that it definitely makes tracking it very very difficult this is

a move in which somebody who had committed some relatively serious ethical transgressions for a normal ministration in secretary shock and is being replaced by somebody with. be honest no qualifications for the job for which he is being nominated dr jackson might well be a fine personal physician and all accounts he is a fine physician but he is not capable of running a health care system that is designed to treat nine million of america's veterans of foreign wars of just service in the military and it's very irresponsible of the president to choose somebody on the basis of his personal relationship and his view that the guy goes on t.v. and says nice things about him and he's replacing someone in shock and whose ethical problems are honestly pretty middle of the road for the trump ministration which has a number of similarly ethically challenged officials who have been abusing the

federal money to take trips that they should not be taking and to be giving their wives or spouses all sorts of extra benefits shock and was no worse than the average member of the tom's cabin in that regard but he was more competent and unfortunately so that is the million then see the exit so what is the what is the the appointment of ronnie jackson then mean for these departments as a whole. so the big difficulty that choking was having is that most of the official republican party wants to privatized the v.a. that is take the v.a. which is essentially a single payer health care solution to provide medicine to nine million veterans and they wanted to make that more like the rest of the american health care system which is a pretty bad system and the v.a. as it's currently constituted is actually very popular with veterans and veterans

groups and so trumpets for still hold on to shock in this thus far jackson probably his appointment means that we're going to move in the direction that big republican donors have been seeking which is to start privatizing the and that's why veterans groups have been expressing tremendous just. they're very upset with this change in personnel and bring in somebody who's a totally untested manager probably bringing pretty radical ideas right jeff hauser thank you for joining us out of d.c. thank you. two days after the historic meeting between the chinese and north korean leaders a delegation is on its way from south korea for talks in a truce village inside the demilitarized zone that separates the two countries they left seoul not long ago they're expected to finalize the details of kins meeting with the south korean president next month. a riot has broken out of jail inside a police station in venezuela tear gas was also fired at

a group of family members demonstrating outside the facility in cariboo state there is a mandate to know what happened to the prisoners dozens of inmates are thought to have been killed but there has been no official word on the number of dead or what sparked the violence asunder and patsy joining us live from bogota in neighboring colombia any more clarity on what exactly happened. well there really not much in that yet the least that we've spoken to local journalists and n.g.o.s are working inside prisons in jails in venezuela according to the information they've got a looks like a number of inmates inside this jail at the police at the state head police headquarters in the city of valencia allegedly assaulted the police officer officer earlier in the day this started the riot that then eventually

sparked this fire that could have killed a number of people there there's no confirmation how many people have died in the fire the an official numbers go from at least six to more than sixty in which case this would be the worst riots in the history of venezuela but as you were saying in your introduction there hasn't been any official confirmation on part of the police nor part of the minister of prison services in venezuela who is the person finally responsible for what happens in minutes well as jails and prisons it is not an isolated incident leandro it's not an isolated incident so why is why have we seen so many riots in prisons recently in venezuela. we've seen a number of riots and especially in the last couple of years it has to do it

specially with overcrowding and just the appalling miserable conditions even with which many of the prisoners that live and also the shortages that also president of had to go through a given the economic the worsening economic situation in venezuela last year in a different riot thirty seven inmates were killed and fourteen policemen injured some of them very seriously and this was just the biggest one of a number of incidents that happened in prisons in minutes and also human rights defenders in the country say that many of the prisons are also under the fuck so the fact of control of gangs that have access to automatic weapons and essentially decides who is also moved from one prison to the other so really appalling see conditions in these prisons prisoners of also said that many times they don't have a place to sleep even on the floor there's no place that they asked to just stand

for four days so these situations have essentially created the circumstances for many riots and this could have been the case in this latest one in the city of violence and when the sun very impressive thank you. still ahead on al-jazeera polls have closed the counting began in egypt the winner is a given but the strength of the president's mandate is still in question and the u.s. government a question about citizenship to the next census prompting accusations off a republican power grab. by the springtime flowing of a mountain lake. to the first snowfall on the wind tuesday. hello again as we look at the weather across southern and eastern parts of china

it's generally still looking fine for shanghai down through fuzhou to hong kong and taipei but we have got this area of rain across more eastern areas it does tend to die away as we head into friday at about stage it should be fine across a good part of vietnam maybe want to see showers across last may a motto is also looking largely dry and fine thirty six the high in yang gong down into southeastern parts of asia and here there are relatively few showers across the philippines should be dry for many places manila sunny and highs thirty to few showers of machine expect across borneo but again a good deal of dry weather and then for java bali towards east timor cherry weather conditions not looking too bad such a conscious should be quite bright at times of the chance they'll thunderstorm but i think thirty three and sunshine the order of the day moving up through them in a pinch of weather conditions generally looking good here too and certainly through friday should be dry in bangkok but notice that she rain across more northern parts of cambodia across into south asia and it is really hot here at the moment ahead of the monsoon and no sign of the heat breaking at least the time being temperatures

for about six degrees higher than they should be in delhi at thirty seven degrees and you come southward still plenty of heat here with but one port in hyderabad seen temperatures in excess of forty. the weather sponsored by cattle and race. conflict standing seven years. humanitarian disaster displacing more than half the nation. on just zero world meets the children who have become victims of syria's civil war. i am a syrian child. zero. hello

again the top stories on al-jazeera u.s. judge has rejected saudi arabia's bid to dismiss lawsuits which allege that it helped plan the nine eleven attacks the cases have been filed by victims' families the saudi government denies any involvement in the attacks u.s. president donald trump has replaced another senior member of his team veterans affairs secretary david chalke and is the second cabinet secretary to leave over travel expense controversy trump wants to replace him with his white house doctor ronnie jackson. a south korean delegation is on its way for high level talks with north korea in the demilitarized zone that separates the two countries they're expected to finalize the details of kim jong un's meeting with south korean president next month.

the. polls have closed in egypt's three day election and few doubt the president top in fact the has c.c. it will have a landslide victory voters were given an extra hour to cast their ballots as part of an effort to boost turnout as hashim had about a report some egyptians were promised money for their ballots. and you will be paid. three dollars it's because. to cast ballots as government of a low turnout grow state media police officials. to try and prevent. trucks distribute sugar and cooking oil in poor areas businessman people free rides to go to polling stations. the government's using the carrot as

well as the stick to boost turnout it just shien's choose to stay way risk being fined. and mr weber abstains from casting his vote with no justifiable reason faces a fine of twenty eight dollars it's our duty to ensure the law is implemented a country that respects the law president of the fatah has sisi has bed for reelection is almost unchallenged fear is a low turnout will be widely seen as a sign of growing discontent among the people senior army officers visited polling stations across the country they insist the election went smooth and the turnout is higher than reported by the media. but even if the turnout is low sisi is expected to trounce his opponent. the little known

politician who announced his bid of the last minute sis is set for an easy win but is likely to face many challenges during his second term critics dismiss claims by sisi supporters who say his the right man for egypt and his help improve the economy some analysts say the vast majority of egyptians are worse off the biggest challenge for him right now i think is the economy if you look at some of the macro level indicators like g.d.p. and foreign reserves things seem to have improved for for egypt over the past two years particularly since they enacted tough economic reforms encouraged by the i.m.f. but on the micro level life for the average egyptian has actually gotten a lot more difficult because inflation has increased dramatically presidencies he

said repeatedly that if we elected it's going to be his final four year. but he's already pushing for constitutional changes to pave the way for the general turned politician to run full of. al-jazeera gunmen have a talk to hotel in central mali killing at least one person and injuring two others it happened in the town of daraa five been reportedly approached the entrance and opened fire witnesses say a soldier and two hotel workers were it's oakley's time people are dead and others are missing after a rebel attack in the north east of the democratic republic of congo it happened on the outskirts of the city of beni in a region beset by violence involving the allied democratic forces armed groups and people living there say the government has abandoned them mariana hong's has more. for because sookie has had enough of broken promises promises of protection

promises from the congolese president that the killings will lean who must. come take our houses have them since you're unable to protect us your priority is to look after the rich not us poor people you have to fill your contract killing us just do what you want now we're tired of killing us. her home is a burnt out ruin and two members of his family a deed after elijah democratic forces rebels attacked a village of cacique in the middle of the night residents put up barricades but not for protection this isn't protest i.d.f. rebels have killed more than fifteen hundred people in the region and less than four years they accuse president joseph kabila of failing to protect them and want u.n. peacekeepers and the congolese military to keep them safe but i beat up on a limited set then the army general was here last night and then the enemy came to kill us how do we explain the situation someone needs to tell us something about

the iraq president has filed in the us by building plans he succeeded on his plans to kill civilians. the rebel group was formed in neighboring uganda back in the ninety's eventually moving to the d.l.c. after a failed bid to turn uganda into an islamic state the brain and. national party the twenty years but it's in the last four that they have cemented they refute a shoe in for brutality killing hundreds of civilians as well as mess rape and recruiting child soldiers. around four and a half million people have been displaced by fighting with rebels as well as interest nick violence seeking refuge in camps like these the united nations describes the situation in the democratic republic of congo as a forgotten crisis so serious and on such a scale that the un's humanitarian chief mark lowcock visited just two weeks ago to

get the world to take notice the u.n. warns millions will starve if they don't get help but president kabila is grappling with his own crisis they've been antigovernment protests after he refused to give up power when his two terms in office came to an end two years ago the. catholic church holds a lot of sway in the d.s.e. and church leaders have called on the faithful to keep up the pressure on could be to hold promised elections but as long as the political tumult continues there is little prospect of security and stability improving maidana homed al jazeera malala yousafzai has returned to pakistan for the first time since being shot in the head in two thousand and twelve malala is expected to meet with top pakistani officials the nobel laureate was attacked by taliban gunman for her work supporting girls' education she recovered from her injuries in the u.k.

in two thousand and fourteen she was awarded the nobel peace prize. there are conflicting reports about who's in control of the northern syrian town of telegraph writes turkish troops have been closing in on it since taking the city of our freedom from the kurdish y p g ten days ago the turkish president ross attire burdwan says his forces will continue to move east as far as members to push out why p.g. fighters who he says are terrorists cynicus who has more from istanbul. turkish officials have told me that white beaches withdrawing from tel rafah but they underline that there is no military operation as an offering on the other hand why p.g. has denied all these statements that they are withdrawing from tel rafah to the town which they cured from the syrian opposition groups in early two thousand and sixteen what we understand is that there is a deal between russia and turkey over this strategic town of northern aleppo but

this time told her father is going to be more different compared to our friend because often there were boots on the ground at the f.s.a. and the turkish military but in tell her father it is more about the plastic and the political talks between two sides both russia and turkey also turkish foreign ministry undersecretary who will be in washington d.c. on march thirty to talk about by later all issues and also about going operations in northern syria so probably we are going to be hearing more detailed information within the coming days about the strategic town of northern on that it is very strategic for all parties in syria because it is a strategic transition straight across syria so if you take tel referred under control you are controlling the east west route also the area between aleppo and bob. elsewhere syria's military is preparing for a final push to take what's left of rebel held areas in eastern of damascus the

army says and launched an offensive on the northern town of duma that some of us the rebel group which controls it agrees to surrender to the south buses carrying civilians and fighters have left for hama province as part of an evacuation deal brokered by russia they've arrived in the town of. where the sickest and most vulnerable people have been getting medical treatment the man accused of killing six muslim worshipers at a mosque in eastern canada last year has changed his plea twenty eight year old alexander be so net originally pleaded not guilty to six counts of first degree murder and six of attempted murder the former university student now admits his guilt to avoid a trial he said that stormed the québec islamic cultural center in january two thousand and seventeen and shot at people gathered for prayers he faces at least

twenty five years in prison several u.s. states are suing the trumpet ministration over what will be included in the next census they're arguing against a question which asks people if they are u.s. citizens many say it's not a way to understand the makeup of the country but rather an attempted power grab she has written see reports from washington d.c. . some twelve states say they will sue the trump white house to prevent it from asking a question about citizenship on the twenty twenty u.s. census but the administration insists it's only all skinks because it's concerned about ensuring the future of voting rights of minorities this is a question that's been included in every census since one thousand nine hundred sixty five with the exception of twenty ten when it was removed and this is we've contained this question that's provided doubted it's necessary for the department of justice to protect voters but not only was the new u.s. census in one thousand nine hundred sixty five the last time

a similar question was asked was in one nine hundred fifty the u.s. census has been carried out every ten years since seventeen ninety its findings are used to get a true picture of the people of the united states and affect government business social research and beyond federal government spending on vital state services and infrastructure is dependent on the count the census bureau already knows its undercounting the u.s. is population its own research shows the reason is mistrust particularly among immigrant communities which already feel under attack by the government under mounds or worked of a census bureau for five years it's always an issue whenever the government is requesting information from people who reside in the country and it's not just immigrants that are affected there is distrust of government at all levels at all such economic levels and graphically across this country how do you reassure the public that there's nothing untoward going no political interference exactly because. an undercount in u.s. states with large immigrant communities will have funding consequences for all

citizens in such states whether republican stronghold texas will staunchly democrat california there is a clue to the motivation for this census change the investigative organization pro publica found that the request for the questions inclusion was drafted by a lawyer. gore was defending redistricting maps that were challenged. by opponents of racial gerrymandering essentially drawing districts so sort of slice up certain commune news in ways that would be favorable to the republican party under the constitution the u.s. is political districts are drawn up as a result of population size and not citizenship so if districts with large immigrant populations are under counted in the census they will lose seats in congress and these districts are often not always democratic strongholds ethnically diverse cities and states will lose representation predominantly white areas may

gain and that may be the key for a republican party keen to neutralize the u.s. is changing racial demographics in future elections. washington. headlines on al-jazeera u.s. judge has rejected saudi arabia's bed to dismiss lawsuits which accuse it of helping plan the nine eleven attacks the case says have been filed by victims' families the saudi government denies any involvement in the next mike hanna has more from washington. the same judge heard the case back in two thousand and fifteen a similar case but threw that one out of court he made very clear in his judgment today that the difference is the act passed by congress in two thousand and sixteen the justice again sponsors of terrorism act which does allow u.s.

nationals to bring action against foreign countries they believe may have assisted acts of terror within the united states u.s. president donald trump has replaced another senior member of his team veterans affairs secretary david soul can is the second cabinet secretary to leave over travel expense controversy trump wants to replace him with his white house doctor ronnie jackson. a self korean delegation is on its way for high level talks with north korea in the demilitarized zone that separates the two countries they're expected to finalize the details of kim jong meeting with south korean president next month this comes just days after can surprise visit to beijing where he met the chinese president xi jinping there is been a riot at a jail inside a police station in venezuela tear gas was also fired at family members demonstrating outside the facility kara bobo states they're demanding to know what happened to the prisoners dozens of inmates are thought to have been killed but

there's been no official word on the number of dead or what triggered the violence the gunmen have attacked a hotel in central mali killing at least one person injuring two others it happened in the town of daraa five men reportedly approached the entrance and opened fire malala yousafzai has returned to pakistan for the first time since being shot in the had six years ago she's expected to meet top officials the twenty year old was attacked by the taliban those are the headlines on al-jazeera inside story is coming up next they with us.

a surprise silence between.