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former south korean president park good hey is sentenced to twenty four years after being found guilty of abuse of power bribery and coercion. oh it's all wrong and you're watching avs there are lots more headquarters here in doha also coming up palestinians prepare for protests after israeli forces killed twenty one people along the gaza border in the last week. also former south african president jacob zuma arrives in court to face trial on corruption charges over a multi billion dollar arms deal plus. but in this particular instance the arsonist wishes to investigate the same fire a heated exchange between london and moscow at the u.n. meeting over a nerve agent attack on a former russian spy. welcome

to the program we begin with breaking news out of south korea where the former president park geun hay has been found guilty of abuse of power and coercion now the decision was made after the chief judge read a lengthy statement outlining the eighteen charges against parg park has not attended the proceedings which were broadcast live let's cross over now to kathy novak who is outside the court house in seoul of course the eyes of the country on the capital guilty as charged i mean what else did the judge say. well the prosecutors had been asking for thirty years the judge gave her twenty four it still must be said this is a hefty sentence against this former president who was swept up in really the biggest corruption scandal to hit south korea this really captured the nation's attention months of mass protests in central seoul and these proceedings were

televised live for the first time because the court found there was enough public interest in doing so and that this was a significant case pocket hey was found guilty of sixteen of the eighteen charges against her including abuse of power coworkers and bribery and leaking presidential information to her longtime friend shill shit did not have any official government role but was said to be meddling in state affairs and also used her presidential friendship to ko worst major companies into making a mess of donations to two corporations that foundations rather that she ran and that is where the bribery accusations came in park was found to have accepted bribes from major companies including samsung and this was a very convoluted set of cases chest and she'll herself was sentenced to twenty years in prison over this scandal separately the head of samsung the de facto head j. wiley was sentenced to five years because of the bribery allegations and then later

released on appeal so this really as i say captured the public's attention and people were angry at what was seen as these links between the most powerful companies in south korea and the president so those that had been protesting for months as part of those candlelight protests i imagine would be satisfied with this heavy sentence against parkin hasten him of course waiting for reaction of course both from the opposition and pro park supporters after this verdict kathy but what it does not suit perhaps show is that lawmakers now perhaps have to try and find a way of reforming the constitution to try to put more limits on presidential powers console really about presidential power and what a president can get up to when they're in the blue house. absolutely this has been the biggest corruption scandal to sweep the nation but it is far from unique in fact every former president of south korea since the one nine hundred

eighty s. has faced some kind of corruption scandal either directly or because of allegations against their family members and when you speak to south koreans particularly elderly south koreans i think when this country was facing economic hardship there was a bit of an acceptance that maybe not everything was always above board when presidential decisions were made in order to improve the economy and for the good of the country but now south korea is in a very different position the economy is doing much better and there is more of a public expectation that people in power both in the corporate world and in the political word world should do the right thing and that's what we saw with that people power movement protesting against this corruption scandal involving cochran hay and now the current liberal president came into power promising to stamp out that sort of corruption promising reforms and now he has been proposing a set of constitutional reforms that are designed to limit presidential power to

change term limits for example so they need parliamentary approval and the idea is that they would ultimately be put to a popular vote to try to shift some of that power out of the hands of the president so both of them believe that coffee and come back to full reactions through the day thank you. now the trade standoff between the world's two largest economies is escalating us president donald trump has ordered his administration to consider imposing an extra one hundred billion dollars worth of tariffs on chinese goods that beijing responded by saying it would pay any cost and hinted at new measures to safeguard itself if the u.s. didn't back down american goods including soybeans the biggest u.s. export to china now just before the threatening further tariffs against china transpose of his desire to straighten out trade issues in many respects i think

we're going to have a fantastic relationship long term with china but we have to get this straight now we have to have some balance and that goes for other countries and it goes for other places if you look at the european union it's very solidly against us in terms of trade it's very unfair look at a younger shaking her head yes you know about the european union it's like it's almost we can't even do business they send their cars over here they send everything over here we don't want to take our product. so we can't let that happen where every brand has more from beijing. well within hours of president trump effectively threatening a third round of tariffs against china the response from beijing was angry and swift president trump said he'd asked his trade representative to determine whether one hundred billion dollars worth of further tariffs were warranted and if so where those tariffs should be applied well a few hours later a statement appeared on the website of china's commerce ministry and it warned that

china was ready to pay any cost in any trade war with the united states and its spokesman went even further google me far if the insist on unilateral reason and the trade protectionism against the wishes of china and the international community we will fight to the death at any cost we will resolutely fight back and take new measures and protect the interests of our country and the people well just a day ago of course the united states had sought to try to lower the temperature with china saying the threat of more tariffs was simply the next step in the negotiating process now we are back to the brinkmanship on friday china's state media which of course is controlled by the communist party sought to portray china as the victim saying trump was simply trying to stop china's rise and the media had another blunt message china doesn't do surrender. now south africa's former leader

jacob zuma has just arrived in court to face charges of corruption these are live pictures coming out of the courtroom in where those proceedings will begin shortly he faces money laundering fraud and racketeering charges it comes just two months after he stepped down from the presidency the allegations are connected to a multi billion dollar deal almost two decades ago and we're going live to durban once we can hear how those proceedings began live pictures coming out there from south africa. to south america where brazil's former president luis in asio lula da silva is considering his next move after a judge issued a warrant for his arrest i supporters of gathered outside the metal workers union building in sao paolo has retreated with some of his political allies but he has until five o'clock on friday local time two

hundred self into the police after the country's top court ruled he must begin a twelve year jail sentence for corruption one of his closest allies former president dilma rousseff spoke to the crowd. oh. it's a political persecution aimed at putting him behind bars and i want to tell every one of you gathering here that i'm sure that president luiz inacio lula da silva is an honest strong and brave person and that he will know how to face this moment with courage and serenity of an innocent man. now the prospect of jail time could deal a fatal blow to lula's plans to run for a third term in october's presidential election latin america editor lucien human has more from the capital brasilia. barack obama described lisi nationally as the world's most popular president the left wing little worker rose to become a global example for others who dream of lifting tens of millions of people. from poverty. two presidencies were haunted by corruption allegations they never

stuck hence his reputation for having a teflon shield but with the supreme court's decision to send him to prison while he appeals a twelve year corruption sentence it's clear the shield has crumbled the messages you all are equal all the piece off legislation that you have. the law so now we are talking about the former president to morrow we can be talking about the current president paymah or even the future president list legal team said it would request a series of injunctions to block his arrest warrant hoping to buy more time but judd said joe was quicker on the draw he said that out of respect for the former president he would allow him twenty four hours to present himself voluntarily to federal police in the city of where he is supposed to serve his sentence if he does

not go then he says federal police will go out to arrest him given brazil's complex legal system anything could happen in that time remains the most popular would be candid ahead of october's presidential elections. will be in you with the best president in brazil's recent history it's not fair to end things like this. with lula apparently out of the race the new frontrunner is an ultra right wing former military officer. and admirer of chile's former dictator pinochet. but the senator from liz workers' party insists remains a political force. this is on this very direct has an end leadership look at snowsill mandela he was twenty seven years in prison. lou did not immediately respond to the supreme court ruling but given his temperament it's safe to say he won't go down without a fight see

a new man al just see that brasilia palestinians are the problem for more protests along the gaza israel border prompting fears of more violence a week after the bloodiest day in years some are being gathering tires which they plan to burn and create a sort of smokescreen making it harder for israeli snipers least twenty one palestinians have been killed over the past week and more than fourteen hundred injured half of them hit by israeli gunfire the deaths have led to plan protests across the palestinian territories including the west bank and occupied east jerusalem let's join our correspondent bernard smith is outside damascus gate an occupied east jerusalem i mean what else can we expect today bernard. well we know so that we expect about fifty thousand palestinians in gaza to protest along the border to the fans following the first of those protests last friday that ultimately is now led to the death of twenty warm palestinians and an indication of

the pressure that the israeli or thora to seem to be and you can see by how much their message using social media messaging in arabic to reach out to palestinians in gaza particularly saying that the palestinian palestinians are being used as human shields by hamas this is what the israelis are saying they're putting out the pictures on twitter saying you know there's one picture of a row of burning tires there's one picture of greenhouses in the question do you want greenery or do you want pollution from fires so israel clearly under a lot of pressure particularly after the deaths from last week to explain itself and to explain its actions and it's this sort of messaging from from israel that we really haven't seen here before israelis used to dealing with rockets being fired over from gaza into israel and dealing with the sort of fallout from the international attention that has been brought to focus on guards again is something

israel is not hansa deal with for a long time and you can see a very different approach the israeli authorities are taking so we'll leave that in our burn of course and join you through the day thank you. still ahead here on al-jazeera a german call rejects an extradition request for ousted catalan leader callus believes the door open for spain to try again also shutting down schools was prompted teachers to the streets in some conservative american states to stay with us. and i springboard to spread pretty rapidly across all of europe now there's a bit of a talk back of cold weather coming through scandinavia here with this curl of cloud where i think for a time we're going to snow coming down to the middle of sweden the baltic states was talkin back down to about five as most places it's been pretty warm and just

not takes a not back when it starts to rain for example who crosses down to time two seventeen this is come friday we're still feeding more want out through iberia from africa to give twenty in paris again that's not back to about seventy as it starts to rain on saturday but who's going to complain the picture is very much a spring like with a lot of sunshine to come for this coming weekend given that most of the action is often constantly or there's not much going on the measuring is it is a secular nation here which means it's cooler in eastern libya and they were western side of egypt but warming cairo and obviously the clouds for a time shows itself in morocco and algeria now keeping it a bit cooler again a possibility of showers for the sas in algeria as well but the real rain is to the south of that throughout trough grafter reason some pretty big downpours in tanzania more recently d.r. congo and uganda and the green tops here show the heaviest showers.

right.

welcome back to al-jazeera i'm so robin a reminder of our top news stories south korea's former president park geun hye has been found guilty of abuse of power and coercion the court has handed her a twenty four year jail term for her part in the corruption scandal park who wasn't in attendance for the proceedings has been given a week to decide if she'll appeal against the ruling. also palestinians are preparing for more protests along the gaza israel border prompting fears of more violence a week after the bloodiest day in years at least twenty one palestinians have been killed over the past week and more than fourteen hundred injured half of them hit by israeli gunfire. and south africa's former leader jacob zuma has arrived in court and to face charges of corruption it comes just two months after he stepped down from the presidency and now the allegations are connected to a multi-billion dollar deal almost two decades ago let's get more on this with our

correspondent catherine sawyer catherine south koreans of course eager to see the outcome of a court case about their former president all south africans as interested about former president zuma trial. they're very interested so he'll this is a hugely hugely significant momentum many south africans are hoping that it's the beginning of actually really dealing with impunity in the country and many many supporters of jacob zuma i hear he arrived a little while ago for the start of this proceedings his supporters who are here in the thousands have been bashed from different parts of this region. where i. am zuma is a stronghold and people here are saying that he has been targeted unfairly so joining me. lynsay. he is a spokesman of black. political movement and also

a supporter of zuma thank you very much why do you think zuma should not be on the dock. two years now. and opposition has always been that it's a witch hunt against president jacob zuma because he is an exemplification of economic transformation which is underpinned by the free education which you let explanation without compensation and that the terms of the mind so an attack on jacob zuma is attack on the black majority of them at large. and we are going to continue defending him until the end we conned stop talking about his many many scandals this condos that have. in all his presidency i mean what are scandals. this case is about more than fifteen years old. commissions including the judiciary in this case out you must also understand that when it comes to this matter the arms deal was the m.d.c. in case it in. was the president of the deal that was

a national project if there's any one of these the positions of the time. it's got nothing to do with anything. it is to do with these dumb as an n.p.c. even. if he was guilty if there was any case to be put forward they should have put that case for fifteen years ago justice denied is no justice at all and backs of free trial it's well we must also understand the media and destroyed president jacob zuma they've made him out to be. sets out to destroy. relations now if we can. be moved. because he's proposed to be guilty. it means that people already think he's guilty so what can they. do to give him justice and fairness as. confirmation thank you and finally we have many supporters here the a.n.c. leadership has sort of distance itself from zuma from this trial and also said that

supporters like you to sell should not come with party symbols and party collars as well what do you say to that look here and she look i'm a member but there's something we must understand about the a.n.c. currently. and instruction to go over. that short to implant like monopoly capital every time she cute that works for white people now will tell you that the supporters the ordinary branch members of the mc and others like myself would want to block was gone without a girl in was my mother doing that much we do share some stellenbosch of you are what real waiting to should be exemplified a position that difference black people and different president jacob zuma as the embodiment of the black lead to smashes of this country thank you very much so so hale and from my understanding zuma will not be expected to take a plea today this is very much a preliminary procedural hearing the judge is expected to lay down modalities in

the procedure the case and then perhaps say that a date a later date is going to be announced for when the hearing actually starts and after consultation with the with the different lawyers so i think and from you know what led legal experts have told me this is going to take this is going to take a very long time it's a very complicated case it's going to be a lot of witnesses and i think a lot of new back and forth between some of the best legal minds in the country a lot of south africans are saying they are tired of waiting for answers this has taken drunk drugged on for so long that tired of waiting for answers and they hope that they will get the answers they need that will get their closure not after another ten or so years so he'll data when there are updates of course i will come back to you catherine so thank you. learned german court has rejected a spanish extradition request for catalonia is formally the colors more judges rule

that the rebellion charge that faces in spain is not a criminal offense in germany he's now being released on bail but could still be extradited on a lesser charge of misusing public funds and he's wanted over his role in the illegal referendum for catalonia independence dominic came has the latest from burnin. this decision by the german court means that mr bush will soon be able to walk free from the prison in norman to that he's been held in for more than a week now since being picked up by german law enforcement agencies on the twenty fifth of march he has to post a bail of seventy five thousand euros and he can't leave germany while the case is still active the point to make here is that this ruling states that the charge of sedition or rebellion is one that is not recognized in german law and therefore has been thrown out by the german court but the other charge that was prophet are going to miss the push the more they may have in bethel mt of the funds that we used

public funds that were used to allow what the spanish government considers an unconstitutional referendum to be held although this court ruling in germany suggests well that is grounds those are grounds for him potentially to be extradited but they say they need more information the question now will be what mr push them all does next he will emerge can emerge from the prison the earliest on friday then the question is what will he do next the deadline under the european arrest warrant scheme for his case to reach combination is in late may the question will be what he does next let's take you back to south africa live pictures from the court where the former president jacob zuma is in the courtroom waiting to hear the charges being leveled against him at a preliminary hearing where he is not expected to offer a plea that this trial which is expected to last several weeks if not months is all over a knob steel that he was involved with there but he is accused of benefiting from

nearly a decade ago of course we will continue to cover that court case here on al-jazeera in the certainly hours a day several weeks ahead. the diplomatic crisis between the u.k. and russia has moved to the u.n. security council where moscow's ambassador ward london that it was playing with fire russia had called for the meeting to refute accusations that it was behind the nerve agent attack or one of its former agents at his daughter our diplomatic editor james bays has more from new york. a greeting between the british and russian ambassadors but it was clear when the meeting started that is where the cold all relations ended russia called for the security council meeting to strongly reject u.k. allegations that russia carried out the nerve agent attack. because monday a dozen news noticable committed ladies and gentlemen i don't even know what to say

about this it's some sort of theater of the absurd could you come up with a better fake story we all know what the worth of british intelligence information is based on the experience of tony blair we have told our british colleagues that you're playing with fire and you will be sorry diplomats tell me they see this council meeting as part of a patten when russia has backed into the corner it goes on the diplomatic offensive we've seen fresh comments in recent hours on the soles pre-k. seen from foreign minister sergei lavrov and from russia's ambassador in london on wednesday russia called a meeting of the international body that oversees chemical weapons the o.p.c. w and brazenly suggested a joint investigation by the u.k. and russia the idea was quickly voted down but the british ambassador at the u.n. again referred to it using a very british literary reference the villain in the sherlock holmes books allowing russian scientists into an investigation when they are the most likely

perpetrators of the crime insoles be would be like scotland yard in fighting game professor moriarty so i don't think that's a tenable way forward instead i fear that the russian motive in calling for a security council meeting today is another step in the pattern of obfuscation and contempt for international institutions it was at the beginning of march in the british city has sold spree that the former spies surrogate script and his daughter . were incapacitated by a nerve agent known to have been developed by russia yulia is getting better an hours before the security council met british police released a statement from her it reads i woke up over a week ago now i'm glad to say my strength is growing daily i'm grateful for the interest in me and for the many messages of goodwill that i've received rusher in

the u.k. of painting very different pictures of who was behind the attack on miss script and her father the investigations by the u.k. authorities and by the o.p.c. w. are likely to be long and detailed but even when they report their final conclusions i think there's a strong chance russia will reject them james bags al-jazeera the united nations u.s. president all trump has invoked lines from his presidential campaign or see that off script during an event about tax cuts speaking in the state of west virginia he referred to a large group of migrants have been traveling through mexico in what's been described as a caravan trunk suggested that the group is besieged with violence and sexual assault similar to what he said in twenty fifteen when he claimed that mexican immigrants are rapists. now the president of mexico was quick to respond to transfer box and recap here in the eto criticized the president's anti immigrant

rhetoric and said whenever trump is talking with out there disrespecting disrespect comments he's ready to listen. then if your recent statements are the result of frustration due to domestic policy issues to your laws or to your congress it is then that you should turn to not to mexicans we will not allow negative rhetoric to define our actions like we will only act in the best interest of mexicans that is a myth. teachers in the u.s. state of oklahoma still have returned to their classrooms as they continue to demand more funding for public education hundreds of teachers parents and students are marching in the capital for a fourth straight day of a low paying tast room spending as governor signed legislation last week giving teachers a pay rise of up to eighteen percent but they say more money is needed politicians will hold a special session on friday to look at raising more money. you're

just there i'm still robin these are all top news stories south korea's former president park geun hye has been found guilty of abusing power and coercion the court has handed her a twenty four year jail term for her part in the corruption scandal park who wasn't in attendance for the proceedings has been given a week to decide if she'll appeal against the ruling south africa's former leader jacob zuma has arrived in court to face corruption charges these are live pictures coming out of that comes just two months after he stepped down from the presidency the allegations are connected to a multi-billion dollar arms deal almost two decades ago. brazil's former president luis and i see a little of the silver is considering his next move after a judge issued a warrant for his arrest supporters have gathered outside the metal workers union building in sao paolo where leader has retreated with some of his political allies

he has until five pm on friday local time to hand himself in to police after the country's top all ruled he must begin a twelve year jail sentence for corruption one of his closest allies former president dilma rousseff spoke to the crowd. i think. it's a political persecution aimed at putting him behind bars and i want to tell every one of you gathering here that i'm sure that president luiz inacio lula da silva is an honest strong and brave person and that he will know how to face this moment with courage and serenity of an innocent man palestinians are preparing for war protests along the gaza israel border prompting fears of more violence a week after the bloodiest day in years have been gathering tires which they plan to burn create a smoke screen making it harder for israeli snipers at least twenty one palestinians have been killed over the past week and more than forty eight have been injured half of them hit by israeli gunfire. a german court has rejected

a spanish extradition request for catalonia as former leader. judges ruled that the rebellion charge that faces in spain is not a criminal offense in germany he's warned over his role in the legal referendum illegal referendum for catalonia independence you can follow those stories on our web site at al-jazeera dot com back with more news in thirty minutes next it's inside story with the really do so with us. china's big brother is always watching home and abroad. one on one east investigates i know we'll go to control its citizens. this week the world's been honoring the memory and legacy of martin luther king jr but fifty years after his death how much progress have black americans made in the struggle to achieve racial and economic equality.