sometimes it caught in the crossfire when rival gangs fight so parents and grandparents have started what they call a walking bust to try to take them to gang violence i lost my son looking wayland go i also lost my but there are more than one hundred fifty volunteers working for several walking busses teachers say it is working class attendance has improved the volunteers falso act as security guards inmates learning from other inmates acquiring knowledge that could set them free. through legal education classes and mock tribunals vegetation has led to stagger ing results you've been in prison with them yes these will rescind but that was a. teaching empowerment kenya part of the rebel education series at this time on al jazeera.

north korea says it will suspend new clear and miss out tests and shut down a test site. hello michelle without is there life and also coming up. new calls for an investigation into israel's use of force on palestinian protesters after four people were killed in friday demonstrations syria's government moves on the remaining rebel held parts very close to the capital. cubans contemplating new era with a president who isn't named castro. but we start on the korean peninsula where north korea's official news agency has

announced that it will stop all new there and intercontinental ballistic missile tests the announcement comes ahead of the meeting between north and south korean leaders in six days time reacting to the news u.s. president donald trump tweeted that it's very good news for north korea and the world let's go live now to our correspondent who's in the south korean capital seoul kathy novak and this announcement came a little over an hour ago and came as a bit of a surprise didn't it. it did it came out of meeting of the plenary session of the central committee of the workers' party which we're told by casey in a the north korean state media agency was chaired by the leader himself kim jong un and now and what appears to be a significant shift in his policy going forward about five years ago kim jong un had launched the signature policy where he had this jewel track of pursuing the nuclear weapons program of north korea and also promoting its economic development

and now what he seems to be saying is that the nuclear weapons program as far as he is concerned is complete and that will allow north korea to shift the focus to war and developing the economy when north korea was launching regular pace intercontinental ballistic missiles intermediate range ballistic missiles and also testing nuclear bombs last year it seemed to indicate that north korea had no intention of ever giving up its nuclear weapons that's was the assessment of many analysts so as you say this does come as a surprise but donald trump the u.s. president has welcomed it as you mentioned on twitter south korea has also welcomed this development and says it marks meaningful progress towards the denuclearization of the korean peninsula especially as we are now less than a week away from that historic meeting between the south korean president in and

the north korean leader kim jong il there's a slightly will skeptical notes coming out of tokyo at least the defense minister the japanese defense for this who apparently is still in washington but he's suggesting that maximum pressure needs to be maintained. despite the. that's right he says now is not the time to ease that campaign of maximum pressure japan had been put in a bit of a difficult position because it had always aligned itself with this campaign of what the united states called maximum pressure against north korea in forcing strong sanctions that were crucially also backed by china to try to squeeze north korea and that is one of the questions indeed going forward as kim jong un and north korea promise to pursue this policy of developing its economy how will it be able to do that while it is still facing all of these sanctions japan for its part says that the pressure campaign should not be eased and indeed earlier in the week

we heard from japanese prime minister shinzo of a while he was meeting the president of the u.s. donald trump and both of them had said that the maximum pressure campaign will continue and president trump said that if he does not think that the meeting that is planned between him and the north korean leader kim jong un would be fruitful that he is prepared to walk away so that seems to indicate that there is still demand on the part of the united states that something be given up by the north korea the question will be is this enough of a concession it is indeed a significant shift for than donald trump to come to the table with kim jong un and start discussing lifting those sanctions lifting the campaign of maximum pressure and it seems at least the first take as this news is just coming out from japan is it does not believe that that should be the case and a lot of it really comes down to how much can north korea really be trusted this is all a significant shift as i keep saying but it is just a statement coming out of the north korean state news agency saying that north

korea's intention is to stop missile testing to stop nuclear testing and to shut down its nuclear test site but the question going forward presumably by the international community will be around verification can you trust north korea will really do that as it says. and that will protect potentially come up in these meetings scheduled between kim jong il and the south korean leader and potentially with donald trump that's what i want to ask you about the summit between the two koreas leaders should do for the next friday what specifically is on the table and how does this feed into that agenda well interestingly at the moment we still have the agenda as it's told to us by the south korean side no official released agenda at least that has been joint from north and south korea but what we hear from the office of president in is that the main focus will indeed be

denuclearize ation and the promotion of peace on the korean peninsula and the improvement of ensure korean ties so this idea of talking about denuclearization is a broad one so when we have talked about it in the past when it came to what the united states wants in particular it wants to see the complete dismantling verifiable dismantling of north korea's nuclear program so as i say when you have this kind of statement of north korea promising to stop testing is that enough is that true denuclearization and by extension what is north korea's interpretation of denuclearization in the past it has said that it needs its nuclear weapons program because it feels threatened by the united states and its broader nuclear umbrella and the fact that it has u.s. troops on the korean peninsula here in south korea so when the leaders come together to discuss or told denuclearization what will be the specifics of that it seemed that the south korean government was going into this meeting cautiously

optimistic but at the same time trying to play it trying to play down too many expectations of a real concrete agreement at that summit but now we have this announcement coming out of north korea so we will see in just a few days martin kathy novak live in seoul thank you very much indeed. well we've been speaking to christopher hill and now he was the head of the u.s. delegation to those six party talks on north korea's nuclear state and he says that north korea's announcement is a welcome one but he also counseled caution i would. issue a few cautions here first of all the way he's selling it is to say we have already completed our nuclear program we're all set to go we have of him who are well aware who don't he that's that it is more it's not the first time said that he could certainly be the player wohl in a process of even if he was a ship but it could also simply be boiling over sense of we're nuclear power or don

we don't he tells us it's nothing anyone can do about it so i'll be able to auschwitz secondly with respect to the shutting down of the test side to the where they've had some six nuclear test there have been widespread reports in the media and elsewhere about the fact that you know he may be entering its final phase of the shelf life. test would cause a collapse of the wound there's a lot of concern about just the ecology there so i'm going to be a little cautious but all that said it is pretty clear that we are better position today than we were before. palestine's ambassador to the united nations has called for an independent investigation into israel's use of force on protest says it comes after four palestinians including a fifteen year old boy but killed by israeli gunfire on another day of demonstrations on gaza's border having funerals for the latest casualties thirty

five people have died so far in four weeks of protests calling for palestinians right to return to ancestral lands from gaza and smith reports. they've become a feature of the weekly palestinian confrontations with israel's military this friday the wind was with the protesters as clouds of smoke from burning tires drifted over israeli positions. but it's not enough to stop israel snipers and volleys of tear gas. others who you might think would be put off after previous experiences have instead come back for more. i don't care about the injury even if i lose my legs this will not stop me coming back what happened here won't people up and reminded them about cause we've come here to get our right of return a lot of states. but in.

this with giving something another day. i'm here to show my enthusiasm and to inspire the young guys to continue their struggle. was he does every week hamas is leading gaza yassin was visited the protests a prime target for israeli snipers he'd have been easily spotted by the drones above but was protected by the crowds be love. this friday the count was moved three hundred meters closer to israel their mission is that when these protests climax on may the fifteenth these towns will be the border between gaza and israel but after four weeks no demonstrations there's been nothing in the way of concessions from the israelis that would improve the daily life of palestinians living in gaza. furniture with al-jazeera scars. i mean while israel's defense

minister says hamas is wasting its time trying to gain the upper hand in the conflict. we have all the support from the army from the chief of staff and everybody that something the other side must understand there is determined and trained army behind which are determined people support the army and he had to their residents of communities adjacent to gaza who are determined and ready to give all their brick to the army this combination can't be beaten and it is a waste of time a waste of their if it i expect gaza residents to take their destiny into their own hands and not be led by hamas who are misleading them syrian rebels have reportedly agreed to withdraw from the last area near the capital there is not in government control the surrender of the on klav in south damascus which includes the yarmouk palestinian refugee camp will put the entire region around the capital and syrian

government control the army is continuing to bombard the area until a full surrender is reached. the un special envoy for syria says chemical weapons inspectors in duma should be allowed to do their job as quickly as possible and without interference seventy mr has held talks with russia's foreign minister in moscow from where rory chalons now reports. following last week's hang over syria moscow seems in a restrained mood in an interview with the russian state information agency foreign minister sergey lavrov suggested last week's u.s. air strikes have been within limits acceptable for russia to deal of course newly launched they were informed about where our red lines are including geographical red lines on the ground in any case the results show that they have not crossed these red lines. and he said neither side's generals would be drawn into open conflict in syria if they were. stupid i'm sure the need to president putin nor

president trump will allow this to happen they are after all leaders who have been elected by the people and they are responsible to these people for peace and calm. is focused. diplomatically russia can afford to attempt to pause in hostilities with the us is on the ground much is going its allies way following the fall of eastern ghouta the syrian government forces damascus is moving against the remaining besieged anglaise of rebel activity one by one their fall in. the un's envoy to syria who is in saudi arabia and turkey earlier in the week has now come to moscow next will be iran de mistura is assessing whether the foreign powers involved in syria's war are ready to restart the un facilitated political process he acknowledged that recent days have been rough we had a very dangerous and very difficult and very tense week and

it priority for the u.n. secretary and for the sick the general and of coming here and doing this tour doherty's all in various capitals and very much in moscow is to play only dish to lower the temperature seven to mr a maybe doing the different matter grounds with the intention of getting. the geneva peace process back on track but there are those who question just how much life there is actually left in this particular u.n. sponsored formats people like analyst dimitri for a love ski he thinks de mistura is rights to still be pushing for dialogue but feels that the scramble for syrian territory by russia turkey iran and the u.s. has changed the game is sides realize that illustration them warts and bought with the most decisive argument of the last the one less real forces and open on the ground. and with bashar al assad feeling that perhaps

a total defeat of the rebellion is within his reach there's no obvious reason for syria's president to return to the negotiating table right now rory chalons al-jazeera moscow. gave his new leader is vowing to defend the socialist revolution and to modernize the economy but many doubt they'll be any significant improvement under president miguel diaz canel a latin america editor lucien human reports. getting the daily bread cuban style with your ration card in hand one roll per day per person at a minute state subsidized price a system that dates back to the soviet union. in recent years the government has been forced to cut back on ration card items but there's still rice beans sugar salt and occasionally meat aid with cuba's national currency the pestle no but i'm saying that if we didn't have this option those on

a workers' wage could not afford to buy almost anything. you can also use pesos to buy fruits and vegetables. but for almost everything else from shampoo to shoes you need a c. you see the cuban government's version of hard currency on an average monthly wage you can purchase thirty c. you see not enough. phillip car with petrol cuba's dual currency is a monetary abnormality that stunting economic growth and scaring off investment. and like the ration card doing away with it is a must if cuba's new president to me. is going to make good on his promise to update cuban communism what is the government hasn't already done it it's because merging these two currencies into one is much more complex than it sounds in a country where the state is supposed to always provide it's going to make life much more difficult for cubans who are already struggling. and eliminating the dual

currency system will devalue the pace or but it's a necessary change concedes medium leyva a long time opponent of the cuban government. in fact after watching thursday's presidential handover of power from brown castle to discuss the only changes she expects are on the economic front or almost on the emotional level i don't feel any change i hope i'll feel it some day when our society really opens up and i have the right to participate in no matter my opinions. the transition to a post castro era does not contemplate political change but reforming the state run economy to make it more rational and effective could be almost as revolutionary to see in human how that. still to come here at al-jazeera south africa's president returns home after a violent protest in northwest province plus. was that

what. students made another call for action on gun violence in the u.s. on the nineteenth anniversary of the columbine massacre. by the skyline of asian harbor or off the coast of the italian riviera. welcome back we have some rain to contend with across parts of southern china hand that looks to me rather wet through the course of suffolk for the east coast it's looking fine hong kong twenty six shanghai a twenty seven degrees and also looking pretty decent across much of indo china just a scattering of showers but nothing remarkable and that continues to head on through into sunday but in that is the rain across these are central areas extending away towards the east becomes more widespread in the city shanghai will see some rain

developing later on as we move down into southeastern parts of asia weather conditions across the philippines agenda looking pretty good the absence of showers so manila coming in with thirty five degrees as a high some showers perhaps across western parts of java but further towards the east into bali probably not too bad much of time should be fine heavy showers across a borneo kuching to be quite wet and then moving on through them a french or german not too bad the old shower perhaps to singapore kuala lumpur dry for much of the time still the odd shot around the gulf a ton of those tend to clear away as we head on through into sunday with thirty five years of my son in bangkok through into south asia some big storm still across parts of bangladesh in the eastern states of india clad in the south but really hot in central areas forty two the high in one for. the weather sponsored by cattle and race. a story fourteen hundred years in the making. the story of succession of leadership.

and jersey in a post the story of a client of venus. and the women by. the count of the results three. times a take a look at the top stories here and out to sara live in the last hour also north korea's official news agency has announced that the country will stop all new clear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests then moving kluge shutting down its

main nuclear testing site but japan's defense minister says the announcement shouldn't lead to any easing of international pressure on pyongyang. palestine's ambassador to the un has called for an independent investigation into israel's usable some protests and it comes after four palestinians including a fifteen year old boy the killed by israeli gunfire and another day of demonstrations on girls as border. syrian rebels have reportedly agreed to withdraw from the last area near the capital does not under government control the army is continuing to bombard the ok even south damascus damascus until a full surrender is reached. that's africa's new president of become the mediator in growing protests in northwest province demonstrators are calling for the resignation of the region's leader al-jazeera as katherine sawyer has more from my . residence of mike hanging in the northwest province wait for

the outcome of a meeting between president cyril ramaphosa and the provincial leadership. people in several paths of the region have been protesting for days now they say they want better houses jobs and an end to corruption they're demanding the provincial leaders supermom appeal whom they accuse of failing to do his job and listen corruption to step down the president catches his trip to the u.k. where he was attending a commonwealth heads of state meeting to deal with the situation having listened to all the imports we have decided that we would like to engage further with a number of other people particularly members of the community. not only in my he but also in the northwest what i can assure you now is that even if all of the mother looked mad we are not going to summon the will going forward

streets are deserted but evidence of the violent protests is everywhere. so this is one of the areas where protesters had blocked the roads using running tires and anything else they could find police have been trying to clear this road we've also seen shops that have been broken into and looted and the situation here is still very tense this petrol station is in one of the hot spots a group of young people is say to have done this many shop owners are devastated. i don't know how to start over i used all my money to stock the shop to get. others whose businesses were destroyed comped at the heritage house where the leadership was meeting they tell us what happened to their shops had nothing to do with genuine demonstrations. there is telling them what their political problem but they're not involving them and we're not just doing anything you're just doing business residents of this region continue to wait for answers but these are

difficult issues that may not be fully resolved fairly soon catherine saw al jazeera south africa nurses in zimbabwe of protests against the sacking of sixteen thousand of their colleagues who've been on strike hundreds of workers took part in the peaceful demonstration in the capital harare earlier this week thousands of nurses walked out of a poor conditions and paid allowances and many were later fired it's led to the shutdown of major public hospitals weakening an already struggling health sector flooding has hit refugee camps in bangladesh where hundreds of thousands of ranger sheltering daphne cook from save the children says work is continuing to ensure the refugees are kept dry and safe. so we've just started what is the crazy monsoon period here. so that means we've had a downpour of rain yesterday i've been here for five months this was the first down

for rain i've seen since december and it immediately quoits line of flooding in the cans and mighty passage rights to start so so we're seeing a new phase of of misery descend on the captain called is off today today this is going to have an enormous impact from things like access so walking around the camp so basically people will commonly on what is hard fate clay what i saw yesterday was that when the rain fell on the clay it became so even just getting from a to a is now going to become difficult we've been reinforcing hillsides so that they're now covered in sandbags and most importantly we've been looking after the needs of children so children as i'm sure you would imagine are the most vulnerable in these situations save the children if you're working around the clock to help prepare local communities would being asked trying to in hillsides with sandbags and with

stairs to make sure that people can still access critical services when the rain stops we've been providing children with the supports they need to make sure they can keep back sixteen education and vital places to be safe and we've been distributing things like show tickets to make sure people can strengthen their fines against what we expect to be a trench will rain over the next six months. the u.s. has releases annual report on the state of human rights around the world several countries were singled out for criticism russia is accused the stifling dissent and using brutal security tactics including torture the report also highlights abuses in chechnya the annexation of crimea and interference in the internal affairs of western countries china comes under fatha suppressing freedom of expression and restricting civil society the syrian government is accused of atrocities against

its own citizens including the repeated use of chemical weapons in miramar the focus is on the treatment of its range a minority all in seven hundred thousand have been forced to flee a military crackdown but rights groups of criticize the report saying the latest edition pays far less attention to sexual and reproductive rights than previous ones. the russian government continues to quash dissent in civil society even while it invades its neighbors it undermines the sovereignty of western nations we once again urge russia to end its brutal occupation of ukraine's crimean peninsula to halt the abuses perpetrated by russian led forces in ukraine's donbass region and to address impunity for the human rights violations and abuses in the republic of chechnya the us democratic party is suing the donald trump campaign and russia

over alleged collusion in the twenty sixteen presidential election they accuse rusher of contacting trump advisors informing them of a cyber attack that leaked negative information about his democratic rival hillary clinton the lawsuit also involves wiki leaks and its founder julian assange the democrats accuse him of wanting the trump team in advance before publishing the information on mrs clinton. the students across the united states are taking action on gun violence on the nineteenth anniversary of the columbine school massacre the movement has picked up momentum since seventeen people were killed in a florida shooting in february and it has more. once again the students of marjorie stoneman douglas high school left their classrooms to call for gun reform in february the students lost fourteen of their classmates and three teaches. that . they've been campaigning for a change in gun laws ever since and we're joined by students from across the

country from coast to coast there were more than two thousand demonstrations in all our school our teacher was shot and killed at the beginning of the year so this is something that we take very personally and if you look at it advocated for rescue people all the students that have just been freed by police from inside the building the day marks nineteen years since thirteen people were killed at columbine high school in colorado in the years since gun laws have largely remained unchanged and school shootings have got worse it's happened at sandy hook it's happened at great mills and it happened at my school like we shouldn't be letting this happen we shouldn't be letting people die without trying to change something and stop something even a students marched in parkland another school shooting was reported in central florida the alleged shooter is now in custody and no one was killed but it's a reminder of what children here face every day the walk out here and the thousands of others across the country demonstrate the resolve of this generation more than

any other they've been affected by the plague of gun violence and they hope to be the ones that finally bring change and they gallacher al-jazeera pocket florida. time visitation look at the top stories here north korea's official news agency says the country will stop only you clear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests the move would include shutting down its main nuclear testing site japan's defense minister says the announcement shouldn't lead to any easing of international pressure on pyongyang. kathy novak has more from the south korean capital seoul about five years ago kim jong un had launched his signature policy where he had this jewel track of pursuing the nuclear weapons program of north korea and also promoting its economic development and now what he seems to be

saying is that of the nuclear weapons program as far as he is concerned is complete and that will allow north korea to shift the focus to wards developing the economy palace signs to the u.n. has called for an independent investigation into israel's use of force on protesters it comes after four palestinians including a fifteen year old boy killed by israeli gunfire in another day of demonstrations on gaza's border syrian rebels have reportedly agreed to withdraw from the last area near the capital that's not under government control the army is continuing to bombard the on klav in south damascus until a full surrender is reached south africa's president cyril ramaphosa has become the mediator in growing protests in northwest province demonstrators a demanding job spencer housing roads and hospitals they're also calling for the resignation of the regional leader whom they accuse of corruption the president cut

short his trip to the u.k. to deal with them arrest nurses in zimbabwe have protested against the sacking of sixteen thousand of their colleagues who'd been on strike hundreds of workers who passed in the peaceful demonstration in the capital harare earlier this week thousands of this is walked out of a poor conditions and unpaid allowances is led to the shutdown of major public hospitals weakening the already struggling health sector right joe today those are the latest headlines from us here at al-jazeera coming up next it's inside story. saudi arabia's ambitious economic plans the kingdom has announced several multi.