elections as an unseen global battle rages for resources beneath our oceans we ask of the seabed is a territory still to be claimed commemorating seventy years from now that al-jazeera examines what has changed in the past seven decades on both sides of this conflict made on al-jazeera. u.s. citizens obstructed from saving their families as the crisis in yemen worsens some have fled the horror of war only to be entangled in bureaucratic limbo with their lives and dreams of a future put on. faultlines explores the all too real effects of trumps immigration policies. between war and the ban on adjusting.

a meeting choreographed down to the tiniest detail south korea's leader choppers into the d.m.z. on the eve of historic talks with kim jong mood. hello there i'm joe know how this is al jazeera live from london also coming up. donald trump's doctor withdraws his nomination from a job in the u.s. cabinet over allegations he overprescribed drugs and was drunk at work. russia brings witnesses before the world's chemical weapons watchdog in the hague with a different story on what happened during april's attack him too much. and the scars remain but the resilience is astounding we return to the scene of the deadliest attack in somalia's history.

final preparations are being made for an historic face to face meeting between the leaders of north and south korea moon jay in will host kim jong moon in the south korean border village of panmunjom on friday morning they'll discuss a range of issues including pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs it's hoped the meeting will help ease tensions on the peninsula ahead of a meeting between kim and u.s. president donald trump planned for may or june. diplomatic editor james bases in pan jus that's on the south korean side of the border. the final rehearsal took place in the south after noon body doubles playing the role of supreme leader kim and president moon both sides very keen but the choreography is just right because of the camera angles and the images but also because of the important question of security this is quite a remarkable event when you think what has happened on the korean peninsula in

recent months the fact that tensions have been so high here last year particularly during the summer last year and really a remarkable turnaround of events bringing us to this first of two possible high level summits what changed what allowed room for diplomacy i've been gauging that at the u.n. in new york in european capitals and here on the korean peninsula i filed this report from the north korean capital. when you walk around pyongyang everywhere you seem to go you hear military music blaring from shops and loud speakers last summer the drums of war beating particularly heavily it was arguably the tenses time on the korean peninsula in decades in september north korean foreign minister real young ho headed from his ministry here to new york to give his speech at the annual meeting of world leaders at the u.n.

ahead of him in the speaking order the new president of the us the united states has great strength and patients but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies we will have no choice but to totally destroy north korea rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. al-jazeera has learnt that hours after that speech foreign minister re sought a brief meeting with the u.n. secretary general antonio good terrorists at the end of the meeting the north korean invited a senior united nations official to pyongyang a trip the un had been trying to arrange for over a year at the beginning of december jeffrey feltman then the un's head of political affairs made a visit to pyongyang and meetings with north korean officials feltman suggested that kim jong un use his new year's speech to strike a more conciliatory tone and he suggested too that the winter olympics which are

about to be staged in south korea would be a useful occasion to improve relations it's not clear whether the north koreans listened to us advice but they did the things he suggested the leader's sister kim yo chung's visit to the olympics change the atmosphere between the north and south starting a diplomatic dialogue there was another important back channel to sweden's foreign minister margot will strum authorized expanded conversations with the north koreans at one point had been planned for foreign minister rio ho to meet the then u.s. secretary of state rex tillerson in stockholm that plan changed when president trump surprised his own officials saying he wanted a face to face meeting with kim jong un and then secret dispatched his cia director mike pompei otoh pyongyang to begin the negotiations i've been speaking to diplomats at the u.n. in new york and here on the korean peninsula strategic discussions here in north

korea are made at the highest level and done in secret but everyone i've spoken to believes that the bellicose speech by donald trump at the u.n. general assembly was what kickstarted the current diplomatic efforts. al-jazeera pyongyang. well let's take a look now at what exactly will take place when the leaders meet kim jong un will travel into the demilitarized zone under tight security to meet in making him the first north korean leader to cross the border since the korean war kim will be flanked by nine officials including his sister who led pyongyang's delegation to this year's winter olympics after meeting in the morning kim and moon will have lunch on the and plant a tree using soil from both countries that they will wind up with dinner and a movie called spring of one we've been talking to koreans from both sides of the border about their expectations of the summit this is what some of them have to say . they're not going to i wish for the summit is that our people can travel back and

forth and live to get their. head once again that he completed nuclear weapons and his missiles can reach qualm what's left as a leader he must inspire loyalty in twenty three million people will be given loyalty no because they are on the verge of starvation following the sanctions. knows this so we came to the table with denuclearization card. for more than two years the relations had to be frozen and we couldn't access the case on industry complex but finally on the twenty seventh the summit is scheduled that would mean that after the summit the konami issue will be discussed and the casing industrial complex will be the top priority i am full of such anticipations and. president trumps personal doctor nominee for the very composed post of u.s.

veteran affairs secretary has been forced to take himself out of consideration for the post after mounting misconduct allegations ronnie jackson who had also been white house physician to barack obama and george w. bush during their presidencies was put forward for the position after david shaw can resigned in march but the u.s. navy rear admiral has now withdrawn from the running after claims that he crashed a car while driving under the influence of alcohol and that he'd allowed medication to be over prescribed well let's get more now from our white house correspondent kimberly kimberly good to see more chaos for the white house to deal with at least on the surface of it bearing in mind these allegations some pretty poor judgment by president trump. certainly this there are some serious questions for the west wing right now about how this slipped under the radar in terms of allegations against the white house physician dr ronnie jackson that you point out has been in

place as a white house physician physician for some time certainly in order to hold this position he has to be thoroughly vetted it is an extensive process so the fact that these allegations are coming out now from a democratic committee in terms of the vetting process for him to lead the veterans affairs administration is certainly a question the white house is having some difficulty answering now for his part dr ronnie jackson says in fact that these are false and fabricated allegations that he handed out drugs like percocet like candy to staff members couldn't account for the missing drugs also that he attended an after party to an official event that was attended by the secret service where he proceeded to legibly to get intoxicated and crash a government vehicle these are very serious concerns about character and as a result they were put forward the white house initially standing by dr ronnie

jackson but in the statement that was issued by the doctor he said this in his he had become such a distraction for the president that in fact he withdrew his name from the nomination process so certainly there are questions not only about how the white house could have missed these allegations which the doctor says are coming from disgruntled former employees he once worked with but at the same time there are also questions now about whether or not he will be able to continue in his role as white house physician given the serious nature of these allegations. moving away for a moment from ronnie jackson we've become accustomed only to donald trump's morning twitter rants this morning though a look at the food he phoned in live to a television program and did something similar did we learn anything new from. well it was pretty astounding to listen to the president hasn't made a call into live television of that length and depth in quite some time so all eyes

than ears were on what the president had to say he called in to fox and friends which is a show we know that he watches rather carefully and i guess there is a certain comfort level in speaking to those hosts he watches regularly because he really unloaded what appears to be some pent up frustrations from the past year particularly when it comes to the russia investigation that is hung like a cloud over his administration being investigated by robert mueller whether or not there was collusion between presidential campaign and russian officials donald trump blasting in this fiery interview the former f.b.i. director he fired james comey calling him a liar a leaker guilty of crimes but i think the top headline from this very long interview that went on for at least ten minutes by my count was the fact that he is not ruling out potentially firing those who are over seeing the current investigation that would be the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein and also the

special counsel robert mueller saying for now that he's going to stand back from the justice department but that could change certainly that would be significant could lead to mass protests here in the united states because the feeling of many ordinary americans hundreds of thousands of them in fact who have signed a petition is that no one is above the law including the president of the united states kimberly how could live for for us from the white house thanks kimberly. the u.n. security council has met in new york to discuss the conflict between israel and palestine nicholai done with the u.n. special coordinator for the middle east peace process says that until the occupation ends and the two state solution is achieved the conflict will remain a key driver of extremism and a persistent threat to regional security gaza is coming upon us as we speak. it is coming apart under the pressure of an explosive combination of negative humanitarian security and political factors if another conflict between hamas and

israel were to erupt this would have devastating consequences for palestinians in gaza it could undermine the relative stability of the west bank and have repercussions for israel and the region as well i say this with a heavy heart and in the hope that all of us will do our utmost in the spirit of preventive diplomacy or let's go to mike hanna now who is at the united nations in new york mike heavy words and warnings about possible future conflict in gaza but is anybody there doing anything about it. well there's a great depth of concern about that ever escalating crisis in gaza this is a quarterly briefing by the special coordinator one that is separate from the normal monthly briefing that the council receives and there was quite a crowd there in the course of the day representatives given credentials ranging from the european union to the vatican city which is just an indication of the major depth of international concern that is in this ongoing crisis we heard from

nichelle i'm not enough they're very gloomy words indeed he also added that israel must calibrate it's use of force and minimize the use of live fire at the same time he says that hamas and the leaders of demonstrations must keep protesters away from the garza fence we heard from the u.s. ambassador accusing hamas of using children as she put it as cannon fodder we heard from the palestinian representative absolute anger about the way in which israel is continuing to deal with the situation particularly its use of live fire many of those killed or injured in this ongoing crisis our children and then a defense from the israeli ambassador who argued strongly that what country would not protect itself from attacks as he put it on the borders so the degree of rhetoric continues to rise in the security council despite pleas from the special

coordinator for deescalation as he put it very difficult to see where it goes from here this is a discussion this is a briefing but as we've known throughout the months and indeed years should any resolution come to the table concerning this crisis in gaza awaiting it would always be that veto from the united states and given that the ambassador's very strong words in the course of this briefing it's a. likely that that a veto would not be wielded again should any resolution come to the table in any of the gym ok mike hanna live at u.n. headquarters in new york thanks mike and still to come on the program politicians debate a big gregg's it question should the country remain inside europe's terra free customs union when it eventually leaves the e.u. back in a moment. how

i would drive faison spring rains is coming up again for china but of a northerly breeze means the sun will be out in shanghai but it's not particularly cold as twenty eight ish all the way down to the coast that twenty is a good temperature of you are in china there is cloud building in the southwest as east as the ground rises and that ties in was so fairly active shari stuff so myanmar probably some parts of vietnam and beyond certainly thailand but china looks like it's a fairly dry couple of days for you which of course is still the case surat south asia we're waiting for the monsoon rain to burst with us not to be too so apart from big showers still show up in the northeast and occasional ones in the south it's dark case of how hot seat going to get it's already got too hot for many forty or in excess of forty seven hundred bout northwards up to delhi in fact not poor is going to forecast temperature for forty two or even forty three of the next couple

of days with no relief but that sort of high temperature tends to generate really big showers in bangladesh in the northeast corner big thunderstorms with hail damaging winds we have seen some storms recently in saudi arabia but us for the full cost chances not a cloud here at the moment but you have got something in the far southwest and in yemen where rain seems to be a likely event. inmates learning from other inmates acquiring knowledge that can set them free. through legal education classes and mock tribunals vegetation has led to staggering results even in peers on all of. these will rescind that they was. teaching empowerment kenya part of the rebel education series at this time on

al-jazeera. welcome back a quick reminder now of the top stories here on al-jazeera final preparations are under way for a historic face to face meeting between the leaders of north and south korea it's hoped the talks will ease tensions ahead of the meeting between kim and u.s. president on donald trump later this year. on the jackson donald trump's personal doctor and nominee for u.s. veteran affairs secretary has quit his bid for the post after being accused of several instances of misconduct. the u.n. special coordinator for the middle east peace process as extremism in the region

will continue unless the israeli occupation of palestinian land ends and a two state solution is achieved. now u.k. politicians have approved a motion calling for the government to pursue a customs union in briggs's negotiations the vote puts pressure on prime minister trees amazed breaks its strategy she's refused to pursue a customs union with the european union some critics believe leaving the tariff free zone will hurt britain's economy this country being asked to experiment at other people's pleasure with a free trade policy yes i do not know what the cost will be for constituent business is in this country here when i say to my party if we undermine and ignore the evidence for peace in northern ireland and we undermine the business of financial security party people in this country we will not be forgiven for a job here when are you k. correspondent lawrence lees outside westminster was following that debate and vote

lawrence had pressure now from the house of more pressure from the house of commons is it sufficient pressure do you think to begin to force the idea of a concession on the government. well it might be i think that's the short answer think about the votes here jonah was there in the end they didn't actually mean anything because the governments which thought it might loose got around the fact that they thought it might lose by simply not turning up to the vote and so the people who want to stay in the customs union won very easily because they didn't have anybody actually to fight against but what became clear during the course of the day was the surprisingly large number of consoles in peace who say yes we support breck's it we want to get control of our borders and all these sorts of things but we want to stay in the customs union as well because it's absolutely crucial for british industry to move goods in and out of the european union without any enormous delays at the country's borders now that position flies

directly in the face of the government position and so it acts as a sort of rebellion by people you haven't expected to win the rats seems to be at the moment that when there is a meaningful vote in the few weeks time on this one that distant one that says this is what the u.k. position has to be in dealing with the european union it looks like the government could lose and it and they could be forced into changing their position to keep the customs union going and that's a very very. powerful thing because it could be very destabilizing for tourism is prime minister equally they could sort out a lot of problems with the irish border and what happens there so these things are now very much starting to come so i had the governments delayed and delayed and delayed but they got really delay longer what will tell us a little bit more about the irish border because this idea of the customs union to the uninitiated if you like sounds pretty technical pretty complicated as part of a long running sequence of negotiations but it has very real potential consequences

doesn't it for relations between northern ireland and the republic of allah. well yes because the apartment a thing else that the so-called good friday agreement with which is the peace deal for the for the last decades relies on there being an open border and what they want nobody wants it appears is for a hard border to come back again because it would break that agreement some people fear on some level it could be politically and militarily destabilizing but it but it's it's also absolutely crucial for relationships between the u.k. and the republic of ireland and therefore by extension to the european union as well it wouldn't solve all the problems but it would get rid of the biggest headache around that and sorting out what what happens over the irish border is the biggest problem that everybody i think agrees this now because the people who say no to that we can have a hard brics that we can leave the customs union and we can have a so-called frictionless border with the free movement of goods and people can come

up with any sort of solution a logistical solution for how that might work at least not one that's acceptable to the european union and so i think in the end what this looks like is a brick sits but a soft hit with members of the customs union might actually end up being the best way to get through a lot of these issues normally live from westminster thanks laura. moscow has brought a number of syrians including children to the headquarters of the chemical weapons watchdog to support their claim that the gas attack in duma was faked the witnesses have been presented to the o.p.c. w. out the hague to recount what they saw on april the seventh russia says the syrians statements approved the chemical attack was staged allegations the u.s. and its allies strongly deny. it was inside that briefing and is live for us in the hague sonia what sort of evidence was presented to back up this claim that the duma attacks were stage. well so far in this

briefing really all they've been able to do so far is to vehemently deny that both the russian the russian ambassador. and the syrian representative at the a.p.c. w. stating that it's possible that syria had gotten rid of its chemical weapons stockpile that it had never conducted a chemical attack on its own people and that it had worked in fact with the a p c w two be able to get rid of its stockpile and instead said that they in fact other organizations terrorist organizations that called them that had indeed been stockpiling their own chemical weapons outside of syria bringing them into the country and using them instead and so far also what we've been managing to see in this in this press conference as well as a sort of a video. as well of and photographs of what the russians and

syrians say is evidence that these were staged attacks it's very difficult to tell this because we only have there were to go of their descriptions to go by with this but we have seen for example pictures of large yellow canisters in a room. looking with all the around it but they say this is obviously fake because the canister itself is completely undamaged and there are other elements in the room which are in damage again this is their work and there is absolutely no counter voice to be able to go against that they've also been bringing in some seventeen other syrians in there including a young boy has a son who they called a hero for coming out and speaking to the a p c w in this but there's a sort of strange kind of bizarre theatrical element to this with all these people

having been boston apparently they came in from moscow over night. having to present this saying that these a brave men women and children who are giving their presentation but we don't know exactly who these people are where they've really come from as we've been denied access to them they won't respond to our questions so really all cloaked in mystery and part of this information war that is taking place. so i will leave you to try and make sense of it in the coming hours thanks very much. at least three thousand civilians across somalia have either been killed or injured by improvised explosive devices or i e d's over the past three years last year was by far the worst largely because of a massive truck bomb in mogadishu that killed more than five hundred people all six months on and things are slowly returning to normal mammadov though reports from the somali capital. already shoes kilometer five junction is one big construction site the huge craters left by the massive truck bomb last october when

felt on the road paved again such as the resilience of the people of somalia. the middle east will wising the reconstruction of his family's hotel that was completely destroyed put to death at the door always we have no option but to rebuild not doing so would mean we have surrendered and given up in life. the truck bomb exploded at the busy market during rush hour it was powerful enough to damage buildings hundreds of letters an explosion killed more than five hundred people and injured hundreds from the wast single attack a somali history was blamed on al-shabaab fighters who are waging war for years. there's not much of normality here but the staff are still very low the consequences yet to be fully understood six months on doesn't suffer from the missing of their relatives there's still no teacher of the law here ali has just returned from turkey where he was taken for specialized treatment for bodyguards he

was selling cigarettes and candy on the roadside when the bomb went off his wife and two of his children died farah larry. i'm not fully recovered as you can see but i'm through is to come back to work my children need to eat and then they have a psychological effect on long suffering citizens who've never seen anything like the kind of you know many say they're more scared since then venturing out only one it's really less trying to hate our house was with him i will never forget what happened here it's gives me every day every time i see traffic congestion in usa i light from the past same in and choose to walk away. once normal course africa and beyond was a tranquil under literally prosperous city successive waves of violence in the past three decades have repeatedly reduced mark to remove additional to rubble the capital's been rebuilt destroyed again and again risen from the ashes. that cycle

continues from now mohammed and all jazeera for that isha so money the holiday island in the philippines has been closed for a six month clean up tourists have been banned from the island while authorities improve the infrastructure and volunteers remove rubbish from the once pristine beaches president rhodri going to turkey all ordered to shut down this month after calling the resort a cesspool of and forty u.k. companies including major supermarkets pledged to tackle pollution by committing to cut plastic use over the next seven years they've signed up to the u.k. plastics pact a promise to make all their plastic packaging re usable recyclable or compostable by twenty twenty five charlie angelo explains. we're outside tesco is one of forty two british companies and supermarkets would have signed up to the u.k. plastics voluntarily they are agreeing that by twenty twenty five that plastic bags

that food packaging like this covering but not on those will be fully reusable recyclable and possible now these companies account for eighty percent of the plastic packaging used in u.k. supermarkets so the impact could be enormous the prime minister to resign maine has promised to eliminate avoidable plastic waste by twenty forty two as part of a national action the government is just and it should be because the threat to the environment is so severe that this is a global problem and it needs a global response when you consider that the amount of plastic we produce each year is equivalent to the entire weight of humanity it's public concern about plastic waste that is driving the agenda it's being called the blue planet effect after the television series by so david asman by which is exposed the impact of plastic on our cities and wildlife and the critics say that this new tax is just fallen tree there's no way of forcing it the public is committed to change already seeing

people replacing their plastic shopping bags for usable clothes funds and taking their daily coffee in a reusable car that expecting retailers to commit to trying to. time before we go for a very quick look at the headlines final preparations are being made for a historic face to face meeting between the leaders of north and south korea j. in. moon in the south korean border village of job on friday morning diplomatic editor james bases in that's just on the south korean side of the border. the final rehearsal took place this afternoon body doubles playing the role of supreme leader kim and president moon both sides very keen that the choreography is just right because of the camera angles and the images but also because of the important question of security this is quite a remarkable event when you think what has happened on the korean peninsula in

recent months the fact that tensions have been so high here president trump's personal doctor has withdrawn himself from could consideration for veteran affairs secretary after mounting misconduct allegations ronnie jackson is accused of crashing a car while driving under the influence of alcohol and having a willingness to hand out prescription drugs. the u.n. special coordinator for the middle east peace process was told the security council the humanitarian situation for pak palestinians is deteriorating and that civilians shouldn't be targeted like they have been tens of thousands of palestinians have been protesting in gaza or at the border with israel in recent weeks with dozens killed by israeli security forces moscow has brought a number of syrians including children to the headquarters of chemical weapons watchdog to support their claim that the gas attack in duma was faked russian says the syrian statements prove the chemical attack was staged allegations the u.s.

and its allies strongly deny the armenian parliament is expected to hold an extraordinary session next week to vote for a new prime minister the country was plunged into political crisis this week after surgery saga seann stepped down as prime minister following massive anti-government protests on the whole of the island to borrow a car in the philippines has been closed for a six month cleanup president rodriguez deter he ordered the shutdown this month after calling the resort a cesspool that's all for now rebel education is up next to stay with us.