tv NEWSHOUR Al Jazeera June 26, 2018 1:00pm-2:01pm +03
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this i get. all right it's very difficult to actually keep that connection so i'm going to ring in other guests that we have hussein thank you for trying to join us and i apologize for the audio there for more on the challenges facing civilians in yemen we're joined by a law. a journalist and documentary filmmaker who has reported extensively on the war. she is senior crisis advisor at amnesty international which last week released a report on how both the saudi and coalition are holding up essential aid also in new york is summer nasr she is chairwoman of yemen aid a humanitarian organization and here in the studio we have. she is a yemeni political affairs commentator and a visiting fellow at georgetown university ladies welcome really looking to forward to hearing your perspective. this port why is it so important
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data port and where are we in this war in yemen that this port is taking up so much focus right now the court has taken our focus the international focus ever since the start of the war at the very start the plan was laid on the table to kind of have a military battle and but the obama administration stepped in and said that it is a red line purely because the port allows access to twenty four million people to deliver aid and medicine and food which is the lifeline of those people in yemen's war now we have three years of fighting during those three years there was a man men made famine that was created and the fear of this battle is we already have a humanitarian crisis play the fear is we're going to exacerbate it by launching a battle there a week without aid or medicine could mean that hundreds who depend on that could die and the problem now with the battle as well is that the country is not prepared
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for the internally displaced people who had to flee if they can afford the fuel of . they had to flee to other governorates some people decided to stay put what does that mean for the time being it's the unknown that's terrifying are the civilians going to be safe or are they going to be attacked but what we know is that the most successful battle and a day that could take up to two months and those two months if the port activities do not return it means that people are not going to be able to have access to food and medicine now what's on the table is that the u.n. special envoy martin griffith is trying to strike a deal where the port could be operational regardless of military activity around it so keeping that in mind summer i want to read out this tweet from h.t. flora's who says this support is geo strategically important for the who thinks and for the government if the saudi led coalition can capture it will deal a blow to the who the ability to resupply and if the who he is can resist that coalition it will deal a massive blow to the coalition's morale and momentum so keeping all of that in
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mind earlier in the show build the connection was not that great i did hear who same say that the streets are back open and people are out and about i know that you have family there what are they telling you what do you make of their experiences these are the this tweet from agency who says this sport is important. i mean this poor is really strategic on an international level but also. however in terms of the people in the country and in the programs specifically there's two perspectives they would want the conflict to be very quick rather than it being sluggish but at the same time they're very much over the fact that they are suppressed under these and these are the words of family and community within ten minutes. from the airport and from the court so this is the type of perspective that we're dealing with but in that sense how do we pressure both sides to respect i fell and how should we approach the issue of and that. i think should be
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through the port of aden which is open and fully functional at the time and organizations personally have shipped a couple of items. should be ssion packages to them and to the northern province mostly and it was very successful ron you come to this with a perspective of understanding of a more actually means so if we're looking at the data area and we're looking at this potential of this conflict moving closer and closer to the residence that what does that mean for them i mean. there's a good up. means. all graphic alarm is the assholes. of the city in order to get to the pool with the coalition eventually want to get ready they have to guard
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a huge. all civilian area tightly. that city the very densely populated city. it means risking street. this is happened before and as. i'm sorry for it being a. fight. i'm sure i can at this point ideally it was. part of a plan which. means. our support to the thought of starting in order to save civilians from being caught up in the street fight. has been preparing for a straight. face in the trenches. thinking trenches in the middle of a word between the apple. on the coachman's well i'm trying to reach for the apple two for however. the fight has mostly been for until now with both
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sides claiming that we still have power. what's interesting about the port of day that is that it's not the only port that's in yemen we have two other ports one us shutdown one is slightly operational and that is the port of done that some are mentioned earlier the problem with those those two ports cannot replace what is it's been a struggle to kind of get them up and running the way that data is even you know the american administration sent two cranes to and they does support to help in the delivery of aid because that is the one port that is able to kind of carry out aid on that on that level now what's what's terrifying in the process is that the city of i've done and other cities are considered totally free territory and yet they don't witness any stability and the port and i then has failed to substitute the part of had a that and i think if they are able to have a port run like the port of the day that would be a very welcome. change because the people's lives depend on this and we think it be
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fair to say that most of our audience is so focused on what happens to the people who are living in yemen right now the humanitarian aspect i just want to show you from about a week ago what civilians in data was thinking about they were concerned about that the idea that there might be this a sort coming on to the port has been this well i was working in the data poured enough the port close those were why go to work when the suits comes in this disaster happens where my going to find work the only thing we have is to die we don't have anything other than. we don't have gas to cook with my husband has a motorcycle that he used to work with on the port road and now the road is closed and the bikes motor has broken down and we're in the path of the rain and wind which take our houses with them i have a young daughter who's exhausted and sick and we can't get her medication or anything only the necessary food if a war happens what are we going to do. hearing reports like that and stories
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firsthand accounts like that is what leads people online to point fingers so shooting on twitter says like the attack on yemen the battle for her data is misguided and she was a callous disregard for human life their willingness to use starvation and commit mass murder may help them win the battle but they shouldn't expect yemeni resistance to saudi and occupation to end so pointing the finger there at presumably coalition forces on the other side though we some says citizens of yemen continue to lose as warring elites continue to dance on each other's head all sides of the conflict fail to offer the most basic services yet excel in creating a manmade humanitarian catastrophe i give this to you because you recently came out with a report you're going to did saying that both sides of this are to blame for some of what we're seeing today. well there are two elements here we are deeply concerned of course about the protection of civilians and what we've documented in
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the past is that all parties to the conflict or both sides both warring sides now the saudi arabia led coalition and the local forces it's backing on the ground order who is the armed group who have in the past disregarded or disrespected the laws of war and we've seen the impact of that on civilians through civilian casualties people being killed civilians being killed or injured as well as damage to the civilian infrastructure which of course is a violation of international humanitarian law so with that in mind we're deeply concerned with that track record of these warring parties and what could what that could mean in this ongoing operation on a larger scale secondly as you mentioned we did indeed just recently published a report in which we documented how both parties have restricted access to essential goods and the saudi arabia led coalition through imposing or severely restricting the entry of aid into yemen and the armed forces in terms of the
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movement of that aid on the ground on the coalition's side we documented for example unnecessary and spec sions in addition to the already existing inspection mechanism by the united nations dose that severe delay that we have seen has particularly affected the provision of health care because of the lack of fuel or access to fuel for health facilities for example that's a deep concern for us we've also seen on the and of course our concern is that the timing and manner by which these restrictions were imposed by the coalition would indicate that they amount to collective punishment because they came in response to these rockets that were or these missiles that were fired by the host these into saudi arabia so the timing and manner would indicate that this may amount to. to the war crime of collective punishment the armed group also has imposed
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bureaucratic measures has imposed unnecessary delays on the permit system for distribution of aid on the ground and we've spoken to aid workers who told us that they've essentially enlisted bribes and kickbacks illegal payments in order to approve the distribution and control the distribution of aid so both parties essentially the laying or exacerbating an already dire humanitarian situation on the ground some of this is not this is not a shock because this is war this is conflict out of all of the actors involved in this conflict who is genuinely concerned about the people of yemen unfortunately we see in on both sides that there's a touch of the conflict is so internal it's an internal issue it is a crisis that is rooted in political history so. he has a point yes we have seen this issue all delay however we've also seen and
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documented that who things end up taking a lot of these aids and putting them in black markets where even some civilians can't even have access to it or should have been access to it but they have to pay three folds or four holes of this at the end of the day i think i should be respected on both sides however we've seen on the ground that through our work with aden in aden everything is going well and very small when we hit the northern province we get stuck with random checkpoints that are not even legal even to give any who's most helpful in your work your work trying to get aid to people who desperately need it where are you getting the most help some of. we are getting in terms of finances or in terms of the projects of projects we're getting a lot of our our support with partners here in the united states we've also been in communication with
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a lot of. based organizations as well and i have to admit we have delayed and postponed the fact that we can give to the poor ship everything to the port of port of data for the reason of these being in control of that or we do have access from both sides but it's much more complicated and unfortunately much more random and. delay and documentation when it comes to having so i want to read two perspectives picking up on what you're saying there from twitter this is summer ahmed two rapes in the biggest concern remains the humanitarian situation as majority of civilians rely on aid coming from the port i hope the airport has a plan in place that will mitigate the suffering of the people who would be directly affected by the battle and data so keeping that in mind some a plan in place i want to read out this tweet here because it refers to something you mentioned earlier shereen says the newly displaced will now join the three million i.d.p.'s and eight point four million yemenis who will starve to death
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without humanitarian aid however this aid may never reach them you mentioned earlier that your family and sanaa are see the influx of residents from who did from other parts of yemen what are those circumstances look like what are they telling you. it seems like everybody's been suffering for the past three years because there's been a delay and giving people their salaries and that's a problem because people even if they're goods around they can't afford to buy them and only those who are wealthy or have family outside of yemen can send and remittances and help them purchase these goods now you have a situation where a small city is getting flooded the interesting thing about santa is that it's called to be under control but they continue to welcome people from all over yemen as refugees or internally displaced people i think the problem is the who is these continue to hide behind humanitarian disasters and are pretending to represent
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yemen in the in the war against the outside influence and at the same time the saudi arabia and u.a.e. arab coalition they're hiding behind the idea that they are trying to rescue yemen and restore the legitimate government but it's becoming clear in the battle of data that both of them don't really care about the people of yemen but they are fighting over who's going to win and control yemen politically and through that war they insert a sectarian terms and the people who pay for this are the civilians and then we're going to talk about really the impact on civilians if i may interrupt story i really it's very important for us to highlight that irrespective of the military developments on the ground it's crucial that the port should remain open and that we ensure that there is restriction there are no restriction to the aid there or that the flow of aid and goods is not impeded irrespective of who is in control of
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the situation militarily on the ground safe passage for civilians is also a really crucial point for us because we have been seeing how it's been a very difficult journey for people mind you while we're talking about the battle for the day. and the poor at the moment we have been seeing ongoing military operations in the governorates since december tens of thousands of people have already fled. practically everybody we spoke to said that they had so they had sold precious belongings wedding bands life stalk put up property deeds in order to be able to afford placement journey so we just want to it's really important for us to refocus the conversation. i hear exactly what you're saying to them we just introduce you to this headline from the guardian u.n. envoy confident as yemen deals with a data port violence the idea is that the port gets handed over to the
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united nations rather than to either of the sides involved in the cold slate is that possible could that happen if if martin griffith who is the special u.n. envoy to yemen pulled off americal it is possible so before him we had two u.n. special envoys who failed to bring everybody to the table for negotiations but if he manages to do that then we can be surely confident that the thing about martin griffith and this is to be said that he has the weight of the e.u. behind him he has the weight of the british government he has a purpose that is in himself and he has the weight of the u.s. behind him so him being a british citizen could potentially change the game here because he's got super powers backing him up and right now there are secret talks about a plan on the table he's actually set to meet the president of yemen in two days in the city of i've done and he's supposed to present a plan that everybody agrees upon if that happens we can kind of take
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a deep breath and just be like you we can now feed and deliver aid to these people and we can move forward towards negotiations in the future so yes that it has to it will take a miracle it see here might agree he says how could the u.n. talk down the u.s. iran saudi arabia what incentives could the u.n. provide to these powers that would bring the conflict closer to an end but once you . and i can offer up some of the side i think now more than i thought the chunk of who sees as grating to relinquish power of so called. very very likely in a speech around four days ago up america who is the leader. they were more than happy to give support to the one. through another entity to the party and any revenue taken from with it during the time while you were on with the
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help would be transferred to the central bank two of the few people salaries. i think people are more pain right now pushing a cease fire mocking griffith then traveling back and forth between. time to him or . trying to make the sides agree to a reasonable deal however the fighting still continues because whoever manages to gain as much ground as possible while negotiations are going on. and. that is thank you so much for your insight the wisdom that you bring to this conversation. you explained if the superpowers could get together always feels like you need superpowers in order to end this conflict make how's
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this conversation been working out playing out online i'll end with this from it's on what kind of wraps up a lot of people are thinking of regardless of how big of a military breakthrough this pre-dated battle might seem for either side what remains to be seen how this can translate into improving the constantly deteriorating economic and humanitarian conditions of yemenis thank you for your comments keep them coming on twitter you tube and of course dot com forward slash the stream. always. on counting the cost a stronger dollar spells trouble ahead for developing market economies. so our big
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. fight for control of oil. counting the cost. series of. mexico is getting ready for a general election direction with the country take as it struggles with drug violence and economic instability. and the. views of power around the world as the world cup in russia nears its end we'll bring you stories from on and off the pitch of the world's most viewed sporting events on television and online the stream continues to tap into the extraordinary potential of social media to disseminate news. just mind on al-jazeera. getting to the heart of the matter if well stuff i can see that such
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a cypriot leader calls you today and says let's have towards would you accept facing realities what do you think reunification would look like there are two people think the peace corps unification is the only option for prosperity of south korea hear their story on talk to al-jazeera we here to jerusalem bureau covered israeli palestinian affairs we cover this story with a lot of intimate knowledge we covered includes that we don't dip in and out of the story we have a presence here all the time apart from being a cameraman it's also very important to get journalists to know the story very well before going into the fields covering the united nations and global diplomacy for al-jazeera english is pretty incredible this is where talks happen and what happens there matters.
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our current shortfall remains now in excess of two hundred fifty million u.s. dollars the u.n. body providing assistance for more than five million palestinian refugees faces a funding crisis. and the matheson this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up. a general strike against hysterically brings argentina to a standstill. call between the military and isolate fighters the people of model in the philippines come to the capital to tell their stories. and we'll have an update from the world cup in russia for the final sixteen is beginning to take shape. the u.n. agency for palestinian refugees is warning it's facing an unprecedented funding gap
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and it's weeks away from cutting emergency assistance the agency is known it's asking for more than two hundred fifty million dollars at a donor's conference in new york saying it struggled since the u.s. cut contributions this year but ministration slashed funding by more than half in january over political differences with the palestinian leadership more than five million refugees in the middle east rely on the agency for education food and health services the agency says those crucial resources could be cut as soon as august diplomatic editor james bays has more from the united nations. the u.n. has been trying for months to fill the massive short fall off of the u.s. pulled out most of its funding from the u.n. secretary general of the start of this pledging conference appealed to nations to come up with more funding and the head of the commission of general. said time was running out our current shortfall remains now in excess of two hundred fifty
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million you. dollars and we still have a very big task ahead at this point we do not i repeat we do not have the income to ensure that the schools will open on time in august and in the absence of significant new funding we will have to begin taking very difficult measures in july impacting the level of services as well as our staff the situation will be particularly critical for emergency operations in the west bank and in gaza what is at risk is food for one million people in the gaza strip as ever at these sort of pledging conferences a little hard to work out exactly what is new money and what has already been committed by countries in the past it appears though there are some new funds coming from the e.u. from mexico from sweden and from belgium and other countries like the u.k.
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bringing forward some of their funding their total amounts though are nowhere near the shortfall of two hundred fifty million dollars and the u.n. is still desperately looking for further funding the drug administration's peace plan for israel and palestine has been on the agenda the white house where the president has hosted jordan's king abdullah trying senior adviser and son in law janet says the plan will be announced soon with or without support from the palestinian leadership president mahmoud abbas has refused to work with the u.s. since december when it recognized jerusalem as the capital of israel. mass burials have begun in central nigeria for nearly one hundred people killed in recent days the deaths are the result of an escalation in the conflict between farmers and semi nomadic herders in plateau state president mohamed who behati warned against reprisal attacks and sent troops to contain the violence and i did a support from the capital. twenty four hours after curfew was
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imposed because and homes and part of state are still smoldering. the entire state is in more. old fears of violence and reprisals reignited. we were living in peace before this attack now bodies litter of villages you can't even get to your farm without being attacked or killed and. many travelers are caught in the middle and groups barricaded groups singling out people the thought could be linked to the attackers. a curfew was imposed but did little to contain the anger or stop the thirst for revenge is so sad so terrible that we can see how it is a cue from this sorts of things can take place and people like you saw many people killed in this this fight is very fundamental that the president has sent
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his only statement that whatever it takes must ensure that we not only resist and find all those well done very nice object very. well that the engine probably. probably be punished for that for these actions but a state has always been a flashpoint an area where the north meets the south of nigeria conflict between indigenous farmers and semi nobody cattle herders frequents all slight ethnic and religious clashes even saw the recent violence by far is the worst seen in the state in many areas. president mohamed what hardy has promised justice and called for calm but pressure is mounting on the seventy five year old as he seeks reelection for another four year term next year comedy al-jazeera. argentinean president morrissey of mockery is battling the third national strike
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since he took office and twenty fifteen promised to tackle inflation and return argentina to the world capital markets but the country has once again gone to the international monetary fund for a lifeline to the supposed reports from going to. roadblocks all around when a site is this is how argentina's capital look on monday after the country's largest workers' confederation called for a general strike against the government of. left wing groups blocked major roads leading to the capital protesting against what they say is a government that rules for the rich. there is a social crisis in the political crisis there is discontent is the beginning of the pact between the i.m.f. and the government that brings about austerity measures the economic situation is worse that's why we will be on the streets. since taking office mackie's government has been unable to control the double digit inflation rate that has tormented arjun
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times for years the recent devaluation caused by a strengthening u.s. dollar forced the governmental request and urgency emergency fifty billion loan from the i.m.f. prices have continued to go up since then and that's why on monday argentina was paralyzed by a strike by workers demanding a rise in wages trains buses subways and flies were also spend it on monday because of the struggle this place is. the largest transport hub in one aside and as you can see it's completely paralyzed a sign of the strength that the labor unions have in argentina. i write from northern argentina and was not sure how to make it home where the girl is a winner we knew this was happening but i thought there would be something very is nothing i understand the need to go on strike but we are all affected by what's happening in. the i.m.f. loan brings back memories of the two thousand and one economic crisis when i didn't
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tina defaulted on its sovereign debt because your book will go insane was part of the negotiating team at the time and says that the situation is different now. the government responded fast they sought help from the i.m.f. because they knew nobody else would loan them the money the crisis would have been worse if they hadn't. and that's why many on the streets are not as optimistic and fear that another economic crisis may be closer and the government would like to admit. that when a site is under in borno as a political analyst and is also the founder of bubble dot com it's a current affairs website he says argentina's economy today is very different during the last crisis in two thousand and one. the government felt the differently have a choice and they had to go to them fast because otherwise the reserves were going to be depleting quickly this was it cost him
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a lot of political points because close to seventy five percent of the argentine population are in disagreement with steel the situation is very very different from what was happening in two thousand and one in argentina when there was fifty percent poverty now today almost all know who's one of the largest union leaders in the country is the current leader of the teamsters unions he said that back when cristina kirchner was in office previous to morrison mockery people could still afford food now that's that's definitely hyperbolic people can still buy food but they have seen in the last year and a half their purchasing power decrease and this strike is a response to this because they are indeed afraid that the economic crisis could deepen and it could turn out to be something similar to what happened seventeen years ago one of the reasons why argentine people are so much against this agreement with the i.m.f. is because they remember of course the u.s. there is investors that you know so much so damaged the country seventeen years ago
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now however this time the i.m.f. in argentina especially the argentine government has said that this is going to be based on whatever the argentine government decides is not the i.m.f. imposing what to do but the government of the argentine government on the macro administration deciding how to impose those much needed cuts people caught up in the seizure of murder in the philippine military and i saw linked fighters say they fear the conflict may not be over preserv'd rico detected a declared victory over the monti rebels in a towbar last year the fighting left much of the city in ruins and displaced two hundred thousand people. telling their stories in the capital manila many await the fighters will regroup and launch another assault on the doldrums life for us in mina what stories of the have they been telling. well you know rob these are one of the very few instances where civilians are allowed to hold
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a forum and those who are coming from are we feel that they have now come to the capital manila because their voices have been muted in mindanao where martial law is imposed now the first half of the forum we've already heard from civilians who say that what they want is what they call transitional justice that they be given a chance for an impartial independent investigation that assistance be given to the hundreds of thousands that continue to be displaced and really our true independent fact finding mission hopefully led by congress to actually look into what transpired then rob some of the experts also question why president would be good that there is a declared martial law without proper consultations without before forming a committee basically and deciding also why the full of the region of mindanao is imposed where martial law was imposed in the whole region have been there now when the siege only happened at the capital murder. i understand that one of the
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government's proposals is to build a garrison in the town but that's pretty controversial what are the problems that could be faced there and how is the government justifying it well that is exactly what civilians you're asking first of all there's already a very big military camp at the heart of matter are we they have expanded that after the liberation and they feel though that basically the military garrison is going to be built which would mean it.
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