orders are close so these people have nowhere to go these are also people who have been living for the past few years under rebel control so there's a real concern what will happen to them when the government the syrian government takes over their villages this is been happening on a daily basis so the exact situation of these people that you are seeing we don't know what their stories are but we can certainly tell you that most of these people have a similar story they are terrified and they want cumana tarion aid they want international protection which is why you'll be seeing them waving these makeshift white flags now israel has made it very clear they will not be allowing any of these internally displaced people inside israel the army has been providing aid to these areas tents and food and so so much also just to say that residents of the occupied golan heights have been over the last couple of weeks involved in a campaign to gather sort of humanitarian aid for the syrian internally displaced

across the border but certainly this is the first time in awhile that we've seen them coming this close to the fence however they're staying around two hundred meters away from what we understand and as you heard there are these ready army telling them to move back to the issue of civilian going to war and israeli border fence has been high on the news agenda for many weeks now and the reaction from israel in this particular. incident is much more muted than what we've seen in respect to go. yes very different dynamics certainly when it comes to gaza you know israel will tell you it's dealing with how mass which it deems a terrorist organization i mean i've covered those protests from inside gaza most of everyone ordinary people and yes there is intensive israeli sniper fire tear gas drones of anyone that goes towards the fence because israel deems them a threat to its national security and a threat to its border areas border communities border along the fence we should

say to be more specific when it comes to syria and internally displaced there's been a very different relationship over the last couple of years to hail israel has been actively involved people will tell you in supporting the rebels across the border also in dealing with some form of humanitarian aid israel's interest in syria it really boils down to one thing and that is limiting the influence of iran this is why they've been talking behind the scenes with russia to try and get iranian forces iranian backed forces away from those areas so when it comes to the civilian to the humanitarian situation i think we don't expect the the reaction the treatment from the army towards those civilians to be in any shape or form the same as they do treat them in gaza for the moment we'll leave it starts but of course continue to monitor the situation with you as the day progresses thank you but stay in the region because israel is tightening its sea almost two million people living

in goals of further restricting the flow of goods into the territory but it's planning to ban all fuel imports through the eco mobile salone crossing while food and medicine will need permission to go through cairo is the sole commercial crossing into gold so it's vital to the flow of fuel necessary for people who only get up to six hours of electricity a day. israel is also reducing the fishing space for gaza's fisherman from six to three nautical miles it's got the very latest on this from charles stratford who's. the port in gaza of course garza's fishermen in the firing line so to speak once again and this is a huge economic hit for them and specially for their livelihoods. that's right so it's estimated that around fifty thousand dollars and families are in some way involved in the fishing industry so it's hugely important for the local economy here and of course it's hugely important for food security as well we've

spoken to the head of the fishing fisherman's union here who says that the needs of god the gazan population is around four thousand tons of fish a year because of the twelve year blockade they're currently fishing that carney collecting around one thousand five hundred tons a year he's saying that these with these new restrictions this three three kilometer zone within which they can fish she's expecting only around eight hundred tons a year so it nowhere near meets the needs of the local population here has huge ramifications for the economy i mean i stay quite regularly and guards are on hotels close to the poor and regular woken up in the morning by the sound of israeli gunfire gunboats gunfire the israeli navy warning fishermen to stay within that restricted area so the fishermen here have felt these kind of pressures for years and these new restrictions are only going to add more problems for them and as i say tens of

thousands of people here living in gaza and of course for international audience we really need to explain to them why the transport of fuel for example is so important to the street because the street doesn't have a national electricity grid and therefore the fuel is needed to run vital services . that's right gaza has one power station it has full turbines carli only only one of those full to bynes is using gaza has relied actually on fuel for all that power station from egypt we understand having spoken to official in the last few minutes that no power no sorry no fuel has even come through rough day for without power station but then of course there's all that incredibly important fuel gasoline and diesel that comes through every day from israel and that is now being stopped gazans are totally dependent on that for the fueling of generators for hospitals for example local businesses homes the local

administration house administration here relies on it to fuel pumps in order to get to households we spoke to somebody in the fuel sector here who says that they currently need around one million liters of diesel every day let me just look at these stats one million liters of diesel every day two hundred fifty thousand liters of gasoline five hundred tons of cooking oil and they're just not getting that now because of this new restriction the continuation of this blockade so you can imagine the kind of precious. that the gazans are facing twelve years of this blockade things are getting a lot worse and there is real concern that any kind of escalation we see in the next few days there are big fears of of more violence but we'll see what does happen certainly monitor the situation with you charles in gaza thank you.

the u.s. president bolt from perth arrives home to severe criticism from both sides of american politics after siding with the russian president vladimir putin on election meddling speaking after their summit in finland trump even challenge the findings of his own intelligence community from helsinki here's our diplomatic editor james bates. face to face ahead of a solo meeting a meeting that lasted over two and a half hours but if you were hoping they would solve any of the world's problems you'll be sorely disappointed instead when they spoke to reporters their comments were dominated by their views on the most toxic political issue in the u.s. an issue that just got more controversial as they seemed mainly to agree on it during today's meeting i addressed directly with president putin the issue of russian interference in our elections i felt this was a message best delivered in person. spend

a great deal of time talking about it and president putin may very well want to address it and very strongly because he feels very strongly about it and here's an interesting idea putin then explained that idea he get russian or thora his to interview the twelve hackers even though the allegation is they were working on behalf of those same or thoughts is or he said they could set up a joint us russian investigation team with one condition north of the witness which is this kind of effort should be a mutual one and then we would expect that the americans would reciprocate and they've they would question the fish bowls including the officers of law enforcement and intelligence services of the united states whom we believe who have something to do with illegal actions on the territory of russia. trump called that

an incredible offer he was then asked a straight question every u.s. intelligence agency has concluded that russia did what hu my first question for you sir is who do you believe remarkably he answered by switching to a completely different subject which is not part of the investigation hillary clinton's e-mails what happened to hillary clinton's e-mails thirty three thousand e-mails gone just gone i think in russia they wouldn't be gone so easily twenty two months after the election he still seems determined to reaffirm the legitimacy of his when i beat hillary clinton easily the electoral college is much more advantageous for democrats as you know than it is to republicans we won the electoral college by a lot one last question was simple yet important. president putin did you want president trump to win the election. yes i did because he talked about

bringing the right us relationship back to normal i've lost count of the number of times over the last eighteen months that i've described comments by president trump as extraordinary but this what was supposed to be a summit between the two most powerful leaders in the world is taking things to a new level the president may have been trying to robustly make his case about the twenty sixteen election but there seems little doubt that he's only made matters worse for himself james al-jazeera helsinki. now the international criminal court is marking a major milestone that was set up twenty years ago to bring justice to victims of atrocities such as war crimes genocide and crimes against humanity but there are questions about just how successful it's been shown or hope has more from the hague . a billion dollars is a lot of money to pay for just four convictions out of ten investigations so say critics of the international criminal court as it turns twenty this week but it has

truly global reach and acts as a deterrent to perpetrators of some of the world's worst atrocities so say its defenders the truth is somewhere in between the court was set up basically with so many goals at the same time not only rendering justice and meeting up punishments but also bringing truth bringing reconciliation bringing so many victims and i think it set out also to do many things at the same time well apparently you cannot do that they only had twenty africa has been a particular focus of the court's work with critics complaining of bias even though cases have been referred to the i.c.c. by individual governments but africa has also highlighted some of the court's weaknesses no international police force means it relies on the cooperation of its one hundred twenty three member states over darfur for instance despite years of

investigation and multiple indictments including of sudanese president omar bashir not one arrest has yet been made if the past of this relative legal infant then is one of teething trouble in finding its feet then what of its future in a world in which conflict is increasingly multi-lateral in which the superpowers aren't even members and in which vetoes at the u.n. security council are a barrier to justice in some of the world's most blighted places be the i.c.c. was founded as a permanent court from which no leader rebel group or army could hide now if permanence is not in question but there are significant gaps in global commitment to the court russia is blocking efforts to send syria to the international criminal court even though yes. government really with putin's backing has deliberately targeted civilians as a way of waging this war china seems to be standing in the way ascending myanmar.

court even though it ethnically cleansed seven hundred thousand rohingya muslims in the course of a month you know the united states is continuing to try to protect israel to protect saudi arabia so there is a very unprincipled approach to international justice all of that puts alleged war crimes in syria and gaza beyond its reach but the i.c.c. is tackling other challenges you investigations in venezuela the philippines and afghanistan may build support and assuage suspicion across the african continent but the rise of nationalism and disdain for global institutions elsewhere are all men assigns for the strengthening of international justice. because china joins me now from the hague in the netherlands and joined a packed day really for officials there what are we expecting in terms of ceremonies for the day. well big commemorative events here speeches and so on

a number of the members represented as well in the form of ministers and so on enjoying the occasion and talking about the legacy of the i.c.c. and the rome statute over the past twenty years and of course looking towards its future let's do a bit of that ourselves now because i'm joined by the judge president of the i.c.c. chile. formally worked at the international criminal tribunal court one formally of the special court for sierra leone as well and now course here at the i.c.c. it's a court as my report was laying out there that has in its first years received a lot of criticism too expensive not enough convictions the members not sufficiently committed do you feel that it's achievements outweigh its perceived disappointments thus far absolutely. the focus has to be on the reasons why the court was created in the first place that was created because there had been a gap that allowed impunity to prevail in. the members of the

international community tarleton one thousand nine hundred eighty was time to stop it and the top of the room started and created the court. of course like every other human institution there will always be ongoing need for reform especially when this comes in the manner of an institution trying to get together the assemblage of human thinking from all over the well. actually they created something they wanted to get going but it is now for us to after so many years to reflect and see how can we improve on that legacy that was left for us twenty years ago and that's what we're trying to reflect upon. you feel looking at over the those gaps have effectively been filled because there's been a pretty strong focus on africa and investigations elsewhere latin america as well some in asia and some in europe but huge gaps remain particular in the security

council none of the big powers are signed up what's to be done about that correct to say none of the big powers signed up. to two very big powers signed up from the western world friends and u.k. . from africa nigeria is a country with two hundred million people in it that's the big power in its own right so there is a lot of i think probably pointing at the security council where they have this leverage over the court which is very effective and effectively cuts out areas like syria and gaza from the court's jurisdiction we have to focus. those who are already in so i said you came and friends aren't there and very strong supporters of the call the bank. we have to reflect what they bring to the table of course as i said this is still a new institution and it does

a little states when people think for instance it think about the united states what is it part of this thing when you look at it. the u.s. actually are not always keen. and fast to sign to international treaties so what is going on here is not unusual. generally speaking i think we need to focus on those who are in the airport that miki to see that yes the unity gap has closed it is. not a perfect it is not perfect by any means but we get going. what happened when there was none at all no system in place to address those things so things much better now than they were and of course a great future one hopes ahead judge. we're going to have to leave it there i do appreciate your time many thanks to you thank you very much and we'll leave it there back to you in the studio thanks very much jonah in the hague in holland

where the quarter's had some notable successes but it still faces many obstacles and jonah and his guest mentioned there one hundred may countries are members but china in the united states and russia are among the nations that haven't signed up now since its founding the i.c.c. has issued fourteen indictments and secured just four convictions all of these were suspects in african countries those found guilty include three from the democratic republic of congo and a malayan rebel leader that some cases of collapsed when states refused to cooperate and referrals from the u.n. security council are subject to states that aren't even members of the court well alina cho is a legal research and author of the book never again legal responses to a broken promise in the middle east joins me now from london good to have you with us on the program in your opinion has the i.c.c. performed in the way we would have expected it to. in the way that it was actually conceived. of course the ice is seen as

a very limited jurisdiction and this stops secede from achieving its its purpose so for example if we just look at the authority distinction of those to see that i.c.c. has to return to restriction of or state parties to the rum statute and it was already mentioned that only hundred twenty three countries that actually us they'd parties to the rum stud ship and at the same time did i say has the personal jurisdiction over many of the nationals of those state parties but nonetheless dust still many countries that are not state parties to run started and hence the i.c.c. cannot exercise his jurisdiction and because of that of course the i.c.c. relies on for example the un security council. to refer such situations to the i.c.c. indeed if those are part of the failings what have been its successes because even when countries sign up to agreements like this into bodies like this it takes

a number of years before everybody is on board. it indeed it takes a long time for example for the i.c.c. to look into the situations in different countries and establish whether the i.c.c. can actually. initiated investigations full investigations and then of course to identify any cases that that would then be prosecuted by the i.c.c. but nonetheless we have to remember that the i.c.c. is the last resort court so that the i.c.c. can only act when for example the domestic courts failed to do so so there are some of the obstacles that prevent the i.c.c. from from investigating from prosecuting and this is also what what stops the i.c.c. from from from acting or acting time indeed if i can just bring up one point that was mentioned by our correspondent jonah hall with his guest one of the judges of the i.c.c. was one of the stumbling blocks is this referral of cases via the un security council does that need to be looked at again the issue of

a veto by some of those members allows some alleged criminals to get away with the crimes that they are accused of does the veto have to go and perhaps something like a simple majority in the security council be the way forward. yes indeed over the years the only two referrals from the un security council of the situation in darfur and doesn't five and of the situation in libya in two thousand and eleven and of course the resolution referring the situation in syria to the i.c.c. fails in two thousand and fourteen because of the two beat us from china and russia and the been no further referral from from the un security council and thus proposals of the un security council and the united nations to address the issue of those vetoes and one of the proposals from france and mexico is too actually. somehow limits the right to be told in cases for example of genocide crimes against

humanity and war crimes and this of course would would help to successfully refer such situation of genocide crimes against humanity or war crimes to the i.c.c. or to see what does happen certainly for the moment anyway the archer thanks so much for joining us from our london studio. oh plenty more ahead here on the al-jazeera news hour including why the mexican president's election promise could cause more problems. plus a new warning the trade tensions with the u.s. could put the global economy on shaky ground. and world champions and french heroes how this young and diverse team has captured the soul of that to meet up in sport with peter. u.k. based investigative agency has obtained documents revealing an extensive extensive lobbying effort by the united arab emirates in britain and the u.s.

the spin watch report includes e-mails from the amorality lobbying group to influence the b.b.c.'s coverage of the arab spring some journalists and managers were targeted for sacking the report says it has proof of secret meetings between abu dhabi's crown prince mohammed bin ziad and former british prime minister david cameron desired apparently threatened to pull billions in deals if the u.k. failed to designate a slim brotherhood as a terrorist organization a morality foreign minister and we're going to ash is accused of pushing journalists to create a pro u.a.e. anti muslim brotherhood anti iran and anti cattle media narrative and it's alleged the u.a.e. is lobbying company offered to twenty six thousand dollars a month to king's college london to focus research linking cattle with terrorism let's talk to paul brennan who's live for us outside the british parliament in london so many questions to be asked about why the u.a.e.

focus does that puts on the british establishment but do those that were targeted perhaps paul have even any answers. well we've reached out to some of those bodies that were targeted and we're bracing for a sponsor's from them i have the reports in front of me here and i attended the launch of the report in the last hour inside the houses of parliament behind me and that one of the co-authors. morgan said as follows that it was a slick well oiled machine the u.a.e. lobbying efforts it was sophisticated and quite clever in many ways and you know a lot of people talk about lobbying and the guidelines that control it's and they say that well everybody's involved with it really all governments try to put their interests out there and make sure that in the court of public opinion their voice is heard to try and work out what made the u.a.e. efforts special insidious i'm joined by david miller who is the founder of spin

watch he sponsored this report david what are give me a couple of the nuggets of the report first with the what we did this occasion in this report was really looked at the way in which the uni the was engaged in low being in the u.k. across a whole range of different areas think tanks lobby for arms pushing journalists pressuring politicians trips political funding and we were able to do that because we got a whole cache of leaked e-mails from inside the lobby from hired by the unique insight on in the whole food range of the techniques used by the lobbyists that's quite dramatic when you see that you know stories about lobbying about this tut tutted this was the whole range of things that they were doing and we were able to show that some of these are quite successful and in particular one threat which is made by the david cameron was if you don't institute an inquiry into the muslim brotherhood we will cancel the typhoon fighter jet deal from bush's place i will stop british petroleum getting all concession in the law that was successful i mean

extraordinary effort by the each actually cajole and bully the british government into a pursuing its foreign policy of. yes i mean there were other bits for example there was an allegation in the report about chatham house letting go two of its research fellows as a result of lobbying by the u.a.e. but there are concerns that there wasn't anything specific in the report to make that link directly i wonder whether you fear that might undermine the veracity you know what we said was that the uni through its lobby form was compiling information on people who worked in think tanks who they felt didn't reflect their views and the idea behind it was of course to try and marginalize those people or stop them from being any longer associated with a think tank we don't know what precise things happen but we do know that two people associated with the think tanks are targeted by the reports done by lobbying for no longer work there i don't know if it's

a connection of the cuts is going to action of course it would be great to have even more leaks and we. certainly know that that was intended outcome was from the from the east point of view if i can see more important than the specific. things that happened to particular people is that the the overall impact of this was to encourage the idea that people that take me miss limbs acted in political life in the u.k. are somehow i suspect extremists associated with the muslim brotherhood or or with terrorism and that's one wholly unfunded set of ideas which they they tried to push by the cajoling of the of the cameron government actually ended up in this country exacerbating racism against muslims as you see on the streets and wanted only a few days ago the. young muslim. woman who was intimidated by the far right cries and that's a direct but that's

a consequence of the east lobbying effort more important than just the question of lobbying hadn't quite worked in the area actually affects the lives of muslims in this country. and just quickly what do you expect to happen mean there are lobbying guidelines to they need to be toughened up. of course and to be toughened up the they don't adequately deal with the whole range of lobbying activities which we've revealed in this report and in particular i would i would note that they don't deal with brains speaking to the prime minister who may also be lobbyists are still have to be declared because they're friends and that's extraordinary a breach of over rules and institutionally i think it's all a bit ambiguous isn't it in the in the edges of that kind of thing more coverage on this report in the course of the day you've heard from david miller that we've also spoken to chris williamson the m.p. that sponsored it back to you that thanks so much paul course will join you later in the day while staying in the u.k. the official u.k. group that campaign for breaks it in twenty sixteen has been fined eighty thousand dollars for breaking spending rules electoral officials say votes lever worked with

another campaign group without declaring it but the organization says there's no evidence it did anything wrong and describes the allegations as politically motivated well in a few moments we'll have the weather with stuff but still ahead here on al-jazeera an important new trade deal between europe and asia even as the u.s. tries to put up trade barriers. also farmers going hungry the devastating effects of land seizures in myanmar. and it's a home run bonanza annual baseball contest in the u.s. peace of others details in sport. i. mean the weather sponsored by cattle. hello there the rains around the philippines have been incredibly active over the

past few days if i mean a so wet that this is the kind of scenes that we've been seeing in manila clearly a lot of rain coming down there and lots of foam coming off the sea as well and now we've seen around one hundred thirty millimeters of rain in just over two days so that's given us a problem with some flooding in the capital there but just up the coast is actually being even worse in some places reporting around two hundred twelve minute meters of rain just in one day so far worse further up the coast as far as rainfall totals are concerned and it's all i have in this month's of cloud here there's of course many parts of the philippines out towards the east as well and we've been that we've now seen a tropical storm develop now it's this blob of cloud hey that's now barreling its way towards the west and that one is edging its way towards hina and the northern parts of vietnam at the moment as well and this is a region we've already seen very heavy rain and the last day or so and so this storm will bring us yet more now the main problem from this storm is going to be the amount of rain the winds on to severe we've got winds around seventy five

kilometers per hour but this storm is working its way across high now and then into the northern parts of it now we will see flooding here over the next few days and the rains over the philippines also stay at very active so wolf flooding here to. the weather sponsored by qatar airways. the border. i had a briefing today from a man named steele who has been out there working with the security forces a veteran of al salvador as dad he was sent to iraq you seem to be with our

portfolios doing whatever it is that he wanted to take interest down and talked about in counterinsurgency while this interview was going on with jim steele there were these terrible screams about pain and terror but what was his mission and what legacy did he leave searching for stealing amount is iraq. welcome back you're watching the al-jazeera news arms the whole robin a reminder of our top stories this hour a group of displaced syrians have approached the border fence between syria and the israeli occupied golan heights waving white flags israeli soldiers called out to the group to move back from the fence prompting some to move to

a nearby refugee camp its source many were attempting to seek help all century following airstrikes in the area. also several years taking place at the hague to mark the twentieth year anniversary of the international criminal courts foundation the i.c.c. was set up to bring justice for victims of some of the world's worst atrocities high ranking judicial and political figures from around the world are due to discuss the court's work and its future. u.s. president trying her survived to severe criticism after siding with president vladimir putin of russia and ickes ations of election meddling speaking after that summit in finland trumped cast doubt on its own intelligence agencies which found evidence of interference. white house correspondent could be held at texas through more reaction from washington d.c. . for a president who loves to talk about his ratings and reviews there was nearly universal criticism of members of the u.s.

congress over his performance in helsinki and his apparent acceptance of russian president vladimir putin's denial that russia interfered in the twenty sixteen u.s. election president putin he just said it's not russian but more than a dozen u.s. law enforcement and intelligence agencies have concluded just the opposite leading some members of the president's own political party to rebuke his actions republican senator john mccain called the putin trust press conference disgraceful in a statement he said the damage inflicted by president trumps naive in egotism false equivalence and sympathy for autocrats is difficult to calculate many republicans are concerned that trump blamed both countries for the deteriorating u.s. russia relationship ject into giving what they call moral equivalence to a traditional u.s. adversary what many label a propaganda win for putin this was the primary objective of

a lot of the putin was to sow permanent instability in american society and political culture so that we're so busy fighting each other we don't have time to take him on as a threat opposition democrats not surprisingly were equally outraged at what the president did side with our number one enemy who is attacking the united states daily in a variety of ways.