do people want to be seen to be on the right side of history do you think liam fox the u.k. trade minister you know that's a name we associate with bricks it i mean he is obviously entailed with that involved in the alley but he's saying i'm not going to davos in the following the french following the dutch following even christine legarde the i.m.f. boss as well. but does that go beyond symbolism and once once the dust settles in a week or a month the real impacts of that is what's well i think once the dust does settle down the road and it could be in the next few weeks or next month you'll start to see a normalization of relations but the european leaders did make it take a strong stand on this something we haven't seen from the trumpet ministration just yet some u.s. businesses yes but not the actual u.s. government and it does say a lot about being on the right side of history jim correspondent there in stumble clearly making the point that they got two scenes of investigation and they found quite some evidence between the consulate and the consul general's residence there also in this wooded area

a big wooded area what's your sense as to what the evidence might be i think you do the obvious things that the d.n.a. evidence if a body was dismembered and it was done. with a saw you could have blood spatter other tissue body tissue fluids covering quite a wide area in a room so it's a thorough search of that and there are forensic poor to find that d.n.a. evidence or indications of that evidence in the wooded area it could be for ever to the crime perhaps saw perhaps the body nobody knows what happened to the body of it was dismembered is it still in turkey or was it taken back to saudi arabia and what does it mean when we find the news that they've got fingerprints they have fingerprint evidence but that doesn't locate anyone anyone who's a less than desirable individual in the room at the time of any alleged that just puts them in the room at some time not that time well it does but that and that is circumstantial it's a nother piece of evidence that can go you have allegedly fifteen saudi individuals

who were involved in this operation if immigration records in turkey can show that none of those individuals had been in the consulate before had been deployed to radio or had been some time then the question comes up. the jury whether that's a jury in a court of law. the jury in the court of public opinion would look at that and say well if they weren't there on that particular day when were they there because there's no record of a mountain as ever we appreciate your insight thank you so much. well this case is from to several political and business leaders to distance themselves from saudi arabia as we've been hearing the u.k.'s trade secretary is the latest government representative to cancel plans to attend a conference in riyadh later this month loan sleep joins us live from brussels lawrence of the list of people who aren't going to davos in the desert it's getting longer by the day. yes and clearly the whole saudis can listen isn't exactly on the agenda here but other things that

they're talking about but make no mistake there is very deep concern from from individual european leaders because the european union stands for freedoms the sense of freedom of expression freedom from harm freedom of the press in the media of free expression human rights all of those things and in recent months and particularly since this space of russian attacks on the european countries or the assassination attempt for example in salzburg in the u.k. european leaders have taken to using this phrase with which they call abiding by the international rules based system which is to say that if you want to be a friend or an ally of the european union country or the e.u. itself you have to behave in a certain way and stand by those freedoms that the e.u. itself stands by and self evidently he potentially assassinating a dissident journalist someone here and consulates puts you in solid at all this with all of that and so there is enormous. concern individually for example that

the early this morning as they were arriving i spoke to an attorney it's a yani who's the presidents of the european parliament in strasbourg and here's what he had to say about his. job not easy is freedom i am jodie's for at least for me it keep buoyant to defend the place everywhere in europe and abroad for the safety it is important to do not everything on this murder always the killer. who they say to kill his job is. since since that there's been a flurry of protests from from from high profile ministers who now all say they're not going to attend the doubles conference in the coming days first the dutch and the french finance minister said they're not going to go and then the british trade secretary and his delegation said then not going either very very important thing really for the british since the u.k. suppose we leave in the european union a trade relationship with a country like like saudi arabia is really very important and so that is i think i

think quite a significant signal it's also very significant that the french and the british all going since then they're the two european countries that have the biggest arms deals with saudi arabia and i think in not going they're trying to address the potential charge of hypocrisy that says you say you stand by these international rules based system and yet you still do all these trade deals with a country like like like saudi arabia and so i think that's the reason for that protest but what i think it doesn't do is suggest that the british or the french are going to stop their arms deals with saudi arabia as a result of this it seems in both cases that he's sufficient for that sign being that they register their protests and their concern about the lack of transparency over the saudi end of the investigation by simply not going to riyadh for this conference lawrence thanks very much. well since jim was a us resident there is increased sensitivity there about what happened to him the democrats are putting pressure on president trump over his response they want

donald trump to disclose any business ties he may have with the saudis mr trump has been reluctant to criticize the saudi leadership despite mounting evidence linking riyadh to the journalist's disappearance the president sent his secretary of state to get answers from riyadh might bump a zero said he got a strong commitment from the saudi leadership to a thorough and a timely investigation the washington post has now published what it's calling the last opinion piece written by. the column calls for greater freedom of expression across the arab world mike hanna reports now. president trump will receive a personal report on the case in coming hours he's urged turkish authorities to hand over any audio and video recordings they may have we've asked for if it exists the president has been reluctant to criticize saudi arabia or discuss any sanction that may be imposed dismissing allegations of saudi complicity as and i quote

another case of guilty until proven innocent they are and now we have other very good allies in the middle east but if you look at saudi arabia the. tremendous purchase of not only military equipment but. president trump is awaiting the report from the secretary of state who were sent to the region in the face of growing political uproar mike pompei oh spent time with senior saudi figures during a visit to riyadh and said they had denied any knowledge of the matter and had started a full investigation. he also met with the turkish president in ankara shaking hands for the camera but insisted it was too early to go into details about the journalist disappearance and i want to talk about any of the facts. that they didn't want to either in that they want to have the opportunity to complete this investigation in a throw away and more pressure from congress the house speaker paul ryan saying action must be taken we have laws for this we recently passed the magnitsky act

which is a man who was killed in prison in a russian prison so we have sanction laws on the books in terms of this bipartisan action president trump is given one hundred twenty days to decide on what sanctions to impose a group of democrat senators have demanded that the trump family disclose any business ties that may have had with saudi arabia in the past decade but this is legally and enforceable and likely to be brushed aside by the president and to remind of the man who's at the center of this ongoing crisis the washington post has published in a. union piece written by jamal khashoggi shortly before his disappearance in a t. criticizes the lack of international response to the abuse of journalists in countries like saudi arabia and egypt he writes these actions no longer carry the consequence of a backlash from the international community instead these actions may trigger

condemnation quickly followed by silence as a result he continues arab governments have been given free rein to continue silencing the media at an increasing rate mike turner reporting there live now to washington and our correspondent kimberly helka kimberly is the trump white house having a bit of an issue here trying to contain this. yeah there's no question about it so are all eyes on a meeting taking place at the white house cameras not involved or allowed into that meeting unless that changes we don't expect anything publicly to come from it but the president is meeting with the u.s. secretary of state mike pompei oh and again watching that very closely because this as mike hanna said there in his report it is a briefing that the president has been waiting for as a result of that high level visit not only to saudi arabia by the u.s. secretary of state but also to turkey and of course you remember that donald trump this week did promise that he would get to the bottom of it as he pointed out or as

he said in an oval office pool spray with regard to what exactly happened to the missing journalists a lot of attention on that but what the president is not getting peter is some of that requested audio he had also asked for a video he said from turkish investigative authorities apparently there is a delay on that that that is not happening so it's not clear if the white house may use this as an excuse of delaying the so-called report into what exactly happened but in the midst of all this as you said it does appear the white house trying to contain this story one former administration official from the obama administration vice president biden has been speaking out to mess to clean a national television criticizing the white house for in terms of its response so far also questioning the saudi government in terms of its respect for human rights and rule of law what this vice president joe biden is saying is that. given the sort of lack of tough light of these allegations against saudi arabia and the fact

that she was a u.s. resident really she in his view as a former administration official especially compels the trumpet ministration to act but of course we haven't seen that so far i know that any green area questions over mr trump's personal financial relationship with the country of saudi arabia. well certainly there's a lot of gray area donald trump although he said and tweeted this week that he didn't have any ties to the kingdom or to the government he boasted in twenty fifteen that in fact he was very happy that saudi arabia was one of his biggest customers buying apartments from him for forty fifty million dollars so we know that there are ties there because the president said so he also reported in two thousand and sixteen that he had a number of companies there is personal lawyer says that's no longer the case but people are questioning whether or not those companies just had different names

different owners whether those ties were really severed given the fact that we've seen this very much a shifting stance if you will in terms of the president saying some very tough talks and he's got to get to the bottom of this will leave nothing uncovered to later try to put in alternative theories about what may have happened to missing journals even floating the idea of rogue killers it leaves many in the united states questioning clued in members of congress you have to look at some of the continually tough talk coming out of the senate those responsible should be held accountable one female senator saying republican and a democrat also laying out the sort of three actions that congress must take if the white house doesn't that is rejecting pending arms sales to the kingdom seriously considering sanctions and also suspending u.s. assistance when it comes to that saudi led coalition in yemen is increasingly something that americans feel uncomfortable with and are pressuring this white house to act on committee thanks very much. for saudi arabia's crown prince

mohammed bin solomon has tried to project himself as a reformer and a modernizer but he has showed she case has swung the spotlight on to other policies that he has led in the last eighteen months he's consolidated his power base in that time he's understood to be responsible for the blockade of cata saudi arabia along with the united arab emirates bahrain and egypt cut ties with in june of last year in november there was the mysterious detention of the lebanese prime minister in riyadh who announced his resignation on saturday t.v. but he withdrew that after he returned to lebanon the crown prince is a major driver of the saudi led coalition war in yemen saudi actions there have drawn international condemnation not least in august when an airstrike killed a bus full of school children and finally you spearheaded the so-called anti corruption crackdown dozens of saudi princes officials and prominent business men were detained at the ritz carlton in riyadh and many had to pay billions of dollars

for their freedom let's talk now to sami hamdi he's editor in chief of international interest he joins us from london sami hamdi for you what's the top line on this evolving continuing and growing saga. i think what we have to be aware of is that mohammed bin sole man now is i wouldn't say that it's his chance formed from a reform or to what is now being perceived as a dictator however there has always been this steady stream of turning a blind eye to certain abuses that have been taking place in saudi arabia for the sake of this great to reform let's remember that a lot of the newspapers during the crackdown on the princes when they were imprisoned in the ritz hotel and forced to give up a lot of money a lot of the arguments was that it was a harsh but necessary measure in order to push through reforms we have to remember that one hundred percent men when he first came to power when he was pushing through some of these reforms there are very few who would have argued that saudi

arabia did not need reforms the question was what kind of reforms however what i find really puzzling is that in the beginning he was imprisoning a lot of religious authorities and when he was imprisoning them it was seen as a sign of their resisting these liberal reforms that need to be implemented therefore we can turn a blind eye to it i heard you earlier referring to some of the foreign policy decisions that have been taken some of those have been forced upon him such as yemen and such as the lebanese prime minister headed it which even though you imprisoned him which you shouldn't have done there was that feud going on between hezbollah the alliance with the christians in the maronites that caused chaos and political chaos however now beset men with with the with jamal khashoggi it's come about at a time when reforms have been slowing down he gave women the right to drive but imprisoned women activists there are still many reforms that have been take been very slow in implementing in saudi arabia and people quite frankly have run out of patience with regards to mohammed bin segment this is not entirely been some men's fault however the reality is saudi arabia has very deep rooted issues that need to

be tackled over a long term so a lot of the reforms that he promised would take place need much longer to implement however in order to do so he had to tackle a lot of the various factions within saudi arabia he decided to do so by crushing them by crushing him it had been out of the law crushing the other princes so i think with regards to. the with regards to the kidnapping the l.a. . kidnapping or if you want to wrap it around and be safe i don't think this is a sudden turn from having been said that this trend has always been there it is just that now it's under a sharp microscope because of who gemini should you was and what he meant could the real payback on this if there is a payback to be exerted come from not the court of global public opinion but the court of globally powerful people liam fox the u.k. trade minister not going to davos in the desert christine legarde the i.m.f. boss not going to davos in the desert the french the dutch as well we understand in the next couple of hours might pompei of the u.s. secretary of state reports back to donald trump and steve minutia the u.s.

trade secretary will then decide if he's going to go or not depending upon mr pompei of take on those conversations that he had in riyadh if mr mean you shouldn't says i'm not going either that surely would send a massive signal to riyadh. i think of the problem that the white house has and indeed what a lot of european allies have is that there are a lot of cases going on in the region a lot of crises in which saudi arabia is a major player and is required to be a major ally this includes issues regarding iran this includes issues in yemen this includes issues regarding palestine and israel let's remember that one had been said man is an integra part of cushion as deal of the century and he has been a key is very keen and eager to apply significant pressure on palestinians to accept conditions that they would never accept there is an israeli lobby in the white house in the washington right now that is lobbying for what have been so many

essentially arguing that there has never been a saudi leader more amenable to u.s. israeli interests in the kingdom we have to balance this out here the devil's forum although that all of the or all of these companies are pulling out and the like there is a great a game here at play we have to understand that for donald trump to back saudi arabia it's not simply because of personal interests it's because there is a very real lobby in washington at this moment in time that is saying that mohamed bin cement is an important ally against iran in the issue of palestine and israel and with regards to forcing back iranian influence that john bolton keeps talking about in iraq in yemen and in syria so this is why that there is this desire to hold on to mohammed bin said men and i think it's very poignant that yesterday donald trump seemed to cause suspicion over turkey's possession of recordings essentially saying check if you have them release them if they exist this comes after turkey have said that they showed the recordings to to the u.s. so there is this we need to move away

a little bit from the personal relation of donald trump and saudi arabia saudi arabia is a vital ally in the region this is the reality this is harsh this is the cruel world that we live in the very unjust world that we live in and the battle here with regard to the shoji case is this which is more important the need for saudi arabia to be an ally or the preservation of human integrity freedom of the press and the like my argument is that. the reality is that practical interests take precedence over the human press and over the freedom of the press and human integrity why because look take c.c. egypt for example he opened fire on thousands of protesters killed hundreds of them in prison then in the entire opposition of the muslim brotherhood and the liberals but yet he was allowed to speak at the nelson mandela conference for human rights at the un general assembly i said this is killing his population left right and center and now there are talks that they will talk about some negotiating government in which he will be stay in power there are worse crises that are taking place in the region where the world has said you know what will turn

a blind eye and what could you continue to invest that we should be wary how much importance we give that that was issue i think here it's a balance between the israeli and the trump lobby versus those who are the big decrying what's happened to the shakti and demanding that there be respect for human rights but history is anything to go by human rights is always very low on the priority list when it comes to the saudi u.s. relationship sami thank you very much. and before we move on a look at the man at the center of all this jamal the saudi journalist was once close to be in a circle of the saudi royal family he earned his reputation as a reformist by pushing boundaries and questioning government policies in two thousand and three her shoji became media advisor to prince turki bin feisal the prince headed saudi arabia's intelligence services and later served as ambassador to the united states but last year a shoji went into exile in the u.s. after becoming concerned about the actions of crown prince mohammed bin samana he told al jazeera in march he left the kingdom because he didn't want to be arrested

. continuing coverage of course as we carry on through the day here on al-jazeera time for the weather it's rob thank you very much yes the seasons change sharply not just here in middle east but in southwestern europe and we've seen this recent thing the circulation of cloud over spain and portugal east quite clear remember we had forty eight degrees in the drive for most of the summer this is clearly different now on the east coast in ten years there is flooding at the moment start to replace has been flooding that's a view from one of the bali our collins of thunderstorms developing in the med overland the figures of collected rain for the last twenty four hours huge that of the order of twenty to thirty millimeters but of course is repeated day after day and this is land that hasn't had much right side throughout the summer so flash flooding is still a possibility plus the fact that this is not just choir rain this is part of the circulation and when you get that sort of circulation see what the center of low pressure that was in homs is the rain is being driven science is being brought in from the med to the north east of spain as well the result of that there's going to

be some flooding up here suspect class alone or area quite possibly but as i said it's been driven down so that we've had recently in tunisia you know algeria bit of flash flooding it looks like it's moral codes to now of course here we've got the drainage of the atlas mountains so the chances are when it's twenty four hours you will see something in the news about flash flooding in morocco or maybe somewhere in space to say the seasons definitely changed peter. rob thanks very much still to come here on the news hour a shooting in an afghan government compound increases concerns about violence in the run up to saturday's elections. and in the sports news we'll hear from the french world cup winner who took a trip back to the place where his football story all began when we come back.

we're. i have dedicated almost my entire professional life to the bench and fight against corruption and what i have learned is that we need champions we need also to shine the light on those shampoos and this award bridges that gap that existed in this you. know meet your own version here on shine the light on what they do and do it not shine a light on your hero with your nomination for the international space award two thousand and eighteen for more information go to the war dot com.

pictures of the saudi crown prince is. being involved in the disappearance of the journalist. turned their attention to a fifteen member. who do think may have killed him. the turkish team has been searching two. buildings in istanbul turkey. important. political and business leaders to distance themselves from saudi arabia secretary of the european government representative to cancel plans to attend

a conference in french and dutch ministers. some breaking news now out of afghanistan where three top officials have been killed in an attack just moments after a meeting attended by the most senior u.s. commander in the country the governor of kandahar his top intelligence officer and police chiefs chief singular are all dead it happened in the province of kandahar within the governor's compound increase concerns about the security situation in afghanistan actions on saturday. joins us live from the capital kabul just explain for us what happened. this is what we know there was a meeting between the u.s. top command in afghanistan scotsmen with the top government representatives in khandahar the governor the chief intel as years of. and also the chief of

police command and off to that meeting and there were. fire inside the home in that gun fire the intelligence chief the top police command and the governor what killed two americans were injured and a statement posted by the. u.s. spokesperson saying basically that the u.s. top military commander was unhurt in that attack now the taliban issued a statement saying that but claiming responsibility for the attack we don't know whether this was an inside that attack or so-called green on blue attack with someone with affiliation with the taliban has opened fire targeting specifically those military command that we don't know. of this particular moment and we don't know whether the u.s. top it to commend the words of the visit of the vicinity of the compound when the. gunfire started but this is a major setback for the afghan government because it's

a third time that you have we top security officials killed in in an attack under what is the backbone of the afghan military attempts are trying to stem the rise of the taliban and somehow each time there is an appointment of a governor official in the those early years he's always considered a top guy in afghanistan and the police commander was killed as you know. was on the top hit list of the taliban for quite some time and this as you said comes against the backdrop of the preparations for the elections which are going to take place on saturday and made increasing concerns about the security situation of the taliban have said that they are determined to disrupt the election and they said that they are going to target polling stations and this poses major challenges for

the afghan security forces who are trying now to deploy war troops to different areas across afghanistan to secure the elections as we are going to see in this report. afghan army cadets celebrating their graduation their excitement may soon give way to anxiety as the new soldiers are likely to be sent to the front line but this is my come to i must defend i have no fears i have taken an oath to serve and defend. this graduation ceremony in kabul was held earlier than planned the army stretched and more soldiers are needed to secure polling stations nationwide through all the years the u.s. and other countries have spent billions of dollars training afghan security forces to lead operations when all foreign troops pull out of the country a goal that has eluded afghan military commanders now they are faced with the harsh

reality that taliban is gaining ground and launching more attacks across the country. this is the moment when taliban fighters ambush an army convoy soldiers respond with a coordinated assault to kill the animal is it's only a mock training drill the reality on the ground is tougher and unpredictable taliban commanders have intensified attacks during election campaigning to target candidates and security forces we guess asking people the war polling station in our national security to portis is ready to protect you and protect the process. since the fall of the taliban government in kabul seventeen years ago u.s. and nato troops have played a crucial role in training and equipping the afghan army the goal is to eventually

see afghan security forces taking over military operations nationwide and when the ice of mission and it there were almost one hundred forty thousand nato troops in this country we're now down to some sixteen thousand. all the work from the remaining more than one hundred thousand has been taken over by the afghans so we are very confident that they can fulfill their tasks president donald trump has repeatedly said he won't commit to any plan to expand or prolong the u.s. military operation in afghanistan that leaves the afghan army to bear the brunt of defeating the taliban and restoring stability. there comes a heart attack highlights the major challenges that the international community and the afghan government face. and mounting pressure to stabilize the country to put

an end to the war that has been going on for more than seventeen years and also elect a really present and representative parliament the elections are going to be held on saturday amid hopes by the afghan people that the elections would pave the way for a vibrant and then good second issues like the peace talks with the taliban breaks and reconstruction and also stability that now hangs in the balance with the kinds of heart attack we have to wait and see what would be the reaction of the americans the nato and also of the. afghan government are we likely to see further violence in the coming days or push by the international community to say it's about time to come up to a political agreement anytime soon thanks very much. distanced itself from a rocket attack that hit southern israel on wednesday was damaged in the city of

the group says the rocket fire was an irresponsible attempt to undermine egyptian efforts to broker a new long term truce with israel the israeli military responded by hitting twenty sites in gaza killing at least one palestinian very force it has more now from gaza . well a quiet night here in gaza defying expectations of some who might have expected a secondary israeli military response to the rocket fire that took place in the small hours of wednesday morning one rocket reaching the town of bush over some forty kilometers away from the gaza strip. and really damaging that house the mother and three children inside escaping on her the other rockets falling into the sea southwest of tel aviv israeli security cabinet led by the prime minister benjamin netanyahu meeting until two thirty am this morning as they discussed their next move there are suggestions that the israeli army doesn't want to escalate things into a full scale military conflict indeed there are reports here that hamas which is

denying responsibility for these rocket attacks sent a message with egyptian negotiators who left gaza on wednesday for the israelis saying again that they denied responsibility that they were investigating who was responsible and also that they didn't want a military escalation towards full scale war either that leaves open the question who was responsible. has in the past pointed toward salafist groups linked to the islamic state there are also people pointing out the fact that fatah the rival palestinian faction has its own military brigade here as well but the israelis say that the only people who have this kind of medium range rocket weaponry are hamas and islamic jihad that either such an attack was done without the leadership knowledge or done with the new leadership knowledge to express its frustration at the lack of progress on a truce while still being able to deny it for now the calculations continue. south korean president has given the head of the roman catholic church a special special message from the north.