to the investigation there's a lot of other evidence d.n.a. evidence fingerprint evidence blood samples all being assessed coding to investigators they're all saying that they go into their own place regardless of events elsewhere whatever donald trump says whatever suggestions of the media in the united states who where walt this investigation is on cools will report in the fullness of time all right and her sentence life for us in istanbul entry thank you now the new york times is reporting that the rulers of saudi arabia may be considering blaming a top intelligence official close to the crown prince mohammed bin solomon for the killing the report says that general siri an advisor to the crown prince could be cited as being responsible for the murder due to a misunderstanding over and struction and the general services spokesman for the saudi led military coalition and yemen let's take a look at the man who's at the center of all of this criticize saudi arabia's monarchy after mohamed vents on monday came the center of power and the kingdom

last year because he accused the thirty three year old crown prince of introducing a new era of fear and arrests and public shaming fearing for his safety fled to the u.s. in september of last year when he wrote a regular column for the washington post before his career as a journalist he was close to the saudi royal family and served as an advisor to senior saudi officials clear on is executor executive director of the arab center of washington and joins us via skype from fairfax virginia we appreciate your time very much so. what are you hearing now when you hear the president from finally acknowledging that jamal khashoggi is likely dead what do you what are you getting out of that. well i think we're approaching the point of maybe sanity in the u.s. reaction to this crisis we've seen the u.s. position change just like that whether in london i mean you know one day we have.

worries some administration showing concern about some serious developments news coming from istanbul the next day we have a production as an end of the united states turning into a lawyer. but then show a traitor's of very in a crime now all of a sudden there seems to be a kind of little tone of reality in the statements that we've heard today that are that is definitely. i think basically first of all the case itself has moved so quickly it has sort of passed this unnecessary caution on the part of the administration the whole world community seems to be pointing its finger fingers on the door like one direction or official involvement by the saudi government at some level or another toward you know this with regards to this crime

yet the u.s. administration for rather selfish reasons on the part of the president and fight you know fine man show kind of immoral if you will reasons on the part of the administration in talking about arms deals when a basically an innocent journalist a permanent president of the united states. democrat a person who has studied here in the united states and has advocated for freedom and respect for human rights for the thirty years that i have known him is somehow ignored as if you know he's just a sec referential lamb for future arms deals with the saudi government so let me ask you that president trump has been very vocal about how how he feels about be the relationship with saudi arabia he's been very blunt about the financial attachments between the two governments eccentrics cetera so having said that how likely do you think that sanctions actually are as more is revealed about what

actually happened. i'm not optimistic that the president will necessarily initiate such a process he might under duress accept that if you will from members of congress pressure from the public pressure from the media pressure from you know human rights organizations he might find himself in a predicament where he has to take some steps not to his liking but left to his own devices i don't think president trump or at the administration would move in that direction at all ok remains to be saying thank you very much for joining us at talk about your friend we appreciate it. aside from the u.s. treasury secretary many other big names have pulled out of saudi arabia's major and vestment conference next week it's known as basically davos in the desert among them top politicians they include the french and dutch finance ministers and the british trade secretary the international monetary fund's christine legarde is also out as are the c.e.o.'s of j.p. morgan chase were at the blackstone group a u.s.

based financial services company and media partners have also withdrawn including c.n.n. si and d.c. the financial times in new york times and the los angeles times france has suspended political visits to saudi arabia other e.u. leaders have also voiced concern jonah hall has the latest from brussels. if there's been concern about a slow response by european nations at a political level to the alleged murder of jamal kershaw g. well that may be changing britain france and the netherlands of all announced that they're withdrawing their ministerial level delegations to that financial investment summit of davos in the desert as it's been dubbed citing that now is simply not the time for that level of engagement this was what french president emmanuel macron had to say. leafy. the facts we know today are mr g. string the serious and worrying we expect is fairly light on this matter we have

had exchanges with saudi authorities to clarify all this but in the current circumstances we have sides a postponement political visits including that of our economy minister european countries of course faced something of a quandary in their response to saudi arabia do they go in hard on riyadh demanding answers threatening action risking the possibility of wrecking lucrative trade and investment ties particularly in the sale of arms and also very valuable intelligence contacts that have been credited with water going number of attacks on european soil or do they stand behind that much from put to value of the european union the global rules based system casting all else to one side well it seems they are making their minds up now even though the call continues to go out for a thorough into in independent investigation this was donald tusk the president of the e.u. council earlier. we need an open transparent and investigation it's all

in the best interests of the of or for the other and outside the european union but nevertheless watching closely the russian president vladimir putin wary also of a rush to judgment. first of all we should wait for the results of the investigations how can we russia is start to spoiling our relationship with saudi arabia without knowing what in fact happen there. what may happen in future will nobody is quite waiting as i said for the investigation to come clue one clue though comes from a close ally of angela merkel speaking in berlin on wednesday he said europe may have to adjust its relations with saudi arabia. of conflict resolution at george mason university joins us here in the studio we appreciate your time i met up at the same question to you that i put to the other guest and it seems clear that donald trump's public position about this has shifted rather

quickly as it seemed that he was kind of dragging his feet for a few weeks why do you think that is. i think this is a moment of truth. since compu from. apparently he got some conclusive evidence or he was stall the final version between yesterday and today i've seen tom shift in hundred and eighty degree between his a.p. interview where basically he was defending so there really we should not indicted since the rule is not guilty to. remain innocent that proven guilty but today he is as maggie happen in new report out of new times put it this way he stopped short of saying m.b.'s was the responsible for all this so i read in this a surprise that came true early for. sure the king.

and his circle over there wasn't going to have a sleepless night how to do position themselves. and trump was considered to be their best friend he was supposed to be the guardian of m.b.a.'s. to provide a cover up or a proper exit from all this environment when a within the public opinion so i think that there is a counter strategy two thousand not been developed in other words how far this pressure coming from the white house will come from europe will remain an open ended call for let's hear the saudi narrative and so far there has been ok and there seems to be there's this public discussion based on leaks here and there about what that narrative is going to be but is that narrative connected to the truth there's a narrative and there's the truth of what actually happened and there seems to be

this public discussion about what's the best the best story that we can tell are we ever going to know the truth i think we have. two problems here one is in rio the other one is in an unclear on account considering what happened instable and they believe that if there had been a transparent legal system into the general prosecutor could have appeared in front of cameras they want to tell us what the investigation would have could have revealed by then and then we would have a point of the market between league ations and facts so far we don't have any conclusive facts so this is what i think what. the diplomatic of the british instead of the legal transparent process when it comes to i think we do you were misguided cruel eighteen or misread in the whole scandal the assume that he was an ordinary citizen to citizen we could eliminate

easily and nobody would even pay attention not only the white house would be on our side suddenly here is this a iconic figure who has become the tree that has revealed the entire forest and now we everything is exposed that there is this world the world condemnation of the regime in riyadh and therefore i think the saudis thought that they would say well it was an interrogation that went to roll but they lay out that that would float and i did not think there was a deliberate manipulation of facts in stumbled where we have seen some. agendas and also the evidence was leaked drip drip drip and then we're left with how we can construct the whole image is that let me ask you this because you're right there's been a lot of there's a lot of focus it's been on the the how the u.s. is reacting to this let's talk about what's happening in saudi arabia because as

you said it seems that they clearly miscalculated how this was all going to play out what is happening do you think side riyadh what is happening potentially to the future. i think how many. of. strengthening his momentum. he shifted quickly from the position of defense minister to crown crown prince and then suddenly crown prince and since his visit to the white house last march he has behaved as the defunct to ruler of not only riyadh but the entire region in the region considering what the how the yemeni what has been going on however i think that even before the scandal of her should be she's death he has exhausted his political capital and i think that happened early summer wife because king solomon himself had to intervene

in the process of the people that were supposed to bring one hundred billion dollars to help the saudi budget at this point and suddenly the whole deal was eliminated from the table so i think now what we are witnessing is a process of what they would call a corrective politics within the royal courtier in the area but it. did whoever is hoping for this corrective process was not expecting this is bad scenario if. now if somebody is accused of killing or give or ordering the killing the slaughter of a journalist who resided in the west and he was well known with his critique he was not an opponent who basically expressed views for the benefit of all their own for the sake of the regime itself very suddenly them and so did a must be

a wiseguy within the royal court of india who would have asked the question who is going to take the blame and now i think with the interview of trump with the new york times the finger is moving higher somewhere and then i think within the next two or three days we must hear from one of the ways we're going to there is a pro. exit a. nervous communication or because if he admits that he did it i think this is the end of the holder as you said the finger seems to be moving higher and higher that will be the final word for now. thank you very much my friend and his to international and other human rights groups are calling for the turkish government to ask the un to urgently establish an investigation into the possible murder of jamal khashoggi the reason that we need to do if you can actually be an easy thing

to do is leave the divisions and actually do something so we know that we give enough and we do and even though we do think that it is the only human rights and then here is the and this is. us it is time and time again and there are still awaits you to meet with this that we return to get you in the world that you can right now because every time he says to me that you will be. another tragedy and the other person killed and then your population and believe that everything will. so had on al-jazeera one of the world's democracies takes a new government we have a special report from the mountain kingdom of time and pakistan it is closer to a series went over australia actually from the second test in spain.

hello again we're here across united states we are still looking at a flooding situation across parts of texas you can see the clouds are still there and we do expect to see more rain across that state so flood watches warnings are still in effect there what we're going to see up to the north though is going to be a front pushing through and that means a change of temperatures so winnipeg eight degrees is going to be a high then that begins to slide that front of undersides over here towards the east and we're going to seeing those temperatures drop so here on saturday new york is going to be a cloudy day at about nineteen also quite cool down along that front with washington eighteen but still quite nice for miami as well as for los angeles with a temperature of thirty degrees there well here across central america as well as mexico where looking at a flooding situation as a tropical disturbance is developing here in the pacific now what that's going to be doing is we think intensifying of the next few days and we are going to be picking up some showers along the coast that means storm surge flooding mudslides

could be a possibility as well as wind damage just depending on how close that system does get towards the shore up towards savannah though it is going to be a nice day a warm day for you at thirty one degrees as well as nasa thirty and over jamaica we are going to be seeing temperatures into the low thirty's with kingston jamaica seeing attempt a few about thirty one degrees. after three years afghanistan is finally preparing to hold parliamentary elections by constant violence and to newly influenced by foreign powers many afghans are hoping for a real change one direction with a come to take for give you an in-depth coverage of the afghanistan the actions.

of the free. watching al-jazeera let's recap the top stories right now the u.s. president has for the first time publicly acknowledged that saudi journalist jamal khashoggi is likely to be dead he has warned the saudi arabia of severe

consequences if it is responsible for this is secretary of state mike pompei always asked him to give riyadh more time for investigations before deciding on what to do next and top politicians from the e.u. have pulled out of a major saudi investment conference next week they include the french and dutch finance ministers and the british trade secretary france's president has decided to postpone political visits to saudi arabia until so she's fate is known and saudi crown prince mohammed bin solomon has denied any knowledge of what happened but al jazeera has learned that one of his bodyguards led the operation which involved fifteen. shooting in afghanistan's southern province of kandahar has left three government officials dead the local intelligence chief the police chief and the governor were all killed three americans were also injured in this attack on the governor's compound the taliban have claimed responsibility now among the dad was also

a top afghan security commander general abdul has previously survived numerous attempts on his life attacks have increased in the run up to saturday's parliamentary election the taliban have repeatedly threatened to disrupt the vote has more from kabul. this is a major setback for the afghan government because in one single attack last we see in your local government officials in. general for example the top police command was on top of the hit list for the taliban for quite some time here has survived many suicide bombing attacks and his father was killed in an attack by the taliban who's known for his staunch anti taliban stand saying that there is no way that can play in a future role in afghanistan and the attack also highlights of the challenges that the americans the afghan government and nature will face in the near future you

also. comes against the backdrop of the upcoming elections many people heard i hope that those in the saturday elections because pave the way for more stability and you palaver could tackle the problems the afghan government faces particularly inefficient governance. and then the to find job opportunities for millions of people i think after this people would have questions about whether it's safe or not to go and cast their votes on saturday afghanistan's president ashraf ghani has encouraged voters to press just a paid end at saturday's election despite a recent violence of women as my demand for my wish for the people of afghanistan especially for those who are over eighteen and nominated for the election is to go and participate in the election holding this election is going to be a victory for the brave afghan security forces but it will be a victory for the people of afghanistan and for democracy. i call sample is

a professor at queen's university belfast he served as the deputy special representative in afghanistan he joins us via skype from belfast we appreciate your time what does it say that the taliban said they were going to do these things and they are doing exactly the things that they said that they were going to do absolutely holding afghanistan's parliamentary elections in conditions of war was already very difficult today's developments and the killings of the security team in kandahar are just made this challenge even more formidable. beyond beyond the clear tactic that their strategy rather and the taliban do probably try to scare people from voting what is their bigger goal besides just that. well it's like a a tug of war over the afghan countryside and people with

they we've heard that the president about promised on calling on people to turn out and vote so that he can demonstrate that the despite the taliban's best efforts are scams are able and willing to participate in the political process while the taliban are trying to show exactly the opposite in their statement on the elections they said that elections in which people do not participate count for nothing and they are trying to show that they have sufficient control over the country and the people to prevent those elections going ahead. how do you think this will affect voter turnout. i think that the the voter turnout is going to be perhaps the main indicator that unless you look at to evaluate whether the elections succeeded or failed certainly in kandahar already today people simply didn't come out of their houses again after

the news of the killing of general rasik i think people there will be even more concerned about security he was a linchpin without security who's going to come out and vote so really they you know they're they struggle to hold or prevent these elections is really a struggle over turnout reza sample thank you so much for your time we appreciate it and as one of the youngest democracies in the world and now bhutan has chosen a new government the party got the narrow victory over its main rival and the national assembly it's only the third democratic election held by the himalayan kingdom need barker has more from para democracy in action high in the himalayas it is a colorful occasion national dress must be award. ten years ago the former king of bhutan ordered the country to embrace democracy is the nation's third election like

three times ancient traditions democracy is now also a fiercely guarded part of booting the society jobs the a bar mint and economic growth are all at the forefront of voters' concerns. the main issues facing us farmers are safe drinking water supply irrigation water and agriculture it's also important to look after youth many of whom are unemployed . the most important thing in this election is voting for a party or a candidate that would make my nation economically srong and would best look after the welfare of the people of bhutan for sharing zambo it's a time to meet old friends she remembers the days before democracy before time opened up to the outside world. things were really great under the monarchy peace and happiness and the country enjoyed great progress which have a party which is there must be no hatred or division among our people. the voters

chose between two political parties the d.t.p. which formed the first government in two thousand and eight and the d n t political newcomers there's little separating the politically at the center of every party's political manifesto is the pursuit of happiness is the only country in the world to measure success through economic output but through gross national happiness which translates as good governance a balance between work and pleasure economic growth and nature. it's a pursuit that has its roots of buddhism widely practiced by time. the country is steeped in tradition and belief in the past ten years he's had to contend with a new ideology democracy time has seen the type of confrontational sometimes divisive politics that exists in neighboring india the world's largest democracy and elsewhere in the world and he's worried about it coming here there are also

concerns over social media's impact on politics and traditions election candidates have even complained about fake news appearing online many batata still waiting to see where their pursuit of happiness on the road of democracy meet leave out zero pyro. hamas has distanced itself from a rocket attack that hit southern israel on wednesday house was damaged in the city of the shaver the group says the rocket fire was an irresponsible attempt to undermine egyptian efforts to broker a new long term truce with israel israeli military responded by hitting twenty sites in gaza killing at least one palestinian california's considering the eventual release of thousands of inmates serving life sentences or nonviolent crimes inmates were sentenced under the three strikes you're out law passed in the early one nine hundred ninety s. tecate repeat offenders behind bars for a strike sentences were triggered by one serious crime conviction and two other

convictions an amendment four years ago revised the law by redefining some felony crimes and making them not count as a strike a second ballot measure protein years ago will allow inmates convicted of nonviolent crimes being eligible for parole robert also joins us live from washington d.c. so what's behind this move this push rob to rethink this whole three strikes law. well richelle you know the term three strikes and you're out comes from the american sport of baseball but in this context it means that if a person was convicted of two felony crimes in one. felony crimes and serve their time for that and then was caught doing something else and convicted for that no matter how small that felony might have been or nonviolent might have been they were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole this ensnared thousands of people who had committed relatively minor crimes

possessing small amounts of narcotics nonviolent crimes some people were sentenced to life in prison for stealing liquor from a liquor store and this sort of thing so there was a considerable amount of controversy now the california government here has decided not to contest court rulings that would allow up to four thousand of these nonviolent offenders to seek parole now that doesn't mean that they're all going to walk out of prison tomorrow in fact the prison the corrections department spokesperson said they will have to go through rigorous public safety screening before they were would be allowed to leave and they'll have to argue their case before parole boards but this would be a big victory for people who've been campaigning saying that this law is unfair that it disproportionately affects black people disproportionately affects people

who are mentally ill and the idea of people being sense a life in prison for stealing a bicycle just doesn't seem like any form of justice so word of the thinking behind this come from and the first place. well now the law here in california was enacted in one thousand nine hundred ninety four and there are twenty seven other states buss besides california that have this three strikes law on their books and this was a time in the in the early the late eighty's and early ninety's when there was a wave of crime there was a lot of violence associated with crack cocaine in america's cities and it became politically very popular to appear tough on crime so politicians of both parties in order to show how tough they were passed these draconian laws since then of course as is well known the crime rate has dropped quite dramatically in the

united states and that is still something that is being debated the causes of which are being debated i should say by criminologist social scientists and so forth but one of the findings coming out of research into the california prison population is that people who are paroled in an earlier release of nonviolent criminals who have been sentenced to life in prison found that only eleven percent of them really offended and wound up back behind bars so it does appear according to those statistics that the public is not going to be endangered by these people leaving prison all right rob analysts live for us in los angeles thank you rob. south korea's president has given the head of the roman catholic church a special message from north korea's leader then met pope francis and the vatican he relayed that can john had invited the pontiff to visit. reports from seoul.

as he delivers the invitation to the vatican president mungy end of south korea once more finds himself playing the role of mediator. and if pope francis agrees to the visit it will be one of north korea's biggest diplomatic achievements yet in breaking out of international isolation. the pope visited south korea in twenty fourteen when he was greeted by a million people on the streets of seoul that visit was evidence of the south's vibrant religious life. contrast that with the north where christian worship is officially restricted to just four churches in pyongyang one of them a catholic cathedral. but critics say it's just for show and that in reality kristin's routinely face persecution for their beliefs even death north korea's persecution of christians has no rival on the earth it is unforgiving systematic

unyielding and often fatal it's a view supported by many organizations including the un in a country so dominated by the cult of the ruling kim family there is little room for any other type of devotion but some religious leaders in south korea believe in this unprecedented period of reconciliation even that may be changing south korean archbishop kim he took part in last month's summit visit to north korea by moon j.n. culminating in the visit to mt peck too and he's welcomed the prospect of closer ties between north korea and the vatican. north korea's former leader kim il sung is known to have also attempted to secure a papal visit nearly thirty years ago. if kim jong un succeeds where his grandfather did not it will be another landmark in a remarkable year of deploy.