people have died and twenty five others have been wounded in the latest outbreak of violence around yemen's port city of data the fighting between who with the rebels and saudi backed government forces comes just two days before a ceasefire is due to begin thousands of people have been protesting in hungary's capital budapest against what's been called a slave law it's the fourth demonstration this week against the employment reforms and viktor all banned government. prisons government insists it has no plans for a second record referendum on bret's that despite reports some ministers are looking into the option prime minister to resign may return from brussels on saturday after two days of talks with e.u. leaders she type this recent head deal to get his approved by parliament where it faces session defeat the isn't willing to renegotiate those are the headlines join me here for more news after talk to al-jazeera.

we understand the differences. and the similarities of cultures across the world so no matter how you take it al-jazeera will bring you the news and current affairs that matter to you. see. he served germany as vice chancellor and more recently as foreign minister signal gabriel has been very outspoken on the issue of german soldiers in afghanistan and there's also question the u.s. is counterinsurgency strategy there after visiting hebron in the palestinian territories in two thousand and twelve gabriel said the palestinians were systematically discriminated against what he called israel's apartheid regime. in addition to his strong views on the middle east german politician is not less opinionated when it comes to europe russia the us leaving nato. but with nationalist and unilaterally agendas rising in recent years is the west losing

influence on global issues can germany play more of a leadership role in the world we hear more the signal gabriel talks to al-jazeera . former foreign minister of germany mr sigma gabriel thanks so much for talking to al-jazeera thanking you thanks to you for the invitation so you're here with the doha forum which is all about trying to find common ground to face some common global problems but does it seem to like the world is heading sometimes in the wrong direction the opposite direction we just have to look at bragg's how the apec summit and the trade tensions between the us in europe tensions within nato the rise of populism and so on we should not forget the climate issue of course that of course the world was in a better shape some years ago but i mean i'm a committed social democrat we are optimists by nature so i still think it's

fixable. i hope so and i mean. at the end it depends on the willingness of political leaders and of course of the willingness of our citizens i think the citizens want to have a more stable situation around the globe but where is the optimism come from when you hear increasingly this sort of unilateralism nationalistic rhetoric but if you go back some decades. if you would half have asked me maybe in the seventy's or the eighty's when i was a soldier in the army in germany if a german unification would be possible i would say whatever so we. as germans we learned that everything is possible if you look to the european union it's an amazing story it shows to the rest of the world that is possible to be to overcome hatred bitter hatred and to become first partners and then friends in only one

generation after two horrible world wars if people want to organize and to make peace then they are able to do this now the gulf region of course is no stranger to division either last year you were quoted as saying on june the sixth two thousand and seventeen that the boycott of qatar was particularly dangerous a year and a half of words how destabilizing has the blockade been. i mean first of all the the the good news was that it was not a military adventure and that would have been we were scared about the situation there and in some countries have plans to invade i don't know if they had plans but we had the feeling that it was people could be possible. what gave you that feeling will surely as we are least to you receive information and it must have been based on so we discussed it with our american friends and i think at that time the secretary of state of the united states rex tillerson did

a lot to prevent further escalation of the conflict and our experience in europe is. sometimes it's like. first what we say we went into war into a sleeping where gun nobody was looking around everybody was heading in the same direction at the end of the day they were self in a war yes and you saw so there was what sort of indications suggest to you that some of the blockading countries might be thinking about invading we i don't know if they had real plans but our experience is that step by step during an escalation of a conflict at the end it could end in a military conflict and the same except it's the same feeling had our u.s. colleagues in that days but nevertheless it's obvious that it was dangerous and we discussed with all our partners with qatar as well as the emirates some of

the saudis how to deescalate and i think at that time the u.s. secretary of state did a great job for the escalation not to go further escalation steps as you are away the u.a.e. state minister for foreign affairs on what good gosh there is some of your statements in the doha for about how the region was not far from military intervention is simply not accurate not true he's met with you before and you should know better basically how do you read what should what should he say i mean he's a state minister of yemen and of course the bill would be the like of press speaker i'm an independent politician and i'm saying today what i said last year and the year before so this is what he's saying is not accurate i don't know read only on twitter and i know under which conditions politicians sometimes act so he is responsible for his statements i know what and what situation we were in that. and

i think everybody should be happy. that there was no further escalation i mean the situation is not good. i think for the region not only for the gulf the blockade and use of lorries of course i mean. we tried a lot and others as well to bring the conflict partners closer together but and by the way the qataris tried to do to end the conflict we had a serious debate with our qatari partners about terrorist organizations and financing because the saudis and the emirates said qatar is responsible for that and they open their books we had a very serious debate between our intelligence services together with the with the americans by the way and i think they they tried to convince everybody about the situation in qatar and they did a good job unfortunately others did not move on. hopefully you think

europe should can do more should do more apply more pressure perhaps on the blockading countries to end this while there is a saying in germany by a very famous judge in or in our constitutional court he says sometimes democracy or you can transfer to the situation here. needs preconditions which they could net not. organized by itself so the willingness of the political leaders the willingness of the society must there you cannot impose peace and conflict regulation from from an outside perspective you can offer some ideas you can offer partnerships and that europe did and others as well hopefully the region will come down because at the end i think. if you look from the economy.

uncertainty is the worst thing you can do for the economy you know me well and yes and it's not only by it's not. only qatar it's the whole region because investors will be careful and wary of instability as an instability so that there should be an economic interest to overcome do you think do you think the trump lead white house in particular not the u.s. as a whole i understand the nuance differences between the state department between the pentagon between the white house but the trump lead white house is approach to the region has it fanned the flames of divisions that are feeling and that time was that. some partners in the region thought that they have something like a blanco shekh that they could do whatever they want and when we discussed with them and we said look we are of the same opinion like the state department the u.s.

they answer to us we only that's interesting but we're only listening to the white house you wouldn't mind telling me which partners that was that told you that we're talking saudi arabia let's call a spade a spade i don't want to blame and want to finger point if you we want to come to solutions i think it's not a good idea to blame somebody i mean i saw it was mr gergen it with me i don't want to do it in the other way in the same way we are not to blame but just for viewers to understand what was this a process where you found yourself in the middle of trying to deescalate a situation in which saudi arabia or that side of the blockade felt they getting different signals directly from the white house and therefore look they can ignore the sort of advice they get from you if a superpower like the u.s. is sending different signals from the white house to the foreign ministry it can create very dangerous misconceptions and my feeling at that time was. that there were misconceptions because of the different the two different messages coming from

the u.s. and it was not only my feeling moving on to looking broadly at some of the episodes that have happened in this region shall we say episodes is a nice word trying to now. seem to say that you're a jew or a diplomat miscalculation some would say by the saudi crown prince towards yemen the whole episode shall we say valving lebanon's prime minister and whether or not he was detained the fair do you think some in the west are concluding that saudi arabia in which the crown prince has so much influence is not so much of a responsible security partner anymore. we saw what the other members of the senate of the united states said in these days and of course saudi arabia is an important country everybody knows that and by the way we praise the crown prince for his

reform efforts inside the country but under the same time we were very much scared about parts of his foreign policy so it's not only black and white but we saw that even the americans and the members of the senate were very much scared and they are traditionally the strongest partner the most important partner of the saudis but. would say it's not black and wide there is a reform process inside the country which is amazing but on the other hand side as i said there were some adventures. which create difficulties in the region and we are very happy about the first steps in german coming to a cease fire organizing humanitarian aid for the son who's responsible for those adventures not m.b.'s have been so much we think that he overestimated his. and the region and i mean of

course he maybe had the feeling that whatever he is doing he he's backed by the white house and you see him and there was a criticism on human rights issues by the canadian for a minister. we are we have many experiences with partners who say you should not criticize me for human rights it's not only saudi arabia which is acting in that or but nobody would withdraw the ambassador because another country a foreign minister raised the flag of human rights and that shows us that they they have the. feeling that there are no rules they have to follow and that's that's dangerous. talk about human rights do you think there should be an international investigation into the killing of jim marshall g's.

first of fortune. we have to look what really the investigation in the united states will bring out and of course everybody has the feeling that there is a. responsibility in the among the leaders of saudi arabia but i'm very interested in looking at the details when the senate and the u.s. is publishing what they found out we do not have any you don't have a terse no no no i mean do you think the world should consider it acceptable do you think it's acceptable that months after the killing now the saudi investigation still hasn't even accounted for what happened to his body you know you see i accept that you see that we stopped for example or delivering of defense of defense material capabilities after the crash case you think more countries should follow that i think so ok but i hate to press you but your opinion

i am a politician said thirty years so obviously used to being pressed but your when you look at investigation that hasn't even accounted for where a journalist body is after he's gone in a consulate many people say that's simply not an acceptable best course it's not acceptable and i mean it's also a tragedy we should not forget there are relatives because she had a family and i mean the killing of mystical shuggie is. a catastrophe but it's for the family and the relatives is. a very bad situation that they are not even able to bury the body and to have a place where they can can go to so it for me it's also is not only a political question is also a question of humanity do you think the world will ever believe that m.b.'s was not responsible for that killing in europe everybody thinks that there is

a certain kind of responsibility i don't know if it's personal order or people thought that it could be his wish it's an open discussion in europe but everybody things that it will not. case will not be. as like an accident it is western policy on syria now focused more on what to do with certain groups or elements there where there are groups where iranians rather than the broader political future of the country which would be left to others unfortunately europe plays no role in syria is that a mistake that has to have a lot of migrants and that yes that has to do with. europe itself and europe was never founded to be a global actor the history of the european union was. was to to to organize peace inside europe and economic growth but for the for the difficult

birds of the world of the difficult jobs some people say the dirty jobs. were the responsibility of france u.k. and of specially of the united states now when the united states started to withdraw from the scene in syria you can we were able to see there is no very common international politics where somebody went out of the door somebody some others would come in the village and we saw now it's the ceasefire and it's organized but turkey and russia europe doesn't play any role should that change should europe have more i think europe should step up in international affairs therefore it's a new what in syria would you first first of all we should support the cease fire and of course i think at the end of the day everybody wants to see europe as part of the re construction process of syria the next step is that we should have under

the u.n. umbrella in geneva a constitutional reform i'm very happy that the turks and others tried to hand over the process to the united nations and then europe can play a role in this process. it has to be under the umbrella of the united nations i think that's the right way to do it what about a role in the middle east peace process do you really believe that the new initiative which the world is still waiting for from the us is really going to bring peace between israelis and perry very everybody is hoping for that but i think those hopes are well founded that the difficulty is nobody knows what is these famous plan right we will see it. i think unfortunately the united states. take one side of the conflicts partners and so it is not longer seen as neutral maybe it was never neutral of everybody as of specific opinion up to

that but now after the came into power in the white house there were some decisions like moving the capital to jerusalem not like the canadians to west jerusalem but as well to do this part the saying about the settlements another is undermined you think very i think it is undermining their credibility but let's hope that this plan will reflect the situation in the region what what was it that you saw in hebron that made you say it reminded you of apartheid south africa there was a famous bazaar in the center of fibro and now there's nothing because on the on the ground level there are the arab citizens the traditional ones and the first low level there are people which came mostly from canada from the us and they are very they were very much aggressive to the people who live there at the bazaar and

i think that's a situation where you can see. that creates hatred not common understanding not peace and that was was i. very much depressed seeing the situation and by the way there were young soldiers from the israel defense forces they felt there they felt themself in a very difficult situation they were not happy to serve in this atmosphere. do you think europe can play a bigger role in the middle east peace process it's always been dominated by the us hasn't it yes it has i mean we saw that countries like sweden they were l. is able to invite people to stockholm now and the yemen process are slow process was an interesting process so europe can play but we cannot

enforce the process it has to come out of the region and of course without the americans today it's impossible. to bring both sides together talking of the americans do you believe trump the donald trump lead america is still the same reliable guarantor of european security that america has been since the end of war that's that's that's a great debate big debate what do you think come i think more america you've i think really with this i think that america changed before trump i mean it was barack obama who said as the first american president that america is a pacific nation or presidents before said america's a transatlantic nation so america is looking much more to the pacific region of course to china and yes we need the united states as a security partner in nato and i personally i mean i grew up direct at the

border to east germany. and i knew that only because of the americans and some others we we lived in a very peaceful situation and i know without the americans and their intervention and the second world war i would have been a country under the pressure of starving or hitler donald trump many would argue is not so it hannity he's not even pharma and you said they were pacific nations not a rival but i don't think that's an issue of mr trump the kind of he's called nato or the league is an issue mostly hasn't it when you say yes but no her president can speak out self-esteem and i hopefully the united states will not be as it is today with mr trump as president but i think it will never be the same like it was before because the world is changing and. i see we are entering maybe a g. two world between china and us are the two anti po'd and the question is what euro

bonds what kind of role europe wants to play and therefore there are some different fields where we have to step up one of the one of the fields is security and defense should there be a common european army that's been floated i think the president of france has spoken very clearly about that hopefully. will you agree with him hopefully but i think it will not start the european army but it should start with a better integration of the european military capabilities this by the way would spend a lot of money we would be more efficient and step by step yes i am a i'm a supporter of the idea is that not an admission of we need to have a backup plan for the american rely on their own or not no it's not it's not a backup plan and not in a competition to nato but there will be in future some responsibilities or there

could be some responsibilities where the americans would say that's not our job it's direct in front of your door so you should step in and i think with good with good reasons it was very convenient for us very we were in a comfort soon with say ok we were we can concentrate ourselves on economic and social progress and for the rest we had the americans germany cannot do that going forward think the world will be much more inconvenient for us as those in germany need to get ready for military intervention although there are two lessons in germany after two world wars first is never again and then never alone should germany perhaps lead the european effort globally sometimes now yes of course i mean germany is the biggest economy we have more than eighty million citizens so everybody ask us to lead but i think europe that's maybe the difference to other parts of the world in europe the bigger countries do not have more rights than the

smaller ones motor with four hundred thousand citizens they have the same rights in the european union than germany would eighty two million that's the best the fundamental rule in europe and germany was always successful when our leaders recognize oh there are more small countries more members. more small member states and the european union then bigger ones and we have to we have to join hands with the smaller ones in the same way like we do with the bigger ones gabriel former german foreign minister thanks so much for talking to others here from the. the war on drugs in the philippines is pushing jails to breaking point a record number of inmates languish behind bars for years awaiting trial one on one

east philippines locked up on al-jazeera. in an ordinary week dr even atar a die hard a surgeon are the only functioning hospital in bush town in north eastern south sudan and his team operate on around sixty patients the united nations refugee agency nominated him for the prestigious nansen award which you won in recognition of his work and the incredibly difficult to constance's. south sudan has been in conflict since twenty thirteen the war has divided the country along ethnic lines two hundred thousand people most of them refugees from sudan's blue nile state even this remote town and looked to be a bad hospital for all their medical needs the war is destroyed or most of the infrastructures which are especially in the upper layer almost all work including mother khalil spittles of stewart living there in the process or who you know

visions of the mother to working to the capacity that they're supposed to. development. progress for some the end of a way of life for others. a clash between corporate interests and a people who must prepare for a long fight to protect their heritage. the march to progress in the philippines part of the new find to asia series on al-jazeera. on counting the cost we'll assess the state of the u.k. economy is it continues to broker its way out of the. world look at a major milestone for the internet. on the walls or economy in kenya counting the cost.

where every. sudan's i'm al bashir becomes the first arab leader to visit damascus since the syrian war began nearly eighty years ago. and this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up. on the streets in hungary protesting against prime minister viktor all banned and calling and labor reform flavor.