with every. pulling out of syria the withdrawal of all u.s. military personnel is on the way donald trump says i salute has been defeated. hardly what i'm coming home area and this is the world news from al-jazeera. the fear of violence brings campaigning for sunday's presidential election in democratic republic of congo to a sudden halt. the prime minister is recklessly running down the clock

just one hundred days to go before brags that and terrorism am the opposition leader a trading accusations over the plans to leave europe. and protesters in hungary are calling it legalized slavery up to parliament approved a bill forcing workers to do overtime. so u.s. media is reporting the united states is planning to fully withdraw its troops from syria within sixty to one hundred days president trump has been tweeting about it as well talking about the defeat of iceland syria and saying was the only reason that he was there during his presidency they have been about two thousand u.s. troops on the ground in syria mainly training local forces to fight against eisel but in recent days turkey's president reject typer one threatens a new offensive it gets kurdish forces these are the ones the united states supports in the north of syria if the u.s. does withdraw it will still have a sizeable presence in the region at least around five thousand two hundred troops

over the border in iraq back in april defense secretary james madison said america wanted to maintain a presence in syria until a peace agreement could be reached to end the country's brutal civil war so has the team covering this story out diplomatic editor james bays is in new york with him shortly starting that with patty callahan the latest from washington d.c. batty. this came as a big shock to pretty much everybody it seems in washington from the senate to the pentagon to the house to the halls of congress basically what's happened is we saw a lot of leaks coming out of the pentagon warning that this was going to happen sometimes we see this. this happens because they're trying to sway the president to possibly not make this decision well he responded as he usually does in a tweet he wrote we have defeated isis in syria my only reason for being there during the trump presidency seeming to confirm that in fact u.s. troops would be leaving syria and i say this comes as

a shock because all of the signals we've been getting from the national security establishment from the pentagon to the state department is that this was not on the table let's hear from brett mcgurk he's the special representative on this issue he was speaking to reporters literally just days ago and let's do what he had to say it's fair to say americans will remain on the ground after the physical to free to the caliphate until we have the pieces in place to ensure that that defeat is under . so obviously this was not on anyone's agenda till that phone call between president erdogan and president trump and there have been a lot of cries from capitol hill senators calling this catastrophic quite stupid just to use some of their words but in the way the system works the united states there's very little they can do if the president's as commander in chief says the troops are coming home when the troops are coming home ok thank you patty in washington d.c. let's broaden things out with james bays that the united nations what more have you got james. they were not expecting this here the u.s.

is closest allies have spoken to some of them there is surprise there is confusion there is dismay at this decision close allies like the u.k. their defense secretary saying that i still has not been defeated yet in syria a short time ago i spoke to the security council ambassador ambassador car out omar off who heads the security council committee looks into ice all this is his latest report he tells me he stands by what's in this which is there are still twenty to thirty thousand deisel fighters in syria and in iraq because another close ally watching this very closely is israel i caught up with the israeli ambassador there are reports that president trump is planning to pull all the u.s. troops out of syria when you were assessment is the threat from i saw in syria finished and are you concerned about israel's security if those troops leave syria either u.s.

decision. specked any decision made by the administration we have our concerns about syria or the presence of a venue and to abstain thea and we will do what every with every to protect our people regardless if you have american troops russian troops or any other nations to continue to follow a policy of not allowing the iranians to build their base in the next our borders all these eisel defeated in syria in israel's estimation wonderful shall we we can tell that they i think has been defeated in thea you can argue whether it's completed or not but. we can there agree with the international community there that the fight against i think has been successful. well of course president trump says those troops are in syria all about eisel and clearly a big debate over whether that mission has been accomplished but the troops that were there were also performing other roles they were not only fighting eisel they

were their presence i think was pressuring the assad regime providing some leverage for the diplomatic talks that the u.n. is trying to push through because the part of syria they are occupying is a rich part of syria agriculturally and in terms of energy resources and i think the message to assad is you're not getting your whole country back unless you're prepared to sit down and negotiate clearly the power of that message is going to be done looted now they were also there supporting allies the s.d.f. that force arabs and kurds now looks like it's going to be abandoned by the united states where will those forces go one suspects they might be now tempted to join with the assad regime and if you look at the administration's own aims in the region one of its main aims is trying to constrain iran they always talk about that here at the security council when the u.s. speaks well what pulling out those troops that is not going to help the overall

u.s. mission of putting pressure on iran lots of speculation in the corridors here about what might have been discussed between the u.s. and turkey because turkey in the assad regime along with russia and iran are the beneficiary beneficiaries of this and president trump has announced that after we've had recent speculation about the girl and the movement and whether there could be an extradition there and also the announcement just hours ago of new patriot missiles being sold to turkey thank you james bay that the united nations in new york a couple of little lines which i've just seen on the news wires here i'll just bring them to you first of all one from the russian foreign ministry which says this decision to withdraw u.s. troops from syria creates. suspects for a political settlement that's what the russians believe and then there's a statement from the pentagon as well which says the coalition has liberated the isis held territory but the campaign against isis is not over let's discuss some of this with joshua landis director of the center for middle east studies at the

university of oklahoma he's with us now from nocona norman oklahoma first of all just the fact that the seems to have come as a bit of a surprise to everyone do you think it's just it might be one of those donald trump things where he said something and then it's and it's triggered a whole lot of things maybe that weren't supposed to happen yet all of this is a commitment to get out well we'll have to wait and see obviously mislead both pompei o and bolton will try to be will try to walk the president back on this as they have done before but this seems to be a fairly determined you know fairly strong statement and turkey has been escalating turkey has been sending shells into north syria telling the americans they have to step aside because it want to take on the terrorists quote unquote white peachey kurds in north syria so turkey is not going to let america off the hook on this they want america out of north syria and the president has made the decision that

he doesn't want to go to war with turkey in order to stay in syria that's the same decision that president obama made in two thousand and fifteen when the russians jumped in he said we're not going to go to war with russia for syria and trump is making in a sense the same policy i think it's a wise one in the long run our position in syria is very weak the idea just the way that isolates been defeated i mean i just read that statement from the pentagon with that said. the coalition is liberated i still territory but the campaign against isis is not of that would seem to be a bit more circumspect wasn't it i mean the battle against idol is not over. you know the battle against isis is not over but it needs a good police force and that's that's the question now does america staying in north syria help to ultimately defeat isis or not that's the big question and i think you can make quite a strong argument that the syrian army and the kurds can defeat at along with the

iraqi army can defeat isis and continue to mop up cells that are secret and are hiding that's going to be the long term plan ultimately it has to be the syrian army and the syrian police that do this in syria if america stays there and goes to war against turkey the syrian government iran it's going to keep the pot churning and isis will be able to run between the legs of these warring parties you must reestablish state control the reason isis had in this region in the first place is because america invaded iraq destroyed the government. blossoms zar cowie and then the arab spring in in in syria with the government withdrawing from eastern syria isis and al-qaeda from iraq immediately jumped into syria and spread because there was no police force no government if you're going to heal and problem you have to rebuild iraq ease and rebuild the syrian state to show another line here

from the pentagon let me just quickly read it to you the pentagon says it started the process of returning u.s. troops as quote we transition to the next phase of the campaign the idea of u.s. troops coming home is always a good one politically i think the president's the idea that men and women will be out of harm's way but then they've also sane and you may have as well opposition to the idea from prominent u.s. senators the likes of marco rubio and lindsey graham is all politically how might this play out for the president and for the congress. well i think it could be very proper but popular with his base you know president trump one of the reasons that he won the elections the first place he said he said our wars in the middle east are stupid we're spending five trillion dollars let's spend it at home americans liked that they wanted him to fulfill that and they've seen him continue wars in afghanistan continue wars in iraq syria isis they think that he has been taken over by the washington blob that the neo cons have continued and others have continued

to you know promote this very aggressive foreign policy they don't like it americans don't want to spend money abroad so i think that this it you know he's in a sense going back to his campaign promises that were not fulfilled and getting out of syria is a smart move trying to build you know i don't think now america owes it and it's important to say that america owes something to the kurds who helped them america's not i don't think going to withdraw from syria tomorrow it's going to draw down its situation it's reassuring turkey america wants to avoid a war with turkey whatever policy america pursues in the middle east it's crucial to have turkey on board america so far has doubled down on saturday radio we've got one you know sort of you don't poll or foreign policy in the middle east and that's saudi arabia and of course israel but saudi arabia against iran it's not a fair fight iran is going to win especially if you alienate turkey if america

really wants to hurt your iran which i think is not a very wise policy but if it does yeah it has to have turkey on board and and air to one made this perfectly clear by torturing mohamed bin said among the crown prince of saudi arabia over the kushal key affair drip drip drip undermine america's foreign policy establishment in the middle east and he's letting america know if you don't play with me i'm going to hurt you to him and it's always a pleasure talking to you and getting your thoughts thank you for that. the rest of the day's news still to come on al-jazeera and new pictures perhaps this is the so-called hit squad that killed jamal khashoggi in istanbul and also why zimbabwe's former first lady is wanted in south africa.

hello again welcome back to international weather forecasts where we have been seeing some very stormy conditions here across the eastern mediterranean and the western part of on notice the clouds right there bringing some rain not only to israel but also to syria as well as into parts of turkey now the snow is not going to be as heavy as what we have seen previously but we are going to see quite a bit of heavy rain across parts of northern iraq as well thursday will be like that by the time we get to friday most of the heavy rain will have dissipated we'll see some lingering showers here across southern parts of the caspian maybe tehran will see a passing shower or two there twelve degrees in your forecast but down towards quad city it will be a cool day for you at about twenty one degrees across much of the gulf we are looking at dry conditions we did see some clouds down here across scott down towards yemen as well heavy showers were a problem down across parts of somalia but up towards the north doha is going to start at twenty four degrees on thursday may be getting a little bit warmer as we go towards friday and abu dhabi seeing about twenty five degrees in your forecast and then very quickly across parts of southern africa we

have seen some clouds pushing across cape town but no real rain in the forecast over the next few days so for cape town twenty three degrees there over here toward johannesburg it is going to be showers in your forecast at twenty three and durban twenty one degrees for you. kidnappings amanda's in crimea since russia's full stomach sation of the black sea . i don't understand why he was kidnapped. schools of crimea into tons have been arrested. and killed most believe by russian security forces. crimea russia's secret on al-jazeera.

top stories for you this hour on the al-jazeera u.s. media is reporting the united states is planning to fully withdraw its troops from syria within sixty to one hundred days america had two thousand service members in the country working alongside local forces to defeat i saw and what president donald trump has tweeted saying we have defeated in syria my only reason for being bad during the trump presidency the pentagon ascents responded saying the coalition is liberated eisel held territory but the campaign against deisel is not over. let's look at other news now one hundred days to go before britain is due to leave the european union and the countdown to briggs it is growing increasingly chaotic prime minister theresa may is told and pays that negotiations with the e.u.

are still going on but things really did get heated in parliament between prime minister may and the opposition leader jeremy corben. prime minister mr speaker has thrown away two years on her botched negotiations she's now recklessly wasting four billion pounds of public money and she's holding parliament and the country to ransom. thank you thank you mr speaker they said they put down of those no confidence then they said they wouldn't then they said they would then they did it but it wasn't effective i know this is the christmas season and the kinds of minds season you want to be seen from the labor frontbencher the right on a budget he's going to get a confidence vote oh yes yes. while at the same time the e.u. has piled pressure on sorry so my saying and no deal breakers it could mean british goods being subject to e.u. customs controls at the border. excuse me may says her deal there is the best available and peace from all parties say it's

a disaster she has delayed the final vote by m.p.'s to accept or reject the deal until the middle of next more from the day he's in london. well in parliament on wednesday jeremy corbin the leader of the labor opposition accused prime minister to resign may of being reckless in announcing these new measures for speeding up preparations for those deals breaks it the end of march next year the government has one cabinet approval for measures worth more than two billion u.s. dollars more in funding for things like special flights to ensure medical supplies continue to arrive stockpiling certain. chemicals in britain putting three and a half thousand troops on standby and employed thousands more civil servants and he's not the only person who's worried about the prospect five of britain's biggest business organizations have written to the government saying they're watching on

with horror as as they see it politicians engage in factional fighting rather than doing what's best for britain well on wednesday the european commission did outline some of its own measures that it's going to take to try to limit the damage if there were no deal breck's it next year it says that the e.u. will continue to allow u.k. based financial companies to access european markets for a twelve month period and similarly it says that british flights will be able to continue to use the so-called single european sky agreement an air traffic control system for twelve months that also extends some aviation licenses but i think that there is an admission on both sides that there will be an impact the turkish media has leaked new photographs showing the suspected saudi hit team arriving to kill jamal khashoggi show istanbul airport and also the saudi consulate in istanbul

where the journalist died shallop militants more. walking through istanbul airport dressed casually dragging suitcases the suspected saudi hit team arrived for the mission new photos leaked to turkish media showed them arriving at the saudi consul general residence in istanbul the faucheux time stamped eleven away on the second of october the day jamal khashoggi was killed at the same time others into the consulate this is from the same camera that captured the final images of. the saudi journalist entered through the same doors two hours later at one fourteen pm there is about three thousand five hundred hours of footage that the investigators are actually looking into saw due to the fact that this is taking time and there is new evidence come in notes we get these leaks was no while. within days the world learned khashoggi had been murdered and dismembered inside the consulate over weeks

who was mounted for justice and accountability he was put on the cover of time magazine as person of the year saudi prosecutors responded with criminal charges for the men in this so-called hit squad five face the death penalty six a charged with related offenses it is also rejected turkey's request to extradite the suspects for trial using the vienna convention on diplomatic immunity as reason not to or the major question of who was at the killing has been left unanswered the results are fifty six and forty one news u.s. senators gave their verdicts last week passing resolutions blaming saudi crown prince mohammed bin solomon for death and calling for an end to u.s. military support for saudi lead a finance of in yemen this is now unanimously unanimously united states senate has said that crown prince mohammed bin

salman is responsible for the murder of her male. the saudi foreign ministry denounced the senate's position saying it is based upon unsubstantiated claims and allegations contained blatant interferences in the kingdom's internal affairs undermining the kingdom's regional and international role but condemnation and denials aren't enough to stop the leaks these timestamp images reveal more about the movements of the suspected saudi hitting before and after the killing of jamal khashoggi ballasts jazeera the governor of the capital of democratic republic of congo has ordered a halt to all presidential campaigning in the capital. cited security reasons for his decision on wednesday the governor says there is evidence that people are preparing for confrontations in kinshasa just days before voting takes place on sunday opposition candidate martin for they had been due to hold

a rally. of thousands of supporters insist that they still want him to speak at a rally despite the governor's order catherine so he has the latest from kinshasa in democratic republic of congo. well being called by you live still trying to make he way to the ground when the book is the way to. address it supposed to be final campaign rally a police. convoy where by you want when people here aren't they will not back down do we wait until iraq and we have all come about after. by the local authority in the by the governor think the spending all political rally and. i think the information they have that this particular law rally could be violent that a lot of people that are. not given it by the government. we need

a lot of the burden why he absolutely. whereby you don't want to. bring in their one that they know that they want the ground. here rather than the. very big thank you many people. can balance with class. and the more presidential candidate. hungary opposition m.p.'s have said that anti-government protests will continue against the new so-called slavery law and so i will force hank aaron's to do extra overtime and while the hunger an alliance of trade unionists has pledged to hold nationwide strikes if the law is signed into effect protesters are condemning the so-called slave labor which allows up to four hundred hours of overtime and a delay of firemen for up to three years the changes provoke violence scenes in the country's capital and sounds and have been protesting since so let's talk to robin

forrester walker in budapest about just give us a bit of background is this actually coming into effect does it have to be ratified yet and then what happens if it does. sure well we think that the president may sign this law into effect potentially on friday. head of what would be a christmas break and if that were to be the case well this is what we're hearing is that the opposition movements. the work is unionists. will will be will be promising to hold nationwide strikes when the snow comes into effect it means as he was saying that up to four hundred additional hours of overtime. could be required of employees by their companies the

government says that this is a purely voluntary scheme but of course if you are if you're working and you were asked to do that over time it's very difficult to say no and it worked effectively comes to about an additional day a week so a six day working working week which is one of the reasons why people have been so upset and angered by this because this is the kind of issue that resonates with a lot of working class hungary and so there's plenty of of animosity and anger still here on the streets in the capital and in other parts of the country but for now it seems like there's been a little bit of a law since we saw those large scale protests over the last weekend and the weekend before it's a little quiet at the moment that they're promising to come out again in force and they sporadic they could happen pretty much anywhere and at any time we know that in a town not far from here there's a planned protest rally tonight but this is

a this is not a coherent movement this they call themselves a solidarity movement but the nature of it is that they can happen pretty much anywhere any time by any number of these groups ok thank you for that update robin foresty woke up in budapest. yemen's warring sides are accusing each other of breaching a fragile ceasefire in her data it's not clear who caused four explosions in and around the major port on tuesday but the rebels and the internationally recognized yemeni government backed by the saudi and rati coalition did agree to the ceasefire in sweden last week the un plans to deploy cease fire service belgium's king philip is meeting political party leaders to decide who should govern after the prime minister announced his resignation charles michel had been leading a minority government for a week when his coalition partners walked out of the alliance the flemish nationalist party was angry at his decision to sign a un pact on migration critics say it will just increase the number of migrants

coming in to europe. the un's world food program is causing food aid to more than one hundred ninety thousand people in gaza and the occupied west bank is blaming a severe funding shortfall the un is now asking for three hundred fifty million dollars in funding to help the one point four million people across. excuse me occupied palestinian territories zimbabwe's former first lady is wanted for questioning in south africa grace mcgarvie is accused of hitting a woman with an electrical cord in a hotel room in johannesburg last year gabrielle engels said she suffered a serious head injury the wife of former president robert mugabe however says it was self-defense but despite no longer being first lady grace mugabe is still protected by zimbabwe but it's hard to beat arsenal explains her options could be limited. the government spokesperson here in zimbabwe said that we have not received any written communication from south africa when we do the government will consider it according to the laws of zimbabwe what we know is our grace mugabi is

in zimbabwe right now she was in singapore where she was getting treatment she's being protected by the states because she's a former first lady and as far as we know the last time she was in south africa was when that incident happened last year now what does the rest mean internationally it basically means that if she travels to a country anywhere in the world that country could a race and handed over to the south africans and call her grace because she loves to shop they joke that she stands on a time on planes and so they know that she loves travelling now that means her travel options could be limited if certain countries take this serious want seriously all eyes are now on the zimbabwean government if they receive this written communication. are they going to hand her over given the fact that she is a former first lady libya's prime minister has met protesters who shot down the nation's biggest oil fields. travel to the southern oil fields as he tried to

convince protesters to reopen the facility include tribesmen who are demanding more development in the region and security guard seeking the salaries and attempt to appease them to tripoli government has approved a development fund for the area more on that story and plenty more to al-jazeera on the breaking news this hour of course the u.s. plans to withdraw troops from soon. so let's update you on that and the other headlines donald trump says i still has been defeated in syria he tweeted that after media reports that the u.s. is planning a full withdrawal of american troops. the pentagon says five hundred u.s. soldiers are in syria up to two thousand were deployed and training opposition forces to combat i thought from his article is the only reason for troops to be based there other headlines were his prime minister tourism is told m.p.'s she will provide more details on her briggs a deal with the e.u.

in the new year one hundred days to go now before britain is due to leave the un emergency plans are being made for a no deal scenario the prime minister is recklessly running down the clock i told him that a shameful attempt to make your own bad deal look like the lesser of two evils. to the right of the gentleman. while until the deal has a day and has been ratified it is the responsible position of government and it is it would be the responsible position of any government to put in place contingency arrangements for no deal yemen's warring sides are accusing each other of breaching a fragile ceasefire in her data it's not clear who caused four explosions in and around the major poor on tuesday remember her the rebels and the internationally recognized yemeni government backed by the saudi a mirage coalition agreed to the ceasefire in sweden last week the un plans to deploy cease fire observers polls have closed in the presidential runoff election

in madagascar ballot counting has started as the former leader's andre roger lena and marc ravalomanana vie for the top job roger leno narrowly won the first round with thirty nine percent of the votes this is the first time the two faced off since two thousand and nine. belgium's. political party leaders trying to decide who should govern the country after the prime minister announced his resignation charles michel had been leading a minority government for a week when his coalition partners just walked out of the alliance the flemish nationalist party was angry at his decision to sign the un migration act critics say it would increase the number of migrants coming into europe that's a look at your headlines here on al-jazeera we're back with the news hour in about twenty five minutes time coming up next inside story.

is the cold war really over lattimer putin warns new missiles can be built after donald trump announced he was pulling out of a nuclear weapons treaty is another arms race about to start this is inside story. and welcome to the program i'm richelle carey it's twenty seven years since the end of the cold war but the heat is on again between the united states and russia over missiles and nuclear weapons accusing the russians of violating a thirty one year old arms treaty and says the.