so in a way that strengthened his grip on power to some extent it also brought in some older experienced managers like barry myself and others and this will help steady the ship in terms of management of the affairs of state so it's possible that this is a major consolidation of whom haven't been some man's authority but again we'll have to wait weeks and months to really find out ok here's the thing with a steady a ship does that mean that that's enough to heal relationships with their western allies. i think they issue with western allies remains to be decided by the decisions of the western allies the american congress right now is probably the single most important player as the new congress takes power in january they already have taken decisions very critical how been some on the soviet leaderships on the issue on them and on and other things and they're not

going to let this go there is real deep widespread anger about the affair and haven't been so man's a legit personal involvement in it so i think it's going to take a little bit of more time to see what kind of free will most are made by american and other western powers other than maybe superficial moves which many have already made it's too early to judge how many of them said man this is damaged goods but she is not out of the out of the picture he's a very strong player his father just reaffirmed support for him he brought in people who are close to him and they're going to try to ride this one out so it's going to depend on a lot of decisions by foreign capitals in the next two months or so ronnie corey thanks very much. still to come for you here on the news hour including indonesia's volcano is raised fears that. could erupt again and trigger

a second tsunami plus. these elections and everybody has to understand. the. president tells al-jazeera why he believes his country's sovereignty is at stake. and in the. first big prize of the new tennis season and you see with the story just over. two hundred people seeking asylum in the u.s. spend some christmas in a parking lot in texas after being sent there by immigration and customs enforcement officials in el paso the group included women and children with hundreds of all those sent in the cases including bus shelters for more on this was behind it let's talk now to my colleague gabriel who joins us live from the city of el paso texas where are these people right now do we know.

what we don't know exactly but they have been moved to various different shelters here throughout the city of el paso some have already gotten on buses or on our journey to the u.s. to be with other family and friends that they have here in the united states back and tell you this is very much unprecedented what we saw here over the last few days with hundreds of migrants most of them from central america they had been detained for anywhere from two to eight days by customs and immigration officials here in the u.s. that is fairly normal that happens all the time here what was different this time though. hundreds of these migrants were then just left to fend for themselves out on the streets dropped off here by immigration officials at places such as this bus station you see behind me it's unheard of we've never seen anything like that before. so you ask yourself why no one really knows why but people advocates for

immigrants or are really fearing that this could be a sign that customs immigration officials are trying to release people from detention to free up overcrowding particularly after two guatemalan children eight year old boy and a seven year old girl died while in custody this month and died while in custody of border patrol officials here this month alone so there's a lot going on here but clearly a lot of people worried about this leaving these people out on the streets as they were left here earlier this week do we know gabe if there was a conversation between the people who took the decision to in effect let these people go free albeit for a limited amount of time i mean did somebody say to them look there's fifty dollars there's one hundred dollars going by a cheeseburger. with a literally just dumped in a parking lot on their own and left unsupervised with no way to feed themselves clothe themselves or even get a drink of water. they had nothing of that they were just loaded up

on a bus buses i should say very much gratian officials and literally dropped here in the center of el paso with nothing but the clothes on their backs there were women there were children there was a show that they were less than one year old and the mothers didn't even have any sort of baby formula for the children at all so once immigration advocates saw this they immediately rushed down here and started feeding and clothing people and trying to get them into shelters it was left up to volunteers to fill the gap now nobody knows why this decision was undertaken but i can tell you we spoke to some local lawmakers including a woman who will be going to the house of representatives who was just elected to the house of representatives she said as soon as she gets to washington she wants to start opening up investigations on how this could possibly happen i. i can tell you though it was a public relations disaster not to mention a human rights violations but

a public relations disaster for immigration officials here in the u.s. as you can see there have been no immigrants that have been left here at this bus station since then they've been immediately taken to shelters what a lot of people said it should have been done from the very beginning a lot of people here saying that this is just another sign of what one person told us what she said was cool immigration policies coming from the trump administration but gabriel these the self-same people that the trumpet ministration donald trump even today on his twitter feed i noticed was talking about people trying to get into the united states that's why he wants the wall built that's why there's the possible shutdown of the federal government in the united states as we speak and that will go until at least the beginning of the very new year i mean but these are the people who he seems to think are potentially very dangerous he was talking at one point about the people trying to get into the states is being partially maybe quote middle easterners these are the people who he thinks is so dangerous they

should in effect being concert seeds and yet the people who he employs to implement his policy don't incarcerate them they shove them off a bus at a bus terminal. yeah these are the people these are the migrants these are the asylum seekers these are the families that are coming primarily from central america but also from south america other countries as well but primarily from central american south america that are coming here and they're all coming here at least the ones we spoke to looking for a better life we spoke to one middle aged man that came here from guatemala with his young son today he said the violence is too bad my country there's no work i'm coming here to try to get a better life for my family they get here and then they're immediately detained by immigration officials but then while they're going through the process there's just not enough room in the detention centers so then there is. post to be released to shelters that's what's supposed to happen but they're not in this case they're just

released out into the streets of these are the people that donald trump is trying to build this wall to prevent from coming into the united states but all the immigration advocates we spoken to say that the wall simply will not work the partial wall that's already built hasn't worked and it only leads to bigger catastrophes like we're seeing here with these migration waves and people just being left out in the streets of the united states after reaching this country and depend for themselves gabriel thanks very much. it's been another roller coaster day for the u.s. markets dropping more than five hundred points the dow jones clawed his way back to finish up more than one percent the european market showed fulls reflects in global market volatility and investors worries over global political uncertainties kristen salumi has more now from new york. stocks rallied late in the day to shake off steep losses earlier the dow jones industrial average at one point on thursday was

down more than six hundred points closed up two hundred fifty eight points a volatile day and what has been an extremely volatile month wall street was on track to have its worst december since the great depression until wednesday the day after christmas when stocks rallied more than a thousand points the largest one day game in the market's history due largely to a strong retail selling season over the holidays but many things continue to weigh on investors even as the u.s. economy overall remains strong there's concern about a trade war between the united states and china concern about the global economy slowing down and then there's the raising of interest rates by the fed that weighed on markets earlier in the month that started a war between president trump and the fed chairman your own power and on top of all of that you see this government shutdown in washington d.c.

not directly related to the markets but it seems to be contributing experts say to an overall sense of unease and concern about dysfunction in washington d.c. all of this has many experts predicting that the market will remain volatile into the new year. ok let's talk to marilyn she won't she is a contributor senior business editor for n.p.r. she is also a visiting professor of these seem all university in beijing she joins us on skype from atlanta georgia welcome to the us here on al-jazeera it's been such a wobbly few weeks from where you are we heading into a period of calm or a lot. i think the uncertainty is just actually getting worse as we go forward because it's very unclear what all of this turmoil that is just happening now it's we're a little distracted it's been christmas week but when consumers really start to take a look at this i mean a lot of people have for one case the retirement savings plans when they get those

on lopes the telephone what is happening with their savings and they see that their money is down do they get a little less confident do they not choose to buy a new house this here buy a new car maybe you think this maybe isn't the year for that big big cation so we don't know yet how all of the past you know several weeks of uncertainty is going to affect consumers and their attitude and that's really important for earnings and of course earnings are what do i have prices for stocks so i think this is actually a particularly on certain time and then we have a government shutdown going on so you're also not depending on how long the shutdown goes you're not getting government data i mean we really need to know what's happening in the job market we need to know what's happening with housing starts if those government economists are being told your non-essential will stay home you can't. report on things where do we get our information so the government

shutdown contributes to this air of uncertainty and i think that that will. make people reluctant. to. marilyn we're having problems listening to you hearing you on the skype line from atlanta georgia we will try and reestablish that line and come back to you if we can in the next few minutes well as maryland she works was saying there one of the key components when it comes to market uncertainty in the states as well as the china trade war is the u.s. government shutdown likely to continue into the new year after both houses of congress adjourned without agreeing on a way forward politicians are now expected to vote on the impasse next week the standoff centers on donald trump's demand for five billion dollars for that border wall that gate was talking about in our last conversation in the budget for next year which the democrats firmly oppose an opinion poll is suggesting more americans blame the president than the democrats for the shutdown rob reynolds is our

correspondent following that story out of washington rob porter the democrats saying about all this. well you know peter the president has been blaming the democrats for being intransigent and called saying that they're not coming to the table to talk about the shutdown and that he is determined to get the wall funded and built this despite the fact that president trump in a widely televised press availability conversation with the democratic leadership said he would be proud to take responsibility for the shutdown so the democrats have basically been portraying this as a mature and irresponsible act on the president's part for example one of the leading house excuse me one of the leading senate democrats dick durbin of illinois . tweeted no end in sight to the president's government shutdown he's taken our

government hostage over his outrageous demand for a five billion dollar border wall that would be both wasteful and ineffective and another democratic senator mazie hirono from hawaii said trump shut down the government over his fake vanity wall but thousands of federal workers aren't paying real are are paying real consequences this time to end the shutdown and get those men and women back to work and i think this ties in very neatly to what you were just discussing with professor g. wax about the economy it's not only the fact that government economists are not providing data to the markets but you know upwards of a million people are not getting paid to work and that's got to have an effect on the overall economy and the stunts the key figure i guess that we've got to focus

in on here all because a million federal workers who are not being paid at the moment but in theory when this is happened in the past they do get paid but they get paid back pay. they get paid later that's right if the whole thing gets resolved and congress then votes retroactively to to compensate them right now the figure is about eight hundred thousand but that is going to grow the longer this goes on hundred thousand and clothes more than forty fourteen thousand f.b.i. agents four thousand agents of the drug enforcement agency fifty three thousand people who work for the transportation security administration and the numbers are going to go up for example at midnight on friday the environmental protection agency runs out of money so it's going to start furloughing its people and even this. shutdown even. reaches abroad because

many people at embassies in u.s. embassies in other countries who are foreign nationals may find themselves being furloughed at least temporarily and in of course in low income countries that are desperately poor those going without those paychecks that could be a very very serious problem ok robel leave it there thanks very much. police in the democratic republic of congo have fired tear gas on opposition protesters just days before presidential and parliamentary elections there's anger after voting in some pro opposition areas was postponed the country's going to the polls on sunday catherine soy has more now from the capital city kinshasa. people in beni in eastern congo take to the streets to protest against the decision by then the tall commission to postpone the election until march next year this is part of a region where health workers are dealing with an ebola epidemic that has killed

many that's a reason given for delaying the election as well as security problems. but part of it here with that they say they must exercise their rights with the rest of the country so some burned sections of an ebola trying to center where those suspected of having the disease are held for. me demba we're tired of voters and brainy and but tembo gave this government the last election they've been killed by rebels and kept quiet they brought us a bowler and we did not say anything now we can't keep quiet any will. most of us assume that the but why is the government not concerned about the situation in beni we were told to go is here we accepted this but today they told us we could not vote because of ebola even though they themselves said the sickness was the creasing a few friends said that there was no more ball in the region but why stop us from voting. benny and with the family in the east in the western town of you

a stronghold of one of the country's main presidential candidates. and have about one point two million voters he's quite concerned in a country where the winner takes it all on the fast round every vote counts and he's calling for a nationwide general strike. we have. all come to. friday. and into the. three hours to go before. the nation. everywhere and. we have seen. the. country and i say please please we are in the dark as all this was happening the government gave the european union's ambassador to deal forty eight hours to leave the country mainly because of

sanctions the e.u. recently renewed on fourteen individuals including a model shagari the ruling party's presidential candidate and president joseph kabila choice for the top job of the interior minister between december twenty sixth and in march twenty seventh and scores of people were killed mostly by security forces during street protests since. all the players will be here. these sanctions violate international law undermine the fundamental rights of those concerned and have been condemned by regional authorities for the sake of our historical partnership i've pleaded with the e.u. to lift the sanctions at the very least suspend them until after the general election. is. something the electoral commission and the government are working together to reach the election in favor of diary of a thing that will not accept an outcome where he's declared winner it's hard to

tell if this call for a general strike will bring any change the country's main opposition leaders seem divided with some saying they will go to the election regardless of their nouns win by the electoral commission what is clear is that many people we've talked to believe that this election is already taking ted catherine soy al jazeera. sudan's government says nineteen people have been killed since antigovernment protests began more than a week ago journalists went on strike on thursday in solidarity with demonstrates was anger over rising prices and the cost of living they want the president of all bashir to step down and morgan morgan has more now from the capital khartoum. it hasn't been a normal day at the office for yasser the law instead of editing his newspaper he's preparing evidence to file an official complaint against the dance police and national security forces he says they beat him during protests on tuesday.

i was standing in front of the newspaper and some men in a pickup truck came some were armed some. inside the newspaper building or refused they put me in the truck for two shots and drove off as they were beating me to beat me so much i started bleeding. protests started last week in the city of art when there was no bread to buy that anger quickly escalated into protests against the government and demands for the government to step down and then for the president to go president obama has been in power for twenty nine years his ruling party has announced they want him to rule for longer which would need an amendment to the constitution protests to say they don't want him to finish his current term let alone run for another the president announces them as infiltrators. the infiltrators are from groups and other opposition organizations are against the regime and against with the regime they want to topple the government they constantly repeat that they are part of the popular revolution we have seen these

things before back in september twenty third chain the protests have resulted in dozens killed and even more injured activists have targeted some of the protests and human rights groups as well as some governments are condemning the use of what they call broad so forth despite a threat to their safety continue to demand the resignation of president obama. some political parties are calling for an investigation. barly seventeen people were killed in tuesday's protest and eighty eight granted we call on the government to launch an investigation into the killings those who committed these crimes must be held responsible. more protests are planned bashir says he won't give in sudan seems to be at a crossroad between the president and the people he will morgan al-jazeera or to him. still to come here on al-jazeera a reciprocal move the palestinian authority says it will ban all imports of his really vegetables fruits and poultry. cuts in government health spending and

creating a crisis and hospitals across greece and the sport find out if serena williams could make a winning return in a first much since losing the u.s. open final. hello again we're here across the united states we watch one major winter storm system make its way across the great lakes but the forecast is going to look much better as we go towards the weekend so let's take a look what's happening here on friday this is going to be the last day that you see a lot of weather and that is going to be down here along the eastern seaboard anywhere from québec all the way down towards florida the south it is going to be severe storms to the north though it is going to be snow and some very heavy rain in between as the system pushes out we're going to be left with much better weather here on saturday clearing out temperatures from new york warm for this time of year

fourteen degrees there out here towards the west though not so warm for los angeles we do expect to see a high on saturday of only sixteen degrees there well wouldn't quite nice across much of the caribbean as well the central america we do have some clouds appear to the north but down towards the south really fairly dry across much of the area temps wise looks like this kingston jamaica a few clouds in your forecast at thirty one on friday and it's really staying the same thing on saturday sunday domingo is going to be about twenty nine degrees there and then very quickly across south america plenty of showers across the amazon basin we are going to sing very warm conditions over here to asuncion at about thirty eight degrees few and for rio de janeiro it is going to be a stormy day with a temperature of twenty nine. as this year trying to suppress it. comes to an end. we examine what the top

stories might be to try to get to be very honest with the result. in the new year. joining us. as we take a look ahead to twenty nine seen. on al jazeera. and. then you look at the arrival of refugees is debated in european parliament's. but the journey itself is little understood. to syrians document the route that is claimed so many lives searching for sanctuary part one people in power on al-jazeera.

you're watching al-jazeera and peter dhabi these are your headlines saudi arabia's king solomon has demoted his foreign minister as part of a major government we shuffle adel al just be a will serve as a minister of state that follows the murder of the saudi journalist jamal khashoggi which was a diplomatic backlash against the kingdom. about two hundred people seeking asylum in the u.s. spend some christmas in a parking lot in texas up to being sent there by immigration officials in el paso city four hundred others were also sent to places including bus shelters just ahead of christmas day families were left to fend for themselves because there was no room. in detention centers. police in the democratic republic of congo have fired tear gas on opposition protesters just days before presidential and parliamentary

elections as anger after voting in some pro opposition areas was postponed the elections are due to be held on sunday. and staying with the story the outgoing president of the d r c has rejected opposition claims of the country's electoral body favors the ruling party as malcolm webb spoke to the president joseph kabila ahead of the elections on sunday. the issue or issues about electoral commission be biased. to me is just nonsense the most important thing we should all understand and retain is that it is an independent electoral commission that more than two years ago the international community offered financial support to the democratic republic of congo to conduct this election but that support was rejected and then later all of these problems and challenges were cited we've always stated that elections in this country matter an issue of sovereignty the

sovereign nation of the congo that plans for going to elections and i've always stated that the congo and the congolese state we are not biggest we decided to organize our own election like any other nation in the world and i don't see why anybody should take issue with that but you talked about sovereignty but i think that the sovereignty that many congolese people feel they don't have in particular the thousands of people who've taken to the streets and the dozens who were killed in the hundreds who were detained in the process of these protests calling for elections i think they would dispute that they have sovereignty and they say sovereignty that they've been demanding. and the electoral process is always a sensitive issue and i was just stating that even if it will game between two so you have pensions that arise so during an electoral process you would have

tensions the most important thing is to have the necessary police force that's well equipped in order to give that a twenty given point in time we did not have that capacity but we've been building that capacity so if this election takes place as planned if you step aside as you say you will what's next or what are you why are you so pessimistic you think about if. it's no longer about it it's been repeatedly postponed already waiting to see if it really will and will it really happen and not been repeatedly postponed the problem is that these are congolese elections these are congolese elections and that's what everybody has to understand and there are. issues that have arisen whilst in the way we've been able to do as

a nation we don't want anybody to judge us and that apart from the congolese people experts are worried that another eruption could cause a second tsunami in indonesia at least four hundred thirty people died in the five metre highway flooded coastal communities near the sunda straight on saturday bright explains more. and you exclusion zone around the volcano means no one is allowed to approach within five kilometers but the greater concern is for the people living along the coast on either side of the sun does straight. they've again being warned to stay back between five hundred meters and one kilometer from the shoreline while commercial planes have been ordered to avoid the area all kind of cash is a mix euro and gas and it's classic rock programs and minerals and volcanic glass

and it's very very scratchy are in et so the dangers about going up into the atmosphere so plain if there is not a large rips in the ash goes i know the planes flying back now must be a hazard for well airlines the increased warning level comes as a blow to the thousands of people displaced by the tsunami of wanting to return home many seeking shelter on higher ground where even a few meters above sea level office a greater sense of security. schools and community centers in the town of level one have been turned into makeshift homes giving a feeling of semipermanent. most of these people rely upon the sea for their livelihoods by god and. they're mostly fishermen they can go to sea because their boats are gone so they can make a living. and many don't know if the houses they fled from are still standing we haven't been back to see the condition of our homes because we are still

a freight. cracka towers latest eruptions will do nothing to ease those fears rob mcbride al-jazeera north west java indonesia. the general in charge of brazil's military intervention in rio de janeiro has hailed the operation as being a success the military marked its completion in a ceremony although the intervention doesn't officially end until monday brazil deployed thousands of soldiers in february to combat a surgeon crime targeting drug trafficking gangs in the city's poorest areas critics say it's failed to address the root causes such as unemployment and poverty the number of people killed by the security forces has also increased dramatically but the military says crime rates of propped. more militant islam is the only use we are together to silently mark the end of the federal intervention in public security in rio de janeiro's this new one extraordinary measure took ten months of work and the reached all its objectives by reducing the crime rate. the palestinian

authority has suspended all fruit and vegetable imports from israel in response to an israeli ban on similar imports from the occupied west bank the move comes to spite israeli warnings the palestinian economy won't be able to withstand the measure and stuff about the secretary general of the palestinian national initiative and a former palestinian information minister he says the decision is too little too late. to you just soon as we can. the former president of madagascar andry rajoelina is back in the top job after winning the presidential election with more than fifty five percent of the boat leno was up against another former president marc ravalomanana who's already denounce what he called massive fraud he wants an investigation into the vote on december the nineteenth the constitutional court has nine days to declare a final result. the first direct flight from syria's capital to tunis here in eighty years has landed in the country's new.