al jazeera. every year. the federal government shut down for one. reason only. border security. president and his democratic opponents both give no ground in the standoff that kept the u.s. government closed for nearly three weeks.

and welcome to. headquarters in doha with me in iraq and also ahead presidents at the white house has made a serious mistake suggesting it will protect the kurds but. also ahead of the u.s. envoy talks with the blockade of qatar by its neighbors has resigned and there are still no election results in the democratic republic of congo where the country's largest opposition party says its presidential candidate one. u.s. president has made his first oval office address to the nation it was a tough he would speech criticizing democrats for failing to fund the war he wants to build along the us mexico border and painting illegal immigration as an almost existential threat to the united states we're going to check in with our correspondent john heilemann he's in the mexican border city of tijuana in just

a few moments but first to the white house where our correspondent kimberly halkett is standing by for as it was a painting a very dark picture of immigrants of what's happening on the border calling this not just a humanitarian crisis but a crisis of the heart and soul. certainly he painted a very dark picture of illegal immigrants the president trying to make the distinction that the united states welcomes lawful immigrants but the fact is that his view that those that are crossing into the united states illegally put many americans who were born here at risk for being the victims of crime he also portrayed those trying to cross as at risk and being preyed upon particularly women and children this is something that the president says is a crisis one that he says he is determined to and and that's why he says he is

continuing to push for his five point seven billion that he's requesting from congress as part of an effort to reopen the government in order to build a physical wall along the southern border of the united states with mexico he says that this is something that democrats supported until he became president. democrats in congress have refused to acknowledge the crisis and they have refused to provide our brave border agents with the tools they desperately need to protect our families and our nation the federal government remains shut down for one reason and one reason only because democrats will not fund border security my administration is doing everything in our power to help those impacted by the situation but the only solution is for democrats to pass

a spending bill that defends our borders and reopens the government. this situation could be solved in a forty five minute meeting i have invited congressional leadership to the white house tomorrow to get this done. now democrats are defending their position saying in fact of it the president is making a case based on fear not facts he also said chuck schumer that is the top democrat in the u.s. senate said that fact there is no question that democrats want security they agree with republicans on that they disagree on how to achieve it fact nancy pelosi the house speaker saying that there have already been a number of efforts by democrats to open the government the fact is on the very first day of this congress house democrats passed senate republican legislation to reopen government and find smart effective border security solutions that the

president is rejecting these bipartisan bills which would reopen government over his obsession with work forcing american taxpayers to waste billions of dollars on an expensive and ineffective wall a wall he always promised mexico would pay for the fact is president thompson's chosen to hold hostage critical services for the health safety and well being of the american people and withhold the paychecks of eight hundred thousand innocent workers across the nation many of them that are. so both sides once again putting their case forward kimberly how will those you know some eight hundred thousand workers that we just heard nancy pelosi mention affected by the government shutdown figure about what was said tonight. there's no question that if you're watching that or you're one of the eight hundred thousand federal workers that is set to not get a paycheck that you might be feeling rather just courage at the moment because it

just appears that both democrats and republicans have sort of just dug deeper in terms of their position with no resolution appearing to be in sight. essentially the government is being held hostage to government workers held hostage over this issue the wall has become a symbol of campaign promise for donald trump and from the democratic side a symbol of in the words of nancy pelosi of immorality that essentially the symbol of immigration of welcoming of immigrants to the united states used to be the statue of liberty but now there is this fear at least in the democratic side that it will be a wall along the southern border so i think it's important to note in all of this there is a new poll that's come out that sort of talks about how ordinary americans feel about illegal immigration and those numbers are pretty interesting given the fact that forty two percent believe that there is a crisis along the southern border thirty seven percent believe it's a problem so

a majority of americans are concerned about this and this is a result of a neglect by congress over the past two decades to address reforming immigration the problem is right now that it has become so heated so highly partisan the sort of measure debate about how to resolve and update the american immigration system has been lost and what we have instead is sort of political point scoring with ordinary americans and their paychecks held in the balance committee thank you very much for that and out of this committee how it could live and washington d.c. we're going to go now to john home and he's joining us from to you wanna on the mexico california border he is with those who donald trump trades this evening as he has in the posture on either as criminals themselves or as victims of criminals i wonder how do they feel about how they're being portrayed. why i think they didn't feel great about being depicted as criminals is interesting

people that we're taught to after the speech saying look there were thousands of us coming up here especially. inevitably there were people that were involved in gangs but the vast majority of people she went fleeing from criminals in their homelands we've been to those countries honduras el salvador in which kidnapping and murder are a daily part of life for many people so many have come fleeing that they hear themselves being depicted as criminals just didn't go down to what little there are also a lot of people gone for economic reasons fleeing poverty in their home runs and hoping to find a better life for themselves and their families in the united states and those people were saying to us well you'd have to build a pretty hard to try and stop us and other people from getting into the country one way or another because there's such desperation to get the thing in dollars and to escape what they have back home we see a lot of people here as well trying to get in legally most the people we talked to

actually asking for asylum in one way or another and hoping that their pockets the united states others as well that are saying after listening to that speech it's now crystal clear it was obvious even before then there's no way that i'm going to get without paying someone to smuggle me over the fence and on to the other side john thank you very much for that is john heilemann joining us live mexico we are going to get more on this now we're joined by steve clemons he is the washington editor at large at the atlantic and he's joining us from washington d.c. mr clemens very good to have you with us on al-jazeera it was a very stark picture but it is one that trump has painted for so what was he trying to do with this address at this time who was at that. i think this is aimed firmly at his base i think the president received counsel from various media commentators and people that he trusts and talks to frequently that if he failed to deliver on

this you know in the last congress when he had both republican control of the senate and the house that he would not be forgiven when he goes back to the polls to run for the presidency in two thousand and twenty they said this is a political move this is something that he cannot allow to just proceed and so he's made it a defining challenge for his presidency as has nancy pelosi and chuck schumer on the other side of it so there's a certain dimension we're talking about the substance of what is real and what is not but there's another dimension which is entirely political and really about the president's power in the future if he loses this he feels like his presidency will dwindle if he has in fact you know stakes so much of his presidency on this war and the democrats are doing the same to support for their base what happens now trying to saying he's invited them you know to meet with him tomorrow he's saying it's something that be resolved in a forty five minute minute meeting but it looks like they were as far apart as ever

tonight. well look i think what we see and what we saw tonight was that the president did not take the more flamboyant choice of declaring this a national emergency that would give him particular powers to assign monies that the department of defense already had to deploy to that wall one of the interesting myths about this is that there's no money for the wall there is actually one point three billion dollars that's already been appropriated of which only a couple hundred million dollars have been spent or obligated many senators have been saying is we've already given money then they wanted to give him one point six billion more for various border security items that they could you know they could fudge it in a way but the but the challenge here is that i think the president wanted a fight to demonstrate regardless of what has been truly appropriated for the wall the other dimension is there some you are showing pictures of a wall of a barrier that some people were trying to climb over about one third of the us

mexico border already has such a structure or some kind of wall or barrier in place so i think what happens now is that both sides have to find an equilibrium and negotiate the reality of the political reality they can both live with and go to their you know particular political supporters and say they kind of won but i think it's going to take a while for that right nothing different was achieved tonight this was each side doubling down and what would you know is that sort of face saving measure what would that look like because they have not been able to get this. well i was talking with senator sheldon whitehouse is a democratic senator from the state of rhode island earlier and he said if you take the one point three billion that had already been appropriated the one point six billion that they had already offered together that's roughly about two point nine billion and that's something that vice president michael pence trying to operate in

good faith for president was basically looking around and i imagine that you may end up after some pain and some more paralysis and up with something that the democrats call border security that the president calls steel slats around the two and a half to three billion dollar rate and they call it a day but but i may be naive in that but that seems to me what i think republicans that are very fresh you have to realize many americans are not getting paychecks we ran a piece in the atlantic a few years ago that showed that over half of americans if they had just a four hundred dollars shock in their economic situation had an emergency they would be deeply underwater economically so you can imagine people living paycheck to paycheck that are now as of tonight did not receive a paycheck today and they are going to be screaming and very upset at both political parties mr clemens it is great to get your expertise on this and really

appreciate your time that is the atlantic steve clemons live in washington d.c. thank you. and when we return some of the day's other news encouraging north korean leader kim jong un travels to beijing ahead of a possible second summit for president trump. and another blunt to ease a man house of commons makes another dam breaks that even more complicated. out of there up to active storm systems and i was in the us you can see this one here it goes up into canada coming to the pacific coast again where it's been very wet recently but maybe the most notable aspect of the current wind is the temp she is now they are coming down again as the code has reappeared in central counters coming back down to the great lakes but even now we're talking about above freezing in toronto new york and washington and it takes another day volokh cold starts to

show itself and it feels more like it should do in new york is often drawn to it by which time the rain would have gone from the pacific coast in the sun should be had once again in san francisco though not in b.c. now sort of quiet through the gulf of mexico on the entire caribbean this massive cloud has recently which remains in our front given some rain to honduras and delays nothing some more to come a serious significant but notable were noticeable was an occasional shower cuba in the bahamas once again maybe the version i was in fact the shower is more or less around to these votes i may get to the end of the week in south america the concentration of wet weather has recently been iran to europe why north knowledge and today probably still will be but an interesting hint of showers moving west was towards lima normally a dry city maybe not so. short

films. and inspiration. stories of three young women challenging the world around them. algeria selects. top stories. today.

he said it was necessary because of what he called a humanitarian crisis at the border. to top u.s. officials are in the middle east seeking to reassure washington's allies about the trumpet ministrations plan to withdraw troops from syria national security advisor john bolton says to keep a small target could groups that the u.s. has been arming and training after the americans leave and that demand has angered the president. has more from. over two weeks ago u.s. president donald trump announced on twitter the t.v. withdrawing american troops from syria on tuesday his national security adviser john bolton arrived in ankara for meetings with senior turkish officials about how

and when that withdrawal will take place a day earlier bolton was in israel meeting prime minister benjamin netanyahu where he assured him that the withdrawal would not impact negatively on kurdish groups inside syria to that turkish president's had this to say he's lying done that bolton has made a serious mistake and whoever thinks like this is also made a mistake it is not possible for us to make compromises on that point those who are part of the terror corridor in syria will receive the necessary lesson there is no difference between the p k k the y p g the p.y.t. and i still we are determined to take steps against these terrorist organizations we will mobilize to neutralize them in syria land very soon as far as turkey is concerned the y p g a kurdish militia inside syria is an extension of the p.k. k. which ankara considers a terrorist group for its attacks inside turkey and the killing of its citizens the us however has armed and funded the y.p. jian recent years under the pretext of fighting i still critics of the withdrawal

saying washington would look bad if it were seen to be abandoned its partners but turkey points to the fact that it is a nato member and a us ally and insists america must decide whether it wants to stand by its allies or side with a terrorist organization more than two years of turkish military intervention inside syria has resulted in huge setbacks for i saw which is lost territory to the turks and the syrian rebel allies in and out of mosul and other areas. but turkey sais the fight against so-called terrorism should not be exclusive to combating i saw including all groups regardless of their ethnicity or religion and some of them a syrian that must be cleared of all terrorists including the border area regardless of what kind of terrorist they are and the people who live in syria are godless of the ethnic origins must be protected and made safe from terrorist persecution and attacks. john bolton's team described tuesday's meetings as

constructive however the reality is that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done before a deal can be reached the fact that a planned joint press conference was cancelled in the eleventh hour is testament to the this agreements that remain but before a deal can be reached between the united states and turkey it would seem that the american government needs to agree amongst the self about what it wants to do in syria. and kyra. well meanwhile u.s. secretary of state mike. it is his first off of the. middle east war is also set to travel to egypt saudi arabia kuwait and qatar stephanie deca has more from the jordanian capital amman. so the message from the u.s. secretary of state might pay zero is clear that the withdrawal of u.s. troops from syria will not hinder its fight against eisel and it will also not

affect its fight to lessen to contain iran and its influence in the region there is a press conference between your state is your damian counterpart touching on the issue of syria that both sides want to see a political solution to it was in touching on the issue of iran and also briefly mentioning the israel palestinian conflict and certainly the jordanian saying that they saw this as a key issue that needed to be resolved when it came to conflict in the middle east the sect of state will be heading on to egypt where he's expected to give a keynote speech interestingly that will come ten years to the time when the former president barack obama gave his middle eastern speech also a development on the same day that state was here in jordan that the former general anthony zinni who was tossed with trying to deal find a solution to the blockade the gulf blockade resigned saying that he was having difficulties in getting all sides getting the leaders of the countries to allow to any form of mediation so this is the context on which pair now embarks forward but

the message from the americans is that despite this pullout in syria they remain steadfast ally and they will remain very much present in the region. kim jong un and chinese president xi jinping who are expected to discuss a second summit with the united states on day to all the north korean leaders visit to beijing can arrived in china on tuesday his fourth trip to the country in the past year self korean media reports that the two leaders met for about an hour visit comes just days after warning he may take another path if the u.s. doesn't ease sanctions and pressure to denuclearize the korean peninsula brive has more on the reaction from seoul. this sequence of diplomatic events does seem to follow a pattern kim jong un meeting she possibly as a show of deference to the more important neighbor possibly getting guidance on how to deal with the u.s. then to be followed soon after by a meeting between president trump of the united states and kim jong un everybody

has been expecting a second summit between the two leaders and it's led to all sorts of speculation that we might be having an announcement imminently viet-nam has been mentioned as a possible location for a second summit it's been reported that u.s. officials have been in the country looking at possible locations for longer odds then people have also mentioned the possibility of bangkok and even hawaii as a possible locations it's also led to speculation in south korea about what all of this means for a possible fourth summit between the korean leaders of the two koreas it was widely anticipated that kim jong un would travel to south korea in the last month it seems to have been delayed and that there is speculation that that is because both leaders of north and south korea know that after three previous summits where they have made progress they have had agreements a for some it really has to show

something more concrete more tangible possible economic measures possible projects of economic cooperation between the two and for that to happen they need to have exemptions from these sanctions and for that to take place of course they need to have the u.s. on board to support that and for that we need to have then a successful summit between north korea and the u.s. . so the democratic republic of congo now with the largest opposition party has declared its leader the presumed winner of last month's presidential election the union for democracy and social progress says its candidate felix kerry has won its calling for a transition meeting with outgoing president joseph kabila the country's electoral commission has yet to release the results meanwhile one of the main observers of the presidential election is reporting irregularities and more than half of the counting centers at monitored ultimate hossa has the latest from the capital kinshasa shopkeeper blank. the democratic republic of congo has had

a difficult history several civil wars and contested elections he wants election results released as soon as possible to ease tensions so the country can move on. the political situation. very few people are spending money. things. election officials were supposed to release provisional results on january sixth but it's a logistical challenges are causing delays now they're expected to be announced later this week this could be the first democratic transfer of power in the us since independence from belgium and nine hundred sixty that's it everybody here except. many people in decades of everything on it that makes. opposition leaders say they fear the vote will be manipulated to favor president joseph kabila as preferred successor emanuel should dari.

the result. is not. we have. to be vigilant. all the. supporters from the ruling party have already started celebrating and deny allegations of fraud they insist only the electoral commission known here as see me know the outcome. we have to study the results all. we make of that is. how.

i was in your position. how will. you know when. the government has cut internet and islamist services to prevent speculation on social media about who has won some people fear they could be violence if the final results are rejected by the liz's al-jazeera kinshasa. but certainly as president has dismissed calls to step down and praise the army's response to anti-government protests omar al bashir made the comments at a military parade and other a city where the demonstrations began three weeks ago the rallies calling for bashir to step down have sent spread across the country authorities say at least nineteen people have been killed in the demonstrations but amnesty international has put the death toll at thirty seven. now britain's parliament has approved financial measures making it more difficult for the country to leave the european union without a deal and that is another major blow of a promise to tourism is for exit strategy and how reports. the british

government is preparing the country for life outside the european union in particular for the possibility of leaving without a deal over future relations it's not a pretty picture queues of trucks shortages of food and medicine it is for many in parliament a worst case scenario but one that grows more. possible by the day. hardly surprising then that those opposed to a no deal breakers are doing all they can to prevent it i believe the government should rule out no deal but i think if it was important must make sure that it has the powers to do so if it comes to the crunch it is time for members of parliament on all sides start ruling out deeply down to options to our country voting by a majority in favor of a measure that blocks public spending on a no deal outcome m.p.'s on both sides demonstrated their opposition to the government's current course. it's a significant defeat for the government here the successful amendment to the

finance bill tabled by the opposition labor party with wide support is perhaps not the first salvo in a campaign aimed at forcing the government's hand it doesn't mean no deal planning will stop nor that no deal won't happen but it does put much more pressure on the prime minister to find a position that a majority in parliament can actually agree on she wasn't in parliament but to resume a knows that if there is no appetite for no deal and her own plan gets voted down next week then her options are greatly limited either go cap in hand to the e.u. leaders and plead for something better or consider doing what an increasing number of people and m.p.'s wanted to do which is hold another referendum there isn't a majority in support of any of the particular rights and outcomes and that definitely isn't a support for no deal so it is supported by around a quarter of the country about half those who voted leave in the e.u. referendum but it isn't as popular as remaining in the european union and when you

ask the public which by prefer staying in your opinion or leaving with no dale staying in your opinion does come ahead. eighty days to breaks it and counting it is still firm government policy to take britain out of the e.u. on march the twenty ninth but the government is not necessarily in firm charge of events jonah how al-jazeera london. you know again i was of a proud of and with the headlines on al-jazeera the u.s. president has named strongest plea to date for billions of dollars in funding for a border war with mexico in a televised address he said it was necessary because of what he called the humanitarian crisis at the border the budget deadlock has led to a partial government shutdown for almost three weeks. the only solution is for democrats to pass a spending bill that defends our borders and reopens the government this situation

could be solved in a forty five minute meeting i have invited congressional leadership to the white house tomorrow to get this done while the democrats responded by repeating their demand that trump reopen the government without funding for the war. the fact is that women and children at the border are not a security threat they are humanitarian challenge a challenge the president found on core and counterproductive policies have only deepened and the fact is president trump must stop holding the american people hostage might stop manufacturing a crisis a must leoben the government turkish president everyone says the u.s. demand for protection of its kurdish allies in syria is a grave mistake u.s. national security adviser john bolton as an ark or a holding talks about the withdrawal of american troops from syria the north korean

leader kim jong un as on the second day of a visit to china which could lay the groundwork for another meeting with the u.s. president donald trump the first chems fourth trip to china in the past year. the largest opposition party in the democratic republic of congo has declared its leader the presumed when of last month's presidential election the union for democracy and social progress says its candidate felix the voters of calling for a transition meeting with outgoing president joseph kabila the country's electoral commission has yet to release the results russia's prime minister treason may has suffered another blow to her brakes a plan that's after a cross party group of employees in favor of financial measures making it more difficult to leave the european union without a deal a government departments approval to spend money on no deal preparations well those are the headlines on al-jazeera do stay with us a.j. selects of coming up next thank you for watching. the week began with

a ninety day truce in the us china trade. the world's largest supplier of liquefied natural gas is leaving the biggest. we bring you the stories the economic world we live in counting the cost is iraq. has never. learned the men.

are. looking. good there.