the russians from across the political spectrum andrei next discovers a complex as each country's leader and his policies in search of putin's russia are now jazeera. the federal government remains shut down for one reason and one reason only because democrats will not follow on border security plans and trump and his democratic opponents both give no ground in the standoff that's kept the u.s. government closed for an even three weeks. hello and welcome to al-jazeera on live from my headquarters in doha with me in the top of herat also ahead turkey's president says the white house has made a serious mistake suggesting it will it will protect the kurds when it pulls out of

syria also ahead why the u.s. envoy tousled dissolve in the blockade of qatar by its neighbors has resigned and a north korean leader kim jong un travels to beijing ahead of a possible second summit with president trump. u.s. president donald trump has made his first oval office address to the nation it was a tough leewood a 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 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 we opens 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 in the democratic rebuttal house speaker nancy pelosi said what about and heard interim speech was misinformation 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 works forcing american taxpayers to waste billions of dollars on an expensive and ineffective wall a wall he always promised mexico would have for the fact is president samples chosen to hold hostage critical services that health safety and wellbeing of the american people and withhold the paychecks of eight hundred thousand innocent workers across the nation many of them that are ins committee help it has more from washington d.c. . u.s. president donald trump took to the airwaves in prime time to make his case to the american public that the situation on the southern border with the united states and mexico is a crisis while he says he welcomes lawful immigration what he is determined to just stop as president is illegal immigration that he says hurts women and children and that many of those entering the united states illegally have criminal records and are hurting native born americans as a result he says this is

a tragic reality he is determined to end and he believes that he can do this with the construction of a border wall a campaign promise along the southern border of the united states one that would cost five point seven billion in funding that he has requested as part of an effort to reopen the government that has been partially shut down now this is something that democrats take exception to they say that this is a massive temper tantrum by the u.s. president that he is making his case based on fear not facts and misinformation well democrats maintain they certainly support border security they disagree on how they're calling for the government to be reopened and then to continue to debate border security something that up until now republicans have refused to do. steve clemons is washington editor at large for the atlantic and he says trump has made the border wall to finding gold off his presidency. 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 and 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 over 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 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 nothing different was achieved tonight this was each side doubling down as they were on to other news now and to top u.s. officials who are in the middle east seeking to financial washington's allies about the trumpet ministrations plan to withdraw troops from syria national security advisor john bolton says turkey must not talk it could discover that the us has been arming and training after the americans leave and that the mom has angered the turkish president assad and child has more from omkara. 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 not even 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 a compromise on this 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 lands very soon as far as turkey is concerned the why p.g.d. 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 eisel 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 u.s. 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 their syrian rebel allies and. and other areas. but turkey says the fight against terrorism should not be exclusive to. include all groups regardless of their ethnicity or religion. is syrian 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 godless of the ethnic origin must be protected and made safe from terrorist persecution and attacks. describe 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 to do in syria. the dispute between qatar and its neighbors. and. jordan has more on his resignation and the state of diplomacy in the region. for the last year and a half retired u.s.

general anthony zinni has had two jobs negotiate an end to the g.c.c. crisis in which qatar has been isolated by its gulf neighbors since june twenty seventh team and help us stablish a nato like organization called the middle east strategic initiative army said no more zinni has submitted his resignation. anyways just challenged. he did not waste his time because the situation in the middle east can always get more unstable unfortunately this extraordinary important trusted intermediary the parties to ensure that the situation does not deteriorate further according to reports zinni said he's leaving because no country in the dispute is willing to negotiate in good faith what's more analysts eager neubauer says the murder of jamal khashoggi the saudi journalist up and it plans for a u.s. brokered discussion in washington in october former secretary of state rex

tillerson had hired zinni a former military commander in the middle east after his own efforts at shuttle diplomacy failed to end the blockade zinni insists he had full support from officials at the white house which had recently asked him to add the regional military alliance to his to do list analysts say that without an end to the qatar blockade and no sign of the white house hosting a g.c.c. summit any time soon such an alliance has no chance of being stood up even though he were tasked to help resolve the gulf crisis once that was no longer tenable at least in the current environment he sought to appear to rest through integrated military cooperation and what emerged of. became an impossibility the state department thank is in for his work saying that quote his mission was to help introduce the. sept of the middle eastern teaching alliance and

start a conversation with leaders in the region that is happening and well underway thanks to his efforts for now it falls to secretary of state mike peo to discuss the blockade and a possible military alliance during his first major trip to the middle east however top priority and that of the white house is the isolation of iran at any cost that means anthony zinni his work could end up being neglected for the foreseeable future. al jazeera washington. kim jong un and chinese president xi jinping are expected to discuss a second summit for the united states on day two the north korean leaders visit to beijing can arrive in china on tuesday his fourth trip to the country in the past year south korean media of a poll attorney just met for about an hour as it 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. has more

from beijing. now this is kim jong un's fourth visit to beijing in the space of less than a year which is remarkable because in his capacity as leader of north korea before that he had before visiting beijing he had never left the country now what's different about this visit versus that first visit that first visit was shrouded in mystery we didn't know that he was here in beijing until he had left but this time there was a lot of publicity there was a moore's akkad. entourage going down the most important avenue in beijing and that's important for china because you're looking if you look at the timing right now in beijing we have a group of negotiators from washington trying to seek a solution to the long running trade war between china and the u.s. and china wants to prove its hand in those negotiations it wants increased pressure on washington and it's really leveraging this relationship with north korea to do that it's showing washington and the world that look if you want to see denuclearization in north korea if you want to maintain those sanctions you should

really acknowledge the role that china plays in doing this and perhaps you should also listen to beijing when it comes to things like trade negotiations still ahead on the bulletin that still no official election results from the democratic republic of congo but the country's largest opposition party says its presidential candidate won and not obliged to resolve a house of commons vote which makes of no deal breaks and even more complicated. from the. to the city seems. hello the rain the snow virtually stopped falling now in afghanistan and beyond you see the cloud disappearing of so towards a tibetan plateau to get away for the next lot to come which is already developing may not get as far east as afghanistan is certainly concentrating on the caucasus

and the levant one small now this is the picture for wednesday where most of those in eastern turkey and running down through the north of iraq on the iranian side as well it could well be still snowing in the high ground of iraq certainly will be iran and iran touching kuwait as what we see is a funny if the media site is we've seen it before time time again and this is the eastwood movement taking more rain and snow towards afghanistan during thursday's but leaving a good part of a year of iran dr briefly mike it went is over night and the picture by that time still relatively fine by the way in the levant by sixteen degrees in the rain is concentrating in turkey south of all this temporarily but a southerly breeze and things are warming up in bahrain doha you know it is twenty six degrees little bit won't last in the u.a.e. however that wind direction will not last and again i'll take you overnight you see the cloud tends to break up and tries to be nice to have a northerly comes afterwards and is cooler. the with the sponsor.

whether online i want to start here on my laptop with a tweet or if you join us on saying there was a rush of adrenaline this is the moment to be i've been waiting for this is a dialogue the government has cool face and i'm legal protest and instructed police to disperse the crowds everyone has a voice. reasons what's the difference. join the global conversation does iraq. have you with us on al-jazeera these are our top stories u.s.

president donald trump has made his strongest claim to date a but ends of dollars in funding for a border war with mexico in a televised address he said it was necessary because of what he called a humanitarian crisis that the border democrats responded by repeating their them on that trunk reopen the government without funding for the war the budget deadlock has led to a partial government shutdown for almost three weeks. president. says the u.s. tomorrow for protection of its kurdish allies in servia is a grave mistake u.s. national security adviser john bolton as an encore holding talks about the withdrawal of troops from syria and a top u.s. on void working to resolve the dispute between her and its neighbors has quit. general anthony zinni said. no country was willing to negotiate and good face. now the largest opposition party in the democratic republic of congo has declared its leader the presumed one of last month's president. election the union for

democracy and social progress says its candidate fictious according one of calling for a transition meeting with outgoing president joseph kabila the country's electoral commission is yet to release the results meanwhile one of the main observers of the election is reporting irregularities in more than half of the counting centers that monitor how to toss a has the latest from can chaucer shopkeeper blanche to democratic republic of congo has had a difficult history could several civil wars and contested elections he once the election results released as soon as possible to ease tensions so the country can move on. the political situation right now is affecting business very few people are spending money. in things. election officials were supposed to release provisional results on january sixth but they say 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 what everybody here except for the other many people hoping to help in decades of everything on its head make. opposition leaders say they fear the vote will be manipulated to favor president joseph kabila as preferred successor emanuel should diary result. the result. is not negotiable and then we have. to be vigilant. all the rules. to porters from the ruling party have already started celebrating and not allegations of fraud they insist only the electoral commission known here as see me

know the outcome. we have to study the results of. this remake of the. 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. conciousness. the sudanese president has dismissed calls to step down and praised the army's response to anti-government protests. made the comments at a military parade and off but 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 amnesty international has put the death toll at thirty seven paper more than has more from. anti-government protests are now in its third week people have been demonstrating demanding that president obama and his twenty nine year rule and step down now would all start over the economy over the rise in bread prices and inflation of seventy percent one of the highest in the world and the protests spread nationwide schools and universities had to be shut down social media platforms such as twitter what's up and facebook were blocked by the government now today president obama traveled to river nile state and went with the military and spoke about the situation that the country is going through but. unfortunately those who are conspiring against sudan have been able to plant some agents and some trenches in our midst unfortunately that meld inside those with weak souls those

who vandalize and in the meantime our people have been building and developing every day there are new projects but on the other side they want to destroy in boone my greetings to the military forces which have guarded the nation and protected it and broke down all conspiracies by the colonizes disappearances and their agents now this is not the first time that the president has spoken he has spoken on the eve of the country's sixty third independence anniversary and he said that he was going to increase the living wage and he was going to try to improve the economic situation but that did this did not stop the protests forces have been going on going including today and more are planned in the coming days now the government has been criticized for using what has been termed as excessive brutal force thirty seven have been killed in the process according to into the human rights group amnesty international but the government is saying that nineteen people have been killed and over eight hundred have been arrested. the latest round of peace talks for afghanistan have been called off bond refused to meet with u.s. representatives and a couple as far as disagreements over the agenda for the two day meeting which was

meant to start on wednesday. reports. taliban leaders canceled a meeting with the u.s. officials only a few hours after telling the media they were willing to hold face to face talks in qatar in the coming days and the reason is differences over inviting the afghan government delegation to join the talks a few days ago the taliban rejected an offer to meet afghan government representatives in saudi arabia preferring instead to hold talks with the u.s. special envoy. at the united state taleban both have some cards taliban also try to play chess board in politics they don't want to open up. they want to give little intake a lot. the afghan government says it's ready to me the taliban any time anywhere

but for the talks to succeed afghanistan needs help from neighboring pakistan the u.s. has repeatedly accused islamabad of providing safe haven for taliban leaders. dismissed by the pakistani government being the immediate neighbor of understand is interested in any development in afghanistan leads to peace and stability of the region got to be efforts underway towards a political settlement in a fantasy and the draw all of us troops should be part of a peace process we did to ensure that it is nor bar vacuum in afghanistan. despite huge international aid and a military campaign led by the us war is. and the taliban is far from defeated reports that the trump administration might be withdrawing troops in the coming months triggered panic among afghan officials but the u.s.

isn't the sole player in the region the russians invited the taliban and members of the kabul based afghan peace council for talks last year saudi arabia and the u.a.e. took part in the last round of talks in december. iran has also been active over the last two years building bridges with the taliban and the government iran says its goal is to ensure an afghan led peace deal. the talks gained momentum last year but it's unclear if all the parties are willing to make concessions and they agree on a unity government. back to the united states now and the all going investigation into the trumpet ministrations ties to russia court documents which were made public by accident shedding new light on the play deal that trumps former campaign manager paul metaphor with investigators day and which was later withdrawn

betty callahan has more from washington d.c. . really surprising new developments in the special counsel's investigation into potential collusion between the trump campaign and russian officials and it comes in the case of paul mann a ford you remember for a time he ran the trump campaign he has since pled guilty to the special counsel but then the special counsel came out and said the deal's off the light so now manifest attorneys have filed these documents in court they tried to redact them basically keep a bunch sections secrets problem is reporters quickly figured out that you could simply copy and paste them and know exactly what the document says and here the surprising allegations it says metaphor had to be prompted by prosecutors but then he admitted that he met with a gentleman named constantine collimating he said they did discuss on several occasions a potential peace plan for the fight in ukraine then he had to be prompt and said hey how come you both were in madrid on the same day and man a fortin acknowledged that he did in fact clinic and he also said that he shared

polling data from the twenty six thousand campaign with clinic again a man the u.s. government says is tied to russian intelligence and his lawyer makes the defense that both course maybe he didn't remember this this was all happening while he was trying to run the presidential campaign so he had a lot on his mind so those are some pretty surprising developments it's the closest we've come to any sort of hints of potential collusion or what they would actually be is conspiracy and the other thing metaphors lawyers say is they say that it's he wasn't lying when he talked about potentially meeting or at least talking to members of the trump administration well he was facing criminal charges. button's parliament has approved financial measures making it more difficult for a contract to leave the europeans are here without and that is another major blow of a promise to trans amazed by exit strategy john holl 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 breaks it 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 are also i start ruling out deeply down to options to a 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 tourism 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 to 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 outcomes and that definitely isn't a support for no deal so it is supported by around a quarter of the country around half those who voted leave in the e.u. referendum but it isn't a popular remaining in the european union would be and when you ask the public which would prefer staying in the european union or leaving with no deal staying in the european union does come out ahead eighty days to break 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 does not necessarily in firm charge of events joe al-jazeera. and i again i will have a prominent die hard when the headlines on. us president has made his strongest claim to date for billions of dollars in funding for a border war with mexico in a televised address and said it was necessary because of what he called a 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 well democrats responded by repeating their demand that trying to re-open the government without funding for the war. the fact is the 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 sad thing is president trump must stop holding the american people hostage but stop manufacturing a crisis a must reopen the government and other news turkish president of the one 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 encore holding talks about the withdrawal of american troops from syria the north korean leader kim jong un is on the second day of a visit to china which could lay the groundwork for another meeting with u.s.

president donald trump this is kim's fourth trip to china in the past year the largest opposition party in the democratic republic of congo has declared its leader the presumed winner of last month's presidential election the union for democracy and social progress as its candidate candidate felix kerry won the vote the country's electoral commission has yet to release the results british prime minister treason may has suffered another blow to have brits had planned that after a cross particularly since he's in favor of the financial measures making it more difficult to leave the european union without a deal the government will now need parliament's approval to spend money on no deal of preparations. well those are the headlines on al-jazeera the stream is coming up next thank you very much for watching.

it is the biggest u.s. criminal justice reform package in the year is bird is the first step act really enough so they will look at what the new orleans the u.s. prison inmates the kim kardashian effect i kid you not please send your thoughts and your twitter comments by at you tube.