an emergency to fund his controversial border wall but he's still demanding congress approved more than five billion dollars for the project he called on democrats many of whom have now left washington for the weekend to come back and vote caster has more from washington d.c. . reports indicate that some of jonell trump's closest advisers including his son in law jared questioner have been cautioning him against declaring a national emergency to get funding for the border wall it is seen as possibly setting a bad precedent and critics say a step toward authoritarianism if you were to issue that declaration also if he does it there's still no real understanding of where the money would come from trump wants five point seven billion dollars to construct the border wall between the u.s. and mexico and right now reporting indicates that that money may come from money set aside for disaster relief in the future which may be an idea that the american

public is not so wild about trump himself has indicated that if you were to move forward with a declaration he'll likely immediately face court challenges that he says he would likely lose in the lower and appellate levels but all of that said this president who has wavered so much on whether or not to call a national emergency to build the border wall mais yet change his mind his latest indication to reporters at the white house was that if congress does not come together to fund the border wall and he indeed will still pull the trigger and declare a national emergency republicans are still squarely in the president's corner because of his popularity with the republican voting base and democrats don't have reason to relent on not giving trump the border wall citing polls that show the majority of americans oppose the border wall construction so where that leaves everyone is there's very little incentive to meet in the middle whether is next but

still ahead on al jazeera rising anger against colombia's chief prosecutor we'll tell you why. from brisk noise and fuel. to the warm tranquil waters of southeast asia. out of the story of the tremendous snow goes on but it is sort of easing off you can still see this cloud coming down from the north that's the cold but the thickest white top stuff that might be more obvious over turkey and certainly been around remain here and ukraine but it's a thinning piece now so little white patches and again we focus on bits of austria but also hungry less ceremony less to the balkans and this is now rain stretching up through parts of greece or a good part of greece and western turkey temps all single figures were largely bare freezing below in bucharest and kiev and the wind still blowing across the atlantic

the british isles are up to ten in london not in paris we're talking if anything rain here in the federal breeze so the position continues and then sort of repeats itself overnight tonight and during sunday it were a cord or rain or snow to put in your heart quite heavily across the alps it'll be snow across austere again and hungry heading towards remain here not sure how much of a meter is a possibility so already have been so much anyway it's just going to add to the problem you saw was happening in the j. and so his that the clouds spinning as a secular nation they would of course be a strength the winds to it keep tension is still low in tunisia and libya was rain spreading across the sea and of course hitting the land as well. the weather sponsored by cattle and always. i mean every. breaking story and then of course there's donald trump the town through the eyes of the outstanding ace that's right out of a hamas group that calls for the annihilation of israel that is not what that

phrase means at all joined the listening post as we turn the cameras on the media focus on how they were brought on the stories that matter the most in battle is a free palestine are they listening on al-jazeera. welcome back i'm just. a reminder of our top stories this hour the runner up in the democratic republic of congo his presidential election is due to challenge the results in court mostyn for you new says he won with a landslide vote of more than sixty percent citing catholic church and the action of the. syrian state media says israeli forces have fired several missiles at

targets in damascus including the capital's airport syrian air defenses are reported to have intercepted some missiles but one of them damaged an airport warehouse. the u.s. government shutdown has become the longest in history now in its twenty second day president trump has backed away from his threat to declare a national emergency to fund his border wall but he's still demanding congress to approve more than five billion dollars for the project. a saudi teenager who fled saying she feared have family would kill her is on her way to canada or half mohammed was granted asylum after gaining global attention when she barricaded herself in an airport hotel room in bangkok in order to avoid being sent back john hendren has more in a desperate plea from a barricaded hotel room. urged the world to come to her rescue the i'm still in the room. and you have no choice. this is to have to

to go. no one can have been right now on friday she got her wish and we have accepted the un's request that we grant her asylum that is something that we are pleased to do because canada is a country that understands how important it is to stand up for human rights stand up for women's rights around the world the canadian prime minister's announcement ended a week long drama that drew worldwide attention the eighteen year old fled saudi arabia accusing her family of physical in psychological abuse but was detained by the authorities in bangkok who at one point threatened to send her back she launched a social media campaign from her hotel room appealing to the united nations high commission on refugees saying she would be killed if she returned i'm not leaving my own until i see it. i want. the

un agreed in turn to canada saudi arabia already faces international scrutiny over the killing of journalist jamal khashoggi in the saudi consulate in istanbul in october that prompted canada to review its arms sales to saudi arabia and. the case has drawn global attention district guardianship laws that require saudi women to get a male guardians permission to travel or escape is said to have inspired other saudi women rajoub how mad. mock my god is going to start a revolution in saudi arabia go on social media now and watch the accounts off so many young saudis. you have shown us that we can do this noone refused to see her father and brother who traveled to bangkok to seek or return in the end it might have been noon savvy use of social media that led her to

a new life in canada. a saudi official reportedly told the thai authorities who seized her passport i wish they'd taken her phone instead john hendren zero well as strangely as education minister says the saudi teen's application was being processed when canada stepped in within a forty eight hour period forty eight hour period we had looked at her case for processing her case we'd move quickly to do what needed to be done we had obviously done what we needed to do canada have decided that they were prepared to taika and i think in the end what we've got to do was is once again look at the outcome to go to our countries going to besides elaine person is the astray director of human rights watch she joins us on skype from sydney elaine astray he has an atari asli tyson aggression policy what in your mind does this incident tell us about how scott morrison this government views the issue now well i

mean this really does have a very strict immigration policy that really applies to people who arrive by boat it's at a cemetery policy in this case israeli who said that they were willing to consider her occasionally. but it seemed like the process the same some time and certainly look the same they're working quickly canada how it was able to ask track it on an emergency basis and i think it's fantastic but at this late winter recently. you know ultimately it was a very precarious security situation for her in bangkok and what was really important that officials act quickly to bring her to safety so whether she ended up in australia or canada it really didn't matter what mattered was getting her out of thailand and then there's also a bahraini footballer who has already been granted refugee status in a strain who is still being held in thailand what's the status of his case. yes so he's been in a bangkok jail. some forty days now his situation is that he's

facing possible extradition back to bahrain he was sentenced in absentia for ten years so if he's returned to bahrain he will be imprisoned and that's a strong likelihood he will face torture now because he's someone who's been found to be a refugee in australia he has a legitimate fear of persecution so it's very unclear why the thai authorities operating that our own government in this way those trailing documents the ball or a t.v. and others have certainly been advocating very strongly that he needed to be returned to australia and then why do you think thailand has differentiating between these two cases why does a saudi teenager get to go to canada at a bar any footballer is still in a prison and bangkok well unfortunately thailand has a really poor track record of cooperating with authorities and governments and quite frankly i think thailand was very prepared to you know collaborate and send

back to saudi arabia it was really only because of strong public pressure and media pressure that they post that they overturned that decision so i think you know we really need to look at how we can apply the same correction to thailand in the case of nicky because he has an even stronger case one would say in terms of what he peers will happen to him when he returns you know if he used protective are ok so i think it's very important that there is more pressure on the thai government and the real questions are asked about why the thai government to celebrity in saudi china in order to send back citizens who are it's because it will send a terrible precedent if someone who's been bound to ricky is sent back in complete violation of international law and then passing from human rights watch speaking to us from sydney thanks for your time away. eight members of one family have been killed in yemen in a shelling attack by who thier rebels the four women and four children died in

a government held village called shalala close to the border with saudi arabia news of the deaths comes as the saudi u.a.e. coalition says it destroyed a drone control center that was used in an attack on a military parade on thursday meanwhile the un coordinator least grown days in the port of had data to monitor the humanitarian situation the un envoy to yemen mohsin griffiths has expressed alarm over the escalation in violence and all sides to exercise restraint both sides agreed to a truce around the port which is a vital entry point for aid but they have been several ceasefire violations. thousands of colombians have marched in the streets calling for the country's chief prosecutor to resign now stone better martinez is accused of covering up irregularities and bribes paid by the brazilian construction giant brecht and twenty fifteen and asunder m.p.'s he has more from the capital. holding flashlights

housings of colombians gathered in various cities demanding their country's attorney general steps down. is accused of covering up the regularities and bribes paid in colombia by the brazilian construction giant target rich at the center of the biggest corruption scandal in the region we colombians are tired of seeing the powerful steal money and nothing happening our institutions our justice system are kept captive and we want them back i took you to forces were unable to prevent protesters in front of the attorney general's headquarters taking down the offices flag and burning. in two thousand and fifteen martinez was the legal advisor of. colombia's biggest financial group owned by. the country's richest man about partner with the rich winning a one point six billion dollar contract to build a major modern way reading a series of documents. then the auditor of discovered more than thirty million

dollars in legal payments and informed my team is about yet in a dramatic twist the sound always son in a third witness have since died and what are said to be suspicious circumstances well martina's became the man in charge of investigating the crimes other branches admitted in a plea bargain with the united states department of justice being eleven million u.s. dollars in bribes to colombian politicians but that's just a fraction of the total amount of bribes he has allegedly paid curing and yet turney general denies any prior knowledge up. a man's continues to reject calls for his resignation. prosecutors have pressed charges against high ranking officials in a number of countries including former presidents while in colombia only mid-level officials have been charged has recused himself from two related cases that many

fear a complete and impartial investigation will not happen in colombia as long as he remains in office. the issue is that financed the presidential campaigns of the two most important political parties in colombia they paid x. ministers congressman if the attorney general falls the entire structure falls with them. just days ago peru's attorney general resigned under increasing public pressure after he dismissed two leads prosecutors in this scandal. political backers continue supporting him but it's unclear if he'll be able to withstand the growing calls for his removal. it's been nearly three months since a devastating earthquake and tsunami destroyed parts of the indonesian island of straightaway see thousands of survivors are still living in tents step bason reports from. the name of this small fishing boat sums up the mood and by

tragedy survived the waves as high as palm trees on september twenty eight well many other boats were destroyed like the one owned by hamidi for months he has not been able to earn a living. because my boat and nets are damaged i cannot work and just sit here doing nothing i'm disappointed but i can only wait and see what the government will do for me. others are not so patient one has started to rebuild his house right by the sea after his village was destroyed his community moved to the hills many now have returned to restart their business selling dried fish despite a government plan to relocate them to safer areas. when i'm in the hills i can only eat and sleep here i can earn money because screeches already been coming in i have to work. the government plans to build temporary houses for fifteen hundred

families but survivors complain the construction process is too slow after living in tents for months of five us here and growing impatient extreme heat and the rainy season making it unbearable to live here despite the outpouring of help survivors say it's taking too long for their life story to the normal. aid from all over the world has reached the area but some promise donations have yet to arrive a government adviser was in charge of rebuilding after the indian ocean tsunami in two thousand and four blames a lack of coordination and too many regulation is. still remains like this. because. pretty clear indication that things are fairly slow something wrong right now. but the government denies that rebuilding is slow and says it's very capable of dealing with the aftermath of the disaster in contrast from the relief efforts after the

tsunami and this one is relying less on foreign aid organizations and is trying to involve local communities as much as possible in this case we were only asked to support them with support services in terms of logistics i.t.t. and base camp support and. this is somewhat new for us because we have many other services that we could provide but a stronger the national societies get the more they will shift towards the support services. so many does new approach shows that in leisure has come a long way since previous disasters and his neighbors say they are beginning to restart their lives with or without help from the government steps fast and al jazeera. i missed in doha and he is all the top stories the runner up in the democratic

republic of congo's presidential election is due to challenge the results and course most unfairly says he won with a landslide first of more than sixty percent citing catholic church and the. syrian state media says israeli forces have fired several missiles at targets in damascus including the capital's airport syrian air defenses are reported to have intercepted some missiles but one of them damaged an airport warehouse. this is all the force talk all such time that israel is among tingle in syria over the post to use mounted over two hundred of such a toxin all of these to try to keep in check it on the influence of course of the moment supple watching president bush out of the us at the us march to to the os possible block from the city i'm a position groups on these latest attacks comes the time when the us

troops in syria have saved lives begun with a whole week america's top diplomat has landed in the united arab emirates on the latest leg of his middle east tour mike compares aiming to reassure arab allies of continuing u.s. support for the fight against eisel eight members of one family have been killed in yemen in a shelling attack by hoofy rebels the four women and four children died in a government held village called shalala close to the border with saudi arabia the us government shutdown has become the longest in history now in its twenty second day president trump has backed away from his threat to declare a national emergency to fund his border wall but he's still demanding congress approved more than five billion dollars for the project a saudi teenager who fled saying she feared her family would kill her is on her way to canada to have mohammad was granted asylum after gaining global attention when she barricaded herself in an airport hotel room in bangkok in order to avoid being

sent back those are the headlines the listening post is next. how much more are we going to invest in the elusive notion that militaries guarantee on national security and poverty destitution and the sense of honor and this have actually been at the heart of virtually every civil conflict in the last twenty years. head of the u.n. development program to al-jazeera. a veteran n.b.c. news analyst has quit the network after three decades with the. actual news media obsessed arc of our. cover up for auction it's like taking the bait i believe distractions served up on twitter has the mainstream media failed its mission. hello i'm richard burton you're at the listening post here are some of the stories we're covering this week news alert for the u.s. media being tough on trump can lead to being pro military think about it there's an

election coming up in nigeria and the raid on a newspaper there is probably no coincidence conspiracy theories they're everywhere and journalists aren't really sure how to deal with plus president el-sisi and the interview his government did not want to see on the air they show you were a military dictator the one the egyptian media pretended did not happen as parting shots go it was a good one it made news when william arkin a veteran national security reporter with n.b.c. news and m s n b c wrote his resignation email last week he shared it with his colleagues it was then leaked to other news outlets along arkansas criticisms of his former employer and other mainstream news outlets in the us that by incessantly covering the presidency of donald trump the network is being held hostage by trump that in its reflexive li anti trump coverage it has become even more pro-military that n.b.c. and m s n b c are now captives of the security state back in his days with the

washington post arkin worked on an investigation called top secret america on the rapid growth of the u.s. intelligence industry post nine eleven so his critique of the establishment media is worth listening to he knows the subject matter. however american news consumers are tuning into m.s. n.b.c. and its anti trump agenda in record numbers armed with those kinds of ratings what corporate owned news channel would risk alienating its shareholders by changing tack our starting point this week n.b.c.'s headquarters in new york city. william arkin in his resignation e-mail to his employer on the perils of trump derangement syndrome the impulse to oppose any and all of the president's policies regardless of their merit. of course he is an ignorant and incompetent and pasta

and yet alarmed at how quick n.b.c. is to mechanically argue the contrary to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war really we shouldn't get out of syria and by the way we're not going the hell out of isis will become another syria like very soon so to recap for everybody pentagon not happy. being we should go for the bold move of denuclearizing the korean peninsula why did that happen what was that for no us president has ever agreed to meet with a north korean dictator before and even russia who really yearn for the cold war in almost everything we see here touch and feel and smell it's russia and don't even get me started with the f.b.i. what we now lionized this historically destructive institution. everything just so there's no conversation about whether or not these are actually positions that have

merit there is no conversation about whether or not we should have even gone into syria when they're not even legal we don't see the actual coverage of what's happening except for to condemn the president for not wanting to be there he has earned ninety eight percent of. your ire ok don't ruin it by actually being reflexive way against the two percent that make sense we should definitely get out of syria we should one hundred percent get out of afghanistan but it's irrelevant what i think i know the huge percentage of the right wing and a huge percentage of the left wing who want to withdraw from those wars so are any of them represented in the media and the answer is no because the media is decided we're going to put up a wall if you will of fear and loathing donald trump everything about this critique with regard to the mainstream media's treatment from is false the idea that they are anti trump well no they're in the business of telling the truth and trump is in the business of lies in the past month alone according to the washington post he

has told an average of fifteen lies a day to be anti trump is to be pro truth so i don't give any of. those particular issues any credence looks like. some aspects of this story are unique to the trump era but not all american and coalition forces whether it's the bush administration invading iraq in two thousand and three we will hunt down terror ordering the bombing of i saw in syria in two thousand and fourteen or donald trump conducting air strikes against syrian government targets in two thousand and seventeen the coverage is one sided and the voices reflect that why didn't we take out all of his military capability and like all three us twenty four hour news channels m s n b c hires ex-military and intelligence figures many of them now employed by the defense and security industries the networks call them analysts which is misleading because many of them are advocates according to

william arkin the preponderance of those voices and how much airtime they are given on stories such as trump's recent decision to pull out of the syrian conflict are evidence that u.s. news networks have become captives out. of the security state so when i started as a commentator on m.s.n. b.c. and n.b.c. in one nine hundred ninety nine there were others who were from the academic world there were others who are activists now all we hear are retired generals and admirals and high level government officials all of you have so many credentials we don't really know where to start but let's talk start with the general things that only one of us who has four stars. and all we hear is a kind of partisan analysis of how bad trump is because he's breaking with past administration policy or whatever the american public suffers it's amazing to look at how many former national security state officials are on television i mean you'd

expect maybe and it's a tele tarion society to have former intelligence officials being your experts were supposed to be democratic and i can't think of people less qualified to opine on politics and to represent the interests of average people then those officials who have spent their careers warmongering and running secret programs michael first of all tell us the u.s. media's addiction to ex military and intelligence forces is well documented a two thousand and eight investigation by the new york times exposed how at the outset of the wars in iraq and afghanistan there was a virtual conveyor belt running between the pentagon and network television studio the times won a pulitzer prize for that piece of journalism what changed there after was nothing the conflicts kept coming i'm guided by the beauty of our weapons so do the x. generals in the pentagon labeled message force multipliers i love

a good goodbye note and the and as william arkin pointed out in an interview on c.n.n. the us media somehow managed to accommodate all those pro-war voices without even know. where some of the conflicts are taking place. when i think about how we cover the news i think about are we at war or are we not at war and even if we're in this so-called perpetual war or the long war as the pentagon calls it i want to know that it's being covered with the aggressiveness that's necessary right now brian we are bombing nine countries around the world and i defy you to even name what they are that's how can i add to our coverage of warfare is beyond us of the i cannot if there is and he's not a military expert he's a news media critic but i wanted to make the point and in fact it's been interesting even my colleagues have said one of those nine countries is again show

me any mainstream media outlet that is anti war and what it will be the software will not print war either. the corporate media is massively pro-war so when you combine those two forces being against pro-war when he announces withdraw they hate it and they fight him with a passion that you haven't seen him a long time there are times when that just to stay in for him gets in the way of producing really good news really good commentary and we have seen that with the line is not just math is i think jim mattis is departure was different from a lot of the other previous departures we've seen because he is so highly regarded but when comey was leaving the f.b.i. we've seen this kind of happen after everyone leaves that there's this moment where it's like oh they're so great because they've left but it doesn't really look at how these people have contributed to everything that we're saying is a problem with trump. m.s.n. b.c.

which declined to answer our questions can live with the criticism and just point to the ratings they show a clear appetite for and to trump t.v. viewers clearly don't mind the pro-war bias and happily take. in political talking points from former trump officials who have left the administration iraq last month for the first time in seventeen years m s n b c one the ratings war with fox attracting more viewers in the key demographic that advertisers want. to see has done well in the ratings and the traveler but i think part of that is a reflection of the fact that whenever you have a democratic president. sort of focus on official opposition network like fox news will do better in this case the beneficiary of this than it is in the sea because you have trump and power most cable news is crap and allows a lot of crap on amazon to say there's less crap on m s n b c than there is on c.n.n. and far less than there is on fox i don't understand why in this n.b.c. is

a problem they see themselves as the voice of the resistance but the idea that this is the problem rather than fox is the problem or c.n.n. is the problem it's it's insane. or it's possible that fox news is not the only problematic news network on the american airwaves and that's not drawing a false equivalence equating m s n b c locational blindspots with fox's constant crimes against journalism it's just stating the facts the points that william arkin made on his way out the door. we're looking at other media stories that are on our radar this week with one of our producers china joe egypt's president. sits down for an interview with sixty minutes in the u.s. last week and then tries to stop that interview from going on the air why even agree to do it in the first place you had to know what was coming but as one of the show's producers said later it's almost as if c.c.

was unfamiliar with the program and just wanted to appear on it because a number of other arab leaders have done the same c.b.s. host scott pelley asked some pretty direct questions about the president's record on human rights the kinds of questions c c is never has to face from egyptian journalists. mr president the organization human rights watch says that there are sixty thousand political prisoners that you're holding today as we said here a c c clearly thought the interview had gone badly according to that same producer on the shoot by the time she got home from the interview there was an e-mail from her contact that the egyptian embassy formally requesting that the interview not be aired now holding back that interview or burying it is not something that c.b.s. news could even consider but the president has had more success in controlling the media output back home on this has to be much more according to one of the few independent outlets still operating in egypt not a mussar in the president's office instructed domestic media not to cover the sixty minutes interview in any way and the media blackout looks absolute instead there's

been a lot of focus on the inauguration of a new coptic cathedral just outside cairo it's like the sixty minutes interview never happens let's move on to nigeria now last week the military raided several offices of the daily trust one of the biggest papers in the country arresting a couple of journalists seizing equipment why this paper and why now well richard the nigerian military post a statement on facebook saying that all this was in response to a cover story published by the daily trust on january sixth which detailed a military operation planned against the armed group boko haram and the article supposedly and i quote divulge classified military information now by undermining national security employees at the paper say the officers came looking for a reporter hunza interest wrote the story but when they couldn't find him.