now in the new york times article her sister q. says royal advisor sought of qahtani of laughing while he watched the torture being carried out she says and various occasions he threatened to rape and kill her and then throw her body into the sewage system qahtani has been accused of orchestrating the killing of jamal khashoggi. well pressure is now mounting on the u.s. secretary of state to do more ken roth from human rights watch has questioned my pump and is wondering whether he will be seeking the release of the saudi activists who are jail during his meeting with the crown prince mohammed bin solomon and amnesty international has tweeted directly saying at least twelve saudi human rights offenders most of them women have been detained without charge since may twenty eighth in the dock prison and many others also sharing the hash tag of free jane and they're criticizing the saudi kingdom this user directed his message to the crown prince. and you put

a lot of people in jail with them muslims on liberals all atheists why do you talk to those who call for women's freedom you say why do you subject them to rape and hara spent what do you exactly want everyone is scared every now and then a saudi has left this country because a few i left my wife because of the oppression me more and more of saudis will leave the kingdom because of you you will destroy the country. i hear currently in saudi arabia we do want to hear from you is the hash tag aging is good or you can message me directly and after him a hundred mile thank you do you get in touch with us as regular says contact has come up for you on the screen with that hash tag o.j. news grid if you're using twitter do look for a tweet at a.j. english one goes out just before fifteen hundred g.m.t. you can reply to that thread and remains our producer online looking for your comments facebook dot com there was already a message and said saudi arabia he believes has no alternative but to opt to resolve the gulf crisis with the usa i.e. mediation certainly the countries and the usa seem to want that that number is one

plus one seven four five or one triple one four nine whatsapp and telegram if you want to direct message us we move to syria's war and the syrian army is preparing for an offensive by turkish forces on the kurdish rebel stronghold of monday syria's government has deployed soldiers artillery and tanks to the north western suburbs of the city as a u.s. forces prepare to withdraw to get turkey's government considers the kurdish y p g group to be a terrorist organization so let's talk to our guest about this flooding mia van valkenburgh who is a journalist specializing in kurdish politics joining us now from erbil nice to have you with us but amir so how do you see this all playing out the u.s. moving out the syrians moving in is this sort of battle between the turks and the kurds is it guaranteed to happen are we preparing for another battle front here.

well i don't think that the turkey will enter if the u.s. forces are still present also the turkish president himself said they don't want to harm us soldiers so the thing for now there's no turkey would attack but the kurds have been also talking with russia and also with the syrian government to find to find a solution to prevent turkey from attacking the north east of syria and that's why recently we saw russian military police suddenly patrolling area outside of. so there is changes and the kurds they are also now talking with. moscow's because they are afraid that turkey could attack them if the u.s. withdraws can the could reliably expect protection this is the thing they've been saying well the u.s. has been our allies if they go than we are exposed can they reliably expect to be protected by other forces that come in. well obviously it's

not just to us that isn't or for use of syria there are also french forces there there are forces from the u.k. so france is if other countries are willing for instance to send more forces to protect this enclave that they would have more success but in general it's very difficult to do that without us because you know the u.s. they are the main contributor to the company and against isis with the air force with two thousand more than two thousand troops in syria so i think it will be very difficult for counties like france or germany or educated to find an alternative to complete us. all and that's why i think it's also that the kurds are trying to talk also with the mosque has to try to find a solution so that they are not overrun by the turkish army does the. do you think the americans really have figured out their policy at this point i mean it got so confused when donald trump initially said right we're out and then the pentagon

said no we're not how to mediately and there's never been sort of any what feels like there's never been sort of any official resolution to what they're doing and when they're doing it. well i think there was a disagreement between the u.s. military that wanted to stay and also before trump out there there are now it's about they're going to pull out there are like a policy that they're saying we're going to stay in syria because we don't want iran to take over the stars who want to stay in syria for a certain amount of time to prevent the moscow's and iran from taking over the northeast of syria and now there's a sort of chaos because france is the defense secretary he left the administration and all the u.s. officials keep saying that we've got over draw but we still want to protect the curse but how they're going to protect the curt's of their overdrawing that's very unclear complicated isn't a. joining us from bill so in kurdish issues thank you now as i salute continues to be pushed back in syria some of its former fighters

who escaped the from being given a chance to study return to a normal life but a simple silly reports now from northern syria not everyone actually supports these efforts to rehabilitate the exxon still finds its. lead is the former i still fighter. now he helps his father in the shop in my area when he's not at school. he joined i still three years ago when he was thirteen he's two elder brothers were also i still members they were both killed in the fighting ses he is lucky to have survived. shy and reserved he tells us it was isis reveals that persuaded him to join the group. there was everything in those videos to attract me fighting shooting there were calling god's name but i didn't expect they could ever be so unjust which i saw them slaughtering others using

childers in their battle many innocent died because of them after escaping from i so highly spent a year in prison he was that allowed to join this rehabilitation center along with twenty five other former members of the group some of them foreign fighters. they were classes in religious beliefs and psychological counseling was mandatory. twelve months later he was given the chance to go back to school and be with his family but he'll be kept under surveillance. we continue to check on these who complete the rehab we insist they continue their studies the best way to fight terrorism goes through fighting extremism. product as the head of a city council supports the rehabilitation project but when it comes to foreign fighters he thinks they should be treated differently. they are not like the sons of syria they came here to kill our people and should be judged by international

courts we have already taken off responsibility for their crimes. and the further back at his father's shop howley is like many other teenage boys he likes playing football watching t.v. shows and planning his speech or one of my dreams is to be arabic teacher and build the house and get it. through habitation all former isis fighters in syria has not been without controversy while the process has seen success to really integrate some into society and many others mostly foreign fighters have been rejected by their countries must remain in prison in syria you know because all of else to syria of course in syria. i know this is worth a watch as up front with me at the house and usually years it's a special from november what happened to i saw a discussion show on the current state of ice a why the media generally decreased its reporting on eisel and whether it still poses a risk or not so i have to look for yourself have watched up front as over in the

show's section at al-jazeera dot com that's called what happened to i so. all right let's talk about the u.s. protests in france we watched those yesterday it was the ninth consecutive weekend i think you saw protests in paris and in other parts of the country people protesting against emanuel mccrum and his policies and against their austerity measures fuel prices is where it all started it seems to have taken a different turn in this past weekend and behavior is going to talk us through this very personal attacks yes kemal well some protesters who took part in the other vest movement over the weekend have taken their frustrations out on the media. and this video is shared on twitter with two journalists from the french television channel l c i am being seen mugged by a group of yellow vests at a protest ruin one of the journalists was taken to hospital with

a fractured nose shortly after the attack. and there are have been other violent cases being reported as well a chief editor of the regional french news company here he said that his female colleague was arrested in toulouse she was in a car by herself went to get a vest protesters approached her and threatened to pull her out of the car and rape and another journalist who covered the protests in the south of france shared his experience of the violence. well french journalist frank was in the city of power when several yellow vests didn't give him a friendly welcome. and frank's video was retreated over a thousand times and many users responded by condemning the violence he then updates his followers with this post saying that he was being treated in hospital for leg injury and thanked other yellow vests for the other vest protestors for helping him get away from the attack is over also been in touch with frank directly

this is what he told us. so the situation is a bit complicated because being attacked by a yellow vest protester prevents us journalists from being able to work properly we're here to cover and report the information about the yellow vests and the fact that a minority even if it is a loud minority is being aggressive towards journalists it doesn't help us in our work and in a way it undermines the cause of the yellow vest movement. and we've also been talking to our own agenda nesta tasha butler who's currently on the ground in paris this was her assessment well as a reporter in far too soon you get used to covering protests and there's always a certain amount of hostility but there's no doubt that with these yellow fest protests that tell students he's taken on a whole new dimension because the media are seen by many of the demonstrators as the enemy as the voice piece of the state and when you're out there in the street with a camera whether your from french media or international media doesn't really make much difference to those who see you just as journalists and so what that means is

we're seeing a lot more. memes in paris we've seen the headquarters of buildings such as a paid international news agency targeted and for us personally all teams have been insulted pushed around you have to be a lot more aware of your personal safety your kids and we've had quite the exact side of all of that work you've been punched through being kicked and had their cameras stolen and the danger and the risk of course isn't just from some of the protesters because of course remember most of these protests is a very peaceful it's just a holiday of course you feel particularly angry about the media but the risk is also from the police because they're having to fight more tear gas and never use more weapons to try and control and manage these very unpredictable demonstrations not also puts us at risk if we're caught in the middle. well france's interior ministry has responded by saying in french democracy there is freedom of the press and those who are violent against journalists should be taken to justice well let

us know what would you think of the story especially if you are currently in france is that tag aging is great thank you democratic republic of congo now which apparently should recount the vote of its contested presidential election at least that's the message from sonic the southern african development community it's a regional bloc which is calling for a government of national unity that would include all parties remember feeling there was declared the winner of december's election but the runner up martin for you know says it was rigged and he filed a legal challenge to that on saturday the catholic church says it's monitoring team came up with a different winner to those announced by the electoral commission as well interesting actually to see the church among observer groups for an election you've got the african union which also sent a team of a.z. observers to monitor and assess the process sadek that regional body that i mentioned deployed ninety four officials from eight member states european union it typically be involved but wasn't actually invited in retaliation for sanctions

imposed on some congolese officials but as a massive continue to forty thousand observers deployed nationwide by the national episcopal conference of the congo the catholic church later organization which has rejected this official election results let's check in with she is in kinshasa for us however it is as i said interesting i think to see a catholic church which so or any church frankly religious group with such a large observer status in an election how do people actually feel about their presence and about what they're saying. well forty percent of christians here in the catholic and the catholic church is a huge influence here sometimes some of the bishops i think speak out with many of the people are afraid to do the catholic church had about twenty thousand. action observers on the ground they say they cover as much of the country as they possibly could according to their own tally is their margin for eva one with sixty one percent of the vote some people believe them some people don't but there are mixed

feelings on the ground about to take his role in politics here and again i think. i think the church is involvement in politics is right and normal it should be done to help and political problems affecting our country according to me i don't think it's right for the child to get those. people. so that's the church how do you then you've got as we mentioned static southern african. development corporation what's a saying and do people look i mean i seem to remember statics being a very sort of respect to the election monitoring group right across africa. it is it depends on where you stand some people in the static region feel that the fighting it makes an observer teams are sometimes biased towards the ruling party but some people say they quite critical and the one to the ground do quite

a good job of putting on people the reason a body set up once a week and for that one a government of national unity formed him to be similar to what we saw in zimbabwe in two thousand and nine when robert mugabe was forced to say power with morgan tsvangirai and the two men that were not trained they didn't see eye to eye they didn't get along but they were forced to work together and think seemed to work for a bunch of things the way they should be stable in zimbabwe even economy started to show signs of recovery today hoping that that kind of model could be used here in the d r c but it all depends on the political players are they willing to work together can you quantify the difference that that is the big thing i think the next few days would be more reaction from the regional body senate and it was all eyes on that court that meets on monday will decide with its order to recount or just take the key as the equipment to let important decision coming up as it. will have all the news out of control so for us here on out as they were thank you just something to remember about it is highlighted in this opinion piece that. is from

the norwegian refugee council he talks about three crises we cannot ignore in twenty nineteen and the third of them is as he puts it the deol sees forgotten crisis that is violent conflict displacement and hunger this is well worth a radionics and always is very thought provoking this pace is in the opinion section of al-jazeera dot com just before we hit the break i've had a question from elizabeth on facebook asking about turkey we were talking about syria's war a little bit i mean she said since we are taught much about world history in the u.s. i have to ask why does turkey not like the coats the kurds not like the roma in europe who suffer from racist attacks i think the short story for you elizabeth is that the kurds and this is not just in turkey they're in iraq there in syria as well they are. a minority they have often wanted to have their own independent state and the governments the central government supports that down they have suppressed languages they have. suppressed kurdish identity and it has led to these conflicts

and these rifts as well i think that's the short story very much more to it as well but it really really is just a separation between the central governments and the kurdish who would like to see their own countries hope they don't see this little bit of a history lesson do you keep your thoughts coming in the newsgroup facebook twitter and whatsapp this is the newsgroup and if you are with us on facebook life like elizabeth is we've got an extra story for you now from our friends that witness actually this is about a madagascan artist or a group of madagascan artists and their struggle with extreme poverty and then later with the roman catholic church in the u.s. the bankruptcy the multi-billion dollar compensation claims against pedophile priests piling up. hello baby this no surprise it was more rain for the lebanon first syria for iraq to some degree you can see the massive cloud as you see it sort of curve to the

wall of source of all this is you do most of the mediterranean and that's certainly bringing rain across lebanon and syria during the rest of sunday into monday but it's released skirting across all skipping across iraq the high ground in the northeast of iraq and certainly come across into the mountains of western iran that's where it all stops rains insistently there be snow in the hills flash flooding is a considerable risk and the snow i think would just pile up eventually skips eastwards new find some falls out of the sky on the far north alaska and beyond and then the concentration will probably be maybe northern syria especially turkey that looks like windy and story with us of the would visit comes to mind but through the levant and further south it's not the case the cloud that exists here the focus of monday through saudi arabia and kuwait for you just that cloud to rain maybe for q wait i think the size probably not and the breeze will turn suddenly for a couple days it will be a dusty one but it should be a dry were the wet weather still there in madagascar tanzania zimbabwe and zambia

with occasional showers further south and surprisingly. russian filmmaker andre neck rosol travels across his homeland to discover what life is like on to putin the russian economy is in crisis sanctions unstable oil prices fluctuating cards half of the country struggles to make ends meet in soviet times doctors were in charge now economists calculate everything we don't want to think what will happen when the bank takes away our flags. in search of putin's russia on al-jazeera. the latest news as it breaks in a poll just out sixty five percent of people said that they think it will do a great or a good job with detailed coverage is the second time this year doctors walked out on strike the government is funded by issuing suspension. from the around the world

the increased warning level colleagues as a blow to the thousands of people displaced by the tsunami of wanting to return home.

headlines from al jazeera dot com and what's trending much on pay is trending in this part of the world for sure he's been content to day off to saudi arabia next eight countries in eight days. number three there don't trump resolute as the u.s. shutdown sets a new record we were twenty we days i think it is now for the shutdown and trying to conceal details of the persian meeting directly about talk about bass that has been a very big story today that is what's trending for you this sunday down to zero dot com. so yes on saturday it was reports of donald trump being investigated by the f.b.i. for being a russian agent now the u.s. president is having to deny accusations he hid the details of a meeting with his russian counterpart this one's come from the washington post's were ups under the headline. here it is trump has concealed details of his face to face encounters with pollution from senior officials in administration the report alleges trump didn't release any now it's made by his interpreter after he met

putin remember in hamburg in twenty seven saying he reportedly instructed the translator not to tell anyone in his administration what had been discussed here he is responding to the allegations on fox news. why not released the conversation that you had with president putin in house thinking along with some other stuff that might involve them. in the whole lot of them well janine i would i don't care i mean i had a conversation like every president does you sit with the president to various countries i do it with all countries we had a great conversation we were talking about israel and securing israel and lots of other things and it was a great conversation i'm not keeping anything under wraps i couldn't care less but soak about it with rosalynn jordan our correspondent in washington d.c. who wrote the hits keep coming to the new york times report on friday saturday now this one as well i want to use that would unprecedented again it feels that way.

well one commenter on twitter said this was the new york times serving and the washington post returning the volley does not seem to stop of course when the president met with president putin in helsinki for their summit there were no notes made provided there weren't any officials allowed to be in the room although we're now finding out that apparently the secretary of state rex tillerson happened to be on hand but the notes that the notes taken by the interpreter no one is able to get access those notes to memorialize what happened and that apparently has not been just a one off come all apparently this happened at least five times in one instance with the president taking the notes from the interpreter and then telling her not to tell anyone else that he had absconded with her notes so this willing leaves a big question especially for those working in the administration what is it that

the president has been discussing did he make any promises did he make any demands did he agree to do things at the request of bloody mary putin the russian president lots of big gaps and people on the i doubt security council people who work on u.s. russian relations don't have a full picture according to this story in the washington post it does raise a lot of questions about just how about the real context and the scope of current u.s. russian relations because we don't have those contemporaneous notes. can they be consequences for the student rosen we were talking yesterday about how they knew the controls how so controlled by the democrats these could be subpoenaing president trump over the f.b.i. investigation in this case is a little different. well politicians are already on the sunday public affairs

shows republicans as you might expect are saying there's nothing here to see let's move along democrats for their part are saying oh no we think there is something to see and we should be having investigations or at least public hearings in order to establish what it is the president is doing when he is conducting foreign policy with russian officials and to basically get the record established once and for all is this going to lead to new hearings right away well we'll just have to see because they are trying to balance particularly in the democratically controlled house they're trying to balance the need to conduct oversight of donald trump's actions as us president along with the other overriding crisis here in the federal government which is getting some eight hundred thousand people back to work getting their agencies funded so that they can go back and carry out the work that they were hired to do so you have that tension but certainly having these two stories

come out one after the other again is putting the focus right where i would imagine the president and his closest advisers don't want it which is on his personal conduct since he became the us president. also in jordan and washington thank you for that was on its we've also got cliff finkelstein with us who is the faculty director at the center for ethics in the rules lore at the university of pennsylvania law school it's nice to see you clear. there is john if you know this when there's a podcast about donald trump about the president's in a court can he do that and that's the question which i want to ask you can he do what he did he is the president if he says i want to take the notes or i don't want anyone else in the room during this meeting can he do that. the problem here is more diplomatic than legal it is a absolutely unprecedented move on the president's part one particularly where an enemy nation is concerned russia is not

a friendly nation to the us they attacked us in the twenty sixteen election and that attack is arguably tantamount to an act of war it's therefore a very questionable move on donald trump's part to have confidential conversations with the head of that nation to keep his own advisors out of the loop and and then to deny that there is anything problematic about his actions which are very very risky from the standpoint of national security we know that vladimir putin really operates russia like a like the former k.g.b. of or more intelligence officer himself he is far too tricky and self interest for those kinds of interactions with donald trump to be safe from the standpoint of

u.s. national security and so it's a very it's a very problematic move one thing donald trump consistently says though in service and this is communications director says that as well as that actually president trump has been tougher on russia than president obama ever was and also that maybe russia in the u.s. will actually be allies one day now that can you just dismiss that as something that donald trump tweets and says or is he working towards that do you think. he's certainly not working towards that and in fact they've been in the process of of lifting sanctions on russia and he has not only not been tough on russia he's been an apologist for russia and every possible turn and his tweets and his messaging is eerily similar to the sorts of messages that lattimer putin puts out or that the russian government puts out there are official responses to the investigation moreover the new york times reports that an investigation was opened into whether

or not donald trump was actually formerly formally working for russia is something it's worth noting that in the last thirty six hours the president has not actually denied the he started tweeting like crazy and attacking jim comi. and trying to justify his actions and he's had his various spokespersons out there saying that the accusation is outrageous he has actually not denied the accusation and we don't know exactly what has happened to that inquiry since it was pulled into mahler's inquiry so we will see where this leads but it's a very significant. piece of information to come out and the washington post story really only tends to confirm the new york times story cliff nicholson always a pleasure thank you for joining us. thank you for having me can you pick up on

this one for us because. you know the new york times story was big and then it gets followed up or return with this so washington post one it's all it's been huge in the last twenty four hours you seen over fifty thousand tweets that have been trending just with the hash tag trump russia really coming out of the u.s. canada and the u.k. many people were outraged over the news that trump has been concealing details with his meeting with vladimir putin now some are bringing up the chinese presidential debate with hillary clinton in twenty sixteen where she publicly announced that trump was a puppet of the russian president the series asks why didn't people believe her then and others are talking about u.s. senator lindsey graham who's recently been in the spotlight for saying he would not support having an american translates to be present at the trump putin meeting joy his says that she is puzzled by his behavior and that suppose his daughter christine also tweeted something quite similar seeming a little bit suspicious of

a what senator graham had to say well what do you think tweet us is the hash tag aging is great or you can message me directly i'm at he'll of a hundred and i hear he that we're going to take a look at some of the stories making news around the world and here on al-jazeera we look at the catholic church and d.l.c. a little bit elsewhere in the world it really does face a lot of crises in the u.s. recently a report found that hundreds of priests in one state preyed on thousands of children for decades our correspondent christian salumi has been to pennsylvania to see how the church and its victims are now responding. in the diocese of harrisburg at the first in a series of meetings bishop ronald gaynor explains to catholics what's being done to stop clergy abuse and help victims including setting up a compensation fund i hope that this is the beginning as one step to forward for a better safer catholic church but it isn't enough for the forty sisters five of

whom were abused in the diocese by the same priest they want all perpetrators and those who protect them to be held accountable in a court of law carolyn was still in diapers when her abuse started in her family's case there was evidence in the church paid a one million dollars settlement in exchange for not pressing charges or talking about the case last year when the pennsylvania attorney general released a state wide report on clergy abuse the forty's learned at the church had received another complaint against their abuser and done nothing that was validation to me for us and that's what victims are seeking they're seeking that moment in court it wasn't just the four unease the report found credible evidence that statewide some three hundred priests have used more than a thousand children and that the church had a pattern of covering it up the revelations have led to a federal investigation and at least a dozen more states are now compiling their own reports in pennsylvania victims

have been lobbying elected officials to suspend the statute of limitations in older cases and give victims two years to take the church in their abusers to court but legislation has gone nowhere amid fears lawsuits would bankrupt the church in new york churches have already made more than two hundred million dollars in payouts camille bureaus oversees the awarding of funds for several diocese. programs have afforded victims an outlet a place to go an avenue to do so. sort of compensation and admission what happened but elected official mark razi who was raped by a priest at thirteen believes changing the statute is the only way to hold the church accountable this is about the harpy aiding and abetting known perpetrators of that allow this to go on and that's why i'm bad is that this has to stop

courtney says she was heartened by what she heard at the meeting not from the bishop but from other catholics a lot of them are boys thing that you know they're going to withhold their their financial contributions raising the pressure on politicians as well as the church christian salumi al-jazeera harrisburg pennsylvania the leader of britain's main opposition labor party says he will table a motion of no confidence if the prime minister's brags that deal is rejected by m.p.'s on tuesday jeremy coleman says leaving the european union without a deal will be catastrophic britain is supposed to leave remember on the twenty ninth of march my own view is that i would rather get negotiated deal now if we can to stop the danger of a no deal from the twenty not to march which would be catastrophic for industry catastrophic to trade and for the long term effects of that would be huge i think parliament did vote for an amendment to the finance bill this week which indicated

its opposition to no deal but isn't totally specific on that we will do everything we can to prevent and no deal except. the greek government is in danger of collapse because of the name change agreement with neighboring macedonia prime minister and access to press is calling for a vote of confidence in his coalition government after one of the parties quit and defense minister panos common also resigned a parliamentary majority in athens is needed to ratify this agreement with math journey and to change its name to the republic of north macedonia the thing is greece has a province called macedonia itself and many are opposed to the steel. in a coal mine collapse in china has killed at least twenty one miners eighty seven of them were on the ground when the roof caved in dozens were airlifted to safety in shanxi province and geneva is still investigating the cause of that comes once again on the facebook live stream a story now for you about how a ban on cosmetic products has some women in rwanda scared that they would be too

dark for their husbands that is from our friends at zero online and then the sport with the dallas cowboys i'm out of crush out of the playoffs but it's one of their fans that's feeling the heat as he explained that in a moment. and inspiration. personal stories of people who are keeping the spirit of freedom alive. by courageously defending their right to be heard. it doesn't look like the. al-jazeera selects. we know the culture we know the problems that affect this part of the world very very well and that is something that we're trying to take to the rest of the world we

have gone to places and reported on a story that you might take an international network for months to be able to do it united nations these people are out there blowing anti-riot. we are challenging the voices we're challenging companies we're going to places where nobody else is going . well but we're talking sport with are we talking football or basketball or a little bit a little bit about the little bit. so the n.f.l. playoffs took over social media on saturday night but it wasn't the winners that got people talking the most but rather one of the teams that got knocked out

cowboys of course versions of the dallas cowboys was the number one worldwide trend on twitter they went down to the rams thirty to twenty two meaning their wait for success goes on the cowboys haven't got past the stage since nine hundred ninety six back when they last won the super bowl they go home while the rams and saturday's other winner kansas city advance will fans clearly disappointed in dallas but you won't believe who has been getting the most seat off social media basketball superstar loyal dallas supporter le bron james sr walking into the stadium ahead of the game though nothing too controversial there but here's some video that later surfaced on social media of le bron in the low rams locker room it's not clear if this video was taken before or after the game regardless the alley lakers star has been getting blasted on social media. an angry cowboys fan tweeted this to le bron traitor he used to be a cowboys fan and we know your game or

a lack there of fish says i'm ride or die with the cowboys and with you because you the goat watching you walk into the rams locker room really hurts now remember le bron has been out with injury over the past few weeks and here's a sports journalist who's come up with an alternate headline cowboys fan le bron james tries not to aggravate growing injury while jumping aboard rams is bandwagon before the game so the playoff action isn't slowing down two more big games later on sunday's super bowl champions philadelphia are at new orleans and the l.a. chargers take on the champions from the previous season new england well joining us now from london is n.f.l. writer girths samuel let's start off with the reigning champions the philadelphia eagles are they as good as last season. they're not quite as good as last season they don't have the same level of consistency we saw them be quite confident

heading into the playoffs frankly this year a lot of people surprised they've made it to the postseason especially was the quotes about cause when once went down but not last minute forces really done a fantastic job especially proposed his performance at the start of the season and was you wouldn't say that the famous against the saints you really call them out was almost made for praise as well as he has through the rest of the of the year. ok so the pats quarterback tom brady is going up against chargers quarterback philip rivers what do you think of these two going head head to. well the two of the the more experienced schoolbooks left in the n.f.l. really really should be a fantastic tool between them tom brady however is not looking as shop as he has over the past few seasons specially the climb down from last year to this season has been significant i wouldn't be surprised if his coach bill belichick actually pounds away from tom brady and more towards the running backs just because i don't

think you want somebody exposed against the chargers defense philip rivers or the other one has been having a real renaissance year this year and was he slowed down a little bit towards the end of the regular season i think it would possibly be philip rivers who transgress and i'm. ok and from what you saw in saturday's games are either the rams or achieve series super bowl contenders. i think the chiefs absolutely are the rams struggled at times they got came way with your goals a set of touchdowns earlier in the game was the chiefs really excelled in every phase of the game last night on defense they absolutely harassed in indianapolis colts and partial homes been playing the level all season and that continued last night even when the scoring touchdowns he made keeper use to keep drives going and even runs harsh on him self so i really think the chiefs are going to be representing the a.f.c. in the super bowl ok so there was a lot of excitement about the cowboys being in the playoffs for that for even a casual and i felt fan but of course they were knocked out so does anything change

going forward in the playoffs. i think the cowboys won't really that have any favorites the problem of course is that this hyped as america's team that they're always going to have a loss of four whenever the make it to the postseason how there was a lot of holes across the roster so really is it hasn't changed the landscape that locks if anything they were it was quite surprised that they beat the seahawks last week so i think our was fun should just be happy that they've made it this far although what this means for the future of head coach jason garrett will have to see ok our ratings are back up what do you what do you think about what do you tribute back to you. i think every it really shows that the strength of the political process last year in the backlash against them was perhaps overblown when you look at what's been happening on the field you've had a much more often savvy product this year a lot more teams going a lot more points not just makes teams more exciting so i think it really shows

that regard is the sort of the political at issues around some of the players actually as last year it really comes down to a more exciting product on the field is going to create more ratings regardless of whether anyone starts the process or not ok thank you so much for backers samuel's reporting live from london. let us know your thoughts you can tweet me directly at after underscore is smile santa will be back with more at eight hundred g.m.t. but for now i'll hand you back to cologne thank you for a public dress for laughing during your segment before but i was giggling when you talked about the goat going into the rams locker room just just tickled me for some reason anyway ever since we've come to my watch and my i pad have been dealing with tweets from donald trump they have be in your let's have a look one two three four five tweets in the last. hour and they've all been about immigration the wall for example the building of the wall on the southern border will bring down the crime rate throughout the entire country he says and he

says this i'm in the white house and i'm waiting the democrats are everywhere but washington has people await their pay they are having fun and not even talking if we got the live shot of the white house actually let's have a look that's where isn't there in fact donald trump in an interview with fox news yesterday said he's been in the white house for months he hasn't left the white house for months which is not entirely true because he's been to iraq and he's been to california has been to texas however he's very much in there at the moment tweeting away talking about the future of. the shutdown which is now into its twenty third day and the fact that if we just have a look at this latest tweet or one of his most latest tweets here the damage done to our country from badly broken border drugs crime so much that is bad is far greater than a shutdown which the dems can easily fix as soon as they come back to washington so the us president calling on all the politicians particularly the democrats to get back to washington and sort out the shutdown they say they won't be talking about border security until the shutdown ends the impasse continues we'll continue to

monitor it here on the newsgroup of course and if you've got a thought on that or any of the story you can just get in touch with us on the hashtag a j newsgroup be it twitter facebook or whatsapp or messaging me directly at. company we're back here tomorrow studio fourteen fifteen hundred hours g.m.t. monday. headlines warned the streets of melbourne australia are biased to its citizens under threat by african gangs. but how real that these claims. twenty one east

investigates. whether online i want to start here on my laptop with a tweet or if you join us on sat there was a rush of adrenaline will be felt this is the moment that we have been waiting for this is a dialogue the government has coalface i may go protest i will start to police to use force to disperse the crowds everyone has a voice and for votes for lots of different reasons what's the difference types of bricks join the global conversation on how does iraq. which is saying is now being held in pretrial detention for two years what is his crime. why hasn't he been tried yet why hasn't justice been applied in this case is he detained because he's a journalist journalism become a crime have moles become a tool to silence wars of truth we will continue our news coverage with professionalism and impartiality our work will remain credible and accurate but

journalism is not a crime incarcerating journalists is not acceptable in the immediate release of all colleague mahmoud to say and all journalists attained in a gyptian jails free mahmoud's and all his colleagues we stand for press freedom. president both believe the ongoing dispute the region has dragged on too long. the u.s. secretary of state urges the gulf states to heal their disputes and focus on countering iran. hello i'm maryam namazie and on the new year with al jazeera also coming up on the

program influential regional bloc saddam calls for a recount and national unity government after the seize disputed election. as zimbabwe struggles with ongoing fuel shortages the president announces the prices will more than double and why macedonia agreeing to change its name is led to a political crisis for the greek prime minister alexis tsipras. the u.s. secretary of state has called on the gulf states to end their dispute saying the rift only benefits the adverse series my own bio made the appeal while visiting castle as part of a tour of the region is now on his way to saudi arabia which along with the united arab emirates egypt and bahrain of blockade of cattle for the past eighteen months cattle denies there are accusations that it supports terrorist groups says a unified gulf cooperation council be to everyone's advantage. today in our

conversations i stressed the importance of unity among the gulf cooperation council members president rope and i both believe the ongoing dispute the region has dragged on too long and the dispute benefits adversaries and harms our mutual interests our nations do important work and we have important work to continue to do together and the united states of the parties involved will see once again the benefits of cooperation and take actions necessary to rebuild unity in their ranks a united jews is essential to the middle eastern alliance which we hope will include the g.c.c. egypt and jordan well. as more now on what was discussed the gulf dispute was on top of the agenda with the u.s. secretary of state by expressing concerns about the crisis dragging all but he didn't further elaborate on what the americans are trying to offer to put an end to the quiet is what we know so far is that the g.c.c.

secretary general belief is again along with the obama missile fired off as you said but i know we made a surprise visit to doha on saturday we don't know whether this is part of a new push by the g.c.c. to try to narrow differences among qatar on one hand saudi arabia bahrain the u.a.e. and egyptian on the other hand but the americans remain quite concerned they are trying to build a new regional allies against what they consider to be a growing iranian influence in the region they know that chances to talk of that issue in particular along with other issues like instability in syria iraq the war against isis war in yemen they cannot do that unless they have all the countries on board let's now speak al-jazeera senior political analyst marwan bashara who is in doha are on is anything tangible emerge from pompei is called so far. we're clearly here in doha the meetings where or sounded very confident and

successful. although they had similar success last january in washington but clearly the strategic dialogue between. the united states seems to have went on not just one calendar year but several years ahead in the sense that. at least i get the sense that both countries have turned the page if you will in the sense that they're not waiting for the other gulf countries to take the right position on the gulf crisis in the meantime both countries are decided to deepen their economic strategic commercial and cultural education of relations certainly the atmosphere here is that of confidence and i think in washington as well there isn't that kind of. impatience and anxiety that we've seen. see it on the air before so i think in a sense you can tell that they've turned the page they're moving on hoping or

pressuring the gulf countries to just come on board apologize for manufacturing the crisis and lift the blockade and you know come back to business as usual of course the next stop now on his trip is riyadh we know that previous calls for the blockade to end of fallen on deaf ears but that has been a great deal that's happened in the last few months that appears to be more of a push to try and sustain a cease fire in yemen that has also been the murder of jamal khashoggi what are his priorities in riyadh likely to be. look as you stated there is there's a real countdown already since the more than. it turned out that the poor journalist was able to do in his death more than anyone could do in his lifetime in terms of transforming moving the situation in the gulf in the middle east so yes the saudis

are under enormous pressures now one for the failure in yemen to for the murder of three for the various violations of human rights for for the manufacturing the gulf crisis and other excesses including the humiliation of for example the lebanese foreign minister and so on so forth so you could say that there is a window of opportunity now for washington to be able to put real pressure not necessarily in public but in private and i would expect for both the sake of the united states the saudis and whatever else if anyone is planning for a second the pompei or to be able to deliver a message from president trump that says look you need to get with the program you need to resolve some of those issues and you need to resolve the gulf crisis now while the secretary pompei you might be delivering that in private as we all know the trump administration has taken a public position in support of saudi arabia almost unconditional support of saudi

arabia we've heard that directly from president trump when he said that look we might have issues but the economic dimension the strategic dimension cannot be overlooked and hence these the relations with saudi arabia will endure so i now i think it's a question of how the united states will be able to balance the private conversations with the public stance and as i said there is a window of opportunity for the united states to be able to put pressure on saudi arabia it's i lies to come clean to apologize for manufacturing the crisis lift the blockade and get to normalize relations at least in the gulf region and to end the war in yemen ok thank you very much marwan naran bashar al jazeera is senior political analyst.

an influential group of sixteen african nations is calling for a recount in the democratic republic of congo's presidential election the southern african development community will sadic was one of the organizations monitoring last month's disputed vote it's also recommended a government of national unity to promote peace opposition to the matter for you is challenging the result in court after his rival felix tisha katie was declared the winner for you too says the vote was rigged and that he actually won by a landslide and usable of c.n.n. we have faith our phrase is unshaken it because the people have decided and the wishes of the people will come true i am a man of peace. all these are the parties and people vying for power in one of africa's most mineral rich countries the declared winner felix to check a deeds that count for a change alliance it's formed of two parties one of which is that the aussies oldest and largest opposition party but just to katie's alliance may have to strike

a deal with the ruling coalition the common front for congo f.c.c. is dominated by the party of outgoing president joseph kabila has won a majority in the parliament challenging their potential rain is tough he leads the alliance which is backed by two opposition heavyweights were both barred from running for president. well election observers from the catholic church a backing his claims of voting irregularities. has more now from the capital kinshasa. forty percent of christians here in the catholics and the catholic church is a huge influence yet sometimes some of the bishops often speak out when many other people are afraid to do so the catholic church had about twenty thousand election observers on the ground and they say they covered as much of the country as they possibly could according to their own tally is there much in the water with sixty one percent of the vote some people believe them some people don't but there are mixed feelings on the ground about the church's role in politics here in the d.l.c. . i think the church is important to. its.

political problems. according to me i don't see that it's right for the charge to get. some people in the region feel that the setting election observer teams are sometimes biased towards the ruling party but some people think they quite credible and the one to the ground do quite a good job of putting on people the reason a body that once a reach and or they want a government of national unity formed here in the d.r. similar to what we saw in zimbabwe in two thousand and nine when robert mugabe was able to share power with morgan tsvangirai and the two men were not friends they didn't see eye to eye they didn't get along but they were forced to work together and think. things already to be stable in zimbabwe even economy wanted to show signs of recovery so they are hoping that that kind of model could be used in the d

r c but it all depends on the political players are they willing to work together can be put aside the differences that is the big thing i think the next few days would be more reaction from the regional body and it was all eyes on that court they'll meet on monday with will decide with its order a recount or just declare to the katie as the wisdom to let. we go to sudan now where police have been firing tear gas to disperse anti-government protesters in the capital hard to him they're calling for president tomorrow bashir to step down protests broke out last month of a rising food prices in cashel teaches international rights groups say at least forty people have been killed since the unrest began. but the government says the death toll is twenty four. zimbabwe has more than double the price of fuel overnight as the country struggles with its worst petrol shortage in a decade drivers have been queuing outside petrol stations in some cases for several days the fuel shortages began in october and a nation suffered

a severe economic downturn in recent years the government says cheap fuel has caused the issue. of the government. but the budget for the economy will be released. there will. be going to be in good. a crackdown on a fuel pfaff by mexico's new president that led to long queues for petrol is starting to affect the wider economy stallholders at the central the a bus stops in mexico city latin america's largest wholesale market say deliveries from outlying states down by more than a third shoppers are also finding it harder to get to the markets present under his money lopez obrador is trying to cut theft of fuel from pipelines by switching distribution to trucks but it's now led to shortages at the pumps. though you peel effect because people hold becoming.