holder there thanks so much for that. there's been an explosion a tsunami checkpoints in syria's capital there were no casualties in the car bomb blast syrian army controls all areas around damascus which has been relatively untouched by the war elsewhere the south binge of aid has more from gaza and tap in turkey near the syrian border according to syrian state t.v. and government sources this was an attack which targeted a military checkpoint on the outskirts of the capital damascus this is an entry point into the city it is worth noting that this attack comes after months of relative calm in the syrian capital the word reports that the syrian government and its military were considering removing some of the checkpoint from within the city but this attack shows that there are still security concerns which are left this comes as syrian government and its allies especially a russian air power has begun targeting areas in north north northern parts of syria this is in the area called it live which is the last remaining stronghold of rebel fighters in the last few months this is an area which is not seen

a lot of airstrikes but rather artillery shells and bought up by the syrian government and its allies and there were concerns earlier on that this is an area this is because it's the last remaining area under the rebels the syrian government and its allies are going to try and take over this area which is home to about four million people and there have been alarms that have been raised by all humanitarian organizations and other countries who are involved in the conflict in syria that any sort of action. which could jeopardize their fragile peace there would be disastrous for millions of people. still ahead on the news hour including. a compromise gets a frosty reception as the u.s. government shutdown continues. i'm wayne hay reporting from cambodia where we'll tell you why china is transforming skylines here and backing a government that's becoming increasingly isolated by the west. and time

greats proves just a number of the world title fight. democrats are rejecting the offer to break the deadlock over the longest government shutdown in u.s. history the president is offering action documented immigrants if he wins backing to build a border war with mexico democrats say his compromise offer is one sided broad rials has more from washington. with the government shutdown dragging toward the one month mark president trump offered democrats a deal give him five point seven billion dollars for his border wall and he'll lift the threat of deportation for a million undocumented immigrants number one is three years of

legislative relief for seven hundred thousand dokken recipients secondly our proposal provides a three year extension of temporary protected status or t.p.s. . the immigrants trump referred to are young people brought to the u.s. illegally by their parents as children known collectively as the dreamers and non-citizens from countries hit by natural disasters who had been permitted to live in the u.s. both groups were stripped of legal protections by trump but court rulings have so far prevented the government from deporting them it was an offer trump's democratic opposition could and swiftly did refuse. house speaker nancy pelosi issued a statement saying quote it is unlikely that any one of these provisions alone would pass the house and taken together they are a nonstarter she repeated the democrats' arguments that the wall would be ineffective agencies and senate democratic leader chuck schumer said trump was

treating the dreamers a very like hostages trump described hardships faced by migrants and a flood of drugs coming into the us drugs kill seventy eight thousand americans a year and car star society in excess of seven hundred billion dollars critics point out that most of those drugs are smuggled through legal points of entry and that a wall would have little effect on stopping traffickers what happens next the republican controlled senate will take up trumps proposals and almost certainly pass a bill incorporating them and restoring funds to end the shutdown that bill will then go to the democratic controlled house where pressure to pass it may become intense you can just peel away twenty twenty five democrats who want the government open and are not so adamant against the wall to carry the day even if the

government even if the democratic leadership remain opposed to the wall a possible grounds for compromise palosi said there needs to be a permanent solution for dreamers and t.p.s. recipients not just a three year reprieve if both sides start bargaining again the longest ever government shutdown could be brought to an end rob reynolds al-jazeera washington. are dozens of african refugees are feared drowned after an overloaded boat capsized three people have been rescued but one hundred seventeen the missing in the mediterranean sea. which sailed from libya most on board came from nigeria ivory coast gambia and sudan the international organization for migration says the number of migrants and refugees landing on european shores almost doubled in the first sixteen days of this year to four thousand two hundred and sixteen that compares to almost two thousand four hundred last year so far this year eighty three people

have died trying to cross the mediterranean and have a doll is a spokesman for the international organization for migration he joins us now via skype from geneva good to have you with us so first of all let's start with the latest incident of people missing from a rubber dinghy bo any news on the estimated one hundred seventeen people. well these are three couple of incidents rather than one and. the survivors have been interviewed by startling lampedusa in a very grim account of what happened they were left in the water for many hours until they were eventually rescued by talent search and rescue and brought to shore and brought to safety so it does appear that there are other who were with them in the doing it which was sinking and going under the waves probably no chance of being sort of being rescued. are we seeing some of the numbers i read out there seems to indicate that the number of refugees and migrants arriving on european

shores is are rising quickly in two thousand and nineteen would one be correct in drawing that assumption. that's correct but i would be reluctant to draw a trend from that it's certainly the case that the numbers attending to crosses is about double the rate it was last year but it's still fairly low in the four thousand mark and what we're looking at them which probably more troubling is that the numbers of people dying as a percentage is really going up to bank two hundred so far this year in several incidents and of course the latest incident the air is particularly shocking because you have about fifty three off the coast of spain and now another maybe forty plus or between italy and libya so it looks like these smugglers are really taking great risks with human life and putting wonderful people to sea in totally unsafe wrestles and really put it really quite shocking the counsellor's that we see by the smugglers and traffickers who are what you're trying to lay out and lead

and it's why they're becoming more callous and more daring i mean i think the point is they want to make money whatever is going on and they will put people to see whatever the conditions are so whether it's flat days in the summer in the mediterranean or stormy days in the winter they don't care there is no call for safe health and safety is a river dinghies that you wouldn't put on a don't park duck pond in the middle of winter so why their criminal you have to ask them for it has at least decision to ban. access to its ports for n.g.o.s having any impact on the situation i mean that's part of the story but the truth is the italian navy risk you these people this weekend so i think it's a canard to suggest that the european navy's european coast guards are not doing their job we could probably have more search and rescue no doubt and we need to support being non-governmental organizations n.g.o.s and their rescue vessels

that's for sure but in this case the italian navy behaved tremendously and and put these people from the seas all right thanks so much friend on. the saudi u.a.e. coalition has launched a series of air strikes in yemen the capital sanaa the military base and drone facility was targeted it's the first time the coalition has carried out air strikes in the capital since yemen's warring sides met for un back talks in sweden last month. cambodia's prime minister is beginning a four day visit to china where he'll meet president xi jinping beijing provides an economic safety net tsunami pain which is seen souring relations with the west over its human rights record as wayne hay reports from novell chinese investment is beginning to change the shape of the seaside town. just two years ago this was

a sleepy seaside town popular with backpackers now sihanoukville is a chinese construction site gambling is illegal for cambodians but it's thought there are more than seventy casinos open all run to construction in the special economic zone the target market is not cambodians it's chinese tourists some cambodians are benefiting from the investment in the form of jobs but others are being forced out because of the construction and rising costs here in the play but when i moved to my restruck here the rig was lower and i don't have many customers because i'm on the outskirts of town now i didn't want to move here but i had no choice sihanoukville is an important part of china's built in road initiative which aims to link asia with africa and europe through loans and investment trade between the two countries is up more than twenty percent and most goods come through here cambodia is only deep sea port this area also holds strategic value for china sihanoukville sits on the gulf of thailand which then becomes the south china sea

where china is involved in territorial disputes with several southeast asian nations cambodia is in one of them but instead of siding with its neighbors when it comes to the dispute it sides with china. there have even been reports recently that the chinese are planning to build a military base along this coast the cambodian government says it's not true and in fact it would be unconstitutional but all this is happening at a time when the west is threatening to punish the cambodian government through economic sanctions following a dramatic decline in democracy and human rights investment from china generally comes with a list social or democratic conditions that seems to come until i understand your conditions so let's work to make it happen i don't care about nothing but the government in beijing does like stability and the influx of chinese coming to work in cambodia has created some social tensions system ated that around twenty percent of the population of sihanoukville is now chinese the local government says there

are no problems between the communities they do. they do then vice man saw it's not the. op conflict between two people. china's ambassador to cambodia recently described the relationship between the two countries as forged in steel judging by the pace of change here that sentiment is being taken quite literally when hey al jazeera sihanoukville cambodia. of spring in. beijing political analyst who advises the chinese government on economic and development issues good to have you with us so. having to china can both be in chinese relations already blossoming what more will be seeking do you think what will his message be to beijing. well they're looking for more investment remember cambodia although it's one of the

fastest growing nations about seven point five percent is desperate in the need of investment they have a very low about thirteen hundred u.s. per year per capita income that translates into about four thousand if you look at purchasing power parity but they need they feel they need to move along there's a lot of investment but along with that investment there are issues as has been identified these are not new i mean a lot of places where china has gone there has been a lot of kind of issues with people coming in and kind of overwhelming the local population but in the end cambodia has to figure out a way forward and right now that's with beijing in terms of anything else i don't think you'll see much on the securities side they are a member of the not a member there an observer at the c.e.o. shanghai cooperation organization they're the only one from. that's part of that but i don't i have not heard or do not expect that there will be

a lot of progress in that area give us an idea because you know he's talked in broad terms about how important china needs to cambodia's economy but as a percentage of cambodia's s.d.i. as a percentage of his of its foreign exports what does china represent. well i think i think it's about twenty percent but you know you start looking at the industries cambodia the number the number one is actually the garment industry it's textiles that's about four billion then you have them about two billion and then you know the rest of the country is pretty much agriculture a lot of those products can be going to china they need the infrastructure to do that but you know they have to get beyond that these are not just simply areas they have to start moving beyond and they want to start processing now they have a development zone and shouldn't bill and that is where a lot of factories chinese factories are going to

a longer afford to make their products in china are flocking there because they have good logistics especially going offshore and they have a plentiful labor base that's very cheap currently does that give some cover to government on some of the human rights issues which it's been taken to task over by the west for example well i don't think there's any cover i mean there are issues where they've been and again. well from china's point of view i mean they i don't think that there's going to be much talk about that i mean by frankly china sometimes when they do it on occasion i mean from a reality check point of view. no i don't think that china's going to be doing that right now i mean china is not the only friend of cambodia the a.d.b. is building a enhanced rail in different areas there are other projects that are there but china right now is very close obviously cambodia has been very friendly it on its

moved a number of times to block. statements that were very contra not favorable to china especially on the south china seas issues so i think they have the relationship is very strong it's very clear what it is but there's you know china's policy of noninterference will not allow it to go in there and start telling them what they should or should not be doing with their internal country their genny index is quite low the you know they are making progress poverty has been reduced from fifty percent to about twenty percent although many of those are still very precarious all right we'll leave it there for now thanks so much for analysis on. in them few moments we'll have all the weather with stefan still ahead on al-jazeera on the. protesters against the president's plan to make their voices heard in parliament. kenya faces up to the reality of homegrown threat south

of the nairobi hotel attack and in small the american tennis player who gave himself the perfect both a gift this straight. from the. to the c.c. never sleeps. well we have a cycling that's edging its way towards mozambique at the moment this isn't good news because this region here under all this cloud has already seen a lot of flooding and it looks like that's just going to get worse as the storm edges its way towards us now as it works its way northward its working over feet that are very warm which is very important because we need those warm seas in order for this storm to intensify but fortunately the winds very high up are quite strong so that will disrupt it a little bit so it won't be able to develop too much by the time it makes landfall

so a little bit of strengthening and then a little bit of weakening as the edges its way towards the coast once more and it starts to have a bit of friction with the land by the time it makes landfall we're expecting the gusts of wind to be up to ninety five kilometers per hour so quite a windy feature but the main problem from the system is going to be with the rain as i say we've already had flooding in this region and it looks like things are going to get worse as the storm gradually makes its way towards us now the area is impacting isn't necessarily where we're going to see the heaviest of the rain it does look like the west so weather over the next three or four days is just going to be to the south of where it makes impact here we could see up to two hundred fifty millimeters of rain in around three or four days which is easily enough to give us flooding on its own and that's not considering that we've already got such a way to ground so plenty of what weather here and through malawi as well. the weather sponsored by qatar race. in search of a safer neighborhood there was

a little when they came to their house and took all our stuff can't put my family in the hole they discerned that's a problem for me struggling to secure a home really really quite a bit over to. the we don't we could potentially lose that and living paycheck to paycheck there's nobody to blame and live with the consequences every day of the choices that have been hard. on al-jazeera. when the news breaks and the story. when people who need to be heard and the story needs to be told. with exclusive interviews and in-depth reports. al-jazeera has teens on the ground to bring you more award winning documentaries. and live nice on air and online.

watching are just zero time to recap the headlines now the runner up in the democratic republic of congo's presidential election is calling for nationwide protests on saturday the constitutional court rejected martin for you lose allegations of vote rigging. a major economic meeting has begun in lebanon but most regional leaders aren't attending the arab economic and social development summit is being overshadowed by divisions over syria. democrats have rejected donald trump's offer to break the deadlock over the longest government shutdown in history trumps off a temporary protection for some undocumented immigrants if democrats back his plan

to build a border war with mexico. two years ago since trump was sworn in since then the wind thousands been seen as plagued by conflict chaos and confusion kimberly helka takes a closer look from washington d.c. . it's an understatement to say the first two years of donald trump's presidency have been different we have features we have three hundred hamburgers many many bridge for us so help me god with the promise to bring washington to its knees and drain the swamp trumps work to fulfill his most popular phrase we will make america great again in many ways trumpets change the country sometimes by default there so much this watching the show much uncertainty there's so much chaos right now that we simply don't know which way is up he refuses to act like previous

presidents often using twitter to announce big news or get that son of a off the field to insult his opponents they call or pocahontas he often shuns advice from his top aides which is led to a stunning number of departures including his secretary of state his defense secretary two chiefs of staff and two national security advisers. unemployment is at its lowest rate in fifty years but economists warn that may not last in twenty nineteen trumps also pointed to conservative judges. but it is his biggest campaign promise that has proved to be his toughest challenge we are building a wall trump has made it clear he wants a wall along the southern border of the united states with mexico to stop illegal migrants from crossing his stubborn insistence has led to a stalemate with his democratic opponents who reminded him he also promised mexico would pay for the wall. in december the u.s.

government shut down over his request for five point seven billion for a new wall it's now the longest partial government shutdown in history no collusion no nothing there's no collusion there was no collusion whatsoever although his first two years have been overshadowed by a department of. justice investigation into whether his campaign worked with the kremlin trump has proved over and over again he can weather the hefty legal and political fights that come with it but is twenty one thousand gets closer to twenty twenty a presidential election year trump faces new challenges for democrats who want him out this is our moment in history some analysts say he may survive that too you have a progressive base that is simply i think more interested in fighting than they are in unifying a party but perhaps one of the biggest promises donald trump has kept is that he

governs like no president before him kimberly healthy at al-jazeera the white house the day after trump's inauguration came the largest protest in u.s. history protests worldwide because of is the wrong country and sexist comments the main protest known as the women's march was in washington to be announcing again on the third anniversary this year they celebrated an unprecedented number of women taking this seats in congress demonstrators are set to rally in the greek capital against the proposed name change deal to normalize relations with neighboring macedonia it wants to change its name to the republicans north macedonia greek subjects because macedonia is the ancient name of one of their regions great prime minister alexis tsipras says survived to confidence motions in parliament over the contentious deal johns for offloads joins us now from athens so how the

protests building up there. it's early hours yet so i mean we are seeing maybe a thousand or so people on the square behind me in front of the parliament building but the official start of this protest isn't for another hour and a half or so that is when we expect to see many thousands of people coming into the square brought into town on buses chartered from all over mainland greece they have designated drop off points in the outskirts of the city center those buses will then be taken away to parking lots and people will be coming here on foot and mass transport and then we do expect to see many many people here there is a great deal of consternation anger but also division in greek political life and society about this agreement that the government has negotiated john what happens next pons going to ratify this is going to go through. i think there is

a sense of inevitability about this agreement the government has now survived not one but two votes of no confidence over this very agreement one last june and one last week and both times it scraped through with a majority of three votes last year and one vote last week. i think the sense here is that that majority that enabled the government to survive would also allow it to pass this agreement scheduled apparently to happen by the end of this week the reason people are demonstrating here today is to prevent that parliamentary vote from happening there demanding a referendum but i think you would agree after the referendum of july twenty fifteen in which sixty two percent of greeks voted for noble austerity and the government turned that around into a third emergency loan accompanied by austerity measures the government is loath to

go into another referendum adventure it is likely to lose the votes because most greeks of polling is being against this agreement so i think what we're seeing here is a last ditch attempt to regard to express sentiment felt by many greeks across the country but it's likely to fall on deaf ears. i would leave that for now thanks so much. dozens of people are still missing after an oil pipeline explosion in mexico killed seventy three people people were gathering fuel from an illegal tap when the blast happened on friday in the state of his go north of mexico city the president of venezuela as national assembly has led a rally against president nicolas maduro. though is refused to recognize the president since his new term began two weeks ago congress has declared. meaning all of his actions will be considered nolen void oh yes we are united we

are in the streets we have the international community and who does the international community recognize only institution the national assembly which will take on the responsibilities at all times you can count on that. the un special rapporteur on human rights in man maher is set to arrive in bangladesh young gailey will visit cox bazaar where over seven hundred thousand refugees lives since escaping a military crackdown in iraq on state in two thousand and seventeen men miles government has ceased corporation with lee has refused her entry into the country untouchable and reports from cox is bizarre. the un special rapporteur on human rights in myanmar has been shut out by me in march the government won't allow her access to the country and is not cooperating so her work is confined to neighboring countries and bangladesh factors in greatly the u.n. says there are now more the nine hundred thousand will hinder refugees living here

the bulk of them came during a spike of violence in august twenty seventh team and now they are spread across a mega i can't here in cox's bazaar now it's the dry season the monsoon rains are behind people and life has become a little easier but as you can see sanitation lack of access to clean water and latrines can use to new to be concerned if you look here there are workers trying to prepare the can for floods that are inevitable in this part of the world there is also concern about a lost generation of children to the lack of schools the mood here has improved considerably since last november that is when the bangladeshi government abandoned a repatriation plan in an undisclosed agreement with the government of myanmar bangladesh had hoped to return about twenty two hundred refugees to me and bar the un warned that that could be a violation of international law there was

a real outcry here and that play on it was halted so now the un special report her is shifting her attention to an island called bastion sorry it's a remote island and the government is hoping to shift a significant portion of the rohingya refugees here to that island it is in the path of typhoons and cycling's it's prone to flooding it's literally called a floating island it's comprised primarily of silt but the bangladeshi government has already begun construction on housing and human rights groups say that refugees might not have access to basic services they've even called this island like living . in the prison so the u.n. special reporter is hoping to go to beslan chart but no word yet on whether or not she'll be allowed access in sudan protesters against the president of planning to march on parliament saturday villages in the northern region of my house chanted

slogans demanding the end of president on one of the shooters thirty year activists say dozens of being killed unarmed from protest huge first began over the rising price of rent one of those killed was a doctor and a mormon he's at his funeral in the capital khartoum. i'm here at the funeral rites of dr bao because he was shot on the seventeenth of january. thank you to go there and witness his killing the thing he came out of course a lot of respect for that it wasn't hard after that he was a doctor who was trying to treat injured were tested people who were there said that the security forces them to two steps back and shot him point blank they called it an execution that people have been present. for the past one month they say they want him to step down and take the view was. that he was going to do the government says at least twenty five people have been killed since the protests began but rights groups and i can see the numbers of these doubled that people are saying they will continue to protest. and in the coming days people to try to

demonstrate to show the president that they don't want him to continue through the city once and that now and again so after elected president they would like the clear how far they think of her there with it it's like a very determined to make sure that what they want is a cue to sit down right now is the kind of process people have been protesting for the past month and now the course of the recent second month and they are concerned that it was last known that more lives would be lost. the u.s. military says an airstrike in somalia killed fifty two finds is hours after a somali air base was attacked. gunmen rammed a vehicle packed with explosives into the base in jubilant six somali soldiers were killed in saturday's farm attack in the gun battle which lasted several hours and shabaab attacks are continuing despite losing control of most cities and towns african union and somali troops drove the group linked to an out of the capital

mogadishu eight years ago. claimed responsibility for tuesday's attack on a luxury hotel in kenya at least twenty one people were killed in nairobi police say four of the five suspects under arrest are kenyan reports this prolonging informal settlement in near it down central kenya live here may seem us ordinary as in any other slum but the residents of. our lord one of the gunmen in last tuesday's also talk in the capital nairobi was born and grew up. salim ali get corrupted in this photograph during the night will be a tuck and he grew up in this house his neighbors those shocked i'm not surprised they say al-shabaab has over the years recruited many young men including salim from.