in the newspaper live on air we're streaming online through you tube facebook live and that al-jazeera dot com thanks for watching the u.n. human rights chief is warning the situation in venezuela could spiral rapidly out of control with catastrophic consequences michele bachelet is urging leaders in caracas to hold talks to diffuse the political unrest well the opposition leader as the cleric himself interim president and has backing from the u.s. and its latin american allies but venezuela's military has reiterated its support for president nicolas maduro saying attempts to remove him amount to a coup would see a newman is joining us from cuckoo ta that's on the venezuela colombia border and the c.e.o. why do it was to do to make an address shortly. he is at this hour we can confirm that deputies from the opposition controlled national assembly as well as supporters and members of the press are gathering at the one you've got

in the truck how municipality of practice that is an opposition controlled municipality they are meeting there rather than at the national assembly awaiting for the arrival of why dog woman as you know was not was named the interim president by that opposition couldn't hold national assembly on wednesday one of the reasons he's doing that of course is because you will be surrounded by supporters and also because there are a lot of embassies nearby he said earlier today that he was afraid that an arrest warrant would be issued against him in just a few hours the attorney general was due to speak he canceled that news conference is we're expecting to hear now from the president himself from the be the flautist presidential palace we have been essentially now two people in venezuela both calling themselves the legitimate president i can also confirm that u.s. nonessential embassy personnel have already started to do that is way a lot but the united states is standing firm in saying it will not recognize the

expulsion order that was issued by president nicolas another little under twenty third of a rather on wednesday he said that tonight he was breaking off diplomatic relations with the u.s. washington says it doesn't recognize that because it doesn't recognize him as a legitimate president that is inching its way into a major confrontation muddle says he's withdrawing all of his diplomats from washington on saturday a special session of the u.n. security council has been called to discuss venezuela again as this deadline that is up on sunday eight inches that's the way forward and towards a major confrontation between venezuela and the united states very ok lucy and it will be interesting to see what both men have to say when they do speak in the meantime you were just referring to the u.n. security council so we still have international reaction. coming into the situation in venezuela with countries picking sides. it's been a very very active days so far it started off with the russian foreign minister

offering his services to mediate between the opposition and the venezuelan government lawyer negotiated settlement to the crisis followed by a statement from the german and the spanish foreign minister saying that unless president will last a little holds immediate family and transparent elections in that country and again the operative word here is immediate the e.u. will withdraw recognition of the venezuelan government and will recognize it instead. as the interim and the president of that country so a lot of pressure being put now on president mughal at this hour ok lucio we'll leave it there for now we thank you for giving us that update from across the border and it's all well trunk is determined to but when he was first elected he had a very different stance on foreign interventions here's what he said. we will stop bracing to topple foreign media and you understand this foreign regimes that

we know nothing about that we shouldn't be involved with instead our focus must be on defeating terrorism and destroying i says. this destructive cycle of intervention and chaos bust finally folks come to an end come to it so the us has a history of involvement with venezuela the us gave tacit approval to a coup attempt against maduro as predecessor hugo chavez in two thousand and two washington initially endorsed the plotters distancing itself only after the coup failed and declassified cia reports show that the us government had prior knowledge about the plan coup and didn't share their information with chavez and chavez was deposed for forty eight hours before being returned to power by a wave of popular support and the backing off the military let's speak to peter dobson about all of this he's

a political analyst of venezuela analysis dot com he's joining us live from many debts in venezuela thanks for speaking to us again so according to a do it oh he is accusing the united states of trying to orchestrate a coup against him while the united states is saying look we're just trying to rescue venezuela's democracy which is that here and if you believe that the u.s. is trying to orchestrate some sort of quote unquote coup why do you think that is. well according to international law according to the venezuelan constitution and according to all venezuelan laws the people who are legitimately able to name a president are minutes rayleigh is the citizenship of venezuela the venezuelans the imposition of any other person who has not been elected by the venezuelan people is against the u.n. charter it's against international laws against the charter the organization of american states and a whole range of other agreements i think if we call this anything other than a coup that there are an attempted coup. where we would be mistaken i say attempted

because the president the man in the presidential palace is still nicolas maduro the man recognized by the venezuelan armed forces institutions even the majority of the people is nicolas maduro so at the moment it's quite difficult to see where the americans are looking to take this attempted coup but why are they so why is the white house so please because you have some congressmen and senators who have spoken out against what trump has been saying on venezuela so why is the white house intent on else thing that's. the same reason it was intent on ousting president chavez in two thousand and two or another in two thousand and fourteen and a whole range of other attempts to overturn the democratically elected government in venezuela one simple word oil the control of the oil resources in venezuela as well as the documents the gold the water that gas and a whole range of other natural resources is massively important for the united states and the geo strategic interests across the world one of our viewers watching

on facebook. is listening in and asking well is it in fact just oil or why is the u.s. always interfering in venezuela. as i explained not just oil it's a host of natural resources in venezuela which the united states needs needs for their internal consumption and the control of venezuela. as a key strategic element in latin america it is also important it support is a doorway into the amazon the doorway into the andes into matter saw into latin american organizations and is a jewel in the crown of american control in the continent so as i say washington does have a long history of interventions military as well as otherwise in latin american politics there was panama in one nine hundred eighty nine there was haiti in one thousand nine hundred four two thousand and two venezuela and now what's happening there so to what extent does the trumpet ministrations recognition of qualify door as the interim president right now returned the u.s.

to a more sort of a sort of role in latin america that it hasn't had perhaps for years indeed this is to some extent an attempted coup which which they told us they were going to carry out i remind you of years that twenty four hours before my point barrow released a video to the venezuelans to conduct directly to venezuela and effectively telling them to rise up against a government so we had do you warning that this was likely to happen. nonetheless this does mark a significantly more braces. way to violate international law and more abrasive way to disrespect national sovereignty and the right to the venezuelans to choose their own course what does that mean or how do you read into the statements that the u.s. made as saying all options are on the table does that include military intervention and do you think that's where the situation is headed to. well we hope not we hope

not i think. people from all across the political spectrum not just in minutes leyla but in the region in the world would hope that this doesn't reach that point because the cost would be massive. but we've seen that for death for donald trump when he talks about any options we have to look at syria we have to look at its predecessors in iraq we have to look at the actions he's taken across the world to understand exactly what that means and also it's worth remembering that donald trump only a year ago a year and a half ago did in fact ask his advice very directly why can't we just invade venezuela this was his question so when he talked about all of the options on the table this i think would include yes the military option just very briefly while i have you with us we're looking at live pictures right now are from qatar causes those that supports who i don't know i'm being told as we wait for him to speak what do you think he's going to say what are you going to be looking out for. well the main question in my mind is how does he pretend to to rule

a country even if mother and stepped aside which i think is probably not going to happen how and why there would a country he doesn't have the support of any institutions he doesn't have the support of the other three independent powers of the state he doesn't have the support of the armed forces he doesn't even have the support of the majority of the people so i not quite sure how with the mere backing of the white house and a few other local governments you can expect to internally run affairs in the country he has no control over the oil industry we could not see essential to funding anything in venezuela. and so i think he has a very complex picture ahead of him so be interesting to see beyond his calls repeated calls for the armed forces to support him and so on which out of metal death to deaf ears at this point are a part of he expects to convince the country yeah we'll have to wait and hear what he says hold up so we thank you for joining us from venezuela we are getting a lot of comments on our social media feeds in support of the venezuelan people

hoping that everything can be resolved in peace and you can keep your comments and questions coming to us here at the news grid we'd like to hear from you were on twitter our handle is at a.j. english use the hash tag news grid we're also on facebook at facebook dot com slash al-jazeera you can send us a message on whatsapp or telegram a plus one seven four five zero triple one one four nine. now we'll move away from venezuela for a moment go back to it when we hear speaking but for now the u.s. president donald trump's a close ally and confidant roger stone has been arrested as part of special counsel robert miller's investigation into possible russian collusion in the twenty sixteen election so stone was taken into custody in florida after a grand jury indictments he's facing seven charges including obstructing official proceedings making false statements and witness tampering mother's investigation has so far netted more than thirty people who've either been indicted or pleaded guilty to with least one hundred charges. takes

a look at the long and sordid history of roger stone and american politics. roger stone is a man who really likes the camera it is better to be infamous they'll never be famous at all that is from a netflix documentary that profiled a political operative who thinks of himself more as an agent provocateur known for his particular kind of fashion political dirty tricks and his unusual tattoo yes that is a permanent tattoo of richard nixon's face on his back stones' time in politics began with the nixon campaign he became a mainstay of conservative politics after helping elect ronald reagan he and his partner paul mann a fourth became the first in washington to use their access to the powerful to lobby for some of the most brutal dictators in the world stone push to make man a fort terms campaign manager he's now facing prison time as part of the special counsel's investigation stone was eventually disgraced by

a sex scandal in the ninety's but he found his way back into the mainstream by recruiting the least mainstream presidential candidate in history for decades he has been close to donald trump and for many years was pushing him to run for president once trump one stone came under increased scrutiny as part of the investigation into potential collusion between russia and the trump campaign in part because of suspicious tweets before the election stone tweeted out that wiki leaks would post damaging e-mails from the clinton campaign once writing it would soon be pre-destined time in the barrel not long after that clinton campaign manager john podesta has hacked e-mails were released he now insists it was just a hunch and said as much to a house committee under oath i expressed my view that i am aware of no evidence whatsoever of collusion by the russian state or anyone in the trump campaign but there were questions about whether stone was truthful in that hearing line to

congress is a crime and as the months passed the stone who loved to talk to the press refused to talk to a set of. i have elected to invoke my fifth amendment rights when it comes to the witch hunts being conducted by the senate intelligence and the senate judiciary committees soon he will have to decide if he will testify before a jury roger stone is a man who thrives on division and dirty tricks soon to find out if he crossed the line from controversial to criminal so let's bring in particular haynes he's joining us from washington and now we have reaction from the white house padding to this indictment. we do and it's actually the same exact reaction we've gotten every single time someone close to the president gets indicted by the special counsel which is the white house spokesperson sara sanders comes out and says this is nothing to do with the president but the bottom line this is the closest the an indictment has come to us president don't trump it is the closest any of the

indictments have come to spelling out what people like to call collusion which would actually be more of a charge of conspiracy under united states criminal code as i just mentioned roger stone is incredibly close to the president we believe they still talk on a regular basis so now he this is a man who has said he would never flip on donald trump a man used to the most luxury he has lives he is now behind bars he is under arrest he is going to be in front of a federal judge in about forty four minutes and help find out if he's going to be released on bail i'm sure the special counsel is going to one to keep him behind bars because of his wealth and because of his potential ability to flee and also this would up the ante for him this would make him see what a potential future holds if he doesn't cooperate with the special counsel's office this was very much predicted because roger stone all of the interviews with people have been before the grand jury said there roger stone was a main focus of the special counsel now the question is what does he do he has said

he will remain loyal to the president but again this is a man who's used to having homes in florida and new york city. basically living the good life now he faces the potential of spending at least the next few months behind bars here's the thing patty looking at the charges they do appear related they appear to be related more to stone's conduct with investigators and rather than the probe itself the miller probe. yes it does appear that way because he wasn't charged with conspiracy but what this document lays out is what could be seen as a conspiracy to work with potentially russia and here's how that that works the intelligence committee has come out and said that they believe the u.s. intelligence community believes wiki leaks is directly tied to the russian intelligence agency now if this was in wiki leaks have denied that vehemently but this that is what the u.s. intelligence has said this says that roger stone was basically the conduit between

the trump campaign senior officials in the trump campaign it doesn't rule out in this indictment that it could potentially be the president it just says senior officials within the trump campaign and wiki leaks so if the special counsel is able to make that connection and able to prove with intelligence that we can at least is an arm of the russian intelligence service again with the leaks denies that then you could possibly see how they would be able to make a case for conspiracy but that's not charged in this document still they want to hear from roger stone and they want to see if he is going to flip on his good friend the president of the united states all right and that's what i'm going to ask eric hamm his joining us next patty thank you for the time being so erica is a political strategist is joining us from washington as well so is he going to flip on the president of the united states well i think that remains to be seen but when you look at this indictment and the charges that have been brought against roger stone it's very clear that bob muller is actually looking to make

a deal with roger stone to get more information and i think to move further and further up that pyramid which i think they do have president and there are sites so what sort of information can stone provides. well i guess we simply don't know that but when you look at the end diet it's very clear that roger stone made comments compelling comments to members of the trump campaign about information that was available and that would be distributed like the leaks that we saw on members of the hillary clinton campaign and i'm sure what bob muller is attempting to do with these charges is to gain greater access greater knowledge from roger stone how he came across this information knowing that this would happen and also find out definitively if wiki leaks is as patty mentioned a agent of the russian government and also to what that does is that then ties the

russia russia directly to the trump campaign and i'm sure bob muller is hoping directly to the president himself how worried should the president be because i'm looking at a twitter feed right now and there are no tweets but we have heard from the white house from the press secretary was saying that the indictments of stone and the russia probe is unrelated to the president or the white house. well when you look at the indictment what you see is that roger stone has been charged with lying to the house intelligence committee but also obstruction of justice and there's a there was someone in the in the indictment mention this person too and we saw that roger stone vehemently tried to get this person to lie to the house intelligence committee and so with what that suggests is that roger stone is trying to obfuscate the investigation and trying to move the investigation ball away from

him and possibly away from the president and if you look at the indictment roger stone was very aggressive and attempting to get this person not only to lie to the house intelligence committee but also to the f.b.i. and so i think when you take all of that together the president may believe that roger stone in fact will not testify before him because we already know that he has invoked his fifth amendment right so the president probably thinks that roger stone much like paul mantle for what is willing to actually stay silent and take whatever comes as a result of his involvement in this in this whole process our right to eric can get to speak with you thank you the un special rapporteur for human rights and man maher is calling for the head of the military to be charged with genocide yankie lee is investigating alleged crimes against the rohingya minority that forced hundreds of thousands to flee the country least said cases are already being

compiled for future prosecutions. independent mechanism that i recommended be established last year has been formally established and funded and recruitment has started justice for victims is it's a it will see is really the question of evidence of crimes committed in the creation of case files be against alleged perpetrators these cases will be ready for press for prosecution is a credible international or national court and it's also the name following the story joining us from dakar that's in bangladesh so the u.n. special roberts were in a tough are not mincing her words when it comes to me and mars army chief. you know this is the first time that she has publicly however said that the army chief should be charged with genocide she says he and a handful of others should be charged prosecuted for genocide in iraq i am stating

war crimes and crimes against humanity and if the perpetrators are not held accountable for the mass killing and rate of rohingya refugees she says that the rohingya does when they do return to me and mark will be vulnerable that they will be caught up in a cycle once again of violence and explosion now previously the myanmar military has denied any allegations of committing genocide they say their combat ing terrorism being committed by an armed rohingya group last september the international criminal court or i.c.c. said that it could prosecute me amar for genocide that is something that myanmar rejects it says that the i.c.c. does not have jurisdiction and it is not a party to the rome statute which established the i.c.c. courts now here in bangladesh earlier this evening the un special rapporteur talked a lot about what's next for the refugees here in bangladesh she said that it is

simply not possible for people to be returning to me in mar in the foreseeable future given the ongoing violence there and she said that she is asking the bangladeshi government rather to be patient and exercise caution and prepare for more longer term hosting of the almost one million refugees that are here one of the solutions that bangladeshi government has been putting forth is the notion of transferring about one hundred thousand rohingya refugees to a remote island called boston shar up until yesterday the un special rapporteur tour has not been allowed to visit she did benedetti government has build built rather barracks and is. chris rupture and they say that refugees will be able to fish and arm they have access to the sick services and the ability to this is their families in the bank a camp in cox's bazaar but the un special rapporteur says that she is very concerned about how isolated this island is about the fact that it's often in the

path of supply phones and typhoons and prone to flooding and that any relocation of rohingya as first and foremost can only be assured if the security situation is intact and even if these regular refugees voluntarily agree to go to the island this is likely not to do such a thing that actually government was hoping to hear last week the commissioner of refugee relief and repatriation said that he was hoping to resume a repatriation process to me and mark at the soonest possible date all right and a tussle and i am thank you with that update from dot going to toss it on twitter at the top of the name we have a breaking news story for you out of the u.s. and we're hearing that one of the main airports in new york city that's laguardia off and there are reports of flight arrival delays that's because us of a staff shortage linked to the government shutdown let's bring in allan fish our

correspondent he's joining us from washington you're following the story allan what are you hearing about laguardia. well this is all just developing in the last few minutes what we're hearing is that the audio which deals with about thirty million passengers a year there's a growing stop on flights into laguardia for the moment so what does that mean well it means if you're sitting in a plane somewhere else in the united states and you think you're going to laguardia then that plane is not taking off any time soon now there's a suggestion in some reports that this delay may be something between forty five minutes to an hour and a half it could be longer and the difficulty of course is the lack of air traffic controllers to make sure that the flights going into that important area can do so safely we're also hearing the reports of delays at newark and philadelphia but it seems the situation is most acute at la guardia no you'll know that partially the government is shut down here in the united states that's over a row over funding for

a border wall the additional problem means that there are people who work for the federal aviation authority including a traffic controllers who are not being paid and therefore are going sick not turning up for work and that causes pressure on the whole air traffic control system and just in the last forty eight hours we had from air traffic controllers who said look unless you get things moving again very soon this is going to cause real problems and people's safety and security is at risk so what we're seeing here is that the f.e.a. through presumably an abundance of caution are saying we don't have enough traffic controllers to control that important area therefore we have got to reduce the number of flights coming in and they're doing that by putting up a growing stop there interestingly enough i called the federal aviation authority to find out exactly what was going on there's no one in the communication office to answer any questions because they're all home because of the government shutdown wow ok allan thank you so that developing story out of the u.s.

we'll bring you more as and when we get it while you're with the news great if you're watching us on facebook line. there's a story for you coming up about the first superhero film ever to be nominated for best picture and coming up in a moment it's how a name change is causing an uproar in grey's and nothing donya back in a minute. out of the quiet skies of return to iran and they are returning to afghanistan is a mess a cloud of the caucasus in the moment and yet more weather stormy weather is brewing in the mediterranean it's been causing floods and storm damage actually in western turkey and that is coming across turkey into northern lebanon syria and iraq over the next couple of days so this is the position that the position on sunday was rain for many places and star of course

a target in northern iraq and syria up into the caucasus the rain will spread down across the border into northern side was a massive cloud to the south of that but that's about as far as against certain immediate future of the arabian peninsula far from just over the border inside it's really inducing a southerly breeze and therefore warming but dusty trends that won't last i think by tuesday we are back into the north next couple days warming and dusty still very active with around madagascar you'll notice the country see a circulation in the maldives disappeared but the influence is still there so heavy rain still in mozambique a bit further north than it was answer northern madagascar and you'll notice the eastern side of south africa including the suit too so the potential for big showers is back from joburg science words at least for saturday. the battle over the minimum wage heated up across the country today thousands of

fast food workers walked off the job desperate for a better way to choose if you appeared your average worker a little more money they're probably going to be able to pay bills maybe to spend a little bit more a minute or two fifty right now so fifty k. painting would be able to survive in twenty first century america i'm nervous we cannot afford for one of us alone a job. on al-jazeera. right out of a mosque or examining the headline we begin with the fractious issue of palestine and israel and the us news media setting the discussions what makes them different as far as i can see sharing personal stories with a global audience nobody feels safe explore an abundance of world class programming designed to inform motivate and inspire. the world is watching on al-jazeera.

those are the headlines on al-jazeera and these are the most read articles right now on our website al-jazeera dot com and. top spot the human rights chief calling for probes into. venezuela violence so you can read much more about that by heading

to al-jazeera dot com. well you want to generalize one of the terrorists has warned the world is running out of time to contain climate change he was speaking earlier at the world economic forum taking place in davos sara horowitz is here with more and it's a big topic online sarah sesame was especially amongst the generations that in this one person at the center stage of all of this not sixteen year old greats in bowing out a swedish environmentalist has been meeting with scientists in davos as well as the head of the i.m.f. christine lagarde is leading a grassroots movement of schoolchildren and they're calling on the world leaders to take concrete action against climate change and she and sounds of others have been skipping school on different continents once a week in protests. i travel to by train and that i'm doing because i stopped flying because of climate reasons. because i i don't want to.

say one thing and then do another thing i want to practice as i preach and. the trip here took about two hours i think from stockholm to. young people need to realize what it means that their future is at risk in they need to do something about that get angry and transform that anger into action that's a story went viral last year when she gave a speech at the climate change conference call twenty four in pomona nasheed started the hash tag fridays for future and school strike for climate and since then she's received a lot of support from both children and their parents too and kids are using social media to spread that word the pricing pictures of their protests in fact this was from earlier today is that happening in scotland just outside one of the local primary schools a small group but nevertheless they're contributing in their own way and youngsters

have also been sharing their videos on lines from online from other protests being held elsewhere in europe in fact this one here is from germany and thousands have been gathering in the last few hours to join this exact age. but less than twenty four hours ago on thursday fifty five thousand children gathered in brussels as they made their way to the european parliament and they to skip school they say they'll continue to do so every week until their government listens to them and adopts the twenty fifteen paris agreement goals on tackling climate change. we're here to march for the climate as it's the only way for us young people to make our voices heard we don't have the means that the government has and since then not doing it we're getting on with it doing everything we can on the numbers we're here to make things before which because we know that you know v.x. well we don't know what's going to happen so we're here for that. school strikes

have also been held in different countries including uganda. and colombia this one was taken there and australia and also big global munch is being planned for march the fifteen backseat on sarah thank you and if you'd like to send in your comments or questions to here's a at the news grid let me remind you how you can do so you can tweet us our use the hash tag a.j. news grid our handle is a.j. english we're also on facebook at facebook dot com slash al-jazeera you can send us a message on whatsapp or telegram apos nine seven four five zero triple one one four nine now greek prime minister a degree prime minister that is alexis tsipras has hailed a historic day after his parliament agreed on a landmark deal with neighboring macedonia so greece has long argued that use of the term macedonia implied territorial claims on its own province which has the same name seen here in orange so under the deal macedonia will not be called the

republic of north macedonia or the settlement hopes to end the twenty eight year old dispute between the two countries and the macedonian prime minister's iran ziad has congratulated his agreed counterpart and he tweeted this take a look congratulations my friend alexis tsipras together with our peoples we reached a historic victory johnson is covering the story joining us from athens but not everyone is happy that this is a done deal john.