of course beijing i think that for reasons of face president xi jinping would rather meet president donald trump here that would look good for him it would also be able to enable him to show to the chinese people look the president the united states has come here to beijing because he's so desperate to do a deal all right adrian brown live for us there in beijing thanks a.j. . the u.s. senate is back to bill amendment opposing president charles plan to withdraw troops from syria and afghanistan the senate voted sixty eight to twenty three on the measure put forward by majority leader mitch mcconnell it says pulling out could allow i saw an al qaeda to regroup and destabilized both countries it is a rare review of chum's foreign policy by the republican controlled senate patrick i and has more from washington. for the past two years u.s. president donald trump has really been able to go along without having any sort of rebuke from congress that seems to be changing now when it comes to one issue in

foreign policy the senate has voted to proceed with an amendment which would basically say the senate doesn't agree with the president's plan to pull u.s. troops out of syria or afghanistan the vote was sixty eight to twenty three to proceed talking about it now this doesn't carry the force of law the president sets troop numbers as commander in chief but it is a rare rebuke it's not clear that it's actually going to pass because it's attached to a more controversial bill but in this vote the overwhelming majority of the senators saying to the president when it comes to point troops out of afghanistan or syria that he's wrong a president trump says american forces will pull out of afghanistan if talks with the taliban lead to a peace deal. we're going into close to nineteen years in being in afghanistan and for the first time they're talking about settling they're talking about making an agreement and we bring our people back home if that happens we'll see what happens but they're really bursars to go share sions for the first time there's

a reason for their so i think we're doing so well our foreign policy bases the u.s. is scrapping its nuclear agreement with russia that's according to u.s. officials who spoke to reuters the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty or i.n.f. is an one thousand nine hundred seven arms control pact between the united states and what was then the soviet union the treaty banned all land based missiles with a short and intermediate range the u.s. has accused russia of violating the treaty in december the u.s. warned it would withdraw from the i.m.f. if russia did not comply by february second i will say turn is a project lead at the civilian research and development foundation global and specializes in nuclear security he says if the us tears up the i.m.f. pact it will send the wrong message to other world powers. it's been a long time coming donald trump is not known for his love of international

agreements especially ones that restrain the united states in any way shape or form i think for a long time after he became president his advisors were holding him back particularly jim mattis being the voices of reason but i think the real tipping point was when john bolton entered the cabinet he likes international agreements of ever seeing the united states almost less than donald trump does so it's a real recipe for disaster and i say disaster because the i.n.f. treaty has done done what it does incredibly well it has brought stability and clarity into the intent and capabilities of russia especially in the european theater now our nato allies do not want short range missiles introduced back into the european theater and they would be the countries that would have to host these russia doesn't need permission from anyone so really it's a treaty where we're not giving ourselves any additional benefits russia gets all the benefits and when it comes to china we simply do not have any land mass that is

in that theater where we can place these missiles i think it would be extremely damaging to our credibility and i think our it here is to the i.n.f. treaty shows both our allies and our adversaries that we are being a global leader we are being the grownup the adult in the room by tearing up this agreement we're reintroducing nuclear dangers that were effectively resolved and disappeared thirty years ago. plenty more ahead on the news are iran preparing to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the islamic republic's revolution. south korea mourns the woman who fought for justice for victims of war time sexual slavery. and later in sport for time champions japan prepare to face the torments top scorers qatar in the asian cup final will be here with more.

so all that still ahead but first germany france and britain have launched a new payment system with iran which bypasses u.s. sanctions the move is aimed at saving the twenty fifteen iran nuclear deal that washington pulled out of last year the tasha butler has more from power. it was on the sidelines of the european union foreign ministers meeting in bucharest that france britain and germany launched a new e.u. payment mechanism to allow european companies to continue trading with iran and bypass u.s. sanctions ministers hope the initiative will safeguard the twenty fifteen iran nuclear deal and help ensure regional stability and good example of that or at least we are making clear that we are not only talking about keeping the nuclear agreement live but we are now creating a possibility to do business transactions that is a prerequisite for us so we can deliver on our obligations and in return be able to ask you rather not to develop enrich uranium for military use the e.u.'s foreign

policy chief who is one of the twenty fifteen deals may negotiators work on the trade system called instax the establishment of special purpose vehicle is i believe the mechanism that would allow for legitimate trade without continue as for c.n.n. in the interview of the missile for support from our side there you payment system will avoid transfers in dollars it will be based in paris overseen by a banking manager in germany and supervised by a board in the united kingdom in the beginning it will be for trade in things like medicine food and some humanitarian items but the idea is that it could be expanded to trade in other areas the mechanism will help mainly small and medium businesses but it may not be enough to persuade european multinationals such as french oil giant total german car make a danger to resume trade with iran and risk u.s. penalties but some analysts say its symbolism is important because it sends two

clear messages one to tehran that the e.u. is serious about maintaining the nuclear deal and the other to washington washington is the method it sends about the future as well here in the european that being a signaling that if the u.s. continues this already you and all. inch of that secondary sanctions policy that the europeans can really begin to build up something bigger in response to it and that this special happens because just the first step donald trump says he hopes that u.s. sanctions will force tehran into a new deal so far a new leaders say they won't renegotiate but they welcome the e.u. payment plan those here will hope that the mechanism will save the nuclear agreement because if it collapses it could deal a blow to europe's efforts and credibility natasha butler al-jazeera paris and iran is preparing to mark the fortieth anniversary of the one thousand nine hundred seventy nine revolution on friday the islamic republic was created when ayatollah

hollow khomeini returned from exile in the following weeks his supporters toppled the shah of iran dynasty from power they must ravi reports. by the time i took the ruhollah khomeini stepped off the plane into one persian king here campaigned against for years from exile had left the country. grows a hell of a the shah of iran was gone never to return and his government back home was about to collapse and over the course of the next ten days khamenei supporters overpowered the shah's loyalists but cementing their control of the country was bloody work to this day how many people stand accused of widespread brutality and extrajudicial killings carried out in the frenzy of revolution but for iranians who supported him it was a time of hope and change every year iranians remember khomeini's triumphant return by retracing his steps. khamenei his motorcade took him past the monument built during his reign renamed freedom tower after the revolution fast forward forty

years and the events of that time that reshaped the region and the world continue to shape iran today. at the car now a member of president hassan rouhani as government became a seminal figure in iranian politics after the revolution she rose to prominence as the public face of iran during the u.s. hostage crisis it took our said fears of an american plan to overthrow khamenei and re-install the shah is why students raided the embassy and took fifty two people hostage the crisis lasted for more than a year in the days before the anniversary of the revolution she reminded people nine hundred seventy nine was a complicated time everything is that. the military is shaky the intelligence of this is shaky. and all the signals coming that there's something going on. with. this newly established and. for

people in power the benefits of toppling a corrupt king remain obvious and revolutionaries now leaders continue to paint pretty pictures of iran's future but for iranians now governed by them those pictures have begun to fade six years old when the revolution happened maria mahmoud honey attended khomeini's rallies with her mother even helped the activist of the time face off with police and soldiers. but she says for many iranians the revolution has come to mean little more than broken promises adds one more a good member young people building trenches making money out of cocktails and even though i was a child i helped them or accompanied my mother to rallies at least back then things were cheap but now i feel pity for the current generation forty years after the revolution iran has become a country of sharp contrast. iran today is more militarily capable but remains in a constant state of conflict with several countries politically more independent

from outside influence iran is still often isolated on the world stage and despite the fact that it is one of the largest oil producing countries in the world for millions of iranians prosperity is still something that remains elusive. to her own at least twenty nine children have died in a refugee camp in northeastern syria over the past two months i prefer mia is blamed for most of the deaths more than twenty three thousand people mostly women and children escaping fighting of arrived at the whole camp since the end of november the world health organization says many families made the journey on foot in freezing conditions and u.s. federal court has ruled the syria's government is responsible for the death of american journalist marie colvin in two thousand and twelve it's also ordered the payment of more than three hundred million dollars in compensation to her family the judge said syrian forces deliberately targeted the area where colvin and her

team were staying to silence her and other media considered critical of president bashar. i want he was appointed in october iraq's prime minister. demand he gave one hundred days to end its deadlock and begin putting into action much needed reforms of that deadline has come and gone and some iraqis say. hasn't done enough rob matheson reports from baghdad. when i finally took office last october after months of political wrangling iraqis hoped their stalled parliament would start working again one hundred days after he became prime minister some iraqis are disappointed by what's been achieved. nothing has changed politicians are self-serving and they don't pay any attention to people's unemployment poverty and burchill verses are rampant and fighting continues among politicians and the only victims are the people one hundred days

has passed and there is a good chance another hundred days will pass without major achievements while services keep getting worse. the prime minister announced the one hundred day deadline to try to force iraq's many political parties to break the stalemate which has ground parliament to a halt critics say he's failing because key government posts are still empty there are some signs of security checkpoints that would have dotted streets like this one all over iraq are being dismantled the government has been able to pass the twenty nine thousand budget but the prime minister's critics say that he's failed on one key issue and that's to get politicians to agree who should be the ministers of defense justice and the interior they say that unless those leave posts are filled the prime minister is leading a government which is incomplete and ineffective. the prime minister says his hands are tied because politicians still refuse to work together. and you committee if

you will. the prime minister cannot complete his cabinet because the sunni shiite and kurdish politicians are all wrangling with each other. not being able to pass a crucial spending bills and the prime ministers under pressure from the politicians and discontented iraq who are protesting about bad services the other naki is expected to serve as prime minister for four years but after months of political deadlock iraqis say they want results now rob matheson i'll just back down. of the funeral of an activist who sought justice for victims of war time sexual slavery is being held in south korea kim bach dong who died on monday was one of the thousands of so-called comfort women forced into brothels run by the japanese military join a second world war part of kim's funeral procession is taking place in front of the

japanese embassy in seoul rama pride is outside that embassy he joins us from there now so rob why has the his this death attracted so much interest in south korea. that's right has and this is been a highly charged ceremony at times very emotional the procession going through the streets of seoul followed by literally hundreds of people who have come come out kim was seen very much as they came to symbolize the suffering of the whole of the comfort women who had spent much of the latter part of her life campaigning for the cause she was widely traveled she spoke about the issue as you campaigned also and donated most of her or her own wealth to other groups dedicated to helping young victims of sexual violence in conflict zones so she was very much seen here as a figurehead of this issue which are still is

a very raw subject here in south korea that south koreans do not believe that japan has taken full responsibility for kim herself her lifelong hope was that the prime minister of japan. would give a full apology on behalf of the people of japan for the whole episode that of course he has failed to do and she has died without that as far as the japanese are concerned they said this issue was settled by an agreement they signed with the previous south korean have been astray ssion back in twenty fifteen and have accused the current administration every day going on that as an and rob the relationship between south korea and japan is often frosty but there's a particular chill at the moment it seems. absolutely there are various disputes at the moment between the two just briefly there is an ongoing route between south korea and japan over an encounter

a close encounter between a japanese a military aircraft and a south korean warship both sides accusing each other of threatening behavior that's going on and we also still have a row over a course where the supreme court of south korea ruling on behalf of forced labor laborers who were still about five thousand of them live in south korea who were forced to work for japanese companies with the supremes court of south korea saying that those japanese companies should pay those people who are still survivors and should pay them compensation that of course has been rejected by the japanese and so it goes on has a. pride life in itself thanks for. still ahead on al-jazeera brazil's indigenous communities protest president both sun otto's policies which they say threaten genocide. and u.s. agents make their biggest ever fentanyl drug bust on the border with mexico plus later in sport would tell you about one of the biggest deals completed in transfer

deadline day in the english premier league. hello again we're here cross north america we have been talking about the polar vortex for the last couple of days and it's easily seen here on the satellite all of this white that the satellite is picking up is the cold air from the polar vortex now the next few days we're going to slowly start to see those temperatures come back up no longer are we going to be seeing minus twenty five to minus thirty when a pig minus sixty if you hear on friday chicago minus five tronto minus ten still very cold temperatures but not as bad as what we have seen over the last forty two to forty eight hours across much of that area as we go toward saturday a little bit better across the region new york you're finally getting above freezing at about three degrees there down towards atlanta we do expect to see

about eighteen degrees in your forecast well here across the caribbean we see a lot of spotty showers across much of the area anywhere from parts of kin koon up towards cuba even up towards the bahamas we do expect to see some rain in your four to s for the bombs though we do expect that rain to continue things getting a little bit better here across much of the yucatan but down across parts of south america well we are going to be seeing some hot temperatures here across parts of one as odd as at thirty four that is start to get down as we go towards the weekend with the time to there are twenty six but a sense here on a very hot day at forty one. the weather sponsored by qatar and. every armed attack in europe creates fear and division amongst its citizens where stories of loss go on told. a sweeping association of islam with violence leaves erupt in muslims facing the stock reality of being ostracized by the very

communities in which they live love and moon the tragic loss of life twice evict and on al-jazeera. right out of on ma script examining the headline within with the fractious issue of palestine and israel in the u.s. news of the setting the discussions what makes them different as far as you're concerned sharing personal stories with a global audience nobody feels safe to explore an abundance of world class programming designed to inform motivate and inspire. the world is watching on al-jazeera.

hello again you're watching it is there a reminder of our top stories this hour venezuela's opposition leader has accused security forces loyal to president nicolas maduro of threatening his family and former military officers have also been arrested accused of plotting to overthrow the daughter. the u.s. senators back to measure up posing president trump's plan to withdraw troops from syria and afghanistan it says pulling out could allow i saw on the al-qaeda to regroup and destabilize both countries. the us president says progress has been made with china and talks aimed at easing the trade spat between the two powers but trump says no deal will be finalized until he meets president chinese president xi jinping. our landmark agreement between the european union and japan creating the world's largest free trade zone comes into effect today the deal

between brussels and tokyo removes e.u. tariffs of ten percent on japanese cars and three percent for most car parts in return. japanese duties of thirty percent on e.u. cheese and fifteen percent on its wind have been scrapped two economies account for about a third of global gross domestic product with a new partnership has been hailed as a step away from protectionism at a time when both are facing trading pressures from the u.s. on is a japan and korea editor with east asia for me joins us now live from canberra thanks very much for being with us so how significant is is this trade deal really yes a thank you for me so it's significant for three particular reasons one is the size the biggest free trade zone in history japan and the e.u. together make up twenty eight percent of global g.d.p.

it's also significance for the scope of liberalisation ninety nine percent of tariffs from the e.u. exports to japan and ninety four percent of japanese exports to the e.u. but perhaps the biggest importance is the geo political significance of the agreement it's pushing back against the global protectionist tired so the long stalled negotiations were revived after the mutual alarm from from europe and japan over the you know the trumpet ministrations protectionist approach to trade in the u.s. and they've also sought to implement the agreement now early. before any potential complications from from break that could arise at the end of next month and where do we expect japan in particular to go from here where there we're looking to two to make similar free trade deals within their region.

yeah i mean this is part of a broader strategy by japan it underlines japan's commitment to lead on free and open trade and to. bolster the multilateral trade rules regime that's under threat so from here to japan's already led the way on establishing the transpacific partnership eleven despite the withdrawal of the united states under the trumpet ministration it's now and had this deal with the e.u. economic partnership agreement and from here japan is really going to focus on an early conclusion of the regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement ostap which is the plus six the ten southeast asian nations and their six partners japan china south korea australia new zealand india towards an early realisation of this trade agreement and also japan is preparing to host the g twenty summit in in june

and as part of that japan should be expected to really push hard on w t o reform as a major agenda item and in pushing all these sort of free trade leadership elements together japan's really trying to leave the door open for the united states to return to its traditional economic values so multilateral free and open trade they have to leave the door open for the u.s. to possibly join the t.t.p. in the future there have been concerns expressed though that this this trade deal could give too much power to multinationals and and could undermine environmental and labor standards those concerns are those legitimate concerns you think what's your view. this is always a concern with mega regional free trade agreements but. in the e.u. case well the e.u. is always you know looking to emphasize the sort of things like the environment so

compared with other major regional free trade agreements i think it's less of an issue this time around than in past agreements but it's always something to continue to keep a watch on good to speak with you ben joining us there from cameroon and now the saudi oil giant a ram co has been valued at two trillion dollars and pumping more than eleven more than ten million barrels of oil a day last year the kingdom cancelled the firm's stock listing and investigates the reasons behind the ambitious offering. home to the muslim worlds holiest sites saudi arabia's real source of power comes from oil and saudi aramco turns that black gold into dollars and results a company which is never to be noted independently was the crown jewel of the so-called vision twenty thirty there is no doubt that iran co is one of the key pillars to this vision to the growth of our economy and to the progress of the

entire kingdom of saudi arabia. to put the company which funds saudi arabia's budget never appeared on any stock market and the kingdom's economy has tanked since then al-jazeera has investigated the ideas behind vision twenty thirty the politics of the kingdom which revolve around oil money and the reasons why the proposed sell off did not work the secretive company has never had to declare its financial reports and that as a massive transformation had gone public one of the major objections by people in the kingdom was their fear of the money would go into the pockets of. the other issue is the nearly constant oil build saudi arabia has claimed to own since it took over from american big oil firms which founded around called looking at their reserves figures makes if you look too closely at it you start. scratching your head you wonder how it can stay roughly constant from year to year when they're

there producing an export and so much oil every year five hundred thirty three million dollars five hundred twenty five million dollars that's peanuts for you here because to the crown prince spent millions of dollars to build an image of change and progress but the public relations drive abroad as well as any improvements at home have not proceeded as planned but i see that as a much bigger backlash that even the religious or conservative people is really unemployment saudis not taking jobs the biggest setbacks to shake investor confidence. in scheme after the confinement of top saudi businessmen the imprisonment of rights activists and economists and find the key the fallout from the killing of saudi journalist jamal to shrug and the force of skin for democracy and asking for people to be allowed to speak i'm asking for the minimum killing of the saudi journalist that has put them in the spotlight and if they come forward

and tell the whole truth of what happened if not they may be faced with harsh. economic sanctions. and if that's the case the market. seems to be saying well saudi arabia's economy is going to fall off a cliff. and you can watch all of this new special around coal the company in the states on friday a twenty hundred g.m.t. are supporters of lebanon's prime minister are celebrating the formation of a new government there satellite t.v. will head the new cabinet ending a nine month deadlock to destabilize lebanon's economy the breakthrough came after rival factions worked out a compromise that would allow representation of sunni lawmakers backed by the powerful shia group hezbollah activists in egypt are concerned that there

is a plot to silence them that's after a lawyer filed a complaint against for human rights groups who met french president emmanuel mark during his visit to egypt last week the complaint accuses the groups of offending the gyptian state and harming the country's interests it says they discussed death sentences and prison conditions with mccrum the complaint also says they talked about proposed constitutional changes i'm going to maggie is a research or at the middle east and north africa division of human rights watch she says the number of cases against activists are growing under president. we have seen these kind of companies inspired by lawyers who are very hyper nationalist and pro-government and the egyptian law unfortunately permits this kind of lawsuits filled by hand by lawyers who have nothing at stake at actually but they just live these. over productivity jones actually laughable

of harming national to get the and spreading false news and others could be different authorities to strip. activists from the egyptian nationality or to actually imprison them and we have seen the risk users acting in many cases upon these complaints and they are creating activists to court these lawyers have strong ties with the security agencies and we have seen this pattern also under president mubarak when lawyers who have ties with the government and security agencies filed complaints against writers and activists but under president c.c. . pornography think hugely and the numbers of cases of such cases are i think. and brazil hundreds of indigenous people have been demonstrating against president jail they say is government is taking control of their ancestral lands daniel schorr and that was at

a protest in sao paolo. representatives from some of the nine hundred thousand or so indigenous people got to the coffers ill have come to sell the biggest city in the country by this far away from those communities if they could possibly be but they're hoping they hear their voices will be heard anything from the sound we hear to protest against a government that wants to remove some of the rights we have the queue to decrease on by the president and generally the first is going to harm the indigenous people comes we want to get this document to know that he's while we are demonstrating in different parts the country today they are these are people who have been persecuted they say for more than five hundred years ever since the arrival of the first europeans they have suffered massacres they have suffered lang grabs but they're saying the situation now is that it's never been given the policies of the recently installed president joy about sanaa paulson out all during his campaign he said that not one centimeter of brazilian land would be dumber demarcated as he did to his territory he also asked why the one that's the one percent of the brazilian

population should have control over twelve percent of the country's land total. so they can get some much of that land was host to mineral wealth to turn logging territory that land should be exploited that should be allowed people should be allowed to make a profit that is also changing the law to allow more people to have guns first this is was really upset the indigenous community they fear a relaxation of the rules protecting their status within the constitution and any protections they once enjoyed under the law have been curtailed and they must now unify gather the support of as many non-indigenous brazilians as possible to try to fight against what they feel is a hostile government the u.s. agents say they've made a record of fenton no bust of the mexico border customs officers seized more than one hundred kilograms of the synthetic drug while brunell's reforms. u.s. customs.