you know that they are violating the treaty but there is also the mechanism of the special verification commission which couldn't be invoked and hasn't been as far as i know since two thousand and seventeen and perhaps if the two parties were willing they could sit together and try to find a way to agree to verification that the americans go see the nine am seventy nine and a letter russians view what they perceive to be these are offensive missile defense systems there must be some way of saving the treaty and recognizing that both sides have concerns how the europe deal with the consequences of this decision and this will draw. or that remains to be seen i understand that the european countries are concerned about certainly about the possible russian byelection but probably more concerned about the i.n.f. treaty going away altogether is certainly protected their territory for many years

now decades and trump is also saying that the u.s. will increase its nuclear arsenal is that concerning at all. oh definitely definitely not just the numbers but going to smaller nuclear weapons very concerning i think they. ratcheted up the arms race and i don't think we're headed in a very good direction all right so we'll leave it there laura could we thank you for speaking to us from vienna. tension thank you once more head on the al-jazeera news hour including iranians mark forty years since the revolution that forever changed their nation and appended the middle east. turning up the heaps confirmation of her record breaking says alert of a summer in australia. in sport le bron james is back after sitting out a big chunk of the season with an injury. story a little later.

but first there's just one month until u.s. tariffs on chinese goods will be increased to twenty five percent of the world's two largest economies can't reach a trade deal both sides say progress was made during today's a flag in washington for president donald trump and says nothing will be finalized until he meets the chinese leader xi jinping alan fischer has more from washington we have made tremendous progress we both want to deal but there's still a lot of ground to cover us president donald trump has been meeting china's vice premier in the oval office he delivered a letter from his boss chinese president xi jinping the topic the only going trade war between the two over both according to hold it would be good if you have been sitting around the table in washington this week trying to thrash out an agreement but after days of talks is uncertain there's a deal to be done it's going to scold you are going to be

a very big deal or it's going to be a deal that will just postpone for a little while but we've been dealing with china we've had a great. lation ship i have a great relationship with president cheney. the u.s. wants china to buy more american goods and to change the rules of doing business in china where american companies have to peer with local companies and hand over to treat secrets and intellectual property and good at a growing trade deficit the trumpet ministration introduced ten percent titus on billions of dollars of chinese goods coming into the u.s. that will kick up to twenty five percent if there's no deal by march but he the chinese have retaliated with kind of so of their own the president says any final agreement will be hammered out with him and his chinese counterpart it's a lot of work because this is a very comprehensive deal this is it what we're talking about you know they're going to buy some corn and that's going to be no they're going to buy corn hopefully they've got about a lot of corn and lots of wheat lots of everything else that we have but they're also talking heavy technology heavy manufacturing financial services and everything

in the united states and china of the world's two biggest economies there's pressure on both to reach a deal share because of the impact it's having on their own countries and the international monetary fund says an extended trade war will be bad for global economies alan fischer al-jazeera washington well chinese traders have been hoping often break through as they go into the lunar new year but as our china correspondent adrian brown reports the year of the pig is looking tough regardless of whether an agreement is reached. it's the world's biggest annual exodus when china becomes a nation in motion. some of these travelers leaving beijing railway station face journeys of more than thirty hours but as people prepare for their biggest celebration of the year there's apprehension over the slowing economy and rick criticism about who people blame don't tell by the common say it's good but they're

not doing it well she reports he seems to manage the higher ranks well but he doesn't seem to know how the people are actually doing. the rhythm of chinese new year is not for everyone he. manages a popular cuban dance studio in beijing she's decided not to travel to her family's home in northeast china this holiday partly it's because of the cost and partly because of the endless parental questions about why she's still single. second or people. in their thirties like me some call the left the over spring festival probably means burden of pressure for them parents of pester me to find a husband all year round not just adoring tennis so i am rather used to it or even say. zoo is also used to smaller class sizes now as more people cut down on

luxuries and that includes salsa classes. official figures show that consumer spending is remaining static while manufacturing output dropped for a second straight month in january the slowdown wasn't caused by china's trade war with the united states but it's making things worse. analysts say this is why president xi jinping is under pressure to make a trade deal with president donald trump as a prolonged dispute creates another risk he doesn't need right now. she is so worried that a few weeks ago he convened a seminar of high ranking party officials to discuss how to reduce the risks to china's economy the gathering lasted for days a measure perhaps of the seriousness of his concerns on monday chinese people here and around the world will begin celebrating the year of the pig traditionally the pig is

a lucky one the last time it was mark was twelve years ago when china was preparing to host the summer olympics and economic growth was a robust thirteen percent today it is less than half that. as china glides into the new lunar year there are predictions the economy will continue to cool in what's supposed to be a year the brings fortune to all adrian brown al-jazeera beijing. venezuela's opposition leader has warned national security forces loyal to president nicolas maduro to stay away from his family who accuse them of sewing up it has apartments while his twenty month old daughter was at home let's say a new man reports from caracas. the. self-proclaimed interim president why dog had finished presenting a planter national recovery at venezuela's central university when he made a personal announcement this special forces agents are at my home asking for my

wife. accompanied by diplomats opposition leaders and the media rushed home residents told us the police agents on two motorcycles had been there but had already left over the years i ordered a soldier so this country not to intimidate us or poles has remained firm we are speaking of the national plan while they were harassing my family because that's their modus operandi. the u.s. government has warned of severe consequences should anything happen do i lol government supporters call it a cheap publicity stunt opponents a useless attempt to intimidate them and to add more drama to the day the interior minister announced what he called a plot by mercenaries allegedly paid by the opposition to assassinate keep politicians and members of the military this he says in order to raise the level of upheaval in venezuela. and now he says that if you evidence the telephone

analysis and interrogations and i produced this morning to capture petard conal. not only is a cruel it's fifty four years old wanted for attempted assassination treason instigating an uprising attacking military facilities. earlier had presented the opposition's plan for the nation a road map pretty good political stability. the first priority he said is to obtain urgently needed humanitarian aid and that could put the army and president in a dilemma. neighboring colombia and brazil are offering to send the transition government food and medicine immediately now now i mean in the next few days the next few weeks so it's up to the armed forces it's up to the military if they're going to allow that food and medicine to come to the border or if they're going to you know keep supporting the block so they're going to have to choose between their

families and their leader or at least their what they call their presence. so far there are no signs that the military high command is planning to break with my little who insists that he's the victim of an imperialist could a ta. see in human al-jazeera products. let's speak to alfred marie's desire us is a former u.n. special operator and senior lawyer for the u.n. high commissioner for human rights is joining us from geneva thanks for speaking to us on al-jazeera so you recently said that u.s. sanctions on venezuela are illegal and that economic warfare is being practiced by countries like the u.s. as well as canada and the e.u. we know now that the united states has been upping the political and economic pressure on the country what impact is that going to have on the current situation as you see it's well when i visited venezuela in november december two thousand and seventeen there was no humanitarian

crisis there was a scarcity of medicines and skaar city of food cost mostly by the economic war caused mostly by the sanctions but of course and sanctions have been biting and the situation today is much worse than it was when i was in venezuela a year ago now priorities have to be now to calm the waters and i very much support the proposal of. mexico and euro boy to conduct an international conference to mediate. the president moment of brewery in montevideo i'd like to ask you about that conference in a moment but first just back this remember i think i want to get off my chest though just simply first back to your trip you conducted in twenty seventeen you yourself said in the report that you found internal over dependence on oil poor governance and corruption so to what extent in your opinion from what you've seen is the government of nicolas maduro to blame for the economic situation that's now

transpired into what some people call a humanitarian crisis well it is not a humanitarian crisis if you know the situation in gaza or the situation in yemen or the situation in syria you wouldn't say that but in any event the fact is that the government has. many ideologues and not enough technocrats and there have been important errors in the economic planning made but do cannot ignore the fact that a country that depends ninety percent on the sale of oil when. the price of oil is half that has an enormous impact and then in that situation what you need is international solidarity is to have helped the country get. its sovereign debt in order in order to be able to buy and sell like anybody else instead of that you

have a policy in the united states to make the venezuelan economy scream to as fix eate the venezuelan economy now that it was only. to make things slowed down but the impact is that people die sanctions killed and in my report i documented that and it is clear that if you cannot get three hundred thousand doses of insulin that have been paid because citibank does not effect the transfer if wells fargo. can sorts of payment of the seven and they have billion dollars made by brazil to venezuela for buying. medicines if. a financial transaction a made it's another seven billion dollars for the purchase of dialysis supplies are

blocked what do you think it's happening ok i'll just go back to the issue there are several years. moments ago on that conference that's to be held in europe why on february the seventh the seventh we know that the governments of mexico and europe why i have called for this conference both of them not supporting one quite though is that the way that the american. is that the way forward in your opinion how that is definitely the way forward but the main things the only people who have a right to elect the president are them and his whalen's it is not for the united states to goal and recognize a pretender it is not for the european parliament to recognise a pretender that violates the very fundamentals of democracy rule of law and human rights the european parliament is losing all of its credibility by doing and of course certain governments like italy and greece are not going along but it is not

consistent with current international law for outsiders to tell a country that they are not going to recognize the elected president of the prefer to recognize someone who self appoints him self as president don't forget there was a so-called cattermole not full there was a coup d'etat in the year two thousand and two with dozens of deaths and hundreds of people wounded and what did the forty eight hour president do the first thing he did is to abolish a constitutional court to abolish the chavez national assembly and to cancel forty nine pieces of social legislation for. years down the line right there i apologize yet we've run out of time but we thank you very much for speaking to us on al-jazeera thank you. now it's confirmed australia is in the grip of record

breaking summer heat january was its hottest month since records began in one nine hundred ten the average temperature exceeded thirty degrees celsius the bureau of meteorology says the heat waves contributed to a summer fixture eams and there been wildfires in the drought stricken south and floods in the tropical north. so stuff will tell us more about the weather segment coming up shortly then later in this news hour. for a long fight against wartime sexual slavery south koreans farewell a much loved campaigner and again demanded an apology from japan we also look at why farmers in india are protesting outside parliament. footballer. be set to remain in prison for at least sixty more days as he fights extradition to war coming up in sport a little later with paul. you

know there a number of records have been set in australia recently actually in december we had what was the hottest december on record and the records go back to nineteen ten and that made will help to make two thousand and eighteen the second hottest year on record and then january was the hottest calendar month ever in australia so something's clearly going along now over the last month we've had a high pressure system just to the east of australia and that's been with us off and on and has made sure that none of the weather systems have been able to pass through as they might normally do we've also had a very late monsoon in the north and that's ensured that the air over many parts of australia has been drier than usual and dry air can get hotter than moist air can

also on top of that of course we've got the changing climate in globally we have been watching those temperatures rise so these three things together what have contributed to our very hot month that we've seen things have changed there recently in the monsoon has now set in and it certainly has fitted with a vengeance over parts of queensland it's incredibly wet here townsville has seen four hundred seventy five millimeters of rain just in the last three days in this probably around four hundred millimeters more to come so plenty wet weather here all in the south the temperatures are soaring once more. we're heading to the place some deep in the true premium is on it's taking us two days on this boat just to get from the search through. what is being done to protect one of the region's most iconic creatures cars are disappearing because the legal pad trade with booming researchers wanted to see if reintroduction of

narcotics was a viable option to save some of these population pretty good. techno on al-jazeera . one of the really special things about working for al-jazeera is that even as a camera woman i get to have so much empathy and contribution to a story i feel we cover this region better than anyone else would get what it is you know that it turns out in the book to be heard because you have a lot of people that are deployed on political issues. the people who believe that tell the real stories just mended is to do the work journalism we don't feel inferior to the audience across the globe.

hello again the top stories on the al-jazeera news our senior figures in turkey's ruling party have the u.n. investigator looking into the murder of the saudi journalist. and advisor to the turkish president says the u.n. will listen to audio recordings of the killing and the u.s. is expected to announce it will stop observing a decade's old nuclear missile pact accusing russia of violating its the kremlin denies the allegations donald trump says progress has been made during trade negotiations with china but he says no deal will be finalized until he meets president xi jinping. hundreds of people have attended the funeral for a prominent campaigner for a south korean woman kept in sexual slavery during world war two came back to aung and thousands of other girls were forced to work in brothels run by japan's military mcbride reports from seoul. it

was a highly charged event walking alongside the coffin of a woman who's come to symbolize a cause that touches nearly everyone in south korea forced to work in a brothel from the age of fourteen kim book don't devoted the latter part of her life to making sure others wouldn't suffer like. she traveled widely to speak on the issue and supported groups helping the young victims of violence in conflict zones and then he turned on me as the japanese emperor was waging war and order was issued to collect young korean girls they said we would work in a factory to make uniforms for soldiers they just supposed to be took us. as evidence of her influence president j. and lead senior government figures to pay their respects ahead of the funeral. japan's military brothels and slaves thousands of women and girls from neighboring asian countries many from korea. the funeral procession led to the front of the

japanese embassy where campaigners hold a permanent vigil. rather than saying it has taken legal measures japan should offer a sincere apology that comes from the hat. kim taught us the universal value of humanity and that women should no longer unfairly fall victim to war. often frosty relations between japan and south korea are especially chilly right now. tokyo and seoul is still disputing a close encounter at sea between a japanese military aircraft and a south korean warship in december and the incident came soon after south korea's supreme court ruled in favor of a laborous forced to work during world war two by japanese companies with those firms now ordered to pay compensation japan called the decision totally unacceptable claiming the question of compensation had been settled by an agreement back in one thousand nine hundred sixty five as for the comfort women it says an

agreement reached with the previous south korean administration in twenty fifteen was meant to have resolved the matter once and for all accusing the current administration of reneging on the deal. many south koreans believe the fight for justice is far from over for campaigners kim was a symbol of that struggle in death she symbolizes it still rob mcbride al jazeera so. north korea has agreed to dismantle two if its military sites and open them for outside inspections ahead of an expected summit between donald trump and kim jong the u.s. special envoy will meet north korean officials next week to discuss the next steps washington has a list of demands for pyongyang including the destruction of all of its uranium enrichment facilities trump is expected to announce details of the next leaders' summit on tuesday. in june farmers have been protesting outside parliament demanding. better prices for their produce about six hundred million indians depend

on agriculture for their livelihoods and many have huge debts the government has allocated almost eleven billion dollars for rural funding and tax cuts in its twenty one thousand budgets. system professor of economics at carr university delhi she's joining us from new delhi thanks for speaking to us on al-jazeera so with the general election looming in india in april and farmers are making up a large voting block to what extent are their concerns now at the forefront of politicians minds. also had our budget big as it did today and you could see from that definitely the farmers crisis and the crisis in agriculture is up there in the minds of all political and this is that as the farmers will be hitting the streets and protesting continuously for over the last two years seeing that they're not getting

that mean that it uses that that is a debt crisis and therefore there is a crisis in india of its need to be disappointed. yes so is that scheme then going to change their situation. so the scheme announces six thousand rupees for all small and marginal farmers i believe that this is not. both in terms of strategy and in terms of the amount not something that would address the crisis and. if you look at the amount it comes to only about rupees five hundred a month that's not even ten dollars a month and that would not really help these farmers crisis what agriculture needs is further investments in infrastructure making the input costs law and these are things public investment in agriculture that we have seen falling over the last five years or so for the benefit of our international viewers just put this into

context for us and tell us why it is that farmers have been battling poverty for so long when india has really gone through a massive economic transformation. so although there has been a lot of information like you say in the last fifteen twenty years we must recognize that about half of indians still depend on that because for their livelihoods and therefore agriculture it's important for the agriculture to keep growing and the productivity in that vehicle to grow and that is something that has not been happening one of the reasons it's not been happening is that there is no investment in agriculture and there is also no expansion of banking that they did can be accessed by farmers from the farm and. the other problem is also that land ownership is highly skewed so most of the farmers a small farming is not enough for them to earn their livelihood and they depend on the blood might as well given these kind of structural factors

a lot of public support is needed for agriculture to grow and it will even agriculture growth that we can have transformation right now we thank you very much for speaking to us on al-jazeera from new delhi. it was supposed to be the biggest stock market offering of all time but the saudi oil giant around ko failed to hit the two trillion dollar value set by crown prince mohamed bin saddam on so last year the kingdom cancelled iran costars costings. investigates the reasons behind the failure of that ambitious offer. 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 rio 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. but the company which funds saudi arabia's budget

never appeared on any stock market and the kingdom's economy has tanks its 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 saudi aramco 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 royal family the other issue was the nearly constant oil build saudi arabia has claimed since it took over from american big oil firms which founded iran 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 the screeners for you to increase 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 and saudis not taking jobs the biggest setbacks to shake investor. it is game 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 the shock and the force of skin for democracy and asking for people to be allowed to speak i'm asking for the media to mom 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. asama bin job vade reporting there and you can watch the full al jazeera news special around co the company on the states on friday a twenty hundred hours g.m.t. thousands of iranians have gathered at an important shrine into mark forty years since ayatollah khomeini's return from exile and the one nine hundred seventy nine revolution in the weeks that followed khomeini's followers took on loyalists of the shah including police and soldiers assad had fled at the height of violent protests against his reign. israel is moving forward with plans to build a cable car over parts of occupied east jerusalem the government says it will

reduce congestion and attract tourists palestinians and critics say it's part of his really efforts to take more control of the city's eastern sector harry fawcett reports. so this is the area where the cable car is due to terminate just outside jerusalem's old city walls very close to the western wall very close to the locks a mosque compound known as the temple mount to jews it's being promoted by the israeli tourism minister and the mare of jerusalem as a traffic easing tourist attracting measure it's also being promoted by the city of david foundation which is due to build the visitor center cum cable car stop that's also the organization which is behind a lot of the archeological digging that takes place in this area and it's behind attempts to try to increase the jewish presence in the palestinian neighborhood which abuts this area the neighborhood of civil one which is in this valley just below us here now that's one reason why palestinians are opposed to all this the very funding for this project was announced on jerusalem day in may last year part

of a two billion dollars slew of projects of the israeli government announced including trying to increase the uptake of the israeli education system in palestinian schools increase business infrastructure increase the amount of archeological digging in areas such as this one so many palestinians see this as part of a wider attempt to cement and solidify israeli control in occupied east jerusalem there's also been opposition from israeli architects and n.g.o.s who say this will be a blight on a beautiful landscape that the fifteen pylons that will be used will be much bigger much more obtrusive than our than argued by the proponents and they also are attacking the argument that this will reduce congestion in the area they say that will merely move that congestion to other parts of jerusalem nonetheless the plans are now published there are sixty days during which members of the public can either. support suggest or oppose them before they're put for final submission romania has taken the rotating presidency of the european union for the first time

but it's already proving controversial the government is being accused of corruption and mismanagement environmental activists have also told al-jazeera that romania has been complicit in the destruction of some of europe's oldest and most important forests or enslave reports from the seven x. national forests. these high hills have proved rich pickings for people who show scant regard for the importance of ancient forests supposedly immune from exploitation they don't even try to hide their business it's all piled up on the roadside despite commercial logging in the national park being illegal nor did it take long to find the law because we'd been warned they might be armed so we kept our camera at a distance they insisted had won a government auction which allowed them to do this fairly the environmental activists trying to stop it's say none of this could happen without the government knowing if you slugging.