state in the united states presidential elections is now impacting washington's policy on venezuela. what's behind the rise of the economic freedom fighters in south africa as the populist party prepares to launch its manifesto for elections there and then sport i detained for any footballer will be in a thai jail for at least sixty more days as he waits on an extradition request more in sport. venezuela's opposition leader has rejected an offer from mexico and europe wide to mediate talks with president nicolas maduro won by those says the negotiations won't be neutral he is of course backed by several latin american and western countries and is seeking support from him to rise allies russia and china meanwhile washington is ramping up pressure on president maduro to step down speaking to exiled venezuelans in florida vice president mike pence said it's time to end what

he called majority dictatorship he also warned all options are on the table to deal with venezuela's crisis to be clear the struggle in venezuela is between dictatorship and democracy and freedom has the moment nicolas maduro is a dictator with no legitimate claim to power and nicolas maduro must go with those looking on should know this. all options are on the table. and nicolas maduro would do well not to test the resolve of the united states. or pence there speaking in florida or a closely contested swing state in u.s. presidential elections with a large number of venezuelan american voters and florida's republican senator marco rubio has been at the forefront of the trumpet ministrations response to the ongoing crisis she ever tansey now with a look at how the u.s.

is shaping its hawkish policy on venezuela. at a rally on friday republican florida senator marco rubio was emphatic my little still has time to leave where it's up to him but that window will close that time will pass and then it will be too late rubio has helped shape the trump administration's venezuelan policy reportedly speaking to the president at least once a month on the issue since shortly after his inauguration florida's venezuelan emigre community has forcefully lobbied for regime change the ferocity it displays with the overthrow of nicolas maduro has seemingly replaced that once shown by florida's cuban american population for u.s. intervention in its homeland younger cuban floridians are against confrontation with iran or the venezuelan community is key to the republican party's hopes of retaining power in florida and in the white house as changing demographics soften its grip on the state one cuban by rubio has received twenty thousand dollars from

an anti cuban government group co-founded by maurice your card like her own rubio has since hope club i carone join the national security council at the trump white house he's pushed for the escalation against the venezuelan government not the donald trump needed much encouragement he asked for a venezuela briefing on his second day in office over his focus was how finally to bring down the government in cuba. making it financially difficult for caracas to supply havana with eight and that remains the ultimate goal the white house is transparent it seeks the overthrow of the cuban venezuelan ambika rugland governments and u.s. control over the world's largest oil reserves it will make a big difference to the united states economically if we could have american oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in venezuela with the election of right wing governments in the region and the emergence of one guy do it

was decided the time and come for regime change why does popular will party has a strange itself from even large sectors of venezuela's opposition that favor dialogue and don't want war however he has a strong constituency in washington it was washington after all that groomed him for this moment but there are concerns in washington that the administration has mistaken opposition to president madeira for support for u.s. intervention or for candidates asking for military intervention and there are fears about what such a hardline foreign policy team will recommend if it has miscalculated a team that now includes elliott abrams who in the one nine hundred eighty s. oversaw the us his support for regimes that employed death squads in central america she had al-jazeera every few minutes in venezuela germany's chancellor angela merkel's weighed in on the crisis saying elections that returned majority power last year were not free connected the two lesion doesn't define him he wants

to contribute to make sure there is no escalation but also for the venezuelan people to be able to promote their own interests and in our view that can only happen through new elections. germany one of several e.u. countries in fact that issued an ultimatum last week from indira to call early elections a deadline which expires on saturday he will also face more protests this weekend is one why though calls supporters back onto the streets for what he says will be the biggest margin venezuela's history demonstrations that will coincide with the problem of. the twentieth anniversary of the inauguration of his mental the former venezuelan leader hugo chavez and still more the missouri government is trying to stay solvent by selling its gold reserves and emraan t. investment firm says it bought three tons from the central bank on january twenty first before the u.s. warned against dealing in its venezuelan gold so let's talk to vanessa newman now

a latin america analyst founder of the political consulting firm asymmetrical she's on skype from washington let's start with the gold story first of all. how viable an option is this for the major a government i mean they managed to get the emirates to buy some i believe it was the russians who facilitated the movement of it but there's also other reports that this isn't going so well and then they are starting to hold back on further transactions. yes thank you for having me on i mean basically is very much in keeping with the cup the craddick regime i mean this is a regime that's not only human rights abuses are and drug cartel and terrorist financier it's a great club talk recy it's estimated to have stolen somewhere around seven hundred or eight hundred billion dollars which is more than it would take to rebuild but as well as much more than when they were never got from the wall. so there is a duty mentality and when i was they were made twenty seventeen which has been the country was hot with all the protests and basically that i interviewed

a number of people some including in the venice wall and government policy affiliated with that opposition leaders n.g.o.s and everything and people close to the regime just made it very clear that their intention was to take as much money out of the country as they possibly could so that's in keeping on the other hand it's getting more difficult for them because there's greater vigilance greater surveillance and the sanctions regime is is vicious if it's going to iran that's busting those sanctions if it's going to russia especially those types of but this was not really sanctions so they're running out of options and they're just trying to set the thrashings of a drowning man basically. they really are in trouble the way you describe as if they're running out of options. you know what what options are there any options they have to think. well i don't know i mean there is no legitimate option after right i mean with the sanctions a bit of a start a lot of the sanctions on the people in you know around the what we call the couple

of of the regime who continue to be there so the sanctions have not gotten them out and the government has not reached for they can't seem to get rid of than they they have they have few options and also the oil production is way down not just because of the sexes but because they didn't they didn't invest in their capacity so that they couldn't even produce more if they if they had if they could you know if they had to finance a infrastructure is just not there so so the only option they have is sort of increasing illicit you know drug trafficking how many people can you maintain off that you can't meet in a whole country so so the noose is definitely type and now with this ancient i'm going to base as a military realize that they're not going to get a you know and they're facing a slew of attention criminal charges it's getting bad for motherhood oh let's talk about the coming weekend one guy goes promising war saying that will be the biggest

protests in venezuela's history there are going to be premature around these as well what are your feelings about where this is heading there is clearly a lot of supports for one going on internationally as well but and this is the thing i say to a lot of my guests maturer is not a man who would simply fold and say all right you won this. well not yet i mean i think i don't think he would fold and say you won i think it would have to be within his regime people would have to say listen this is really bad there's a lot of us here and you need to go because they have they don't for dan and. so they do have that option that anderson offers in and of itself controversial a lot about us thomas say wait a minute that's a lot of dead and tortured people all for you to just turn around and have and give them amnesty but so there's hope that they might have a sensible conversation with them and bundle and want to play after all that's the

reason why the date one way though publicly was sworn in was because it was that date nine hundred fifty eight we had such massive protests that the military bungled its then dictator our own traitor plain out ending that military dictatorship so they're trying to build a parallel so the strategy for the coming week is is twofold you have the extra arnel the us the international community in venice filed with them on a smaller one why though is increasing the pressure with calls to rallies using his newly appointed diplomats to to communicate on strategy with international with the international community the u.s. is tightening the noose on financially and there are also great more international a cut in more countries in the international community are recognizing that the more he is recognized by different countries the more the pressure is for all those countries to freeze bank accounts or even turn them over so that's really what's

going on here is that it's a multilateral pressure and i didn't see that occur so i'm sort of jump and it is always a pleasure talking to you thank you so much for joining us thank you so much for having me it was a pleasure. now u.s. immigration officials are force feeding detainees on hunger strike who are protesting against conditions at a detention center in texas immigration and customs enforcement or ice as it's known says eleven detainees at the processing center have been refusing food some for more than a month a report by the associated press has found up to thirty people are striking most from cuba and india in mid january a u.s. judge authorized the force feeding of six detainees being hydrated and fed through a plastic nasal tube the immigrants say they are protesting against verbal abuse and threats of deportation from guards they're also upset about lengthy lock ups while awaiting legal proceedings with us from washington we have got to

run who is the director of national policy an advocacy ad and i believe it's a salt or a sale t. the south asian americans leading together thank you for your time tell us more believe you are working with or in concert with the groups who are in directly involved with this texas decisions and what more you learning about the conditions there and why they've decided to go on on hunger strike. i'm sorry thank you for today to talk with their attorney a little bit earlier today in our understanding from her is that there are ten punjabi asylum seekers who are on hunger strike and nine of those were force fed and as you described earlier this involves a very painful nasal tube is being inserted which has been causing them great health. consequences and they are they're protesting their cases

having not been heard and they're seeking asylum and likely fleeing religious and political persecution from the state of punjab and. have crossed the border. the us mexico border crossing in tel paso and detained in this facility. actually can you tell me more about that as many as this story let me just jump in because this was one of the when we heard this story we thought it was interesting to hear that there were indian people making the border crossing tell us about their journey getting to south central america first before making this trip to try to get through to the u.s. . that's right and this i should note that this is not the first time the indian detainees have been held in the el paso facility this is happened before in two thousand and fourteen and then they were bangladeshi detainees in two thousand and fifteen and often their route involves leaving from bangladesh or india via plane and landing in south america and joining other migrants and crossing over south and

central america into and across the us mexico border and i think something to be noted of the indian detainees is that there is a very high percentage of them that are often denied their bond hearings which is the next step after they've passed a credible fear interview that validates their their fear of political repression from their home country and so they have every reason to be here but are being denied entry into the u.s. and asylum so tell us more than what can be done or you think can be done about this acute situation now the hunger strikes and full sweeping because as we pointed out. it has been approved by a u.s. judge. yeah this is incredibly disturbing these seekers are being denied their due process and the larger issue at play here is the lack of transparency and oversight over detention facilities in the united states

there is nothing that comprehensively regulates the ways in which detainees are being treated so that's something that we have salter working on with many of our partners to make sure that there can be a congressional delegation of members we know that representative escobar who represents the district where the facility is located has already been down there we're encouraging other members of congress to come down there to see for themselves what's happening and to make sure that there are laws in place that have very strict requirements on how these facilities can be treating detainees it's you know they shouldn't really even be held in these facilities while they're awaiting their. their cases there's no reason for them to be even held in detention facilities much less facing such inhumane conditions looks michoud around joining us from washington thank you for back to that information perspective the pursuers thank you. it. has stunned the footballing world by winning the asian cup for the

first time they beat japan three one in the final and abu dhabi to cap off what has been a remarkable torment dosage of barry with the support. this was the moment the nation's dream became a reality i. i tars national football team played their seventh and final match in the tournament beating the four time asian cup champions japan three to one. and they did it without a single qatari fan in the stadiums because all the matches were played in abu dhabi. since june of two thousand and seventeen saudi arabia egypt bahrain and the u.a.e. have imposed a land air and sea blockade on qatar accusing of sponsoring terrorist groups a charge qatar has denied. since then travel to those countries has also been restricted. the spike the politics surrounding this asian cup games qatar fans are simply proud. it's a great feeling thank goodness we got here after

a lot of hard work and perseverance. i can't describe my feeling today i feel as happy as any arab especially when my country achieved something like this it was a great game too and to beat such a great team like japan makes it an even bigger achievement it's a win for the amir the amir father and everyone who lives in qatar and every arab everyone without discriminating between them. it was a great game a very exciting game and thank god that the qatari team won i want to thank our boys what they've achieved from the start of the tournaments to the end. once the trophies were handed out in abu dhabi the real celebrations began and. the new champions are expected to return home on saturday where they will receive a royal welcome. as these asian games come to an end qatar's national football team

has proved that they are ready for the biggest football tournament there is the world cup and twenty twenty two which will be held in qatar as the final whistle was blown qatar became the champions of the seventeen asian cup games fans put onto the streets to celebrate their country's was her win this fight the underdogs in the tournaments certainly the celebrations will continue well into the night here in. dorset of bari al-jazeera doha. almost late for work because of all the traffic actually still ahead for you on the thailand takes drastic action to tackle its polluted air but activists say the real problem is government complacency. and i'm lawrence lee in romania which has just taken over the presidency of the european union and whose government stands accused of complicity in the mass illegal logging of its own forests and lindsey vonn announces the event where she will stay for the last time before retiring.

a log in a welcome back or across parts of china over the next few days not really looking too bad on saturday most areas are going to be free of rain so let's go just saturday map as we begin the weekend here for hong kong we are going to seeing partly cloudy conditions at twenty one shanghai could be clear with sixteen maybe a little bit cooler by the time we get toward sunday but notice the rain starts to come in on a map so one that is going to be a chilly and rainy day at nine degrees there well down towards the south and south asia we are seeing some very heavy rain showers across indonesia that has been the trend over the last few days to carter rain few bali as well up towards you know of though. so it is not looking too bad we are going to be seeing some partly cloudy conditions there temperatures into the high twenty's more clouds down here across

the southern philippines where temperatures into the low thirty's and maybe some rain coming into play by the time we end the weekend and then very quickly over here towards india we are going to see an increase of clouds over the next few days probably down here towards the south so on saturday still not looking too bad on your forecast so tonight we're going to be seeing a temper there of about thirty degrees kolkata at twenty eight but by the time we get towards sunday notice all the clouds across much of the south colombo could be seeing some clouds and some rain in your forecast and the temps are there about thirty. the weather sponsored by catalona. as politicians in washington over the border wall we talked to the people at the center of the story many of them just said oh no it's very dangerous because since the money comes out there and it's not it's a very safe place migrants smugglers and people who live along the border talk to all just zero. it's

a daunting climb to one of the holiest sites in bhutan. seems to defy gravity every few cities is expected to complete the pilgrimage to ensure peace and happiness what it became a democracy in two thousand and eight the time put happiness at the center of all political policy inspiring the u.n. to pass a resolution urging other nations to follow putin's example but how do you measure it many brittany's have finished his but when shit if it is quantifiable but by simply turning its pursuit into policy bhutan has done what no other country has.

this is the news from al-jazeera and these are our top stories the united states is withdrawing from one of its main nuclear weapons agreements with russia saying the nine hundred eighty seven intermediate range nuclear forces treaty has been consistently violated the taliban says u.s. president donald trump appears to be serious about taking his troops out of afghanistan it also wants to establish an islamic system under any peace deal and then as well as one quote though has rejected a mexico mexican and europe wine proposal to mediate between himself and president nicolas maduro. the opposition leader has declared himself interim president is backed by several western and latin american countries. we have got some dramatic new video showing the moment a dam burst last week in southeastern brazil this is the disaster which killed at least one hundred fifteen people with hundreds still missing for tory days and the reports from the moment the dam was nothing could stop this wall of

sludge and mont on the right of the picture employees can be seen driving around the mining complex in brazil seconds later the vehicles a swallowed up by tons of iron ore waste. parts of the nearby town of burma genia were also in gulf a week home from the disaster brazilians paid homage to the victims rescuers post the search for survivors as ten helicopters hovered about the accident site releasing flower petals well just as was a squirrel all the flowers that were released or donated by people to smore ning as a way to show their affection and respect for the victims mining is the area's main employer amidst the grief and the recriminations many a worried about the future. fate now from a junior will fall there will be unemployment the majority of people work in mining so the town will go down like i did my residence anger is mainly directed at the

mine owners dale the same part owners of a nearby mine where a dam burst in twenty fifteen killing one thousand people and causing immense environmental damage the wave of mud is now moving towards a major river there are fears it could contaminate water supplies victoria gate and be al jazeera. the south african opposition party the economic freedom fighters is launching its manifesto ahead of elections later this year and latest polls show that support for the populist group and its land redistribution agenda is growing it's a climb to third in the popularity stakes from either miller has more from johannesburg . south africans may argue about the strength of opposition party the economic freedom fighters the party won six percent of the vote in the last general election in twenty fourteen having been formed just a year earlier perhaps in significant when compared to the sixty two percent majority support of the ruling party the african national congress but surveys

suggest the e.f. if as it's known here has grown by up to thirteen percent since then we are the only growing political organization in south africa wanted to do. in terms of. the majority in parliament we have been leading in terms of key to begin to issues on the land on feet. on the discourse on corruption on job zuma and the visit to the ever thing all major political events that got to happen in south africa had been there to mind by the food wasn't it establishment it's become arguably the most vocal party in south africa's political landscape can you please look organize our. journalists are they still be you repeatedly disrupting parliamentary proceedings much of its anger directed against former president jacob zuma who's accused of corruption and leading numerous protests against unemployment

we're not going to be intimidated inequality racism and other social issues. while the e.f. five certainly has its appeal is specially amongst young south africans the party's had a tumultuous relationship with the media its leader julius malema has on several occasions states in to deal with journalists who leases serve the interest of soap. all white monopoly capital is accuse the media of protecting senior politicians including presidents of the ramapo some. while the if it has promised to tackle corruption it's faced its own scandals malema was charged with fraud and racketeering in twenty fourteen related to government contracts and recently the party was linked to the alleged looting of the v.p. s. bank when millions of dollars were reportedly transferred to the brother of the deputy president of the fifth party and both men have denied any involvement now do just a file of what do they have to offer in substance what are they promising i believe

that the bar is the role in south african politics that you don't really have to invent anything you don't have to come up with. out so innovative ideas about what you're going to do in government in order for people to look your direction and forward sometimes just taking an interest in position it's enough in a country that has an unemployment rate of more than twenty six percent mostly made up of the young the e f f as promised to create jobs and provide free education for all but it's been criticised for a lack of detail on how it will do this or al-jazeera johannesburg south africa. in libya at least for fighters loyal to the warlord khalifa haftar have been killed during hostilities in the south fighting broke out with another armed group in the town. after the libyan national army is seeking to expand its control in the south its main stronghold is in the east the world health organization says the campaign

which began two weeks ago has the fourteen people dead and injured dozens. and israeli forces have opened fire on palestinian protesters in gaza or injuring at least thirty to hundreds gathered for the weekly demonstrations near the border fence east of the gaza strip the rallies began nor most a year ago to pressure israel to allow palestinians the right to return to their former homes which are now inside israel the un envoy to the middle east and an egyptian delegation a meeting how mass representatives in gaza to find ways to stop the violence. the new. president to bring to the united nations egypt and the movement of leadership here to gaza this indicates two things the first one is the palestinian national project in its integrity and the palestinian question in its political dimension as well as the situation in gaza and the march of return to break the blockade the general national scene in gaza the west bank and jerusalem and all this is now a t. junction at

a very critical and precise stage. cory booker of new jersey has become the latest democrat to enter the race for the party's twenty twenty presidential nomination the forty nine year old has been a vocal critic of president donald trump he joins a crowded field of democratic candidates with eight others officially in the running he is the second african-american to join the race after the harris and another prominent democratic contender senator elizabeth warren has apologized over a d.n.a. test she's done to prove her ties to a native american tribe she's been criticized for claiming some of her ancestors are from the charity nation president trump has repeatedly taunted her over the issue calling her pocahontas on twitter thailand's government is being accused of not taking bangkok's pollution problem seriously as the city chokes on a worsening haze officials are now experimenting with some unusual solutions as well when hey has more. face masks have become

a necessary fashion accessory in bangkok the thai capital and its people a choking under heavy air pollution oh no this makes me gravely concerned about my health every time i'm outside i feel i shouldn't breathe air at all i heart the situation won't last long. i think the government should have better measures like car free days that would help reduce pollution closing the schools helps and offering discounts on public transport would also schools were ordered to close for two days but some here say the government's response has been slow and at times bizarre it spied water into the air and launched drones to spray water from the air i think your finger on combating pollution if it were straying. from many respect the. fact is a p.r. stunt the government has defended its actions but doesn't seem to have a long term plan to fix the problem the bangkok administration has called for help

from experts there are many causes of the pollution which is made worse at this time of year because of the still dry weather conditions farmers burn off their fields their respect and of course bangkok's notorious traffic the city has a fleet of old diesel buses that emit smoke and fumes more rigorous testing of emissions has begun and the prime minister has even floated the idea of ordering diesel vehicles off the roads it's become a sensitive issue a thirty seven year old blogger was arrested and charged with violating the computer crimes act for writing that a woman had died because of the pollution the police say it was false and he could be jailed for up to five years wayne hay al jazeera bangkok. pacific it has been confirmed australia is having a record of a summer january its hottest month since records began in nineteen ten the bureau of meteorology says the heat waves contributed to

a summer of extremes wildfires in the drought stricken south and flooding in the tropical north of the country. romania is celebrating taking the presidency of the european union for the first time struggling to shake off allegations of government corruption and mismanagement environmental activists say it's been complicit in the destruction of some of europe's oldest forests florence they reports now from the senate national forest. 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 log has we'd been warned they might be armed so we kept our camera at a distance they insisted they had won a government auction which allowed them to do this fairly the environmental activists trying to stop its say none of this could happen without the government

knowing if you slogging conservations are most of the times approved by the state but when we write letters and make complaints the minister herself is answering to our said there should be no logging in national parks so there is a little contradiction here they approve it and they say it's not legal at the same time but you can see it i mean we just drove up the track and it's here you can't you can't miss it all over in any nation are parked in the town which sits below the national park a huge steel works used to provide employment for nearly everyone but not any more nothing was found to replace the jobs so it's easy to see why logging became such a large industry romania's forests are vast which is partly why the locals get away with it some of this woodland is among the oldest in europe but large areas have been cut out of it the government keeps secrets any records of what's legal and what isn't so global companies which buy romanian timber furniture.