and finally in the fight is through two or three corridors within the within the village itself and the trying like that is likely to be a very tough fight but in terms of actually giving up a lot of arsenal forces have already given up from those villages they've been arrested they've been taken away and they are now in s.t.'s controlled areas what happens then we don't know but these fighters they likely to be the hardcore and if you take a look at any kind of i support we're going to say that they're going to fight to the death all right hey man thank you for that let's go over to washington now and correspondent heidi it was a couple of days ago wasn't it the donald trump stood up and said that i saw was already defeated it sounds as though he's not making a distinction between the caliphate and the ideology. that's right and there has been so much shifting messaging coming from the trump administration if you remember in december when he announced his intentions to withdraw those two thousand some u.s. troops from syria he declared on twitter that i saw was already defeated he has

since had to walk that back significantly in the state of the union speech that the president made last week he said that i saw was that the u.s. led coalition was near victory were his words and now he says that eisel will likely the lose all of its territory by next week on the same breath reaffirming determination to withdraw those two thousand some u.s. troops now the timeline set by the end of april did so to fulfill his campaign promise to withdraw the u.s. from these unpopular foreign campaigns however the recipients of the coalition members in syria have been the recipients of mixed messages from the administration trump has recently said that those countries need to poll more of their own weight in this battle against eisel but u.s. secretary of state mike pompei o has reassured them that even after u.s.

withdraw their troops from syria that this is not the end of the u.s. its fight against however how that might continue still remains to be seen all of this being overshadowed by a recently released report from the u.s. pentagon that says that found that after u.s. withdraw its troops from syria likely ice the will regain territory within six to twelve months that determination coming from the u.s. military itself all of which leaves the region in a very troubled waters martine thank you very much. sixteen soldiers have been killed in western afghanistan in fighting with the taliban four others were injured in the overnight battle with government forces in the state of further are the taliban's kept up attacks on the afghan military despite the recent talks which are aimed at ending the seventeen year conflict. israel's prime minister says he intends to introduce

a controversial new law within the week it's known as paid to say in this is how it works the palestinian government pays compensation to the families of people who've been arrested or killed whilst carrying out attacks under the new law israel would doubt an equal amount to that compensation from tax funds that it raises for the palestinians if the law is passed it would cut revenue to the authority by around three hundred thirty million dollars a year let's go live now to leicester is a marker respondent there is hurry forces and this is a very controversial law isn't it i mean just the very name of it but it could deprive the palestinians of a very significant amount of money. that's right yes what will pay for slate is the label that the israeli government and indeed many u.s.

politicians use to describe this this provision that the palestinian authority makes for prisoners and their families which they say is a prisoner welfare system but yes it would be a substantial change to how things work the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu has long argued against this but now he is saying let there be no doubt that israel will deduct the money that the p.a. pays terrorists in his words and their families and then he says that this will be implemented this week and the first security cabinet after that information to take place next sunday will be where they make their first calculation and the way that they're going to calculate it according to this law which was which was passed by the knesset the israeli parliament last year is that every month they remove a twelfth of what the estimate is of the p.a. payments or of the p.l.o. those payments to prisoners and their families from the last year some questions as to whether the entirety of that three hundred thirty million dollars which is the

israeli figure that's been used in the past and it coincides with the budget for what it sets aside for such programs whether or live that will be taken away or whether potentially they will target just money that goes to those convicted of killing israelis or who have died after killing israelis we wait to see but certainly the person of authority has come out very forcefully against this saying it's been done in coordination with the americans just in order to put greater pressure on the palestinians and of the launch of the trump peace plan and the p.a. saying that this is nothing short of piracy and that these are public funds that are due to the people of the occupied west bank and harry made mention of the fact that benjamin netanyahu in the past has been rather reluctant to enforce this kind of legislation but now things are the king that got anything to do the fact that elections are on the horizon. certainly he's under

political pressure to be the man of the rights and of a tough line against the palestinians he's trying to sort of delineate his own position in that territory from his main challenger benny gantz and we are just a couple months out now from the elections as well as that there is also the fact that this law was passed last july and there had been an intention which should come in in january after the calculations of last year's prisoner payments had been made and if there'd been any doubt about it well i think the events of the last couple of weeks and indeed this weekend may well have tipped to move the edge there have been a series of attacks in which is readies have been killed by palestinians there were some there were the at least two shooting incidents in december and then this weekend there's been a terribly grisly murder of an israeli nineteen year old woman in a forest towards the southwest of jerusalem the man who was picked up for that in

ramallah in the west bank on saturday morning he according to israeli media has admitted to the crime and has been reenacting what according to those media reports was first a sexual assault and then a killing and there's been a huge amount of outrage to that attack to that murder the police have yet to confirm benjamin netanyahu hasn't yet called it a terror attack the police are saying or are indicating that they are examining a political motive given some of the activities of this suspect in the past so far no comment either from the palestinian authority or from hamas in gaza however as i say a huge public reaction of outrage in israel over that and certainly not to institute this would have been a difficult decision politically i think for benjamin netanyahu this weekend carry forth it live in less seriously and thanking. environmentalists in india say the government's efforts to clean up their polluted

waterways is simply not working. african union outgoing leader has managed to achieve. and. come back to the rockets in the n.b.a. . action in school. program in spite of warnings from the united states the announcement was timed to coincide with the fortieth anniversary of the islamic revolution that toppled the shell and ushered in decades of hostility between the two powers than a honda reports from the capital tehran it has been forty years since the revolution that changed the face of this nation iran's pro he policy was reversed

little has changed since opposition to the u.s. and israel are still very much part of iran's foreign policy. relationship with the us and israel we have a problem with these two countries we are independent and that's why they are putting pressure on us. relations between washington and to her on are at an all time low since president donald trump took office and reimposed sanctions after were drawing from the two thousand and fifteen nuclear deal signed by world powers western sanctions have been a fact of life for decades ever since the storming of the u.s. embassy in tehran in one nine hundred seventy nine and the ensuing hostage crisis but iranians are hurting. we need relations with other countries so that people are not on employed when rouhani came to power he visited many countries if some allow them to continue everything would be better. the iranian leadership did back president hassan rouhani is engagement with the west that led to the nuclear deal that was supposed to usher in a new era in relations until the u.s.

withdrew. for years all i told our officials in closed meetings and people publicly that we shouldn't trust american officials promises smiles and signatures. to europeans i'm not saying we should not have relations with them but we shouldn't trust. has been open. with the united states for many years. that's why. speech talking about resolving issues first worked out the problem is that the first. there seems to be little optimism about the future especially because of what iran's supreme leader considers a hostile us administration and its hostile policies towards this country the revolution is about ending western influence in its offers then wanted to explore

those ideals to the world by doing that iran earns enemies it is he was meddling in the internal affairs of neighboring states and the united states uses the greatest threat in the middle east. iran is involved in wars across the region where it backs mainly proxies to iran says it is about countering u.s. and israeli dominance some arab governments see it differently iran's regional ambitions transform the middle east in fact some iranian officials don't shy away from boasting about arab capitals now being part of the islamic revolution. now the iranian foreign minister has offered support to lebanon at the start of a two day visit. is the first foreign minister to visit since lebanese politicians ended months of deadlock to form a unity government he says his country is ready to cooperate in. the iranian backed

. three ministers. in this new government wants lebanon to accept anti-aircraft weapons from tehran in. this visit has to be the first to express our support to our brotherly lebanese people the second is to declare that iran is ready to cooperate with the government as we said before we're always ready to support lebanon militarily iran has the will but we're waiting for it to come from the lebanese side. because we decide we need a now he's a director of the levant institute for strategic affairs he's also a columnist for al monitors lebanon pulses joining us live from the lebanese capital beirut thank you for talking to us this seems to be a show of unmitigated confidence on the part of the arraign ians. yes and especially it comes at the very critical thought i mean it sounds like two or three days big before the war so meeting where the main topic will be confronting

iran and against that background also that is offered or made by mr nuss run law has been. two days ago that he's ready. to. receive it is the equipment by iran to that he but he's army of any side system and everyone knows that the major topic on the vaso meeting will be how to thwart the iranian threat so this. very critical moment it shows as well. on from in the iranian point of view on the fear of influence and it comes after mr. foreign minister declared his intention to visit long so it's kind of lebanon transformed into a scene where regional powers are competing everyone knows as the major

the major provider of equipment and training to that had been his army the united states of america so the offer today by iran to equip. yemenis on me raises more than a question and put driven on in jeopardy in case it's accepted to be of. date set me out is that you get to interject and say that it's well known how precarious how fragile these coalitions all in lebanon how much of a risk is the newly established government with a with a a greater representation of hezbollah how much of a risk is it taking by flashing so obviously an ostentatiously with iran. definitely because political. divident very delicate political. rests on a very for a child consensus and the major building block of this consensus is what we call

the principle of distance creation or neutrality of lebannon that given on can not be aligned to any regional power because of the political deep divide on the iranian. issue on the syrian issue on the hezbollah arms issue so the formation of the government that came after eight months of political and constitutional void rests on this very fragile consensus today trying to squeeze lebanon on in that year a new axis this would put in danger its domestic stability its economic stability at a very critical moment where lebanon needs all the kind of support to take a distance from the regional conflict because it is on the ads of an economic

collapse right sammy naida thank you very much in days it'll be just live from beirut. all right time for the weather now evidence here with news it's a rather rare snow in seattle yeah that's right seattle's one of those places martin that doesn't actually see that much snow is like manchester is always raining but you don't really see a whole lot of snow and that's because it's part just on the edge of the pacific ocean so we get our mild air that mild moist air drifting in from the pacific look at lovely swirl of play out there that's just been rolling in across that western side of washington state as we went through the last twenty four hours or so and this is actually a street when on the mounds is not in the cascades that is a street where we saw around sixteen centimeters of snow could easily see another ten centimeters or as we go on through the next twenty four to thirty six hours but some pieces of snow there for seattle for the remainder of sunday temperature one

celsius average is about ten degrees so that is well below the average you see the snow comes down across the rockies and other areas snow just around the plains great plains right the way in sioux the the lakes into the upper midwest and then we got some moisture just pushing in from the gulf of mexico i running around seven celsius for dallas the warmth will win out we'll see this rain pushing further north let's turn to snow on the northern flank yes but as seven turns into a seventeen for dallas but there's more snow just coming back into seattle as we go on through the course of a monday as we go on into chews day that snow will creep its way up towards the northeastern corner and you guessed it marty more snow for the northwest. evident thank you still to come here on the al-jazeera news hour we look back at the lindsey vonn has hired a women skiing as she calls time on her career clear will have the time the rest of the sports news in just a little while. as

venezuela is on the brink. with two men facing off for power. one of the self-proclaimed interim venezuelan leader. to al-jazeera. to. al-jazeera coverage the same. feelings watching us on the reports see africa as it is. the. same way we take our time getting to know the people we meet the soldiers are in order to convoy hit the road and say you see in the cross one as i was there reading about telling stories

ultimately it's not just about al-jazeera it's about the people who tell the stories about. time for us to take a look at the main stories here on the news a kurdish forces backed by the u.s. are trying to push i saw from its last pocket of territory in eastern syria the offensive by syrian democratic forces e.s.c.'s is for. because on the village of bunkers close to the border with iran. and u.s. and russia have come up with counterproposals at the u.n. to try to solve the crisis in venezuela washington is calling for fresh elections where russia is warning against using force to remove nicolas maduro.

but we say with venezuela because of course this is a country that is now trying to protect its oil resources and try to minimize the effect of tough new u.s. sanctions now there's a reuters report exclusive it says that claims that the state run oil company is asking its foreign partners in joint ventures to put their money into new russian bank accounts but the russian bank gazprom bank says petroleum venezuela open these accounts several years ago they're not new now to throw b.s. to venezuela is also asking another joint venture company to cap cut back on its oil output meanwhile there's a partially loaded oil tanker just there if you can see that a blob there right on the coast of venezuela now this is abqaiq is from saudi arabia and is due to arrive within the next twenty four hours or so we expect to a port along the coast from caracas you can see that has been making its way

through the caribbean and this is a tanker that apparently can carry up to two million barrels of oil let's speak to initiate attack in who's an independent oil and energy consultant and a former opec official he's joining us live from london thank you very much indeed what do we think this saudi registered tanker is doing we understand it's only partially loaded is it bringing something or will it be taking away from venezuela . well i honestly i don't know what this is normal is nothing unusual except international network of is trading and exchanging is going on all the time here but mr bailey mr talbot oddity of the crude mr talking is a saudi a saudi transaction with venezuela hasn't happened for at least two years we understand that. our history i do not have any.

knowledge other than guessing that the type of crude that venezuela needs for its field operations might be that is the part of the time that they could import from the very light oil from saudi arabia maybe i'm right don't think this is anything this first is specific this is normal transaction going on around the world in the world promises all the time except wouldn't this be in complete contravention of u.s. sanctions journey the twenty eighth the latest tranche of sanctions by the u.s. against specifically the oil industry in venezuela i mean this would be flouting them completely. well that the really depends. on the interpretation i don't know you see if it was a yesterday or a few days ago that this sanctioned by united states treasury was imposed on pay this are the national oil company of venezuela and saudi arabia is in the good books of the state so it will speak but the transaction operations of saudi aramco

and pay their various are our intermingled according to cover short on business requirements i don't think we should be too much of it i'm not sure if the actual terms and the wording this is illegal of the terms of the sanctions by the office of control as of control of united states bans the salary carrier to take the i don't think there's anything right this year sanctions are unfortunate because as this case is equipped men selling and buying really the whole network of the world is all interconnected and sanctions have pair operations as well as of course the financial banking transaction which is different than other hair the altogether for gray davis or now we understand the venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world but it is the oil that you get in venezuela was is is a heavy crude oil in order for it to be commercially viable it has to be diluted by

some other by lighter kind of oil and that in the main has come in the past from the united states that's now stopped could it be getting it from somewhere else i mean it needs it in order to continue with its transactions. of course they would they have their own light oil fields but maybe not enough to provide the mixture to for the area or for the already norco belt so these are the provinces within a larger the have heavy oil and extra heavy oil and their operations are very and again i repeat that the fact that they could get in there used to get nice oil from the united states now they could get it from somewhere else my guess at the beginning was that maybe this hour the carrier is bringing extra light oil from saudi arabia in anticipation of the us sanctions that had its transaction to buy it from there i don't know but this is normal under repeating that these limitations

are unfortunate from the point of business as an oil company person i think it would be sad to be hampered politics imposing these restrictions on their own company management who want to do their best and optimize their operations internationally both american companies will be upset and i have to manage through these seeing his unwelcome as well as the venezuelan oil companies manage here talking thank you very much indeed for telling his life from london thank you pleasure now government prosecutors in sudan have admitted for the first time that a protest died in custody after being tortured he was a schoolteacher and he was detained during demonstrations against the government of omar bashir and his death is called swine spread anger and condemnation mohammad vali reports of people in the town of heisman is tim sudan came out like one family for the funeral of their school teacher. he died while being

tortured by members of the state security after he took part in anti-government demonstrations. he died in custody members of security killed him but he wasn't a very good health when he left home. ahmed's friend who was arrested with him said he saw him while being beaten. he lay on me like this off today knocked him down you continue to move sideways from pain and say are are after a while he was completely still the security guy tried to wake him up by tapping his jeans i told him this man is dead he said let all of you die for your revolution but then i uncovered his body and started inspecting his neck because it was swollen i couldn't tell if it was broken but the marks of torture were very clear on that. for several days so then his security forces continued to hide the

truth claiming died of an illness. zoe he his family were invited to see his body they were sure that no violations were committed and that he had not been tortured but that account turned out to be a lie officials conducted an autopsy to determine the exact cause of death the prosecution has found the death of this person to be the result of several wounds inflicted on him those responsible should face trial according to the law. but taking the perpetrators to justice may prove difficult than security forces usually refuse to let their members be tried in civilian courts and the belated confession has not satisfied it's family or the protesters is the past turned into a public course and the rallying cry for more protests and anger against the government of president obama bashir. in his hometown ahmed's

family is still trying to make sense of the loss silence dominates the school where he was teaching his students are unable to get over the shock. of video was made to remember his life he talks about the value of the school teacher to humanity and denounces ahmed's the as equivalent to the killing of the future of an entire nation. and dizzier. that the egyptian president abdul fattah el-sisi is to chair the african union now from today at its annual summit which is taking place in ethiopia at last for a year and i am the sea international fears that this could undermine the etudes commitment to protecting human rights on the continent that the organization has expressed concern over the potential impact of his chairmanship what it could have

on the independence of regional human rights mechanisms and their future engagement with civil society amnesty goes on to list of violations that it says were carried out by egyptian authorities themselves including in force disappearances mass killings during a wave of demonstrations in twenty thirteen and that of course was the year that the african union suspended egypt after sisi led the military coup against the democratically elected president mohammed morsi. well leaders from a u. members and other world leaders they're all meeting as i say in the capital at this other than our correspondent malcolm webb is there as well american says the african union is really editing. editing. efforts to restructure itself one of the big issues that it has is financing itself isn't it and so all says they're in him playing now this other there are some other rather

important and influential people who may be able to help the african union with its goals. so many just a short while ago we heard from president paul kagame of rwanda he's the outgoing chair those reforms have been on on his agenda he's trying to push through as many of the me he can with mixed success on the financing trying to get a situation where all member states will contribute to the cost of the african union but at the moment it does still depend a lot on donations from countries outside of the confidence of looting several european countries also during the opening ceremony we heard from the incoming chair president abdel slices l.c.c. of egypt we also heard from billionaire philanthropist bill gates i was here to talk about health care users spoke exclusively to al-jazeera i asked him why you

come here. my focus is on the opportunity. of the human capital here in africa that the right things are done with the young people in terms of health and education that there's a very bright future for the continent there's a lot of great examples here. who've done an amazing job getting their primary health care system working and you know no reason why that can't be done in in all fifty four countries. in the opening ceremony we heard from the second vice chair president. of the democratic republic of congo now this is of some significance the democratic republic of congo held elections in december when the electoral commission announced the results in january they were disputed it contradicted the opinion polls that contradicted data that was leaked to the press and they weren't accepted by opposition initially they weren't accepted by the african union. rejected the african union expressed.

he was announced the winner is here he spoke to the leaders african leaders who'd got it so this is really quite some indorsement new leader of the african union having expressed doubts about that election just a few weeks ago malcolm webb in this have a very capital at the african union's annual summit thanks thank you very much. now to spain where thousands of people are demonstrating in the capital against the prime minister pederast sanchez they're calling for tougher measures on catalonia his campaign to split from spain now the protests follow as prime minister sanchez saying he'll appoint a rapper ter to join talks to ease political tension with catalonia demonstrators say he's some rendering to pressure from the separatists. the father of the three year old syrian refugee alan kurdi whose body washed up on turkey's sure in twenty

fifteen is in new york or in spain abdullah has been there to rename a refugee rescue ship operating in the mediterranean the photograph of his dead toddler sparked a wave of outrage across europe and there to demands that more be done to protect those making the dangerous journey from north africa to europe parts of india's young moon a river which flows through new delhi are so polluted so filthy that environmentalist say it's dead nothing to live in now while the government spending millions of dollars on treatment projects raw sewage is continuing to pour into the river every day as laura burton manley now reports. at first it seems these fishermen are paddling to use by.