when the ship was sinking drowning all those horrifying images were flooding into my mind the moment my children and i were drowning we went on board the boat i saw my children dying in front of me one after the other each was crying out for me saying or my father or my father my wife was saying. across the world tribute was paid to his suffering. but more than three years have now passed the ship carrying alan curds name will not leave doc soon because so many governments amounting legal challenges to their rescue operations the ports of europe are closing the hearts may have been opened by the iconic picture of alan but those hearts are now hardening that every family and every boy like alan krueger who lost his life is one too much and it's not even about how many it's if there's even one person having to do this journey and johnny not getting help then

that's already too much abdul ahad a message for the people of europe i call on them he said to open their doors to these desperate people they are in dire need of help they're not coming here of their own free will they are running for their lives out of war of killing and destruction of. david chaytor al jazeera majorca. plenty more ahead on this news hour including anger in sudan over the death of a protesting teacher who was tortured by security forces. why north macedonia is rewriting its textbooks and relabeling public monuments. and ski legends lindsey vonn has raced for the last time at the well championships in sweden leo will have more on her at that career in sports.

while talks to about another government shutdown in the u.s. have stalled just days before a deadline over funding is due to expire there's a dispute between republicans and democrats over the immigrant detentions president on trump agreed last month to end the thirty five day partial shutdown with a three week spending deal the political deadlock is over funding for trump's proposed border wall with mexico the u.s. president has been quick to attack the democrats over the breakdown of talks trump tweeted it was a very bad week for the democrats with the great economic numbers the disaster and the state of the union address now with a terrible office being made to them by the border committee i actually believe they want a shutdown they want a new subjects well evan siegfried is a republican strategist and he joins us now live on skype from new york city evan clearly the talks on going well what are the chances of actually reaching a deal. well there are two types of chances here they're the chances that senate

record the house and senate republicans will agree with house and senate democrats and they will come up with a deal but whether or not the white house is up and there is even more room of the white house has to agree to whatever comes out there out of the congress because of the congress passes that and the white house doesn't agree the president will likely veto it or he just won't even sign it and then we'll have a government shutdown and the president has stated emphatically he wants a wall he wants serious border security and right now democrats do not seem to be willing to give it up well democrats have said they want to cap the number of beds in detention centers i mean how that how's that going over and these tolls well the democrats and republicans are completely divided on beds they're divided on the border protection itself whether or not we should be increasing the number of customs and border protection agencies whether or not we should be adding more immigration judges there's a lot that there is not being agreed on and that's probably the only thing people agree on right now however i think that at the end of the day they need to have

a deal done by tuesday at the latest in order to have it you know the government not shut down because even if they have a perfect deal that everybody agrees to do you still have to voted in and that takes time that would take about three legislative days and seven in your mind is a day a likely and if it is unlikely what happens now. i think a deal between republicans and democrats is likely but a deal that the president accepts i don't see president trump accepting a deal and that would probably push us toward a government shutdown or the president will the grudgingly say all right i'll sign this and avoid a government shutdown but i'm going to make an emergency declaration to build the wall which would then be challenged in court and be most likely overturned as an abuse of executive authority and also republicans are worried about having declaring an emergency because it would provide the framework for a future president would say as a democrat to bypass congress and take action on what they declare an emergency

climate change or gun rights and very conservatives are very worried that that would put too much power in the presidency when the congress is actually supposed to be the most powerful branch of government and then how is all of this playing out with the republican policy well as i mentioned the republicans are worried about the national emergency and to be honest we haven't as a party been that upset with the fact that they're to go she asians go out we have expected that democrats would come to the table because they said if we reopen government then we would be able they would be willing to talk about the wall but the second the wall or government was reopened nancy pelosi said no wall no ifs ands or buts so it was a we gauged in good faith and we were met halfway by nancy pelosi and democrats so republicans are ready to see what democrats are going to do because democrats really are in control of the house of representatives and they have to bear some of

the responsibility if there is another shutdown evan seyfried their republican strategist thank you so much for your time and insight seven thank you. well saying we are all tired of the shutdowns the latest democratic presidential contender amy club has launched a campaign for twenty twenty the u.s. senate and made the announcement in her home state of minnesota a former prosecutor was first elected to the senate in two thousand and six the first woman to do so from her state last year she made headlines for grilling president tom's supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing we are tired of the shutdowns and the showdowns of the gridlock and the grandstanding. today as this no a day on this island we say. is. our nation must be governed not from chaos but from opportunity not by

wallowing over what's wrong but by marching inexorably toward what's right well a closer shot joins an increasingly crowded field of democrats vying for the chance to challenge president on the trump nine candidates have now throwing their hats in the ring they include massachusetts senator elizabeth warren new jersey senator cory booker longtime prosecutor and california senator kamler harris and barack obama's former housing secretary julian castro several others have also signaled their interest in entering the race twenty sixteen democratic candidate and vermont senator bernie sanders is expected to run again and former vice president joe biden said in december he is the most qualified person for the job well let's go live to andy gallagher in washington d.c. and as we've just reported this is a crowded field of candidates what do we know about. well

a third term senator from minnesota as you said the first female senator to be elected in her state somebody who got involved in politics after she gave birth to her first child she was basically removed from the hospital after twenty four hours in campaign for women to have the right to stay in hospital for forty eight hours something that was later made into law she's a former prosecutor someone who has won in her state by a large margin in all three elections the thing that she might struggle with his name recognition across the entire country recent polls show that she doesn't really even make a blip at this point although of course it's very early days at the moment someone who there are persistent stories that she may be a difficult boss there's a high staff turnover with her position in minnesota so name recognition is one of the things that she may have problems with it's also a very crowded field she becomes one of a number of female candidates now of course including elizabeth warren and kemal

harris so those are the challenges she faces but she's talking about her position in the midwest as perhaps being her strongest reason for people to vote for her and if she is struggling with name recognition how she is trying to stand out in this crowded field. i mean i think the main reason she's hoping to stand out is where she is geographically in the country she's in the midwest states that present on trump did very well in the last presidential election but she's talking about heartland the economics appealing to the states the democrats lost badly in the last presidential election using her position as someone who already lives in that area someone who has a lot of popularity in that area but she's also seen in this current field as someone who is a moderate candidate someone who's more towards the center than towards the left she's seen as someone who's a potential bridge builder but someone also will take on things like climate change and the gun lobby so we are still a long way away from the twenty twenty presidential elections and of course some

key names like bernie sanders and joe biden haven't even thrown their hat into the ring yet so it's all to play for our desires and you got to get there for us in washington d.c. thank you andy well the embattled democratic governor of the u.s. state of virginia has declared he's not going anywhere as he resists demands to resign speaking to the c.b.s. t.v. network route for them said it's been a difficult week since a decade's old photo emerged showing a person in blackface and another wearing a crew cut who klux klan hood nor them initially apologized for being one of the men pictured then later denied he was in it but admitted he doc and his face at another event virginia needs someone that can heal there's no better person to do that than a doctor or genuine also need someone who is strong who has empathy who has courage and who has a moral compass and that's why i'm not going anywhere i have learned from this i have a lot more to learn. israel's prime minister says he intends to implement

a controversial new law within a week it's known as pay for a sleigh and this is how it will work the palestinian government pays compensation to the families of people convicted by israel on charges of carrying out attacks under the proposed law israel would deduct an amount equal to that compensation from tax funds it raises on behalf of the palestinian authority if the law is pasta it would cut revenue to the with already by about three hundred seventy million dollars a year are a force that has more from western hussam. benjamin netanyahu has long argued against and attack the palestinian leadership over what it says is a system of welfare payments to palestinian prisoners and what the israeli government characterizes as a form of incitement to carry out attacks against israelis this is the week though he says that this law will come into effect and that next sunday in the next israeli security cabinet meeting is when the first calculation will be made in

terms of withholding some of the money that israel raises in taxes for the palestinian authority and pays to the palestinian authority every month there has been some controversy over this even within israeli circles wide reports that israeli security establishment is worried about the withholding of the money about the effects on potential effects on security cooperation between israeli security services and the palestinian authority in the occupied west bank of course there is also being a reaction from the p.a. as well they say that this is nothing short of israeli piracy and is being done in concert with the americans to inflict further pressure on the palestinians ahead of the rollout of the trump peace plan nonetheless we are in election season at a time when benjamin netanyahu is trying to portray himself as the man of the right with a tough line against the palestinians in opposition to the way he's trying to characterize his main rival benny gantz the former israeli army chief who means trying to say is

of the weak left and as well is that there have been a series of attacks carried out in recent weeks and even over this weekend there's been an attack in which a palestinian or other an israeli nineteen year old woman was killed by a palestinian man in a forest southwest of jerusalem the suspect was after apprehended in ramallah in the occupied west bank on saturday according to israeli media he has reenacted the crime has admitted to a sexual assault and murder this is a crime which is really outraged a huge number of israelis the police are saying they are so. really examining a political motive no direct cooling of this as a terror attack by the israeli prime minister just yet no call it either from hamas in gaza or from the palestinian authority in the west bank either nonetheless there has been a huge reaction to this and for benjamin netanyahu to have delayed the imposition of this law at this time would be politically very difficult for him. and

australian political strategist at the heart of multiple conservative election wins in the u.k. is being accused of offering a campaign to cancel the twenty twenty two caps a football world cup british newspaper the guardian says an intern crosby's fan pitched a campaign to pressure fifa to restart the bidding process project ball focused on efforts to delegitimize the cattery government the campaign planned to spread negative stories in the mainstream media and returned for a seven million dollars crosby as lawyers deny any contracts was signed or action and all david miller is the founder of spin watch a british group that investigates the lobbying and communications industries in london what they wanted to do was. deal edition my qatari states continue with the kind of propaganda which you seem emanating from for example the united arab emirates which suggests that qatar supports terrorism and indeed christian lines which are a million in fact deep in islam hold that the idea of targeting qatar

in support of international more and this is a similar sort of strategy that we've seen in recent years we've published reports separately in this last year on the kind of campaigns which are made meant that the qatari. government people have been targeted by the you re. in deeds and concert with the us we will beat the giants just. that it's ours and it will. the baton has been passed to egyptian president. he has become the chair of the african union the role was passed from rwanda's president who spent two years in the position it marks the end of paul kagame his reformist tenure at the helm of the organization the ceremonial role of chairperson of the a you rotates annually between the five regions of the continent malcolm webb has this update from.

the outgoing african union chair president paul kagame here for one that addressed the opening ceremony he spent the last year trying to push through reforms to make the african union for effective and leader with limited success the plan to try and make the african union self funding but it's not there yet it's been more success in trying to create a free trade area nineteen countries are already on the board and it needs three more to take effect. the continent of free trade area was assigned and now this. one year later it just stands on a weeks away from entry into force thanks to the xor it into. over a. president abdel fattah el-sisi of egypt has taken over as chair in his opening speech he referred to many ideals but few specific goals.

we're still doing our best to cement the pillars of peace security and stability to achieve economic cooperation and continental integration among our states and peoples all in an endeavor towards building the human spirit of africa. egypt is africa's third largest economy traditionally when africa's more powerful countries take over the chair of the african union they are less interested in it being powerful because they've got more influence themselves so in the year ahead it's expected that the african union will focus less on reforms and more on security. still ahead on al-jazeera forty years of hostility as iran marks the anniversary of its revolution we look at what's behind the stage of relations with the u.s. . the butterfly effect why the falling number of insect species is threatening the collapse of nature's ecosystems. and its six of the best in the english premier

league for manchester label explain in sports. hello there we've got another winter storm that's pulling itself together across north america this was made of two sections the first one you can see it working up from mexico and the other area is making its way across the rockies these two sections will gradually pull themselves together and really get going as we head through the next couple of days for monday then lots of heavy rain stretching from texas northwards and a fair amount of snow on its northern edge but it's choose day that that storm really gets going so here we could see a lot of snow very strong winds and we could also see a fair amount of freezing rain on the transition as well for the south where it's largely rain well here they could be a few tornadoes linked him with this as well but the west will comment generally

but you can still see another weather system making its way into the northwestern parts of the u.s. and that will be bringing us some snow further towards the south and for many of us here is the fine and settled over the past few days but now we're seeing more in the way of cloud bubble up and i think on monday this is a chance of seeing want to tease showers around cuba and that's still with us as we head through the day on tuesday towards the west plenty of fine weather to be found here in just one of two showers perhaps if you're unlucky before the tour was a sad day for the northern parts of argentina we've seen some more violent storms most of the rain for monday though is over but as ari's and pushing its way northward as we head into cheating. in the first thailand's of mesopotamia with the first settlements food the cradle of civilization iraqi people who've depended on the tigris and euphrates for centuries can no longer make a living on rivers blighted by and pollution outages or world reveals how the

manmade decline of one of history's most famed ancient environments is leaving its people struggling to survive iraq's dying rivers. when the news breaks a few minutes ago we were able to hear a huge explosion fifty people still missing when people need to be heard and the story needs to be told we need to invest the development of nuclear making sure the people who are three hundred zero teens on the ground join us for this historic shift in american politics to bring you more room we need documentaries and life moves on and on line.

welcome back. a reminder of our top stories this hour the u.s. is seeking to force the issue of aid delivery to venezuela using a u.n. security council resolution president maduro has accused the u.s. of using aid as a political tool to destabilize his government self-proclaimed interim president says he'll look at opening new aid routes into the country in defiance of the government. talks to about another us government shutdown have stalled disputes between democrats and republicans are the immigrant detentions have led to the current impasse. israel's prime minister says he intends to implement a new law within a week that could cut the palestinians with or a cheese revenue by millions of dollars a year this is intended as retaliation for the compensation paid by the p.a. to the families of those arrested by israel. the best of iran's revolution came

through the anger of millions of people rising up against the shah andrew symonds went to visit one of the revolutionaries and to assess the mid of the nation as it mocks forty is since the islamic revolution. mohammed raise attack sheikh is one of iran's our many revolutionaries he reflects on life changing events forty years ago with the style during pride. well before. how many took power the hem of the razor defected from the shazam e joining the revolution. he went on to fight in the iran iraq war of the nineteen eighties hundreds of thousands were killed and maimed among them mohammed raises younger brother how many that raised. our belief in personal sacrifice for their revolution is our spiritual leader says we are the victorious

ones because our enemies cannot put pressure on us militarily they are doing it economically and culturally. mohammad reza says he's against moderates in government and believes foreign influence is to blame for economic problems outside in a city festooned with the cobbles of the islamic republic of iran many people now speak openly about economic hardship. but forty taxi driver a nola reza is as old as the revolution he says he can't pay his bills. no matter how much he cut back on my spending i can make both ends meet i'm distraught i've got two children aged eight and thirteen for decades since the revolution of a population of more than eighty million and there's a big gap than ever between the rich and the poor the economic situation getting

worse and made much more critical by the u.s. sanctions has led to high youth unemployment and inflation increasing by the day that's leading to subdued anger in many parts of iran. it's likely to get worse for the people before it gets better reimposed u.s. sanctions are now forcing more countries to stop importing oil from iran its main driver for growth we spoke to some iranians who say people have to show resilience . that the issue has to be so we should all have the same goal we should protect our revolution from being. before he finishes speaking a bystander interrupts with her view of the revolution i'm about back here it has driven us to dismiss very and polarity people are poor and they have nothing left. young people in this crowded setting talk of leaving iran once they've graduated

from university this twenty year old plans to move to canada to work as a nurse i don't see my future here i don't think i can find a good job most of a rain and wind to. integrate. the divide between often stoic older generation and younger people has undoubtedly grown since mama the razor and others brought down a monarchy but he insists nothing can break the spirit of iran's revolution. andrew simmons. to. the world's insects are on the path to extinction posing a catastrophic threat to our ecosystems the global scientific review is published by leading journal called biological conservation the report says more than forty percent of insect species are in decline while a third are endangered this means the rate of their extinction is eight times faster than mammals birds and reptiles overall the mass of insects is falling by

two point five percent every year meaning they could vanish within a century scientists say this could destroy the way all ecosystems function affecting all life forms on the planet. ehrlich is the president of the center for conservation biology at stanford university and he joins us now on skype from california called those numbers are astounding no insects left at all within a century and you've been witnessing these trends first hand. that it's more than astounding it's extremely frightening i have personally seen the populations of insects i studied personally go extinct because in large part because of climate change over the last couple of decades well you gotta understand that if the insects disappear we're going to disappear to the whole agricultural system the pens among other things on the insects that are most vulnerable to extinction to control the other insects which compete with us for our crops so this is

a brilliant paper but at the same time one that scares the pants off of any biologist who understands how the world works and of course it's an overly optimistic paper because it mentions the things that we should be doing in order to avoid the extinction of the insects and it's very reminiscent of the things we should be doing to avoid climate disruption and avoid the food problems we now face and the point is we're not doing any of them in the united states on the issues that you have to deal with on the insect extinction we have a government that's determinedly doing everything it possibly can to push the insects and the other organisms to extinction as fast as possible. the bracks it situation in europe the breakdown of the european union is another thing that is going to prevent the kind of international effort that we need to save our life support system so i'm afraid i can't be extremely optimistic so well paul he talked

a little bit about impacts on agriculture what other kinds of impacts are we looking at presumably they would be knock on impacts within ecosystems and food chains well of course if you like birds many birds i'm in fact most birds depend on insects for at least part of their diets and so do many other organisms insects do other important things for us like destroy trash we do. one dung beetles in australia are extremely important in making the continent livable because they are one of the controls on the nasty insects that make australians always miserable they are at the base of many food chains they put together basically our life support systems it's impossible for us for the scientific community to say exactly what's going to happen whether there will be a general decline in the services we get from nature because of the loss of insects

or will we hit a threshold when the whole thing sort of collapses all at once what we can be sure of is that we are moving in the direction of a collapse of ecosystem services that will take civilization down right along with it and the basic cause of course is we have much too large a human population the rich are consuming much too much individually and as long as our aggregate consumption remains where it is the insects are going to keep disappearing along with the mammals the birds and our general life support systems and we are not doing any of the things that we should be doing to prevent this point is this all positive the so-called six mass extinction and is that speeding up what kinds of trends everything well what this is is data showing that where we've calculated in our own group that the extinction rate today is hundreds of times that that it was in the between the big mass extinctions in the past that

is between the normal rate that in fact the insects which are critical to the whole mess are going extinct much faster than the mammals the birds the fishes and so on which are all going extinct much too fast it's a horrendous problem which is not paid attention to know where's near the attention that it requires if we're going to be able to do something about it and this is something this. scientific community is basically unanimous on thousands of scientists just signed a report of the things we should be doing second report actually the first world scientists warning that humanity was in one nine hundred ninety three the second was last year nobody pays any attention when you've said that you're not optimistic about action being taken by governments is there anything that individuals can do to make different choices perhaps but well individuals making different choices are

basically they should be doing is making different choices and leaders in other words it's you cannot solve this problem there are some problems for instance the the jaws problem with the big problems that our kids have with braces and sleep apnea and so on is a global environmental problem you can do something about personally this one is one you can't do anything about personally except get rid of the politicians who are supporting breck's it and the body who is supporting the current government in the united states the current administration and so on you've got to get out and get politically active if you don't get politically active i'm not sure your children or your grandchildren will have much opportunity to get politically active paul alec that from stanford university thank you so much for your time. my great pleasure. well north macedonia has not any changed its name it's undergoing a historical overhaul within six months it must rename stays institutions rewrite

school textbooks and relabel public monuments critics say this will tamper with its identity but the government says it will help discover it john psaropoulos reports from. these students at large at the post ski state school a learning about and a star she was kind of a hero of the greek war of independence against the ottoman empire at least that's how he is taught in greek schools one hundred fifty kilometers south of here but here in scope here he is taught as a bloke in freedom fighter from the south macedonian region what is today greek macedonia that is one of many educational issues a joint commission of historians from greece and north macedonia are to resolve before this country's new school textbooks are printed in september the most controversial issue is how schools here will teach about alexander the great need them the. i believe that when we teach the era of alexander the great we must

cosmopolitanism rather than teach in a way that provokes nationalism the main point is not city chung says to hate each other but to communicate when politicians talk about history i'm not sure anything good will come of it the last time politicians here talked about history they claimed alexander as a macedonian but not a greek hero and spent a billion dollars on statues and public buildings befitting the pedigree they used the name macedonia which is the same as greece's northern region and raised fears of claims on its territory and its history two years ago that government led by the right wing via morrow party fell from power the social democrats who stepped in made a deal with neighboring greece to rename the country north macedonia and drop the claim to enchant culture finally tang's got we are out we are free of the cage that the previous government tried to install in our people's mind that.