did the trunk count. with russia did you at any time the former f.b.i. director james comey in any way shape or form a closer to back down the investigation into michael flynn and also as you will know. next question octal field washington on al-jazeera. let's have a look at the top stories here it out here pakistan says it shot down two indian fighter jets while they were in pakistani airspace and arrested one indian pilot but india says only one of its helicopters crashed and that was because of technical failure space around indian administered kashmir has been shut down the

developments are part of west wing tensions in disputed kashmir. the nigerian president mohammed who bihari upon a second four year term the main opposition there accuses the ruling party of rigging the result. u.s. president donald trump is used to meet the north korean leader kim jong un in the vietnamese capital in the coming hours for the second summit. there since his first test in two thousand and six north korea has been subjected to several tranches of sanctions ranging from trade to travel into the seventeen the security council banned north korea's exports of coal petrol and other all materials in twenty eighteen president trump extended u.s. sanctions against north korea for a year calling the country an extraordinary threat the u.n. says north korea is violating international sanctions by transferring weapons and

fuel at sea and is threatening to resume its nuclear program if sanctions are lifted are less top down to b.j. kim who was a south korean diplomat and is now an adjunct professor at hancock university of foreign studies he's joining us live now from the south korean capital seoul. first of all what is what is the feeling coming from the south korean capital given that the south koreans have done an awful lot of the diplomatic heavy lifting to get to this stage. roy right now the merger of people feel quite positive about what's happening here adding further to what had been achieved last year as a result of prison mean when scenes efforts to bring peace here and remove as much as we can about the worries of war however there is a minority of opposition here that are very much concerned about what's happening in hungary may actually end up resulting in the weakening of south korea's

capabilities to defend itself and so on and so to summarise you know my answer to your question what's the mood here altogether the mood is rather divided between majority who is seeing this as a something positive but minority who has growing concerns so is there a a sense a prevailing sense and in seoul that there is a possibility that donald trump is a very impromptu negotiator is we now know could actually negotiate away some of the assurances if you like security assurances that south korea has benefited from for the last several decades i'm thinking of the the joint exercises for instance which have been suspended since donald trump started this negotiation process. absolutely you just mentioned the joint exercise you know and the what happened was last year in singapore that was not mentioned in the statement joint statement or

sign statement there but during this press conference trump all of sudden mentioned the joint exercise actually called the war game war game is the expression that north korea has been using for decades in a pejorative way but the united states president to use the word war game being expensive and and need to be suspended to you know to improve the overall relationship as a whole and that's us came out of bull and we understand even south korean authorities were not fully informed at least the experts here or media here did not know there was coming and it came during the press conference so this time you know i think north south koreans are bracing for this kind of surprise even dreamed that the official talked about a little summit or after the talk when you know donald trump and he hears these on time to explain the result to the world so yes in did because of this in a way in the minds of the conservative here the trauma of this sudden surprise that

happened with regard to joint exercise yes here in the people are bracing for that i'm surprised at this point b.j. came thank you very much indeed for talking to us live from seoul but while the president's away his immigration policies are under attack at home in washington a new report is detailing accusations of abuse at american immigrant detention centers and the democratic led u.s. house of representatives has voted to block trump's declaration of a national emergency along the border with mexico john hendren has more from washington. that yeas are two hundred forty five the nasal one eighty two using their newfound power house democrats leveled a direct rebuke at president trump table the house voted to reverse trump's declaration of an emergency on the mexican border the vote followed a spirited sometimes contentious debate how many dead americans does it take for open border advocates to support border security democrats say trump is exceeding

his constitutional authority going around congress after it passed a spending bill that specifically denied him money for a border wall building a wall much faster is not an american city that's political theater dot's political posturing for twenty twenty true plans to use that declaration to access eight billion dollars in emergency funds to build the wall ninety percent of the drugs and the big stuff goes out to the desert makes a left and goes where you don't have any wall i'm going to call it a wall and you know they're likely to call it a barrier to wall it's a big beautiful powerful steel wall the bill now moves to the senate where if all forty seven democrats vote together they would still need for republicans to join them to pass it they appear to have at least three republican senator susan collins lisa murkowski in thom tillis say they will vote to overturn drum's order if

republicans in congress line up behind the president the message will be clear he can do what he wants if some republicans even a few say no that might at least you know provide some reason for him to be careful if the senate votes with the house the president would be forced to veto the measure as he's promised to do and congress is unlikely to muster the two thirds majority it needs to override him but there would be no mistaking when it comes to declaring an emergency on the border the president is largely going it alone. even if opponents of the president's emergency order fail with the white house and congress they could still succeed with the third branch of government the courts where they are already arguing that there is no emergency south of the border john hendren al-jazeera washington and another of our correspondents in washington patty col hey now it was on allegations that children detained by u.s. border officials have been abused in custody they came alone children in a foreign country taken into custody and now democrats in congress have released

internal documents that say thousands of them made allegations they were sexually assaulted where they were being held by a us government agency from twenty fourteen in till last year a total of four thousand five hundred fifty six claims of assault were made one thousand three hundred three were deemed credible enough to be sent to investigators in all one hundred seventy claims were against a member of the detention staff the men in charge of the program was defensive before who question the hearing those are not h.h.s. staff in any of those allegations that statement is false those are white house no no no no no sir those are not a chicken white king of allegations demanding way because again once emerson or i claim my time commander white i don't have a lot of time and you know what i've seen you know what i've seen in these reports that were delivered to us buried in stacks of documents this thick without any any

notation i saw thousands of cases of sexual abuse if not by h.h.s. staff them by the people that ha-ha staff overseas. i will make that clarification it doesn't make what happened anything less horrific u.s. president donald trump and first order to even more children to be labeled as unaccompanied after they were stripped from their parents at the border under fire he later changed the policy and the courts also stepped in and ordered the children returned many still have not been the new information comes as the democrats now in control of the house promised to investigate the policy for the first time sending subpoenas to trump administration officials promising to expose what happened behind the barbed wire in the camps where the children were kept. washington and also in washington the president's former personal lawyer says he's looking forward to in his words telling the truth about donald trump's contacts with russia

and his alleged criminal conduct michael cohen has been giving testimony to the senate intelligence committee he's set to serve time in prison for lying to the committee in two of the seventeen wednesday i'll be giving public testimony on sensitive and potentially explosive topics at this point in time i really appreciate the opportunity that was given to me to clear the record and to tell the truth and i look forward to tomorrow to being able to in my voice to tell the american people my story and i'm going to let the american people decide exactly who's telling the truth. at least five people have been killed by a syrian government has strikes in college town in the rebel controlled province of idlib we're hearing the victims including three children and two women activists say intensified fighting his full thousands of civilians to flee many of moved to

camps close to the turkish border russia and turkey had agreed to set up a deescalation zone in the northwest and grave last year. now the head of the norwegian refugee council has called out what he describes as the hot pot crissy of yemen's biggest aid donors saudi arabia and the u.a.e. and the u.s. who he says a feeling the conflict there yeah their goal and was speaking at a donors conference in geneva where two point six billion dollars was pledged meanwhile the u.n. chief antonio good terrorist says u.n. teams have a arrived at food storage jeffers in the port city of her data for the first time in six months they're going to try to distribute aid that's been stuck because of years of fighting between the saudi u.s. led coalition and who the rebels are now a senior palestinian official has rejected the trumpet ministration suggestion the borders with israel should be eliminated so

a better catch was responding to comments by trump son in law and advisor jared christian who's behind the latest american middle east peace for iran is now on a tour of the middle east a senior catholic cleric has been remanded in custody in australia until his sentence for child sex offenses next month cardinal george pell was heckled as the arrived at court where the judge revoked his bail pell was found guilty of molesting two choir boys at a cathedral in melbourne in one nine hundred ninety six and one of the world's newest orchestras the caterpiller monic is celebrating its tenth anniversary it was formed to promote western and arabic music to audiences at home and abroad torah gave him the reports. please. please. it's a concert to celebrate

a musical milestone. cattle for the morning plays in the qatari capital doha to mark ten years since it's a new group of former loony. excess so emotional for me especially because i spend a third of my life in qatar that it became my home and i want to orchestra is one of the biggest experience i've made in my life it is really a place where everyone belongs to everyone on we respect each other and you know even though if you have if you are not true in harmony with your colleague you have to be home when you're on stage and you have to do things together. made up of ninety five musicians from twenty eight countries a third of its members all women. hold a job is to from scratch really from zero and when i think ten years and today to the bit we have for the toss to go because. we have achieved

a lot of really does exceeds the cats also monaco construct a holmes concert such as this all over the world and in cattle it plays a prominent role in promoting western and arabic music i think it's fantastic we've only been here in doha for about six months but we've already come here three or four times and it's always great quality and the musicians it's just great to be here i mean it's just refreshing to see an orchestra that's performing as novel and not struggling to find new stuff which is the case in most cities in the world to have a body count how many americans try to spend all their time in scraping together the funds to keep operating. the cattle for the morning history has a busy year hangs with performances in doha and to prove that this concert is a chance to celebrate all that's been achieved. it's first decade on the world stage victoria gate and the al-jazeera.

service is a clip of the top stories here at al-jazeera pakistan says it shot down two indian fighter jets while they were in pakistani airspace and captured one indian pilot but india says one of its air force aircraft crashed and that that was because of technical failure airspace around indian administered kashmir has been shut down the developments are part of worsening tensions over the disputed region of kashmir the nigerian president mohammed who bihari is one a second four year term but the main opposition accuses the ruling party of rigging the result u.s. president double drum because jews are meet the north korean leader kim jong un in the vietnamese capital in the coming hours for the second summit president trump has hailed hanoi is an example for north korea saying it too can become an economic

powerhouse if the new cries ation talks go well. you've made tremendous progress and it's a great thing for the world to see and now the world is actually watching and they're looking at vietnam so i look forward to the meeting tonight chairman kim and hopefully it's going to be successful we'll see what happens but he wants to do something great also and i think he wants to do something that would be on a par if you look at what you've done in the short time he can do it in a very very rapid time make north korea into a great economic power and back in washington the democratic led house of representatives has voted to block donald trump's declaration of a national emergency along the us mexico border the president used executive powers earlier this month to get funding to build a wall. meanwhile the president's former personal lawyer says he's looking forward to in his words telling the truth about donald trump's contacts with russia and

criminal conduct and who cohen is being questioned by the senate intelligence committee all right joe today those are the very latest headlines from our spirit outages there coming up next it's inside stories to stay with us. we want to return to care bring your people back to life i'm sorry with updates and the best of al-jazeera is documentary that continues. to now use these things continuing with australia's most generation a recovery from call on is a really important issue suicide writes do or mind very high we're still twice the national average rewind on al-jazeera. pressure grows on venezuela's president the u.s. and around says more sanctions to force nicolas maduro from office but he is standing refusing to let a dent and closing borders russia is warning against u.s.

military intervention so what happens next this is inside story. hello there and welcome to the program i'm laura kajal will stand by you and to liberty is restored that's the message from the u.s. vice president of venezuela an opposition leader on why don't they met in colombia as regional countries try to find a way to get president nicolas maduro to step down but he's refusing to go and accuses the u.s. of wanting to start a war in south america in security council meanwhile is holding another emergency session to discuss the month long crisis as underground b.s.e. reports from bogota when the supporters of business when opposition leader one way

door have waited for this moment the chance to see him side by side with the vice president of the united states mike pence. the setting the meeting of the lima group and a bloc of mostly latin american countries supporting those claim that he's the illegitimate interim president of venezuela in a speech paints an announced new sanctions against manus when officials in called on the block to freeze assets controlled by president doing their countries but stops short of calling for the use of force to house the man he says represents a threat to the m a sphere what we've seen in the last two days wasn't a bold stroke by a triumphant leader it was that desperate act of a tyrant clinging to power with violence and intimidation since day one of this administration i'm pleased to report that the united states

has recognized the threat that nicolas maduro posed to the venezuelan people and to nations across the region including ours. the world's media recorded how my dearest forces acted to stop the delivery of u.s. aid from colombia and brazil leaders here and now they will ask me their national criminal court to treat my daughters blockade as a crime against humanity. opposition leader said the international pressure needs to continue until my daughter is forced out. the people of venezuela have resisted have survived and today in bogota in a sister work meeting we ask for your help and cooperation to advance the necessary pressure that the regime believes it is resisting a resistance to what to democracy. outside the meeting who fled their country's economic crisis gathered to show their support for gray door that claimed only an

external military intervention could bring change something the countries gathered here firmly reject. it's an era we're tired of protest sanctions proclamations they're not helpful since the sanctions how many malnourished kids have been saved how many people with cancer helped none that's why an intervention is needed in a nutshell monday's announcement could be summarized as more of the same said he will try to go back to venezuela this week and also continue in his efforts to move the a inside his country but many even among supporters of the opposition fear that more of the same will not change the current stalemate. well that is why this political crisis came to a head in the past month when president maduro was sworn in for a second term he was reelected last may but the ballboy he wasn't by the opposition in the allegations of vote rigging two weeks off to madeira swearing in opposition

leader declared himself interim president he was backed by the united states several european countries and many of venezuela's neighbors that spawned by severing ties with the us the standoff between the two men escalated last week of humanitarian aid blocked food and medical supplies donated by the us from entering the country the opposition defied my door and tried to get the aid in security forces used tear gas and rubber bullets on volunteers at least four people were killed. let's bring in our discussion panel now in that mode in venice one of us skype pulled ups on the political analyst and venezuela and washington d.c. vanessa newman latin america analyst at the foreign policy research institute and insulted a month or so in the u.k. as clint hardings director of latin for by war welcome to all of you pull what did

you make of this lima group meeting and seeing quite why day standing next to the vice president of the united states. this came of no surprise essentially we've already know that one way though is essentially washington and man here in venice way that he has received the backing of donald trump and his government since day one. to see him in but what are his allies obviously it comes as no surprise the announcement made in bogota were a little bit more surprising however the united states well i know it's a very light sanctions we can say much less than we expected them to announced and really no sort of measures that would have any impact on the country at all and the limb agreement south issued a public statement in which they surprisingly ruled out any support for any military intervention into venezuela essentially taking it off the table so this

brings a great sigh of relief to venezuela and all of those who are afraid that the united states robonaut some sort of military attack on the country and yet for we have president maduro insisting that the u.s. is still preparing for a military intervention and indeed russia backing up that claim. well indeed and to look until washington actually take this off the table it makes a public statement that also very troubling when you have refused to rule this out many times and everyone else including the european union spade brazil have all ruled it out except then so is there maybe it's on the table for them until they declare otherwise but also what would you agree with that was this a rather weak outcome from the lima group meeting was why don't we expecting mall. yes i think it probably was expecting a bit more however you know these processes are diplomatic there so don't forget that now with the lima group we have mexico that has gone back to its old doctrine of noninterference and that has really softened

a lot of the angle of the lima group also i think that there is some concern that they the u.s. and the lima group don't want to be seen as aggressors i think what you're going to see however is a shift in the pramanik strategy because the blockage of food. there's some question whether it triggers article seven section to be of of of the room convention which is basically about these stories mass starvation of people by denying them access to food which would trigger something like the responsibility to protect which is we know is almost all almost defunct in the last twenty years but this might be a situation where that might be triggered and might be appropriate so that something that i would expect would will see the security council meeting later today and that wouldn't there's so that would lead to stronger action perhaps down

the line but more multilateral ok under clinton as well the group is set to ask the international criminal court to treat majority's a blockade as a crime against humanity is that something that they might consider a what would be the impact well there may indeed i think there is certainly a shift in the the emphasis of. the campaign by the lima group and paid by outside countries supporting. i think the. president maduro certainly feels he's got the momentum now that the wind has been taken out of the opposition's sails and i think the opposition have tended to underestimate his determination to to hang on to power come what may. right through right from the very beginning i think the plan a was that the military would go over to the opposition right away plan b. was that the you know the humanitarian aid would force the militaries happened and

that would lead to a determination and doesn't really appear to be a plan c. except to really having to accept the view expressed by the lim a group that. tightening the diplomatic political cordon against venezuela is the way forward and i think this is the united states for the present anyway accepts that this is this this is the thing to do and this u.n. security council meeting that is due later on tuesday i mean let's be honest it's really have much to fear from that does it because he he has the backing of russia and as a backing of china both of them get a veto anything that comes out of that. well yes i think that's right yes i think they are going to stick with him physically russia who will have a lot of lot to lose if they have motor and goes. but i think that really the

international community in general is casting around for the best way to proceed and as we know the united states has introduced more sanctions against four named state governors for instance and mike pence they vice president has called upon liberal countries to to introduce similar sanctions against their consent as well and against the state or company. and also to deny visas to leading members of the regime so i think that is where they are at the moment paul how much of all of this upsets the doro because they've got these sanctions which you think bills over the gui were much less that we thought they were gets for the door allies but we have got this urging of regional countries from the us to free these oil assets and that could really place quite a stranglehold on the majority government and what remains of its finances how

concerned is it that it's going to be got that way. well it's worth pointing out that the matter of government trying to deal with us let's auction for over two years now in a range of capacities the ones announced yesterday i don't think will worry him at all he may be worrying sanction currently larry by the united states against caracas if the oil embargo which was announced nearly a month ago this will have a massive impact on us way not according to john bolton's figures this is going to cause even to an economy thirty million dollars a day which is a huge amount of money for any economy and especially for an economy which is down into the depths of a recession however the mirror government over the last two years has had some success in looking to have that global partners in a way to avoid these. sanctions one recent example of this is a list of medicines hirings medicines which he submitted to the european union and basically after their help in buying them i don't way of getting around the

sanctions now this is basic way to undo the discourse of the humanitarian a bloc within the government very open to international humanitarian aid of the without any political conditions but also a way of getting around the financial sanctions which washington is imposing on them but is already facing up to reality is he because they would quote him saying and interviews that but as well enjoys a free press and there's a freedom of political expression but then during a couple of interviews he's given in the last couple of hours a lot twenty four hours he's detained one international crew because didn't like that questions is a kid's another of quotes lying like trump when they try to present a u.n. report that alleged that hundreds of people have died because of his role i mean it doesn't sound like a man who is ready facing up to reality and the situation well obviously there are certain problems in venezuela without a doubt very fresh and every time i hear nicolas maduro admit in an international

press conference that yes there are problems here in venezuela there are economic problems and however he doesn't continue to stress that it is up to the venezuelans to sort out the problems not up to the to washington or any sort of international alliance and so it is very difficult for him to deal with the situation in the country i mean given the national context and but yes he does need to address these internal domestic affairs if he wants to have any any sort of successful venezuela seven as a how busy the how how is he coping on that front. the i think is i think is absolutely not coping with with reality at all or you know or perhaps isn't is this is the greatest bluff of all time i mean the reality is that pressure is building no matter what everybody has accepted even russia and china to some degree that they never get their money back the venezuela will never recover its economic its productive capacity or recover economically and that's motherhood oh

and his cronies are out of power there's a number of reasons for this one is certainly the sanctions but also is the fact that they have stolen more than five hundred billion dollars i mean this is the greatest cup talk recy in history nobody has ever seen such grand scale corruption we don't need i mean it was every mother would have wanted to fix this crisis he could just use his own bank accounts and that of his cronies and that could feed the entire country i mean so in no it's it's they who have caused it's they have calls the problem and if you are opposed to you know corrupt elites abusing the poor people then you should really be you know really object to what has happened with the mother origi and everybody is so the russians and the chinese don't even trust him to to do that they had to rebuild the country and for them to get repaid their blood and their economic plan is their economic plan there is

nothing in there that that improves the fate of the country so he's cornered really in one way and one way or another i mean and russia and china may well hold out to see what happens with the military yes he's their guy but they're also having back channel negotiations here in washington d.c. with why those teen and i know for a fact that russia even in the summer of twenty seventeen was considering negotiating with the opposition when the protests were hot because they were concerned that it might flip then so they are open. just you know two protecting their interests and is as this thing called gets bigger for motherhood or. you know the change is going to be inevitable one way or another so he needs to sort of accept that and kind of how loyal is the military to him the door i mean perhaps been slightly surprised by this thread father said fastness so far it's only

been disappointed by israel i think the latest figure i've seen this something like two hundred seventy four members of the venezuelan security forces have crossed over into into colombia or brazil. which is not an inconsiderable number but it may be what they need is in the offices leading them and entire units and that hasn't happened so yes i think there is a. certain disappointment that initial plan that the military would see which side their bread is buttered on and which would come over to the constitution as they put it. but the fact is that the military are bought into the present regime it meant particularly into their massive corruption of course they control food distribution they control the you the or at the head of the oil company is a national guard general they are very much part of the of the the set up and i

think office of amnesty which is a. has made. may be attractive to people in the lower ranks and they're the ones who have gone over so far but to the seedier officers who are doing very well from the present i don't think they really trust the opposition and they've not at all sure what the future would be under under a government controlled by by the opposition so the.