singled her out. so soft and before we could take away the luggage it was picked by suspection and they saw it was not simple luggage but less full of anyone else. among the cash authorities found three hundred radiated tortoises and a number of ploughshare. sarah was convicted of smuggling and was jailed for eight months. the same year the sarah was arrested the lizard king himself ran afoul of the law. in a separate incident one was caught with dozens of snakes on a plane for which he had no license for. a raid of his properties uncovered even more. a malaysian judge gave him a five year sentence but he served just seventeen months. according to sources one of the mr king's biggest customers lives in indonesia's bustling capital. and. we arrive just of the city is hosting

a reptile exhibit. which. despite this being a government sanctioned event it doesn't take long for us to find illegal animals for sale. here in the. including tortoises from madagascar. still undercover as a dealer we head for one of the biggest booths. but we sit down for a meeting you know with daniel and you would judge or you know as and how you know us and all. of you not only does daniel readily admit the to work together but we notice he's also wearing a shirt from madagascar and doesn't go on her so still to still doing our there there then something that surprises even us daniel admits the two thousand and ten shipment of snakes which. landed anson in prison was destined for his shot even

hero hero yeah he's my. wife i think. if you think i hate you they go. pick your biggest or manny meaning like they were your snakes there are i read about that on liar. daniel also claims that after his last conviction as wife is increasingly taking over the operations he way he went for the. tiles ok alright it works out it's time to get a little closer. our first stop is once rural property in penang back hills. we need to see whether he's returned to his life of crime as some say or leading a reform life. twenty ten when law enforcement officers busted him to displace he found two things tigers salsa crocodiles and question now it's his that

sort of thing still going on for. an hour later after hiking through the hills we stumble on a number of cages. and then we spot an enclosure. there's a tortoise inside. evidence that is at least keeping animals. for the wrong we find a row of new or enclosures it's hard to make out what they are so we creep closer. the animals have distinctive ears we show our photos later to experts who tell us these are servile cats from north africa. following his twenty ten conviction malaysia's government banned wang and his wife . from holding business and wildlife trading permits. yet

someone in government did knowingly sign off on new licenses are search a public records found that both anson and his wife have had several business permits renewed from the book it jumble reptile sanctuary. to errol flynn. to c.b.s. wildlife. posing as customers we visit the penang address listed for the company. where we find answers wife being she almost immediately she confirms she and her husband are still trading informally rewritten wherever. there. are documents search also and covers another company grow no wildlife it was formed after wong's twenty ten conviction listed owner is a name we don't recognize. but trading permits show it exports the same animals as anson did to the same us customers he had before his arrest. i think the door my

dear friend so. rose address is listed on the upper floor of a commercial strip in penang and if somebody near shore. from the street we can make out aquariums and cages leading us to believe animals are being kept there. and there. we find a worker or i have got horror now where. whatever that was more than happy to show off his current stars. there are many albino pythons some thirty feet long all of them require permits. and then we confirmed the real person behind. your boss is mr wong. mr wall. and. we show our findings to and surendra a lawyer and opposition member of. element in malaysia the fact that is being open

again indicates corruption for years surrendered has publicly raised the need to investigate the country's wildlife department. accusing them of aiding and abetting one so he seems to be able to operate above the law and beyond the law in malaysia how is that possible it is impossible without the complicity of all the parties throughout our year long investigation which involved lengthy stakeouts in several countries we never caught sight of the lizard king this despite frequent reports from sources that he was in the area. finally we tracked him down in the name mr long steep challenge from the program going to any star you would love to ask you a question if we can know are you still involved in the trade. to talk to you sir can you tell us what role no wildlife here is. and why why are there all by know i had run

a wildlife and according to the government you're not supposed to be trading in wildlife lawsuits woman. are you admitting ask the government are you saying you're doing nothing wrong. and i have no comment. absolutely jumbles as always at your company. little company. several companies including our own a wildlife do you know comment. sir are you still involved in the trade directing an endangered species. concept. you understand one of his workers along with his wife and tries to stop us from filming oh yes you've served time in jail sir wall grows increasingly aggressive obligations while we're on public property sir so we're about to cough syrup aisle you're on public property don't push us or you're on public property we have little bit of experience here we are on the property. just as quickly though we're only about

a song sir and can you tell us what this box is for. sir these are serious questions we understand that you have served time for a number of these crimes and the question is are you still involved in the trade of endangered species it's the most will get from here certainly but not once did long denied he was back in the reptile trade. some questions left unanswered is whether his dealings would be possible without the help of authorities and wide. spite her obvious involvement his wife has never been brought up on charges so you are the official owner of the no run a wild life. you know. why is that man. what is clear is that the lizard king and his associates continue to operate just as they have for decades. trading in selling off the world's most endangered creatures

at will. but that was return of the lizard king from one of one east back in two thousand and thirteen little is known today of ants and was whereabouts but he seems to have lost his standing as the kingpin of wildlife trafficking joining us now from kuala lumpur is steve child followed one for a year and steve you went undercover over the course of the year following wall why was it so important for you to make this film and take the risks that you took while elizabeth we were hearing from a lot of environmental groups around the world about how serious the wildlife trafficking situation was becoming many people were linking the wildlife trafficking trade to other major crimes like the trafficking of arms and the trafficking of drugs and saying that it was on the same level and that organized crime syndicates were getting involved that was sort of the impetus for us to start looking at this and then when we're trying to sort of target or pinpoint people who

are involved in the trade and since we're and someone's name kept coming up so we decided to try to infiltrate his network and find out what was going on whether he is still involved in wildlife trafficking we simply do not know what we do know is that after we ran our film malaysian authorities did charge the director of a company that answered long was affiliated or linked to as well as they did also charge his former wife for possession of endangered animals after several years of delays in the courts that malaysian. director of that company pled guilty to possession and willingly agreed to pay a fine of ten thousand u.s. dollars plus of the prosecution however dropped the charges against and one's former wife so the film did have some impact but of course not the kind of impact that's needed and where do things stand in malaysia now stephen where does that figure and global wildlife trafficking malaysia still remains

a key transit hub for even legal wildlife being trafficked the way it works we understand is that poachers there are poaching wildlife from africa or other parts of asia are shipping it through malaysia as well as other countries in southeast asia on to destination points in terms of places where buyers are are acquiring this so malaysia still remains a problem country there has been a lot of work done by the un and others to train customs officers here and to create more of a diligence if you will to keep tabs on customs officers so that they aren't on the take however that is a challenge we understand throughout much of the world especially in southeast asia so what we're seeing is that a lot of the cultures there are trafficking their goods through these places and once authorities seize some of the shipments then that is switched to another countries some of the key countries are seeing you know the continually popping up are malaysia thailand laos vietnam and these are just some of them that are key

problem cities countries if you will and steve who is driving the market. well that's a very good question it is extremely varied depending on the wildlife and the type of wildlife we're talking about if we're talking about wildlife use for the descent all purposes such as pangolin scales or rhino horns that are rubbed down into medicine the key markets are vietnam and china predominately as well as other parts of asia if we're talking about the trafficking of pets you know pets illegally taken from places that that then that becomes much more global so we're talking about you know interest out of collectors in the middle east collectors in europe the u.s. and also in parts of asia as well in terms of how much this illicit trade is worth annually we are dealing with a tsunami the numbers are staggering we're talking about upwards of two hundred species of flora and fauna that are going extinct every twenty four hours that's

about one thousand times the natural progression if you will of any extinction that we've seen on the planet and a lot of that is attributed to wildlife trafficking we know what more can be done about it you know the key people say is corruption corruption corruption is the main problem if you know customs officials if the government officials in various countries you know stop you know taking in the bribes if they actually you know stop the shipments then perhaps we can put an end to this but at this moment it's not happening richard lewis you know we spent some time with him in madagascar for this film and when we were out in the jungles with him you know we looked at the ploughshare tortoise one of these very wanted you know animals and at the time of filming there were about four hundred ploughshare tortoises left in the wild only four hundred but as of now we understand that number is down to fifty and that species is on the brink of extinction and that's the heartbreaking part thank you

very much steve and that's it from us but do join us again next week and check out the rewind page at al-jazeera dot com for more films from the series for now thanks for joining us and see you again seven. cold war truth whether on live t.v. it's taught us is to be able to be concise expressing exactly what is happening in the moment and what it needs. or if you joined us on sat israel is an apartheid state in the ethnic cleansing of the palestinian people this is a dialogue everyone has a voice and we want to hear from you join the conversation. with

. us. in a country playing political capital with europe and russia the people are trying to find. it under the un free of the sukkot.

of europe. any opposition is risky. the penalties can be something. the better route still weakness documentary. on al jazeera. this is zero. you're watching the news hour live from headquarters and. coming up in the next sixty minutes we climbed trees and stayed there for four days without food those who grew too weak just fell down into the water. aid agencies say they're running out of time to save thousands of stranded victims of one of southern africa is the

worst natural disaster. i saw it's forced out of its last territory in syria u.s. by kurdish forces say they will hunt down sleeper cells donald trump supporters celebrate the completion of the report but the way to find out exactly what's in it goes on and the first election in thailand after the twenty fourteen coup why military backed parties will have a huge advantage. hello aid agencies say they're running out of time to reach thousands of survivors and stop the spread of disease more than a week after a cyclonic dies swept across southern africa the u.n. says there are no confirmed cases of cholera but the risk of that disease. and malaria remain high in mozambique and officials are warning of further flooding as dams and reverse threaten to break their banks more than seven hundred people are confirmed dead in mozambique zimbabwe and malawi aid workers say that number will

rise and rescuers are still trying to reach thousands of people stranded many of them you know those who've been rescued are crowded into camps and desperately need aids the number of the executive director described the scene on the ground despite rate stating that the situation on the grown and i quote quoting her the situation on the ground remains critical of the reasons no electricity or running water or hundreds of thousands of children need immediate help the priority right now is to give them shelter food water education protection so the number of people killed in mozambique alone has risen to more than four hundred malcolm webb went to a district where some of the villagers were among the hardest hit some humanitarian aid is finally getting through to the isolated communities that need it but with roads and bridges washed away many of them still very hard to access the few

transport resources that are available in particular helicopters have been used initially for search and rescue operations to rescue people who are in isolated bits of high ground or trees and rooftops but in the villages where floodwaters have now receded facing a myriad of other problems including finding the bodies of the dead and a chronic shortage of food it's not easy to get to armando jacoby's home. so i can only dike so many parts of central mozambique he turned his mates fields to mud we find it left nothing of his house. and it took his aunt uncle and two nephews and. those who managed to swim across the river others were washed away we climbed trees and stayed there for four days without food those who grew too weak just fell down into the water it is god that saved us it's villages like armando's on riverside planes that have been hardest hit this is all that remains

of one of armando's neighbors' homes they had several hearts in this compound another one was here all that's left is these sticks just a few days ago the water level was about twice as high as i am and his neighbors survived by climbing these trees many more people from this village still missing across the river we met on ten years. his house was swept away all his possessions were inside. the water went down he's been searching here for them he found something else instead as we get close this is a terrible smell not another dead goat or cow but the body of his four year old neighbor. where i found the body all searching for my things somebody recognized the boy his family is in a camp nearby i want to go and tell them that people here say it's the worst i

claim to hit mozambique in living memory. down the road survivors gather to receive food no one hears even for days government relief workers of brought some rice and flour but the village administrator tells people it's not nearly enough. that. the people in this area lost everything we don't have houses we don't have food we don't have clothes we have nothing we need help all i have is the clothes i'm wearing. and families given barely enough food for one day. the government says it needs foreign support for months ahead and everyone here will depend on it to survive another major concern in the villages where the floodwaters have now receded is sanitation the ground still very wet loss of mud and silt and pools of water along with toilets and clinics having been destroyed significantly

increases the risk of spreading of water borne diseases such as cholera that's something that the united nations is warned about pulls a stagnant water also a breeding ground for mosquitoes which increases the risk of the spread of malaria conditions in many of these towns and villages were brilliant before the cycle and there wasn't a lot of public health care other public infrastructure but now all of that's been completely destroyed it's going to be a high risk of disease and health care problems in the weeks or months ahead and it's going to take a very long time for things to get back to normal well desperation is growing among the survivors in the mozambican port city of beera ninety percent of it has been destroyed or damaged by cyclonic die tony berkeley is there and sent us this report . they are tired and traumatized but at least these victims of cyclamen eat i are safe now each one has their own harrowing story about the time the storms came each day more of them come mostly from boozy district. on monday which about

a sixty five years of age he had a smallholding and lived alone he was rescued after spending four days stuck in a tree without food he says his life is changed forever by fellow good little boy you will feel like i have nothing to go back to my farm my house all were destroyed there is nothing left i need to start afresh but i don't know how. he lives here now in the same or a michele school in bira along with twelve hundred other displaced people. kristina arrived on saturday after surviving for four days on the roof of a church in boozy. her foot was infected after she stepped on a piece of submerged roofing while waiting to safety her future like many others is something she finds difficult to contemplate. from now on life will be difficult i will need food i will need shelter he's crying for food now but i don't know what he will be crying for when we go back. these people are getting three

meals a day and access to medical care so safe and sound and drive but they have no idea when they'll be able to go back to their homes that is if they have a home to go back to. the massive emergency operation involves dozens of countries and it's costing more than fifty million dollars but the focus is now changing at the moment think that the that they cute phase of risk is pretty much those people need to be lifted out of raging water. people and trees and the top of causes most of that is as as as those people most of those people have been risked their artwork the think the focus area at the moment is relief getting that relief to the people who need it is now an urgent priority before cholera and other diseases break out the situation is improving but there are still risks of further flooding sadly the risk of flooding is ever present and ultimately we have red alerts now on two of the major rivers one is a busy flowing in from zimbabwe to the sea and the other is the breezy river which

is a short fat flat river which floods very easily as already battle saturation of the dams a full so we're facing multiple risks that won't affect these people their concern is their next meal and how to rebuild their homes their communities and their lives tony berkeley al-jazeera beera. at least one hundred thirty four fulani herders have been killed in an attack blamed on an ethnic militia gunman dressed as traditional hunters targeted the village of in banquettes district they also attacked another village nearby ethnic violence has compounded and already dire security situation in mali's desert regions which are used as a base by eisel groups. hunters are part of the ethnic group while the nomadic people are just spurs throughout the west africa the two communities often over access to water in january thirty seven people were killed

in another village that attack was also blamed on the who often accuse the. fighters. say that mali's military arms hunters to attack them from chatham house africa program says that accusation is yet to be established. we don't yet know if the army has actually. some of the traditional hunters what we do know is that over the sort of four or five years that this crisis in the center of the country is accelerated the army has really struggled to maintain any control there been a lot of random attacks or military bases and particularly isolated military outposts for example or checkpoints where a police officer on down the checking on travelers and that has stirred up bitterness among the army the army is not always been as disciplined does it should have been not as well trained as it should have been and this is

a very different situation from the north where for example the french and the u.n. forces are deployed in much greater force which is a bit nearer to a conventional sort of terrorist situation this is a really a mixed up community situation with an awful lot of bits in this intentional. donald trump says the u.s. will remain vigilant against eisel and continue fighting the group wherever it operates until it's finally defeated the president's comments come after us forces declare victory and who is the last i saw held territory in syria. reports from beirut's. this was the moments i so lost its last piece of territory in syria kurdish fighters hoisting their flag declaring that they are now in control. of our forces have raised our flags in big groups and have declared the end of this so-called kelly faith in north and syria this victory couldn't have been

a sheet were not for the great sacrifices of our brave martyrs within hours of victory ceremony was held in blues and the u.s. special envoy on syria it was there alongside kurdish fighters from the u.s. army has been supporting this critical milestone in the fight against isis delivers a crushing stay. blow and underscores the unwavering commitment of our local partners and the global coalition to do the isis. the self declared caliphate which one span swathes of syria and iraq has eventually been refused to the town of but was as it was unable to withstand the might of the u.s. led coalition which bombed it from the skies and the onslaught on the ground of a variety of groups including the kurdish led syrian defense forces the us the af and the turkish backed free syria army. taking the battle.