hiding place from meth labs thanks to decades of civil wars. vast areas of the state are still controlled by armed groups both rebels and government forces. the drug trade is a huge moneymaker for all sides. the most powerful of the rebel groups is the united states army they used to be famous for their heroin smuggling authorities in myanmar and thailand think they're now in the meth business. journalists are rarely given access. but they have recently appointed a spokesperson. by phone. hi my name is kevin woods quarter from al-jazeera do you have time to answer a couple of questions. he's surprisingly upfront about drugs being produced in wa territory but insists that it's all in the past.

ok market a lot. of iraq do you think there are any labs and your territory right now there are critical. part or. the whole bottle o. . the big. drug efforts with sporadic raids and televised drug burnings there true involvement in the meth training is difficult to prove and. the only one allowing us to see for ourselves is the shan state army south. it is shot on state day. a celebration of resistance against the myanmar military.

all. i must know number one. is the defacto leader of this territory. once it was in the business of the club tomorrow and then. i think of all. as this army shows off its fighting skills shine people from across the state parade in their best outfit. is an expensive affair for an army still fighting a civil war. yet circ and his soldiers are considered rebels by many in myanmar but here he is loved . and what he says is obeyed no stranger to

the drug trade he once fought alongside the infamous drug kingpin couldn't stop who was known for trafficking heroin worldwide. but these days he says the territory he controls is drug free like i am all government global all made ballers you people yarmulke you know yarmulke man it doesn't matter. about one get involved one caught another one. well. this policy might sound harsh but it has popular support. then and. we the people and children and adults don't want ethics or. if the state army so we know all the drugs we young and old men and women all agree

that this policy. is a former addict who joined the army to get clean. i would take ten pills a day and three to four pills at a time. when i went to work i secretly took the pills without my family knowing. but when they found out we fought along. they were disgusted with. me. he used to live in an area ruled by a patchwork of militias their dealers were easy to find. when i bought it i bought it from a policeman. people told me he was both a dealer and police. he was part of a militia group i'm not afraid of anything he actually.

says drugs are so enmeshed with authority only tough policies like death threats can stop it. yeah the world says drugs are a huge problem. and the rebels get all their money from the road. but that's not true. we're radek eating drugs we're not getting money from drugs at all . but report suggests some armed groups in myanmar earn money by providing safe passage for the traffickers i ask him if it's true. you know if they pass through here we arrest them and what is your source of income if not drugs we do tax everything not related to drugs. my timber gems and cattle. we get plenty of money from that. if we're mixed up with drugs our nation progress

with the international community would mix up to us because it's immoral that's why i've decided to fight drugs. if we see a meth lab we shoot it up no conversation when we get rid of those. but those who have worked in. here are more skeptical. john whalen is a retired united states drug enforcement agent he worked with the da inside myanmar for twenty five years the chance to be found told me that they're serious eradicating drugs in their territory how seriously i mean i personally i wouldn't take them very seriously if said they're for years put on shows for the benefit of the west more or less to say that they're serious about it. but they still benefit from the trade they have to fund their army they have to pay

them somehow feed them somehow so there's too much for the actual benefit for them to be out of the trade. or denies any involvement and orders his right hand man to take us on a patrol to prove it. major hong leads us to an area where he says they destroyed methamphetamine labs. we've made sure that the truck traffic this their drugs into our area that is. he brings me to a based on their border. and me what to rip ny ny met lots. more about the other eleven. more than eleven. of us say this is. just not in our control. yes you did you deny everyone

knows who is producing the drugs it's in the news the d e a knows the narcotics police some thailand know me on mars on government. money. why isn't anyone destroying those labs and that's what i'd like to know. points the finger firmly at groups aligned with the military i think the biggest drug producers are the pro-government militias which are allied with the. army they make the most drugs because they can operate in many areas. for decades the military struck ceasefire deals with rebels and turned them into pro-government militias by giving them more autonomy and turning a blind eye to their illicit activities. a recent raid in a pro-government militia territory uncovered two labs capable of producing ten tons

of meth among the seven million dollars of lab equipment they found. with the infamous w y the same as the pills the dealer we met was selling. back in thailand i tracked down. from the law who ethnic group he led a militia aligned with the government. know he lives in exile. japan says fighting alongside the me and maher military cost him his leg. he says he was never involved in making drugs but admits tax from drug trafficking was a source of income for his people in his day the drug being trafficked was heroin. and. there are rules about how much and where you have to pay the new drug whenever they cross into our territory they need to pay. more than twenty years later he

says the meth business operates the same way. to make sure you stay in the car at great risk he offers to take us to meet a current militia leader in pro-government militia territory. we agreed to meet at a border town called touchy like. call it the hub of meth trafficking. now. it's a dangerous to our journey for japan he's made a lot of enemies here are we now in paramilitary areas that. you look at. that is what is. above the. law so militia and law who militia. for this world are so he says many of the militias here are involved in trafficking. so where we just passed we paid taxes

that was to the drug lord. we passed through more than four pro-government militia territories. it's not safe for us to make too many stops. to pat says the new roads have accelerated the mets trained. to. talk of the football club the local. goodwill. they use the main routes where the meth labs have been discovered just a few kilometers off the highway but this is as close as we can get without risking our safety. the old little girl slightly. under the. hood it's a bit of good look at the. law which is good but. we arrive at a village run by the pro-government militia to pet warns us not to ask too many

questions like to pet this leader says his village would not survive without allying with the government to look. good to. the locals well michelle much of a lot of the money you know which of course the rich will do you know local farm will help with the i want to do. this give the harassment may have stopped but the village still has to find a way to earn money. to put love a. clue to the lot of people going on is the most. lethal and yet i broach the sensitive topic of methamphetamines how are they getting their ties. to torrential molecule could fall on the world so it's all just boils what you model for who sleeps on the top it's up to all of that. to pat makes

light of a tense situation. and it's time to leave we're back in the van japan insists that providing safe passage for drug traffickers is one way for these. poor ethnic groups to survive of such sort that the good likes to put them but. that got to much more. but for japan the real culprit is the myanmar military approach this was seen. in short as long as the myanmar military exists this to which we have drugs will continue to exist for the new best says from generation to generation for a fugitive drug kingpins that myanmar has been the only place where they have found safe haven. luckly the only place they can halakhah question. one to one east made multiple attempts to contact me mars drug

enforcement division but received no reply for certain classes in the capital yangon john whalen and police it's likely military officers turn a blind eye to the meth trade but doubts they are manufacturers is the military directly involved in the military unlikely are they allowing it to occur in their areas of operation yet they are. it's a deadly cycle drugs fund the wars and the wars provide the perfect camouflage to keep the drugs flowing the narcotics trade meth trade certainly fuels the conflict proceeds from the narcotics trade are used to fund militia groups providing weapons providing food paid to soldiers and so forth so it's certainly not helpful to put peace process. mean more civil

wars along with me and corruption that created the biggest meth problem. from little red plume to turns of crystal meth. there are incredible profits to be made because of the demand. and where there is demand there will always be supply. more women a big job than ever before but what's driving this alarming development what i want to mates to x. inmates live blog behind bars on zero zero zero.

on counting the cost big on symbolism big on rhetoric but what has brazil's president got to show for a country struggling to recover from a recession and is india's prime minister seeks another term where on speaking has he actually kept his election promises counting the cost on al-jazeera. protests organizers in sudan reiterate calls for an immediate civilian transition as their representatives hold talks with the military. you're watching al-jazeera live from a headquarters in doha and you navigate also ahead libya's u.n.

back government forces say they've shot down a fighter jet operated by troops loyal to the warlords have to. plus one mother's plea to the nigerian government to bring back over one hundred girls who remain in the custody of boko haram five years after they were kidnapped. and the young u.s. athlete who puts his life at risk by rationing medication and why stories like his are becoming more common. hello protests organizers and so don are reiterating their demand for an immediate transition to a civilian administration. during talks with the military which deposed longtime leader on martin bashir the military council wants to hold on to the interior and defense ministries in any transitional government and says political parties can decide on a civilian prime minister. we your brothers in the armed forces are asking you

to support us with your initiatives to break through the transitional period we need and hope all of you within a short span of time come to a consensus an agreement upon one figure a patriotic independent person to lead the government look at the latest and have a morgan she's joining us from khartoum and you've been speaking to some of the generals who are attending that meeting hippa what more have they told you. well daryn at the moment there's a bit of a difference of hours how the transitional period should be led the military council as you've said once the defense ministry and the interior ministry and the political parties want a purely civilian government but one of the main points of contention between the two sides is how the transition period should be run the military council wants to be the one supervising the transitional government until elections are held in two years to a time now most of the political parties are saying that this is not something they want they want to be an independent transitional government they want to be the

ones running their own affairs deciding what happens with the country and of course we have the sudanese professional association which is not a political party but it was the one that was hit spearheading the calls for protest and still as it's made it very clear that people should continue to protest and till the military council agrees to hand over power to an independent civilian transitional government until elections are held so at the moment there's a bit of a division about not just how long the transitional period should be or how it should or what should it should comprise of but how it should be run who should supervise the weather should be independent or the military council should be the one running as well as points of contentions include what rights do the military council have what should they do what they cannot do these are all points that are currently being discussed and we are waiting for them to come up with a statement to know if they've managed to agree on how the transitional government should look like for the next two years very i mean while how big do the protests remain out on the streets and particularly in front of the army headquarters. there

are still a lot of people in front of the army headquarters there in more of them are walking as we speak and we've seen a few earlier some hundreds walking towards there carrying the sudanese flag that's because the sudanese professional association had told them to continue with the process and that the only way their demands can be mad is if they make a different clear that they know their revolution is not over their fight is not over at the moment as i said the sudanese professional association is the one that is leading the calls and they're saying that a civilian government is the only way forward and it's the only way they can declare their victory complete now people are still out of their thousands planning to spend the night there as they've been doing for the past nine nights and they're saying that they will continue to protest they want nothing to do with the old regime they want to abolish meant of the national intelligence and security services which they say was behind behind the clampdown on protesters and has been targeting government dissidents for the last thirty years they also want to

accountability they want to know where the former president i want to share is where is he being held and is he under house arrest or not what about the people who are with him in the government these are all questions they want the military council and the transitional government to answer before they can call their victory complete turn over daryn ok have a morgan thank you. well sudan's for minister is calling on the international community support the new military leadership saudi arabia and the u.a.e. have announced their support for the transitional military council riad has promised aid and is calling on protesters to quote give priority to national interests so done as part of the so do you are you coalition fighting in yemen the u.a.e. and saudi arabia have learned billions of dollars to khartoum in the recent years libya's un backed government forces say they have shot down a fighter jet belonging to the warlords and if i have to these pictures appear to show the aftermath in the south of tripoli in the area of why did it appear have to us forces say the plane crashed they launched an offensive earlier this month to

take control of b. capital. has more from tripoli military commanders with the government of national called in tripoli say that they have shut down. fighter jet this has been also confirmed by her forces who say the fight at all of the pilot managed to escape with a parachute apparently the fighter jet was sucked down in an area near the disused airport in and neighborhood called swanny which is a fighting area currently between the government forces and forces loyal to the warlords have to we know that have to do warplanes have been targeting civil locations in and around tripoli including the only operational airport in the city airport on the other hand plays with a government of national accord targeted look ations position controlled by have to its forces near the city of again the fighting on the ground we can say that

sporadic fighting continues between the two factions in civil as on the southern outskirts of the libyan capital tripoli and the ongoing the fighting has forced thousands of civilians to leave the areas where we can on the violence in libya has trapped thousands of refugees and migrants trying to get to europe and many are going back to some of the countries along the transit routes. added that he says more from agadez in neighboring share. officials and locals now telling us dozens of people are crossing the border from the deck mean to agonise every week that's just the position right now in a duchess in addition to the thousands of migrants who are still trapped here people who fled recently from libya into are going to trying to find refuge from the ongoing crisis in my country and there are more people by the way who are coming into i get is try to wait out the situation in libya waiting for the right

moment to cross the border into libya as a transit point and then into europe now go home to c.n.n. i get it including humanitarian workers like the united nations high commissioner for refugees and other non-governmental organizations are reaching out for a must see inflow of refugees from the media the traffic of human humanity all people vikrant is now on but it was five people instead of going to media are now coming back to to share hearing i get is why facilities i don't overstretch or for just yet i really concerned about health impact infrastructure has no time to create enough to cope with a large influx as well as security so that you know it's a vicious is telling al jazeera that they are also making the necessary preparations they don't see it right now but they're making preparations in case matters mustn't flow of refugees from across the border in tunisia he said there are also concerns inten is about asylum seekers who have come from libya trying to cross the mediterranean by boat over the past year hundreds from several african

countries have ended up on tin is insurance nicholas hot has this report from jersey. back in his boat tunisian fisherman selling but he bought was arrested last year for helping save fourteen african migrants at sea detailing coast guards accused him of human trafficking he faced fifteen years in prison but was later released after months in detention. government you remember i didn't commit a crime and i would do it again we cannot abandon them or our faith cannot allow us to abandon them they are humans just like you and me. while most migrants set off from libya strong currents in bad weather often pushed their fragile boats towards neighboring tunisia. authorities here say they are overwhelmed tunisia similar challenges as european countries with migrants ending up on its shores except it doesn't have the resources to deal with them and with the fighting intensifying in

neighboring libya it continues to be the gateway to europe for many african migrants. nearly four hundred people have drowned trying to cross the mediterranean so far this year. at first fishermen marzouk saw dead babies women and men floating in the sea now he sees bodies and limbs washing up on tunisia's beaches moved by the sight of so many dead migrants. buried over four hundred of them. now knowing their journey maybe their souls made it to europe or even to america we may have buried their bodies but not their dreams. for these tunisian fishermen their action is an attempt to bring some human dignity to those who lost their lives in the mediterranean in the fear the fighting in libya was even more tempting to make

that dangerous journey. at the tunisian libyan border algerians living in paris and london have gathered in large numbers demanding the resignation of the interim government they want the new leader. to step down and the replacement of the entire political elite replaced. resigned earlier this month after weeks of protests and judges in algeria say they will boycott the supervision of the upcoming presidential elections they fear the vote which is expected in july will be rigged demonstrators are keeping up the pressure on the interim administration and algeria is interior minister was forced to cut short an official visits of the southern state of bashar after he faced protests in several cities twenty one members of the municipal councils of bashar state were protesting along with others against his visit it was the first such trip by representative of algeria's interim government. the white house standing by donald trump tweet about

a muslim congresswoman despite accusations it was putting her life at risk trump selectively quoted a speech by making it look like she was downplaying the nine eleven attacks press secretary sarah sanders said omar deserved the criticism that democrats should join him castro has more from washington d.c. . though several members of the democratic progressive wing have rushed to congresswoman omar's defense the reaction from the more moderate leadership and in particular house speaker nancy pelosi has been much more cautious she did condemn the president for his tweet attacking omar but she did not go as far as to defend omar herself and this disconnect between the moderate leadership and the progressive wing of the democratic party is a vulnerability that this president's spokeswoman sarah huckabee sanders pointed out this morning this.