backed major constitutional changes that could allow a president of the other l.c.c. to stay in power until twenty thirty the amendments also extend the military's power over politics rights groups say the referendums neither free nor fair of course in hong kong is due to hand down sentences for nine pro-democracy leaders of the so-called umbrella protests five years ago. and many of their supporters are gathered outside the court as the activists want you to learn their fate the facing up to seven years in prison after being convicted on public nuisance charges and twenty fourteen hundreds of thousands of people blocked roads for seventy nine days to demand open elections for the city's leadership well those are the headlines on al-jazeera up front is coming up next. china is one g. probably has become famous for its large number of elderly many aged one hundred years one on one east investigates the rate you hold the secrets to a long and healthy line on al-jazeera on up from today we'll speak with the award

winning bangladeshi photo journalist and activist shot at all of on his recent imprisonment and the political climate of the prime minister sina but first it's the biggest crisis of our time climate change but how do we tackle it or is it too late. climate change is ravaging our planet last year thousands of deaths were linked to heat waves and wildfires while millions of people were impacted by floods and typhoons scientists say time is running out to save civilization as we know it so what will it take for politicians in the public to tackle what is perhaps the greatest crisis of our time and just confronting climate change requires confronting our economic system taking on capitalism or is it all too little too late joining me to discuss all this and more

a panel of experts from new york james hansen the world renowned climate scientist and former director of the masses got institute for space studies from l.a. russian the climate activist and co-founder of the sunrise movement that's grabbed the headlines but u.s. congressional office is and here in the studio i'm on the mic washee c.e.o. of the global and geo christian aid thank you all for joining me on up front james let me start with you you've been dealing with the science behind all of this stuff that decades how long do we have to tackle climate change before it becomes too late we hear a lot these days about there being just twelve years to turn things around well there's no such arbitrary number we've reached a timeline we should be phasing down the missions now. and if we do that we can still get a little bit warmer than we are now and then temperature can begin to decline but that requires that we phase our fossil fuels on the timescale of the next several

decades and we're not taking the actions to do that you and your generation of millenniums say that you see the challenge of climate change as your world war two do you actually believe that result just a way of trying to get people to take it will seriously if you do believe that how do you win this new world war i mean people are dying right now and that's what we have to grapple with that the climate crisis is already upon us there are three thousand americans that have perished in the last year because of hurricane maria we have seen wildfires absolutely raise the entire cities to the ground in a matter of minutes parts of our coastline are losing more than a football field of land a minute so the climate crisis is upon us and that is just with one degree of warming that we have seen so far and scientists are telling us that if we don't stop it at one point five or zero or two degrees we are going to reach

a tipping point a point of no return so right now we're we're saying to ourselves as young people like what is the world that we're going to have to live in in a few decades if we don't do something right now amanda you're the c.e.o. of a global development and a lot of this conversation happening here in the west is about the west what impact is climate change having already on the ground across the rest of the world especially the developing world in places like sub-saharan africa what does climate change look like to the poor who having to live through that well let me paint a picture for you and i think you're right to see that the conversations are happening here in the west but actually the impact of climate change is already being felt by communities in sub-saharan africa and other parts of asia i was in ethiopia recently i was. in south or more which is on the border with south sudan in a place called one of the women there said to me amanda it's getting hard time and horta and the horses and getting closer and closer to each other our crops.

our lifestyle is dying and we need to find other ways of survival in terms of income sources that's the real lived experience and impact of climate change and you know where the tragedy is the tragedy is that these communities are the ones that have contributed their lists to climate change as as we know it they haven't benefited at all from. the use and abuse and exploitation overall of fossil fuels ok james hansen you were there in front of congress in one nine hundred eighty eight you know sounding the alarm bell calling for action pointing out what the science was saying did you think that you know all these decades later would still be having these conversations and do you recognize that the reason we're having these conversations is a lot to do with the economic impact that fighting climate change will require the economic change that it will require the resistance to that change well you know

the problem is caused by carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels so what we have to do is raise the price of these fossil fuels but we have to do it in a way that the public is able to deal with the increasing price of fossil fuels and make the changes needed to move to other sources of energy and then the economy can work for us but so far the fossil fuel industry has been able to lobby the government and keep us that's what has to change version in terms of what has to be done your a prominent advocate of what's been called the green new deal this ultra ambitious ten year mobilization plan to get the us to zero emissions zero greenhouse gas emissions and also create millions of new green jobs in the process a lot of people say that's just not realistic you're not going to get the american public on board for that. i don't think that that's true and i think what the green

new deal is about is actually exactly all the things that you mentioned getting off of fossil fuels of stopping the climate crisis but tying that to the creation of tens of millions of good paying jobs of actually boosting and vitalizing our economy in this process of supplement changes that raul and. james let me bring them under then jovo to get a mandarin james response green new deal your loan remember i think we definitely need some kind of marshall plan. for fighting climate climate crisis it is an emergency. where i like this conversation is that science is giving us new information about the fact that the economic model that we're on is the wrong model because it is fossil fuel driven and so for me i don't think that is just a question of tinkering with the current economic model we actually have to look at

alternatives and i don't believe that we don't have the know how and the knowledge as you say we can't tackle climate change as we tackle capital that's what i'm saying the whole process of economic development and how the west developed was an economic foundation that is actually hardwired to serve fuel at the explanation and expense of the planet and people and unfortunately the technology and some of the knowledge is sitting in the west and it's about power and it's about wealth and unless we see such a time when the west itself is being one heavily impacted on by climate change i think that we're still going to see is slow movement this shift. to find that is nonsense we need a real deal which understands how economics works and what we need to do in order to move. and that requires in addition to this rising carbon fee with the

distribution to the public we also have to have the technologies we have to help the developing countries the western world burned the carbon budget for the whole world now we've got a problem and we're going to have to help those countries that want to raise their standards of living to match ours and so there it's a big problem but it's a solvable problem you and james out of the both agree on the scale of the challenge but he thinks he'll solution is listen. dad well i would say that i don't think that simply putting a price on carbon is going to be enough in this moment i think if it were thirty years ago that might have been enough and even after the most recent i.p.c.c. report the u.n. climate report that came out last fall said that we need to make i don't president it changes to every part of our economy and our society to stop this crisis so i

don't think that that's going to be enough i think we need to also however we need not adding it to consider james that amount that. you know it's not enough but it's the underline policy that's required to make the price of fossil fuels honest otherwise people will keep burning them the same way that we did in the west because people use their energy they're going to raise your standard of living they need energy and we need to make the price of fossil fuels include their cost to society that's the underlying requirement but there is you acknowledge a development also and i just quickly touch because james talked about much you know the developing world wants to much the development of the west there just under a billion people without electricity without access to electricity in the world. and this is not something that you know is going to happen overnight just by being

bit by bit different days resting from fossil fuels i think we have to do more than just a day's rest a little bit i think we have to stop we actually have to stop because the emergency is people are dying on a daily basis i can't overemphasize that enough let me ask you this question in your travels especially for places like africa do you see an alliance of government or leaders that can work to tackle this problem even if the white house is currently filled with a person who doesn't want to take the seriousness of pulling the u.s. out of paris who. for the chinese hoax even without road block that is the us president are there enough governments with the will power of us to mention political that you take this seriously and get action done even if they have to go around the united states well you know leaders common goal climate change is not going to come and go unless we do something about it i think that if you look for example at the african development bank what they have done is that what is strategy and they've raised their ambition in terms of war targets or voice of

looking at clean energy sustainable clean energy and looking at greed you know many greens to reach the community in africa so in terms of an alliance i think there are enough people there's enough momentum that we're having but can i just say that we need a bigger groundswell. of community is yes of the private sector so james you've been campaigning on this issue for a long time people now take it will seriously when you look at the current president of the united states how much damage is he doing to your cause to your argument to spreading the the scientific facts and figures what role is he playing in undermining all of this well you know it's now he's made it easier for us to file our lawsuits we have lawsuits against trump and beginning to have them against the fossil fuel industry and he's just made it much clearer so i think the case in

court is now ironclad so i expect to see some wins in the very near future let me end with the last word you're twenty five years old i believe this is only going to get more serious over the course of your lifetime how does your generation in particular avoid paralysis on this avoid the prospect that it's all doom and gloom where we're finished there's nothing we can do we want of or just give up. well i would say the only antidote to grief and despair is action and bringing young people into the political process to make our voices heard and to ensure that this political class. stablish meant right now does not leave our generation to bear the brunt of the impending disaster throughout our history the greatest transformational societal change that has occurred has been because tons of young people stood up and said enough is enough. james among the will have to be the thank you all for joining me on outfront.

the u.s. military says it's doing it from job to violent groups across africa but over ten years off the u.s. africa command first began operations is that really the case produce secure and already has this week's reality check we hear a lot about the u.s. in the middle east but you know where it has an imperial scale military presence fighting on forever war fronts and anti terror operations most of us know nothing about. africa i didn't know there was a thousand troops in the u.s. africa command for africa on has received billions of dollars over the past decade to train foreign militaries and counter terrorism tactics and put in a joint operations it's popped up around fifteen mostly unofficial bases from morocco to mozambique and has been fighting in at least thirteen countries including what some call africa's afghanistan somalia headed out for calm insists special operators are doing a fantastic job across to come but are they really as u.s.

military presence has dramatically increased in africa so have terror related attacks going from forty one to nearly twenty five hundred twenty seventeen with reports saying u.s. strategy has only strengthen the hands of radical groups and the violence extends even beyond terrorists in the fight against boko haram u.s. trained and backed nigerian forces have stormed suffocated tortured. extrajudicial executed eight thousand people in fact over a dozen u.s. trained militaries have been accused of human rights abuses from operating secret torture prisons to shooting at women and children and the us once i admitted they failed to train in values and ethics is it any wonder the majority of african countries resisted afrikaans creation partly why its headquarters were put in europe even recently thousands of gun names protested the u.s. military saying it's become a curse everywhere they are mauritania ended a u.s. military program because they were never comfortable with what they signed up for

and tribal leaders in u.s. bases are now dead for the terrorists even an afrikaans sponsored study said the u.s. has largely failed to achieve its goals in response the pentagon said they would scale back some operations just now ones like the largest air force construction project of all time as a former ally for comment fishel put it well to start these things it's hard to turn up. for more than three decades award winning photographer has been documenting government abuse and humanitarian crises around the world last year he was arrested while covering protests in his home country of bangladesh and now faces up to fourteen years in prison on charges of spreading propaganda and false information against the government his arrest provoked a worldwide demand for his release and earned him a place among time magazine's people of the year should be the all of these cases a test for democracy in a country many say sliding towards authoritarianism he joins me now. thanks for

joining me on the front of the last august you were covering the student protests in dhaka which started over a lack of road safety i believe and then you gave an interview to this channel al jazeera english what happened next. sitting up but uploading pictures the doorbell rang. when the door i was alone in the house. people came around the back they'd up he's been lurking on the side and grabbed me . you know i know what happens in black with a sleaze offices so they were in plain clothes so they didn't introduce themselves but i could work out what was going on and really about point my interest was in making sure that someone knew that this was happening to me so i resisted i screamed eventually i got taken in to a van waiting downstairs handcuffed blindfolded. and taken away.

i was in i didn't know where i was taken to but one month i got there i was interrogated tortured.