dates through the day for the moment when l. thank you enough and as in colombo. now the russian and north korean leaders have had their first ever face to face meeting but amir putin is describing talks with kim jong un in light of all still substantial putin says the denuclearization can only be achieved through international law and the north need security guarantees. look with binoculars or what is denuclearization it is to a certain extent this armament of north korea of course i have spoken about it all the time and can confirm once again the north korea site speaks about it as well democratic people's republic of north korea needs guarantee of the safety and sovereignty. of the people of the two countries who share a valuable friendship that was created and strengthened while overcoming every hardship and challenge thrown to us by history have a deep understanding that the ceaseless development of north korea russia ties not only serves our mutual interests but is also indispensable for securing the region's peace and stability sudanese protest leaders have increased pressure on

the army by calling for a large rally demanding a civilian government. were hoping for one million people to take to the streets three senior members of the ruling military council accused of cracking down on protesters resigned on wednesday we counsel says it's reached a deal on most of the protesters demands but there's no word on how soon the military one hundred the power to civilians is live for us in khartoum let's just talk about before we talk about the demonstrations and the gathering of people mohamed let's talk about the impact of the three resignations and the all new going discussions with that civil society coalition. yes general zinni larvae dean. and i'll tell you but be careful how to handle the ignition but the leadership of the military council has not yet specified whether they have accepted the resignation of these three generals of

course their removal from the council was part of a raft of demands presented to the transitional military council by the leadership of the protests and opposition leaders who said that the three generals what representatives of the regime of bashir however their. nation by itself with accept or more trolls how. the transitional military council is really trying to come to toms with the demands of the protest leaders of course the main demand bayne the quick return to civilian rule something the military council says it's willing to discuss with them of course the coalition movement has appealed to the public at large from across the country to congregate in the sudanese capital to show support

for this new sea change in the political landscape of the country. yes indeed they're calling it the one million. man march for a quick latan to civilian rule something they're trying to use to exact even more pressure on the transitional military council flowers and soft people descending on the couple khartoum from. wednesday this one of the source for many people arriving from places not flaws. and just coming from every corner of the country in fact in the coming hour or so we're expecting a train load of people who want to join the protest outside the military headquarters to come from in darfur region residents of khartoum also we saw groups of them chanting cutting placards in the flag of sudan heading to

that's why it is expected to be one of the biggest gatherings ever since the protests began four months ago but will continue to follow events through the day with you might have been mohammed out there in khartoum well still ahead here on how does iran renewed fire the u.s. president down to find the times to impeach him as democrats push for a new investigations also rises cheaper in the philippines now but pharma say they're paying the price those stories on the other side of the break. that you probably notice from news coverage it's cold enough in front of our stock to wear overcoats well it's not much different now this cloud running straight from west to east and that's taking the same sort of rises by eight degrees it's well

worth the science is rain developing in the sea of japan so i guess normal honshu and al qaeda rather wet. friday tokyo is probably right on the edge of it behind that well the still cloud to come out of china because any nineteen in beijing has been much warmer in beijing than to seventeen brands how we get to saturday but the same time but insulation but a sunshine of that of oscar fighting foster is up to eleven but it's still raining in home she and her colleagues are probably in tokyo as well now the rain that was really quite heavy over the last three four five days in southern china is he's off a little bit the forecast give you some green centers not will be discreet sunder storms in various places in south china maybe in hong kong certain defeat of moisture is there could be a cloudy picture as it is in vietnam but not necessarily as wet as i say a couple days ago and the cloud is moving north through malaysia into the philippines into the bulk of southeast asia now that would be the case for the next

few weeks which brings rain slowly up into bangkok.

you're watching al-jazeera with me to help with a reminder of our top stories the red cross says residential areas of libya's capital are gradually turning into battlefields and the agency is warning hospitals in tripoli are struggling with power cuts and chronic shortages of medical supplies security services in sri lanka remain on high alert following sunday's multiple bomb attacks police say the. suicide bombings on sunday killed three hundred fifty nine people and wounded hundreds more. also russian president vladimir putin says north korea needs security guarantees for denuclearization told in talks with visiting north korean leader kim jong un. with that story and join rob mcbride our correspondent in seoul of course with the reaction from south korea and of course regional neighbors whether they be south korea japan or china will be

looking very carefully at what's been said putin meeting was sort of reaction have you had heard from in seoul. indeed and events will be followed close to still from south korea are for obvious reasons they are very supportive generally of this whole process of bilateral summits it is if you like or of the process of normalize ation of north korea interacting with its neighbors interacting with the rest of the world not being so isolated so they are supportive of this whole process and have said so in seoul today thursday in fact there has been a senior representative of the russian government a senior security official who has been briefing the south korean government just on what vladimir putin's goals have been with this summit in blood of our stock and also elaborating on what's been we think

a fairly new policy outlined by vladimir putin that is of russia and china jointly lending their services to try to intercede to help the process along the south korean government say they want to see more details of this but their position is that the most important thing for south korea is to get back on track the stalled negotiations between north korea and the u.s. that's where they see most work happening most success happening towards the all important goal of denuclearization and that for south korea is the priority so whatever russia or china might be intending to do it really has to coordinate with that and the last thing that anyone would want to see is that process being derailed obviously moon j.n. the president of south korea has for the past year or so been playing the part of intermediary and an envoy of his awaits to travel north once again when the kim jong un returns to north korea to see whether they can in fact find some ground

some common ground to get things we started between north korea and the u.s. and of course even when there are talks like this between north korea and a nother major power the impact is always about how the conversation will continue between north and south korea on the peninsula of course that in itself has had a sort of stop start good bad scenario over the last twelve months. generally people in south korea are happy with the progress that has been made and yes as you say there no one wants to see any of that being done and there is a there are concerns that this might be putting strains on the the relationship that has been built up between the north and the south and in fact today thursday we got a worrying. recollection if you like of some of the rhetoric that has taken place between the north and the south with a condemnation from north korea of south korea's military involvement in joint

exercises with the u.s. now this is something that happens normally spring every year these military exercises have been scaled down to allow this whole process of reconciliation but it seems they have not been scaled down enough even though it's a small scale exercise the north koreans have accused the south koreans of an act of perfidy by taking part in these exercises the kind of language that we haven't seen for some months and so there is concern here that the hope is that this is just one off that it is a one off occurrence and it will not detract from the good relations that have been established during those a month sail for the moment we'll leave it there rob rob a bride there in south korea thank you. former u.s. vice president joe biden has announced his bid to become the democratic party nominee for the twenty twenty presidential election in a video announcement biden said that the u.s. was in

a battle for the soul of the nation he was referencing the racism of violence in charlottesville virginia in twenty seventeen biden is up against nineteen other democratic hopefuls including elizabeth warren and bernie sanders. transferring to fight all the way to the supreme court to stop any impeachment attempts the u.s. president's opposing subpoenas for a former aide to testify in congress democrats are demanding the fall uncensored version of the miller report into russian interference. interim selection so congress can decide whether he's broken the law can be held to the white house. unconditional war on his opponents is a tactic donald trump has used for decades in the business world and now it appears in the political arena as president i say it's a tough get back to infrastructure good factor cutting taxes good back to lowering drug prices that's what really that's what we should be doing but we're fighting

all the subpoenas we need these materials even though the u.s. congress has a constitutional obligation to investigate the white house trumps declared he's prepared to take his fight to the highest court in a wednesday morning tweet truck threaten congressional democrats if they try to get rid of him through impeachment he'll go straight to the supreme court trump is upset democrats continue to question his legitimacy and want to probe his taxes and financial records it follows the release last week of the much anticipated report by special counsel robert muller on whether the truck campaign worked with russia during the twenty sixteen presidential campaign. mode concluded there was no evidence they did but he did suggest congress could pursue the matter of whether the president obstructed justice during the investigation from the white house a top adviser mocked congress's oversight efforts even suggesting the white house might block any testimony by former employees so what else is there to know and

what else is there and i believe it matter what we all know if director mueller and his investigators wanted to or felt that it was right to indict they wouldn't your committee will come to order many top democrats in congress including democratic presidential candidate and senator elizabeth warren believe trump should be investigated and even impeached we cannot be an american that says. it is ok for a president of the united states to try to block investigations still senior democrats like house speaker nancy pelosi are pushing for oversight without attempting to remove donald trump from office as an election year approaches she's director democrats to win votes by talking about issues voters care about like health care and approving wages impeachment is a political gamble most polls show a majority of americans think that impeaching the u.s.

president is a mistake that means instead of inflicting damage on donald trump it could build support among swing voters potentially aiding trump's reelection can really help get al jazeera the white house so africa's president is promising government help to rebuild the lives of floods and mudslides victims so rob opposes been assessing the damage another round at least sixty people are being killed and many have lost their homes more heavy rain and go falls winds are forecast for the eastern cape in the next few days. farmers in the philippines say their income has been harmed by the introduction of a tariff on rice president eternity's that will help filipino farmers curb rising prices but others are warning it could damage the livelihoods of millions reports now from the northern philippines. here in the way of a see here in the northern philippines it's time for harvest the province is one of

the country's major rice growers but like many farmers marjorie had no on is leaving her rice fields untouched she's holding off in the hope that the price of grain will go up and i had a this is a very hard we have been dealing with this land for months and yet the price of grain is down to half we don't even know where to get our food now. the philippine government has signed the so-called rise liberalisation. the bill into law which aims to ease restrictions on the volume of rice imports and impose tariffs the price of rice going south may be a welcome development for consumers here but for the more than two million filipino farmers the cost of producing hasn't and many are struggling financially to survive now they are calling on the government to help them out immediately the government says the law will help create revenue to help bring down to price of rice which is

the philippines staple food. this is a huge burden for us farmers and consumers because our ugly industry we believe that the government will be able to say out of ten billion every year. just like in the past it will end up in corruption and let it go to small farmers like us rice accounts for around fifteen percent of the nation's agricultural output and yet farmers association say they need more government subsidies if they are to survive we understand the concern of farmers we have been supporting the rice farmers for decades since. the ninety six things we do not see significant gains in their productive and their. living standards are not significantly better so something must be wrong with our previous policy we are providing. to improve productivity of farmers through. more productive or higher yielding

seeds farmers see they used to earn around six hundred dollars for hectare every four months but now the only gets around two hundred dollars they're already among the poorest people here in the fear their lives are going to get worse and this by them being food producers they're the ones who'll be going hungry. dog and al-jazeera. province northern philippines. deserve me to hell robin a reminder of our top stories the red cross says residential areas of libya's capital are gradually turning into battlefields and the aid agency is warning hospitals in tripoli are struggling with power cuts and chronic shortages of medical supplies. security services in sri lanka remain on high alert following

sunday's multiple bomb attacks police say that they're searching for nine vehicles suicide bombings on easter sunday killed three hundred fifty nine people and wounded hundreds more. the russian and north korean leaders have had their first ever face to face meeting putin is describing talks with kim jong un in blood of all stock and substantial putin says denuclearization can only be achieved through international law and the north needs security guarantees. look with binoculars or what is denuclearization it is to a certain extent disarmament of north korea of course i have spoken about it all the time and can confirm once again the north korea site speaks about it as well democratic people's republic of north korea needs guarantee of its safety and sovereignty of. the people of the two countries who share a valuable friendship that was created and strengthened while overcoming every hardship and challenge thrown to us by history have a deep understanding that the ceaseless development of north korea russia ties not

only serves our mutual interests but is also indispensable for securing the region's peace and stability sudanese protest leaders have increased pressure on the army by calling for a large rally demanding a civilian government. hoping for one million people to take to the streets three senior members of the ruling military council accused of cracking down on protesters resigned on wednesday the council says it's reached a deal on most of the protesters demands. former u.s. vice president joe biden has announced his bid to be the democratic party nominee for the twenty twenty presidential election in a video announcement biden said the u.s. was in a battle for the soul of the nation he was referencing the racism and violent scene in charlottesville virginia twenty seventeen biden is up against nineteen other democratic hopefuls including elizabeth warren and bernie sanders those were the headlines of the more news in half an hour and of course next it's inside story

with regard to stay with us. a child dies every twelve minutes in yemen the wars killed more than a quarter of a million people and a u.n. study says that development in one of the world's poorest countries has been pushed back twenty years so how can we stop the world worst humanitarian disaster getting even worse this is interesting.

welcome to the program on imran khan the fighting in yemen now in its fifth year appears to be no closer to an end peace efforts have made little progress and the united states and some other western powers continue to support the saudi u.a.e. coalition against the who the rebels every day brings horrific stories of civilian deaths including women and children from violence famine or disease the u.n. says yemen is one of the greatest preventable disasters. a u.n. study identifies forty four million yemenis nearly forty percent of the population as living in extreme poverty one point six million children are facing my nutrition more than a third of them of school age cannot attend classes the war has cost the economy eighty nine billion dollars. i. let's bring in our guests from yemen hachim a political analyst and editor in chief of the yemen post in london mohammed jhoom

a member of the national dialogue conference in yemen and from amman col schembri regional media advisor in the middle east for the norwegian refugee council thank you all for joining us let me begin with you hakim in sun up not only have you been covering this conflict but you're a resident of yemen for the last five years this has been a worsening conflict to the point now where the u.n. is calling it the world's worst humanitarian disaster what's it been like for you. it's unbelievable it's sad when you see the family suffering and it's not just one family or our neighbors it's nation of thirty million people whether in the north or in the south so it's not only those who are living in the burn areas the suffering is nationwide this war has killed so many. civilians has made so many children. being child soldiers have made so many. big spread

by the millions families tens of millions sleeping hungry it's unbearable and the problem is that this is the suffering has it's been like this for the last few years and the u.n. has always been saying that it's the worst humanitarian crisis but every time this never it still continues and the problems are barely solved that's mainly because of the obstacles that are happening. by both sides or due to the war but again this war needs to come to an end to help not the sides who are clashing but the innocent civilians who are in the millions who are paying the price of this dirty long war. voice that do you see any resolution to this conflict. i'm a bit optimistic to be honest not by the u.n. efforts but they are mediation efforts happening right now there are. calls for a direct talk between the saudis and who in this way they can and this is the

obvious war easier though that i wanted to get into some of the salary demands to back away their territory. territories and on the saudi border etc so there are there is hope but again they are also sides who are making obstacles to end this war and this is why. it's very sad that there are still some people who are seeing the something that's happening in yemen while on the same time. not trying to end it so there is hope hopefully by the. by the end of this year we are very optimistic about. the tactics of mediators of talks of peace talks look what change the u.n. has basically. tell on its knees for months they could not implement. the how they'd a cease. fire agreement so they will be a change and twist in the ways to change the way that this peace talks are happening and i'm pretty sure the next step will be optimistic especially if they give the saudis the. direct channel communication to end this war easier rather

than to have the mediations. mediation. in london very knowledgeable about the saudi role in all of this now the saudis when they first started this wolf five years ago well they're expecting it to last this long and what is the end game why is the saudi led coalition still in this war. well i think the war in yemen if we want to say started in two thousand and four before the actual recent war started in two thousand and fourteen. the oath is sort of the want two thousand and four against the former. regime the loss or him. the former president and it now continues. the saudis that immoralities other parties are now involved because of the there was an inside war like

a sort of civil war inside the country before many is so many years before the saudis and immoralities and others getting involved into this warm so i think with our with looking at the main reasons inside the country before this war we are just hoping for having peace as a sort of dreams because we are not negotiating we are not discussing the real reasons of the war which is mainly inside the country and there is like a civil conflicts inside yemen and houthi that have this sort of geology and really just thought that they have the rights to rule the country with our. getting it by the right way by elections they didn't they don't think about elections are all and with our it have been their oath is coming to a negotiating table with very clear willing that they are going to implement this

agreement they signed with the government then there is no hope for example they went to stockholm for four or four months ago more than four months ago and the last week or the week before i wrote he said we are not going to withdraw our troops we are not going to withdraw from what they them and. you are. an envoy to yemen mentioned last week that there is no negotiation political negotiation before an implement in an achiever in the agreement the government says the same thing as well so i don't look at the issue as a war from outside only a man yes it's some aspect in some aspects there is a war from our side. and that is a war which is face inside the country and which cause the the the outside world there is no war i think the main reason is inside the main cause for this war is

between them unease and without with the yemeni is getting to get to negotiate their differences into the country inside in a real political process then i think the other parties from outside from the regional aspect international aspect will get would have gotten involved in this war but haven't many would disagree with you they would say that the reason this war has gone on so long is because it is a proxy war between saudi arabia the u.a.e. and iran and the those three players have backed different sides in this war and it's just continued on surely it's not about what's going on inside yemen it's actually the regional implications as you say the real reason for this war. i think myself the war started even the actual war which started in two thousand and four team started six months before the saudis and the minorities got involved in

this war so what i'm saying i'm not denying that that is a regional aspect of this war but what i'm saying is the real reason is inside the country because the civil war inside the country started when the forty's attacked son arm in two thousand and fourteen getting the president to be a exulted in riyadh and even using the cross against the presidential palace in our then when he left sanaa to our them so there is a real problem inside the country we need to discuss this problem we need to find solution to this problem inside the country and then we can so say to the other parties outside the country with the regional our international some of this war but i think looking at the war as a war between yemen and saudis our yemen immoralities is just getting getting like a vague image about this war the war has some aspects inside the country outside

the country regional and international that's not on same and yes iranians of their saudis are there images of their you can look at the war are sort of proxy brock's you want yes brought it is still a civil war inside the country and without coming to an agreement between the legitimate president the legitimate government and the whole theists who are considered until this moment as a coup they are committing a core crime in the country without with getting any sort of agreement between the horses and the legitimate government then there is no hope of having any peace agreement in the country let me bring in a man here and call schembri from the norwegian refugee council you were in yemen in february the reports i've read the report makes for. damning reading the essence of the report suggests yemen has actually gone backwards it's developed what are you seeing on the ground here i guess one important point that the report makes

which is quite a no brainer really that the longer the war goes on the more backwards the man will be will be forced in years they don't quantify the exact years and also the billions of dollars that are will be required to to rebuild them and so that's that's that's a very important point which is quantified for the first time shocking figures as you said we always get shocking figures from yemen they are they have always been shocking and they get more shocking every time that a new forgot comes out what i've seen on the ground britta much reflect that i've seen this was ultimately is the poorest country in the region thrown into even further abject poverty i've met people queuing and our food distribution lines who until a few months ago had their own businesses that have been destroyed more people dependent on aid and now they are twenty four million yemenis in need of aid over

there people displaced over and over again they flee to an area which they would hope is safe leaving everything behind losing their houses all their perceptions and then forced to flee again because the fighting creatures them the fighting has reached even displacement camps camps where people civilians have fled from the fighting they were under attack people have been killed in displacement camps children out of school children who are forced to work to help their families children who are attacked in schools until a few days ago we saw the latest despicable attack on a school where children were killed in their classrooms people who have lost their jobs people have been paid haven't been paid their salaries and public sector for years now we're talking about teachers doctors professionals who still go on with their jobs and thankfully that they do because most of them are doing that on a mish.