this weekend because of the security threat c.c.t.v. video has been released of another suspected suicide bomber captured at the cinema and granted although police have not named the bombers they have said they came from well off families some of them multi-millionaires some lived in this suburban colombo their neighbors are in shock and got their memories to work it saddens me that most of those who are my neighbors have done this it puts a black spot on all of us muslim sri lanka's police and security services are under pressure to arrest everyone involved in the easter sunday bombings prevent further attacks and clamp down on religious extremism. so this is what we're seeing in terms of the mood in colombo as we deal with this crisis the authorities using the full range of regulations and

powers which are just being expanded under the emergency so the three armed forces and the police have more powers and more things that the more flexibility basically to deal with detentions questioning into geisha and today we had the muslim day of prayer and heightened alert we had one mosque that we were at just before the muslim prayer time which was basically body searching any of the worshipers of that were going into the mosque but it is about building bridges and we had one muslim leader who said that they were willing to open their mosques to the catholic community the were extending their hands for them they were more than happy for masses to be held within the mosques and this is the message of reconciliation of unity that is coming from religious leaders and a reflection of sri lanka's long history of not just communities but faiths

basically living side by side the show right now for life for us in colombo thank you michele. for the first time judges in sudan have joined the three week mass sit in at military headquarters to demand civilian role on the overthrow of president omar al bashir the army says it's willing to hand over some top government positions to civilians in khartoum say it's unacceptable for military leaders to stay in control of the transition process to morgan reports. from almost every corner of the country they've traveled to the capital to make their voices heard these protestors from the southern state of white nile joined the sit in at the army headquarters in how to turn in a parade as the million people march there demand the military hand over power to. you we've come here to join our brothers in the city and i'll be here until we get a civilian government that we had would she have my demands. a little more with the

new year i came here for a civilian government that represents all of saddam with political consensus a government that represents all races where the arab or african without any discrimination of a government for the people of pseudo. protest thought that several months ago with thousands of people initially demanding that then president bashir step down from power that's happened on the eleventh of april with a ten member council appointed to run the country until a transitional government was formed but there's concern amongst the protesters especially from those outside the capital that the military may be reluctant to transfer power. there's been discrimination from the government for the past thirty years the sudanese people have been treated unfairly and we've come here to take our rights this regime will go and until we see a civilian government. demands echoed by judges who've joined the protests for the first time they're joining farmers doctors and people of other professions and from other states at the protests. gathering in fifteen should fit in in coming together

as one people coming from faith nationwide to go to phoenix visit an army headquarters there adding to the corps the process will have been here since before president almost. and they won't return home until the military council hands over power. after suspending talks with the military council last sunday the opposition coalition on wednesday amounts that they would resume negotiations on forming a transitional government three members of the military council submitted their resignations after the coalition accuse them of being remnants of the former government negotiations for a transitional government continue but the council says it will retain sovereign authority while civilians will hold the post of prime minister and head all government ministries it also says that the army is there to preserve the country's security marjah renew our commitment to the task given to us in our constitutional duties and national juices and in this critical time to defend the country and the people of sudan i want to confirm that the army and the rapid support forces which

are all over the country are one hundred united command to defend the country. these protesters feet have come too far to back off from their demands now demands they hope will shape the dance feature. people morgan al-jazeera are told so head on al-jazeera either isn't better and they're having their choices for strict on sunday. and the rules for us continue to disappear at a good rapid rate area the size of england was lost last year. hello there is pretty cool across the northern parts of asia at the moment there's also a fair amount of unsettled weather we've got one weather system that's working its way eastwards but any being replaced by yet more cloud is working its way over the korean peninsula at the moment so for us on saturday then loss of cloud with us

a fair amount of rain over japan and still not feeling that warm take yo getting to thirteen at best of a soul i mean eighty eight at least in solo be a fair amount of sunshine around further west still low there's the cloud again and beijing will be getting to seventeen degrees doesn't like the temperatures will be rising force as we head into sunday this time beijing up to twenty and the tokyo will be up to eighty i mean further to was the south and it's still pretty unsettled hey lots of cloud lots of showers around and plenty more to come as we had three sunday say the southeastern parts of china generally unsettled at the moment for the south a force in hong kong twenty eight here it should be dry for sunday manila should have a fair amount of sunshine but the top temperature of thirty five i mean for the two was the south over this plenty of showers over the rest of southeast asia southern parts of the philippines will see those showers and we also see plenty of them over borneo through job and as well they're pushing further north now as well so some of us in thailand are likely to see quite a few showers at times as we go through cambodia and vietnam.

how have you changed since you were serving. in the lives of the children of the part of the twenty one years story reflecting your history as dramatic social and political change twenty eight south africa. zero.

watching out to zero let's recap the top stories this hour. colombo has just spoken about the easter sunday attacks and showing a long he says he feels he has lost his community and that lives have been shattered security remains tight across the country and police are searching for seventy people they believe have ties to eisele the death toll also has been revised to two hundred sixty. three it sit in at a military headquarters in sudan's capital is continuing again on friday for the first time judges have joined the protest to demand civilian rule. in algeria thousands of demonstrators are back on the streets for the tenth successive friday the spike the departure of president jealousy's the flicker earlier this month maintaining pressure for the removal of the military chief of staff and what remnants of the old government gone. able to break up protests despite the announcement of a presidential election in july. top u.n. officials are visiting a head to refugee camps in bangladesh the u.n.

says more international support is desperately needed to help nearly one. million refugees from me and maher the aim is to raise nearly a billion dollars and humanitarian aid one of those officials the un's high commissioner for refugees spoke to al-jazeera from cox's bazaar he says his mission is to see the return of for him to refugees to their homes in me and mark but i'm number of challenges are slowing the process. so you were my organization u.n.h.c.r. the u.n. development program have an agreement with the government even yeah. we are assessing the villages from which these refugees are coming we are starting to implement from projects to improve the conditions but the real piece of work that needs to be done is on the fundamentals the reason why the people left more freedom of movement little access to jobs and services factory to citizenship these are

the difficult issues there are difficult issues but these are the issues that need to be tackled and we inspired in the refugees here back confidence that we allow them to say ok i am voluntarily going back. there has been very respectful of the voluntariness every time there's been north or streetcar this has to continue until that choice becomes possible thirty seven heads of state are in beijing attending the opening of the belt and rode some of the controversial and restructure scheme has come under fire for placing participant countries and unsustainable levels of debt in return for poorly managed projects has more from beijing. one of the world's most powerful leaders making a powerful entrance chinese president xi jinping arriving at the belgian road summit flanked by almost forty heads of state in front of government representatives from more than one hundred countries. in his opening address president xi said he would work to ensure the controversial project connecting asia

to europe africa and beyond by road rail and see would be sustainable green and provide growth for all those taking part. in the new initiative has helped me improve people's lives in the countries involved and created more opportunities for common prosperity he rejected criticism that the costs involved would loose some countries into levels of debt they would find almost impossible to paper. back estimates put the bill for the long list of infrastructure projects at close to one trillion dollars there are pipelines ports bridges and railways all designed to improve trading links. courage put his painting company to follow general international rules and standards in project among those attending a key supporters of the initiative russian president vladimir putin and pakistani prime minister imran khan but china's biggest trading partner the united states has

not sent a delegation washington officials say the bolton road initiative is a vanity project which comes with too many strings attached. china has dismissed the u.s. as concerns as western resistance to china's growth but there's also been criticism of the scheme from inside the country with citizens questioning whether china a developing country itself can really afford to be spending so much money. export import bank says one hundred forty nine billion dollars has so far been blurred out to support some of the developments. analysts say the scheme is a long term investment for china. we need to make money on the we need new markets so it's wrong to say we're giving aid to other countries there's not a case this money is an investment. during the first twenty seventeen government backed videos dominated social media scrutiny mounts

selling the scheme is no longer that simple a joint communique will be released with all eyes on president xi to see how he will deliver on his promise to ensure the project benefits not just china. involved . al-jazeera beijing. fighters in the west african country have been and will have just one choice when they head to the polls for a parliamentary election on sunday the country is now facing a political crisis after the opposition was forced out by new electoral laws and election watched all only two parties both allied with president the trace tallon are now qualified to stand in the election as the first time in thirty years the opposition will not be in the running hangs in the city of contineu for the final day of campaigning. the electoral commission's decision to ball position policies from running has come about it says because on a technicality these policies failed to meet the requirements of

a new electoral code and a new charter of political policies now these two the code in the charts were designed to use the number of political parties because there was so fragmented but what has happened is that in reality left only political policies able to run in these legislative elections and these are pro government policies and this is a situation i'm president in vendeans history since multi-party democracy in nine hundred ninety eight and that's why it was the size especially it's quite shocked that this situation is so far being allowed to continue now the president says since those parties were bought in march column it hasn't been able to reach a decision as to the way forward has been deadlocked and that's why as a result of this deadlock you take a decision that the elections must continue but the real concern here is that if this process does go ahead it will ultimately lead to rest of some kind and that kind of instability would not be good not only football and mean but also its

neighbors nigeria such a key economic trading partner. all neighboring countries which would be directly affected as a result of instability in this country in mozambique tens of thousands of people have been rescued from their homes after cyclon kind of made landfall in the north coast mozambique is still recovering from the devastation of cyclon or die that was just a month ago when it first hit the french territory of mayo on the indian ocean and kill three people on the islands over night. just about every day scientists warn of climate change and habitat loss the latest alarmist being sounded about tropical rain forests environmental group global forest watch says huge amounts of trees were cut down worldwide last year to make way for agriculture using satellite pictures and remote sensors researchers found an area of rainfall forest almost equivalent to the size that england was clear globally and the destruction happened quickly or us fell at the equivalent of thirty eight football fields

a minute or some gonna solve the worst losses a sixty percent rise in the number gone and twenty six percent in ivory coast the majority of the forests were supposed to be protected the libya colombia democratic republic of congo and indonesia also suffered significant losses so the brazil losing thirty percent of all of its primary and pristine rain forest it was home to indigenous people who have helped protect the forests for centuries it is a practice leader for forests international he said the goal the global demand rather for commodities is the reason for the rise but there are ways to reverse the trend the drive for the first ocean is coming largely from food and i would culture production so where you have as you have really a big expansion of these commodities in areas that are supposed to be protected because they're driven by global commodity. and governments are not able to do enough to be able to stop that that growth and that drive of deforestation caused

by that demand from food and agriculture production here for us is so important for the world are so important for climate change to so important for people culturally very important for biodiversity that if vital you know in my lifetime we've lost about sixty percent of our vertebra animal populations and that's largely due to the loss of habitats like forests so we really need to step up as governments with companies and as consumers we can do more to ensure that we buy products that are coming from. not not causing deforestation and also we can work as consumers and as . people to lobby and to demand that this emergency that we're seeing in terms of the loss of forests and the loss of biodiversity is stopped and push governments push companies to do a better job commuters in london are relieved i mean change protesters have ended their sentence which is what traffic for the past eleven days others blew themselves to a train in new london stock exchange hundreds more arrested leaders of the

extinction of rebellion say their pausing their protests will continue to demand the government to clear a climate change emergency and take a radical action to stop it. income tax cuts are being promised in france along with other reforms in response to months of yellow bus protests present a t.v. address to the nation is found to transform france by tightening tax loopholes stopping the closure of schools and hospitals and making it easier to hold a referendum on important issues. this is al jazeera let's take a look at the top stories there are colombo has just spoken about the easter sunday attacks in sri lanka it says he feels the strong impact of the bombings on his community security does remain tight across the country place or searching for seventy people they believe how ties to eisele and the death toll has been revised to two hundred sixty really

a sad situation many people's lives you know be sure to be i personally feel relieved not for me personally. i never. want to be. something pretty sad because given the judge we've been there he would be able to go back and we didn't you. will be easter sunday for the first time judges in sudan have joined the three week mass sit in at military headquarters to demand civilian role on the earth or of president omar al bashir the army says it is willing to hand over some top government positions to civilians the protesters in khartoum say it's unacceptable for military leaders to stay in control of the transition process. and algeria thousands of demonstrators are back on the streets for the tenth friday in a row and maintaining pressure as they demand the removal of the military's chief of staff and what remnants of the old government gone president abdullah sees

beautifully to step down earlier this month. and officials top u.n. official site is are visiting refugee camps and bangladesh the u.n. says more international support is desperately needed to help nearly a million refugees from me and maher the aim is to raise nearly a billion dollars in humanitarian aid. voters in the west african country have been and will have just one choice when they head to the polls for a parliamentary election on sunday the country is now facing a political crisis after the opposition was forced out by a new electoral laws an election watchdog world only two parties both allied with the president patrice talent are now qualified to stand in this election. and mozambique tens of thousands of people have been rescued from their homes after cyclon kenneth made landfall on the north coast it's still recovering from a devastation of cyclonic die and that was just a month ago so the headlines keep it here on al-jazeera inside story is next more

news at the top of the hour. it was not supposed to be a controversial issue but the united states checked in to a un resolution and sexual violence in conflict and the text was amended so has the us failed right victims in walls and how much politics is at play here this is inside story.

hello welcome to the program i'm in wrong car on the international community agrees that rape must stop being used as a weapon of war the united nations passed a resolution to combat sexual violence in conflict zones but after it was watered down the u.s. oppose the use of the words sexual and reproductive health which geisha unfed employed it supported abortion thirteen countries eventually voted for an amended text without the controversial phrase the final version also removed a reference so u.n. monitoring body that would report acts of sexual violence are diplomatic editor james bays has more from the united nations in new york. the german foreign minister chris cited over this meeting about one of the greatest issues possible women and peace and security sexual violence in conflict you'd think there'd be unity and joint resolve but there's ambassadors arrived here

for the meeting it was clear there was deep division this is a drug cloud on this group a concert or an issue that was supposed to be closing ranks and i agree one unfortunately it's a politics of this if we believe in the values of the u.n. we believe in the values of women rights this is a real fight. and ironed out their attitudes that we just. as the council heard from the u.n. secretary general antonio good terrorists a nobel laureate snoddy him around and dr dennis mccuaig a tense negotiations continued about a draft resolution written by germany the us authority fought to get references to the international criminal court removed but backed by china and russia it also wanted changes to the words sexual reproductive rights because it argues that phrase implies support for abortion the campaigner and lawyer a mole clooney made it clear the council would be judged by its actions this is the

your nuremberg moment your chance to stand on the right side of history you owe it to nigeria and to the thousands of women and girls who must watch i think members shave off their beards and go back to their normal lives while they the victims never can in the end the german delegation rewrote their resolution it passed with the u.s. support but with abstentions from russia and china after the controversial wording was removed the council effectively caving in to u.s. pressure. thank you very much. that was hard work. european nations say they are dismayed by the u.s. position and believe this battle is not over yet they detect the hand of the u.s. vice president mike pence in trying to roll back the internationally agreed position on women's rights for the last quarter of a century one diplomat described the alliance between the u.s.

china russia and others outside the security council including saudi arabia and the vatican as the axis of the mediæval james plays out zero of the united nations. let's have a look at some of the sexual violence cases in different war and conflict zones and it's estimated that more than twenty thousand muslim women and girls were raped during the bosnian war between one thousand nine hundred ninety ninety five the u.n. says more than six thousand iraqi izzie women were kidnapped and sold as slaves by eisel fighters in two thousand and fourteen in the democratic republic of congo a report found that there were average forty eight rapes every hour i mean in march through accuse of systematically raping rangar women in iraq in state. let's bring in our panel joining me on skype from washington d.c. rhenish are republican strategist and consultant from new york and tonia maulvi

executive director of legal action worldwide and also on skype from uppsala in sweden. sellstrom university of uppsala as department of peace and conflict research welcome to the program let me begin with you in d.c. first what should have been a easy resolution to pass was made more difficult because the u.s. had a problem with just a few words sexual and reproductive health can you just explain to us why this administration has such a problem with something so simple. well i think we have to look at the source here and the driver on this issue is vice president mike pence if you look at his record back in the indiana state house and and frankly all the way to the u.s. congress i was on capitol hill as an aide at the time he was a congressman he has been fervently pro-life and he's had a problem with the lexicon around pro-choice language for a very long time so i think that this could be coming from secretary pompei o or

anybody else within the administration would be misguided this is entirely coming from vice president pence and it's coming now because of seen as a political chip this is a win for the evangelical base of the republican party that brought donald trump to power in two thousand and sixteen so i don't even think president trump has anything to do with this i think this is purely a political move and it's ideological entirely for vice president so those of us who've been pro-choice in the party for a very long time there is no changing the minds of those who are driving this and it's simple it's not it's something that they're doing because donald trump is any back on the ballot and they want evangelicals to feel certain that this administration supports life so this is about domestic politics not about international politics not about foreign policy correct the end they're not thinking about the foreign policy implications they're not looking at the record of president george w. bush who made exemptions when we looked at non-governmental foreign organizations

that were doing so much good in places like africa to help it rid us of these these awful things you know each i.v. let's talk about what's happening to young girls again raping us as a weapon of war i just want to add really quickly a little bit of color in two thousand and eight i was a capitol hill staffer and at the time i happened to work for the only member of congress and still was against abortion in the case of incest and rape so the republican party was not always this way it was shocking when i found out the member of that i work for did that but it also told me that the party was still very understanding of this issue and willing to flex it's got a completely different direction now just for a story just very quickly are you still a republican after this is such an. i am i made my career in the party and though i have not been very supportive of this administration i am willing to look at the good they do it this is not an area where they are doing anything right they're not

listening to advisors they're not understanding the implications of the bad implications of this going to have on us foreign policy moving forward even after president chavez of office they're in there just being very box stand and this is about domestic policy as you put it so it's hard for me to support the party but i also believe that i'm part of this next wave of agents of change that will be here to hopefully get back to the core principles of the party after the trumpet ministration is long gone. in sweden let me bring you in hey you've had a republican strategist say that she's actually disappointed in this decision what did this decision mean for you. i'm not acts. of domestic foreign policy and or on you know the republican party's internal dynamics and pres vice president pence's views i've i mean everything that has just been said points to the fact that this decision and the sort of obstruction of

language around sexual and reproductive health or around mechanisms of accountability in this in this security council resolution resolution all of these mathematicians are really against evidence they're not based on the evidence of what sexual violence in armed conflict is or are the kinds of map of initiatives that are necessary for helping her virus or sexual violence rebuild their lives heal physically integrate better into society after a walk after war. or just in general for are to have a greater sense of accountability for perpetrator here perpetrator or perpetrators of these acts so what i have and what i really feel is the obstruction of that kind of language is just a way of it's a it's

a political act and it's it's going in the thesis of a lot of evidence of that of how this violence occurs in war and how it's used as part of war and it's it's going against a distinguishing between whether or not such violence requires particular measures to help people who are completely innocent and have really been victimized by these horrors and i just i really wish that there would be more effort to educate evangelicals to educate domestic constituencies to educate the public and. really raise awareness about what is sex sexual violence or monarchy it really truly is and sonia in new york you've heard our guest in sweden say that this is this is seemingly a political thing legally speaking is there any recourse the security council has kind of come back tough in this legislation or is the legislation in your opinion

now we can because of the the change by the u.s. . well we have to look at the facts on the ground and as a former u.n. investigator for sexual violence i interviewed hundreds of rango women who'd been subjected to brutal gang rape and when they crossed the border from me a mile into bangladesh there was a lack of access to reproductive and health sexual services and it resulted not only in some of the women and girls dying but them being having children born of rape so we have to look at two parts of it one is the security council resolution itself and the absence of these services but what has been the impact on the ground and how are we going to improve services to women and girls were representing women and girls in south sudan who were brutally gang raped and subjected to sexual slavery when they cross the border from south sudan into uganda there was also not be availability of these services so the u.s.

is this is a culmination of its policy of not just support organizations to assist women who have been survivors of brutal sexual violence and i think we have to look at it in the bigger picture and what is happening i also want to add that if we look at that resolution it was not only the absence of reproductive sexual services but it mentioned did not mention the rights and also women rights defenders and so the u.s. also did nothing to address that matter and that's also extremely concerning do you think now that her antonia that this resolution is a nonstarter or do you think yes it has been weakened down but we can still use that as a framework to move forward. you know i think overall it is actually going in the right direction so we have three losses that i just mentioned but i would say there are five wins in this resolution firstly it focuses on the victim centered approach and we saw in the security council speaking secondly it.