iran is disappointed with europe europeans rejecting the automator mistry to cover up their own weakness i think europe's behavior will push iran to build russia and china to establish a financial channel in the framework of cooperation with russia and china instead of europe but the twenty fifteen nuclear deal has by design been a vehicle to help build trust between iran and european capitals but since the u.s. left the deal a year ago iran has blamed european countries for not doing enough to resist american pressure and help iran deal with the economic fallout of american sanctions and the bridges that were built over the last few years the working relationship between iranian leaders and their european allies there are signs now that that trust is beginning to erode. and president trump says for the first time the u.s. sees the north korean cargo ship involved in illicit coal shipments in violation of american and u.n. sanctions this is south korea says pyongyang has fired what appears to be two short

range missiles from the northwestern city of cool song it's the second such test in less than a week south korea's military says the missiles were directed towards the east robin wright has more now from seoul. south korean defense officials confirming that two projectiles were fired within half an hour of each other on thursday afternoon local time and assuming that these were short range missiles one of them travel just over four hundred kilometers the other just under three hundred kilometers landing in the sea separating the korean peninsula with japan it comes as the u.s. special representative on north korea stephen began is here in seoul meeting with his counterpart looking at ways of trying to restart the dialogue between north korea and the united states this obviously makes that a lot harder for the south korean government has said it's very concerned saying

that this does nothing to help ease tensions on the korean peninsula and it comes of course five days after similar provocative firing of rockets and a missile off north korea's east coast taken together this does look as though it's a ratcheting up of the pressure and seems to indicate the growing frustration of north korea the way that negotiations between itself and the u.s. have stalled but as observers will point out if it continues with these tests then it risks derailing that process altogether. well for all of these issues i'm joined via skype by p.j. crowley who is a former u.s. assistant secretary of state and retired colonel in the u.s. air force sir thank you so much for joining us here on out is there i don't know how much you were able to hear of the program but we were just talking now about the u.s. seizing a north korean cargo ship we touched on of course the ratcheting up of tensions

between iran and the u.s. some potential further sanctions and again potentially at a more trade the tensions with china and the u.s. obviously all of these are separate issues that were longstanding before but they mean would you say that perhaps there's a kind of ratcheting up of foreign policy from the trumpet ministration i think you are looking for a trade used to characterize the trump administration or in policy it might be maximum pressure that's been a heart of the trump administration's approach certainly to north korea and iran and obviously the threat of terrorists has certainly got china's attention but obviously what we're seeing is that there are practical limits you know to maximum pressure you know in the case of china because you have both an economic and political convergence and virgin's of interests there the prospects of a deal a successful negotiation are relatively high but in the case of china of iran and

north korea yes the united states have succeeded in pressuring those countries but it is not necessarily going to be successful in changing your core your national security interests where do you see then of this case i guess especially at tehran and china what do you think the biggest potential there for instability not just in relations with the u.s. but more widely around the world. well i think that you know i'm i'm the one hand obviously you know china is a significant trading partner for the united states senate and as the trump as president trump looks to his reelection campaign in twenty twenty he's taking a great deal of credit for the economy the success of the u.s. stock market and that's going to be at the heart of his message to the american people you know obviously the threat of tariffs or a bit deeper trade war between the united states and china you know undermines you

know what is the fundamental logic of his reelection campaign so i do think of the end of the day he'll get some sort of partial victory but he won't be able to necessarily solve every economic challenge that we faced you know where china you know north korea and iran are are very different you know they're not central to the u.s. national security or economic security per se but they are certainly what trump is doing there you know tracks with conservative ideology in terms of foreign policy in recent decades but i suppose the tehran case i mean the conflict with iran perhaps has the larger potential to become zero to develop a military angle to it which would easily involve a lot of the neighbors in the middle east that there is certainly a risk of a conflict in the middle east is going up i still think it's relatively low but

remember the logic behind the j.c.b. away the negotiation of the obama administration you know was to preclude a conflict between iran and israel over iran's nuclear program a conflict that would draw in you know the united states inevitably you know now obviously with the situation that we see in syria iran has certainly increased its presence in that country that obviously is right on his. porter so should the j c p a way unravel a further the risk i think is again that we go back to where we were in two thousand and ten two thousand and eleven where the risk of a conflict between iran and israel is going up one that will inevitably involve the united states just on a final point how significant do you think the views of his national security adviser the secretary of state are when it comes to shaping trumps foreign policy. well i mean you can certainly add tension. within the department of treasury and

some of the president's economic advisers as well you know there's you know who the president has a position that he tweets out on a regular basis are yet inside of your ministration there's not necessarily a convergence you know in terms of how to most effectively approached china or what the ultimate endgame is with respect to iran or north korea some way john bolton the national security biased or you know is much more prone to use your military. as a weapon and in this sort of in this challenge far more than the president is. p.j. crowley former u.s. assistant secretary of state and retired colonel in the u.s. air force thank you so much for having share shared your views with us thank you so it's a pleasure now coming up in this news hour from land then a court in montenegro jails thirteen people including two alleged russian spies for

plotting to overthrow the government and kill the prime minister to promote yemeni island with a u.n. recognized government accuses the united arab emirates of sending its separatist fighters plus in sport a can of a joke of it should be the master of madrid for a third time travel have all the details of the latency. but first a suicide attacker is reported to have killed four people after detonating a bomb in a market in the southern city district of baghdad the bombers thought to have detonated his explosive belt while surrounded by security forces the district is predominantly populated by shia muslim and it is the target of frequent sectarian attacks but matheson sent us this update from back at. news of this explosion coming as a shock here in baghdad. not least because it's come just a few days after the start of the holy month of ramadan security forces here in

baghdad saying that several people have been killed. a man detonated an explosive vest that he was wearing when he was surrounded by security forces in a wholesale market in the area of southern city which is to the northeast of baghdad a subtle city got its name after the fall of saddam hussein and it was named after a prominent cleric muhammad. and it has become a center for saad the rest movement here in iraq which is then subsequently developed into a political party led by the shia cleric. the son of muhammad saddam now in the early stages after this explosion nobody had claimed responsibility for the attack but it's worth knowing that in the latter part of april i would like daddy the leader of vice of this said to have appeared in a video for the first time in five years vowing revenge for the loss of land once

held by ice so in both syria and iraq. the head of the roman catholic church has issued a new law making it compulsory for all clergy to report cases of sexual abuse but francis issued the landmark the creepy which makes priests and nuns directly accountable for sexual abuse or covering it up they'll be required to report any abuse to their superiors but not the sara lee to civilian authorities reports. as head of the catholic church pope francis is a guide for one point two billion people in an institution that governs among many things morality but how to lead in an age where the moral compass of the church appears to have been broken by the torrent of sex abuse scandals perpetrated by clerics in positions of power it has cast a devastating shadow over the papacy and with the church in deep crisis the latest

lord to create by francis shined more light on how clerics should deal with cases of sexual abuse but the vatican's top sexual crimes investigator gave little indication on the penalties that could be faced a universal law passed to factoring diversity of cultures. you know give to strict because otherwise it will be inoperative you need something that can be flexible enough to work. there are one million priests and nuns in the roman catholic church all of the must now report any cases of sexual abuse to church to paris and any cover ups even in countries where the law does not oblige them to do so it follows this year's summit on the issue as well as several high profile scandals such as the conviction of george pell the straight years highest ranking catholic now serving a six year sentence for sexually abusing two quiet boys in a melbourne cathedral with a chilling cardinals accused and discreet as they covered up reports of child

sexual abuse going back decades to victims of abuse vatican justice still has a long way to go. the church once again saying that they are going to investigate these allegations of crimes that they are going to investigate them so i'm afraid that isn't good enough but what survivors and victims have been shouting for for years is that we cannot trust the church we cannot trust the officials to police themselves and even with a new system in place there is still no requirement to report these crimes to civil authorities a gaping hole in a system that has already failed so many victims of clerical sex abuse. al-jazeera or christopher lamb is wrong correspondent for the tablet and international catholic news weekly and he joins us now live via skype sir thank you so much for joining us here on al-jazeera i suppose

a lot of people upon hearing this news would have said well ok so now this new law has been you know sort of decreed making it compulsory for all clergy to report cases of sex abuse but that surely would be up to anyone's conscience to report cases of sexual abuse anyway or cover ups so just explain to us please what is different about this decree. well what was previously a matter of conscience to report abuse is now mandate it or obligated on. priests and nuns but also the entire catholic church to report abuse to their of superiors and every diocese in the world is required to set up an office for handling complaints by twenty twenty that there's a separate legal protections for whistle blowers there are procedures to hold bishops and cardinals accountable flanagan's of the views made against them but

also its pacifically cover ups that they are accused of so it's about creating a culture of disclosure to replace what had been a culture of silence and cover up and i think as a as a universal law for a one point three billion member church it is quite significant step forward for the church in grappling with what is be the greatest crisis it's faced in probably five hundred years and correct me if i'm wrong or focusing on the clergy nuns and priests but actually any any member of the faith can can report is that correct. yes that's correct and there's a juicy soup or because earl i do both good save god you can choke protection practices is that there is a collective responsibility but commuted c. to disclose you used to report it and for that to be investigated and normally to

be referred to the sick you know it's a civil authorities and the report that came just before we started speaking to you we heard from a representative of victims of sexual abuse at the hands of the clergy where he said that the problem is that the church cannot and should not investigate itself that that's where a lot of victims feel justice will not be done and even this decree effectively doesn't require their reporting to state authorities first of all explain to us what the issue is with reporting to state authorities but also whether you feel that until that is also automatically done there can never be true transparency. well first of all. the churches law never or should not conflict with the state law so where you have a country requires church officials to report abuse to state authorities that is what the church is committed to but there are many countries around the world where

there is no law or obligation to report abuse so what this ruling from pope francis said is is that for the church there must be a disclosure this disclosure of abuse and investigation so the church can't legislate for the staines the church can only deal with what it has control over and that is to ensure that allegations are reported and investigated and the entire catholic church the groupings of bishops around the world and its bishops conferences are supposed to have their own guidelines for investigating abuse now the problem of course is that when those investigations take place they may not be value us not be strong enough and that's why there is a need for independent outside help to investigate these these cases and increasingly we're seeing in in parts of the u.s. and in the u.k.

ministry yet a demand that allegations are not investigated by the church however the church has to have its own processes to ensure that allegations are investigated and to ensure that that same when there is a police inquiry that the church has a duty to remove suspected offender from access to children or from access to to the community so there has to be an element of the church investigating the. crimes or these infractions of that or any kind of suspicion or. and abuse that has to be a church responsibility along side eight the state responsibility to key thing is that the church of screw ups what the state is dipping and that is quite. is quite clearly laid out in this law or that nothing that the church it requires will stop

what the state needs to do so they work it in harmony and that's the idea but the point is you can't it's very difficult eight for every single state around the world in the catholic church is in the actually every country and there are very different ways of dealing with abuse for the church and that you is say this is what we will do with it we see the allegation that comes forward to us and that is what pope francis has done by issuing this law today christopher lamb or our correspondent at the tablet international catholic ones weekly sir thank you thank you. thirteen people including two alleged russian spies have been jailed for plotting to overthrow montenegro's government in two thousand and sixteen concluded that the attempt to kill the then prime minister mena djukanovic was part of a bid to stop the country joining nato the suspect that secret service agents. and flooding their popof when jailed for fifteen and twelve years respectively to

serbian opposition politicians received a five year sentence moscow has the night any involvement in the plot. now lots more still to come in this news hour another family mourns as a six year old leukemia patient becomes one of the latest victims of venezuela's economic crisis the right ailing apple over a prepares to debut on the new york stock exchange with the most hotly debated i.p.o. in the year is and the world rally championship breaks new ground. snowed for hours in the european alps covering up the roads some which have been scraped only a few days ago when you didn't expect much snow this time the end is certainly moved

and this massive cloud now of course is giving re not snow is going to keep moving eastwards to give a disappointing day for germany through austrian down towards the black sea after it will move a bit vienna's up to about twenty degrees but guess what's happening next that's quite spelman london fifteen degrees juric at sixteen but the next storm is already winding up and bring your northerly wind with it talking about in behind the temps will drop again so what's more we're down to low teens windy and quite often wet weather for france germany down through sort of this role of being spread in portugal the warm stays on here and probably will stay around the twenty mark from austria. sas was as well but a good part of europe it's still what you might call settled not extending into the mediterranean diet it's quite quiet here so there's not much of a breeze on shore temperature up into the middle twenty's quite high into this twenty i might appear as thirty come saturday is holding out through morocco as well and throughout our g.

area so it's i think you could probably say properly summary care of the surprisingly is only thirty three. the climate is changing and the time is running out i've never seen an elephant like while it's time in a new series earthrise meet some of the people driving the struggle to save the environment scientists are telling us that we have just twelve near to make a president any changes to transform every part of our economy and our society. coming soon on al-jazeera. the subject of more than half a dozen investigations around. the dorms stone from an agent's open world one on one piece to investigate how the nation's coffers grew up on al-jazeera.

welcome back as a reminder of the top stories on al-jazeera trade talks of just resumed between china and the us wars before you with us tariffs are due to come into effect on chinese goods china has rejected accusations that have backtracked on trade commitments that it has made iran's foreign minister says the european union should uphold its obligations under the two thousand and fifteen nuclear deal and that

includes normalizing economic ties with tehran this comes after each leader. that iran's sixty day to protect it from u.s. sanctions and pope francis has issued a new law making it compulsory for all clergy in the catholic church to report cases and cover ups of sexual abuse. government forces in syria are continuing to rebel held areas in. the provinces a second towel in the northwest has now been seized from opposition forces the nearby. was taken on wednesday and as a whole the reports now from beirut this is spread fears of a larger offensive in the south another day of air strikes. and more civilian casualties. rescue workers move the wounded and take away the debt. was the cause of the

it's been almost two weeks of relentless bombing in northwest syria denied it nation says at least fifty opposition controlled villages have been targeted in northern hama north a lot and southern provinces. we want to see these people running away from country to help these families with food with much or says people are under the rubble until. rebels have lost what opposition activists call the first line of defense of syrian government forces have taken ground in the northern countryside of hama the loss of the town to foreign and are seen as strategic wins rebel supply lines are now vulnerable and the m five international highway linking government controlled cities is a few kilometers east the government wants that road to revive trade and help the economy in nearby aleppo syria's commercial capital remains cut off from most of

the countryside and poorly connected to the rest of syria russia which is backing the campaign. says its military is implementing the sochi deal that was agreed with turkey in september foreign minister sergei lavrov said that memorandum is not about protecting what he called terrorists and yet another verbal attack against turkey for not creating a demilitarized zone around. love rugs statements indicate the scope of the military operation implementing the sochi deal does not mean a full scale assault to retake the entire province of idlib moscow knows that would threaten its alliance with turkey which wants to prevent a humanitarian crisis along its border and prevent a new wave of refugees crossing into its territory turkey which has military positions around it live under its agreement with russia has not responded to the latest escalation but it too has criticized russia for failing to remove the syrian

kurdish group the wipe e.g. from tel rafah in northern aleppo turkey considers the y.p. g a terrorist organization. trying to find a trade of if russia will give them more. money but again. which is on the table to russian turkey i think all supporters are trying to test the limits of each other to see how far we can go. but serious power brokers are unlikely to push far enough to break an alliance they both benefit from neither side wants a large scale assault on a blip but even a limited operation is enough to destroy the lives of many so. beirut. libya's un recognized government has suspended the operations of forty four and for its says violated trade laws they include the french oil company and the german tech giant siemens it comes a day after libyan prime minister fayyad visited paris of the sky of recent battle

for tripoli with the french president. there are vague accusations the french government is helping the warlords. in his month long offensive to take the capital . yemen's a un recognized government has accused the united arab emirates of sending separatists fighters to a remote yemeni island the u.a.e. which is fighting for the rebels in yemen along with saudi arabia denies accusations that its attempting to seize the island so-called is a unesco world heritage site in the arabian sea that he has more. tries known for his clear waters and serene environment bud is strategic location is creating tensions between nations that up to now have been allies yemen's un recognized government has accused the united arab emirates of sending around one hundred separatist troops to sue contra critics say it's an attempt to undermine

the local government and ultimately annex the yemeni island. about how the united want to. transform it into dubai you know the kind of. people to really serve their own economy. so contra life close to the norm. the eastern coast of africa and yemen's mainland a key intersection of global shipping routes the island which is a world heritage site also has a military air base. reports of separatist troops arriving on the island were met with criticism yemen's interior minister said the u.a.e. should concentrate on the joint fight against who the rebels are not on sharing administrative powers of the island this is not the first time there's been tension over so contra last year the u.a.e. central and military equipment to the island but it denies accusations that it was

part of a broader plan to take over the territory. yemen is bogged down in a four year war between the internationally recognized government led by president operable months from hardy and with the rebels who have taken over the capital sana . the u.a.e. is part of the sawyer coalition that's backing the government in its fight against who thiis now with new tension between allies yemenis living on so contra are hoping the island doesn't become a new battleground cards he'll go pursue the yuan al-jazeera. the cia has warned friends and colleagues of murdered journalist general ashaji that there are potential targets of the saudi government that's according to a report by time magazine it says three people have been given security briefings in recent weeks it's thought that they're being targeted for their criticism of the crown prince mohammed bin salon and efforts to continue his show g.'s human rights

work. in the last twenty four hours three venezuelan opposition politicians actually have sort of refuge inside foreign embassies in caracas mary-ellen by going there less and maybe could they get out see out in the italian embassy while richard blanco is in the argentinian embassy there among ten opposition figures stripped of their parliamentary immunity last week and the. the one that was arrested on wednesday their supporters of edgardo is the vice president of the national assembly chased police cars outside party headquarters as he was being detained security service agents use the tow truck to actually drags umbrella's car away with him inside it he is the deputy to the opposition leader one who made an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow president nicolas maduro was government last week . the tissues are

broken and there's no want to glue them together to give the impression very strong to appear to have the control they no longer have to use the only tool of use to use persecution terror state terrorism they could not know less than the vice president of the national assembly the only globally recognized institution in venezuela they have to make themselves to be seen as strong getting control but they've already lost and don't have control so they lash out. well this comes as venezuela's worsening economic crisis claims the life of a six year old leukemia patient divine if it where out was the night a lifesaving transplant because of lack of funds the government is blaming us sanctions the opposition say its economic mismanagement for the capital caracas here said as of or. was six years old he died two days ago he was suffering from leukemia. he's father says finding medicines to treat him had become

a daily struggle but i have no words we were trying to find the things he needed the medicines trying to keep him happy i have no words. minutes will had signed an agreement with it that allowed children like to receive a bone marrow transplant abroad by giovanni never made it johnny was part of a group of iran thirty children who were awaiting a bone marrow transplant that whole program depended from venezuela stable company with a week's other problem experienced as currently being affected by sanctions imposed by the united states and that's why the venezuelan government is saying that the united states is to blame for any staff. who went to giovani funeral with some of the mothers whose children are also waiting for a transplant. they see the public health system has been failing long before the sanctions were imposed. in a status as daughter elaina the seven years old she also needs

a bone marrow transplant she has a twin sister that could be compatible with her. but he missed canada for the tests . your name of the health system has deteriorated there's no medicine the tests are too expensive and we depend on private foundations to help us i want to hospitals to get what we need because nothing is working very sweetly has a free health care system that expanded during the government of all chavis but with a drop in oil prices and a failed economic policy the system has collapsed so once you are the lawyer that it is if a state can't guarantee the life of all these children then it can't guarantee the life of the country the system was already failing before the u.s. sanctions they suspended the transplant program a year ago but full scale sanctions against perry said were imposed in january this year from now on u.s. policy is certainly going to have a huge impact.