i think that. under that article you can see cooperation in defense of your people and your territory it specially when your military is defending but it's well as a number of issues it is completely invaded we had russians behind with military aircraft they don't belong there and then we also not only do you have the cuban intelligence officers we also have a foreign terrorist organization. which stage close border terrorist attacks on our ally colombia is intimidating venezuelan people from exercising their right so given all those things you've listed to me you would like to see u.s. military intervention in response it is not my decision that is the president's decision what would he like to see you as the representative. p.m.'s call that we think that that's necessary then that would be that would be what it says and to make how can you believe that a u.s. military intervention will bring democracy or freedom or human rights to venezuela especially with people and abrams and john bolton leading the charge especially

given the abysmal history of u.s. interventions in your part of the world guatemala chile argentina nicaragua honduras el salvador one of those would you trust the u.s. military let alone donald trump. 1st of all times have changed and i think even and even to anybody who has been involved in latin america. i think a that a continent has changed really you know the attitude of the united states to the region change see the understanding of counterinsurgency or counterterrorism operations or things to secure you know say a global population all of those parameters and all of this understanding that methodology has changed yes it's times of change if you to train and yet the person leading the u.s. pollution in venezuela is an abrams

a man who was deeply involved in war crimes and human rights abuses in central america during the eighty's you have john bolton who said recently the monroe doctrine is alive and well it's our hemisphere he said in reference to latin america and of course you have donald trump saying venezuela has all the oil and they're right on our back door doesn't seem to change at all they seem to be interested in oil and sending people with a very bad record on human rights to help you. hey i was too young to live. in the. injured and. well i'm younger than you but we've all read history elliot abrams responsible for massive war crimes in el salvador and elsewhere in the 1980 s. he's now the man you trust to bring democracy to venezuela seriously. we need to have that humanitarian aid and we need power we need to get foreign terrorist organizations out from terrorizing our own people and we the help of whatever would like to help us into. going to democracy hopefully our hope has

always been and our position has always been and continues to be that a peaceful solution is probably let me ask you this we're almost out of time one last question one guy that was said he'll step down once elections take place in venezuela if madeira leaves office of course and you said that you personally might consider running for president of venezuela yourself you said quote i may well throw my hat into the ring why not qualified to be president of a divided. country i'm. not writing i. do you said you were you thinking about it you change your mind. that was that was. i think i was on a program of the right words and perhaps in some future i will but at the moment my concern is saving the lives of my compatriots and getting my country back

to democracy so that i think that's plenty of work for me now vanessa normal have to leave it there thank you for joining me on the front. despite the arrest and prosecution of legendary drug kingpin el chapo the drug trafficking business remains as profitable and deadly as ever so who is winning the so-called war on drugs. upfront producer ryan coles has this week's reality check billionaire drug lord joaquin el chapo guzman brought more drugs into the u.s. than any other person in history today he's facing life behind bars in the united states and authorities are thrilled this conviction is a victory for the american people so with the kingpin out of the game drug trafficking and violence must be weighed down right know despite his arrest 3 years ago chapo sin a low a cartel continues to profit from massive drug shipments to the u.s. on the day of his conviction official seized the largest load of fencing will ever

found in the u.s. at a simple low a controlled border crossing and el chapo is arrested actually and more lives than it saves his absence has triggered a game of thrones style bloodbath between members of his own cartel and former competitors the fact is power struggles between cartels means there's going to be more bloodshed in similar former stronghold homicides in 2017 soared 39 percent and what keeps this infernal cycle going demand worldwide the number of drug users increased by 31 percent between 2000 and $9.20 in the us opioid consumption is on the rise so it's no surprise that heroin production in mexico america's largest supplier has reached record levels right now as the only victors in the so-called war on drugs are those profiting from addiction so is it time to set the bullets and tank up the side take a look at the portuguese model changing attitudes towards drug use in clinics and

society at large to help push the country to decriminalize drug use and possession in 2001 since then they've seen impressive declines in harmful drug use overdoses and drug related crime when the policy began 100000 portuguese use heroin today the estimated number of high risk opioid users is 33000 the drug use still poses a significant challenge it no longer threatens a. in order in portugal so is filling our prisons the capital is really the best solution with mounting evidence to the contrary maybe it's time to bring drugs out of the gunsmoke and into the light. known for tweeting sarcastic and stinging critiques of other elected arab rulers palestinian pro-democracy activist baghdadi rose to prominence in 2011 during the arab spring in april officials in norway where he's currently living under asylum placed him in protective custody why they received a shocking warning from the cia of

a possible threat to his life from the saudi government baghdadi is a vocal critic of saudi crown prince mohammed bin so mom had been working with the late journalist jamal khashoggi who of course was murdered inside the saudi consulate in istanbul last october so does the saudi government now have a policy of just assassinating its critics abroad and if so what could be done to stop them yeah but dad he joins me now from oslo yeah thanks for joining me up front why you there are a lot of people around the world arab or non arab muslim and non muslim who criticize attack oppose the saudi crown prince why this alleged targeting of you specifically by him do you think it's not just mere criticism that causes something like this of course i am a critic of. you know also not us and. i think this is more this is this is about more than criticism this is about actual projects that i was involved and that i think were highly sensitive and seem to have it

a nerve with them be able to speak about any of those projects yet. i mean we did a risk assessment you know with a number of security experts and we came up with 6 or 7 items and as you can imagine i cannot speak about all of them but i could mention that 2 of the were initiatives that started in the life of the late jamal khashoggi which i mean after his death it fell upon me kind of like the projects basically escalated after his death and it was my team or followed up and took them to another level these are projects to do with democracy in the middle east transparency in the middle east media freedom. well specifically so those are models very concerned about the health of our public sphere and realized that the other public sphere in a certain way shifted from being conventional media to being social media so you understood the role of twitter twitter was very important in the post 111 years it

was specifically important in saudi arabia because neither of you had a very big online rep. elation. so he was focused really on this you know this conquest of twitter. starting with 2015 or 2016 with the rise of i'm a. right hand man so the clock on me and you know the whole the whole. you know little shady characters around you know going all the way to really crossing over into the michael states without question so he was very concerned about the health of that and you know he himself was was very important to him for once in the arabic language. so both of these initiatives actually had to do with restoring let's let me say restoring twitter's neutrality and are you going to change your behavior on twitter now given that you know no suspect but it's your work on twitter that has attracted to saudi government attention the saudi trolls who spend a lot of time on twitter i mean i 1st came across you several years ago on twitter

you have a big presence that you know are going to change your behavior on twitter in reaction to these threats well you might have noticed that i mean i mostly stick to the english language on twitter i mean i do once in a while a tweet in arabic but it's rather rare and the reason was really it was a form of self-censorship until it was me basically knowing that they are far more aggressive because they they what they wanted to control the arabic language spear and that was you know so they needed to control arabic twitter arabic language twitter so how do i spoken primarily in arabic they would have been so much more aggressive against me. and you know so it was a form of protection right now with these events what's happening is that i'm crossing over into arabic and i might actually have to start speaking in arabic more because i have a bigger audience and i think i feel a responsibility towards them but at the same and i guess yourself censure it didn't really help in a sense because you're still you still got targeted by the well i mean it's not

surprising at the least that b.s. would go after dissidents i mean there are people who got far worse you know far far far worse than i did i mean do you find it odd that one arm of the u.s. government the cia is warning you via the norwegians and others warning others that the saudis are trying to murder you while another on the u.s. government state department or the white house of the pentagon continues to cozy up to those same saudis isn't that kind of weird. the conundrum over here is that saudi arabia whether m.b. as we have m.b.a.'s or not so there continues to be an important country an important strategic ally to. the united states m.b.a.'s knows that very well and he knows that you know this is something that he can use so i mean it is weird that the cia is basically you know living up to its legal duty you know its duty to warn . but then again i mean the only the only reason why m.p.'s is unaccountable and

unhinged is because that the one administration in the world that are more that are most capital operating him in our current leaders because the neighbors and it's not just the saudis of course you have the shadowy israeli security from the end there so group which we've just discovered recently was behind the spyware used to hack into what's up and which also sold spyware to the saudis which was allegedly used to spy on the late. absolutely and in this relationship i think it's really good that more light is being shed on it. i should also add that you know one of the most sensitive investigations that i was involved and in fact that was i think the most immediate reason i think the threats as collated was my involvement with the jeff bezos hack and it also happened to be the prime suspects but you know when it comes to you you did a lot of reporting around the alleged blackmailing of amazon boss jeff bezos let me ask you this does it depress you that m.b.a.'s is not only gotten away with

allegedly killing jamal khashoggi the cia believe with high confidence he was behind it but more than 7 months later he's still able to threaten people like yourself. the saudi dissident omar abilities in canada another person in the u.s. who was asked to remain anonymous the 3 of you who have been identified as being threatened by the saudis as far afield as norway canada the us he still has that power yet it makes sense if you think about that i mean. the mirrors the logic of target things that they've lost by the way i mean if i mean i mentioned last week that you know one of the most painful messages that i received after these events came from a human rights activist lived within the arab world and you know he he sent me a message saying you know what does this mean for us if you live in norway which is supposed to be one of the safest countries in the world and you are threatened what chance do i have if i live live in lebanon or i live in tunisia or live i live in

egypt or i live in jordan or wherever. i mean there is a logic i mean if you can target someone in norway if you can try to blackmail the richest man on the planet then who's safe one final question here this isn't the 1st time your life has been threatened in 2016 i believe eisel added you to a kill list and urged lone wolves to take action against you in 2017 you received a 2nd warning from the group telling you quote we're watching you despite all these dangerous to your life from multiple actors you continue to do what you do you are here on the show speaking out why i wouldn't be myself if i don't i mean. i mean this is an intergenerational struggle the idea of stopping by idea of giving up it's simply unimaginable. thank you for joining me out front be safe thank you so much that's our show up front will be back next week.

20 years of china's transformation. told through one young girl's journey. from birth to adult but these. 2 decades following the development of her life animation. rewind returns to the story of k.k. the girl from wang joe do you love me on the i only just 0. 0. and. the u.s. is a tipping point scientists are telling us right now that we have just 12 near us

the world's leaders fail to agree upon a solution people are taking matters into their. lives. which by its actions to get people to understand that it kills people and that it kills people now it's ridiculous both fronts were to the people's doors on 00. a warning to iran says of tehran attacks america it will be destroyed. and we shall carry this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up google cuts ties with chinese telecom giant wall way which washington consider recent national security threats. ukraine's her president calls for

a cease fire in the east and the return of territory from russia. date with a court. hearing for 4 months after president jacob zuma who wants russian charges against him dismissed. the us president has issued a direct threat against iran saying rather just days after saying he was a pair for talks tweeted this if iran wants to fight that will be the official end of iran ever threaten the united states again iran and its regional rival saudi arabia have toned down their war rhetoric even as the u.s. builds up its military presence in the gulf the leader of iran's revolutionary guard says tehran isn't pursuing conflict the saudi foreign minister issued a similar statement but added that the kingdom will respond if iran choose this war king solomon has called for 2 emergency summits involving gulf arab leaders later

this month to discuss the escalating tension paddy klein has more from washington d.c. . again the u.s. president donald trump sending mixed messages when it comes to his belief of what's happening with iran sending that tweet that he could destroy their country at the same time we've seen several reports that he's told his acting secretary of defense that he doesn't want to go to war with iran so what exactly was the impetus for this tweet well we don't know it could have been that he received the briefing it was sending the message publicly or it could have been that he was watching television felt the need to respond we do know that he has been sending out a lot of tweets over the last couple of hours on sunday after he got back from his golf course at a range of topics everything from promoting a book to talking to college graduates to talking about immigration the economy complaining that fox news is hosting a town hall so the president definitely feeling aggrieved and twitter now is that exactly what led to this tweet we don't know but we do know that we're going to

find out much more about the intelligence behind these recent u.s. moves we expect members of congress will be briefed on the classified information this week and we will likely hear much more about what prompted the u.s. to act in a parsee as a professor of middle east politics at george washington university georgetown university rather he says he doubts iran will engage in any diplomacy. well in the past the 2 countries that have played the most effective diplomacy between the united states the iran have been a model and the swiss whether they can do so in this specific case remains to be seen but it would be wise by both tehran and washington to seek out their advice and their services but i think in this specific case i really doubt that the iranians are going to engage in any diplomacy until at least trump fires bolton and starts to abide by the g.c. if you wait because if the idea is to go to the table with this extra leverage that trump now believes that he has because of the sanctions well the iranians are not

going to go to the table without them 1st also building some leverage would most likely would mean that they would restart other aspects of their nuclear program is not a good scenario for anyone it's actually much better if we're trying to walk back some of this illegal sanctions that he's been imposing on iran and then go to. google's parent company alphabet has suspended some of its business with chinese tech giant weiwei saying it's complying with u.s. government orders they were always smartphones will not have access to google's play store where users download popular apps like she mail you to it will maintain you said the end for an operating system via open source licensee licensing but google will not provide weiwei with any technical support the u.s. is trying to blacklist the company around the world several countries have banned while away from being involved in the development of their 5 g. mobile network citing security concerns even so while i remains the world's largest telecommunications apartment and service provider and the 2nd biggest smartphone

maker after samsung i don't take it as a political analyst who advises the chinese government on economic and development issues he says the u.s. is trying to cripple the competition. basically this is a very clear attempt to cripple hallway it's kind of like in the old days the u.s. when confronted by russia over sputnik going to the moon they said we're going to outcompete you we're going to show you the best and the brightest and what we can do but today it seems more about tripping up the competition we don't have to compete against you if we can cripple you this is going to be a long term situation in terms of what beijing can do hopefully it won't but it could quite possibly say that for security reasons they will be banning broadcom qualcomm who have also joined on the train with google and keep all of those out make it almost impossible from the do that then this is what i would call a hard fork where you're really going to see

a real change in and basically 2 camps going ahead with their respective technologies you could see apple's sales plummet this is one of the other realities of this trade war is that these types of international stories are going to impact more and more nationalist china and they will shy away from buying apple and other u.s. products remember this is a over $350000000000.00 a year market where u.s. companies are selling in china and that that would have disastrous consequences for american businesses especially on the profit lines. south africa's former president jacob zuma is in court hoping the judge will throw out corruption charges against him and his accused of fraud money laundering and racketeering some of those charges relate to a controversial arms deal exposed while he was deputy president this is a hearing going on right now prosecutors say that received money to cover up

illegal purchases of come back here for the south african may be minimal or is at the high cordon. thank you so much for me to so this particular hearing this is unusual in the sense that zuma has been linked to corruption but this is the 1st time it's actually gotten to a trial. and that's exactly right if we look back to when jacob zuma resigned as president and last year there was off to a number of allegations around corruption specifically linked to what south africans are calling a state capture and it's when he it's alleged he placed people who were aligned to him in of key positions in state institutions who would then benefit his associates either politically or with regard to financial opus innes dealings now while those allegations of zuma was surrounded by those allegations this is the 1st

time that he's actually been charged and in fact these charges go back to more than a decade it relates to an arms deal that took place in the late 1990 s. zuma was later charged after his financial adviser should be a shaikh was found guilty of corruption and it was following a suspicious pavements allegedly to zuma that amounted to about 100000 dollars related to that arms deal that zuma was charged now the thing is he is also alleging that this is all a political conspiracy that these charges came up when he was ascending to the presidency of the african national congress. and then later became president of south africa these charges were put in place they were then dropped and now once again they've been reinstated and now soon my is in court to try to have these charges thrown out based on what he says is a political conspiracy the un dudes allays since the charges were 1st brought up

and also some regular activity around until they were possibly spying on zuma. is this trial sort of a test for the ruling a.n.c. . of the war. well we are in peace america outside the high court where hundreds of supporters here of the head of jacob zuma but who also belong to the african national congress have gathered and people here are wearing t. shirts saying hand so soon. but at the same time they're also members of the governing party i know some members of the a.n.c. have wanted to create a distance between themselves and jacob zuma with his significant support for jacob zuma from within the party and he does have some influence there he also campaigned for the a.n.c. appearing in the recent elections so this again is one of those issues the coolest thing on the result was a lot of division and factions of fractures within the a.n.c.

and i think for many south africans they'd be watching to see what exactly and see says who appears increment in support of jacob zuma which could give him a greater insight into the agency's stance and just what role jacob zuma and his corruption charges. are if not in the live press thank you for media. ukraine's new president says his 1st task in office is reaching a ceasefire in the east with russia separatists comedian turned politician politician vladimir's alinsky was sworn in just a little while ago it incumbent petro poroshenko in a runoff last month with 73 percent of the vote and an address to parliament he said die. with russia could only happen after the paternity cranium territory and prisoners of war. is a professor and put up a science department at the national university of canberra academy in the netherlands he says alinsky may have won the election that has to prove himself to a crane ians the analogy with donald trump is a bit mistaken because donald trump was the very least involved for about 10 years

in american politics in a very in a variety of ways and in particular in republican party politics. he has held those populist nationalist views for quite a long time so once he has not left he has not made any political comment. and in that sense lenski is more of a novice than than trump was but of course the similarity is that we neither expected trump to win. most american media expected hillary clinton and we nobody really expected selenski to win especially that by that margin zilinskas problem here is that people didn't vote for him they voted against the establishment against the other candidates the people who had been running ukraine for the last 25 years and so and you saw that today in various reports from the ukrainian parliament there weren't massive crowds supporting selenski if this had

been like previous presidents there would have been big crowds would vote for him supported him so selenski popularity isn't really very deep in that sense it's more an anti vote than a provo of course of course those voters want to see certain things which which the previous president did not succeed in doing this the usual perennial problem in post companies countries of. corruption and in particular of putting the elites. so that they are no longer above the law members of the elites have to go to jail who. have committed crimes. and here. the previous president i think was was was the best ukrainian president of all 5 but he failed in that particular area of as it were dealing with elite. elite viewpoint that they are still above the law.