in iran's revolutionary guard is today used threat against u.s. bases and aircraft carriers stationed in the region saying they would be destroyed if they made a mistake john hendren from washington know the united states is developing a military coalition to police the strait of hormuz general joseph dunford the highest ranking u.s. military official is the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff says the u.s. is working with a number of nations to identify who has in his words the political will to join in this coalition and offer a military forces for that operation president donald trump says the united states should not pay for this that it should be an international military force but that does present the potential for conflict with iran after all it was only weeks ago when the united states almost launched an air strike on iran that's according to president trump who says we were within 10 minutes of a conflict in that region meanwhile brian hook the u.s. special representative for iran policy spoke to al jazeera this is what he had to

say we sometimes have disagreements over tactics but no one supports iran's expansionist revolutionary foreign policy they want iran to pull back to its own borders and to stop arming hezbollah to stop arming the huth these to stop supplying funding and weapons to their proxies in iraq and syria those are the kind of things that we need our position now there is no acceptable level of lethal assistance to a proxy and that has to end so the united states position has not softened meanwhile iran has announced it is violating the nuclear enrichment levels that it agreed to and that multinational agreement from which the u.s. has pulled out so that standoff intensifies and the potential for conflict only increases. well the gulf is one of the world's most important and busiest shipping lanes to give you a sense of just how many ships are transiting through the waterways there this is

a look now at marine traffic dot com those red dots you're looking at there just the tankers operating in the region are let's talk to phil daikon he's a partner dryer global a maritime security risk management company he joins us from kent in the u.k. phil daikon this proposal to have some sort of u.s. driven security mechanism in ships at sea how does how does it work. a good morning and that picture you're sharing density a tragic it's a perfect example of why our customers in particular the company security officers are concerned this is their main channel through to the gulf and not see the main channel to get the oil out and they are they are worried and confuses what to do so the idea of katie more big giving commercial shipping some point protection is also your huge amount of pressure from nations so how does it work well you can provide some form escort you can provide military vessels in the area and you can create

a congress is that now we've seen this already in operation further south in the gulf of oman some critical gulf of aden where this was implemented in response to piracy now it does require processes procedures and if one has to comply and not everyone will choose to comply so to extent what you can do is provide a measure of protection provided by military vessels for a controlled transit through the area now you've seen that the density of traffic there's only the red dots which just the tankers look at all the other traffic in the area this is not like surprising airspace where you've got a very compliant members in that airspace you know they're transmitting that box right round lots of their ships just do not ok trying to actually pull its heart ok on an understood field can we gauge which countries might see yes as the united states reaches out to them because it occurs to me that if you say yes maybe 3

months down the line perhaps if tensions carry on escalating there is a perception that you have taken sides here. absolutely everyone will be considering their positions with regards to coalition but benefit of a coalition to the top administration is that it services the american 1st agenda it's not committing soley to. further action in the middle east alone building that coalition is a. in that the coalition partners will be thinking that now what can we provide how effective will military convoys be in mind that that with a significant challenge and also you know what will the exception be we just heard the rhetoric from tehran about britain to example britain's treading a very fine line between pressure from across the pond and pressure within europe. or one of the coalition partners that has them effectively invited in japan one of the biggest for. use of oil from that area china and india as well for example as

a necessary or a navy that's actually consistent or is set up to be anything other than a defense force so can they provide anything coming legally provide anything to support is another question so yes they will be looking at all of those questions themselves and also i guess of the back of what you're saying about the japan i mean the japanese military constitutionally the japanese military cannot be an aggressor is not allowed to because of world war 2 it cannot be seen to go to war but this idea of a security force it has to operate surely within the strictures of maritime law and international law but if you have a very small very localized potentially combustible situation where you've got military commanders who are tooled up and ready to go and you've got people who are tooled up and ready to react to that the potential for a very bad situation does it increase exponentially. we don't have a reputation not the chorus the actual so where that was

a fairly defines right here we've got a geopolitical i don't misstate potential states aggress that's right so yes absolutely but potential for things going on right without titles gateman and bear in mind getting agreement on those rules and gauge meant is very difficult as well every nation retains their own rules of engagement regardless even though there might be an agreement or went directly so yes you may find as we find in afghanistan with partners they were retain their own rules as force almost that means that they will commit up to a point but no further beyond so yes that will be confusing but rightly so the point you made before it doesn't matter what your own stance is if there's an incident you we lumped in with the effect that is filled i can't thank you very much thank you. plenty more still to come for you here on the news hour including drilling into a controversy we'll look at the reaction to circus latest move around cyprus. a race against time the battle to contain the rapid spread of measles in parts of africa and in the sports news

a bit of history was made at the major league all-star game in cleveland far as here to tales in about 30 minutes. the french military has today admitted that american antitank missiles found during a raid on a base run by the libyan warlord highly for after did belong to the french army the us the sole be recovered javelin missiles to france french military saying the missiles were intended for the protection of a french military unit deployed for counterterrorism operations in libya and says they were never intended to be used by any group in the libyan conflict military officials say the weapons were damaged and unusable natasha butler joins us live here on the news from paris natasha what else do we know. well as you summed up there in that statement from the french defense ministry reported by

a.f.p. and the reuters news agency the french defense ministry saying that these missiles are indeed french they are u.s. made javelin missiles and that they were given to french forces operating on the ground that battened self is quite interesting because france has always been very vague about the presence of any french or forces in libya now what the french defense ministry says in that statement is that these missiles were in fact are defective they didn't work properly and they were supposed to be destroyed but what the statement does not say is how these missiles came to be in the hands of forces loyal to have to and that is potentially extremely embarrassing for france because there is of course a u.n. arms in bargo on any weapons are going to libya and france has always denied claims by critics both inside libya and inside france that it is privately supporting it if i have to seeing him as

a partner for france fighting armed groups in the region france has always said that it has no such role and publicly it backs the u.s. backed peace process and the government and the french defense minister will be answering questions about a little later that the timing is interesting not significant but interesting. it was very interesting timing indeed because you'd imagine that florence parley the french defense ministry minister will be answering some question questions about these missiles she's going to be in front of a foreign affairs committee in france's parliament that committee was set up to question to the defense minister about france's weapons sales now french weapons sales of saud over the past few years mainly to saudi arabia and to the u.a.e. we're talking about billions worth of trade and what france has always said that

all the weapons are only used for defensive purposes but critics and campaigners of long said that there aren't enough checks on these weapon sales that france is uncertain where these weapons are going and that in fact many of these weapons are sometimes used offensively in fact in april there was a link to defense ministry report which suggested that some of these weapons were used offensively by the saudi coalition in yemen and led to the deaths of dozens of civilians now that is something that is partly the defense minister will certainly be questioned about today as well as these missile missiles that have been found with these rebel forces belonging to have to there's no doubt that the campaign is in france a that all of this proves what is needed a much stronger checks on french weapons sales all for these cells to be suspended altogether if it's not known where they're going. sudan has started to restore internet access to mobile telephones allowing people to finally

see what happened during a military crackdown last month services will cost after all the $100.00 people were killed by government forces during a peaceful sits in. for the 1st time in more than a month these type of images are be shared through mobile phone use. they show the aftermath of sudan's military crackdown on protesters during a peaceful sit in in khartoum more than 100 people were killed by sudan's military joint on june the 3rd was much of the violence was recorded on cell phone videos internet services were cut shortly after on the orders of sudan's transitional military council. lawyer adela seem hazan filed a lawsuit requesting the internet be restored the court agreed services were brought back 1st to fix landlines on tuesday the ruling was extended to mobile

phones he along with several human rights groups believe the shutdown was an attempt to hide evidence of crimes committed against civilians what. the argument was that interrupting internet services would protect the general public but in fact it was the opposite it was for the protection of private aid to taste and for people that have committed crimes. social media platforms like facebook and twitter were widely used to organize protests that ultimately toppled longtime leader omar al bashir in april once the military to control for weeks protesters took to the streets demanding the formation of a civilian led government. since the military crackdown trust between the military and civilians has been damaged but that last week progress was made generals and protesters agree to form a joint civilian military ruling body together they plan to install

a new government for a transitional period of 3 years oh despite recent violence many civilians say they will keep pushing for change but these pictures that can now be shared on mobile phones prove the path forward could be challenging katya little. al-jazeera. kenya is hosting a counterterrorism summit for african leaders today the u.n. sponsored discussions on designed to share information and form a united front thousands of africans have been killed and millions displaced in various countries the threats include attacks by al qaeda and islip fillets in the west and so hell region a joint regional task force there has failed to stop the killings. in nigeria responsible for a human. tyrian cross is spreading across the lake chad region he's 27000 people have been killed over 10 years in the east u.s. forces have joined the african union operation against al shabaab whose fighters continue to launch attacks despite losing strongholds in somalia malcolm web joins

us live from nairobi what do they want to achieve here. the secretary general of the united nations antonio get areas of speaking one of the opening sessions and he urged the international community to join forces to participate together to prevent violence extremism milf they heard from the president of kenya who kenyatta he said that it is a pan african problem that needs a pan-african solution he said terrorism is a threat to the nation the state he talked about terror groups that run sophisticated public relations operations or provide services in areas where there's a void of governance he said that keeping hold and control of territory is crucial in in the fight against these armed groups does this mean however malcolm that i mean there's 2 points really the african union has to up its game because it is criticized spasmodically for not doing what it should do perhaps in individual

conflicts and also do individual countries have to get a handle on what's going on inside their own borders before they can even think about starting to work with other african countries. that's a good series in itself actually mentioned the secretary general of the united nations among the factors that drive people towards violent extremism and not only poverty but also state violence and of course it's either violence from the states or just a lack of protection provided by the state that in many cases do drive people to take up arms because there's a significance to this discussion being held in kenya because kenya is involved in a conflict with the group al-shabaab from somalia the kenyan military moved into somalia in 2011 along with the united states other soldiers from some other african union countries they've been fighting al-shabaab they're not prompted a series of attacks by al shabaab here within kenya on kenyan soil the many kenyans

to millions have been killed the most recent of those major attacks was in january here in nairobi in the dusit hotel complex was attacked by gunmen 21 people were killed there so this is very much something that's a conflict that's been brought home to the people here people in nairobi are very much among those those thousands of victims that you mentioned across the continent welcome thanks very much. an outbreak of measles in chad has caused a national emergency to be declared other african countries are also struggling to contain this preventable disease patient numbers of soared 700 percent in some locations. it is so much it hurts. the fever won't go down. and this baby's lungs are filled with.

these are children on the brink of death because they were not vaccinated against measles oh no we didn't know what it was we thought it was malaria it's only here that they told us she has measles you don't understand we are so scared of losing her they keep giving her injections but she isn't doing any better this preventable disease has become an epidemic spreading faster than it can be contained. doctors without borders have set up one crisis center after the other vaccinating children to stop them contracting measles. we're very worried because measles combined with malnutrition is a dangerous mix and there aren't enough international actors helping chad the ministry of health to tackle this growing outbreak it's an outbreak that isn't just affecting chad take a look at these numbers according to the u.n. there has been a global increase of cases of measles by 300 percent in the last year how many of you here are worried about autism at the heart of the crisis is both fear and

belief that the measles vaccine is dangerous by an increasing number of people in the west and the lack of access to vaccines in other parts of the world. you know. more than 90 percent of children have not been vaccinated because they don't have access to health centers and so most children under 5 are infected with the measles virus. it is highly contagious for both children and adults and so despite us for it's to fight this age old virus measles is thriving indeed during the lives of thousands here in chad and around the world. nicholas hawke al-jazeera. don't go away coming up next we'll have a weather forecast for you with kevin but also still to come here on the news hour . we'll look at the slow recovery in the iraqi city of mosul 2 years after i sold was pushed out. and the sports serena williams stays on course for.

the only option from the region in about. yesterday at this time i was showing you images of the the massive flooding that was going on in parts of northern spain and you can see the thunderstorms right there we have some new images that have come out from the same area the storms have stopped the rain has stopped but now it is a cleanup time and take a look at some of these images they have coa that have come out from to fall in space and they are cleaning up right now they have much better weather you can see clear skies but look at the destruction that the rivers when 2 rivers overflowed in this particular area so the good news is we're going to be seeing no rain across much of the area so the cleanup will continue over the next few days the problem was this frontal boundary that caused all of the rain across the region now in

spain the rain has ended but now we're talking about rain across parts of the balkan peninsula with this front and we're going to be seeing across italy as well today the threat is going to be high winds hail as well as even the possibility of tornadoes and you can see the very heavy line of thunderstorms that we do expect to see crossing into the balkan peninsula now as we go towards tomorrow that is going to shift a little bit more to the south and over here towards east istanbul athens are going to be seeing some active weather as well we could even see some problems at the airports but once that front goes through temp is going to cool down about 5 or 6 degrees. the weather sponsored by cattle railways. traditional wrestling and family go have a village festival. now it's a national male and female school board in large arenas from big prize money.

to their love the purpose unifying cultural fold. and a way out of poverty. senegal wrestling with reality on al-jazeera. since in the discussions 2018 was the deadliest year the aviation industry has experienced for some time examining the headlines many foreign journalists including those from al-jazeera have had their licenses revoked their offices raided explore an abundance of world class programming designed to inform and motivate and inspire and convince say this is that conservation chance of. the world is watching. on al-jazeera.

welcome back you're watching the al-jazeera news hour live from our headquarters here and these are your top stories the iranian president hassan rouhani has defended his country's uranium enrichment program saying it is peaceful and still within the framework of the 2050 nuclear deal iran has welcomed french efforts to say that agreement the top diplomat is missing iranian officials. france's military has admitted that american antitank missiles found during a raid on a base run by the libyan warlord. belonged to the french army the us sold the recover javelin missiles to france. sudan has begun to restore internet access to mobile telephones allowing people to finally see what happened to remember the crackdown last month services were cut off more than 100 people were killed by government forces in a peaceful city. turkey says it will keep drilling for oil and gas around

cyprus despite e.u. and u.s. condemnation and u.s. state department says turkey is being provocative by sending 2 ships to explore off the coast of this politically divided island it says energy resources should be shared equally between turkey which controls the northern part of cyprus and the greek cypriot administration in the south said i'm concerned who has more now from istanbul. the discovery of oil and gas industry mediterranean has been a reason of conflict and tension between cyprus and turkey for a while that goes back to an ethnic conflict conflict in in 1974 which split the island between turkey speaking cyprus and greek greek speaking cypionate sent. the turkish speaking cyprus up and the north proclaims independence which is recognized by only turkey and this is why there are overlapping claims on the continental shelf borders or exclusive economic zone borders on the waters of

it's the mediterranean between the greek side and turkey turkey says' it is free to explore and drill energy resources in the eastern mediterranean like any other country that has caused by the sea and the greek side accused to a key for do if or for doing this in greek waters and which they find illegitimate but turkey says it's has a right and they are also defending the rights of the turkish cyprus because turks believe that the greek cyprus are doing this explorations and drilling independent from the turkish cyprus and they feel to defend themselves there are 2 turkish ships in the eastern mediterranean right now one of them is fatah which sailed dolphin and began drilling in the western side of the cyprus island in early 2019 it is drilling right now and the 2nd ship which sailed off in late june

is counting down for drilling by. car parts and according to the energy ministry it is going to start drilling oil and gas in a week or so and this is why there is this conflict and the western allies have been also accusing turkey for increasing tensions in the mediterranean waters what took you say it's their legitimate right and. currently we have been hearing and reading of course you might be discussing how a suspending turkey's. session. spending. extension of a customs union with the european countries donald trump has wrapped up his twitter attacks on the british ambassador to the u.s. the u.k. is going prime minister to resign may britain's u.k. foreign secretary hit back calling president trump's comments disrespectful ellen fisher reports president friends it was a high profile jennifer qatar's amir she brought together political and business

leaders as well as washington's top diplomats press missing the u.k. ambassador disinvited by the white house after the publication of leaked memos sharply critical of president donald trump a career diplomat has been the man in washington says 2016 part of his job is to follow reports back to london it's been revealed he describes the trump white house as uniquely dysfunctional clumsy and inept he described u.s. policy on iran as incoherent chaotic and his summary we don't really believe this administration is going to become substantially more normal less dysfunctional less unpredictable i work for the state department for many years and we were always encouraged to be direct and frank with what our superiors here in washington about our interactions with government officials with whom we dealt so technically he did not do anything wrong but politically it probably would have been wise to be extremely cautious donald trump has said he will no longer deal with the ambassador

and in a series of tweets on tuesday said the wacky ambassador that the u.k. forced it upon the united states is not someone we are thrilled with a very stupid guy i don't know the ambassador but have been told he is a pompous fool. could have expected to move on from his position in the near future and it's unlikely the all. only foreign diplomats sending back stock assessments of the u.s. administration but if a new u.k. prime minister was to decide he had to go now because of donald trump's anger there's a what that would create a dangerous precedent of foreign leaders being able to veto countries ambassadors there's a lot of history here there's a lot of shared interests and values. there is this is a relationship that can withstand you know an awkward period of time over these cables. just last month donald trump enjoyed a state visit to the u.k.

and talked of the historic and deep links between the 2 countries this diplomatic spat has undoubtedly damaged those links alan fischer washington. the disputes exports from japan to south korea is worsening south koreans protested outside the japanese embassy in the capital seoul the demonstrations follow japan blaming what it calls security concerns for typing restrictions on exports of semiconductor materials south korea's president says japan has no reason to question the effectiveness of its sanctions on north korea earlier we spoke with robert kelly professor of international relations at tucson national university he says the current situation isn't really about trade. like most scraps between south korea and japan it's really over the war the world war 2 the pacific war pan colonized korea for about 35 years during that period and did all sorts of terrible stuff and there's a big debate in korea about whether or not the japanese have been a properly apologetic enough about it and so on and this is going back and back and

forth for decades this is just sort of the latest manifestation of that so you know the u.s. has been dealing a lot with north korea south korea and japan where does japan see all of this is there sitting on the sidelines yeah that's been the japanese are to a certain extent cut out which is entirely fine for both the south koreans and the north koreans the japanese have been preached additionally a traditionally pretty hawkish on north korea and donald trump sounded pretty hawkish of course back in 2017 during the war crisis and then suddenly trump flipped in 2018 and started saying that kim jong wasn't with his friend and they were in love and stuff like that and japan has never really quite signed up for that i mean the japanese are going along with it because they realize the relationship with trump is really important but i think the japanese would like a more hawkish stance than south koreans and the americans and so the japanese are kind of the odd man out on this with north korea right now. kelly talking to rachelle just a little earlier at least 24 people have been killed in some of the worst fighting in puppy new guinea for years now that happened in the remote province of hella

police say the killings could be in retaliation for an earlier attack. journalism is not a crime that's the message from a major conference on press freedom in london rights groups say 2018 was the worst year on record for violence against journalists in afghanistan more than 80 journalists were killed last year the murder of jamal of the saudi consulate in istanbul dominated headlines for months and the shooting of young sparked protests in slovakia he was investigating government corruption in mexico many journalists have either been killed or they've simply gone missing the shooting of 5 employees at the capital because that newspaper in the u.s. shocked the country president trump has continued to criticize the press and around 348 journalists are detained worldwide 60 of them are in china with 19 people facing charges of false news in egypt including al-jazeera the same challenge the joins us from london charlie. cry b.c.

yes a shocking year for journalists $99.00 killed last year in total $348.00 locked up by their governments and the 1st ministerial conference on media freedom bringing together foreign ministers international organizations and journalists to try and identify those threats to journalists in terms of concrete change they're looking for investment and intervention when it comes to journalists protection and britain has already started the ball rolling they've announced a $15000000.00 fund for developing countries and supporting their media starting with bangladesh sierra leone and ethiopia and also a $3700000.00 fund specifically for the middle east to support media freedom that now you mention jamal khashoggi and obviously his murder is featuring high on the agenda here and with me is rebecca vincent from reporters without borders who was part of a recent delegation to saudi arabia and very soon by. the government trying to

facilitate the release of journalists held. that meeting until today was kept private why have you decided to make it public now will simply because the saudi authorities have not yet released the journalists which is the measure that we asked for so we traveled in april in the wake of killing we were invited by the saudi government but it was our request it took months of advocacy work actually to get to the point of receiving an invitation it's quite unusual in fact we think unprecedented for an organization like ours to get access to saudi arabia but we decided the situation is so grave that it merited actually directly discussing this with with the saudi government not just the sort of campaigning and advocacy that we always do in saudi arabia but talking to them directly so we did make it clear that we believe this full list of 30 journalists and citizen journalists are all in prison in connection with their journalism and that they should be immediately and unconditionally released one measure we discussed was possible pardons during the

ramadan period so we waited to see if they would acts on that and there have been minor movements in a few cases but not all the release of the broader group which is what we asked for so now in after the revelations of. the shah g.'s murder with saudi arabia exceeding to the g 20 presidency we decided now it was time to speak out and call again for the release of these journalists and you had that about britain's investment specifically for defending me to freedom in the middle east but what is it really going to change to create an environment where journalists can compete more resources are always welcome i think there is a very clear need for more financial support to end dependent media and countries around the world but particularly in the middle east many of these countries are among the worst offenders in terms of their records on press freedom many of these countries are in the bottom quarter of our world press freedom index it's not just a question of supporting those journalists trying to get out the truth but protecting them and really addressing the need for political will to address the situation that the situation in saudi arabia that is very much what's needed a clear political signal that it's want to begin to repair the damage done to their

into. national image after what's happened to mr hardy that we think is only possible through a serious stuff like the release of the jailed journalists thank you so much. as well as the investment i mentioned intervention and political will is a key goal here this conference reached out to $150.00 states it's not clear yet how many have attended but they're hoping to bring them together to sign a joint declaration defending freedom of expression to build a coalition to try and make sure that there's a stronger diplomatic response when journalists are threatened in the future but they also want to support some countries that are doing the right thing we mentioned ethiopia they've risen 40 places that index since the new prime minister took office it is going to be interesting though to see what measures they do consider for repeat offenders like china like saudi arabia will sanctions be on the

table it's a 2 day conference and we'll have to see johnny thank you. slow progress is being made to rebuild the ruined city of mosul in the north of iraq it's 2 years since the iraqi army 2 of i saw fighters in the capital of this over the caliphate as a summer binge of aid reports reconstruction efforts on being helped by the sanctions imposed by the united states on iraq's ally iran. this is the old city of mosul but do years after i say defeat iraq's victory has not still meant.