4 percent better even than south korea in the same year the figures released earlier this month in seoul also show how sanctions have cut north korea's trade with its neighbors by nearly half with a staggering 86 percent drop in exports especially affected has been its mining sector with a complete ban on one of its biggest exports coal it shows the extent to which kim jong un stated ambition to develop his country's economy rather than the military is being frustrated but state run media is reporting that thursday's launch was overseen personally by kim and that the missiles were a new type of guided weapon much harder for anti missile systems to detect and intercept the north says there were a warning to the war mongers of south korea but seem calculated not to jeopardize the chance of a further summit with u.s. president donald trump they haven't done nuclear testing they really haven't tested

missiles other than you know smaller ones. the which is something that lobster just came seems to be following the same strategy of using his country's advances in military technology to build pressure for crippling sanctions to eventually be lifted rob mcbride al-jazeera sole hayden wasikowska a senior research fellow at leas university in the u.k. he says it's working class people who are most affected by those sanctions. the burden of pain is very on even especially the 1st thing to say is that the missile program the weapons of mass destruction which is proceeding even if president trump thinks it isn't the testing that we've seen i mean resources for that authority and the elite in pyongyang as far as we can see in the capital something of a showpiece city become slightly more like other cities or more commerce in recent years this is there's

a very strange disconnect in the puzzle for us to analyze it i mean it you can't see the hurting that so the burden as ever is being born in the countryside by ordinary people workers miners particular the mining sector is suffering a lot and thomas frankly the regime doesn't care very much about them we do know from international u.n. agencies and others how they are hurting say but the idea that sanctions will bring north korea to the conference table i think is is it's out of the untrue if they are talking on and off that stuff it's for other reasons so a mixed picture but definitely suffering even as the state continues to with its weapons program. chin is here is observing 7 days of mourning for its late president but the who died on thursday at the age of 92 he's being remembered for guiding the country in a new era of democracy a state funeral is expected to take place on saturday to be changed or has more now from carthage. the body of president. is subsea

being taken back to his official residence in carthage tributes to his role in establishing democracy in tunisia followed in his wake the french president emmanuel macron and the german chancellor angela merkel both praised him for his courage. that new phase introduces government is now under way the speaker of parliament mohamed el nasser sworn in to search term purlieus the country's president he will take over for up to 90 days while elections are organized. i swear by god almighty to protect the independence of tunisia and the safety of its lands to respect the constitution and law and fully take care of the people's interests and be loyal to tunisia. in such a young democracy the vacant posts of the country's leader could spark a power struggle among chooses political parties therefore not what candidates who are considered to be quite popular and quite strong but also very controversial who

have been biased from running the presidential elections by parson parliament not too long ago this law has not yet been signed by. the before he passed away and i think we'll hear a lot more about this controversy next couple of days. the president spent the last few weeks of his life in and out of hospital he was a leading figure in what was known as the arab spring uprising as prime minister and then tunisia as 1st democratically elected president he helped draft a new constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech. let him have his accomplishments though were often overshadowed by a weak economy and a high unemployment rate is though he started his mission on a positive note and he finished that the same way may he rest in peace his predecessors who the country but he was a good man who served his country no one did that before him no one shall any of he she we hope the next president will be even better we hope our country will be

stable and safe we have some terrorism but the country doesn't blame him 7 days of national mourning have been declared as the country on as its fallen president no front runner has emerged amongst the candidates who said they will be standing in the presidential elections in september but all shades on the political spectrum here are united in wanting one thing both a stable and a smooth transition of power. david chase to al-jazeera cottage hundreds of algerians of march through cities across the country for the 23rd consecutive week in protest against the government president at the lizzie's buthe flicka resigned in april after 20 years in power but demonstrators are pushing for greater change to the country's ruling elite presidential elections planned for earlier this month but canceled because of a lack of candidates the interim president. announced on thursday that

a special panel would meet to oversee plans to hold an election as soon as possible . palestinian protesters have clashed with israeli security forces following friday prayers in occupied east jerusalem it follows the demolition of almost 100 palestinian homes in what home us on monday the homeowners that lost a 7 year legal battle to overturn an israeli military in the kitchen in order several human rights organizations and the un have criticized the demolition of matheson has not. just a few moments ago the prayers here in what we call most ended and the violence began when it started when a group of palestinian protesters had also been holding prayers further up the hill started to make their way down carrying palestinian flags the group on this side of the fence which is the occupied east jerusalem side of the fence started to make their way towards the fence as well in order to try to meet the opposing group in the middle as the security forces came down and attempted to stop the 3 protesters

from throwing rocks and stones into the road the number of rocks began to increase we saw some tear gas being fired further up the hill the whole process of these the demolitions has been provocative since monday since the houses here in what he called those were destroyed by the israeli military and that has been a tremendous concern that what have up until now been peaceful protests. it's against these demolitions is going to turn into a situation like this. u.s. president donald trump has accused his french counterpart of fearlessness over adat digital services tax trump tweeted that he would announce substantial reciprocal action intake he may tax french wine france has 3 percent digital taxes to be levied on sales generated by multinational firms like google the trumpet ministration argues that it unfairly targets u.s. tech giants the u.s.

got amala have signed an agreement to restrict asylum applications from central america it comes just days after president donald trump threatened to impose tariffs on the central american country if it didn't agree to the deal the u.s. has been struggling to stem a surge of central american migrants trying to cross its southern border we are now at a point where we are we just get a lot of and they're doing what we've asked them to do and i think it's going to be a great thing for what about where they don't want these problems either so we were able to get this done and we got it done very quickly. you know it's a good one mallos the finale clear on the responsibility that it has we are clear that we have to make changes in the way to do is working together with our brothers following that's what we're showing here today and we are definitely committed to continue doing moon improving what we have. a serious political hay in his life or

some washington following this story and putting what do we think this is greenwood is actually going to achieve. well you know it's really unclear in the end this might just boil down to a photo op for the president who has been really tough on this issue so basically what he says they signed is what he's calling a safe 3rd country that would mean that if anyone from let's say al salvador honduras traveled through guatemala of asylum in the united states they would 1st have to apply for asylum in guatemala only if they're denied and then could they try to apply for asylum in the united states the reason that this is more difficult or not clear how this would actually play out is this was supposed to be signed before the constitutional court in guatemala said that the president of guatemala couldn't sign it now the secretary from guatemala that was in the oval office said that that really was just procedural and they have cleared that up but it's not clear that they quote him all of the president and his representative have the

authority to actually sign this measure for the president he's allowed to say look it's a victory we're continuing to close down the southern border that's something that matters to his core supporters whether or not it's actually going to go into effect remains to be seen and it does appear that guatemala didn't really have much choice . know what a mosaic economy is completely dependent on the united states the president said he was going to do more legal visas for watermelon farm workers there's also another complication when it comes to united states the president and initiated this policy said that he was changing it basically that anyone who shows up at the southern border has to apply for asylum in the 1st country that they entered a federal court in california like most of the president's immigration decisions said no you can't do that congress specifically has the authority to make these sort of regulations and this judge specifically said guatemala he said you showed me no evidence that guatemala is

a safe country that it can provide the necessary support for these refugees that are seeking asylum you specifically said till you can show me a lot of knowledge can handle it you're not going to get this is already so it's blocked in guatemala it's blocked in the u.s. the president has his photo op that was unexpected he was able to say look we're doing something on the southern border but unless the courts change their minds in both countries i don't think it's clear that this actually happens or it possibly with the latest in washington thank you. meanwhile trying to spoken over the phone with the new british prime minister boris johnson and says the 2 already working on a post free trade agreement trump would meet johnson at the g. 7 summit in france next month meanwhile is being e.u. to abolish the backstop in any new brics agreement it is the most contentious part of the brics a deal on one of the reasons why it has been approved by the u.k. parliament. more than 3 football fields

a minute it's that is the rate of deforestation that is now hitting the brazilian amazon the world's largest rain forest is being destroyed at a pace from which it may never recover 1345 square kilometers of forest have been cleared so far this month mostly for farmland that is nearly the size of london a 3rd of all pristine rain forest in brazil has been cut down or burned and that includes places where tribes of people have cared for the land for centuries scientists say the amazon could now become a savannah brazil's president has moved fast to dismantle environmental regulations cutting budgets and giving more power to miners and the agricultural industry but all this could also affect brazil's biggest ever trade deal which is with the european union it's not yet been ratified and commits both sides to slowing deforestation and imo it is a campaign coordinator for fur and that's an environmental and social justice

organization she says some positive steps are being taken to protect the amazon. this week on tuesday the e.u. published an action plan which sees the e.u. for the 1st time opening the door to regulator measures that would set standards on the goods that the imports to ensure they're not associated with deforestation are 1st. it wants this to be a partnership approach so the e.u. is not going to impose its standards on other countries but the e.u. does have a duty to respond to the increasing concern among you can see as about the impact that their consumption is having on forests on the people who depend on those forests and with this communication with this action plan that it published this week it shows that the e.u. is for the 1st time willing to bring in new options that could be regulates or that would ensure that products that are being placed on the market from countries such as brazil would not be linked to human rights abuses. or different station or the

horsehair that smashed temperature records in europe this week appears to be moving towards greenland where it could cause record levels of melting greenland's ice sheet covers 80 percent of the island's territory and is the 2nd largest in the world but it's been losing ice arsenic celebrating pace since the turn of the century the ice loss in 2012 was 4 times the rate in 2003 and there are fears that this summer's heat could break that record the extent of the melt in june has been 4 times the average between 181 and 2010 this month alone greenland has already lost 160000000000 tons of ice through surface melting that is roughly 64000000 a lympics ice when poles why should we worry well the total volume of the ice sheet is 2900000 cubic kilometers if all of us eventually melts it will raise global sea levels by 7 meters so devastating most of the world's coastal cities. well for more

on this i'm joined via skype i had a close the natural hazards researcher at the university of reading thanks so much for being with us on the program promise we could start by just explaining what we mean by surface melting is that the only way that greenland loses it's all ice so surface melting is where the ice is coming into contact with hot in the atmosphere whereas we also get melting tripwire is touching the ocean water as well and so we're getting a lot lost that way as well so it's very concerning the amount that we're talking about how do we know that climate change is responsible or at least partly responsible for what is happening in greenland so they're hot temperatures that we've seen in your experience and very hot indeed very worrying. we can relate this directly to climate change because heat waves are really easy to link because it's about temperature it's about heat in the atmosphere and it's about the global mean

temperature. is experiencing very very very high temperatures and that's very easy to make whereas things like floods and maybe when storms are not not quite as easy to relate because they're more complicated. is greenland ice sheet long term existence actually under threat i mean is it possible to have any estimate of of how long it actually has. well the sorts of things we don't know about the melting so it's very concerning the rate of melting and when you see this year after year we really do need start to worry about what's happening and because the melting can influence so many other things around that planet it can raise sea levels and the connections that we get across the planet in both the atmosphere and also the ocean. i think i think we need to be concerned and all we're expecting is there a prediction that the heat waves we've been seeing in europe this week will be more

of those which again can move further north and again affect greenland. without a doubt we're seeing more heat waves now and we know that our climate is going to get warmer so are expecting more prolonged heat waves more extreme heat waves in the future and yes many of them may travel travel north so we might get more of this melting again. what i mean the so much talk about it now and it is a very hot topic excuse the palm but what more should we be doing to be stopping the changes that we're seeing happening or is it going to be a very very slow process so there's definitely some things that we can't stop now we are on a trajectory which is very worrying what we will see more heat waves but there's definitely things we can do now we can really think about stopping emissions we can think about protecting our rain forest which is a really important kind of land of the planet i am keeping keeping those rain

forests as stable so there are practical things that we can do with the right place quite well you just might think well if you just mentioned the rainforest of course the previous report that that we were talking about was about deforestation happening at an amend scale particularly in brazil in the misson forest how concerned are you about that. extremely concerned and the rate is so fast that i don't think we can quite go back from that there's nothing really we can do. to repair it in the same amount of time that we're losing it extremely concerning how to really get to get your thoughts on analysis thanks so much for joining us. including. the americans defying the high cost of prescription drugs by crossing the border into canada. i want to africa's biggest polluters is helping to clean up

its act. in support the south korean gulf are making a big move toward tough nature to. head over the weekend promises to bring some much cooler weather tical central and western areas of europe but also. eastern sections it's out across the west the cloud has been heading in and bringing with it the rain but of course also bringing that much cold as hotel which is a lot lower in fact they london and in paris a little bit below the average for this time of yet meanwhile a warm day in zurich despite the rain 26 degrees in iceland driv 28 but i know that is that she 10 degrees below what we have seen for the last several days and this heading to sunday what you will notice is temperatures across these eastern areas actually beginning to warm up so walsall for example your high there of 34 degrees

as about 9 degrees above the average for this time of year 30 celsius in kiev and that rain pushing at us is steadily further tools the east and in fact a slight improvement on those temperatures on sunday in london and paris both as you can see up to 23 degrees and i'm afraid it will mean that with a high of 30 degrees celsius northern africa it is dry no sign of any rain here and if it touches again typical for this time of year but certainly a warm day south in cairo with a high of 3631 in some on shore breezes in robot with a high of 23 head on into sunday not a great deal of change 24 there and 34 in tunis. august and i just. want to one moves to investigate how illegal loggers a plundering some of cambodia's last remaining fawaz marking 2 years since the start of myanmar's military campaign that schools hundreds of thousands of random

muslims into exile how you look in countries and billions of you supply arms used in the gambit resulting in the world's worst humanitarian crisis another bid to preserve multilateralism within a group of the 7 most advanced economies will cohesion prevail over with challenges for the g. 7 faces drawing on a decade of al-jazeera documentaries reviving visit the archive to find out how the story moved on august. on culture because this week south africa is debt laden companies need a bailout before they cripple the economy we'll take a look at taylor swift spar with big business over who owns her music plus we find out why radio and kurds are looking for work in both a new book charge of the cost of al-jazeera.

out again and reminder the top stories on al-jazeera an increasing number of children are being killed as syrian and russian warplanes bombed $33.00 children have died in the rebel held province this month that's more than all of 28. libya's coast guard says it's recovered the bodies of dozens of refugees and migrants who died in what the u.s. has described as the worst mediterranean tragedy this year round $120.00 others including women and children all missing. fit debt. and the hot air that smashed temperature records in europe this week appears to be moving towards greenland or it could cause record levels of belting climate change has been linked to be increasing i saw which could cool sea levels to rise even further. at least 2 people have been killed by boko haram fighters in northeast nigeria the gunmen

attacked one of the region's biggest camps for internally displaced people near my degree on thursday they shot at soldiers at a nearby military base enter the camp set fire to tents and raided food supplies about 50000 people are living in the camp of meat eater says more from beacher. their taekwondo laurie cam came amid continuing efforts by a regional militaries from charge nigeria and cameroon as they stepped up their operations against boko haram especially the book on a collection affiliated with ice one or the islamic state in west africa province we've seen such daring attacks becoming so rare over the past 6 months or so across the northeast of nigeria however boko haram has never completely disappeared they have continued their operations of sins but abductions also have been the tool of trade of boko haram for a very long time long before the trouble goes were taken from the school in 2014

goals were taken from several schools in borno state and in towns and cities across the state as well as neighboring states so virtually is still active in parts of north east nigeria despite the claims by the nigerian president say that they have been defeated and we will expect to see more of such desperate attacks by boko haram in the coming months or so as the military stepped up its operations against it one thing that came out of the attack on downloaded camp on 1st and i had was that they raided the camp and took away food items meant for internally displaced persons which will show or which signifies that the operations to cocktail supply of food items and other logistics may be walking forcing them to take such daring actions of raiding places that are considered too dangerous for them for food and other materials. hundreds of activists took over the main terminal of hong kong's

airport on friday as they continue their call for greater democracy. was chanting against hong kong's leader crowds gathered in the main arrivals area to show their message to international visitors they're angry at what they see as china's growing influence on hong kong affairs and the government's response to weeks of mass protests them straight into began in march over a planned extradition or which has since been canceled a decision by india's top court could allow millions of homework is access to government benefits the supreme court ruled that a government must pay pensions to women who work from home in the 1990 s. the ruling could affect millions of women not given employee status garment industry employs more than 12000000 people in factories but millions more work from home workers get little to no benefits from employers and have virtually no avenue

to seek help for unfair conditions there is optimism in the kurdish region of northern iraq where the economy is improving 5 years after the defeat of eisel unemployment levels are dropping and the region's new government has pledged to repay well then $10000000000.00 owed to public sector workers that are going to and has more now from. when we 1st met the hussein is my family last year they were worrying about how they would pay their bills each month after their salaries were slashed kahar works for the government and bacall teaches the government owes them even more money $15000.00 in unpaid wages but at least now they're getting paid their full salaries aquatica but knew him on their good salary still feeling insecure we're getting our full cellar is now ok but we can't be sure that will be the case next month there are 1400000 people working for the

government and public sector in the semi-autonomous region of northern iraq they watch their paychecks shrink or disappear beginning in 2014 that's when the war with eisel began the price of oil plummeted and the federal government in baghdad cut budget payments to the kurdistan regional government austerity measures were implemented and workers paid the price with reduced salaries the dispute has been resolved the new prime minister who came to power this year says the estimated $10000000000.00 that's owed to public sector employees will be paid although he's not given a timeframe the government says unemployment has dropped from 14 percent in 2016 to 9 percent so far this year there's more confidence among people like business men come out. he develops residential and commercial buildings he says when i saw began

terrorizing the region he was forced to put 20 percent of his construction projects on hold. on them and i lost between $14.00 and $16000000.00 now i have a belief with the stability of the situation in the kurdish region the wheels of the economy will be back on track will earn money again and business will be fine. with the freedom to think beyond meeting their minimum expenses because all is focusing on the family's future big. we have plans in our heads the 1st one is to visit the doctor so we can pay for fertility treatments to have a 2nd child if we keep getting our salaries as we are not all will be able to fulfill our dreams for their 4 and a half year old daughter to noack the hope of having a sibling to play with can't come quickly enough natasha going to aim. thousands of south african minus who well who are suffering from potentially deadly

diseases have reached a historic legal settlement where $350000000.00 in a class action lawsuit mine workers say 10 major companies the compensation many have been afflicted by lung disease or other illnesses as a result of that work 6 of the company's accepted a deal which has now been approved by a court in johannesburg up to 100000 minus all their dependents could benefit which is spurious a human rights lawyer has been working on the case for many yes he says the court's decision is a landmark in the history of minus rights in south africa. well the president was sitting few years ago in the constitutional court for the 1st time affirmed the right of mineworkers suffering from occupational lung diseases to take civil actions to institute proceedings against the employers before then there was no such rot in south africa and there was no civil accountability on the part of

employers towards workmen who suffered from occupational diseases so that was the big breakthrough treaty 11. but the last 78 years of in spain litigating against the mining companies and the last several years in parallel with that it's a geisha process. set of negotiations that culminated in the settlement that was approved today the us government is investigating the rising costs of prescription drugs high prices for essential medication has become a red bipartisan issue with both democrats and republicans demanding changes a white house correspondent kelly how it has more from friday's congressional hearing. lawmakers on capitol hill debating how to combat the rising drug prices crisis that exists in the united states well all agree that this is becoming an escalating crisis for ordinary americans one that often comes down to life and

death the difference in opinion is how to resolve it the democrats say the answer is socialized medicine where there are negotiations with drug companies to keep prices low conservatives republicans say that that is not the answer with need is to reform the patent system and the essence of preserving what they see as important for research and scientific development and that is competition patients say that they spoke on capitol hill that they don't care what the solution is they just want to see one as soon as possible for many including david mitchell a cancer patient it is literally an issue of life and death every 2 weeks i spend a half a day at the clinic getting an infusion of drugs that are currently prairie strenuously at $650000.00 i relapsed twice and unfortunately i'm feeling on this current drug regime eventually i'm going to run out about it so the importance of

innovation is not theoretical for me it's literally life and death but my experience as a patient taught me one year refutable fact and that is drugs don't work if people can't afford them so expect that this will be something that will be debated hotly on the campaign trail not just by the democratic presidential candidates but also by donald trump as they approach the election for the president for 2020 well the increasing cost of prescription drugs has seen many diabetics and others needing long time treatment crossing into canada to buy medication where it's cheaper those traveling in the so-called insulin caravan so hoping to draw attention to the financial burden all correspondent daniel lak followed one of the groups across the border. activist quinn nystrom shares the good news with fellow u.s. diabetics a drug that they need to survive is available at the local wal-mart store for less than a 10th of what they pay in the united states their caravan crossed 3 u.s.

states to make a purchase i decided to bring this today because this kind of shows like in my everyday life that diabetes looks sight this is kind of basically one or 2 months of my survival for me also along for the ride nicole smith told who doesn't have the disease but she's here for a very special and personal reason i am part of this caravan in memory of my son alex smith who passed away on june 27th of 2017 from diabetic ketoacidosis as a result of rationing because he cannot afford it the group came to canada to buy cheaper insulin but mostly this is a gesture aimed at u.s. political leaders in the pharmaceutical industry insulin prices are so high that one in 4 diabetics in the u.s. has to ration the insulin they can afford putting their lives in danger. we need a long term solution.