even speaking not just to a domestic audience but around the world after so much criticism since that announcement of the withdrawal of troops from northeast syria now the u.s. president this is significant having that cabinet meeting this is the 1st time he's had cabinet meeting we've spoken to reporters since that announcement also since the announcement of the impeachment inquiry which we'll talk about in a moment but sensually the u.s. president trying to defend himself from a pretty unpopular decision namely the perception that the united states has abandoned the kurdish fighters that worked alongside the united states lost more than $11000.00 fighters in that effort for more than 5 years to defeat eisel so you heard there the u.s. president saying look at we never promised we are going to stay there indefinitely he also is saying that he believes that there may be some way to work out some sort of deal with the oil companies to allow the kurds to at least have some sort of cash flow without offering sort of any additional explanation on that the other

thing that the president talked about is whether or not turkey is going to live up to its end of the deal in other words as part of the cease fire agreement there was the lifting of sanctions on turkey put in place by the white house the u.s. president still dangling the option of putting those back in place along with tariffs on turkish products if in his words turkey misbehaves and when it comes to that impeachment inquiry where are we with that. well the u.s. president has continued to undermine it even as there has been increasing public evidence in the form of testimony on capitol hill that there is a basis for the impeachment inquiry we're talking about that telephone call that the u.s. president had back in july with ukrainian leader where he dangled withholding aid unless there was investigation into his political adversary joe biden the u.s. president saying that the only reason he believes that this is even an impeachment inquiry at of any form or fashion is because he believes that his opposition

democrats are fearful that if they don't hold this inquiry they may lose the 2020 u.s. election there was no anything is where there was no pressure whatsoever so this is a phony investigation. i watched a couple of people on television today talking about. they were talking about what a phony deal that is what a phony investigation is the republicans have to get tougher fight we have some of their great fighters but they have to get tougher because the democrats are trying to hurt the republican party for the election which is coming out of the us president once again as he said on social media maintains that there was nothing nefarious about his telephone call there was no quid pro quo even though one of the members of his administration has said there was later backtracking on that statement further i think it's important to point out that the u.s. president once again maintains that this is a perfect call that he had back in july and the only reason again it's being

investigated is because of not only corrupt opposition democrats but also the corrupt media reporting it can really great good to talk to you thank you so much let's bring in laura lumber he's a professor of energy policy at the institute for graduate studies he joins us from laurel number welcome to the news hour here on al-jazeera so if foreign policy is kind of in a state of flux here on the part of the trump white house and he's talking about oil how much of what foreign policy is or is becoming is about oil and oil economies well peter you know in the middle east the main revenue of moscow of months is oil or gas and very often the countries which have oil have also gas and in syria like you know their country has oil plays. even if syria is a small exporter of oil it can play a role in what we've seen but it plays an even greater role when president trump is

withdrawing a few 100 troops from syria but sending a few thousands to saudi arabia so that say's that to me and to many analysts the troops are following the oil money. he's also leaving some u.s. forces looking after the water at the moment not on operational oil fields and the administration seems to be signaling look we might talk about cash flow to the kurds in the future if those oil fields start operating but at that point some analysts are saying look the turks would get really angry at that point even if it's a quid pro quo for this us administration turning away from their allies their quite long standing allies the kurds yes. well you know the u.s. administration is in difficult situation not the least because of the impeachment process your butt or. procedure but also because they're up trying to withdrawal

from syria without looking too bad but a same time withdrawing because it was a long promise from president trump to withdrawal from foreign countries including syria and now they realize it's not that simple that those who may benefit from this withdrawal are the syrian government which is an ally of iran and russia and that the oil industry in syria is largely. benefiting the chinese oil company so only you know withdrawing from syria would only benefit a nexus which is rather unfriendly towards washington to settle east and that it's upsetting also quite frankly to turks who see doubts maybe now the kurds may have greater leverage over some areas even due to fear of course. you

know that the withdrawal of americans which was not planned they may have you know greater allport and it is with regard to some decisions not the least allying themselves with the mass chaos and the us sharing some oil fields in the way they were not able to do so before is this another narrative to the complex in syria that we have yet to spend possibly years discussing i mean turkey clearly doesn't want syria to have valuable resources yet a mask is in desperate need of resources yes. yes absolutely so we have 3 players having street friends strategy orientations but all thinking about oil very clearly the americans leaving behind some troops about these oil fields because they would like it to be exploited so that the kurdish. and keep on fighting isis so that the u.s. cannot be blamed for any resurgence of isis the syrian regime as you said is you

know a cash strapped so they tried to reach out to these regions that for years they were not able to control so that they can have access to these new oil fields or these oil fields they've not been able to exploit for a few years and they have to reinforce a lot of depp's let's keep that in mind for the russians for the uranium and all their the countries which have supported the regime of bashar al assad during a few years so the original of them ask us is desperate to reach out to this region and be in control of them and of course turkey turkey which has been upset for the last 2 years that the kurds had become independent in terms of oil meaning they had some exploitation and even develop some refining capacity is not huge capacity is but still the capacity to use oil domestically and even export some which created of course a basis to support the kurdish cause in syria and abroad longer a compelling conversation laura good to talk to you thank you so much thank you

very much peter israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu has returned the mandates of forming the country's next government the president after failing to secure support for a coalition his rival been against is now expected to be handed that jobless cross live to western muslims as it was correspondent harry forsett harry hi there what does this mean. well as you say it means that benjamin netanyahu on at the end of the last of a run of jewish holy days this month and on his 70th birthday has admitted defeat in is attempts to try to form a majority coalition government now has laid the blame for that squarely at the feet of benny gantz the leader of the blue and white opposition the main party after september 17th election in the israeli parliament the knesset saying that he rejected all of netanyahu as efforts to form a unity government i mean there is no argument with that he did reject those efforts his party did as well but that was because they say that they are not

willing to sit in government with someone who as netanyahu is is on the prospect of indictment on 3 separate corruption charges they say that they would says in unity government with that new who's likud party if it had a different leader now the president riven rivlin it is now his that his opportunity to try to steer this by giving it to benny gantz the mandate to try to form a coalition government he said he's indicated that he does intend to do that potentially as early as tuesday nessun yahoo is accusing dance of trying to form a minority government with external support from the mainly palestinian israeli joint list members of the knesset the head of that joint list has said that he hopes this is the last time that netanyahu uses this kind of anti arab incitement as prime minister but the prospects for garance do look pretty bleak either in terms of trying to form a minute minority government or in terms of trying to form

a unity government with a could because the could has shown no signs as yet of being willing to jettison benjamin netanyahu so if we get to an end of a failure of dance as well then we'll be in a 3 week potentially a 3 week period where the mandate could be tossed to the knesset itself and any knesset member could if he or she managed to get enough support potentially. must a government that too is unlikely and that period is likely to coincide with a final decision by the attorney general as to whether to indict nessun yahoo or not if there is a failure after all of this to form a government that could be maintaining his caretaker position to a 3rd election in less than a year that could be in march next year but there could be a legal challenge as to whether an indicted prime minister could continue to sit in office so a very bumpy few weeks and months look at prospect eric thanks very much. plenty more still to come for you here on the news hour including 4 major drug companies

reach a last minute settlement over their role in the u.s. opioid addiction epidemic. and in the sports news tiger woods plays his 1st competitive round of golf since his latest new surgery we'll tell you how he got on . the british prime minister's push to have a straight yes or no vote on his books that deal in parliament has been blogs for more on this let's cross to barbara in our european news center. peter thank you yes the speaker of the house of commons said the vote was too similar to the one held on saturday and wouldn't go ahead but john bercow says the government still has the opportunity to get the brakes a deal through parliament by the end of the month the decision is a blow to boris johnson has been adamant the u.k. will leave the european union on october 31st he's already been forced to ask for another extension which is yet to be approved by the new quarry chalons is live for

us from westminster worry that vote was always going to be a sort of vote of approval on principle of this deal so what are the options for boris johnson now determined that he is to try to push his deal through and turn it into law by the 31st of october. you know you're right i mean once again john bercow the speaker of the commons has put his foot down and stopped a u.k. government from having a meaningful votes on a withdrawal agreement he did it back in march of this year with a series of may now he has done it with boris johnson as well it essentially means that boris johnson has to go into there with drool agreement bill process slightly blinds not knowing whether he has parliament with him or not and that throws up numerous complications for him we can speak to a former insider of number 10 now chris wilkens who was the chief strategist for to

resume a speechwriter for the reason may as well so you know what it's like being inside number 10 what kind of have polling strategizing void gaming are they going to be going through now well apart from vavi throwing darts at pictures of john bercow i think there'd be 2 things firstly on a tactical level they'll be this evening really working on m.p.'s to make sure that they vote tomorrow in favor of the program motion the government is put down now that's the important piece of. government drafting because it means that if the vote for it then which will be in that bill will be they'll try to get it through parliament this week if m.p.'s don't vote for that it means it's not going to happen this week it means to find a she's going to break his pledge of taking the u.k. out of the by the end of the month we could then be into general election so i think they'll be worked on in peace for that also i think they'll be planning that general election anyway because one way or another there's a very good chance over the next few days the government didn't get their way that will be heading into that general elections to be making plans for that so we're

kind of been on the skins of position m.p.'s likely to be throwing in front of the government this week well it's the big 4 and without that in principle vote on the funds this deal as you say they're going into the legislation blind and so opposition m.p.'s will be trying to put general tso's an amendment that legislation potentially calling for a 2nd us. rendon which by mr said no way that's not going to happen more likely is a moment to say that the u.k. has to stay in a customs union again something that the prime minister has ruled out and which frankly a lot of considering pieces anathema they regard it as not bricks it's a tool but it's something that there might well be a majority in parliament for so if that member goes through and certainly the u.k. is looking like it stay in a customs union again that could be the trigger for the government say actually no we're pulling stumps and we're going for gen x. instead if you put it in there in numbers during the strategizing yourself would you have advised for me do you think they've done this the right way i think paul the problem with the number 10 official now is that strategically they're sort of still on track bizarrely the sort of still heading in the right direction but they

keep making sort of tactical misjudgement so if what happened on saturday for example firstly they didn't then push their deal to a vote in the house of commons off to the left when amendment passed i think that was now seen as a mistake because they don't have that in principle go ahead for it and then on saturday night after a day when the from the didn't get his deal through largely because actually and a lot of m.p.'s simply don't trust him and don't believe he'll keep his would assess the night then he then sent 3 letters to the european union asking for an extension trying to sort of be clever and subvert it was known as the ban act here laws than just doing the right thing to be in the letter law and again that's just proven impedes point so they keep making tactical is just really i think we need to sort of stop doing that stop trying to be too clever stop trying to send signals to the country focus on the strategy because a strategic level they've still got a chance of either getting their deal through or get in the general election they want which is a parliament versus people junction they've been trying to frame so i don't think

they're too far off track but they just need to stop making the city tactical mr difference chris organ's good insight thank you very much back to barbara for a challenge of the latest there from westminster voice and i thank you. abortion and same sex marriage in northern ireland will be legalized in a matter of hours but the historic changes have sparked controversy especially because they were brought in by the u.k. parliament and not more than ireland's assemble barker has more from belfast. campaigners have gathered outside the power sharing assembly here at stormont and anticipation of seismic changes to the law because midnight laws surrounding abortion and same sex marriage will change bringing northern ireland in line with the rest of the u.k. at the moment northern ireland has some of the strictest abortion laws anywhere in the world is but under all circumstances including cases of rape incest and fatal fetal abnormality when a fetus has very little to 0 chance of surviving outside the womb for many

campaigners these changes are a matter of human rights and at midnight history will be me it finally we will say good bye to these oppressive laws that have police start bodies and our health care no longer will women who need abortions be treated as criminals this has been a long time coming but finally our rights and our health care is being brought into the 21st century so are these changes happening well for the past 2 and a half years the power sharing government here at stormont hasn't been fully functioning it collapsed way over 1000 days ago in the midst of a corruption scandal and the problem has been made significantly worse as a result of brecht's it it's upset the balance between unionists who identify as british nationalists who identify as irish and it significantly reduce the incentive on members of the power sharing assembly from coming back and taking up their seats not everyone here though is happy about these forthcoming changes to the law for many it's seen as stripping away the rights of the unborn child we will

in continue to ensure that the unborn child has a voice and we will expose the politicians here in the field to turn up here today to form a government in order to stop this terrific piece of legislation from being forced in northern ireland while some members of the assembly have actually come back here for the 1st time in 2 and a half years to take up their seat largely in protest against these forthcoming changes. to the law but not enough of them are here to be able to block it given the absence of any fully functioning assembly or government the government in westminster now has had more of a say about what happens here in northern ireland going forward. hundreds of catalan separates his supporters are again gathering in barcelona to calling on spain's acting prime minister pedro sanchez to hold talks with pro independence leaders sanchez visited barcelona on monday to meet police struggling with separatist violence following widespread riots last week he struggle of course to

meet the catalan regional president accusing him of failing to restore order protests erupted last week when 9 separatists were jailed over catalonia as 2017 independence bid is go live now to charlie angelo who is in barcelona we did see scenes of violence last week what is the mood there now. the mood here among these protests is actually very peaceful they have been pelting the interior ministry building with paint and eggs and they're calling for the resignation of the region's interior minister is that a day of demonstrating since those sentences were handed down to castle and separatist leaders but actually their focus has now turned to the more immediate issue of police brutality they are pointing the finger at the national police who they blame for the violence seen last week the last number of have injured including one who is still in love but you can probably hear them shouting they've

been shouting down in truth and that's that main cry and today acting prime minister 5 years hundreds was actually in barcelona on a surprise visit he was kept very far away from the press i'm protests he visited a couple of the policemen who were injured in hospital but he again. president him 2 are refusing to take pulls at him and instead sent him a very strongly worded leftist saying that he had not failed in his duty to restore public would have a lot of people here very angry that they see that as a missed opportunity for dialogue which is what they're calling for and earlier they were courting acting prime minister sanchez a coward. charlie and you live with the latest from barcelona charlie thank you. that's it from us here in london let's go back to peter in doha. felber thanks very much in the u.s. for drugs companies have reached a last minute settlement to avoid

a federal trial before it was due to start the lawsuit involves more than 2000 u.s. communities seeking damages of alleged roles in the opioid epidemic at least 400000 people have died in the crisis over the past 20 is for more on this john hendren joins us live now from chicago john hi there what is the settlement do. well it is a landmark settlement in one sense but it's also a small settlement on the other the larger case continues to go forward so a number of drug companies that are being prosecuted by states and communities across the u.s. and have had that case consolidated into one case in cleveland ohio that moves forward to keep counties have settled with a number of drug companies it's cuyahoga and summit counties in ohio 2 of the hardest hit counties in this epidemic and they have settled with 3 drug distributors those are american amerisource bergen cardinal health and mckesson and

with the israeli opioid maker 10 at walgreens did not settle that is that walgreen boots the pharmacy chain they said they don't manufacture the drugs and they have not sold the pill mills and therefore they didn't feel it was appropriate for them to reach that settlement that this could serve as a model for a larger settlement one that has been estimated at $48000000000.00 that would settle all of those cases being prosecuted in cleveland negotiations continue and that trial was set to begin this week ok there are thousands of lawsuits against other people involved in this crisis where do those stand. well those cases are going to continue to go forward in that court in cleveland but meanwhile there are negotiations going on the drug companies would like some certainty in the future they want their investors to have confidence that their stock will still retain its value so they want to come to some resolution here it's just a matter of how much and critics have looked at this current case of those 2 ohio

counties and suggested it was pennies on the dollar that they settled too cheaply and they want to get more money for those communities as they go forward there's also an interesting dispute going on in which the attorneys general of states are not agreeing with the prosecutors in small communities and the reason for that is they looked at the de bacco settlement and they decided that in that case the money went through the states where the communities didn't feel like they really got their fair share of that money and they want to negotiate that on the beginning of this settlement but right now there's one side with people prosecuting the case and it is they who are not agreeing on this. but still she thank you very much. facebook says it's suspended accounts linked to russia and iran which targeted u.s. users with political messages the american tech giants as russians talk to voters in swing states like florida and virginia they pretended to be locals and posted

comments on both sides of the political spectrum discussing 2020 presidential candidates canadians have been voting in a tightly contested election that's expected to produce a heavily divided parliament polls suggest it's a deadlock between prime minister justin trudeau as liberal party and their rival andrew she has conservatives in 3rd place is the n.d.p. with jacques meet singh at the helm making significant gains in the last few days to form a majority government a party needs to secure a $170.00 seats in parliament which polls suggest is unlikely and in case of a minority government support from other parties will be crucial to pass any legislation than you elect from toronto. it's been pretty brisk here at this downtown toronto polling station turnout so far polls are open across the eastern part of canada it's a huge country with 5 time zones and it'll take pretty much 12 hours to get all the voting done and the count underway at the campaign has been pronounced by many commentators as less than inspirational it certainly hasn't budged the numbers of

the of the prime minister justin trudeau and his liberal government incumbent government and the conservative challenger andrew scheer there are quite a few differences between them on issues like climate change mr trudeau says he wants to fight it aggressively mr scherer seems to be more hands off about it the other parties in the race have also done well at the expense of the 2 main parties there's the separatist bloc a backwash in quebec which could end up holding in the balance of power if there's a minority situation if this close vote is that reflective of the public opinion polls and also the green party and the social democrats new democratic party they've also done very well in the campaign canadians tend to be enthusiastic voters the sort of historical turnout level is around 70 percent advance polling was very strong this time around so it's all going to have to wait for the opinion of the voters to be reflected in the votes public opinion polls don't have a great record in modern times and we'll have to wait and see what is actually going to be the situation will we have another majority government in canada

a minority and if so who will it be it's really not clear at all right now. state of emergency in the chilean capital is now being extended to other parts of the country at least 11 demonstrators have been killed in the rioting the former president of chile michelle bachelet is calling for an independent investigation into the deaths the military's been deployed to control the civil unrest against a transport fare rise that's been reversed after the protests began chile's government says extend the day nighttime curfew to cities across the country as we've been saying let's go live now to the chilean capital and our reporter manuel or apollo manuel where are you and what's going on. we're in we're in santiago chile it's kind of a tense scene that just began right now actually just before going live a good amount of tear gas just came into a sweat. this is actually

a very. a very iconic part of the city this is where a lot of of political movements have started in the past and we know that these protests here in the chilean capital 8 began over an increase to the price of i'm so sorry we're getting a lot of a lot of tear gas coming into my into my throat actually quite powerful but what we just saw was about a 100 people that flood this area that we are at right now we're now seeing police and military deploying tear gas deploying deploying smoke bombs to disperse the crowd now the government has already gone back on on this measure that would have increased the price of the ticket of metro but people are still out on the streets protesting a long list of demands or they're protesting pension reforms or pension they're they're protesting against minimum wage they're protesting against a income disparity in the country and one of the biggest things that they're upset about has been this what they refer to as repression by by police forces using the

excessive force against otherwise peaceful protests here in the chilean capital where of the protest has gone as they were trying to get away from the security services there behind you manuel and is it your feeling that the demonstrates is will just return to that scene. absolutely this entire part of town where we are right now. was full of protests or several 1000 people were actually gathered here in this plaza beating pots and pans a general a general protests a peaceful protest before police and military showed up to disperse the crowds that we've seen everyone has now run in the opposite direction you can actually still see people running fleeing from the tear gas fleeing from the smoke bombs that bill that police are using to disperse these crowds but we don't get the sense that this is that this is over in fact. when we arrived demonstrators were only just starting

to arrive to begin their protest today. and how easy or difficult will it be for the government to enforce the states of emergency not just in the capital santiago but open done in the country. well that's that's certainly a big question the state of emergency remains in effect if you could hear people if you could hear people's chanting a 2nd ago they're saying no violence no violence repeating that they're peace they're protesting peacefully and again you may have seen another tear gas canister just rolled past us. just now i think the government is under tremendous amount of pressure from a civilian population from all sectors of society that say that they are going to continue to protest. and protesting against what they see is repression against people peaceful protests and they're their right to film and photograph police when

they say they are they are they are. conducting repression against against peaceful protesters ok my well we'll leave it there will come back to you in the next hour or so i'm sure in the meantime thank you very much. protests are taking place in several cities across sudan as thousands there mark 55 years since the country's 1st revolution sudan's new prime minister and suffering council with military and civilian members were sworn in just 2 months ago a couple of months a political uncertainty and violent protest as a calling for all former regime members still in government positions to be removed have a morgan is in khartoum. it's been more than 6 months since the dance former longtime president i'm going to be here was all stayed largely because of protests very much like these but people are saying that 6 months on they feel that the revolution that they started in december is incomplete they're saying that they still feel that members of the former ruling party are in power and that they share the

government which they had shed blood for and they're saying that they want justice and accountability for those who have been killed so to commemorate the anniversary of the 1st revolution that happened in sudan in 1064 called the of the revolution people came out in the fountain and i mean not just here in order to have here but in various other states around the country as well they're demanding justice and accountability and they're saying that they want now transitional government which is a large civilian they want that government to ensure them that that justice will be delivered but also that members of the former reading party will be held to account for any crimes committed since they came to power in 1989 so we've got people here protesting saying that they're going to march to freedom square which is great that has been named after the revolution started there think a big. the march of their big going to make their demands loud and clear and it's not exceed if it doesn't feel they would feel that their revolution is not complete

i'm not here to accept. the u.s. is trying to reassure allies in afghanistan that it is committed to finding a political solution to years of fighting despite the fact that it's reducing the number of troops in the country the defense secretary. made those comments during an unannounced visit to kabul his regular moment. the presence of american troops in afghanistan has long been a controversial issue on monday secretary of defense mark and the top u.s. general in afghanistan told a news conference in kabul the pentagon has been quietly reducing its troop numbers over the last year or at least 2000 we've reduced or authorized strength by 2000 here so there's a constant look as a military commander to optimize a force here and what it's based on is understand the risks to the force risks of the mission and look at it in terms of capabilities as to try to reassure allies by

saying the move doesn't mean the u.s. is backing away from its commitment to finding a political solution to decades of war a negotiated political settlement among afghans is the best path to achieving this outcome. until there is accomplished we will continue to pursue an aggressive military campaign against the taliban and terrorist groups that continue to conduct violence against the people of afghanistan also in kabul on monday to meet afghan leaders a u.s. congressional delegation led by house speaker nancy pelosi reducing the number of foreign troops in afghanistan was the focal point of the recent talks between the u.s. and the taliban but those talks failed after president trump playing the taliban for a surge in violence. and there has been an increase in attacks in recent months mainly from the town of on and are still linked groups adding more pressure on local security forces afghans are also waiting to find out who.