understanding what do you know when you're going to see it or we believe everyone has a story worth hearing. 2 senior members of the saudi royal family including the king's brother are arrested with reports of an alleged who attempt. to again i missed us here today and this is al jazeera live from dar also coming up south korea restraints the sale of mosques as a battles to control the coronavirus and china announced as a major hit on its economy. anti-government protesters return to the streets of chile's capital venting their anger over rising inequality. and a severe shortage is forcing many zimbabweans to use untreated water southern africa faces its west drought in decades.

now we begin in saudi arabia where security forces have reportedly detained 2 senior members of the royal family they all crown prince mohammed bin nayef and prince of men been advises outside the younger brother of the saudi king now according to the wall street journal they've been arrested over accusations of plotting against king solomon and crown prince mohammed bin some of the reports suggest they're facing treason charges and could face life in prison and all the death penalty both could have rivaled crown prince mohammed bin for the throne when king solomon dies saudi gods of also arrested one of mohammed bin nayef brothers out of their senior correspondent alex planes what these detentions mean for the kingdom and their impact on saudi politics. in terms of his significance it's huge because we're talking about true of the most senior members of the saudi royal

family and true that up until now have not been seen as supporters of crown prince may have been someone in the direction that he's been taking the country both domestically and in terms of foreign policy what's printed it is very difficult to ascertain needless to say because saudis are very close culture in terms of back of transparency and no media freedom there but also what's peculiar about it is that these are 2 figures who have they've been under house arrest they haven't been able to move freely for a very long time so the idea that maybe they were trying to hatch some sort of coup is very far fetched and difficult to see considering the restraints they were under already more likely than not what's a lot of analysts are talking about is that the current king solomon is somebody who has been reportedly suffered from dementia for many years he's unwell his health is very frail so is this a sign that he has either passed or is about to and now for the crown prince needs

to ensure that there are no obstacles in his way in terms of succession so now may have been some man was able to get the us true digits long term. from a bit naive the person he's arrested and supports him and his kind of unconditional support from this current us administration he's managed to sideline the religious institution either by co-opting them onto his side or by arresting many of them including people like some others but the royal courts the royal family he has failed to exert his total control over even after he managed to do things like funding a lot of senior members of the world family in the ritz carlton that famous case in the end of 2007 there were still those figures like the only other child of the founding king abdul aziz that is a human being somebody who didn't support him as well as his cousin and the nephew of the current king mohammed bin nayef well let's dig into this with rami khouri he is the senior public policy fellow at the american university of beirut and he

joins us now live from there mr corey always good to have you on al-jazeera let's start today with these reports of this alleged crude how much weight do you give them. i give very little weight to the idea of a cool being plot it is very difficult to do that with the immense direct and brutal control that i had been so man the crown prince now has over all of the security agencies in saudi arabia so the core idea is probably not very good realistic option but i think this is a sign more of the nervousness of the crown prince and the people around him who also rabia because they probably expect the the king will either abdicate or pass away soon and they expect there might be some kind of challenge to the succession even though he is the crown prince but the most critical thing about this i believe is that this is the the final affirmative confirmation the seal.

taking over the mantle of the arab autocrats that used to be held by people like saddam hussein. and the mum of that duffy and hafez lesser these very tough military men who ruled their country with an iron fist and that mantle has now passed on to. him had been said man and he is just making sure that there isn't he's not worried about people trying to make a cool he doesn't want any independent voices that don't agree with him and it's noteworthy that mcminn abdul aziz room of the 3 people on the council of royal members in saudi arabia that decides the succession he was one of the 3 who didn't vote for him have been so many become the crown prince well there's a senior members of the royal family and they're powerful in their own right so presumably they also have some of their own supporters so how is all of this being viewed in riyadh. they certainly almost certainly do have many of their own

supporters who are afraid to speak out because they've seen what happens to people like them out social g like the ladies in jail the people who are being tortured the people who are shaken down for billions of dollars and arrested even members of the royal family i think that critical saying is not only the royal family tacit. support for the criticism of mom had been said man but how many people in saudi arabia are not happy with the crown prince his policies i think that's the big question and nobody knows because saudi arabia today is like the soviet union in 1960 you can't tell what's going on either in public opinion or in the corridors of power because it's very closed but there are definitely many many saudis who are not happy with the way their country is now being portrayed abroad is treating other people yemen cut its own citizens the closing of the

holy places because of the virus while theaters and shopping malls and music halls are still open there must be a lot of people in saudi arabia who don't fully agree with what the crown prince is doing and he just wants to i think preemptively make sure that they stay quiet well we'll be following all those developments rami corey there from the american university of beirut good to have you again on al-jazeera now south korea is imposing restrictions on the sale of mosques and has carried out raids on companies who are stockpiling them as it tries to combat the coronavirus there have been long queues outside stores and mosques stocks are running south korea has more than 6 and a half 1000 confirmed cases that's the highest number outside china it's also bad and the entry of travelers from neighboring japan correspondent robert pride joins us now live from south korea's capital seoul rob clearly there's a lot of fear on the streets there how are people dealing with this whole new

rationing system. that's right i mean people grudgingly have going along with this system when you go out into the streets of seoul and other south korean cities you barely see anybody now not wearing a mask of course there's lots of different advice about the usefulness of face masks but people here clearly believe it gives them a degree of protection the w.h.o. advice is a bit ambivalent about whether it's really affected but people but certainly if you are wearing disposable face masks then optimally you should be throwing it away at the end of each day and there simply aren't enough face masks here in south korea for people to do that hence this rationing system of the government of south korea saying that 2 masts have to be enough to last you a week and is put in place a rationing system whereby. you have an identification card here and you have an identification number all south korean citizens have that and depending on what the

last few digits are you get your one day that you are allocated when you go to visit a pharmacy and you are allowed to them by your to face masks and the government here is giving advice on just how to keep them clean and to keep them hygiene it for the whole week it is taking other steps it is stopped completely now any exports of face masks any face masks that are made in factories here in south korea are needed here in south korea and also we've seen a number of raids the police take a really tough action raiding warehouses raiding companies that are suspected of hoarding masks millions being seized and then forced to be sold through pharmacies to the general public and rob as we've been watching this panic spread around the region have also been rising diplomatic tensions how is that playing out. absolutely i mean south korea is still reeling from this imposition of quarantine

by japan on all visitors it has retaliated with measures of its own but it did stop short of from putting in place exactly the same 2 weeks quarantine as imposed by shinzo abi the japanese prime minister on friday probably fearing further economic damage this is really going to hit not only south korea but the whole all north east asian neighbors very hard to give you a leg an idea almost half of the visitors to japan last year came from either china or south korea the 2 countries that now face this 2 weeks of quarantine to get into japan they fear if the feeling is that this is shinzo abi possibly playing politics but also being very concerned this is going to be his year 2020 there are going to stage the summer olympics he was also going to host as she jumping of china now both of those events look questionable at this stage and i think there is concern from shinzo aves point of view that if he had to contend with an outbreak the kind

of size of outbreak that was seen in south korea and also china given japan's patchy record to date on controlling the virus that he might be in trouble robert right there on the ground for us in south. korea on a virus outbreak has had china's exports and imports hard causing severe disruption to manufacturing world wide customs exports shrunk by about 17 percent in january and february compared to the same period last year imports into china fell by 4 percent and analysts predict the situation could get wes in the coming months. well in the u.s. at least 15 people have now died from the virus the number of confirmed cases is on the rise and now sits at well over 250 among those cases are 21 people on board a cruise ship off the coast of san francisco roslyn jordan reports. as the coast

guard flew in a supply of corona virus test kits to the quarantined cruise ship grand princess passengers and crew wonder if they'll be leaving any time soon but u.s. president dahl trump said if it were up to him the 3400 passengers and crew would have to stay in quarantine if i'd rather have the people stay but i go with them i told them to make the final decision i would rather because i like the numbers being with they are i don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that was our fault trump said this while visiting the centers for disease control and prevention the agency that tracks infectious disease outbreaks in the u.s. the president and the agency have been criticized for downplaying the severity of the crisis some patients and health care workers accuse the c.d.c. of making it harder to confirm coronavirus cases the head of the c.d.c.'s lab denied the allegations at no time during this response has c.d.c.

ever denied a request that came from a public health official either state or local to test the patients out of all the patients who needed to be tested and the opinion of the public health officials have been tested but officials also struggle to answer has the corona virus in the u.s. been contained we're going to see more cases because we're getting more diagnostics out there but i would say that you know what i said before that at the present time demo receiver public remains slow but also on friday new cases were confirmed in houston minnesota colorado and maryland and while sanitation workers try to scrub the gritty subways of new york the arts and cultural festival south by southwest which brings hundreds of thousands of visitors to austin texas every year has been counseled more than $8000000000.00 federal dollars will now be spent on urgent research and treatment of the disease but from coast to coast it seems more

americans may be deciding to not take any chances until they know it's truly safe to be out and about roslyn jordan al-jazeera washington. now still ahead on al jazeera refugees face off with greek riot police have to take a declares its borders with the. group and zimbabwean families take desperate measures as south africa faces its western drought in decades. ahead of the blustery conditions pushing in across western areas of europe as you can see in a subtle way the cloud so island and sunny west as a scotland really under the gun for the next couple of days elsewhere it we've got areas of kassam basin pieces rain and some snow flurries in fact look at this this

is the boss region. plenty of snow flurries that they will continue through saturday as well some showers and slightly some snow to the mountains but really the strongest winds with the heaviest rain pushing cross tools and certainly the northern areas u.k. up into scotland we have some warnings in place from the u.k. met office for that very heavy rain and the other area really is across in the balkans is with its way slowly eastwards taking a very heavy amounts of rain with it but look at the temperatures really fairly mild generally but look at this temperature moscow 13 celsius on saturday down to 9 on sunday these touches of the mild all winter long so much so it has not been reported as the mildest winter on record sunday across much of the northwest we've got a blustery day showers those strong winds similar story really through the bay of biscay and across into france some areas of rain but a quiet day generally across much of central europe in the central med that also shows the south that could well impact areas of algeria libya really for the next couple days and keeping those temperatures a little bit low just 16 in tunis. join

the listening post as we turn the cameras on the media india has more than 424 hour television news chops morning talkers and focus on how they report on the stories that matter the most to states misleads the public to still be here reflects the same thing. quantock challenge uphold their editorial show it takes a dark believe they have anything to apologize for their listening post on al-jazeera.

hello again you're watching al-jazeera a reminder of our top stories this hour 2 senior members of the saudi royal family have been reportedly detained they all form a crown prince mohammed bin nayef and advises else out of the younger brother of the saudi king. south korea is reporting $174.00 new coronavirus cases bringing the total number of infections to more than 6 and a halt 1000 the government has now limits of the sales of mosques to some. in the u.s. at least 15 people have now died from the virus the number of confirmed cases on the ra is announced it's at well over 250 among those cases of 21 people on board a cruise ship off the coast of san francisco. now turkey's defense minister says the cease fire is holding around it's a province in northern syria the agreement brokered by russia and turkey has ended as strikes for the 1st time in months but there have been reports of some fighting in the southern parts of the province between syrian government forces and

a section of the opposition now the u.s. has blocked a u.n. security council statement supporting that cease fire. russia had the 15 member council to endorse the deal but washington called the move premature with diplomats expressing their doubts about whether the deal can walk kristensen amy has been following that meeting at u.n. headquarters. russia share details of the ceasefire agreement with security council members behind closed doors but given the history of this conflict no one was ready to celebrate it just yet russia's ambassador was hoping to get a statement formally welcoming the deal but past agreements to end the conflict as have fallen through. but provided provided that the sport is maintaining the commitments to the political but does not that still does not exempt for being. such a fantastic u.s.

secretary of state mike pale was at the united nations but had nothing to say when asked about the deal we're told by diplomats that the united states opposed the statement as premature other countries raised objections as well here's the united kingdom's ambassador said it was a helpful development but there are a lot of questions about how it will work in practice who will monitor it what is happening west of aleppo and critically has syrian government formally signed up and will the syrian government be following the provisions of the cease fire we're also told that russia was not willing to negotiate on the wording of the statement which made no mention of the dire humanitarian situation facing about a 1000000 civilians in the area the security council will continue to monitor the situation well migrants and refugees attempting to cross the border from turkey into greece have been hit with tear gas as police from both sides tried to keep

them away tens of thousands of people have been attempting to cross into greece since last week when turkey declared its borders with the european union open but greece has been pushing them back saying those trying to enter are doing so illegally and tash are going to aim is at a makeshift migrant camp site and a day in turkey's border with greece. we're at the a during a bus station it's one of the places where refugees and migrants have been congregating as they try to determine what to do next you can see people have managed to set up tents they're burrowed in blankets trying to stay warm there are camp fires here it's been a week since turkey opened its borders and it's been a tough week for the people we've been speaking to they have said they've been cold hungry we've spoken to many people who managed to make it across the border into greece only to be deported back to turkey and they have shared stories of cruelty people such as the man we're about to tell you about says that the greek police

have mistreated them we spoke to an iranian amputee who says when he crossed over the border into greece the greek police fired warning shots into the air he was the unable to run his friends did police found him he says they beat him severely and threaten to confiscate his prosthetic leg now the turkish government has deployed $1000.00 members of its special police forces to the river region border with greece the turkish government says this is an attempt to prevent the greek government from pushing back migrants into turkey and turkey says it's also a way to try to minimize what it describes as the poor treatment of vulnerable people here and a possible violation of international law the u.s. state department says it's working with china's in authorities to investigate a suicide bomb attack as its embassy in china us on friday one police officer was killed and 5 other people injured in the embassies main gate and believe the 2 bomb

was a marshal bikes were behind the attack but no group has yet claimed responsibility . now the failure to agree on a major dam project on the nile is worrying farmers in sudan ethiopia sudan and egypt have reached a stalemate surrounding the grand ethiopian renee's on stem project morgan reports from sudan's zeerust ace. normally around this time of the year i'm a balloonist farm is covered with wheat ready for harvest it's his source of income normally earning him millions of sudanese pounds but he says he doesn't expect to make a profit this year because there's not enough water. there for her. the water from the river is blocked in the canals because they're covered with dirt and silt i have parts of my father that haven't even been irrigated once some have been irrigated once but by now they should be irrigated for the 5th time it's not the 1st time but this is the worst we've seen this is going to affect our harvests badly or with them or. how much farmland is part of what is called the dizzier

agricultural project established in 1911 during british colonial rule it started as a $250.00 hectors farm it now covers over $2000000.00 hectares and it's the economic lifeline for over 100000 farmers it was once the main source of foreign income contributing to over 60 percent of sudan's g.d.p. but since the discovery of oil in the my 970 s. farmers here see the government's interest in the largest agricultural project in the country declined the dizzier irrigation system mainly relies on the sloping land from north to south to carry the water through the canal for the farms it's been like this since it was 1st established but some one must see the systems now failing them thousands have reported last harvest in the past 3 decades and they say the situation is getting worse and worse every year that can also some covers less than 36 percent of the project its water comes from the nearby in the river and for farmers in $20.00 there are concerns that irrigation issues will get to

worse neighboring ethiopia is expected to start filling its grant if you've been remiss on stand by may 2020 the dam is being built on the blue mile which flows from the country to sudan and egypt several rounds of talks between the 3 countries have failed to produce a deal over the duration of filling up a dam so dense transitional government says it won't agree to any deal that will impact to the livelihoods of farmers but that the problem facing farmers is one of management. the problem is not in the quarter coming through the skin problem game in the military men though this was the brothers that supported the war that ended that but there is a problem for it of coming. out diminish this war less than 500000 hectares of the 2200000 is expected to produce harvest this year some experts see other factors also play a role in how farms that were once regarded as the bread basket of sudan have declined their farmers are using the very same technologies that have been using

for the past maybe 30 years so they haven't really been trained so the seeds that they're using. a lot of it is genetically depleted and this will cause problems on quality and problems on productivity on all farmers here even with new technologies their farms are at risk they see if you can dam reduces the water the project gets the fear they may have to give up most of the land to farm for generations people morgan al-jazeera just irritates well speaking of water and southern africa is suffering its worst drought in decades zimbabwe is one of the countries most affected many families there are struggling with daily water shortages and that's adding to the hardships they're already facing as the country deals with rampant inflation and this shrinking economy. has this report from below where in zimbabwe 2nd city pull away the supply of piped water from the city

council is unreliable that means they sometimes have to use untreated water these women uses for washing and flushing toilets if they have to drink it they will boil it 1st in some suburbs supplies are often cut off for days at a time. when the supply is turned on with lindsey make several trips to the communal tap to stock up she says a neighborhood can sometimes go a whole week without water and she doesn't want to use any that's not clean and safe getting water in the holes doesn't make us feel cold because that water is not here at the lake this person to reach so many people is suffering from still much so i believe it could be quite rare or something i don't know because some of the people they drink that water some they use it for. so all it is a big challenge that we're even in cold to. like other parts of southern africa zimbabwe is experiencing its worst drought in years city authorities say rationing

is necessary to cities is implemented. to try and have. digital that we have straight to receive enough rain as we all know and it liar is . saying myriad region where we receive very little for the rainfall like this year is really critical we haven't received the referee falls grateful for it rains. some dams have stopped operating since the water fell below pumping levels the remaining still functional a critically the rainy season started late this year and even then has been erratic a new dam is being built about 100 kilometers from. it will draw water directly from the river but it's still a long way from being completed part of the problem is a source of foreign currency and have always worsening economic crisis. already grappling with shortages of fuel medicines electricity and some basic commodities

many here say corruption and mismanagement in government and opposition one minister pellet he's is also to blame the few who can afford it buy a water privately or drill boreholes but for millions of others that is not an option. al-jazeera. now u.s. president donald trump has announced the appointment of a new white house chief of staff republican representative mark meadows will take over from mick mulvaney who has been acting in that position for the past year veiny will now be washington's special envoys and northern ireland president trump announced the decision in a series of tweets on friday. now huge crowds have gathered in chile as capital as anti-government protesters continue their month long campaign over inequality friday's demonstration was relatively peaceful over there had been several days of violence the protesters are demanding sweeping social policy reforms they say president sebastian pinera is actions have fallen short. in america editor lucien

human is in santiago. february is the it's summer here it is the holiday season so there were less people in the capital's many people who had taken a break but they before they left they had warned that they would be back in force on in march starting march and this was the initiation of that really initiation if you like of the protests season here in chile not just in santiago but in other major cities throughout the country there were thousands and thousands of people here it was a very carnival atmosphere people were dancing singing at the same time hurling rather unrepeatable insults about the president the police the system at large and continuing to demand deep structural reforms to the economic system to the political system to it so that they can happen so that chile will have free and quality education health care better pensions better salaries the list is very very long what is also very long is the show jewel for the protests that will take part

that are supposed to take place here in march almost every single day and the next major one will be on sunday when hundreds of thousands of women in chile are expected to take to the streets to mark international women's day. hello again this is al jazeera and these are the headlines 2 of the most high profile members of the saudi royal family have been detained they all former crown prince mohammed bin nayef and prince of meds been up to as is out sound of the younger brother of the saudi king according to the wall street journal they have been arrested for plotting against king sound man and crown prince mohammed bin some reports suggest they've been accused of treason and could face a life imprisonment or the death penalty could have rivaled crown prince mohammed bin someone for the throne when king salmon dies saudi guards of also arrested one of mohammed bin nayef brothers jamal explains why the reported arrests are so

significant. it's huge because of the positioning of these 2 figures within the royal family their seniority both in terms of lineage but also in terms of positions hold some form of denial of being the former crown prince being head of the intelligence before he was somebody that had great respect and commanded a lot of respect both domestically within the royal family within the religious institutions but also internationally with the united states and other countries and obviously not lizzie's being the only other son of the race king faisal and being a significant figure with respect south korea is imposing restrictions on the sale of mosques and has carried out raids on companies that was stockpiling them as it tries to combat the coronavirus there have been long queues outside stores and mosques stocks are running low or south korea has now more than 6 and a half 1000 confirmed cases that's the highest number outside china it's also banned the entry of travelers from neighboring japan well the coronavirus outbreak

has hit china's exports and imports hard causing severe disruption to manufacturing wild wide customs data shows that exports trunk by about 17 percent in january and february analysts predict the situation will only get worse in the coming months turkey's defense minister says the ceasefire is holding around it did province in northern syria the agreement brokered by turkey and russia has ended as strikes for the 1st time in months but there have been reports of some fighting in southern parts of the province between syrian government forces and the opposition well those are the headlines the news continues here on al-jazeera after at the listening post do stay with us. talk to al jazeera let me talk about 2 of the biggest problems facing and they all the endemic corruption and the gang we listen so if you really put place china's enemy to the

winds and that's really that we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter although 0. has played. 33 trips sorry but that's not all of it a good. thing if. you. think that by pretend hello i'm richard burton you're at the listening post among the media stories that we're covering this week syria is a proxy war and the outside players turkey and russia are using their media muscle to shift the narrative in their favor coronavirus is still big news but don't believe everything you click on misinformation is making the rounds on social media pakistan wants to grow its tourism industry and to the influencers but how do they get to parts of the country that are close to pakistan it's i think it's pretty.