the address for us to recap the headlines here announcer and breaking news from ethiopia. 1st, where the army says it has taken full control of the city of mecca. it's the capital of the region where it's feared, thousands are dead after weeks of fighting. malcolm web is monitoring developments from nairobi in kenya for you haven't yet heard any comment from the t.p.i. left leadership on the 8th yet. but if it is indeed the case, it would suggest that the large numbers of fighters and substantial military hardware at the p.l.f. was widely believed to control. it actually already being tactically, retreated into the nearby mountains that it would appear that chose not to use the resources that they had to fight to control the 50. this will certainly be a relief for many people, rights groups and others have been warning of

a potential disaster if there had been heavy fighting and heavy shelling on the city. iran's supreme leader is in retaliation for the killing of a top nuclear scientist terran is blaming it most in fact, result is assassination. in israel, the european union has described the killing as a criminal act and is urging restraint. protests in paris have descended into violence with shops set alight in tear gas fired tens of thousands of gathered to rally against a new bill into restricting the filming and publishing of police officers. images. thousands of indian farmers have blocked roads and border crossings around new delhi. new laws, they say, could put them out of business. demonstrators say they won't stop protesting until the government scrapped mauls, which could end guarantee prices for the projects. the u.s. justice department has scheduled a number of federal executions as joe biden moves closer to taking office. it's also cleared the way for the use of poison gas and firing squads. biden is against

the death penalty and says he will work to end it. new restrictions will be imposed in a los angeles county in california from monday in response to a surge in corona virus cases, south officials have issued a stay at home order, which will last for 3 weeks, or private and public gatherings of people from different households have also been banned, more than 400000, people have now died from corona virus in europe. as the continent undergoes a 2nd wave of infections. despite that, france is reopening stores ahead of the holiday season. the president says the peak of the wave has passed. meanwhile, the united kingdom is preparing for an anti lockdown protest later on saturday. and those headlines got more news coming up after the inside story.

the final assault on so-called outlaw groups, ethiopia's prime minister is promising a swift end to his offensive on t. grey region. well, leaders are calling for urgent mediation, so what will it take to resolve the conflict? this is inside story. hello, welcome to the program on iran. come on, it's been 3 weeks since ethiopia's government sent soldiers into t. great promise to abbey ahmed. and the northern regions government that he great people's liberation front all t p l f. each say the other is illegitimate nobel

peace prize winner i'll be, has ordered his troops to carry out a final assault. now the t.p.m. left leader says autonomy shells have struck the regional capital mackay late phone and internet connections are down, making it impossible to confirm reports of the killings and atrocities. on friday, abby army told the african union, mediators, he'll only speak to representatives. he says, operating illegally in tikrit, the government insists this doesn't mean the prime minister is rejecting talks to end the conflict. now the fighting is forced 43000 people to seek refuge in neighboring sue dunn. the un's high commissioner for refugees is calling for 150 $1000000.00 in donations. and the morgan has more from a camp in sudan. oh morocco, but a refugee camp here in sudan got out of state has expanded since it was 1st opened just over 2 weeks ago. now when it was 1st, opened it hosted about a few 100 if european refugees fleeing from the conflict in that figure region. now

the camp hosts more than 7000 is c.a.p.n. refugees. and this place is becoming sort of a permanent shelter for them until things ease back home and they say it's safe for them to return. now this is the only formal refugee camp here and about of state despite saddam hosting more than 43000. if you can appreciate over the past 3 weeks escaping from the conflict in the tigra region, the other centers had a reception center in neighboring customers state and look to hear god out of state are all just reception centers, including village 8, which is about 30 kilometers from the sudan is the opium border that hosts more than $15000.00 if european refugees now most of them here stand under the scorching sun waiting for food aid and waiting for food distribution. but they say that this is much better than being back home, not knowing what they could have faced. many families speak of leaving their loved ones behind of wooden thing, people being slaughtered of atrocities. they say that forced them to flee and come

here to sudan seeking refuge, but aid organizations say that they need help in terms of responding to the influx of refugees. they say that in the coming 6 months, they expect up to 200000 escaping refugees to come here to sudan seeking refuge from the to great region. because of the conflict. should the fighting continue. they say that they need financial assistance or funding for the program to be able to respond to this refugee crisis that is unfolding. because sudan as a government, despite hosting them already hosts nearly 1000000 other refugees in various other states and therefore will not be able to cope with this crisis on its own. so while the aid organizations are sounding the alarm and calling for supposed to be able to respond to this current, and for the refugee crisis, people here say they'll wait to hear and till things are safe before they go back home and take where we can. and if you a pia i let's introduce our panel in

ethiopia's capital, addis ababa? samuel, get it? you're a journalist at the reporter and on taria, canada, and fitzgerald, director of the balsillie school of international affairs. you worked in ethiopia, for many years. and in cambridge, u.k., william davis and a senior ethiopia analyst at the international crisis group, a warm welcome to you all. now the ethiopian government declined our request for a representative to join this discussion. in fact, what they did say is that they wouldn't appear on a panel that potentially could have a member of the people's liberation front, calling them attack, calling them a terrorist group. i want to begin with some, you'll get itchy, all day, a terrorist group. well, it depends on who you ask. tricky questions for me to answer. you have to consider the position, i'm in to declare them a terrorist and move on. would be unbecoming of 1st someone who works for a newspaper. and i would respectfully refuse to answer that question,

but can you just explain to us why the government might call them that? well, you know, there are no conflict government and the t.p. left had been in conflict for a while. and this just moved on to a real conflict and not something thousands of people. and you know, if you hear the p.l.f. side, i'm sure they'll make the same kind of like he's asian. so it's just barking for then we'll be watching this from a distance. and we've been, you know, concerned with this, this was heading for a long time, and many of us are not surprised that it went this far to a conflict that's just killing so many of our fellow men and women. well, there's talk about mediation. if there is, there's a strong language being used, the a share amount of people being displaced, accusations of war crimes became being committed in the k.l.a. . all of this is, is going to put pressure on any kind of mediation to be successful, right?

you know, the prime minister, you have to give them the benefit of the doubt. he's been saying from day one that he's given the t.p.a. left leadership a chance too many chances. at mediation, we watch this from a distance when haile gebrselassie is olympian joint elders. and went to mcnally trying to bridge the gap between the 2 governments. it did not work. he's keep there, you know, many people who are criticizing the prime minister for being slow in taking actions, not just in mckinley or to great, but all across the country that, you know, people are dying in many, many parts of the country. or, i mean, they were dying and many people wanted him to take action. people felt he was being too soft in his reaction to what was happening in ethiopia. and what happened in my county. it was, you know, we watched it form for, for a year when they were going back and forth. and we were concerned,

and we knew many of us knew this was going to happen. we just didn't think it was going to be this fast. and you know, it's just, it has become to being given to control it. and i think it's too late for mediation . the prime minister has said it a few times. and there's just, and michael, you know, they're, they're fighting among themselves that their team p.l.f. and the ethiopian side. and he said it will conclude in a few days. and we hope that will, that would happen. but personally, i don't believe in conflicts. i grew up in canada, a peaceful nation. we believed in dialogue mediation, and all kinds of stuff. and i've traveled to the, to great region, and i've met many of these people. and i'm not saying that t.p.r. never, i'm saying every day to people from to agree to be very peaceful and to see them suffer is just as heartbreaking as you can find anywhere in the world and bridges so sad people are just dying left and right in the reef fiji's,

in the sudan stories they're telling us. that's so scary and i don't blame the un's human rights commission when she said, there is some sense, a sense of war crimes happening. integrate. i don't really think something does happen and i can't wait to go and see what really happened and start the conversation. well, let's bring in an fitzgerald has in waterloo, ontario. one of the things that is crucial to this conversation is the fact that prime minister ahmed has actually said that he's only going to talk to people that he thinks represent the people of that region of to go to great region. what does that mean? is he picking and choosing the people they can negotiate with? are they just his own people? i think what it means is that there is a question of legitimacy and fire 30 equally. there is a question of legitimacy and the other person's eyes as well. and this is the, the gray stays there between both positions that people are trying to analyze.

people are trying to navigate through the prime minister. feels an election, a legal action went forward without the proper constitutional authority. and he has, in his view, made efforts to engage in dialogue with the party in his view that those efforts have failed and not been through. and you know, i think it's important to recognize here that mediation is a person by which a 3rd party is brought in to facilitate discussions and to seek to resolve the dispute. but it's a person which comes by invitation only. and it's a person as rich addressed as a dispute, and i think we can all agree that this is beyond what is classified as a dispute. now this is a full of conflict and you know, there's

a lot of gray space in between those 2 goalposts. now in cambridge, william docent, obviously these things don't happen in a vacuum. there have been issues with the federal government. i would say great state between them for many years now. but what was the real spark for this conflict? why did this happen? 3 weeks ago was the final trigger for the conflict was in incidents on the night of november, november the 4th, when the federal government describes it. and it's happening by forces on the federal military. alternately what seems to have happened is that the to gray and force is the grand leadership believing that there is about to be a federal intervention. they have forcefully taken over elements of the military. and this really is the final trigger that led to the federal government's minutemen treat intervention and going back as your other guests have you have described. we

have this process where to go run an election against, you know, in defiance of federal rulings that, for the federal government said that secret government was illegitimate and unlawful. and in turn, to crays government said that the federal government no longer had legal or spirity the original inspire each of its turn in the october. and this was due to tour and election that was delayed because of the pandemic. so it's really this constitutional dispute, if we go a little bit further back and that authorized the federal government in its eyes to intervene and correct this situation in the region. of course, we can go back further to 2800 and the change of power, our prime minister, beyond its arrival, and after that, to graze ruling party, they lost

a lot of federal power. and they sort of ended up with their power focused at the regional level. this was accompanied by a lot of bitterness, allegations from the federal government that to crazy to leadership was destabilizing ethiopia, by sponsoring conflict, allegation from tick race leadership that the federal government was scapegoating them and their party and flaccid destabilization, or phone, or all sorts of abuses and corruption that they said had approved the response of the sea across the room, ethiopian ruling coalition. and so, you know, it's a dispute that goes some way back. we could go further back into the history of music, very ruling parties and the era of predominance during effect, really ever since the early ninety's, when we could go even further back into history and to have to explain, you know, some, some of the roots of this conflict as well. well, let me bring in, samuel gets a to head, let's bring it right up to date. and so we all, we, at a stage now where the federal government was afraid that gray was going to become

a breakaway nation, was that what was driving the government? the white house will be, you know, it's a gray state decided to hold an election when it was told it was again a 2nd city to sion of the land. they've been openly debating about independence. i mean, what's a federal government if it can't even keep its, its, its nation intact? and i mean, that's one of the reason the many reasons what provoked this conflict, including the tax on the military site and my colleagues. so, i mean, there are many, many reasons what provoked it and you know, myself and we know and we watched it. and i disagree about when this was just moving forward. and conversation started very peacefully. i remember when there is you on the head of the t.p.n. left stood behind the prime minister in 2018 when he became prime minister and made

all of us so excited about this new me if you are there, they were trying to build the peaceful transfer of power we've been watching from a distance in other countries was beginning to happen in ethiopia. but in the last year, something happened in ethiopia that we can't even begin to understand. it was no longer a conversation. it was just about, you know, one side showing power. and the back in force that was going on between the prime minister and the head of the t.p.m. left, the jokes that were being made. and the propaganda as though are being told and government t.v.'s was just so overwhelming, really disappointing for many of us who've been watching it here. and we wanted, you know, i grew up in and you know, for the ethiopian famine and we really wanted it to succeed. and we watched it from near and far, and we're not surprised that it became this something that my own generation

and the generation before me. i've been watching you have to know the 2. great state has been at war for a long, long time. it was beginning to have peace they tube and famine of 1905 happened in the 2 great state. i've toured the whole almost the whole part of the tudor, a state forest. it's just poor as it gets even by ethiopian standard into see it in this state is a fairly to ship, not just by our leaders, but all of us and fish sterile. is there any strong evidence that might suggest that he great was about to break away? and that's why this has to break away in terms of become a breakaway state, a breakaway nation, declare independence. well there are, there was definitely posturing and positioning to awards something some sort of recognition, whether it were an asymmetrical federalist posture, that they were vying for whether it was some,

some more as some negotiations that brought in the international community. whether it was efforts to breakaway, we are not sure, but what we are sure about was that there was a gradual pulling back of governance capacity to grant representatives and to grant governments capacity from the but to the regional capital. so we start that exodus and that increased focus on the region. we saw heart lots of news coming from the region about economic development priority. and the propaganda and the numbers against the federal government hit an all time high. so we just aren't sure about the plans. we aren't sure about the intentions, the electricity and the internet blackout in the region,

particularly around the area where the conflict is make proper. well informed analysis is very, very difficult at the moment. and we have seen this conflict take on another trajectory one that is all about an information war with disinter mation and misinformation being thrown around on an hourly basis. and this is having a very divisive and polarizing effect on the people. we have always lived in an error of this information, but in the age of social media, this just information of now a crescendo which is playing havoc with a 100000000 miles of windows. and let me bring you in here. let's talk mediation now. if it is right, the problem to start then should fall to ethiopian forces within the next few days

. they then have to hold it. that's an in, that's an occupation. as we've seen in many other countries. if there's an occupation, there's generally an insurgency. are you concerned that there will be an insurgency in the colon? and yes, there is certainly a possibility that this phase of what is essentially being conventional wall. for the last, you know, 3 and a half weeks is certainly a possibility that the grand forces lose control of major urban areas as they have done so far. and then possibly, finally, the regional capital that could transform their resistance into a more than insurgency type of operation. there is a long history of that type of resistance to impose those rules integrate. that is certainly a possibility. there is also a possibly, you know, a bigger, more consequential question coming up, which is there will be an imposed federal provisional administration that the

federal government will try to put in place integrate after it is achieved its objectives of removing to great leadership. because this has been imposed outside of because it's there is this issue of autonomy and dispute over the election at the regional election. the $2700000.00 to grants voted in there was a quote about what level of support and quite possibly resistance there will be from the general population to the federal government's plans integrate. the point here is that 1st of all, we have to see what the course of this conflict is. it looks like the federal forces will be in control of mecca lay. then we would have to see what sort of insurgency, if any develops. and then there will be a question about how to govern and secure a if that ends up being quite significant popular resistance to any imposed government. these are the reasons why, you know,

despite the justifications the federal government has, for the military intervention, it is necessary to look beyond that and at some form of political solution. some sort of settlement at security, where these autonomy questions will be a dress to look beyond that because otherwise it is hard to see a sustainable peace force settlement and security. and instead we could see in one form or another, some form of continuing instability. some will get to show you heard or gasoline degas and just have to say that it's going to be very difficult for any mediation to take place if there is this occupation in effect by if you have your military forces. and then this imposed role by the federal government. do you think prime minister ahmed has bitten off more than he can chew? you know, i remember when, during george w. bush, when the american troops went to baghdad. i remember the mission accomplished. he had the background,

i remember when they started going around after doing what they have done, we sure were saved. you are, you know, there was a violent what happened to iraq. i remember when they started handing out countries to try to connect with the locals. it did not work, there needs to be an adult conversation that should happen between the federal government and the state of the great ethiopia needs to begin to understand. they have misgivings about his leadership, perhaps. and even what's happening in ethiopia, there has to be some kind of, i don't conversation if he is really going to be moving forward, or if it is deciding to go backward to the ear of t.p.m. death, which i owe it odious me hated. there was no human rights, lack of democracy, it wasn't even a discussion. and i mean, they've done developmental stuff. they've done. i mean, it's good to try to make your ballot trying. not sure though is their choice. some

people love it, some people don't, but the fact is an adult conversation has to happen sooner, neither or that, or the ethiopia that we know will disappear and fish herald. can there be an adult conversation between 2 sides that have just gone through this? in fact, is it not just an adult conversation? i mean, even mediation begin anytime soon? well, i think there were efforts to start a mediation process. in fact, the african union chair person days ago. and now how delighted he was that ethiopian had agreed to the appointment of 3 and 4 with and had agreed to their role in media and between the 2 parties. the problem was on the here, inside of the government, we heard that that this had not been agreed to. so it does beg the question of what role these 3 envoys will have moving forward. will it simply be

a role of interlocutor between the ethiopian government and the african union? it is true that africa is very african leaders are very skilled at mediation and dialogue, per se. it so too is the african union and egads, the intergovernmental authority under development. also located in addis ababa but what sort of process goes forward is in question on the here government side. they, regard this that what they call t.p., our left young tire group as criminals. and they feel that there is no place for a group that committed treason, treasonous crimes, at the negotiating or mediation table. that's that i think what is paramount is to hear the voice of the 2 grand people. and to make some decisions

on who the stakeholders will be at whatever table we have moving forward dialogue table, facilitation, table mediation table, who will be the state stakeholders representing the voice of the 2 group and keep all and also i think it's important to remember that if you this close partnerships with different members of the international community, forward will be important. and i think what will be important to those perpetrators is to seek clarity on the intervention that has been suppressed and blocked by way of information, telecommunications and blackouts. so whether or not the international community may have a role in helping with the verification of those details. the assessment of those details, the reporting of those details for it may be another option. i want to thank all

our guests, samuel gets a chair and fitzgerald and william davidson. and thank you too for watching. you can see the program again any time by visiting our website dot com. and for further discussion, go to our facebook page at facebook dot com, forward slash a.j. inside story. and you can also join the conversation on twitter. we are at a.j. inside story from me and rung the whole team. hey. i found out i what was described as the world's longest long down course,

the largest exodus and the creation of an independent india and $9247.00. experts believe india is still at an early stage of infection, but the long down has already created a humanitarian crisis and driven the unemployment rate up for the 6 to 23 percent. and it's also highlighted an equality religious tensions, and a health care system that isn't equipped to deal with a pandemic. the following weeks will tell of the recent mass movement of people will accelerate the spread of the calling of juarez from india's cities to its rule . hot a key figure of the early 20th century arab literary scene and a feminist writer had to have had time. so why did her story and in such tragedy now jazeera well the exposed in life and walk of

maisie arda on al-jazeera orioles. this is al jazeera and i'm a cloud. this is the news hour live from doha, coming up in the next 60 minutes. if you abuse prime minister announces an end to military operations in the northern region after weeks of fighting this forced tens of thousands from their homes, calls for restraint. following the killing of iran's top scientist, tehran is vowing swift revenge and accusing israel of trying to create chaos, looting and violence in france after tens of thousands.