the birth rates been falling steadily in part due to the rising cost of living despite government schemes to encourage bigger families south korea's population is expected to drop by more than 20 percent over the next 5 decades russia has lifted up ban on hundreds of professions that restricted women from working among the metro driver for decades women was allowed to drive trains because russia considered it a difficult job with harmful or dangerous conditions 12 female drivers are now working on the moscow metro for the 1st time. it's good to have you with us hello adrian figure here in doha the headlines on al-jazeera iran's foreign minister says the country has resumed the process of enriching the radium to 20 percent serif says the measure is fully reversible but only if other signature is to the 2015 nuclear deal comply with the agreements

dorsetshire barri reports from tehran they were in use have said that they're reducing their commitment to the nuclear deal because the remaining signatories the europeans haven't been able to uphold their and the deal so this decision we knew it could have come but there was a 2 month grace period under that bill that parliament passed the president had until mid february to decide what the next step would be and we all believe that this was an opportunity for the incoming u.s. administration to see what they would do if they would make good on any of their promises the president elect joe biden said he was willing to go back to that nuclear deal south korea is demanding the release of one of its own tankers which has been seized by iran the hancock kemi was intercepted by iran's revolutionary guard and gulf forces said its crew arrested iran says the tanker was breaking maritime environmental laws and carrying over 7000 tons of oil chemical products. the u.k. court says that wiki leaks founder julian assange will not be extradited to the

united states a songe is wanted on espionage charges for publishing secret american military documents in 2010 and 11 mexico says that it's ready to offer asylum to us on britain's prime minister boris johnson is expected to announce more measures to control the spread of covert 19 in england u.k. has recorded its highest ever a number of new cases 58784 that's the 7th straight day with more than 50000 the mutated variant is causing the rapid spread and u.s. president donald trump is facing a massive backlash after a leaked video of him pressuring georgia state secretary to overturn the election results trouble repeatedly asks brad reference to find votes. here at al-jazeera after today's inside story next.

they were algeria's most powerful figures to generals on the brother of the former president they were arrested and sentenced to process but now they've been acquitted. against them what's behind that. this is inside story. hello and welcome to the program on peace that they'll be now in algeria the younger brother of the deposed president abdelaziz bouteflika 2 former intelligence chiefs jail during mass protest in 2019 have been acquitted by

a military court. and generals mohammed medina talked i had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for plotting against the state and undermining the army the 3 with the highest profile prosecutions after the president resigned in april 29th teen following 20 years in power and months of protests against his rule will discuss this with i guess shortly 1st we have this report from mohammed vall. side would have little is the brother of algeria's former president. he was once a viewed as the real power in algeria after his brother suffered a stroke in 2013 but in september 2019 he was handed a 15 year jail sentence along with 2 former intelligence chiefs he and general mohammed midian also known as to fear and general bashir about pagg were accused of conspiring against the state and plotting to overthrow the government on sunday the 3 were acquitted general tovey it has been released but bargain saeed are staying

in prison to face trial on other charges. the ruling has to give widespread criticism among supporters of obvious heloc movement but has protested for more than a year against military influence on the country's politics. kiri of humanity their human i think we should expect the worst even as we hope for the based this development will lead to the worsening of algeria's problems and heroic activists are going to return to the streets in their thousands across the country to stop what's going on others say the court's ruling might be intended to strengthen national unity what do you think this ruling has to do with the current historical circumstances in the country it seems to be based on the rule of agreeing to differ it's an attempt to overcome differences allow the state to deal with some real challenges facing it including outside threats close to the borders it's also part of a plan by president to to create favorable conditions for the implementation of his

political program the decision follows the return of former defense minister major general khalid the mazhar from his self example in spain a few weeks ago in azhar reportedly arrived aboard a private jet that landed at a military airport near the capital of jihadist right before our journey as president of the machine to boone announced he's going to call for an early general election many of judeans say the incidents are signs of a possible return of the military old guard to power in algeria algeria is undergoing a political crisis as it tries to heal itself from political corruption and economic mismanagement and to reform its democratic system after decades of military backed one party rule in 2000 in 1000 millions of protesters managed to push longtime president of glossies beautifully out of power and unseat most of the senior allies and top ranking military backers but the wider public is

a still unhappy with the pace of reform with some accusing the new deal. elected president of failure or a lack of will to bring about genuine political change. i'm dizzy. ok let's bring in our guests today in paris we have a melbourne because she's a research fellow at the school for advanced studies and social sciences at the doha institute in washington the states we have william lawrence is a visiting professor of political science and international affairs at george washington university and in beirut we have dahlia again and she is a resident scholar at the carnegie middle east center welcome to you all a male can i come to you 1st is the military now calling all the shots in algeria. well you know it has been a year then to plan has been the negatives has a president and what we can see is that there hasn't been any kind of true

when will all of the leadership systemin all jeff and actually even be far to boom when to feel caught arrived at the head of the country in $1000.00 that there was already a problem of leadership so the current feeling now. is that there's a kind of effect seat nisar on the names that we're already heard in the ninety's during presidential system was the new presidential prisoner president to blunt has shown that it is not sustainable as long as the army is really in charge of the country well we have had been absent from the country for almost 2 months and what we have observed is that everything was blocked in the absence of president to books like foreign policy you know you know in a context where a lot of years have been a big event it shows the choice of coming back since for example it could have

a closer's that should be urgently declared i had to be yet still a rising inflation in the nutshell the country is no real crisis but no new leadership is able to face these challenges and it is not forego generals that have been active in the ninety's and during the so-called civil war even if they have 3 thou that are going to sold urgent comes the interim public is the country is facing ok it will come on to those problems during the course of our discussion. in beirut the arrests of these 3 individuals that we're talking about in march april 29th teen that was seen as a measure of the success of the protest movement to these acquittals mean that the protest movement wasn't a success does it mean that was actually a failure. you know when you're right i mean the rest of these political figures

among them the younger sister or brother sorry the younger brother of former president have lies is was seen as a victory and the tangible results you know that the head out reached. again i do believe that it was i mean you need to imagine that a few months ago a year ago it was impossible in this country for millions of other jury instore imagine that these political figures and these janeiro's where going one day to be jade's to to to to be put to end trial so in that sense i do believe it is a victory in fortunately with these decision to acquit 2 of them and 2 or 3. of them it shows that the trials again against would flee

a cow country and generals where aimed at getting rid of opponents but it was all saw. a political trick for the region him to improve its perception of accountability and transparency but unfortunately if anything these trials and the decision taken yesterday showed that the that that you know the decision making process is still very all part and complex and it showed the meager strength of the civil state in algeria when lawrence in washington when we talk about protest movements and the reaction to that generally the political trick kind of thing but dolly is talking about usually dubbed tales with somebody high up making a return and exerting real power is it possible to give us a sense if you can of how much power saeed put a flicker still has i mean it's too early to say he's

a free man cause he's not he's still behind bars facing charges of corruption but he has been acquitted on these key charges against him. well the answer goes to the heart of the system in algeria and it was never autocratic since the revolution in the fifty's and sixty's it was always all agog ballistic and the power struggles are often described as a war of the clans and so there are these different power centers somewhat geographically organized but not entirely in of syria that fight against each other and so say represented one of these clans and during his brother's tenure the presidency was often seen as the most powerful man in algeria as the gatekeeper to his brother particularly after his heart attack into us 13 his rather invalid status from 13 to 19 and so that is the one thing about saeed let me just add to what the other guest said about the release in corrupt

autocratic systems when someone gets arrested it's not usually what they did it's who was angry about and in this case in a system of who after who it presidents named in their colts wrong and those winning elections sort of dominated by the intelligence and military apparatus in that system these 3 were convicted of plotting against that system where that type of activity was article up and that was thought it was because you're in that in the private meeting to save the state which is how things always happen during transitions of power materia just such a meeting was the reason they were convicted so i always saw this arrests and convictions rather bogus they all should have been in jail for other reasons ok so going back to. paris if these acquittals actually mean the people high up in the military as angry as they were during the summer of 2019 particularly with so you

put a free car you were talking in your 1st on about the current president. disappears for 2 months because a coronavirus comes back still a heavy smoker not a good thing to do if you get 1000 for sure but he's back he just literally a few days ago signed off on the new constitution if you read the new constitution that's about a separation of powers and more transparency does that have any real worth and value at all if the military are still pulling the strings. no i think it's sad that few kylie's quite like in detail in disarray what we should focus on is really don't use a campus we are in the end that's the same cancer that has followed the death of the former engineer in chief that gates said that gays are far very historical accidental reasons found himself he had of the army at hand he

told that he could be didn't you probably don't. know men of andre and a lot of al chance believe as well he used to board has. piece of his. these plans and he said that he will for sure in his reign over all turned out but actually have to have is just the army has started to rare organize and to iraq is what he decided. he had of the army. and that's now the only thing that remained from it from from get inside as that inheritance is really devoted himself to bow to his prison because gates said that he wanted to be. the constitution the projects have the pleasure of having a new local and they should and they soon 6 all of these are actually things that

have been decided but get a cite or so now the main problem is that we have an army that is trying to get away from the. gates every day but without having to kep ability to propose anything new because the army and jerry are you still blocking it's all to rhetoric of we don't do politics ok so i'm ill just because i just want to kind of similar point that you're making and not good for. over to what we think might be about so happened earlier yasbeck in beirut if a mel's analysis of this is accurate and there's nothing to say it's not there for the protest movement in algeria knows what's really going on or why are we not hearing from them. well 1st of all we need to take into consideration the pandemic i mean the covered 9000 pandemic cards to the head and the demonstration

that we're going on for more than a year for student on every tuesday and for the general population every friday and this is something that we need to remember because for more than a year our jurors were able to take up to the streets and to do it in a very peaceful nonviolent very siebecke way unfortunately the pandemic put an end to that and also the repression one has to talk about what's going on in nigeria right now on the level of human rights violation so that algerian authorities took advantage of the pandemic actually to silence the last the voice of the sand and they've been doing that for 4 months now we are also talk about the country and they believe that this is the only country in the word that has totally closed its frontiers for more than 270 days and again who took that decision and why the

decision has been taken thousands of algerians that are being stuck outside and cannot go back to their countries in so they hit uk it is expressing itself but again the pandemic halted everything and people have been you know trying to mobilize that on social media but there again many newspaper of many media and internet website have been closed or you know the internet has been cut from time to time again to silence the void of dissent so again i think the real problem is that the decision making process who is taken all these decision how come for instance the algerian president disappeared for 2 months and we have little to no information about. his head as i missed said this is creating the really heavy sense of injustice and all fatigue that went at the head i think is

going to take up to this street or no we would see it probably at the end of the pandemic ok william in washington is there a vacuum here that that's caused in effect by what hereat the opposition movement or the protest movement hasn't done because it seems to me is very good and was very good march april 21000 at saying this is what we are against everyone understood that because they peacefully took to the streets for a week after week after week they weren't very good at articulating actually that's what we're against but here is what we are for so there's still a vacuum and there's also partly surely william also a vacuum because he doesn't have a leader there's no one person but the protest movement can coalesce around and say ok we're going to make him prime minister for 6 months and then we'll have proper elections well i think there's a lot of a little e in what you're saying i wouldn't really call it

a vacuum i would call it sort of formlessness or shapelessness which might be another way to say vacuum but the iraq always was leaders leader less on purpose and the reason they never went beyond big platitudes about systemic change and eradicating corruption and turning over at least was that beyond that there wasn't that much consensus among algerians about exactly what system they wanted and we've seen this in other places with transitions going on in the umbrella movements where these don't get worked out until the system goes in in this case the system in place these 1000 placed state and that created the very situation we're in but let me also say there's another vacuum at work here we were just alluding to and something that we haven't mentioned yet which is part of what prompted everything that's going now right now was to illness and the. that was you know jerry went into a bit of a panic he got very ill and evacuated to germany this was

a 10 week illness and then the succession don't forget that they couldn't find a successor for him years and years since 2013 until that they harassed forced him out and then we had another succession struggle about to start and what was happening was they were putting together the world system of designers that decides who's going to be the successor and part of that was letting these guys out of jail some other key has different leaders to try to decrease the amount of dissent don't forget these 3 were in jail for dissenting right. to reduce the amount of dissent and increase the amount of consensus around who would be champions and that's still part of the conversation. in beirut coming back to you does that mean that the current president is maybe for the protest movement more of a threat than mr booker beautifully because brother in as much as i mean he still uses the language of an autocrat and if one could one feels like saying to him look

have you learned nothing in the intervening 2 years because his language is still the d.n.a. of the military yes i think nothing really changes you know this is a man that will replace the man by another man we replaced would flee a car by to born and this is to go and it is a pure a sister up to now what is important is to maintain a balance between may consider concessions and avoiding fundamental change jarius power elites have designed political and economic adjustments to preserve their own authority and in february 2000 mine team that worked the more pluralist system that the regime has allowed to for remains tightly controlled and this is what they are still trying to do but again that was possible and the earth and the february 22nd and things are changing this played to their desire to keep the statue cool algerians. no longer to you know remain where they used to be before february 22nd

now we are facing a political stalemate and serious consult with the head out and the opposition have to be taken seriously but on one point to come back to the question of the need their ship for the head and i think this is you know one of the reasons to explain why the popular movement has achieved so little i think the absence of leadership is a very important in that regard and they do know that many people will disagree with me but i will take the risk to say that while i do in there stand a jury and refusal you know to have a need or should because they have in mind what happened to the movement in cubby the in laroche in 2001 and how it's been co-opted i do believe that you know chandra requires sustained political organizing and look to prism and you know being on social media is not enough you know we need let me just press that point of a change dahlia to a male who's been sitting patiently in paris amelle 2019 demonstrations standoffs

faceoffs with the military nobody got killed that was astonishing it was labeled at the time as the arab spring comma the sequel but given our discussion today about the military about these 3 people who've been acquitted do you think this will actually go to a mini arab spring in the coming year or so look to many problem you know china and especially really when it comes to adrienne main and top generals is that it have been so busy to manage the past manage their i can't ability very very is that they have been a dull even before kind to didn't feel and they haven't been able to anticipate the crises and the total clearance that our nation of the country now and the here are has brought a lot of things you have for a lot of chanting cause. training has a lot of directions all the new generation of leaders locally the problem is and

that's the main question to understand yes future it is a whole long get to which extent the regime will continue to be successful on the basis of the failed state that means that even if old this new generation of leaders to emerge up here actually just to emerge and to play a role in a potential transition into countries they need proper functioning states institutions and that's not the case today and that's why we won't see emergence all hood shooting until a practically the ship within the curate. and ok decisions that are we are approaching towards the end of the program superfast as usual last point to you william very briefly last point to you specifically i mean that point about you know the economy do you get the feeling about algeria that it's right for something else to happen from the ground up in as much as for it to be balancing its books

fiscally it needs to be selling oil at $100.00 a barrel oil is selling for about $40.00 a barrel in the local currency has taken a hit to the tune of 20 percent against the euro in the past 12 months the economic fundamentals they're just not there anymore. that's exactly right and what our jury is will tell you is that they had their 1st arab spring in 1008 where they have full democratic opening and then much of what unfolded in the other countries will not cheery and ninety's and they have these protests waves in algeria every couple of years sometimes like a national and usually driven in large part by economic factors at the $98.00 groups was the drop in oil prices in 86 that triggered it and there will be a large group as a wave in algeria indeed if you share their need to be triggering there needs to be a triggering event and we don't know what then will trigger that turn very very last answer to you down here in beirut would it be fair to say the country is less

predictable scenario wise than it was 2 years ago and also we can't really say what we think the military might do with the current president or someone who wants to position themselves to become president yes it is less predictable because of one important factor that head out the popular movement that actively chance so many things and it gave people hope that it also gave people the feeling that they can change thing and this the leadership that they couldn't predict so i believe that algeria is the 2 to remain on the watch list because 2021 is going to many things are going to happen in the north african country and we will carry on watching the story of algeria here on inside story thank you all so much thank you to i guess there were a male but occurred william lawrence and dahlia going to thank you 2 for your company you can see the program again any time to the website al-jazeera dot com and for further discussion to check out our facebook page that's facebook dot com

forward slash inside story you can also talk to us on twitter at a.j. inside story for me peter davi and everyone on the inside story team here in doha thanks for watching i will see you very soon for the moment. january on al-jazeera it's 10 years since the arab spring sought to bring change to the middle east al-jazeera looks into how successful look at pollutions what a new documentary series examined through history and giancana takes of drug trafficking and the way states and drug lords have used it as an instrument of

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the world so no matter what we do to the news and current affairs that matter to you. man. last. this is al jazeera. hello i'm adrian forgetting this is that he was live from doha coming up in the next 60 minutes iran says that it started and rich in uranium up to 20 percent in breach of the 2015 nuclear deal also. free julian. free the press. free us all. a u.k. course rejects extradition to the us.