weeks and needless to say not a lot of people will be dining out today this storm is making its way up the coast with high winds threatening power outages from virginia through philadelphia and into new england states but there was still fun to be had from skiing in central park the plan to be until i get too tired to have to go to watching pandas go for a slide in washington d.c. smithsonian national zoo proving even a major storm isn't all bad christian salumi al-jazeera. this is al-jazeera these are all the top stories the u.s. has threatened to reimpose sanctions on myanmar off to a coup by military leaders prompted international condemnation the un's actually general call the takeover a serious blow to democratic reforms military seize power monday detaining

democratically elected leader aung san suu kyi and dozens of government ministers at a foul isn't young gone with more on the presumed whereabouts of the detained politicians . to use in her head of nato and 40 homes being surrounded by security forces and she's been. so it's like me that you say that now where bloom is last night we're going to take a pleasure to. the west and come to the nato capital those are going to prison but i'm single. managed to contact some m.p.'s i'm a. little bit reassured by that a group of republican senators in the us say that hopeful that a bipartisan coronavirus relief package can be paused also meeting with the president that proposing a plan costing about a 3rd of the $1.00 trillion dollars that joe biden is aiming for. the un's high

commissioner for refugees has called on the ethiopian government to do more to protect civilians trying to escape fighting in the te grey region grandy says civilians driven from their homes told him their ordeal continued in camps where they sought safety wendy's just returned from te gray where almost $100000.00 people have been displaced around says it successfully launched a rocket capable of carrying satellites into space the defense ministry says it's for research purposes the u.s. has accused tehran in the past of using its space program as a cover for missile development google has agreed to pay nearly $4000000.00 to settle allegations of pay disparities in hiring biases the tech giants are keys of underpaying the thousands of female employees in software engineering positions those are your headlines the stream coming up next. it was the fast trial of its kind for my ugandan child soldier dominic on brand is accused of

recruiting more children to fight as he rose through the ranks of the in famous lord's resistance army. now he is about to learn his fate at the international criminal court and i. i actually ok watching this train before this show starts i want to warn you that we are going to be talking about some of the ugliest aspects of conflict including sexual violence violence human rights abuses if that is not what you want to watch right now want to tell us you've got an option to do something else for the rest of our audience thank you for staying last year the government to launch a military offensive in the northern part of the country in a region known as to great against the former governing forces of that region as

far as we can tell. it that war the fleeting is continuing and civilians are caught in the middle we spoke earlier to the un humanitarian agency and then as they see gemma cornell and she told us what she was see and what she was feeling. as each day passes we are more and more concerned about the dire humanitarian situation in that region of ethiopia for nearly 3 months many people across that region have not had access to the basic things that humans need to survive food water and health where especially because this conflict erupted right when the 1st mistreated been bringing in their harvest and the crops many of them have been lost were also. receiving rif exaction guidance against women and girls what we have made some progress with the clearance of supplies we still have many humanitarians. really need to be on the ground and we have yet to receive the clearances for them to move

we called again today free safe and he did humanitarian access to reach these people who are in desperate need. our lineup today we have sticker a as we have we have thank you very much big on the screen tell our audience here you are remind you are a regular visitor but we took. me. for the umpteenth time when as a. last journalist and contributor to the telegraph. thanks for coming back mares are welcome to the street and tell our audience here you are what you do. you for having me today my name is lies a day i met a grand i am an activist international reaction. nice to see you and vanessa talent internationally as you are. but i thought

i am the horn of africa campaigner at amnesty international. good to have we also invited the spokes person further prime minister that since person is on the road right now we've been communicating via whatsapp and she sent me a pretty substantial statement which you included in this conversation and also a few on huge you of course you can be part of the show any time jump into the comics section in utica be part of this show let's start with the 1st part of the statement from the prime minister's spokesperson and this i said the psammead i split a tear gas and and she's talking about any armed confrontation it is bound to destabilize the lies of civilians box the federal government is supporting provisional administration and functioning systems in service delivery so that civilians are being taken care of said expecting civilians to be in

a diet situation but the government is there to help them let's 1st of all talk about the situation zacharias as far as you can tell come straight still happening in the north of ethiopia. yes there is there are mounting reports that fire thing is indeed going across the region in different parts of the great however and this does contrast somewhat with the depictions of the. situation on the ground according to the foreign minister's ochsner earlier this week at a press conference he stated that normalcy was in the process of being established and that the government was mobilizing all of those resources and personnel. it would be able to adequately address the humanitarian crisis on the ground. however . this depiction contrasts greatly with that of international aid organizations

such as the u.n. . you mentioned earlier care international amongst others who say that. the efforts the ongoing efforts to address the to prevent and to avert starvation. are insufficient and adequate or something like a 3rd of delivery shipments have been rejected by the joy in government and bureaucratic hurdles are preventing it in cities from addressing the problem the problem on the ground and reaching the populations were. terribly affected by the conflicts of contrasting narratives but a lot remains hidden due to that region still be largely. cut off from the integrator or else there is a war you hearing in seeing people in the northern part of ethiopia then it's given you concern still in a conflict situation still war. yeah. that are contrasting narratives to this

however we have been able to hear from personal accounts of people who are returning from the words on as early as yesterday and they were telling us that there is an active war happening everywhere across and grow of course in some parts of particularly in the other there might not be an active war however majority of to grow still being ravaged was warplanes and draw and send and troops are still there killing and massacring people all over the most worrying paragraphs all of this is that humanitarian aid is not being allowed to enter into to cry and over 4500000 people are facing a famine then starvation and all of this is being being worse and because air tran troops are actually actively looting resources there very little resource that was left from the destruction and burning that people could have used to save their lives so the warning situation on the ground is that our people are not only dying

because of bullets but also because of starvation and lack of medication. i want to show the school of even after this is from you choose this is nattie tests for many family members and friends who live in the to grow region but since the war broke out i can't get any information about them the international community should now act to save lives or maybe. they have to back to save lives what are you able to get in terms of connecting people reconnecting people what is the difficulty. well i mean if you look at what's happened to guys since the start of the conflict it's a complete information blackout i think this is obviously a family member who hasn't been able to reach their loved ones they don't know how they're doing if they're alive if they're fled what the current situation of their status of this but from a kind of justice perspective the fact that there hasn't been any information coming out of to go straight from to guy is

a huge problem i mean we can talk about access in terms of humanitarian aid which i will do much more the point of this program but access is always also to understand what is happening in to go right now if we had access in terms of internet even phone services we could have a much better idea of the crimes that have been committed human rights violations that have been happening. international community can act much more you know informed and can also do much more if we have more information and this has been no unfortunate and of course has helped certain narratives thrive such as normalcy or you know the war has and those kind of narratives are so much harder to contrast when there's no access to it well what you see now is because it's i'm hearing a lot and you know a lot from me various different parties almost as if will you all stories in our story is this story what you even see now it is when we can see that people are in great difficulty. minister well it's hard to kind of go against if there's

a federal government that is saying that the conflict is over and this is not right now this is from back in you know last year saying of the conflict us and but we are continuing to hear testimonies united nations of course as all has been stating since then that the conflict as continuing fighting is continuing in parts of the region then that becomes a narrative you know a federal government will always be stronger than or activist organizations especially when it's happening within their own borders so it becomes a sort of narrative start makes it harder for journalists to rights researchers to join in and to bring their perspective when access is so difficult so again. i want to bring in the voice of. this what is really focusing on conditions for civilians have a list and have a look around who is the 60000 refugees who decry in sudan about 31 percent of which are minors rehear in the us and the health authorities you serving over

a 1000 are he's in storage and in medicine including a woman who gave birth in greer at the camp the only one toilet is serving her resulting in frequent here's her large her an 18 hour a day and then there's an experience in the air strikes and the not of the members or fellow citizens being slaughtered and if that's not enough there's also here's a human the high end is one of the traditional migration routes to where countries across continues to work and i only capture a fraction of it and to address their needs a car a new national community to help in the area to troops out to dry unimpeded humanitarian access fire and investigation. again that cool the international community i want to zoom in. on the trained troops tell me more about those troops. yes there's been a slow trickle pace and yet consistent emerging nuff for those

videos that have been. analyzed by experts and you will get it to gray and these give weight to claims that there are indeed eritrean soldiers operating with the 0 in forces. to grab the german government for itself. at least. officials in idaho until now are still consistently denying their presence on the ground however there's been marking evidence. media reports of course the members most well sourced to diplomats as well as consistent eyewitness testimony from the refugees as described mentioned who are in sudan and those who as a reporter that me myself i've been able to contact since the reopening of connections a couple of times the problem here is that whereas the german government every now and then gives up releases communiques or press conferences. to were partly

version of what's going on in the region the original government has thus far remained and it is unclear exactly who the original military presence in ethiopia is accountable to right now because the commander in chief president he said. as yet to address is as yet to address the greater international audience and issues on justification or pretext for why he decided to intervene on behalf of and when it comes to the mounting reports of gross human rights violations and gruesome atrocities that his forces are alleged to have carried out it makes it extremely problematic and with that with no one who are willing to. to be taken into account or knowing with no one here. facing to the tracing the music if you will with regard to queries by the press who will be

responsible. for some of the trustees and we've heard over the past few months of the exacerbating the the worsening humanitarian disaster they want to try a 1000000 people needing emergency aid. just add their fire me i want to mention that it's not only eyewitness accounts that are actually speaking of they are trying tricks involvement or exist and into drive there or there has also being an intelligence like sake let's satellite imagery as a courier said but in addition to that a general a member of the. gym has actually admitted on a tape on a record that air tran troops or indeed integrate commuting some of the treacherous work that crimes that could amount to crimes against humanity and what crimes so he has been talking about how return trips are actually integrate raping women and looting resources so although there. is formally denying the existence of troops

there are facts that could actually support otherwise and i think this is new i mean from it is blocking the many trying corridor because if i meet him in time corridors open then journalists and the world will get to see that they are trying tricks are indeed into guy committing some of the aftershocks crimes so i just wanted to add that their. message because peace. yeah i think the fact of the question around access is one that people don't really understand because you mentor and access is something that the state is obliged to do in a conflict role not just a state but any part of the conflict is obliged by international law to allow humanitarian access if needed and if you're going federal government's decision not to do so obviously raises questions and you can speculate around why they've decided not to open up the human turn card or access to it i mean it's a can i can i share something with this here am i not to see if you really if you can ambassador to switzerland ok. come here on my laptop so you can see who's at

the same time the federal government to go into administration are distributing humanitarian relief services to the needy the nesa the head. thank you i think that brings us back to the 1st question or just the battle of the narratives if for example a government now saying within our borders were doing all of this this is going really good it's necessary for internationalization be able to verify that and b. to be able to assist if that's the help that has been quite it's not needed there has been access to the guy and i think it's important to emphasize that it's not a complete blackout that we were seeing since november there's been very limited access to united nations agencies unit shar or chair that was mentioned before and they've been saying that there's a dire need on the ground that is not being met with the response from the federal government this means that the aid that is being kind of given by so many different

countries is needed and it's waiting at the border and to look at how the process is actually going is that when they asked for access and when this deal was made in november it was in a way that gave a lot of people hope a lot of people who are organizing at the time were saying oh this is great we've received we were asking for. but it said that it was secure as can be consistent but since then they were implanted the system we have to apply for both cargo and for personnel and at 1st as saying the cargo shipments were going really slow the process of getting cargo to get into to get out was taking way too long than what the need on the ground actually was and then the actual system that was taking personnel was taking even longer and now archer saying that the person our system is so slow that cargo is actually coming in at a higher rate than people are so aid is coming in but there's no people there's not aid workers to actually distribute it and make sure that is coming to the right people and that's been given so you can see that there is

a need that is coming from people who are on the ground and are saying that there's a desperate need and the governor saying we're already providing this but there's no it verify that and when all of the help is available what reason does the government have to deny it. so i've got so many families he'll have on you tube multiple questions and yes i know you are going to come of the back each other but also include our audience as well so this is film and what is the justification given by the ethiopian government for blocking humanitarian corridors if the war is over cigarettes very quickly on that. well the german government's official position is that even if the war is over there are still mar operations and thus an existent security risk. however the fact is that there are areas which are fully uncontested under the control of ethiopia and government forces or their their original allies and elysian seas and staffers of come to me and explained

how they are being denied access to even these areas so just for the officers the point. i was making about access to the region and how this i mean it does definitely imply that there is something being concealed from the greater public. ok all right understood. yeah it's obvious the. same 2 arguments of the u.n. to i've been humanitarian access to the people of today however we know that humanitarian access has been completely denied mainly because 1st of all hunger is being used as his as a strategic subject and to exterminate the people of that that's how i feel as if to grant hunger is being used as his as a strategy but most importantly i want the world to know as it's a grand that the humanitarian access no matter how available it is that the ground people will not have access to this unless they are trying tricks are always drawn

from to completely because you have been here only parts how although there has been a little bit you know it hurts to a very many terran aired by concerned individuals was in ethiopia and international n.g.o.s but they are trying to swear on the border like to look at and to take you know event ship it although if that's that's what we have been hearing so the most important point here is that there needs to be an immediate withdrawal of their a trench from to gray if humanitarian aid is to ever average to the people of. having having been in contact with the prime minister's spokesperson and they would violently say that this is not not a vinyl. dream and lay say that this is not the case i will show another state with them from just in just a moment but i just want to become as a what he was saying about. using hunger as a weapon of war a number of people not just on you tube but that we spoke to was saying that this is the case and it is reminding them of the ethiopian the 1980s took

place in the very same region he's in. if your care were pending hunger us so warfare is nothing new but there grecian get that in 1985 my mother and lived through that famine that killed 1200000 civil currently i'm using the same tactic importing a manmade famine and to growing until this day has cut off telecommunication and has blocked humanitarian aid workers from entering to right on top of that again right to air tran forces who are noting the raping massacring burning farms as a result of this senseless who are 4500000 to grains are facing mass starvation 2300000 children are in dire need of humanitarian aid horrifying stories are emerging daily people dying from hunger and their seek for access to monetary and aid is needed urgently before millions perish so during back to that statement. the prime minister's spokesperson prime minister's office they pushed back on the

idea of there being food insecurity because there was food insecurity into gride they said before the conflicts started they said regardless of this the federal government is committed to ensuring that humanitarian assistance which is all we need on the vulnerable and that they are coordinating this humanitarian assistance with the ministry of peace international partners u.n. agencies i'm getting questions on you now which is so war is the government doing what are you seeing that they are doing bearing in mind it's a crisis is a mop up operation but there's this to some silly thing happening in the us of a right now. so yeah i mean as the statement and other statements they've made in the past couple weeks have shown that they're shown a lot of pictures of food or they've been distributing the amount of numbers like i think if i'm a steak and they said that 85 percent of to go to people in need have received

assistance but again this goes back to access for me internet access phone access physical access to the region is imperative for any challenging of the official narrative to be done and in this situation what we're seeing is week after week the united nations the you nature is reporting of how dire the need is on the ground and to go back to what the government is doing you can see world government not doing well the requests to bring in the food or to bring in the aid workers are being either denied or delayed and i can see that in the statement they make references to to i've been a region that already had food insecurity etc we can look at you know the fact that a lot of people into guy we're not living in food insecurity they were as you mentioned before either dependent on the food or they were kind of harvesting and selling or depending on trade and trade to go has been cut off since the conflict started 3 months ago you can look at the refugees who are living in the camps who had fled a regime just north of to go in eritrea who are dependent on international aid to

survive and were waiting for the shipments to be made to their camps. which are 2 of the camps have been completely inaccessible and start of the conflict have not received any support and the u.n. is reporting that a lot of the residents are fleeing have fled because of so much of the violence but also there was no food we spoke to someone at amnesty researcher who spoke to one of the victims said that we have to eat leaves and drink water from an untreated well because there was nothing and to kind of say that this is not happening when they are coming out are so strong shows again why the need for access is on point so that statements like these can be made but they need to be challenges and they need to be made sure that these people are just not being left behind just because the cameras are not on them right now. it's a crisis in the i often see when we talk about on the stream about issues particularly do you read it difficult issues in other countries around the world particularly on the african continent people basically say mind your own business

this is me summarizing how it kill my laptop this is where we're talking about eritrea's involvement in ethiopia's tikrit region and then i'm just going to skip down here to this comment east any tangible evidence why is the usa an aid organizations concerned that much that 2nd bit what is it the concern of the international community can be summed that up in a sentence that can arise why should the rest of will be so constrained what is happening in ethiopia when ethiopians themselves some of the missing mind your own business. well obviously i think when you go back to work trustees that are taken place. in the context of war or in the shadows of war if you look at what happened in rwanda or if he's looked at what happened in structure and it's up in the ninety's. we've tended to hear time and time again that leaders are forced to world because if it's true you know they never again

yeah. they're seeing much in marginal courses trustee so. it's to work zechariah sure and up to another man thanks and you know i should add that one out of us share today and we're right at the end of this show but you know this will not be the last one we do in ethiopia thank you yes thank you appreciate it see next.

on calvary because the world's richest man. the protest to reform the institution is time and work is the u.a.e. the next state to exit bag and coffee farmers in colombia struggling to recruit. can bring the cost on al-jazeera we know what's happening in our region we know how to get the plate that others and not i want just don't fear god but to put the only

purpose the fires there are no more normative you. know the way they tell death story isn't what can make a difference. about turn for democracy calls for on songs to choose release growing louder as a military retakes power in myanmar. by money in sight and this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up. the u.n. refugee agency chief cause of humanitarian situation in ethiopia is a great very grave after a visit to the conflict would reach him.