air fell as far away as barbados nearly 200 kilometers from st vincent countries including intrigue work cuba venezuela and the united states are sending aid to the island nation home to 100000 people scientists warned that the eruption could continue for days or even weeks robards al-jazeera. this is al jazeera these are the top stories countries across latin america are rushing in restrictions as they battle to contain coronavirus outbreaks the problems are being compounded by a slow vaccine rollouts and weak health systems brazil has been easing its restrictions despite being the worst affected country in the region. the irish prime minister's want to get spiral back after 14 police officers were injured in the latest night of clashes in belfast in northern ireland protesters threw petrol

bombs and rammed a burning car into a police vehicle there's anger over bricks it among other grievances to. the funeral of prince philip will take place on april the 17th the event at windsor castle just west of london will be a relatively low key affair military tributes were paid to the husband of queen elizabeth who died on friday at the age of $99.00. people will be going to the polls in chad in the coming hours to elect a president to the incumbent interest debbi is seeking a 6th term well most members of the opposition are boycotting the vote. 5 people have been killed and 2 polling stations in eastern india the violence happened in the state of west bengal the security forces say they fired warning shots to disperse a crowd that was attacking them 4 people were killed in a separate incident an 18 year old was shot dead outside a polling station it is unclear who carried out that attack. turkey's president is promising to support ukraine over its increasing border tensions with russia and

says he hopes the dispute can be solved through dialogue that came as the president . welcomed his ukrainian counterpart to istanbul for talks thousands of people have joined protests against pollution in the serbian capital belgrade demonstrators blocked traffic in front of the parliament building there they want stricter laws to prevent water land and air pollution by industries such as the mining sector mining activity has increased in serbia despite opposition. a long dormant caribbean volcano that erupted on friday has remained active for a 2nd day residents on the island of st vincent woke up to more clouds of ash on saturday 16000 people living near the lawsuit have now been evacuated the authorities say they could be more eruptions in the coming days and weeks you are right up to date with all our top stories up next it's the bottom line we'll have more news on this channel after that see that. frank assessment the world is on the

brink of. that moral failure is that a fair assessment catastrophic. white. informed opinion should we be buying it coy ultimately it will be sovereigns and governments who are buying this that is the direction this is all headed in-depth analysis of the day's global headlines the inside story. hi i'm steve clemons and i have a question what does the united states look like these days if you're on the outside looking in let's get to the bottom line. if you ever wondered how your country would look from a totally different perspective well that's what we're doing today with the united states gun violence inequality and race far right populism america's retreat from the world forever wars everything is on the table with our special guest today he is gerard road who served as

a french diplomat for more than 3 decades he served as france's ambassador to the united states the united nations and israel and he was the french negotiator on the iranian nuclear issue and baxter wrote welcome to the show thanks so much for joining us let me just start you took this tweet down but there was a tweet that you issued once that i found very compelling i said after breck's it after trump a world is collapsing and your response to that was the content was right maybe the framing was wrong but i look at that and say you know that that that was a world collapsing my question now is is that world coming back. you know actually i think i was right on the substance but i was certainly not right as a diplomat to say that it was not criticizing do not try to be too was simply that he lived you knew under the age of nov 26th seed in that order to westone or. do you gay and to us and i was thinking of my own country was face he grew

a war crisis a bill you know 5540 percent of our citizens against the system they consider that to sustain these repeated and there are $82.00 to table and i don't think it does it does change in any way well part of the framing of donald trump that he came in structurally was what he defined as america 1st when you look at joe biden and his administration has come in and now they've taken the helm of foreign policy and economic policy i guess the question is it it's america what in your in your sense . well actually any country any movement is america for us all friends service you know friend go to see these defending the interest of your own country the problem was that when trump was sitting america 1st actually he meant america to them basically says don't matter we simply defend you know we're only into waste we don't taking care what john kerry and i start knows about the

story and so all we've joined i don't want we are expecting is it would be america 1st which it would be i'm going to got blocked off a community to be a 1st in a community of democratic nations ringback and the all they're not judging organizations but also to us as a stakeholder off of the human kind if i may say. you and i had a conversation with a group of people once we were talking about american power chinese power european power in the world and and it came up that power is often like the value of a stock in a stock market it it's the value of future expectations and if you looked at the power of america and what people thought about its future it wasn't it didn't feel as robust as say china where you look at you know china's future returns what china is becoming how it's growing what it's going to be china was getting

a premium on its power today how would you advise a government like the by the administration to turn that around. no 1st 1st i do think it's very important on one side not on don't underestimate american power i really didn't i didn't personally i do believe that the us keep main to the 1st power in the world photo coming to gates you know there are so many assets in this country so when you've got so much creativity you know from the universities to the business community. and the 2nd advice would be not overestimate china you know where i do believe that right now people are all making china a sort of a monster you know we should and could meet any mistakes which we don't face any problem actually china has its own problems 1st a demographic disaster you know china is moving east going forward to move demographic transition in 20 years that we went for in one century

there are social problems under-resourced chinese austere living you know not just poverty you have to adapt off very. distaste to go to state companies and so on and so all so look china is not a good thing to donate to or china is a country which is a powerful powerful country. we really do us we remain domain by the end of coming decades so if you look at what america would use that power for if you look at things like hong kong and china guiding you know the trappings of hong kong to democracy you look at the treatment of wiggers which the united states has called a genocidal policies against the wiggers and sin john and you look at these various aspects and we've just seen the secretary of state tony blinken meet with the

chinese have it at the same time those foreign policy and human rights concerns are going on china is an enormous trading partner of the united states and or enormously. involved with you know global health climate change i just issue because you've always been an interest driven commentator in foreign policy how is that what is how do you get the equilibrium right between hard core interests and then values you care about whether they're human rights whether they are you know how we work together on climate change how do you get that equilibrium right. well it 1st i think that. biden administration we have to deal with it a stable at auditions it with china it will be much more complicated than it was a year u.s.s.r. because there will be a better game forming in asia somewhere because 1st you have the intensity of the economy correlations between the u.s. and china and there will be a

a decoupling between the 2 economies discipline board deals that most of the asian countries don't want to have to choose between us and that and the 3rd element also is that china is not to an ideological nader's girlfriend to austerfield world there is no chinese communist party in your op there is no i don't watch it or challenge so it will be a complicated a complicated balance to find there will be containment there will be. those all sorts of engagement i sell to human rights it will be a problem it would be a problem and to us we have to find. out not to go too far why not why being fake food to eat to eat it today about used you know i'm going to sound to beat trying to be cynical but i don't think that. i don't i miss racially

we are not a human rights issue to undermine the nation she has a financially economically strategically important or nation should we china date the american snow there do a good miscreation knows that china is not going to change its policy rights policy it's not going to become a restaurant democracy in the in the coming decades so in that it will do us we'd have to have a nation ship within the domain. don't you know in a new journey to be in china. would you would you frame that in a similar way can i you know what i'm listening to you have a sort of thinking of a relationship with saudi arabia and the jamal khashoggi issues which were a big campaign issue for joe biden he said he wouldn't deal with the crown prince mohammed bin solman who's now dealing with it but saudi u.s. relations are largely on track they've gotten by that is that a similar case in your mind oh you're going to even goo beyond because china i

see it when she died some 100 times more important to us something done so with eurabia you know we really and you have a democratic administration and you're going to squash and doing to small's all the 1st year usually it's very keen on defending you're going to rice and after a while you know will you remember but you know after a year. come to an end after all why do you know what you have missed for sure these alleged or so to take into account do could do a reality. of the world ambassador one of the issues you dealt with both at home in france but also when you were ambassador at the united nations in the united states was our allied efforts on terrorism many people think terrorism sort of hijacked and distracted the foreign policy establishment from a lot of other threats how would you frame those years that maybe are continuing in which terrorism both domestically inside france against the united states and

against other of our allies you know was such a prominent feature of our foreign policy and national security policy. i should have said it's a question of course what i'm good for an office u.s. support a special office as you may know we have to keep what we do we are deploying soldiers of several 100000 soldiers not freak out to find cohesive loops but at the end of the day at ikea you in afghanistan the question made you raised also photos and she voted once enough we got since we have been in my league now for nearly 8 years is it possible to we knew war against terrorism willy. dissuade it is there a military solution in the fight in our fight against against terrorism or we may be doomed to spend decades fighting killing people and seeing all the

people being placed certainly i think what we could have we think by going to research on the i need something that i do hope we'll be doing enough to promise. really i don't say negotiation we've we've established but simply going back to do the hoots of their whole reason and work here we're not going governments you know that local governments are actually out to distrust victims of terrorism. we were up with these governments instead of sending out word or worse i whistle years because i think we've got a drone or less and if i were boatman's 'd simply it doesn't work you know it's big we have brzezinski you know former national security adviser to president carter was around but a very prominent national security commentator he would critique america's forever war in afghanistan or maybe what the french were doing in africa today as like

relics of a neo colonial past that we have delusions of imperial grandeur that we're continuing to deploy a force you know indefinitely driven more by inertia than strategic need how would you respond to brzezinski if he were sitting across from you. actually you know she came because. of course because he was quite an impressive and the least and you know says i share his point of view i am not sure that you just go to your and go over. i think it was 'd he does being a mistake to think that we can sort of we've got worse orders a lot of problems i think to as being a nexus you need every station of the foreign policy 1st will do us a little of course but also in a sense we friends you know to say you have a bigger hammer every problem she looks like

a nail and 'd i do think that it's something we could be really. which would be said all american foreign policy and i want i or us to i'd also have different foreign policy we need diplomats and maybe we dutch we need less soldiers let me switch tracks gerard for a moment you know since you've left washington as ambassador you've become a very sought after commentator you appear on t.v. networks people follow your tweets and they come with the kind of. insight and and raw honesty about america that i think we're not used to whether it's about race after the george foid murders when it's about inequality in this country and i just love to get a sense if you look at this nation from an offshore perspective and you look at these domestic issues of identity and tension and the divides in the nation now made so much worse during this pandemic i be interested in you know sort of your

notions of of will of what's wobbly and what strong. for a 1st i believe in the us i decided to live in the u.s. so it means that i love this country and and for me what again i think i i said it in the in the beginning of our of our interview to fact use that i'm struck out of the armor of young americans who are the united states are facing the same problems in very comparable terms to you or to the open countries and especially to friends and muscle do you choose of course who have national circumstances which are quite different the fact that the us is a country of immigrants much more gun than friends but again you have to have 1000000000 or so of our citizens against the systems and you have also communities which are i think i krystle wish are really asking for the end off

or any discrimination and that's that's the common fighting in western democracies and my dream and frankly my dream would be that the worst on democracy is in a sense work to get or really admits that they have common failures and and try to to sort this issue or to fight face decisions one common enemy and they see it everywhere also in terms soft or a.c.p. if i may say is i really do believe that we are looking at the and then of a cycle which means the end of the new already built or europe you know this and where you had on there 'd in america you had to reagan couldn't do it and obama understands and you hope you out you have thatcher or blair you know he said you know that docs us up bad the stage is bad the market years ago odd i do fear

and not free trade is is always positive i do. our citizens not been getting us everywhere. in the streets of their east like in in in in the us enough is enough we have in a sense to change our ways and what is striking for me is to see done by internet and stray should only told by the little you know he's shifting into these great shit and that's in a sense it's quite it's quite exciting and as usual do us all the 1st one to show the way. you did tweet i found it cute that you know what's wrong with socialism when you're trying to say is that is that your comment on you know broad redistributive policies our health care policies you know this debate about socialism in america it where you're just saying hey that's what's worked for france well you know their every country it's irrational no respects and into

us to do world socialism you know it's paltalk least you know i should know if years of the society it depends what you are putting behind the world. again i love the u.s. and what i'm going to say is part of my love of for instance as a north korean and up north as a frenchman there is something you'd actually come to understand is that that you don't have. a socialized and scare system you know your and scare to be frank you know i have been if you do it for him. education of nurses and doctors in america and their talents it was awful to cost good to your guy to complexity. and saw so that's an example or european countries are a specialized and fair system it cost the last much for the s.

actually you are spending 70 percent of your g.d.p. your the house we are spending 11 percent that's a good example where i actually socialism quote unquote you know quote unquote because even do you care which is not will your social this country as a socialist socialized and care system so that will be a good example where socially whatever you call it it's not that bad. one of the other areas to turn to is iran you've dealt with iran so closely and i think you know again going back to henry kissinger's to brant scowcroft to this big me of brzezinski's they would often talk about states having defining challenges you know there are a lot of challenges out there but sometimes certain challenges are very large and defining for that era i sort of feel like china is one iran may be another i'd love to get your insights into that because right now we've gone through a whiplash where the obama administration to go negotiated along with the french

along with the british along the p 5 plus one the way the joint plan on on iran's nuclear program donald trump took the united states out of that now your questions are going back in what are your insights not only as an observer of the u.s. side of that but if iran game in this. to me and to me to be frank i'm quite worried i don't want you know again i didn't do a deal with iran was 'd a compromise and it was for boys only to handle the nuclear issue i fear i think that one of the mistakes of the a woman in the obama administration 2015 was not immediately after the steel 2 to which we asked the other issue of course you want your issues of concern raised by the iranian behavior to whoreson the scientists. but is to get a q.b. and also to. activities so ringback trying to went out of your agreement and

now the question yes i want to go back to it and it's not he because on your audience that the iranians feel aggrieved to the iranians and rightly so in a way do you mean you know entering a presidential a presidential campaign and on the american side it's not possible or ringback simply to go back to the to the agreement goes do us county can or. willy do where is the concerns expressed by digging for nucky sent by israel they come to also ignore the other issues of concern so what's the sharing too so it's a very complicated equation and i really am not sure that actually both sides will succeed to to go back to a negotiation to the negotiation table you know for for a lot of iranians now they may be able to say why are we going to make concessions

to the u.s. if in 2024 trump is back and really intrigued us new sanctions so it's it's it's one of distributer very very difficult issues where the good promise the ease the scheme and you may know that actually you would be a sock trying to be the. between between tehran and washington. we are going to be frank we are too messy often incident there are articles on both sides and especially on union sides. to try to do a deal any idea off off a new deal because in your honor of course the us is the symbol in a sense of of the evolution against them is the symbol of of the revolution. you know one of the questions i have about france germany a lot of our allies in the world is that they saw america sort of you know kick

them in the teeth and the last few years and hug a lot of complicated people like dare to in the philippines kim jong un in north korea what is the state of the relationship out you know out there we've seen president mccrone talk about the need for a european defense capacity that is that is driven by europeans and not the americans i'm interested in whether or not that those sets of relationships are now entering a new phase or whether you think they can snap back into the kind of a close coordination and you know the mutual trust that used to be you know unfortunately i think. most of europe incited you know your basically. simply as you said to snap back. because for your for your peers in a sense american leadership is quite comfortable. if you were to swear a photo we might call your new french president say. your oldest but if you go to

each one what does it mean in concrete terms so you o.p.'s so he still european countries will be like voted or 6 states it would mean that there really would be worried about reducing young american beauty tory government and you can understand see it from this country with their try she story and we are should be a viewer that they can be i can be wary that they be sure to have the military government differential go arounds. a small countries like germany. we shall spend between one percent and 1.4 percent of. your parents why did you go to would meet money spending more money on defense so so i think i get a nice ration i think. you're too friendly friendly and he should watch your vote i think if you're going to fold to a ball 'd. buy for your parents to. french you know oh i

guess you sure you are you ok let's go back to business as usual well road former ambassador of france united states we really appreciate your candor and fascinating perspectives on today's america thank you so much for joining us and just. so what's the bottom line it's always fascinating to hear how the rest of the world looks at the united states the 4 years of the trumpet ministrations america 1st policies really did turn the world upside down today nations have serious doubts about american leadership many people around the world would like to go back to the good old days but what's done can't be undone china and iran will be skeptical about working with washington on long term stuff knowing that the next president could shred everything up again my guess was right it would be great if the united states and its allies could become cold eyed about their interest in priorities and set aside their delusions and distractions and help build a more stable world but let's face it delusions and distractions almost always be

reality and that's the bottom line. you buy them until crisis is the defining story of our time never before in human health feels so clearly and thrive agis here is award winning environmental solutions for example across the world we seek out people who are fighting made to

us gone and combating climate change while finding ways to protect all life on our planet. is coming soon as a serial off. from the al-jazeera london broke. to people in thoughtful conversation people use the lowest get agreement to describe the outside with no host and no limitation to the difference between a migrant and refugee is purely a choice when your refugee you are forced to speak of asma khan and has an act had what has happened a lot in the west is that culture and food are separated studio b. unscripted and al-jazeera. xenophobia violent and beating the drum for an ethnic civil war in the heart of europe. generation identity was at one time the fastest growing far right organization on the continent now watch the investigation that led to the french government banning

the group. generation hate. part 2 of a special 2 part investigation on the. queues of people are seeking covert 19 treatment in brazil last infections reached record breaking levels but still there's a push to ease restrictions. hello and welcome i'm peter w. watching al-jazeera live from our headquarters here and also coming up they feel betrayed by bricks it among other grievances so what's igniting the violence in northern ireland 23.