ah, we understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the world. santa matter, when you call home, will be you can use in current affairs that matter to you. i am on him or on carlindo. hold the top stories on al jazeera. the lead of columbia's biggest drug cartel has been arrested columbia presidents as daria antonio, sugar, known as austin yell was captured in a meticulous operation. washington described him as a leader of an armed and violent drug cartel. it had put up a 5000000 dollar rewards help location died. went on your issue gun, i'll yes or danielle. this is the hardest blow that has been dealt to drug trafficking in this century in our country. and this blows only comparable to the follow pablo escobar in the ninety's murder of policeman soldiers, social leaders,

as well as a recruiter of minor issues. he is also known for the insanity that led him to abuse, adolescent boys and girls sick one alice on the ramp, yet he is in bogota with mo. this was the biggest drug trafficker in columbia. he has been so for the last 2 decades, really as you was leading major trafficking group and known as a coff cartel that operates in the north of the country, mostly close to the border with panama. that's the base of this organization that has, according to colombia and intelligence, some 1200 armed men. that's their base in the north of their country. but they operate in more than $300.00 municipalities across columbia. and they are considered to be responsible for the exports of the maturity of the cocaine that

reaches the united states and europe from cologne. a group that has been expanding increasingly in the last years and that it has grown even more since the peace deal between the columbia government and the far rebels back in 2016 occupying spaces where they give the yeah. help influenced before in the country. he was the most wanted man in columbia, and it, while it's surprising that he has been finally arrested, is also true that the government that as a use to all of its power to try and arrest this man, thousands of migrants have been traveling from south mexico in the hopes of making it to the u. s. the group is made up of asians and central americans who would have been stranded in the patrol of

a month. john holmes has moved from mexico city. suffer to lose a point at the moment in which met skin security, security forces have basically been keeping people trapped inside of that like a bubble trying to contain them as a try and get further north. so at this situation in which after mumps, of that people have broken out and then got this far is already that's further than people have managed to get in quite a while. now what tends to happen? it when they try and get further north, they're still right on that. so the border is that they're picked off by the national guard in terms of those road blocks days of rest, those migration authorities. so that's what's likely to happen that they're not even going to get out of the south of mexico on the way to the united states have gone on. several taliban members have been killed in multiple attacks in longer province. in separate incidents, to roadside bombs killed at least 3 people, including a child official say the bombs are targeting a taliban vehicle. no group has claimed responsibility. it please. former

interior minister mathias alvina has gone on trial for his role in blocking a migrant rescue ship in 2019 is accused the kidnapping and abuse of power. the far right politician, prevented to rescue vessels from docking for days. took his presenters demanded 10 western ambassadors, be expelled for calling for the release of the jail philanthropists. us one corolla has been imprisoned since 2017 without being convicted. one of the world's biggest polluted saudi arabia has pledged to reach net 0 carbon emissions by 2060. the re add says it'll co focus on capturing carbon before it enters the air and storing it rather than reducing reliance on fossil fuels. those the headline news continues here on out 0 after the bottom line. ah

hi, i'm steve clemens and i have a question. what kind of legacy is the late colin powell we behind, let's get to the bottom line. ah, the united states lost one of its most legendary military and diplomatic leaders last week. regardless of how history judges colin powell. one thing is clear, he was an exceptional man who had a story, life and beat the odds to become one of america's most influential shapers of national security. he was one of the 1st black men in american history to become a 4 star general. and he was the 1st black american to become secretary of state, serving under president george w bush in that position. one of his main jobs was to make the case for the iraq war in 2003, especially since at that time he was one of america's most trusted leaders. he did his job loyally but later regretted it. although he did stop short of admitting that his famous speech at the united nations was packed with a lot of lies. after the war he left the bush administration. he became known as

a voice of moderation in the republican party until the very end. and he endorse democrats, barack obama in 2008, and joe biden last year. so what was he? was he upon and a much bigger game? was he a national hero? or loyal soldier or brilliant statesman? today we're talking with pulitzer prize winning journalist, karen the young, who's a veteran reporter and editor for the washington post. and she's the author of the biography soldier, the life of colin powell tracking him from his childhood in the bronx till his life after the white house. karen, it's great to be with you today. let me just open up with a question and ask why you chose colin pal. what drove you? what was the spark at that moment and said, wow, this is the person i want to profile. when you wrote this biography many years ago . i think one of the most interesting things to me was that he came rows up in the world at a particular point in american history with the confluence of

a lot of things and civil rights movement, the desegregation of the military. and the, you know, immigrant parents, ah, the ah, the ability of people who came from a background such as his, who went to a, a sort of populist college, not ivy league by any stretch. and he, you know, he used all of that and he had the intelligence and the, the manner to use it. and so he, he was a guy who was in the right place at the right time, at many junctures in his history, but also had the personality and the intellect and the ambition to, to utilize that. and i don't know exactly how to ask this, but i know that that i know of his general power sector pals was his. and colin powell, when he joined the army,

he joined right after it became de segregated. and, and i'm always interested in whether or not at that moment whether he began to rise above the racism and division that used to exist in the military. or whether he became the star token, ought to swear other leaders were trying to show that they were in fact, trying not to be as racist as they were. do you have any sense of that? i think arguably, it's both of those things. i think that he, i, you know, that harry truman desegregated the military officially in 1948. but there were still black only your nets until the mid fifty's actually, when pal came in you know, we, it was at the beginning of the 60s. and i think that there was no official segregation in the military, but he once said something that i think he meant in

a sort of sarcastic way, which was, i ain't that black. he said, you know, he was relatively light skinned. he grew up a not in an african american community, but in an inter immigrant community. and he could, he could exist in a lot of different orals. and so i think he was well aware of the fact that white people and white people of power felt safe around him. if i can, can use that word. and again, whatever one might say about his race and his attitude to his race and attitudes toward his race by others. and he was consistently very good at what he did. and therefore he made it easy for people around him to want to promote him . what was the moment? why i guess what was the breakout moment for coal and how, what was the moment that everyone said, aha, we want to make him chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. we want to make him

national security advisor. we want to consider, we want to make him secretary of state, we want to consider him and people who may not recall this, but he was a potential candidate for president united states running in a 3rd party or as an independent. and i remember president bush's team being nervous about that prospect. yeah, i think that he, you know, i, we were sort of a gradual thing where you basically succeeded in a series of the usual sort of stops along the line for military promotion and was probably promoted faster than others. she had a very good record in vietnam. he was wounded, rescued, his commanding officer from gap. and so by the time he was when she went to george washington university. ready and got a masters degree there. and he then applied to be a white house fellow. and that took him into the upper essentially his 1st step out

of the military hierarchy and into the bigger political world. he was assigned as a white house fellow to the office of management and budget. wouldn't seem a natural fit for him, but nevertheless, where he ended up. and he, his boss was casper weinberger. the was the head of that agency at the time. and the other person, high up there was frank carlucci. and so when weinberger became ronald reagan's secretary of defense, he thought of bringing pal, so in the military to be his, his mila chief military aid. every secretary defense has a mid level officer who, who with his, essentially from day to day life, his liaison for the military, his, his eyes and ears in the military. and so he became very close

to wine burger. he was very astute, politically. and by the time that carlucci became reagan secretary of state and was looking for someone to be his deputy, he went back to pal and said, come and be my deputy o. carlucci later left that office and reagan and pal became reagan 6 than last national security advisor. and i think acquitted himself well. he was still a military officer on pages military. and that was sort of an unusual thing, but i think that he was seen as someone who sort of at the, at a time when reagan was in the view of many people kind of starting to lose it a little bit. i'll kept him on the stage straight and narrow and was viewed as kind of keeping that institution ah, that afloat at that time. but just keeping it organized, you know, he's a very,

very organized guy. and he kept the national security council very organized. and you know, meetings started on time options were presented to the president and things worked the way, theoretically they were supposed to work. so after he finished that, he went back into the military, had several commands. and then when, when george bush senior was president, and he was looking for someone to to be his chairman of the trenches staff. it was actually dick cheney who had, who had suggested jenny, with the defense secretary at the time suggested power, which required power to jump over several other 4 start generals. he was the most junior at the time and, and then there he was. and of course then the persian gulf war came out,

which is where empower, really became known to the american people. you know, he was the guy standing at the saw at the press conferences every day. he was the guy speaking, crisp, military language, all of which he learned in military schools, where he excelled in briefing, which is actually a skill right now. the terri, like another dimension of, of secretary powell was his time overseeing and working on conflicts. and so one of these was the 1st iraq war, and then you had later the 2nd iraq war during the 1st iraq war on the team with president george h. w bush. he was a, he was largely a hero of that along with other other general sort of looking at it and then pulling out us forces. when then later, the 2nd a walk war came in after 911. and you know, the debate in 2003 doors, w bush brought him into that. and i think it's one of the most controversial moments in colon pals. life was being used to sell that war to sell that war to

allies, to sell that war to the american public because he had a very vol. there's one of the most trusted americans in the world. and i'm just interested if you ever talk with him deeply about that moment in which we now know . in hindsight, the material that he presented at the united nations was deeply flawed, deeply wrong that they've been duped by a and intelligent story. name curveball i be interested in, in what your thoughts are about that, that i'm trying to still figure out how this guy became such a pawn in that moment. well, let me go back just a little bit to when he was terms of the joint chiefs which was under bush senior, merge h w bush. that's when he, as i said, 1st came sort of to national prominence on. and he that was where he was known for what, what came to be called the pal doctrine, which was if you're going to go into a war, go big, make sure you know what your mission is and what,

what your exit strategy is. and really have the support of the and, and the body politic. it's so i think that that years later, when yeah, he became, when george bush george w bush, went to him a secretary of state. it was no secret that that bush, one of his liabilities in his campaign was that he didn't know much about foreign policy or national security. and so pell, who at the time, as you said, was really the in pulls for years was the most admired person in the united states. and he brought pal in on the a, his campaign trail really to sort of give him sort of foreign policy credibility. but power was not part of the inner circle. he was not part of this group noticed the vulcans who were basically, ah, rumsfeld cheney condi rice. ah, paul wolf,

a wits. and so power came began as an outlier. and his role was very different than it had been when he was a general. he was the diplomat. ah, he was not in the pentagon. he was not making military strategies. so as the bush administration started to in the summer of 2002 started to make its plans for invading iraq. he went to bush and he said, look, you know, i've looked at the plan for this. i don't think it's right. i don't think you have enough troops and i don't think you should do it unless you have support, not only the american public, but from our allies, the excuse me to do it. and so he, he did persuade bush to take it to the united nations, to the security council and tried to get, try to get support where,

where cow was not very successful. the bridge certainly were on board but, but not many others were none of the none of the big players in the european in the european alliance except for britain at that point. and so they, they were worried they. busy they wanted a un resolution to support the invasion. and so in january of 2003, they said wait a minute. here we've got this incredibly popular guy. and if we sent him to the united nations and, and make the case, people will believe him. i, you know, cheney and rumsfeld them, bush and rice had been talking for months about mushroom clouds and weapons of mass destruction. and they weren't getting a whole lot attraction. but the decision was that power was the most credible sort of weapon they had. mom and dad called palin and said we want you to do this.

and you know, pals, a chain of command guy agreed to do it. but said i, you know, i will say what i want to say. and i will examine the, the evidence chinese folk sent over a script for him to read. and he thought it was completely over the top. it was every bit of questionable and ambiguous evidence. they had all put in the worst possible light and pal and his team went over to the, to the cia and sat there for several days. i mean, they, i had about 2 weeks to organize this whole thing and, and cut it back a lot. and pile, i think felt like he had done due diligence. he had come up with the speech for which the. ready evidence was very solid, and he went to the security council and he gave this speech, and i didn't convince too many europeans who were against it, particularly france, that was running the security council at the time. but it did by and large,

convincing american public. editorial writers across a country, people who work had been very opposed. mary mcgrory, great liberal column as for the washington post. the next day wrote a column and said, well, i was against this. i didn't believe the bush administration, but i do believe colon pell. and if paul says it must be true. and so of course, they invaded and went to war. and once they had pretty much taken over iraq by the end of 2003, all the inspectors and the u. s. military did not find any weapons of mass destruction. they did not find any biological weapons laboratories. they did not find hidden stores of uranium and plans to build nuclear weapons. they did not find ties between saddam hussein and canada. all of which had been,

had been part of the, the case, the cow present. and i think that he did watch few people in the political realm would do. which is to come out and say, this was wrong. i was wrong. never said i lied because he didn't believe he had lied. he believes that he had presented what was given to him. and again, what he had done due diligence and examining it turned out that there was a lot of skepticism at some levels in the cia in the state department. and those were never pursued. and they were so convinced they wanted to do that. you know, it's hard to say people were lying, but they believed what they set out to believe in the 1st place. well, i remember that time, i remember when richard perle came out after colon pow, convince president bush to take this to the united nations richard pearl, who is a very leading defense intellectual, and

a very strong presence in republican circles called him a traitor, a traitor to the united states and i, and i know that during that time we also saw afterward many americans, you know, and many people around the world saw colon paul pow after that gesture, as part of the machine that led to this many called him a war criminal in fact after this, and i, and i would often argue in these things, i said, you know, he, he was not in the same boat as some of those that crafted this. but i know his chief of staff, i know his deputy, both were there, but i guess my question is as he digested it later, one of my criticisms of colon pallet the time, and i wonder where you're at was i was surprised. he was silent for so long that it took him a while to say that he regretted that and that it had been wrong. and it raises the question of whether we should have generals in that role of secretary of state with some principle in this great man. last because he couldn't resign at that moment or

he didn't speak out after he was secretary, that he was still playing the general, but not the person, the civil servant if you will. who is supposed to offer is advice, supposedly, to be loyal the president tates, but at the same time, not lie to the american public. well, again, i'm not sure i do totally disagree with totally agree with you. let me know. i don't think he believed and, and never believed that he had lied him. he believed that he was misinformed, that he was lied to. and, and that, that, you know, if you want to say that, that then continuing that live made him a liar, i guess technically it does. but i don't think he saw it that way. i think that he did fairly soon, certainly in 2004, when he was still secretary of state. he said, much to the dismay of the, of the bush administration. i believe this was even in 2003 said look,

if i knew then what i knew now, should we have gone to war? i don't think so. you know, and, and as the evidence came out of, there were various investigations, you know, the senate investigation on the military did an investigation. and i think that as, so things came out here. you know, perhaps he didn't say it strongly enough for you and some others, you know, he said i, you know, i regret this. i know it will always be a blot on my record. i, you know, i but i a, well, yeah. again, they didn't believe that consciously, you know, just as you know, to, in part wrap up a discussion about his life and role. another thing he did, and i haven't seen many raises, but he was very, very important in creating the i don't know what to call it the infrastructure. they can track that got the mirror american military to reverse. don't ask,

don't tell which is the service of gay, lesbian, transgendered people in the us military by overseeing a study with, with former senator sam nunn and through don't ask, don't tell creating again, this is after the iraq war, but lending his legitimacy to a process under president obama, that ended one of my views, one of the most outrageous barriers to service in the united states military. and he did do that, and i'm just interested in, in that moment too, because that's where he really did try to change the turn. you know, the change the tide so, so dramatically. i think he became part i think he became eventually proud of where that went. well, you know, one of the, one of the raps against pedal is that he was in many ways the author of don't ask, don't write. he was when he was here. when he was chairman of the joint chiefs and into the clinton administration, clinton was under

a lot of pressure from both sides, certainly by some democrats in congress to, to eliminate the ban on homosexuals being in the military. he was under equal pressure inside the military. and i think clinton was sort of stuck in the middle and, and had a lot of irons in the fire at that point. and didn't want to offend conservatives in congress and didn't want to offend the military. i think it's no accident that if you look at the senior people in the bush administration, the 1st bush administration who were obscene. right. rightfully as responsible for what became the debacle in iraq. pow was rehabilitated by far more than anyone else. i think that he, you know, when he left government, i mean bush basically discarded him at the end of the 1st administration and had to

andy cards, his chief of staff call him up and say, never mind, we don't need you anymore. right? you know, have your resignation letter tomorrow. so you know, he spent the rest of his life working on things like this. don't ask, don't tell commission. he went around the world and around the country, giving speeches on leadership, american values, the military, and virtually every stop. he would go to the local boys and girls club or some other organization that dealt with trouble abuse. that was a, became a very big part of his life, right. as i said, he started the institute at city college in new york, which is still, which is still growing very strong. and i think that at the end of the day, more than anyone else, certainly embedded administration he did, you did redeem himself. and then when he, when he died was,

was pretty admired america. well, karen, the young associate editor at the washington post biographer of the late secretary of state colin powell. i really appreciate these insights into his character and how he mattered. you're very welcome. so what's the bottom line, what a mix legacy that colin powell leaves behind when he retired military after the 1st gulf war. he was one of the most trusted people in america, the son of jamaican immigrants was also an inspiration. the countless young men, not just black americans. so why did he lend his credibility to folks like dick cheney and george w bush and others who took advantage of 911 to launch an endless war with iraq, a war that continues till today, with hundreds of thousands of innocent lives last books could be written about the possible motives suffice to say that he didn't walk out and he didn't stand up to the president when he needed to, if that's what he believed. but in other points of his career, like in his work on, don't ask, don't tell in the military he did stand up for what he believed. either way he did

matter. we're going to debate how for many years to come. and that's the bottom line. ah ah, multiple people told ashley including my father that he was gonna killer u. s. laws prohibit some people convicted of domestic violence from owning firearms . fault lines investigates the gaps in the system that allow the law to go unenforced. and the deadly consequences that he see, we shouldn't have laws on the books that are just for show on, relinquished on al jazeera, ah, confronted with some of the world's worst day quality, mongolia government has begun shutting the nation's polluted capital. cities, coal mines. ah. but as the struggle rages to save the

environment above ground, what does the future hold for the men who earn their living beneath it? a witness at the coal face on al jazeera. ah, i'm wrong, conn, and dug all the top stories on al jazeera. the leader of columbia's biggest drug cartel has been arrested columbia's presence as daria antonia sugar known as alton yo was captured in a meticulous operation. the u. s. had put up a $5000000.00 reward to help locate him. alexander up yet he has more from bogota or is or was the biggest drug trafficker in columbia.