aid, unfortunately, we continue to bay in a linear events which we know for new south wales means that we can expect to say higher than average rainfall conditions, which is exactly what we've seen over the past couple of months. and we are expecting linea to continue throughout the remainder of april. the extreme weather made worse by climate change has raised questions about how prepared australia is for such disasters and authorities a warning of more rain in the coming days. major flood warnings have been issued for several suburbs in the south of sydney, while the entire city of 5000000 people has been wounded potential flash flooding this weekend. victoria gay to be al jazeera. ah hello again. the headlines on al jazeera, the kremlin, is denying responsibility for what ukraine says was a russian rocket attack on

a train station. children are among at least 50 people killed and dozens injured and chrome, a tourists. the city and eastern ukraine is an evacuation sensor for people escaping rushes invasion. the european commission presidents ursula rhonda lion has been meeting the ukrainian president and chief earlier. she visited boucher where hundreds of civilians were found dead after the russian retreat. she said, what happened there was unthinkable. moments ago of underline on president zalinski spoke about ukraine's future in europe. she for the mission, these to be in the you know, the most important thing is that we do share the values. and we have proved that because we are fighting for those values with all a might for the right for people to choose. now, the world in which they can leave for a long time with long life expectancy in the free country. russia will dissent in

economic, financial and technological de la d k. while ukraine is marching towards a european future. this is what i see. pakistan's prime minister him on con says he's disappointed by supreme court verdict against him, but has accepted the ruling. con has been addressing the nation before a vote of no confidence in parliament on saturday, which he is expected to lose. the supreme court ruled on thursday that he acted unconstitutionally, by blocking a previous motion of no confidence. he was president joe biden is celebrating the confirmation of catan g brown. jackson to the supreme court. jackson will be the 1st black women to serve as a judge at the top you escorts. we have inside story coming up next on al jazeera and then it's the news our at the top of the our see you then ah

is the war in yemen? nearing an end, yelman's president steps aside and transfers power to a council to whole talks with the faruqis. could this be the way out of a conflict that's created one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters? this is inside sort. ah hello and welcome to the program. i'm ma'am, a jim, jim attempts to indians civil war appear to be gathering pace, president, durable months or had he was in exile and saudi arabia has stepped aside. he's

transferred powers to a presidential council to lead talks with her with the rebels. it follows the start of a to want to cease fire and a week of discussions and saudi arabia on ending the war. but the her with these have rejected, had these announcement. mohammed vol has more. he's been humanist, official president for years. but our double muscle hardy has largely stayed out of the public arena. that was until he made this announcement on thursday, and i announced the creation of a presidential council that will carry out the tasks during this transitional period. and i fully and a reversible delegate to the presidential leadership council. my full powers in accordance with the constitution. many, many years were never impressed by had his leadership. he's not been a popular president, so he's been really quite difficult to get out of power. but i think that a lot of things have happened recently, and international politics have really focused attention on needing to resolve the

war. the international community would like something to happen and that it can, it can consolidate its bandwidth to focus on the war and ukraine. and also the humanitarian disaster just gets worse and worse. the presidential council ought to allow, take over, brings to get most of the countries opposition groups a united front against their horses, the armed group that has controlled much of northern german 4 years. the council is headed by foreign minister shaddon. i leave me who i enjoy saudi support, the united arab emirates and saudi arabia back to move and budget, 3000000000 dollars of financial aid to support the new leadership. the fact that the both, both the saudis and the iranians welcomed the truce simultaneously as a rare feat when it comes to the conflict. and the fact that, you know, both are all the players. all the stakeholders are happy with this reconfiguration

of the government is very important. it's not clear, however, your face will be ready to make concessions or share of power with this and you version of human as you an organized government. commenting via twitter. these folks man dismissed, had this decision as a joke, saying of the future of human decided only from within gibbon. the 2 sides have agreed on a 2 month ceasefire that took effect on saturday. but the who thes still refused to attend the negotiations, had a yard saying its enemy, territory, and talks should be held in myrtle location. mohammed fall artesia. all right, let's take a look back at how it all started for more than 7 years. now, yeoman's been torn by conflict in 2014 healthy rebels, captured the capital sum up and demanded a new government. the following year, a coalition led by saudi arabia and the united arab emirates began a military campaign against the hoses. the you and estimates 377000 people have

since been killed both directly and indirectly through hunger and disease. yemen was already one of the poorest countries in the middle east before the war broke out. now it's suffering, one of the world's largest humanitarian crises. all right, let's bring in our guess in london, a man alam. danny is an independent consultant on yamini affairs and a research fellow at the yemen policy center and independent think tank based in berlin, in the saudi capital real. but up she been, shaban, you have any political analyst and case worker for the human rights in g o. reprieve. and in washington d. c. geral, fire scene is a distinguished senior fellow for arabian peninsula and diplomatic engagement with the middle east institute and a former us ambassador to yemen. a warm welcome to you all. and thanks so much for joining us on the show today. but let me start with you today. the creation of this new presidential counsel. does this say to you that the war in yemen is nearing an

end? i mean, it's a, it's a step forwards. it's a way of consolidating power. and the, if you'd like to say the unsee who's the block. so it's, it can push for a more comprehensive political solution from a stronger negotiation position. but it doesn't mean that the complex it's over. it's only over when we have a nationwide ceasefire. and when we have a security and military arrangements that will enable all political parties to go back and practice their duties from the capitol center. and this is, i think we're still a little bit far from, from, from that happening. there's a lot of hope there is a lot of momentum going on. and there is a lot of backing, especially on the economic economic front. so all of these are good signs, but i think a lot has is still yet to be done in order for us to reach

a and then to the complex. and i'm on the transferring of presidential powers from president heidi to this new presidential council. how big of a political shake up does this constitute? i think it's a pretty significant shake up, if not one of the most significant shapes that we've seen since the conflict begun . first of all, we have to keep in mind for example, most of the in an analyst know that president had, he did not have much say much decision and sort of holding his power. obviously the center was sort of stuck with president had the obviously has government and their practices in yemen were not to say the least just quite corrupt. they were unable to defeat these. there was just no coordination among them. and so having the association of president happy with the muslim brotherhood and his vice president, hygiene wasn't who was considered to be one of the major leaders of the muslim brotherhood in yemen. so i think for saudi arabia, this was a good chance for them to sort of get rid of him and just be honest and sort of

just basically set up a factions, or rather a counsel that sort of can either one threatened who is. because all the counselors members are so anti very significant and with the figures and at the same time and this way may persuade these as well to engage with them and maybe taking more seriously. so i think we have to keep things in mind. is that 1st of all is this presidential council president? have you now that it is within the constitution? but i think we have any constitution has been messed around since the spring for that matter. i think when heavy how. ready is meant to be a short term transfer power from 2012 until 2014. but then his just got extended without the any people actually knowing or agreeing with it. and so this is one of the main reasons why we have the conflict as the who the sort of say, or defender with their actions. and when they took over the capital city of science and 15 is that has system is 5. so in my opinion, there's a big question more on one of the legitimacy of all the actions. but i think also that it's a good step forward in the sense that these,

even though i publicly have denied that they are going to engage with government and talk. but we are, we can be very sure that the sci fi is announced and reciprocals these higher the studies as well. it's not coming out of nothing. it's definitely coming because a lot of media in the united states, united nations and boys playing a huge role. i'm on the radio, so i think there are good steps to get things going. but i think the difference is for the conflict are still yet to be resolved. gerald, let me ask you from your perspective, is the announcement of this new presidential council, a clear sign to you that saudi arabia is looking for a way out of the war in yemen? well, absolutely. i think that, that the reality is that the saudis have been looking for a way out of this conflict for, for 6 years now, since 2016, it's been very clear that the saudis would like to see this conflict resolve. the

obstacle has not been on the coalition side. it hasn't been on saudi or even the government side. it's really been the who t's i. i agree with the other guests that, that what happened yesterday constitutes a step forward are clearly was orchestrated by the saudis and the emeralds. and the fact that they immediately address one of the critical issues confronting all yemen is the economic collapse. with a $3000000000.00 cash injection is an indication that what they're trying to do is strengthen the anti who to call ition. what we don't know is whether or not to who t's are actually prepared to engage in a political negotiation and the conflict as a robot indicated there at least public response has been

unpromising. the weather that reflects the reality of where the who is are we don't know, but i think that where we're, we're left with this announcement yesterday. is that post on the military side. and on the political side, conceivably, i, the anti who coalition is in a stronger position to respond to whether the who t is decide to renew their military operations a after the officer or are agreeable to returning to negotiating table and try to find a peaceful resolution but let's look at another aspect of what's going on right now for a moment. this you in mediated truce that took effect. how is it going so far? is it holding up and how is it different from other cease fires that have been announced in the past? i mean, i wouldn't say it's holding very well because there isn't any implementation mechanism

that is a comp that is going alongside this, this announcement. the un does not have anybody and monitoring the situation on the ground and it doesn't have teeth on the ground to actually a stop or even find a way to prevent an escalation from, from happening. so it's, it's going on simply because there is a, there is a needs and both sides have said that they are willing to engage with the, with the, with the troops. but actually it's on the good willing of both sides. and it can definitely collapse at any moment. and i think this has been an ongoing criticism of the how the u. n. handle the situation in yemen. layman does the makeup of this council lead you to believe that this council is going to be able to negotiate successfully with the who thes going forward. i guess what i mean is,

do the members of this new council have enough political and military clout on the ground in yemen that they could potentially make a big difference? i think they do have some clouds. i think they have some military, some of them have some military, some of them have some political thought. i don't know so much about what negotiation or what they have to incentivize the sort of fallen for their the mass . because i do think that even though that these figures, for instance, there are figures that are representative of the southern transitional council, which is a separatist group that's been aiming to call. it's been calling 1st session, essentially since 2017. you have set this figures up by the way, into this course called the giant brigade. you have thought that was the nephew of the former president, president of us, all that. so you have and then you have a show that he meet with the head of the presidential counsel and also was to serve as a ministry of interior and is also considered one of the biggest,

i guess fader is in the east because he's sort of a provided ment, allegedly, all that, all the targets of the, you know, the coalition is embalming in the on. so essentially what i want to say is basically, these groups are, these members actually are very animates with a personal and ideological and to a certain extent, a military battles against these that these figures have also, for some of them have been exiled out of the country. because of the, the so, so i think this how to review that goal and doing all this sort of to put these figures who actually will stand and fight militarily against those rather than actually be able to negotiate. however, i think this will indicate to them that, you know, the population is under their control, that the military is behind them sort of are a bit more serious to take on that with you this time around. as i said after, after the 2 month period today. and so. so i think, i think we have to keep in mind that basically the selection of disappointing is, i think in my opinion is still,

i think they have their own defense. if you have members of this party, the, any off of the muslim brotherhood who are, you know, very, very, very strong opponents of this and transitional counsel. and this like is also very strong components of the general people's congress, which is represented by and so, so that the old dimensions of the many political parties and their differences are thought to be a unifying effort against these. but i think in my opinion, that's going to backfire because essentially it's not inclusive, it's not including any representatives of the g p. c, for instance, who are providing a center. it's not rep, i mean people look at the who is right now and see them as anybody and who the leadership is. it is essentially everybody in the not so need to have a civil society that's active in the north. you have people who are genuinely seen, who is less because it only seen bombardment and only have been isolated to only view the local who the news. so we have to keep in mind that in many eyes and i think into these as well. this move is not going to be seen as very welcoming at the beginning, and it may just very well that fire gerald. you're a former us ambassador to yemen. so i want to talk with you for

a moment about the u. s. is rule when it comes to yemen. president biden has said that the u. s. is stepping up diplomacy to in the war in yemen. he's also stated in the past that he would, in the us support for offensive operations in yemen. what do you think about his administration's policies towards yemen this far have they been flawed? well, i think that's certainly when president biden came into office in january of 2021 and made the announcement that you refer to the, the focus on diplomacy. the appointment of tim lender king as a special envoy, and also the announcement that the u. s. wouldn't support offensive operations by the saudi led coalition inside of yemen, or those will make sense at the time. and it appeared that in fact, putting american support fully and unequivocally behind the un

led process would potentially lead the parties to agree to come back to the negotiating table and try to find a political and peaceful way out of this conflict. it hasn't unfortunately worked out that way. what we saw rather than agreeing to come back to negotiating table is that the who is double down on their military operations, particularly in matter. they appear to take from the president's announcement. the idea that the door might be open to them for military victory. and therefore what we've seen over the past year has been an intensification of the conflict, or rather than agreement to return to the negotiating table. and so the question now is how does the bible ministration adjust its approach to the m in conflict to

take these new realities into account? tim lender king has been in react for the last week. we can assume that he has been deeply involved in the go. she ations that led to the announcement of the new presidential council. that this is an indication of how the united states is trying to transition. and presumably how the un will now try to transition to a new effort to bring the parties back to negotiating table. it remains to be seen . i think i agree completely with right one at this point. we don't know how the, who, ts will respond and whether or not this new approach to resolving the conflict is going to succeed. or is going to simply lead to a new round of fighting i, in the coming months. but i, i wanna step back and look at the humanitarian situation on the ground in yemen for a couple of minutes with you. many agencies have said that the situation there,

what's going on in yemen is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. the country is afflicted by widespread hunger disease displacement. how dire is the humanitarian crisis right now and, and how concerned are you that it's only going to worsen? well, of course, the monitor and situation is only getting worse, and as the conflict continues, it will keep going from from bad to worse. but of course, we've seen positive indications weighs the injection of the $3000000000.00 in cash to support the role of the governments of the currency at the many currency is today performing better than it was today's 2 days ago. so that's all goods good indic indication, but the overall humanitarian situation is the, is the consequence is the consequence of the collapse of the states institutions.

and with all of those groups, even the members of the political, this political council, the presidential council, when they were fighting with each other or the divisions, even the political divisions. it didn't make any possibility for the state institutions to be reinstated, even in the interim capital aiden. so what is needed and urgently needed is the support of the reinstates of the institutions to go back and perform. there is a very good vibe right now. those members of the presidential council have the majority of the parliament, so they can start having the sessions of the parliament inside aiden. and, and, and hopefully this will have an impact on the, on the, on the comic and then therefore the, the going to turn situation because him, the cherry and aids cannot be a permanent solution. so the ongoing crisis and gamma ray man,

i know that you've talked about this in your previous answers, but i just want to try to drill down a little bit more on this. i mean, the transferring of presidential powers in practice. just how complicated is this going to be? i think it's going to be quite complicated because as obviously, as i just mentioned earlier, obviously there's this all these questions about the constitution and what is be inside it than how it's sort of going to play. but it's not clear really how this council is actually going to be a, you know, executed executive mechanisms. however, i do believe now that they are actually in thought to sort of see how that's going to be implemented. but we have to keep in mind that this council is probably going to be governing the country, france, also saudi arabia, i think, as the i said them in the there's a chance of the pilot my go to a them with us to launch. now the last time the government tried to go back to 8 and they were welcomed by a buried of rockets that killed at least 15 civilians at the airport. and that was just at just the 1st minute. i think also the difference is that you have in the south of yemen and the east of yemen. it's not safe for most of these people to be able to go from there. so we're still stuck in sort of this on the governing from

abroad, which also will we can, i think the eyes of this council, i mean they may be more effective in sort of in sort of combating corruption on the ground. for instance, among the salaries of their soldiers, you know, there's a lot of go, so there's that example that you just, you know, receiving salaries. but it's actually going to benefit the pockets of many, the figures that are fighting to who these. so i think i think the government or the presidential council needs to find the place we can practice its duties safely and, and once that happens, we can actually evaluate. but at the time, it's not very clear how it's other than i ever shadow on me being the executive director of this council. it's not very clear what the duties armed. i suspect in the next couple of days, we're going to know what it is. and i think this is also a staple of yamini agreements that are basically, i mean, we had this reality agreement that was signed in 2019, which was signed between the s t c at the southern position council. and the international recognized government. but it was only until the end of 2021, the little progress towards the implementation of the agreement, which stipulated

a restructuring of the military and putting them on the essentially of want command and power sharing. so so we have a long way to go. i believe gerald i, i saw you nodding along some woods ramen was saying there looked like you wanted to jump in, go ahead will know i agree with this completely. and of course, there is another aspect to this issue of the legitimacy and credibility of this new of this new presidential council. and that is that, that the un security council resolution $2216.00 explicitly identified the hobby government as the legitimate government argument. and therefore, there could be a question raised and i think one of the obstacles to moving away from president hardy, in the past to any kind of a new format has been this question about whether if there is a transition away from president hardy,

does the legitimacy in the eyes of the international community, transfer to the new, the new structure as well. and so this is a question that the international community, the un security council and, and others are going to have to address as we go forward. i also wanted to make another point about about this, about this new presidential council. and again, is as on said, you know, the, the reality is that this is not the 1st attempt to really try to paper over these deep divisions within the, at the who, the movement anti, who the political leads on that, that really don't agree on very much and so you have a rash, autoline clearly reflecting the reality of a unified yeah. man,

he was a senior figure and i'll, we have the solid government are going back many years. and then you have to reduce is a baby who is, are clearly a leader of a secessionist move to the south, or you have other people who i simply don't agree on very much. and what we've seen and a weakness in yemen ever since 2011 has been, you know, the tendency to try to throw all of these are individuals together into a government, quote unquote. now that really don't have very much the common basis for now, for their vision, for the country or anything else. and whether that works or doesn't work, a remains to be seen so far are the examples that we have the transitional government, 2011. there are a reorder agreement that robot referred to. none of them has actually developed any

kind of capacity to actually provide governance to the country. and that's what's really needed here. all right, well we have run out of time, so we're going to have to leave the conversation there. thanks so much to all of our guests reminded him danny, but shaban and gerald fire steam and thank you for watching. you can see the program again any time by visiting our website al jazeera dot com, and for further discussion, go to our facebook page at facebook dot com forward slash ha, inside story. you can also during the conversation on twitter, our handle is at ha, inside stored for me mammograms human whole team here, bye for now. ah

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together investigating the use and abuse of power across the globe on al jazeera with this is al jazeera ah. here watching the news, our life from headquarters in del hi, jerry navigates, coming off for the next 60 minutes. ukraine's president describes russia as evil, with no limits after a rocket attack on a train station kills 50 people. the european commission president travels to cave, offering ukraine a chance to fast track e u membership.