britain withdrew from the gulf. the u.s., sort of in this cold war context, saw a power vacuum, what it regarded as a dangerous power vacuum and increasingly relied on saudi arabia and also iran at that time ruled by the shah of iran as sort of the pillars of american foreign policy in the gulf. the shah was the much more powerful regional state at the time. and when the iranian revolution occurred in 1979, this posed a tremendous difficulty and challenge to the united states to its foreign policy in the gulf, to a certain extent saudi arabia took up that -- took up that role or took on a greater responsibility as an american ally in the gulf. the saudis at that moment were experiencing their own difficulties and challenges. difficulties and challenges. as some of you may know, there was a seizure of the grand mosque in mecca by islamist militants. also in 1979 an uprising by minority shia in the eastern province in the eastern part of saudi arabia mobilized by the iranian revolution as well. so some background ther

as an american ally in the gulf. the saudis at that moment were experiencing their own difficulties and challenges. there was a seizure of a grand mosque in mecca, islamist militants. also in 1979, an uprising in the eastern province in the eastern part of saudi arabia. also the iranian revolution. some background to that relationship among the u.s. and saudi arabia. >> somebody get another card. you seemed to imply earlier the conflict is less over religion and more over power? >> that is my stance. i think that historians and other analysts look at that relationship much more as one over regional power over two kinds of broad coalitions of states and regimes in the middle east, one that is aligned with the u.s., israel, other pro-u.s. regimes, and those that are aligned with iran, including syria, other states that are opposed to the first coalition. the emphasis on secretary politics is a kind of political strategy that i think was seen as beneficial by parties on both sides of that conflict in mobilizing politica

ships in the northern persian gulf of kuwait april 15th according to u.s. navy officials at $1.00 of the iranian sailors even seems to be wagging his finger at the u.s. vessel leading some political and military analysts to question a president trump's own finger wagging at iran is more of a distraction than a real threat of war the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on america's economy and the president continues his own attacks and war on what he calls the lame stream media of which he continues to chastise and target and daily twitter tirades his latest fake news the enemy of the people troublesome tweets aside the u.s. and iran continue to trade insults and threats that continue to push both countries closer to war general hussein salmi commander of iran's revolutionary guard said iran would target any u.s. ships that jeopardize iranian commercial or combat vessels he went on to blame the u.s. navy for what he called disorderliness and messiness in naval units of the us that probably reflected the american struggles with the coronavirus at h

states because the gulf states hold the middle of the stick and that's what they've done or was and if they don't cotton to that and specially now when the price of oil is going down and may go down further depending on what happens in china but at 40 dollars 45 dollars a barrel which may be if china doesn't get back to work very soon i mean the gulf states are really going to be they're already in recession dubai abu dhabi and others i mean the pressures are a. tense some of them may collapse from it but others may have no choice but to escalate the binary process forces as coalition so i expect later to see or an april sometime around that we'll see quite a big tensions between iran and the all of them some syria iran and also because now there is a project to remove america from the region that's what i was getting you read my mind the exactly i mean is the is the deal of the century a way to cement forever american presence in the middle east. it's meant to cement israel's position by the united as as the carrier of what americans now call themselves today of christianity i mean

but most of the arab states some of the gulf states are already you know. the head human is like of the vision the civilization they get out of it what do they get out of it is that they hope they're going to get business and they going to have a front door to washington and be accepted. but the great difficulty in this whole project is that in order to bring it into being it's been framed in really binary terms either you know the palestinians either you do it or you're finished and the same for lebanon the same for jordan jordan all are being put in this binary position and the middle ground has been erased completely and gone. and these pressures are increasing and this is where it may not work because in the sense the whole of the middle east needs to hold. by the middle and once you take all of that away then and make it so polarized and put the pressures on which are taking place right across iraq iran syria then what is the choice they can only escalate back against the united states doesn't this. is going to interact with it actually very directly e

accused iran of dangerous and provocative maneuvers in the persian gulf last week or ron has argued it was forced to increase its patrol presence after the u.s. fell to follow protocols iran has presented the dispute as an issue of national security noting the proximity to their country's border iran's foreign minister took to twitter writing quote u.s. forces have no business 7000 miles away from home provoking our sailors off our own persian gulf shores the latest conflict also follows the launch of iran's 1st military satellite pentagon officials were quick to argue that the launch was evidence of threatening behavior claiming a secret military space program could be a step towards creating ballistic missiles. i won't tell you exactly what the intelligence is because that's classified information but what i can tell you is that when a very long way and if you have a missile that goes a very long way. whether or not to put a satellite in space or not go into those details but it would a very long one which means it has the ability once again to threaten. their neighbors or a large an

in other parts of the gulf mainly kuwait and saudi arabia that had in other parts of the gulf mainlyumbers to start with, all of those who had the virus had been in iran. a lot has been said about that, partly because from there, a lot of cases from the middle east spread, including from iraq. here in the gulf saudi arabia was under the microscope with how many people going there, and also because saudi arabia chose the g20. there have been a lot of questions about what they are doing, not only domestically, but regionally they took the first step to announce the closure of mosques to worshippers. that was a very important step because it allowed the risk down the rest of the muslim world to say, yes, we will close mosques. here in the uae, one of the first countries decided to close schools in the region. at the time, it was seen as quite drastic. this was a seven weeks ago. but it was very important to limit the cases. they have been very proactive in testing. their approaches, we're going to get this under control if we test rigorously and take very stringent measures about having

nina was talking about how testing made the difference in the gulf. south east asian countries. in latin america, they are among the highest number of countries with the lowest percentage of testing being done. i don't want to leave the developing world, mina, we want to get your take on iran. how do you think they are doing at this point? are they coming out of the worst? it's hard to tell. the numbers peaked. we thought the numbers were beginning to plateau and then they picked up again. let's not forget about turkey. turkey has over 100,000 cases. turkey at first refused to acknowledge having any cases to start with. between iran and turkey, the large significant countries in the region who both host refugee populations, there is a real concern at the moment that iranians have a very weekend health care system. there is talk about how much of it is actually getting reported and therefore treated. to go to the point about lives and livelihoods, i want to make the point that there are countries like iran and iraq, getting a double whammy, and nigeria

of the disaster the obama administration had imposed a short term hold on offshore drilling in the gulf of mexico and in 2016 banned offshore oil and natural gas drilling in most bedroll water in the arctic and atlantica. but this was reversed less than 2 years later this executive order starts the process of opening offshore areas to job creating energy exploration. it reverses the previous administration's arctic leasing band president trump's executive order opened up 94 percent of government controlled $4.00 to $2.00 oil exploration and drilling today in the gulf of mexico alone bill some 2 and a hop 1000 and all platforms and more than 40000 kilometers of oil pipelines instead of learning from the who didn't want to horizon disaster presents from consignment who are. going to expand offer to the areas. that. we're talking about more generally and less this is an absolute wrestle. i've done research in the gulf of mexico for 20 years and i've seen before the spill and during the spill and after it you know mexico's a treasure right in our backyard. that's been devastated and nobody

in the persian gulf with the buzzing of u.s. naval air u.s. naval ships and so but i also think it's a time where countries may start taking advantage because of the focus of the united states on the coronavirus the the breakdown of bits of the entire economy and the need to get back to work and and people's jobs and people are focus inward and meantime other activities are going on we're seeing an uptick in syria the israelis have begun intensifying its amin's in the in syria against their iranian and as bala targets and we're seeing it israel now trying to coax the united states to. instigate act actions inside of iraq and order to. get a response from iran and and then we see this action of the of the threats from pump a 0 to ship and the president really to shoot out. to shoot out the small naval naval ships so it's and of course we've got china and we've got we've got $2.00 to $2.00 carrier task forces moving into the into the south china sea and probably in response to the coronavirus and the and the comments that it's chi

we've been in the persian gulf militarily for a very long time and we've had multiple ships in the gulf for decades you know the iranians and swift boats to harass our ships to take photographs things like that it's happens all the time so why is this episode different why does this episode necessitate the president of the united states threatening to start blowing things up unless it's to distract the american people from a bigger problem so you know i think this is largely occur for full of american making it's unnecessary. you know we're it's interesting too because at the same time as we're just talking about the previous segment we're also seeing this incredible pivot from not only president donald trump of democratic presidential nominee joe biden to kind of cast all of the blame for the issues of the viruses caused in the u.s. on china i hate to say it but is this also more of that kind of wags the dog style tactics of distraction you know don't blame us for your failed health care economy we can blame china and the means for you to hey just don't look internally. yeah and to sho

military says 11 vessels from iran's elite revolutionary guard king close to its ships in the gulf the u.s. called the moves provocative and response iran has stepped up the guards patrols in the region. the question of when to ease coronavirus locked on restrictions is dividing the epicenter of the pandemic us president donald trump keeps pushing a positive message he says there are signs covert 1000 has passed its peak but experts warn that moving too fast could be disastrous and gallacher is in florida with that story. after weeks of stay at home odors hundreds flocked to the reopened beaches in jacksonville florida the medical of this controversial move as essential activity even as the state hit more than 27000 coronavirus cases it's what authorities call a pathway back to normal life. but in other parts of the u.s. the scenes a very different across the country a small but growing protest movement is calling for restrictions to be eased from utah to wisconsin in both republican and democratic led states people are taking to the streets urging a return to normal life we are still

military says 11 vessels from iran's elite revolutionary guard came close to its ships in the gulf the u.s. called the move provocative in response iran has stepped up the guard's patrols in the region. a growing number of private clinics and laboratories in france offering coronavirus tests but public hospitals are a long way from offering widespread screening that could delay government plans to loosen the lockdown in the middle of next month the battle has more. in the northern french city of this private part 3 tests for corona virus using blood samples the equivalent of $30.00 people without a prescription can find out within a week if they are or have been infected the test measures antibodies that a created to help the immune system fight infection or be detected the body is in a phase of active infection which means the virus is present and antibodies are developing if the test is negative the person is either not infected or they're in the incubation period so it's too early to see the antibodies the test can also show if you came into contact with the virus a few weeks ago be

down across the gulf of mexico pushing their shot down into northern central florida will see one of the shots across cuba and across into hispaniola and that is to go on into friday some rather heavy rain developing particularly across into punishment 29 in panama city. and discover how such. communities south believe. i'd like to go to the world. i will be able to prove myself and my townsmen. and my stone. dislike chart. on al-jazeera. or where. the. others. hello again understands your take and a reminder of our top stories this hour u.s. president donald trump has signed the executive order suspending immigration to 60 days he's also dismissed the possibility of a severe 2nd wave of corona virus infections later in the year trump's comments follow well as health organization spokesperson saying that the pandemic is far from over and that in some parts of the wild outbreaks only just beginning. iran's revolutionary guard says they have successfully launched a military satellites into orbit for the 1st time and strong criticism from the u.s. which says iran space program is a cove

was conducting drill off of kuwait in the persian gulf they allege that iran's fast boats came very close to the u.s. navy ship that in fact at one point they pointed out a machine gun the u.s. taking this very seriously and as a result now with the reports of this military satellite launch into orbit the u.s. president sending this very stern tweet kimberly as we're talking right now just that the monk pumpin has been saying the u.s. will hold iran accountable for the satellite launch the question is how. and that is a very big question because the u.s. president had believed that he had got sort of to a place of military deterrence you remember those ask elations months ago that ratcheting up following the drone killing of general saloon madi the u.s. had felt that at that point things had settled down but there has been increasing ask lation not only the reports of the sort of the activity in the persian gulf but also the reports of u.s. vulnerability something that was a major concern for the united states in terms of that aircraft carrier off of one that of course had been hit hard b

she was a nurse with the navy in the gulf war. at st. mary's hospital in st.ouis, she handled high-risk pregnancies. and when a march of dimes nurse of the year -- won a march of dimes nurse of the year award last year. judy is the person we'd be looking to now, said pam lesser, her supervisor and friend. a very giving, kind, caring soul. judy wilson griffin was 63. ♪

earnings in revenue fell short delayed deliveries of their gulf stream business jets you might think itwould get more play at this point, wouldn't you think, sorkin, long gulfstream no one is -- ceos and important people need to travel. no one, no shareholder at this point will say why do you need fat cat travel at this point you got to go -- >> i don't know. it depends what industry you're in the you're laying off employees you better not be. i'm laying off employees and i'll take the private jet. >> i always believe them, you know, long before this that if they got places to go all around the middle of the country, that aren't readily accessible by, you know, by major airports and they need to go to these places,

them through the crisis the biggest oil production cut in history but album on a case of the persian gulf about to blow their wealth and just how low will oil prices go. union divided on sharing the economic cost of the pandemic why france and italy are lining up against germany and the netherlands. now sub-saharan africa could be plunged into its 1st recession in 25 years as the global health crisis brought about by the corona virus wreaks havoc many nations like nigeria angola south africa are dependent on commodities for a large chunk of trade and revenues all have been decimated as economies have ground to a halt well the world bank estimates growth could tumble to minus 5 point one percent from 2.4 percent triggering food insecurity the pandemic could cost the region as much as $79000000000.00 in lost output from falling commodity prices to a drop in tourism. the nigerian government to seeking $7000000000.00 in emergency funding from the i.m.f. and world bank its last budget assume that oil prices would be around $59.00 a barrel it's currently trading at half that right now and kenya

tensions are once again heating up in the persian gulf after a brief confrontation on the seas between the u.s. and iran which resulted in president calling for the take down of iranian gunboats that come too close rachel blevins us following the story she's joining us now from the news room with the details to this rachel what's happening there well manella president trump is now arming the u.s. navy with the shoot down a new stronger order after a close encounter with iran has increased fears of escalation in the persian gulf trump took to twitter wednesday morning writing i have instructed the united states navy to shoot down destroy any and all iranian gunboats if they harass our ship. see his warning follows an incident last week in which the us claims 11 vessels from iran's revolutionary guard came within 10 yards of u.s. navy and coast guard ships in the gulf near kuwait while the navy released footage calling the incident dangerous and provocative iran also released footage and a statement in which it accused the us of presenting a false and agenda filled narrative of the encou

doha for us some good to see you know so tell us that what impact is this all likely to have in the gulf. but it is not going to already have an impact on the oil producers it's on also going to have to have an impact on gas and other hydrocarbons as well as you remember they can fight natural gas a major export for many of the countries hair was trading at about $7.00 a barrel last october now it's below $2.00 a barrel so it is going to have a wider impact these oil dependent economies have written their budgets based on a certain projection of oil and a less than well in the negative obviously not that projection so it is what they're facing right now is a perfect storm which the oil market in the energy markets in general have never seen you have a glut of war and where there is so much production which started off with the war between saudi arabia and russia and then on the other side you have a slowing down global economy with nearly $30000000.00 barrels a day being wiped off of our on demand and that is something that none none none of the markets are ready for because it's not jus

traditionally, governors are accustomed to -- when a hurricane strikes the gulf coast, when wildfires strike the west, when flooding or tornadoes hit in places like indiana, you are accustomed to have a declaration of emergency approved, then resources flow from fema. in this situation, as we deal with a nationwide declaration and an epidemic, what we have explained to governors is what president trump directed. that we leave no stone unturned to find resources around the country and world, including ventilators. and we make sure as the coronavirus epidemic impacts individual areas, that the health-care care workers and families and patients impacted have what they need when they need it. and what i would say to the people of kansas is that we are looking at their numbers every day just as in the case of every