he can only when is it enough plus tech companies. so once high fly is known best as a ditching technology stocks counting the cost on al jazeera. ah, my la moda, one documentary is nice. i want to die ah, on out his ear. ah, i'm hammered jim roman door. ha, these are the top stories on al jazeera in libya, at least 23 people have been killed during battles in the capital. tripoli between the armed groups backing rival administrations. the violence is raising fears that the country could return to a civil war. malik traina has this report from tripoli. smoke in the skies of the capitol, holmes hospitals and businesses hit with heavy artillery. across several districts

and tripoli. clashes erupted early saturday between rival armed groups, the fighting occurred in densely populated areas and continued into the night. the cautious have been ongoing since last night. they stopped for a bit and then continues. many of the victims were ordinary people, tired, scared, emotionally, and physically drained. these people were trapped in their homes for hours before they were pulled out. city officials are calling for an end to the violence to the civil society. institutions in tripoli strongly condemned the armed classes in the city and hold the participation politics responsible for setting civilian, blood, intimidating, security, destroying, private and public property. there are 2 governments who claim to be in charge of the country. one recognised by the international community based in tripoli,

the other drawing its power from the country. the has him as rise, says the only way forward is for elections to be held. and what day, mentoring with an ad got it is the residence of tripoli who are paying the price. they are the victims. the population of tripoli is nearly 3000000 people and they don't want either government. they want to vote for whom they want empower elections. of the only solution. things have calmed down since the fighting began, but people here still fear that libya may be on the verge of a full scale conflict. now trina al jazeera triplet, unprecedented flooding across pakistan has now killed more than 1000 people since mid june. more than 30000000 people have been affected. and what pockets don's climate minister has called a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions. seen buzz, robbie has this update. where i'm standing right now is really

a snapshot of what's happening all over the province of sin. flood survivors are fleeing the affected areas and they are setting up camps make shift in at the water's edge in places all over the country. on the 1st piece of dry land they can find. now just over my shoulder is a small group of tanza small encampment locally. they're calling this a 10 city. but these are barely tense, they're very, very rudimentary shelters. we spoke to people there who say that they are suffering with skin diseases, illnesses, dehydration, hunger, thirst. they have no villages to go back to because their villages are now simply gone and neighboring afghanistan floods are causing widespread destruction. to find sheer in the northeast is the latest province to be swamped by a heavy rainfall that was to come

a mulatto more than 1000000 families need urgent aid from foreign countries such as close 10 and food. the european union foreign policy chief says, serbia and constable have settle the dispute. serbia will abolish the need for people with constable ideas to have entry documents and turn. costco has agreed to let serbs travel across the border using their own id cards for you and has condemned. and if you will be in government, air strike had killed at least 4 people, including 2 children. on friday. unicef says the attack had a kindergarten in mckelly, the regional capital of to guy, the government has denied targeting civilians. prince president emanuel micron wrapped up his 3 day visit to algeria without the 2 nations agreed on cooperating on energy security and a joint commission to examine their shared history. those are the headlines. the news continues here on al jazeera after the bottom line.

oh i hi, i'm steve clements and i have a question. this president joe biden have a strategy for the middle east. and if so, what is it? let's get to the bottom line. ah, joe biden made his 1st trip to the middle east visiting israel. saudi arabia emmy occupied palestinian territories for decades. the regions really been under firm american control. but more recently, china and russia had become more present and present throughout the region in many middle eastern and north african countries, as america's own engagement seems to slowly fade. so what are the results of his 4 day visit to the region and what can we expect on issues ranging from a deal with iran, nuclear weapons, to the prospects of a palestinian israeli piece deal today we're talking with steven cook,

senior fellow at the council on foreign relations, an author of false dawn, protest, democracy and violence in the new middle east. even it's great to be with you and i want to play for you a short sound by a president biden on this trip. let's listen to the president. we will not walk away, leave a vacuum to refill by china, russia. we're will seek to bill on this moment with active principle, american leadership. and then at the, at the end of this, the president says, and the united states is not going anywhere. now typically when somebody is making it, you know, big declaration that they're not going anywhere there usually means that there's fears that they are leaving. what's, what's going on with the u. s. in the, in the region. well, 1st of all, thanks for having me. and i think that the, the biden administration really hasn't decided what it's pastor is in the middle east after now, 18 months in office. you'll recall that when bitin 1st took the oath of office,

there was lots of discussion including from senior members of his administration about de emphasizing the middle east secretary state, tony blinking, talked about spending more time on other regions in the world. and that the middle east had taken up a lot of resources of the united states of the previous 20 years. what they didn't anticipate, whereas that there were going to be jill political and domestic political shocks that were going to drive president biden back to the middle east. and his visit to saudi arabia, in particular, had everything to do with russia's invasion of ukraine and a spike in oil prices. and thus the spike in gasoline prices for american consumers at the pump. first, the administration came in saying that the me that the middle east isn't so important. now it's saying it is important and we're going to stay. i think what the actors in the region, the cut there is the saudis, the morality is the israelis egyptians. they want more than just words. they want proof. they want actions at the united states actually is going to stay in is going to be an anchor of stability and security in the region right now as

a result of the president's visit. they don't seem convinced. okay, i think you and i have been at this now for decades. i've been reading reading, steven cooks books and council on foreign relations papers. thank you. and, and i think that this, the sense i have is that when america wanted to do something in the middle east, that, that the big anchor nations in that region largely fell into line to day. it feels as if you know, that, that whole kind of quid pro quo, even the transactions are up for grabs, that saudi arabia is looking as much to china and russia to hedge its bets against the united states. are the big stakeholder countries you've written about like egypt, like saudi arabia, the other, you know, the main weather vanes in the middle east looking at the u. s. as the great power and the way they did 2 decades ago. definitely not. um lets keep in mind that between the defeat of saddam hussein's forces after the invasion of kuwait in 1990 in 1991. and then 6 months later, the fall of the soviet union,

up until very recently, the united states was the only major external power in the middle east. it could drive events in the region, the saudis, the egyptians, even his railways, didn't really have another option. so suddenly, over the course of the last 5 years, you have a return of the russians to the region and you have increasing investment on the part of the chinese and increasing chinese presence in the region way back in the 1990 s. the chinese were barely even present. now they are major, major actors in the region and the saudis, egyptians israelis in a moratti's look at the chinese and say, hey, there's a lot of opportunity here. we're not entirely convinced that the united states is going to play that role, that it once did. and we want to have the russians and the chinese at the table, so that as a result of the president's visit, the saudis didn't say ok, we're gonna open the spigot and let the oil flow. they said, look, we have an agreement with the russians through opec plus and market conditions will

demand, how much oil we put on the market. it's very different from the kinds of things that we've seen from the saudis in the past. so it's a remarkable thing to think about russians in the region to think about russian troops in libya, russian advisors in egypt. and i knew that were always russian activities in syria . but there were sort of big limits to where they could go. what's rushes grand strategy in the middle east? well, russia is not necessarily interested in the middle east because of the middle east, per say. what russian president vladimir putin is after is to weaken the united states in the west. and the middle east is adjacent to europe and the united states has been the major actor in the region. so by intervening and syria and rescuing bashar are said, he made an impression on other leaders in the region. in contrast to the way in which they viewed president obama's actions when there was an uprising in egypt in which after just a few days, the president nice. they started talking about america's 30 year ally in egypt

about a transition from power ferocity, mubarak that difference weather days supported asada not made an impression on the leaders in the major powers in the region that the russians were competent, non ideological, and making a play for leadership in the region that undoubtedly, undoubtedly those actions made the russians seem a more attractive option than united states. and suddenly the russians are selling more weaponry to the egyptians than they have since the early 19 seventies. this, saudis have struck a much better relationship with the russians ever since. ah, russia is there to stay and it is using its position not only to kind of elbow out or out maneuver the united states, although the russians hardly have the same kind of powers. the united states, but also by its presence in north african civically in libya. it poses

a threat to europe. it's able to sow distrust and concern and a division between european countries as well as between the united states and its european allies. you were one of the most, um i think pression, but also just just brilliant writers about the arab spring and egypt. what came out of on that movement? i'm just interested in what is the state of america's democracy efforts in the region? my sense is that a lot of people who stood up for their rights, their values to sort of change their course of their governments felt abandoned by the united states. that we were good at, offering promises and, and ra, support about democracy. but at the end of the day, we're missing an action. tell me where i'm wrong. well, no, we're not missing in action. i think that i'm a, the, the changes that had happened in the arab world were truly inspiring. but when the united states stepped up to help,

there was only really so much that the united states could do. changing these society is changing, the political parameters in these countries is really up to the people within these countries. as i point out, my book faust on those people who rose up ford, demanding rights and democracy. they were up against very, very powerful forces who were determined not to allow them to succeed with very little that the united states could do in order to prevent that from happening. all that being said, ever since president trump came to office, the united states has evinced very, very little official interest in supporting those voices around the region that want to live in work democratic and open countries. president biden spoke very forcefully about american values during his campaign in the early stages of his administration. but it's been mostly rhetorical. the administration has been precious little on the question, even of just basic human rights. if you look at the repression that people are

forced to endure around the region and how basically silent this administration has been, i think the calculation has been there's really no missing why so many people were frustrated with the saudi trip because it was very clear that president biden did not want to do a president, trump did, and make saudi arabia the, his 1st visit outside the country and to go and not address human rights issues. and so he ended up going with a lot of photoshop pictures of, you know, president biden sitting there with a gas can in hand. but when he brought up jamal car shoji and his murder as we know by agents of the saudi government and, and according to our ca, at the direct instruction of mohammad been some on been some on and others basically said, hey, are you, you know, this, this is this is ridiculous, look at abu ghraib, look at your record in human rights in the region. and so where is that? is that visual, which i mean, we used to talk about the importance of abu ghraib and how it was going to be

a terrorism recruiter. with your mind, the american brand and credibility on these issues is that still something in the minds of many in the arab world, that it doesn't give us standing to talk about human rights. we don't have a lot of standing to talk about humor. it's not only because of our rape, but because of the questions we have here in the states about the status of our own democracy in there's a sense that we need to get her to like january sick, january 6, toxicity in this country, proximity, the polarization. the questions about the integrity of our elections are things that observers from other parts of world and in particular in the middle east, are watching and find it. hey, disturbing that the united states would lecture them about human rights and democracy in change when united states hasn't got its own house in order that is really hampering our ability even if the administration was interested in this issue. but i will tell you that from the very beginning,

president biden painted himself into a corner that was very hard for him to get out of because there was always going to be a time where he was going to need saudi arabia. and it was important for him to speak out about the murder of jamal showcase. but by saying i won't deal with my mom had been summoned by saying we are not going to sell weapons to the saudis, no matter what, by basically closing off avenues of dialogue with the saudis, we pushed the saudis away. and then at a moment of need, the saudis were able to make the prisoner, i'd say, to look quite weak. and that he did look quite weak when he showed up in rod for those meetings with the crown prince and other saudi officials who didn't in the end do what the president had wanted to do, take accountability for the american rights record, pumped more oil. ah, a and slowly move away from the russians and the chinese, none of those things have happened. i mean,

it's remarkable in the strip that president biden's goal of lining up allies against the russian invasion of a sovereign nation. it's her twin ukraine. he basically came back with nothing, i kept thinking, well, maybe it's going to come out and maybe in one or 2 weeks. so it doesn't look as reactive to president puts right. but virtually nothing has happened in terms of winding that up. has this got to be one of the most ineffective trips by a u. s. president to region trying to get, you know, allies to support us? well, it does seem to be that it is all been one way that the united states has essentially compromised its principles. ah, the united states is selling patriot missile batteries to the saudis, with the saudis are not upholding their end of whatever deal that was struck in react when it came time and august. 3rd, where the opec plus meetings, the saudis said, we're going to release $100000.00 more barrels, oil, minuscule, minuscule amount. we'll see what happens in the, in the fall. but it does not seem that the saudis are willing to

consider the president's position, but say diplomatically, oh, look, this is a little bit of an unfair question because you've already said there is no coherent biden's strategy toward the middle east. but if there were a coherent bite and strategy toward the middle east, how important is israel palestine to that? because israel palestine is a feature of the region just like toronto feature the region. there are these issues the region. i can't tell. i mean that the senator biden, i knew the vice president biden, i knew, would never think of not talking about occupied territories and settlements. but you didn't hear much of that when he went to israel. and so are we ah, bypassing that or just putting on on hold to basically what, where would it fit if there was that, you know, steven cook coherent strategy in emily's, where would israel palestine being, well, what's, let's to start with the fact that the present is goals in the middle east have been quite limited. get back into the joint comprehensive plan of action, the j. c. parity durante, there we go, which, which may happen,

and to get the saudis out of yemen. postop, i think when it came to palestine and israel, the president did go to bethlehem. he did meet with my food a boss. of course the timing was terrible says after the murder of awe of serena black lay, your colleague, grant a in, in the united states sort of weasely got out of saying, well, she was murdered by israeli fire, but it was unintentional that really satisfied, satisfied no one i think when the president was the vice president, he oversaw negotiations between israelis and palestinians and came to the conclusion despite his long history of supporting the 2 states. although he's a long been a staunch supporter of israel, i think he came to the conclusion that these negotiations weren't going anywhere that he didn't wanna invest his efforts in a 2 state solution given the, the myriad problems that he has on his plate. but of course, you know, there has been a lot of progress in israel and its neighbors over the course of the last 2 years. well, i want to ask you about that. the abraham quite didn't know what it is,

i mean, and you never hear the administration talk about the brand, right? except for the that you still have this central problem that is going to continue to be a source of instability. and so, so source of importantly, societal opposition to these agreements between governments to normalize relations with israel. in the end, it may not matter, but at the same time, it doesn't help the region that this conflict remains unresolved. and in fact, maybe an resolvable at this point. so you can have a coherent, middle east strategy and sort of contain the israel palestine dimension of it is what i'm hearing you say. well, that's what i think the trump administration believed. and i think by default, that's what the biden administration please. i think that i think that the 2nd there's some exclusion of violence. and i don't mean a 4 day war between palestinian islamic jihad and the ide. yep. i mean, you know, suicidal unrest in the west bank in the gaza strip. people will start speaking

differently about it. but until then i think people have convinced themselves that there can be a lot of progress in the region without really addressing the palestinian problem or talk to me a minute about the abraham courts. because i think for most people who aren't following this region every day, the abraham accords sound like this construct, they do the, you know, it's something it was planted. they don't know if there's any fruit from it. how's it going? who's in it? is it going to expand, have relations genuinely changed between say the u. e and israel are the saudi's gonna line up? tell, tell us a little bit about that. well, let me just start by, by way of anecdote. um, in march i was in dubai and now bobby, and i could hear the sing song of hebrew. everywhere i turned the weather is in the hotel elevator in a mall or wherever i was going. i ran into his rallies in, in rome. i got on a plane, i got on a nail. all these railey airline in dubai flew over saudi territory and landed in

television in my child who retired decades. we both been and i, i never thought that that would ever happen. it was rather, it was rather extraordinary, so there has been progress. there's a lot of tourism, it's mostly in one direction. there's been a lot of link ups of business concerns, a lot of security cooperation which was already happening before the abraham accords. the indian government now once in on the abraham of court, so there has been progress. the question is, will it go beyond the current signatories? will it go beyond the u. a bahrain and rock? i don't even put sudan really in that category, given the, the instability and sudan and not really knowing what's going on there. and the big issue is, what are the saudi is going to do now. they took a modest step when the president was, was in riyadh, they are going to allow israeli airliners traveling east to india, to asia, to traverse saudi aerospace. but it strikes me that with all the kind of

speculation about the saudis being next, it's a much different context for the saudis to normalize relations with the israelis without a file resolution to the palestinian problem. then it is for, for example, the power bahrain use or the morality. i hate to be sick tearing because it's not in my nature. but is this becoming a sunni league of interest with israel versus she stand out says, is this another proxy for the iran saudi conflict, which is also in iran, western conflict and would just love to know from you as we sit, what i think is on the precipice of a possible return to the jcp away, at least that's the way things are looking right now. how does that either stir things up more or actually begin to a different track for stabilizing? well, i do, i do think it's you do have to be sick, caring because you don't want to reduce things to, you know, put on there. there's definitely down there, look what initially drove saudi m radi craney,

israeli relations that have been under table on the security front, you know, in some dark room in a basement in a man was the threat of iran that they all perceive. and importantly, going back to what we were previously talking about, the sense that the united states was not committed to their security and stability, particularly with regard to iran, that the united states was off on this idea that you could have a nuclear deal with iranians and this would begin a process of the iranians coming into the region and sharing the region and so, so they were responding really to lot of that kind of, of thinking. but of course, there are a lot of other air seats or sunni majority. i would say to you are opposed to the abraham accords because of the palestinian issue. who's going to win out here? are the benefits of normalization without settling the palestinian conflict? are they going to outweigh the opposition to it or the other way around?

so for the saudis are making it clear that those benefits will not outweigh the importance of the palestine issue, at least for saudi arabia. i know many people consult with you where, what is the state of the j. c. p. o, a. and i guess the obvious question is, you know, one of the iranian concerns which they publicly expressed is how do we have any, you know, understanding of solvency of this. if you bring in one president who wants it in the next president comes in and says dismantle it. because i mean, the truth be told the, the parties that did not live up to the agreement where the united states, not the iranian. that's right. we all know that we violated the deal that we did with them, not the iranians, and it's only so in that, in that case, how do you put that back together in any way that will survive 2024 and whoever comes out the other? well, that's right, and you know, the iranians are not alone in this. if you talk to the saudis, you talk to him rod, he's talked to israel starts rejections. they're very, very concerned about these 180 degree swings in american foreign policy. is it the j. c, p. o. is it not the juicy pa, are we important?

are we not important is oil important is all not important. i think when it comes, though, specifically to the jesse it 1st all, let me just put out on the table. i am getting very tired of trying to spitball this, you know, those you know, really aren't clocking. right. i think what we know is that the state department has said we're close, but they are a lot of hang ups that continue. and one of them is what you point out is that the iranians need some assurance that we've apparently 2 old one. okay. and, and brianna deal once again, let me ask you finally about china and china's grand strategy in the region. china seems to be in every region the world it seems to with belton road initiative. but you know, debt relations, you know, debt deals that it has around the world. china seems to be present in the way the united states used to be present around the world in the 1950s. so as you've kind of dealt with these various countries, this is china a as big a factor as i sort of feel it is. well, it's certainly the single largest investor in the region, but that doesn't make the middle east unique. it's the single largest investor in almost every other region of the world, with perhaps the exception of north america. but it even could be, ah,

it's significant in north america as well. i think, you know, we're talking ourselves into a sort of cold war 2 point oh, you're here in washington. i'm here in washington. a lot of discourse about the chinese threat. i don't actually see it so much in the middle east. yes, the chinese are investing. they want relations, but they don't want to get wrapped around the axle in the way that the united states has in the politics and. 3 security of the region, they want to benefit from the security that the united states provides, and they can have relations with all the important countries, the region to serve their interests. right? so yes, china is a rising power with a lot of ambition, but in the middle east, as of yet, they're not seeking to challenge us position. they're seeking to extract from the region what they can to pursue their economic goals, which is the continue rise of china throughout this century. steven cook, senior fellow for the middle east in north africa, counts on foreign relations. thanks so much for being with us today. to great

pleasure, be with you soon. so what's the bottom line? the middle east is full of both promise and of danger. the legacy of colonialism, superpower, proxy wars, and rivalries between leaders make the region one that struggles with its place in the world. for things to change, we need to see things like the palestine. israel stand off being resolve or relations with iran, normalizing with the rest of the world. but neither of those things have happened for decades. how would we actually know if there's progress when social and political visionaries in the middle east rise and rebuff? russia, china and the u. s. at their efforts to control and show that there's a better way forward for their citizens. then we'd know that's not to say that the great powers won't be around. they will be, and both the u. s. in china, both have a lot to offer, but as long as these powers see the region only through a military sales lens, or is a security threat or the gas station, and not for their people, their talent and the consequence of their region beyond oil and weapons they're going to get it wrong, and their strategies for the middle east,

like that of the united states the day are going to fail. and that's the bottom line. ah, the impression of an ethnic minority and man, mom goes back many jenkins. the intention was to make sure that bro hinges will no longer entitle to either a basic bright or citizenship right. al jazeera explores the history and motives behind the systematic plastic houston after a hinge and me and my exile on out just era a place like wanting to lecture artists and activists where ideas sparked and history has made to use higher up to

have 0 world tells the story of 4 iconic cafes and they're wrong in our society as part of creativity. debate. the secrets of the arrow cafe on our jazz ita, live the german don't. these are the top stories on al jazeera in libya, at least 23 people have been killed during battles in the capital tripoli between armed groups, backing rival administrations. the violence is raising fears that the country could return to a civil war. malik, trainer reports these classes erupt it early around 1 30 am local time between these rival militias and things escalated quite quickly. we saw

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