meanwhile the european union has joined canada mexico australia brazil and south korea in winning exemptions to u.s. tariffs on steel and it comes as e.u. leaders gather in brussels for a two day summit expected to focus on trade and competitiveness. in our other top story school children one jerry is northeastern borno state are being kept at home because of fears of more mass kidnappings by book a rum government closed all boarding schools in rural areas and definitely last week it follows a series of attacks by the group and the kidnapping of one hundred ten girls from. a state last month hundred five of them were freed on wednesday and have been taken to a jephthah medical checks syrian opposition fighters have surrounded one of the last rebel and near the capital damascus in an evacuation deal with the government thousands of fighters and civilians are now leaving the town of harasta in eastern guta other rebel factions are still holding on to two separate pockets of territory one of the groups has just agreed a cease fire and donald trump says he's open to testifying before

a special council is investigating russian interference in the two thousand and sixteen election the us president spoke just hours after his keeper the lawyer announced he was resigning john dowd had reportedly clash with trump over his handling of monday's investigation whereas the headlines of the stream is coming up next on al-jazeera. and here in the stream now live on you tube the united nations estimates said by

twenty twenty five two thirds of the world's population will face water stress conditions but for some people living in cape town south africa the struggle for water is all it ever known. social their. former cabinet minister. it's estimated that water scarcity impacts more than forty percent of the world's population you don't have to tell that to the people living in cape town they know what the struggle for water is like in fact an extreme drought could force the city to run out of water completely the crisis has already taken a toll on cape town tourism and agricultural industries it's also highlighting the gap between rich and poor and joining us to discuss this in cape town zambia limburg is a city councilor and chairperson of the water resilience advisory committee should

know your highness' an activist with the water crisis coalition michael hilo another member of the water crisis coalition and an organizer with the general industries workers union of south africa and kevin winter lead researcher with the urban water management research group welcome everyone to the streams. when we last visited this issue on the stream it was in december it looked like this is cape town facing a future without water the local government was warning of an impending daisy or zero may eighteenth by when the city was projected to be without water since then that campaign seems to have been scrapped is day zero still reality. well there are many factors that influence stays and we have been able to achieve quite a significant amount of things that have influenced days are moving out quite substantially to see our consumption has dramatically reduced over the last six weeks in itself

we've reduced our consumption by close to one hundred million inches of water and this is massively altered the days of marketing which is to me to day zero to be in early april one of the other factors that have dramatically shifted to zero out is the fact that the agriculture sector has not fully utilized their allocation who are geological season and they're no longer drawing from the dams which has declined the rate at which dam evils are dropping and in addition to that we've received also from the one pharmacist the asian and that water supply has not reached stance within the city's municipal boundaries and have provided additional supply poor about a full month period all of these factors including that peroration enables declining has shifted to zero out to the point where we turn to see that there will

be a day zero scenario in this particular year michael you heard what it sounds like has gone right we don't see a day very a day and zero scenario this year what do you make about. the. what the. key times the. plane was about to air.

right so i haven't taken that in mind take a look here this is what the government is putting out a guide to fifty liters or less per day this is what that looks like ten liters for laundry for shower nine for flushes five for house cleaning you see cooking you see drinking it's all laid out there we can see what the guidelines are looking like but not too long ago the government was asking people to cut down their usage to eighty seven leaders per person what's next in a fifty liters enough is this going to get the job done is that we don't hit that day's hero. well the teachers is really tough indeed and it's not easy for researchers to operate at that level and of course the fifty liters is aimed at resistance and it doesn't really touch as seriously to the sixers in the

economy many of them out try to make different arrangements to and manage their waters bring down the cost of their water but there will demand as be placed almost entirely the burden of the world demand in the at the moment that city is suggesting is all about the juicy was a demand and only around would just demand at the moment productions pull up a tweet here from melissa melissa says i used to wash my hair three times a week now one time i can't shower every day anymore i wash my laundry even last i cook differently to use less water i think we need to change the sewer system to use the water that's a through one example that he gave but his are thriving her everyday life chanel you're joining us on the phone what is your everyday life look like. oh well firstly i am from the cape and you know what happened to me recently about

a week ago. actually it started actually last year when my my my late grandfather passed away my gran we leave a mess the go eighteen thousand then for pensioners to play and what happened was that go to our schools because of an underwater leak so in the guy flats it's basically a teaching the way many displaced people are from colonial times a past example have been shifted like everyone knows about africa the big gap between the rich and the poor. thing down to you funny stuff economic issues and one of the issues you know the message. and what happened was my my grandmother the freezing incense the bill you know on the you know so being being how can i think going to the tomb of a lot of a husband and was expected to go if not if we find out what did you

find or the increase of cattle in the state that we also find a situation which. the fact is so i'm not working for example last week. we had we had issue with the pact system and we had to switch our water supply so then see what chanel it seems to be describing there might be summed up in this comment we just got livelier year to jakarta post says is this a natural phenomenon or a result of mismanagement is it true that scarce water has been directed to farming so she's talking about your perch an hour earlier talking about leaks a mass of water bills when the water wasn't actually being used and what do you make of criticisms like that. well the struggle as a result of climate change treaty received three years of below average levels of rainfall twenty seventeen was the worst level of rainfall in recorded history and

this is obviously a place great amount of strain on damage capacity but in respect to chanel's point the city of cape town actually has the lowest water loss rate in south africa at food hundred percent which is on par with international standards the average water loss rate in south africa amongst other municipalities is around thirty six percent and the city has been able to a juice of its water loss rate to this extent because our investment in infrastructure through maintenance and upgrading programs and this is a program that we are committed to ensuring we roll out to further minimise will tell us within our system because of our water tomorrow management and water conservation programs over the last year decade and a half we've been able to become the more efficient in operations with the lowest water use per capita in cape town and this is

a record for south africa as well and this is what we aim to pulled on but in respect to things such as leaks of private properties. it is an underground equal your property and you require systems for painting and the amount of water that's been lost the city does have a rebate program where you can make application particularly full of wonderful groups and pensioners this isn't is provided we also cognizant of how water tariffs are costed and charged particularly for poor hostels so for poor indigent hustles all to israel charge in the first six thousand liters per month and in this way we ensure that we are who and how we cost charge for this way six of us then pay you are not prepared us not lack of international community are not. this they see you know as being designed and created when the privatization of

water that this has been pretty healthy up to the cape flats and the townships for many years you know we have social economic inequalities that is not being advocated by a government who does not care about our constitution or that. you know we have a leak that now will in fact we have water management devices that you know about that are being illegally installs and forced upon the poor there's a water management devices i hope you can speak to that not everyone you know about what what the plans are with this was a management devices now only allowing three and then thirteen because of water to our household according to government which has to be people in it however the hustles in the case lessen the townships have about the same class individuals these water management devices do not even have the endurance of the leaders because some puzzles only have access to sanity liters of water once the work to

stop the water is pumped to make an daisy you know on a daily basis for people these management devices are not even being if they be is approved we also have evidence of thousands of these devices are doing but i think what should we really expect a little down here i'm largely done speaking it's still down as michael chanel has now finished finish finish up your arsonist let's bring michael in go ahead chanel thank you so much so basically what happened to the the waste of the millions of fans then put out with water management devices that's being installed and forced upon the poor you know once the water stopped completely it's basically making people prone to die from curable diseases people are dying from either because these are human like all the added jobs are applied to project. what the workers attribute affected communities but what do you live.

in be a community and profit in the world priests accused of going to demanding that these workers will work or. are actually where would they get their own work out of the people that are being provided to. structure. while. not. so yes you can but i want to share with our audience what it is that we're talking

about because we're talking about these water management devices people may have no idea what we're talking about take a look at this tweet for us from melissa she says poor people are more likely to have water management devices that restrict water supply they're also more likely to have multiple households on one property so you might find ten people using three hundred fifty liters a day and here is a look at what that device looks like this is pulled up from the city of cape town's web site this device replaces a standard water meter and it's programmed to provide a daily allocation of water for you to use on your own property except as some say in the townships and outskirts of cape town there may not be running water in people's homes and they go to stations outside of their homes to fill up their water sensi i know you want to respond to the criticism go ahead. so i think it's incredibly irresponsible to make statements to the effect that the city has created this water crisis and that the water crisis was created two privatized water

firstly the responsible for water provision is that of the national department of water and sanitation you know supposedly such as cape town are only responsible for to kill aging water and treating them to drinking standards but you're just a good little artillery ukraine panetta cannot ever think that is the municipality that you know nothing much clearer than i have the answer and then we'll be back here but had the crimea i did listen nation to which and also with respect i would resist the same respect so the city of cape town has gone above and beyond its constitutional mandate in responding to the stuff if the structure was some fabrication of the municipality of cape town then we wouldn't have seen the national government to clear a national disaster in respect to the dropped the national department a couple of days ago to create a national disaster for the drought because there is a drought both in the eastern cape that you stink and the cocoa and the city has

a cape town has implemented water restrictions in order to manage the existing water fabi to be been rolling out to just like that ocean devices for the last decade and a half and we're not the municipality that has been in school to demand management devices durban has been doing exactly the same particularly in response to their drought which they coude to just over a year ago and these water to mark mentioned devices or sit in line with the current or existing water restriction levels and if they are more humans on a public not able to make a ition and now is a are just so i hear what you're saying then b. i hear disagreeing but i want to bring kevin back in here but this week we got this from solar energy per schools he writes water league. have been a problem ever since i could walk our infrastructure is old and outdated we need to hold our municipalities and leaders to high standards that standard being that we deserve better what's your take on mismanagement vs the drought vs how this water

management device it was working. yeah well i'm a scientist and so i look at numbers and i'm looking for the evidence so when i hear the stories and these are not the first time stories about complaints of the what is a man management devices these restricted device devices and also very importantly the stories are what i think is a national tragedy in what is happening to workers in the surrounding farm and the areas where there is put production going on there the disconnect the real effect is here in what i've been writing done as the conversations been going is is that the questions that i need to be are asking here and so while these words of mine management systems then there are more of them from what i'm told are approved by a significant bureau of standards so they're not just in need to asses it putting place there and if there is failure what little or failure are we talking about and

what kind of failure are they responsible for for the result is resulting in the in the malfunction of there and so this is the first questions i would ask i think everyone has to start recognizing that we do have to meter what are and the slogan that i use often is if you don't measure something you can't measure it and so for the city to be able to have no meters and nobility to measure the water is extremely serious but i think when we come to our what's fair and what becomes extremely difficult for these meters to operate in homes with air and water and for people and then there has to be a means by which that can be addressed and so i think there's a lot of wiggle around the fairness and the many cation of the constraint it's not that i want to know the knowledge was able to make up that you should have read list. and. to.

well have. progress the. quality. of the. attribute. attribute. you know. reading that. out. loud to the. jobs. from the tribe that work at. work is up to you not. to provoke because what we see. is that the problem that really put government. provincial government. shifting the. problem

shoulders of reading and written. michael i want to share with our audience a look at what you're talking about to give us live it more contacts i pulled up this headline on my screen here cape town farmers laid off amid a water crisis and that's we're looking at some thirty thousand seasonal farm workers who now have no jobs because of this crisis i hear your criticisms there and then i want to give you a chance to respond but first i want you to have a listen to this video comment we got someone from johannesburg this is a shot. they had three plant injustices registering in this community is the first based on heritage inequality in a part a job refused the day zero campaign of the da government is essentially squeeze these poor communities they carry the cost of this crisis the second injustice is the failure of the state at all three levels as the climate crisis failed state and these communities are very in the brunt of it and finally the decisions made by

trump and other petrol leads to continue extraction and use of fossil fuels as contribute to to this crisis as well as. so the particular drought to spain incredibly severe for all of the uses within the eastern cape supply system the city of cape town is one of many uses that draw from a collection of dancers at the western cape supply system at the beginning of the hydrological year the national department of water and sanitation imposed first a restriction targets on all uses that draw from the eastern cape supply system and so the city was given a forty five percent restrictions target by the national department of water and sanitation and agriculture and received a sixty percent restrictions target which meant that they needed to operate with sixty percent less water than the previous year and this has had massive economic

impacts pull those farmers many of the farmers operate outside of the city of kept out municipal boundaries but they depart the provincial government of the recent cape has put in place support programs to assist the start was during these times it has that everybody and their carefully are failing section was a shock you want to cart your area if a protection you're speaking about agriculture so let us speak about the aquifers and i'll speak about the political you what income area that the thirty and the provincial government is giving go in there or is not even wanting to protect the fallopian what a cultural issue which is that the charge down that has so much supplies ability to both that being sold and this the beauty of it is basically they can mean this piece of land or ten thousand or pick this up around with mining and it is also a plaything with the bolding of this eventually so why is the government not

detecting agriculture even wanting to go ahead with mining forces on the land but with a bench already zoning on. why is that. the thing they're taking and because while you know. so i hear you talking about al first i want to bring up this tweet we just got from this mine who says how does one manage a crowd of twenty thousand people lining up at a collection point for water how will the authorities police the collection of water from natural springs and what happens when the senate bails or diseases break out so kevin he's raising all kinds of questions there but the point about the natural springs the first others have raised the point of nation are any of these potential solutions that you find in type thing. yeah i think there is a program which is out and that's rapes and then he's starting to really get going with it the city of cape town it was shown the national government to some extent

and this is where moment twin cities actually take the lead and expect you know national government to follow us it doesn't really take the lead in circumstances like this because national government just operates austin has and doesn't do things at the appropriate steps this is the moment when we start to look to new government systems and the city is going to step up to the plate to actually take much war and a stronger leadership and to withdraw it south from the idea that national government is the only one that supplies water and what it does come from a variety of sources and ultimately if we are in to a city which becomes long more job prone then disowned this is the only way we're going to be able to survive. with the size of the silicon i'm going to or as the autocrat of coalition we completely reject the selling nation if our nation is extremely expensive it has that the mental impacts on both social and climate and the ecosystem so for example if you look at the selling nation you expecting the

suck out of the ocean what about the toxin what about the toxins these are the nation is extremely. delicate hot as i have to because if there i know that this allegation is a whole other topic that we can go into a partially we are out of time our thanks to then now michael and kevin for joining us for this conversation and of course it will continue online on twitter hash tag eighty three with a last time to take care. carcinogen

. and then reported on the. u.s. and british companies have announced the biggest discovery of natural gas in west africa but what to do with these untapped natural resources is already a source of heated debate nothing much has changed they still spend most of the days looking forward to for the dry river beds like this one five years on the syrians still feel battered or even those who managed to escape their country have

been truly unable to escape the war. what makes this moment to this era we're living through so unique this is really an attack on truth itself is a lot of misunderstanding but distortion is one of what free speech is supposed to be about the context it's hugely important to have a right to publish if you have a duty to be offensive or provoke that's all about it as people do setting the stage for a serious debate up front at this time on al-jazeera. i really felt liberated as a journalist was. getting to the truth as i would that's what this job. oh i maryam namazie in london here are the top stories on al-jazeera u.s. president donald trump has signed new trade measures against china

a direct shot in a.