it's takes very seriously the independence of the to cheri he's made comments to that effect in the past he's made clear that he does not see the supreme court as an arm of the president the other issue that's at play here is how much difference does it make even if the trumpet ministration were accurate in its claims so when we're talking about a handful of votes in a state where the president has lost by tens of thousands of votes then it makes no material difference and the consequences of that lawsuit really don't matter that much. this is a deceiver these are the top stories democratic nominee joe biden has pulled ahead of president trump in the battleground states a pennsylvania and georgia is also in the lead in nevada trump is now really ahead in north carolina biden is urging people to be patient he says he's confident of

becoming the next president he has 264 electoral college votes 270 needed for victory. is making false claims that if only legal votes were counted he'd win the election he says legal challenges may end up in the supreme court christine salumi has more from philadelphia joe biden ahead in pennsylvania by just over $5000.00 votes that's a 10th of a percentage point still a very close race here but the ballots are continuing to be counted particularly here in philadelphia where biden has been winning 87 percent of the vote that lead is expected to expand as it does the president has been attacking the poll workers here the credibility of the county and launching legal challenges house speaker nancy pelosi has already called joe biden the president elect while lashing out at donald trump. it appears that the trump administered will use its final moments in office and the desperate last step to destroy every possible

protection for american health and well being so many people have said to me a private some of you along the way what damage do you think that trump will do between losing the election and the swearing in the inauguration of joe biden maybe you didn't phrase it quite that way but that's how i heard it and we knew that he would be up to mischief separate and apart from that trying to destroy the credibility of our elections which we criticize other nations for doing and now weighs all enemies foreign and domestic make an assault on our elections where we have one domestic. those are the headlines the news continues here on the al-jazeera inside story the boy.

he's reshaped ethiopia and want to nobel peace prize now al they often that is facing a leadership test as he starts an offensive against the taking a region so just what are the causes of tension there and is ethiopia heading for civil war this is inside story. hello and welcome to the program i'm homage to gray's leaders have dominated ethiopia's ruling coalition of ethnically based parties for decades but after all they often that became prime minister in 2018 they refused to join his single party alliance they've also resisted his sweeping reforms and in september they went

ahead with local elections defying obvious decision to suspend polls because of coronavirus he now says his patience has run out with a great he's ordered a military operation in the region after accusing the t p l f of attacking federal troops an accusation denied by the group's it's feared the feud could lead to the breakup of ethiopia and the un is calling for the escalation of tensions in elise you reports. it was business as usual in the ethiopian capital but many here are on alert as an armed conflict simmers in the north of the country but to conduct and i say even yes i love me but we're not people who fight and kill each other therefore i personally feel that the 2 great and federal governments should solve their differences through dialogue and negotiations and prioritize the interests of our nation. under good chaos creates a perfect opportunity for robbery our country needs peace i'm now sick of this in

a very disgusting time i'm telling you the truth the prime minister met launched a military offensive in the northern tigray regional accusing the opposition led local government of attacking federal troops and looting their assets in the regions ruled by the to grey people's liberation front or t p l f yes the ghats today the apostate ethiopian has stabbed ethiopia what makes this attack one of the most shocking attacks is that is viewing the ethiopian national defense forces as a foreign army i declare that we will do all we can to shame and destroy this force . be declared a 6 month state of emergency integrate and shut down electricity phone and internet services there in a statement aired on to great t.v. a regional government spokesman accuses the nobel prize winning prime minister of cowering the people of to grey into submission by force tensions between the 2

sides escalated in september went to gray went ahead with regional elections despite a ban from the federal government. postpone the polls citing the coronavirus pandemic but the t.p.o. of says he delayed them to stay in power. the t.p. l.f. dominated if the opium politics were more than 3 decades and says abby squeezed them out of the federal government when he came to power in 2018. analysts warn the conflict into gray could turn into a civil war. the stabilization and the fracturing of egypt is military to green offices particularly based integrate they may not be loyal to the federal government in terms of its efforts to the. leadership so this could lead to a. crisis. and it could also spread to the all of. the un has called on both sides to deescalate tensions and find a peaceful solution to the dispute the secretary general underlined the importance

of stability for it and the horn of africa a region with a long history of border conflicts and political unrest and they sue out to 0. all right let's bring in our guests from london our wall allo a senior lecturer at keele university and a horn of africa analyst from addis ababa is. the ethiopian minister in charge of democratization and also from london is martin ploughed a senior research fellow at the institute of commonwealth studies thank you all for joining us on the let me start with you today prime minister said that the federal military operations in the north have quote clear limited and achievable objectives where do things stand there now and what are those objectives zob loud and clear. as you meant to be aware of our northern

command base has been very good about. 30 has been looted and i don't. which is any clearer break or is that all of that with the rather always a lot of the latter so we're out of there to. make sure that the roar of lorries our politics. and. law of the land which is of course is respected so the measure is me and then our us our 2nd objective is to make sure that our citizens living 0. are living their freely without the interference of the pivotal military doing so this is objectively and as a promise that has can be stipulated the military operation of us here is meant to achieve these 2 major objectives are all just how close is ethiopia to civil war

right now. i think it'd be easy in a state of seasonal are already. well we have an ultimate confrontation between the federal government forces and forces that are loyal to the regional government the regional government that controls a lot of large swaths of territory a regional government that has sufficient resources and i miss to the kind of talk this is a civil war but just to address the points that it was making earlier that the government was forced into this this confrontation i mean to be quite honest we know that the right things are already on the wall 'd that what is coming in terms of the political confrontation between the 2 forces and the wanting to get out and now is basically an extension of the what other diaby government has been prosecuting in places like the only reason why we have here talking about other confrontation is because t.p. l.f. which runs the tickler region has an army it's contorted it's already did it has

resources that allows it to defend itself but that the evidence very clearly shows that there has already been provoked at the military deployment on the border so if t. p.l.f. as if your government claiming now tries to loot for example the resources of the northern command it's probably because it's so that's what is coming and that's what it is and that's because there have been types of use of force against them martin so what are the reasons for the conflict and why has it escalated so much was the tipping point for all this the holding of the election. i think that was the immediate cause in a sense you can't hold an election in an area where the part of your country where the federal government says you can't hold that election that it's illegitimate and if you go ahead with it it's a direct challenge to the state but they perhaps even more directly when the

federal government attempt to send a military commander to the north to take control of the army the grahams basically told him to go home that he wasn't going to be allowed out but if you go a little bit further back that you see really the disintegration of the system of government it was brought about in 1901 when the grains took control of the central government and they brought about a system of ethnic federalism which basically left them controlling through a series of proxies all the various regions and the peoples of ethiopia and that gradually fell away until you get the election of prime minister and once that happened it open a pandora's 'd box and all sorts of ethnic tensions exploded that again i you were eager to jump in and respond to some what are well it said please go ahead. the way

i want to. correct that as it's ongoing operation in today's very long. if one is too important what's happening it's even without a subpoena a distinct a sense of the term carries that museum a weight off and want to between 2 between people the common people which is the case here this is a conflict between federal government that is trying to appoint or of not integrate in iraq i mean to do into that is trying to to. keep the good people of the great away from the rest of the country by way of massacring looting banks and so on so this is not any modicum of to civil war. and this is not an extension of what is happening you know to me our somewhere as you know we are trying to make it here for democratic success against all odds as the reform has brought about a number of challenges and as a country that has been out there looking for a democratic a possible democratic government we know what this brings about so. what's

what's happening in iran me out in the south this is a normal challenge and the way we are responding to the challenge is we believe the right way to do like there is no this kind of attack are going to start on our military bases. or in. the south so this is not a close this is not an extension of what's happening in order me around the south and he's not a little in any way a civil war this is simply the diplomatic route again is this. again is a move by the by the to payless. whenever our army makes its way in than a shower in some other part of the region now people are coming out in mass and then well coming out and it shows that the people of the are not behind this. on out of the northern command bid it would be interesting it's really interesting

to hear that the minister responsible for democratization what he was just said. the pike minister dissolved the former governing e.p. added if party and it created a new party that does a lot of reflect existing fault lies in the country that does not reflect existing social cleavage is or the kind of predominant mode sort of organizing and mobilization that exists in the country he changes the party in a very rushed way in december of last year by in may he realized that there is no way that that party could we anything or example either competitively. so the prime minister uses the term because an emergency relation to corbett to postpone the election now after essentially eliminating every kind of. powerful or for a middle political adversary within or b i which is the most significant region that eliminating jailing everybody the

prime minister is saying now we can go for elections in those and has just a case in which is quite a bit has not been as well been dealt with the numbers are going up more people are dying so so you can see that the difference between these 2 forces is ultimately political is ideological it's ideological in the sense that we have a prime minister that is determined to impose his own vision of the future on this european people he wants to make that you're going to again an idea which is opposed by a significant majority in that country and you have on the other hand the people who are opposed to salvage it now in terms of keeping unless i have to say that the people left who was the architect of the kind of political settlement mismanaged the project they dishonored the project that it was a member of the party he has been idle for the party for a long period of time he knows the situation the question is not so much that he

p.l.s. is here some kind of. say but the want itself is very much a reflection of the ideological difference between the 2 actors and it should not have morphed into i'm a confrontation of the sort in the reasons that the government is giving is really not the real reason behind the one and martin i want to take a step back here for a moment because the the to take i'm sorry i will get i will get back to you as soon as i've asked martin another question and i'll give you a chance to respond i know you want to respond to martin and also to some what all is saying let me just ask martin this question 1st martin i want to take a step back as i was saying you know the to grants have held a great deal of power. since 1991. since prime minister abbay has come to power has he sidelined the t.p.i. left or the to grand or has he just attempted to redistribute power among ethiopia's various ethnic groups no i mean he has definitely sidelined the grains

and they did they feel that i mean very much so but i mean you know there was a very good point made by one of my colleagues and he said that the government's argument this is a just war 'd comes down to a very specific claim that ethnic conflict and political violence since april 2018 has occurred because the t.p.o. left that he gran's have planned and executed it to win this argument concrete evidence will have to be made public and that is really the heart of what they're having to show if they believe if the prime minister of be believes that there is direct evidence that the grounds have been behind every single one of the problems that they have been across the country let him show it one more challenge list let the ethiopians and the to gran's allow reporters independent reporters both from the from ethiopia and from leeds national community to go up to the front

lines and witness what's going on for themselves and end the cutting off of telecommunications the to great let information flow then we'll begin to know what's really going on are exotic please go ahead i know you want to jump in before here's your chance to respond. ok i want to 1st 2nd what i would have said you know if you had only if i were you saying that the prosperity party the new established party which is a continual practice in some sense is established by the prime minister this is very wrong the prime this is part and parcel of the effort to was to change this into prosperity party so it is not only the prime minister's vision it is a shared vision among the rank and file of the prosperity party and i will said the difference between developed and prosperity party is that a radical difference that's very wrong is our starting our northern command is that starting our soldiers and i don't recall difference it can never be the case it is simply an attempt by the terrorist group to impose its will on the on the on our

military base which ajax it is call it time and they can call to do it in a sort of this sense. and prosperity party is stablish in a way that allegations that the problems here the problems in the country it's aware of the fault lines and and then did the way our program is designed is in a way the soles of our long standing problems if you cared if program would mean to solve our longstanding problems you could have solved what we are seeing is a part because if you had this didn't solve our problems it simply wasn't our postpone it some other time and. a little also said that there lection was the election was postponed. for the wrong reasons that's that's been a don't you know 50 plus countries have postponed election due to copy 19 indeed it

was not our will we want to go out with their action and compete compete openly but it is up to the national nationalist level to do saw the national product board failed because it ethiopia is not ready for election so we were to follow suit we were part of the members of this parties who said. who oppose the decision of the national power board you know naturally thought i was chaired by but to them big and on a position figure and nobody can cost and her credibility and this is the more credible than any of us so he's this is not our will this is the we of the national electoral vote and we were mean to accept it and now you know cop it has become a way of life you don't have a proof that it will go away someday we will never nobody has approved will be able to get the vaccine anytime soon so we cannot postpone it even if the g.o.p. if people realize i was for and for a limited number of time for an undetermined number of times and even now which is

not up to us the national set of what came up with the solutions that since we have learned a lot since we have come to know how to live with the cockpit then we can go ahead with the election and make it happen in 9 months time so and we have something organized to the decision our national board together with the parliament that they lie on think what our will is i. founded and it's not this is that is not this is again this is on the ground all right as i think i can see now i want to i want to talk about what martin said and i cannot talk about where you know we're starting to run out of time let me let me get back to you with another question in a few minutes you can you can respond to what martin said but i want to go to our now because he only wanted to jump in and respond to some of what you were saying just now go ahead are well it's astonishing that people like to go 'd to the prime minister would tell us what he saw wrong with the t.p. 3 here but with the care of the free gift this people were an intel park or the

e.p.a. today every day that he was one of the ideologues the prime minister he was one of the people he will administer he was responsible for one of the security agencies in that country now it is easy having the separate in that region now to say that god is even has a disorder the. constitution was not committed to democratize nation what was the reason that we have to believe that the people who are now to leave the country are actually committed to democracy mission when we see on the ground taxes that are completely the opposite of what they say that he said the electoral board is independent there is no evidence to show that they look for bodies after the independent the prime minister is in control of the government and most of the things that are happening in the country out of happening precisely because he missed money the transitional process in this month of the transitional process to say that while he was given a very specific mandate when he came to power i think it's important to understand that this time it was not elected that he was selected by the party after

a popular protest by the or more use for citizen prime minister to resign when he was selected by his party was given a very specific very limited mandate which is to leave the country to democratize through transition to democracy was building political consensus and promoting national consolation that was the monies that he was given and instead of doing that the prime minister basically presented himself as somebody who called a fresh minded from the electorate and he started making interventions that have a constitutional implication he wanted to request if you're going to stay if you wanted to push the political settlement in a different direction that is what is the core of the problem that we see now but in terms of this violence that is being blamed i guess the p.l.f. and other forces i think it's important to highlight that while one cannot rule out that people have might have an interest in instigating violence at the same time

there are reasons to believe that the government might be behind some of the violence that we see. when a family for example a significant number of people were killed security forces were simply standing there and what did they say that we have not been instructed to intervene now as somebody who grew up in ethiopia i know that it is a country where that kind of law and order culture prensa did security forces would ask a lead one to enforce law and order even when they are not on duty so when you look at a bill to such as that when you look at for example the way in which the recent violence in the world. has been suspended by the government there are reasons to suspect that the government may be behind it about this but i'm not saying that there is a clear evidence that when they accuse in 11 other forces they are expected to come forward with evidence so that people would be able to judge but they're also resist to suspect that the government and maybe we had some our let me let me just start

interrupt you but i was arctics been trying to get in a point he wanted to respond to something martin said as arctic please go ahead but please be mindful we don't have much time left and i'd like to try to get martin start on what you have to say about his response earlier as well go ahead ok one thing well one thing i want to get a straight corrected is we haven't we are not the ones that are interrupted the telecommunication connectivity to correct it is it appears for jim. it's a paradox that interrupted telecom has connectivity and the government has no problem subscribing itself to an independent review and we have been building. for that but i also want to respond to what our has been saying you know yes we are we're part of the region but we the prime minister and other people other officials including myself asked for our people asking our people for an apology and we were given the chance to get our. sled and the

difference the difference between us and that if we let it here dip. if taus not be part of a new political settlement not to subscribe to so far according to a fair share of power they got out of the put it be that the pyramid the soyuz the privilege that becomes i'm sorry to interrupt is that we're really almost out of time and i want to i want to ask martin here as well a last question i want to know from your perspective martin how likely is it that we originally as a military gets pulled into this now i think that is a real danger we have seen some reports that people with air travel air tran's are have been found on the battlefield. in uniform that cannot be. corroborated yet and there was some suggestions of mobilization inside eritrea as saves cannot be corroborated but let me just put one point to you which is that

there's been a warning the united states institute of peace which includes people like chet crocker and johnny carson the a former assistant secretary of state for africa both of them warned of the danger of the collapse of the ethiopian state the largest state collapse in modern history that's what they say is is possible this is a really really dangerous position and you know the idea that it could reach across the region makes it even more more serious i think people have to be very very concerned about what's going on all right we've run out of time so we're going to have to leave it there thanks so much to all our guests our alo. and martin clout. and thank you too 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 that's facebook dot com forward slash a.j. inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter our handle is at a.j. inside story for me on the whole team here by for now.

do you feel validated in south way is a type of performative activism. let's go back to specifically you calling donald trump a white supremacist the lights are on there's nowhere to hide join me richelle carey is up at the front questions to my special guests and challenge them to some straight talking political debate. from times on al-jazeera.

a story of love family and freedom go into my living years of school we heard the sounds of large explosion. and the chimps faced in captivity they came for me i mean they told me to leave my son i said how can i i saw so much pain in the eyes of the other female prisoners. in the pricing. on al-jazeera. a mad no move out of his parents' house after he got to me he says he found more space to begin discussing after renovating it last year it's now his home along with his wife daughter and all but it's really government said that he was to be constructed to be theft and permits and issued at the militia in order last month our interview will cut short as he hears that the israeli army has arrived in the village with a bulldozer resident face will just give them one minute to get home it took the

found me months to build their brick house and left then an hour to see it get demolished. you're. al-jazeera. hello i'm rob matheson and this is the news our live from doha coming up in the next 60 minutes as the counting draws ever closer to wrapping all been killed battleground states georgia and sylvania joe biden inches towards the crucial 270 electoral college votes needed to become the 46 u.s. president. but a recount is likely in georgia as less than point 5 percent of votes separate biden and president from.