A deepening humanitarian crisis with a prolonged drought expected to continue well into this year an estimated six Million People are in need of humanitarian assistance its the story now stay with us. You. Today. Catching up with al jazeera correspondents on the stories that reporting. You choose if you have questions put them in the comments section. And. Justice has been trending on social media for several days now and there have been protests on the streets well heres the latest on the investigation in pakistan will also get reaction from ramallah to the more than one thousand settlement homes recently approved by the Israeli Government. That we havent covered much on the street in costa rica where the homicide rate has risen greatly over the past few years in the capital city. And even less with. The level in more than one boy is full. Of these. People but little feel it. If im going to. Get better. And go into. A new if i read the. Building of the us. Big. Hole in the moon we as a voters. But the. Costa rica ended twenty seven Team Recording its highest murder rate according to preliminary data the Central American nation of five million so six hundred. Thats up from five hundred Seventy Eight in twenty sixteen authorities blame schools setting between gangs and Drug Trafficking for the increase. Gallagher joins us now live from San Jose Costa Rica welcome to the stream andy i want to start here with this facebook comment we got from rubin who says im concerned that this is partially a result of gang related violence from neighboring countries spilling over its people from those countries have often used coast as a haven from their own authority so some pontificating bear from rubin but i want to know your thoughts why are we seeing this rising number now. Well very basically its because those traditional routes where cocaine came from have changed traditionally they went over the florida straits they used various different routes now its coming through Central America not to say this story first picked my interest back in two thousand and thirteen i began to hear these reports of drugs entering into costa rica or of gang members joining with cartels so i went up to the border with nicaragua and saw firsthand what locals told me were boats of drug runners going down the coast i heard stories of people finding big packets of cocaine on the beach or you know pour youth suddenly having gold watches the next day so its been happening since around two thousand and twelve steadily taking up over those years but obviously twenty seventeen was historically the largest number of murders theyve ever seen in what two weeks into twenty eighteen now weve already had twenty five murders so its average averaging out to about one point six murders every day but to put things into perspective and i think this is important costa rica is a very safe country remember people here talk about port of deeded the pure life its known for waterfalls that lining volcanoes and overawed it is very safe if you look at the northern triangle mcgrath well salvador and honduras in two thousand and fifteen those three countries combined had seventeen thousand murders and their murder rate per one hundred thousand is it is around one hundred three compared to the twelve point one or whatever it is here in costa ricas i think thats important to put things in perspective but things are on the rise and it is worrying people as you saw from the people we talked to here on the streets in san jose and i was just looking back at that with the total my goodness five years ago almost five years ago and im just wondering if i saw it as a police at that time had an idea that this may well be the problem coming up. I think they did i mean what you have to remember about costa rica is you know its so peaceful and stable here that they disbanded their army in nineteen forty eight i think the big challenge for the Police Forces are to really get a grip around something that not used to tackling theyre not used to dealing with Gang Violence theyre not used to dealing with losing their youth to the cartels because theres money there for them so what theyre talking about here are a couple different approaches and remember the general election the president ial elections are coming up next month so some of the candidates are taking very different approaches that this is talk of involving the youth more in a cultural projects and getting them away from these gangs in any way possible what they really need to get a handle around this because it is worrying people on the streets and it is something theyre used to doing i did speak to the police when i was up near the border with nicaraguan and they showed me some of their training video so they have been aware of it for the last few years its just since the time i was here before and ive been a few times in between those numbers just keep going up and it is really becoming something of deep concern to ordinary costa ricans you mentioned the Upcoming Election Campaign we got a comment on that from an on facebook she says a lot of people dont seem to be paying attention or in the middle of an Election Campaign and its focused on keeping gay people she says from having the right our political environment is centered around whether or not aspiring politician support gay marriage or not so in her view she gets the feeling that politicians would rather keep the general public and the media focused on that issue rather than providing solutions to the issue of crime Drug Trafficking and Money Laundering how do you talk to people who feel similarly if you think enough people realize what the rates are looking like. I mean i think you saw from from just a random collection of people we talked to on the streets here in san jose that its at the forefront of a lot of peoples minds i mean if youre a parent and youve got a young child its a big concern because the people in twenty seventeen that were murdered are between the ages of seventeen and mid twentys so essentially this countrys is potentially losing some of its brightest and youngest people to the drug cartels and to these exchanges and fights over territory and fights over money ultimately so the gay marriage thing has played out here as a fairly big thing people are talking about it because it was a ruling that came from outside the country that they have to abide by but i think the closer we get to these elections next month the more this topic and how to approach it and how to tackle it will come to the forefront and were going to leave it there thank you for joining us down the street and to our community if you have more stories youd like us to cover from the region please let us know what hash tag eight a string and now from san jose to ramallah and the occupied west bank reason approval of more settlement homes by the Israeli Government has angered palestinians. Tonight in creation give. Until appointed by this man to the mission our out of. It. We need your help. That this. Everything. For there is an even sentiment in the west bank big if its not just. This process and also this is this is a big if its on palestinian life in this thing is converted to be still in city in jail for palestinians and its make its hard to transport between the palestinian cities in the east bank i think when you see it in yemen see thats hes believe in two state solution he means that one state for israel and another. So far this year israel has approved the construction of more than one thousand settlement units in the occupied west bank thats according to peace now and n. G. O. That tracks and analyzes developments in the settlements Palestinian Foreign minister riyadh many key criticize the plan blaming the United States full given the green light to israel to do what ever it wants with Palestinian Land now remember that in december u. S. President donald trump announced that the u. S. Would recognize jerusalem as the capital of israel a move that cools International Outcry and condemnation from the United Nations does imran khan joins us now from ramallah welcome back to the stream and ron i want to start here on you tube so we asked the question that you heard from me earlier that the minister asked has the u. S. Given israel a green light for settlement homes he says yes we asked our Community Phillips here on youtube if youre joking right the u. S. Has been green lighting israel for decades so that said i want to move over to twitter this is what we got from karim on that topic he says without the dismantlement of settlements and eviction of the settlers there is no possibility for peace in occupied palestine what do those two things have to do with each other for our audience who may not know. Well that is where the settlements actually are thats tickles the peace or whether they are a destruction all of the two state solution that both are very related issues now the more settlements that get built them off that exchange on the ground the israelis that move into the occupied west bank makes it much more difficult for the palestinians to declare a state for themselves and thats really what im really interested in that hes that were working on right now is about settlements and what they mean now what does it mean for a palestinian to live near a settlement and what does it mean for an israeli settler to move to a settlement from some very comfortable place in the United States and to actually come to the occupied west bank and i have to say this piece was actually inspired by i had to mimi the sixteen year old who slaps israeli soldier the video went viral and shes currently in Israeli Military custody when she was about four years ago she said quote they really kind of stuck with me when i heard it very recently she said as a child growing up i used to look across at the settlements and see kids swimming kids going to school i saw these kids just having fun in that playgrounds and i if i took a wrong turn would get harassed by israeli Army Soldiers i might get arrested my family might get recipe we might be attacked is ready soldiers and so i really wanted to do a piece that looked at what it meant to be a palestinian living next to a settlement and what it meant to be an israeli settler living in a settlement and i have to say one of the things that really struck me and. Weve reported this before is there are two sets of laws in the occupied west bank the first one is for the Israeli Settlers they come under israeli criminal and civil law so they get to go through the civil civilian courts with in jerusalem but the palestinians they come under military Law International human Rights Groups have said that military law is actually unnecessarily harsh and a lot of palestinians who are faced with very severe sentence very minor crimes and ron theres something i own your Instagram Account which links that you took of that i had to me at any links totally to that story you took this picture you posted it tell us a little bit about what were seeing here. Well that was a peaceful protests. That we saw that which is i had to be nice village we were all up i was watching that the speeches go on speeches by the father it was actually brought to me you the father who was speaking at the time when suddenly the israelis rained down say gas canisters israeli army came in and i looked around and i have to say there was no provocation from the west indians in fact earlier in the day the palestinians been saying to us that they were looking for a peaceful Nonviolent Movement and this was what the theme of the speeches was and then suddenly you know where these canisters came in that really engage the palestinians up to i was skinny young people with anything they have to fight with is rocks they started throwing rocks and thats when things escalated that white smoke you saw in that picture is the thick cloud take us and this is just something that happens every week within the occupied west bank whenever theres a protest whether its peaceful or not the israelis use quite so they crowd control methods right disperse the crowds a month thank you so much looking forward to seeing our post and we appreciate you being here on the stream and we go from ramallah to the streets of a nation angered by the power to killing of a little girl. So the mother after the seven year old santa has endured it on a box and rightly so the picture of her nineteen in congress she became frightened on ones faith and unfortunately this is not a minor incident the riots ensued in christmas when after she was on her blanket was found because the city has been susceptible to child sex abuse scandal that people came to north in two thousand and fifteen and the fact that this issue persists in the region even to again shows that the government really hasnt done much to her not to get them out of the. Scene of was just seven years old when. She was kidnapped raped murdered. In North Eastern pakistan her death sent hundreds into the streets calling for justice her parents reported her missing a few days earlier and they say that police failed to act adequately the city has faced a spate of adult shouldnt sexual assaults and murders the hash tag justice for campaign has been trending in pakistan for more than a week now but people online have complained about the governments lack of reaction. Chief minister took notice when social media Media Civil Society and the general public raise their voice and the campaign has also been commented on by several notable people use of desire tweets heartbroken to hear about this has to stop the government and concerned authorities must take action our community has also been following the story closely watched and writes this is the twelfth incident thats happened in a short span of time here child abuse and rape a very serious issue particularly in india and pakistan joining us from islamabad is an aljazeera online correspondent and the whole. Is a political activist and lawyer gentleman its good to have you here thank you for joining us gibran im just im sure this tweet from your twitter feed where you were showing a visit with the family saying the family what did you find out what was it like being with them after this tragedy. One of mine was it wasnt the first one where there are hundreds of people from all across the son of come and visit again and i think that has somewhat and should have helped somewhat them because again the good emotions door one can restart than what a family is going through after that but i remember what i would like to say because you mention doubters box on its going through right now that certain victims and certain images do come to symbolize injustice and it happens all over the world we saw the body of their child island which was discovered discovered on the shores of turkey or near the woman or subjected to a brutal going to dip in india or to have an option which kicked out the place about a movement when his killer was acquitted and similarly is on them as we see here but these symbols not mean that this is the first time such an attack or such a tragedy is taking place nor does it mean that this is the most brutal of the most gruesome one it only means that desist something we have to confront now and began shouting it from a journey more because this is not just capturing our collective imagination but also questioning our collective humanity so i said i want to share this week with you we got from my last he says i think the investigation enters an ups case and others before it resulted in a complete failure of the state and its ability to dispense justice to those most vulnerable and she says she is not very hopeful in this case why do you think that is because i know there are others out there who feel exactly as she dies. And i dont blame her although there this is for acid add but we can hear your thoughts right after bronchitis that. Sorry heard of gibran yeah no i think this is really that is one of the main issues that weve seen here coming up im told with social media and also with the protest being with the widespread is that child abuse is nothing new in fact signs of the headlines in the data is all out there the numbers are out there in fact in this very town and kids who are two years ago there was a huge child pornography ring that was that was unearthed that had abuse hundreds of children this was going from children were as young as five or six to preteens and to teenagers as well now in that case which was about two and a half years ago we have not seen any progress at all there have been a few arrests but there been no convictions and most importantly the families of the victims feel like they were that justice really hasnt been done and one of the mean stories that came out of that and weve been hearing about it progressively over the last two and a half years is that the families of victims say that listen once the Media Attention dies down the police kind of lose interest in following up on the case and in fact before the media interest started they refused to register cases so this question of the media interest and this and this being on console right now is very good but the question really is to me what happens next does this pressure remain sustained do we see any kind of action from the police in the investigation authorities right now theyre very much under pressure there was a hearing the Supreme Court today where the police where Senior Police official was kind of held to task for the fact that very little progress has been made for the investigation but you know what happens a month from now when the next big story comes in pakistan whether its a political scandal or anything else to come to have what we can from. Well see i dont blame the person i was commenting ducking or saying enough fred because this was a toting incident the past twelve months and do not buy that even after an upscale two more incidents ive been to court get rich milton worst part of my days as a this was a sentence dead body was discovered and i would destroy. The sex catalog up on child pornography racket which has been mentioned earlier because dad was being an addict is an organised crime and its in an area twenty kilometers away from the city these incident going to the bastard most im talking about the fifteen incidents as you know if it were turned off it is the look you know on a group which is not reducing it for any a money tree or any organized crime for that matter but just picking up children raping them being a bit of bodies and that beings into the question not just our laws and not just our lack of policing but also the question on how much our community is since the days of this issue and how much uniform do we need were heading many cause of execution and public executions and thats been before the guy who did this was an a but i think thats an easy get to those ill give time for a moment are selling he say that im just picking up something if for some reporting from the independent this is a sane obs uncle and he says here at the moment is that the merger should be arrested alive because there are some circumstances aside carette where if people decide that they know who it is they then take justice into their home hands. Yes absolutely i mean weve seen that in pakistan in a number of cases particularly recently and most worryingly in the largest city of karachi weve seen the Police Authorities actually encouraging that kind of mob justice or lynching usually thats in the case of robberies or mobile snatching on the road but it is something that weve seen a lot of i think what that gentleman may also be referring to is something that ive heard out of the sewer from both Police Officials and from members of the community saying that in those previous twelve cases that we heard about there would sometimes be cases where if the complainants were able to point out a suspect that they believed to be involved in the crime the police and again this is all allegedly but the report is that they would then carry out whats known in south asia as an encounter killing they would go out and actually killed the suspect rather than arrest them and then try them because the feeling was from the from the point of view of the family and perhaps the police as well that once it enters the court system its not necessarily going to go anywhere which could be why you have some people calling for the Death Penalty once a suspect is found this is the night and she says people think that the Death Penalty for murder work will deter everyone else from this crime but it would only make them more determined not to be caught and to kill their victims so there are no witnesses pretty morbid there but she says whats needed instead is long term policy and planning that will make things better for children and prevent other children from becoming victims what that looks like is this comment on youtube amy says education education education education is it that easy and really what is educating children have to do with catching murderers. I was because you could lose one to one things here one part of the argument is that killing people may be the reason because people dont ask for it in the judicial system and they think a person is going to walk a free but another thing has happened just within the last twelve months so all encounters if you can get enough to every person have been killed and the police are the ones that weve got back to look at levels abducting addict and children and every time a new in the second case and now people want the person ought to live and talk to cause that they can the second by that this is actually the killer not god then just shooting someone getting someone to come out and sent a message that this was the case that when we talk about education were talking about not just a farming addiction but a column regular teaching the kids how to protect themselves and wanted secured advances but also sensitizing the parents because this dialogue has been taking place ever in pakistan but a better source a need to know on how to respond to the children that children are going to get and confident to come to the parents and when an incident does happen but a child has come after having gone through some kind of such an experience the parents are certain that the society will support them because unfortunately being that they draft a society like many of the countries these difficult days and a missed on a big thing that its about its going to bring up a bad name to a family if its found out that some member of a family this molested and if i just addiction i think on how difficult would it be in that because theres a different track of society to talk about a good talk about abuse a child abuse or sexual abuse one can just look at the gambrinus need twenty nine the report absent most celebrated when no one hollywood celebrities are coming out after decades because they didnt have the confidence in society to come out and talk about such abuse so compare that in going to explode yesterday that the pakistan instead of just focusing on the punish to focus on that but we need to talk about reforms and thats the part which we as activists need to do that so i was encouraged to connecting facts about the case so we can go to court and also on them that what are we doing with the tax money rising to education curriculum why isnt our tax money going into Public Service messaging this is something this opening up if they could run. You all you can hear i can hear your passion i can hear that you are pretending to do that in a sentence dsilva this is a moment where pakistan will challenge innocent. Because don has had many mormons and ive lost many moments like this and this is what we need to were going to write this isnt just about one little god i want to show you one other story that has its own hash tag which is just this football tool a little six Year Old Girl also found in a rubbish heap after being right and she needs immediate medical care and therapy you also see that story and many other us so this really is a time where pakistanis are looking at itself and how it looks at Child Protection thank you aside thank you mohammed i hope that youll keep us updated on how the story develops and to our community let us know what you would like to see on this stream. A day stream and the next time well see online. In two thousand and eight aljazeera documented a groundbreaking scheme. Preparing some of indias poorest children for entry into its toughest universities. Ten years on we return to see how the students and the scheme a helping change the face of india. Super thirty at this time on out is iraq. Its the cheapest rail service in the deol congo the largest country in Subsaharan Africa the swallow crosses half the country from lubumbashi to a labor. Its the only link between remote villages and the outside world. The swallow has been around for more than fifty years like a local bus it stops a virtually every station passengers clamber the remaining seats people cram into whatever space they can find. Nearly two thousand people all together three times the officially permitted capacity for those who werent able to find a place or who cant afford a ticket theres always the route. Travelers have to remain alert a lapse in attention could be fatal. The danger comes not just from above. Even at the moderate speed of thirty kilometers an hour a tree branch can cut like a machete. Am. I and this is al jazeera live from studio fourteen here at aljazeera headquarters in doha jamal santa maria welcome to the newsgroup im in pic here to see for north and south korea united about