♪ ♪ syria allows u.n. inspectors in to investigate the use of chemical weapons as the west reviews its military options. hello. you are watching al jazeera live from doha. also ahead disgraced chinese politician bo accusing his former aid of sexual misconduct. firefighters in california struggling to contain one of the worst wildfires in the history of the state. are you suffering from a phobia which is a fear of being without your mobile phone?

western powers are weighing options for military operations in syria, this coming following an alleged chemical weapons attack on a damascus suburb. the president of syria has warned the u.s.a. to stay away, saying that it faces failure if it is to strike syria and assad dismissed allegations that his regime used chemical weapons. assad has allowed u.n. weapons inspectors to travel to the site of the attack but many say that now it is too late to gather evidence. more now from washington. >> reporter: u.n. weapons inspectors will soon be at the scene of what appears to have been a chemical weapons attack outside of damascus. the syrian government has agreed

to cooperate and suspend fighting in the area while it continues to deny responsibility. >> we have said it once, twice, and we offer again our assurances that we have never used there nor anywhere else in syria chemical weapons in any shape or form. >> reporter: but senior british and u.s. officials say that there is little doubt that the syrian regime carried out the attack but evidence has been degraded and destroyed. >> we cannot in the 21st century allow the idea that chemical weapons can be used with impunity, that people could be killed in this way and that there are no consequences for it. >> reporter: but russia says that there is evidence that syrian rebels were responsible and the foreign ministry says that any military response targeting its alley, the assad regime, would be a mistake and

inflame the region but military action is among the options being considered by the barack obama administration with encouragement from some members of the u.s. congress. >> you can destroy assad's runways, his munitions and you could destroy his fuel. there are a lot of things that we could do and even destroy the syrian air force. >> it cannot be an unilateral american approach, it has to have international support politically and militarily. >> reporter: to that end there will be meetings between defense officials from the middle eastern and european countries in jordan on monday, and the chemical weapons attack, how to respond to it, and how to prevent another will be atop the agenda. al jazeera, washington. one retired u.s. general, wesley clark, the supreme nato commander during the war in kosovo and says that any

military solution in syria requires a carefully thought-out strategy. >> i think that the most important thing is to make sure that whatever you do militarily has some political purpose to it and moves us towards a resolution of this situation. and so there is no point in just firing a weapon, dropping a bomb to drop a bomb. and so i think that you have to start by building a coalition of the willing around a regional organization. i think that nato and the arab league should join together and i think there should be strong resolutions. if the u.n. security council cannot act because of blocking by russia and china, then these regional organizations together must act to restore stability in the region and to prevent the escalation of the conflict. with that in mind, what we did in kosovo was the opposite of shock and awe. we did not go in with overwhelming force the first night. what we did, we went in with the minimum package and then we

escalated and we made it clear to the serbian president that the escalation would continue to escalate until he withdraw his forces in kosovo and the end of ethnic cleansing there. you need to link the diplomacy with force. here this was the scene following a overnight cur view in egypt as protesters there called for an end to military led rule and there were demonstrations as well in the northern sinai. bomb attacks in iraq have killed at least 46 people. this was the aftermath of one of those attacks in one district of baghdad. other moms went off in other locales. gunmen killed five troops

traveling in a van to mosul. now the corruption trial for disgraced chinese politician bo has now ended and our correspondent is outside the court and, harry, how did the trial close today? >> reporter: well, earlier in this trial he said that he had something in store to reveal on its last day, and he certainly did not disappoint. all of it surrounding his longtime alley, the police chief whose flights to the u.s. consulate in february 2012 started this whole chain of events and his wife who was sentenced for the killing of the british businessman last year. what bo says is that the chief and his wife were having an exceptionally close relationship, like paint and glue and he said that he was sick of it and referred to what

seems to have been, it is not entirely clear, but an incident in which he came to her giving her a letter expressing his love, and she said you are abnormal and he said i used to be but i am not now and then bo came in at that point and then took the letter away and the significance of all of that in the case is that from that point onwards the chief knew that bo knew of the relationship and that he knew that he had been harmed, his feelings hurt and he was a man of such character that he should not be trifled with on such matters. all of this goes to his strategy to keep himself on the trines of wrongdoing and perhaps admitting responsibility for not being aware of it or reacting to it, but not a main player in the accusations against him and in this specific instance he is accused of covering up his wife's guilt and he said that he

believed her when she said that she was being framed presumably because he was the jilted lover of his wife and so quite the extraordinary revelation to pull out on the last day. >> and it seems incredible that bo has been allowed to carry on like this on the one hand but he too has refrained, hasn't he, from attacking the administration in any way. >> well, certainly as far as what we've seen from the court, yes. there has been no specific naming and shaming of senior party officials but he has been allowed, as you said, to repudiate many of those allegations against him and humiliate some of those witnesses arranged against him and by association the authorities in trying to bring him to justice and in his summing up today he said that he was grateful to the prosecution for assembling so much evidence against him but that really it did not tie him to any specific

wrong doing and he said that he should not be punished for exercising his right in challenging what went on here and the prosecutor of the case in his statement said that bo continued to refuse to except responsibility for very serious crimes and therefore he should not be shown leniency and he should be punished severely. now of course all of this could be seen as some kind of theater, that the communist party is happy that bo defends himself so that more weight could be given to his eventual conviction and as to the verdict we're told that that will be considered and will be publicized in due course. >> harry, thank you for this. fascinating stuff. the trial of bo coming to a end. thank you. and now police in northern myanmar say that they've restored order after buddhists had set fire to muslim homes and

shots, a riot starting after the police refused to hand over three muslim men who were accused of trying to rape a buddhist woman. the u.n. human rights envoy to myanmar spoke of his recent visit there. >> i was on my way to one site and my convoy suddenly stopped at 10:30 pm by a crowd of 200 people who had just started to punch and kick the windows and doors of my car and shouting abuse but what concerned me more was that the police nearby that i saw, they just stood by without trying to stop this incident. and it was not only me there. it was a large convoy, including some of the u.s. workers and the u.n. representative in myanmar, the resident coordinator. and so there are a lot of people who have suffered in this incident. hundreds of firefighters in u.s. state of california

struggle to contain a giant blaze reaching yosemite national park threatening water and power supplies of the city of san francisco and we have a report now from just outside the report. >> reporter: lovely clouds but it is actually smoke over the mountains, this is as close to the fire line as we could get and we saw the teams fighting on the ground and with help from above. we're just west of yosemite national park as firefighters have been attempting to fight flames but they will pull back down this road because the fire has jumped the highway and steep terrain and dry conditions have transformed this wildfire into one of the biggest in california history and firefighters and meteorologists say that it is so immense it possesses its own weather, able to generate wind, rain and lightning which makes it unpredictable. >> we are worried about this fire getting larger, we are pouring engines, aircraft and

firefighters from across the country and it is the number one priority in the nation and we hope to get it out. >> reporter: teams from across the country are here, mapping out plans to evacuate residents if necessary and more help arrives by the hour in part to relief those who have worked for days, a typical shift lasts 24 hours. >> we spent the first probably 30 hours out protecting a subdivision by the fire and they were air dropping all around us. >> we're on structure protection, looking to prevent the fire moving from the forest to the residential neighborhoods themselves. >> reporter: the fire moves north and containment lines will be built ahead of flames and more than a week in, what is known as the rim fire leaving evidence of its path cutting a line across the green, leaving smoky desolation and blackie oak and pine and it may be difficult to imagine when spring rolls around new plants will sprout

but it will be decades until the trees stand mighty yet again. the freight train known as the beast has crashed off of the rails in mexico, six migrants who were hitching a ride were killed, others injured. that story is still to come. plus stepping back in time, a silent feast for cinema-goers in the philippines.

♪ it is good to have you with us. these are the top stories on al jazeera.

western powers weigh options for military action in syria, this after an apparent chemical weapons attack on civilians last week. the french foreign minister says that a decision will be made in the coming days. >> the corruption trial for disgraced chinese politician bo xilai ends with revelations of sexual misconduct between his wife and former aid. bo accused of abuse of power as governor. u.s. firefighters struggle to contain a giant blaze which has reached yosemite national park in california and the fire threatens the san francisco water and power supplies. the afghan president hamid karzai arrives in pakistan, his first trip across the border since the new prime minister won elections in may and we have more now with kamal from islamabad. what is on the agenda? >> reporter: well, on the

agenda, are the prospects for peace, security and regional issues which are also on the minds of pakistani and afghan leader. he is accompanied by a senior delegation at a time when afghanistan is going through a crucial transition, both a security and political transition. it must be remembered that this will be the first time in over two decades that the afghan army is taking direct control of security operations and afghan president coming to pakistan after a long pause, perhaps the longest pause since becoming the president of afghanistan 818 months ago. he came to islamabad to meet the pakistani counterpart in a trilateral meeting and today he received a guard of honor at the prime minister's house and the new pakistan prime minister is

keen to improve relations with neighboring meetings and he already has gone no an one-on-one meeting with hamid karzai as we speak. >> previous efforts between these two parties to achieve peace and stability have not been very fruitful, have they? do you think that a new prime minister in pakistan will make a difference? >> well, talk to the analysts on both sides of the board, pakistani and afghan analysts, they do not expect a lot to come out of these talks and it has to be remembered as well that these talks were made possible because of u.s. and the u -- and the united kingdom insisting that talks should take place and so both sides are cautiously optimistic even though serious problems do still remain.

>> thank you for that, kamal, live from islamabad. and now protests have started in the -- in an indian city, this after a woman was allegedly assaulted after taking photos with male colleagues and the 22-year-old remains in hospital and many are calling on the government to take a stronger stance in tackling the rise number of sexual assaults. parts of eastern russia suffer from the worst flooding in 120 years as over 600 soldiers have been deployed to the region as the situation threatens residential areas and electricity plants and officials say that up to 40,000 people could be affected. >> reporter: looking out across

this flooded plane the landscape here has chained beyond recognition. only two weeks ago the river which was about, what, 600 meters wide ran through acre after acre of lands, but no longer and the people who have lived in this region for 12,000 years, fishing in these waters, harvesting from the fields, they have nothing and their future looks bleak. the fields, they are gone and the fishermen here say that the fishing grounds will move when the waters recede and the tourists who used to come here in droves to see the prehistoric carvings that their ancestors made along the riverbanks, they are staying away because the carvings are underwater and in moscow they said that they would cut any compensation to these people, no fields, no fish, winter will be a struggle. now united nations

peacekeepers are accused of killing protesters in the democratic republic of congo, witnesses say that two people were shot two and four others injured, this following a protest for lack of u.n. action and peacekeepers from uruguay allegedly fired on people but the uruguay president said that local police opened fire, not his countrymen and the u.n. is investigating? >> the united states threatens to impose more sanctions on m23 rebel leaders and their supporters if they continue fighting, this following reports of selling across one border and the state department called on rwanda to respect the drc's territorial integrity. at least six dead, many more injured after the freight train they were riding on derailed in southern mexico, cargo train one of mexico's most famous, known as the beast and it had 250

migrants aboard hitching a ride towards the u.s. border. >> reporter: this train has long been the only way that many illegal migrants could hope to start a new life, nicknamed the beast meant to transport goods, but over the years many migrants have clamored onboard and used it as a vehicle to a new life in the united states but for some those dreams now have been lost. >> the train was going very fast and when he started to brake, it went off the rails and then people began to jump and my cousin died there, another was pinned under the train. >> reporter: the beast traveling through one southern state when it came off the rails, in a remote part of mexico and ambulances could not get through by road and people scrambled to reach those who were trapped until the rescue crews arrived.

>> we found bodies on the sides and we think that we will find eight, maybe ten more bodies under a the train carriages. >> reporter: this rail route is already a dangerous jersey because at times several hundred migrants will climb aboard the boxcars but a drug cartel runs the territory as my grants are often kidnapping and then forced to head into the united states and it is unlikely that this accident will defer many from hitching a ride when the train gets back on track. the government of haiti pledges to make education a top priority, tackling low literacy rates by introducing free schooling for more than a million students but the government's opponents say that the reality falls short of the

promises. >> reporter: haiti has one of the lowest school enrollment rates despite free schooling and two years after an election the government says that they've made progress in enrolling more children in primary schools but officials say that they need to take more direct control of existing schools as up to 9 0% of them are run by churches, ngo's or other pry have the groups. >> number of private schools compared to public schools are too high which is why we've taken a decision to nationalize 500 community schools. >> reporter: but independent investigators question how many children actually attend glasses, saying that some students are enrolled in schools that exist only on paper. >> and so when the government is talking about free schools without building them, it is nothing but propaganda, just bluff. >> reporter: the program is

marred too by mismanagement, some of that admitted by the government and teachers say that they go months without payment and so many have quit and the schools operate with almost no supervision and one former education minister says that up to a third of the schools paid by the government have not even won official approval. >> a lot of mercenaries close to the president who want to tear down the free education program and if he does not pull himself together we school directors will not be a part of the parallel any longer. >> reporter: and questions are raised too about how the school program is being financed. it was supposed to be paid for by a new tax, collected on incoming foreign phone calls and money transfers but the parliament of haiti has never approved those fees and so the money is supposedly sitting in a bank account, unspent and unaccounted for and the

has declared war on corruption but the city says that they cannot make a lot more progress without transparency including an open window on education spending. many say that they cannot live without their mobile phones and uk researchers identify a new phobia among those who fear missing out on something if they were to leave their phones aside even just for a moment more on that story now. >> reporter: it is an all-too-familiar feeling as you realize that something is missing, forgetfulness, absentmindedness, call it what you will but it is called nomaphobia, on the rise and search for it online, you might need a smartphone to do that and therein is the problem as more than half of the uk has experienced the anxiety that you get when you realize that you have not got your phone with you, that disconnection from a constant connection. not just telephone calls but

texts, e-mails, apps, a camera, music and for some it just does not bear thinking about, and such is the fear of missing out that 17% of us will work on our phones when we are in bed, very restful and hardly romantic but a quarter of women look at theirs on a day and half of the uk will take theirs to the beach and not just in this country as much of the world appears to share this cellular obsession. think that mobiles are the future? experts say that they do not make manners like they used to. >> you wake up, has anyone been trying to get ahold of me and last thing at night is anyone saying good night, instead it needs to be a disciplined introduced so that people are not living for a mobile phone, they are living their lives.

>> reporter: addicted to your phone, there is an app for that for when you cannot switch your phone off. we live in an ever connected world, the question is at what cost? and now cinema goers in philippines step back in time for one of the country's biggest silver screen events, international silent film festival the only one of its kind in asia. and rod mcbride reports. >> reporter: the 1925 silent classic "phantom off the opera" to the music of a filipino rock band," radioback." >> we have to keep in mind that silent films were silent but the screenings were not. those films were screened with orchestras, with bands. >> reporter: the full houses are evidence of this festival's

growing popularity with films from europe and north america attracting a new generation of moviegoers and giving new life to old movies, modern take on musical accompaniment, this 100 years after the director said cut. not having much of a sigh ent had film tradition the philippines possesses a well-developed musical one that this audience taps into. >> we need to capture the passion of the film and at the same time we need to play something modern, interesting but keep things moving. >> reporter: a combination that works for audiences. >> the drama was so good and the film is excellence. >> did you enjoy the movie? >> yes, definitely, first time i saw a silent film. >> it was god, i liked it very much. >> the universal and timeless

nature of drama, proving to be a hit then as now. that story and the rest of the day's news can be found on our website at www.al jazeera.com, all of the news on our website.