only on al jazeera america struck down, a court in thailand says february election was invalid. ♪ the ruling is the latest blow to a government facing an opposition campaign to bring it down and the world's news from al jazeera and also ahead eu leaders sign up for closer ties with ukraine as russia pushes ahead with annexation of crimea. accusations of corruptions that won't go away and turkey takes down twitter, plus, finally the

missing airliner planes from the u.s. and new zeeland join the search for objects spotted on satellite. ♪ thailand's constitutional court has ruled last month the general elections invalid, the court says the vote was unconstitutional because elections were not held in several constituencies and opposition supporters prevented candidates from registering in these areas and they have been calling for the government to step down for several months. >> translator: after the government dissolved the parliament last year, the new general election was held on the second of february. 28 constituencies did not take part in the election because no candidates were registered and therefore the elections could not be held the same day across the county. >> reporter: we are in the

capitol bangkok. >> reporter: the constitutional courts ruled the february 2 poll was unconstitutional and that the results should be nullified and there was a petition because elections were disrupted and a number of constituencies and had millions from casting thar ballots and, in fact, they were not able to vote in enough representatives to the house and this creates more uncertainty in thailand because know the government along with the election commission, they have to set a new date for elections, the government is operating in a caretaker capacity but the biggest question is what will the opposition do this time around, will it boycott the elections the same way they did in february? and from the opposition leadership has so far indicated that is their position and want the government to rely on the political system and they believe the political crisis can

be preserved by democracy and they redefiant and over resent weeks avoided confrontation and we saw violence in january and unrest is real and if two parties do not bridge the gap and find a compromise. >> reporter: thailand opposition party has this to say about the court's ruling. today's ruling shows administration instance on holding elections despite the lack of national readiness. the crux of the matter is not the date of the elections but ensuring the elections are free, fair and clean and the court ruling presents the opportunity for thailand to implement the necessary reform so we can all move forward today as a nation. well the protest started in november over plans for a new amnesty law. the bill could have allowed former prime minister to return

from self imposed exile from punishment and he is the brother and the opposition called for prime minister to step down and clashes between proand antigovernment protesters and that month the government said it would boycott elections and the vote went ahead in early february but turn out was low with protesters outside of thousands of polling stations and shaun is the government's national security advisor and says the decision doesn't come as a surprise. >> the government has made every effort to engage pdsc and democrats in every which way, but within the constitution current, the way it was constructed, we have to be the government still and pdrc last night has specifically said they will not participate in any new election of upcoming and this is

a situation that the government expected. to from our perspective until such an event there has to be a care taking government which this government will prepare to hold this position until that comes up. of course at the same time we have proposed we could have a short mandate of one-year election after this and then we would accept all pdf c proposal and then we would dissolve the government and we will have another election but so far the pdfc and democrats have not considered it all all. >> reporter: leaders of the european union are strengthening ties with ukraine and they signed this with heads of state in brussels and refusal of

viktor yanukovich to sign such a deal last november sparked protests and eventually led to his ousting. despite the growing economic and political pressure russia is making them part of the country and said to ratify the treaty of crimea and correspondent will be live from brussels in a few minutes but let's go to peter sharp who is in moscow for us and the bill expected to pass, peter and sergei fedorov saying once it does that is it for crimea then. >> that's right, very much a foregone conclusion and rubber stamp ceremony today in the upper house and they are voting right now, president putin is expected to sign the bill that makes the accession as law in a few hours' time and it's amazing

this happened in just, what, five days. the people of crimea woke up on sunday morning as part of the ukraine, as ukrainians in effect and this morning they will become russians. things have moved absolutely very, very fast and it has hurdled through parliament. now, there will be a look at further integration in crimea, looking at how they can integrate the social, economic and legal processes and that will last basically up until the start of the next year. >> reporter: meanwhile peter the russian defense premium minister eager to say to u.s. counterpart the annexation stops at crimea and won't go further into ukraine. >> that's right. i think that was almost in response to a statement by the ukrainian envoy and the u.n. on thursday who warned of an

implement russian invasion and says russia's masking troops and we think that prompted check hagel the secretary of defense to phone his opposite member sergai at the foreign minister of defense and basically query what are russia's plans and he said to him, look, we have been carrying out exercises with jet fighters and bombers in the air a couple days ago in western regions although not on the borders of ukraine and there have been navel exercises and thousands and thousands of russian troops along the border but sediq sediqqi went out of his way according to the version we got from the pentagon to say these are just exercises and pose no threat to ukraine and we have no intentions of carrying out an invasion of ukraine or eastern ukraine. >> reporter: peter, i'm hearing now that the upper house of

parliament where you are in moscow, it has ratified that treaty formally making crimea part of the country, that's the latest from the upper house of parliament there. what does this mean, peter, for ukrainians, those ukrainian speakers in crimea? >> well, i mean, they will have a chance to leave. obviously the light will be difficult and the currency and perhaps the time difference will change. and president putin met with his security council about an hour ago with sergei fedorov and sediq sediqqi the defense minister basically talking a bit about sanctions and how they can normalize relations in the ukraine. we saw it in crimea. we saw yesterday the scenes of people boarding these ukrainian

vessels in the harbor and putin would like to see the situation eased and calmed down because the more you get of that the more it's subject to international condemnation. so that was part of his meeting today. >> reporter: thank you very much for that, peter, peter sharp from moscow. let's go live with rory in brussels and eu meeting where you are and no doubt have to digest this news that the upper house of parliament in russia has formally made crimea part of russia which was expected to happen. how have they been reacting there even before this happened? >> well, i think the eu as issued here is that crimea is basically gone. they will keep on saying because they don't recognize the annexation of crimea and won't recognize crimea as being russian but there is no real hope here that crimea is ever

going to be included back into ukrainian sovereign territory. of course, they have to show that they are post down the way but petting 12 new russian names on to the list. it was already 21 people long. they have been hit with travel bans and asset freezes and various punitive measures to show eu displeasure and what the eu also is doing is drawing up phase three sanctions and basically means not just individuals who will be hit but actually russian trade, the russian economy will be hit as a whole, that is being kept in the chest for russia and escalating the situation further. >> reporter: what about ukraine, rory, what is next for ukraine as far as the eu is

concerned? >> they signed the association agreements or the political parts of the association agreement. remember, that is exactly the same deal that viktor yanukovich walked away in november kicking off the protests that led to his down fall. on the one hand the eu is trying to send a warning sign to russia, not to do anything more. on the other side it's trying to bounce and strengthen what is a very weak, fragile country and doing that by signing this agreement with it and it's also providing what we call economic macro financial assistance, loans essentially, and trying to make sure ukraine has the strength for what is coming. >> reporter: rory joining us from brussels. nine people have been killed in an attack carried out by the taliban in a hotel in the

capitol and four gunmen opened fire in central cabbel despite high security and afghan officials say the gunmen were able to sneak in weapons hidden in their socks and four foreigners from canada, india, new zeeland and pakistan are among those killed and jane ferguson has the latest from kabul. >> they made their way to the restaurant of the serena hotel after 9:00 on thursday night and opened fire on diners killing nine people including three women and two children. of the nine, four were foreigners and five afghans were injured including an m.p. attackers themselves were believed to carry small weapons they snuck in the hotel, the hotel is supposed to be the most secure in the country and it's a target because lots of diplomates and high-end officials do stay there but as a result security at the hotel was

incredibly tight and part of a taliban attack being stepped up ahead of the presidential elections which are due in two weeks. taliban said they will continue attacks to disrupt anything to do with the elections. >> reporter: coming up, on the program. >> i'm rob in the heart of the coffee growing region of brazil where a severe drought is likely to lead to a bad harvest and higher coffee prices all over the world. >> and why the flag of independence is making its presence felt in venice. ♪

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good to have you with us, these are the top stories on al jazeera, thailand's constitutional court has ruled that last month general elections are invalid, the court says the vote was unconstitutional because elections were not held in several constituencies and opposition supporters prevented candidates from registering in the areas, upper house of russia parliament ratified the treatment to make crimea part of the country. and nine people including four foreigners are dead after the taliban attacked a hotel in afghan capitol kabul and hotel serena is popular and busy with officials working on next month's elections. turkey watchdog is concerned that twitter has been blocked by the court and they say the order was in response to complaints

from citizens that the social networking site was breaching privacy and they promised to shut down access to the site on thursday. >> translator: can you imagine their international conspiracies, twitter, we have a court order now, we will wipe out all of these. the international community can say this, can say that, i don't care at all, everyone will see how powerful the republic of turkey is. >> reporter: the fight that twitter has taken off since audio tapes were published through social media supposedly the prime minister disposing amounts of cash and he insists they were fake but they were apparently recorded on the same day in february when a massive corruption investigation began targeting people close to the government since then and more allegations emerged from one twitter account called sons of thieves which appears to have access to secret documents from the corruption probe.

and andrew is the cofounder of p 24 and to promote independent journalism in turkey and twitter has been a thorn in the side of the government. >> started last may when twitter and social media was used to organize protests of the occupation of a turkish park. but of course what the government is now afraid of is that twitter allegations, more accusations against corruption will surface before a municipal election at the end of the month, so turkey goes to the polls on the 30th of march. and already there have been very damaging allegations which have been circulated on twitter, references to more tapes which seem to implicate the government and rumors of much more allegations to come. clearly this may be a panic

measure to stop the allegations from surfacing. >> reporter: three war ships for the search for the missing malaysia plane after images of two objects were found in the southern indian ocean and the craft and australia head out on friday to go through the waters and flight mh 370 went missing on the 8th of march with 239 passengers on board. >> we have been trying everything we have got at that area to try to learn more about what this debris might be. now, it could just be a container that has fallen off a ship. we just don't know. but we owe it to the families and the friends and the loved ones of the almost 240 people on flight mh 370 to do everything we can to try to resolve what is as yet an extraordinary riddle. >> reporter: supporters of the

president mohamed morsi have taken to the streets a third consecutive day and people joined the protest early in the morning demanding the return of legitimacy and also in the north of egypt there were demonstrations at shake and people there demanding the return to power of mohamed morsi as the legitimate elected president and in the capitol cairo in the central area of the city hundreds of people are marching to protest against the coup and demonstrations began on wednesday, the third anniversary of are referendum on constitutional amendment. it is now 83 days since 3 al jazeera journalists have been held in a cairo prison and gresta and mohamed and are accused of spreading false news

and the next is the 24th of march in court and al jazeera rejects all charges against the staff and continues to demand their immediate release. in southern syria opposition forces say they are closing in on an important villain they captured a dozen military posts in resent weeks but there is fierce fighting going on for the one village still held by government forces and we report. >> reporter: syrian rebels bomb a province, if they defeat government troops hold up here they stand to capture a strategically important area, an al jazeera film crew managed to get these exclusive pictures and it sits near the occupied heights between israel and syria. it has seen territory pass back and forth between the government and opposition over the

three-year war but now he looks at calling to the rebels. >> translator: the hills are besieged from all directions and morale of the forces has collapsed. soldiers have defected from the regime and continue monitoring and shelling them in their strongholds of these hills. >> reporter: opposition forces captured 13 military posts and surrounding villages in recent weeks choking off supplies and reenforcements and the government tanks tried to break the siege but were destroyed and heavy casualties on both sides. >> translator: the regime is trying hard to sent military reenforcements on a daily basis and thanks to god and the hard work of them our fighters are still detouring convoys trying to be siege the hills.

>> reporter: most people in the village plead a long time ago and relentless bombing shattered the region but even if the rebels manage to capture this territory the end game is still a long way of, i'm with al jazeera. >> reporter: and hundreds of demonstrators continue to occupy taiwan's parliament and protests against the trade pact with china and the group burst in the legislative chamber on tuesday and has since resisted police efforts to evict them and protesters feel it gives beijing too much economic influence on the self ruled island which china cease as an renegade. they are hit with the drought and the reservoir is 60 to 14.7 and some towns are already experiencing water shortages. the city has imposed water rationing and lack of rain has

pushed up demand. >> translator: there is nothing to be done. i'm praying to god for rain everyday and a lot, that kind of rain they have comes here because we really need rain. >> reporter: global coffee prices could rise because of the dry spell in brazil and farmers may see production shrink to the lowest in 30 years and rob reynolds reports from a coffee farm. >> reporter: a drought, the worst in living memory struck brazil's coffee belt. how much rainfall have you had this year? >> we had 10%, that used to be. >> reporter: 10%. >> december, january and february, we had just 10%. >> reporter: fifth generation coffee plantar is worried. >> we see that these beans are not well formed. when you cut it in the middle you will see this part should be bigger. >> reporter: to the untrained eye the coffee bushes on the

thousand hector or plantation look green and glossy. but a closer look shows how the beans are shriveling and some are ripening to red but too soon and others black and dried up. a lake a year ago was full is nearly empty. brazilian farmers say they will probably harvest 30% less coffee this year than they had expected and that means higher prices for coffee-drinking consumers all over the world. at the coffee warehouse in the nearby town of trace puntas workers are dwarfed by coffee bags and brazil is the world's largest producer of coffee and 40% of the global annual supply. the price for futures of the beans has surged more than 80%

this year and it's topping $2 for a kilo and his job is to slurp endless cups of coffee and he is a taster and broker determining the quality of each batch and matching growers with buyers and exporters. he bluntly summed up what the drought will mean. >> translator: inferior quality and higher costs for producers and higher prices for consumers. >> reporter: back on the fazenda he says he can only hold out so long without rain. >> if we have another dry season like this, i don't know what we can do. >> reporter: nature has put the coffee country in a predicament as bitter as the beans themselves. rob reynolds with al jazeera, brazil. >> reporter: people in venice

and surrounding region of venito are voting in an unofficial referendum of breaking away from italy and will not be recognized by the government in rome but a successful outcome will be the first step towards independence and we report. >> reporter: he is a true venician and ancestors lived here more than 500 years and chooses to fly the flag of the former maritime republic of venice rather than the italian colors. >> translator: our city used to be the capitol of an empire and now it's under developed because our wealth is in the hands of the state and it is distributed unequally. >> reporter: he is one of hundreds of thousands of residents of venice and the surrounding region who voted in an unusual referendum to break away from italy and go back to being an independent state.

venice was the heart of a powerful republican that lasted a thousand years and became part of italy in 1866, resentment towards rome has grown steadily. year long tourism in a strong industry made it one of the wealthyist and the people who organized the vote say they are tired of seeing their taxpayers' money being washed away. >> translator: we are victims of an open air robbery, every year they pay $70 billion in taxes and $20 billion are stolen by the italian state because they do not come back in any shape or form. >> reporter: not every one this venice wants to break free from italy. >> translator: it's senseless and live in the eu, why would we want independence. >> translator: my family is asking me to vote for independence but i'm not sure it's the right thing to do. >> reporter: the privately funded vote is not politically binding and is not recognized by

the italian government but organizers say they will appeal for the right to self determination and to keep the lion's share of their wealth, i'm with al jazeera, venice. >> reporter: well that story and the rest of the day's news can all be found on our website, al jazeera. ♪ rates in america, the feds are saying one thing and the banks are saying some other and before you home by a home or car we sort it. the sanctions imposed by the urs is not going to stop putin. all fired up about coal. a comeback for an energy source a mine in america. aim ---a v