49 dais a ukranian military plane is shot near the city of donetsk. welcome to al jazeera, live from headquarters in doha. coming up in the next 30 minutes - iran says it will come to the iraqi government's assistance if it refuses a request for help from baghdad. the race to afghanistan - polls open as voters choose the next president. >> and revenge tastes sweet for the dutch as they beat spain by

one at the world cup in brazil. welcome to the programme. the ukranian defence minister said pro-russian separatists shot down a plane. it was landing at luhansk in the east. defence spokesman said 49 people have been killed. this is a moving story. let's get the late forest kim vinnell, who is close to donetsk. what more do we know about the incident, kim? . >> i can tell you it was an il-76 military transport plane carrying military personal and supplies, going in as part of a rotation into the donetsk airport. we understand 49 have been killed much the plane was shot down last night. i can bring you breaking news now - the ukranian military has

started launching air strikes on checkpoints in luhansk, and attacking a military base in the region, taken over by pro-russian separatists. a dangerous development. separatists in luhansk are in control of the city, taking control of two nard base, and had -- national guard base and have checkpoints in the city. they say they'll meet the attack with everything they have. it's not an easy task to bring down a plane of this size. the defense minterry says there's heavy artillery, anti-aircraft. this will play out in the coming hours. we'll hear strong words from kiev. >> you have been reporting from the area in the past few weeks. the tension is palpable. the public will be concerned about what mite happen -- might happen next. >> absolutely.

it's important to note as well that luhansk, the people there support, or most of them support the pro-russian separatist movement. a lot of them feel like they are alienated from kiev, they are threatening the rites of the pro-russians in the region, it will be interesting to see how their support stands going forward. as we have seen over the past weeks, in regions, there have been pro-russians. as the ukranian military moves in, there's further, as they see the conflict play out on the doorstep. >> we'll come back to you as the situation develops. now, the iranian president says his government is ready to help iraq fight an islamist inurgency. hassan rouhani said they have not made such a request. iraq kurdish security forces fought along side police, led by

the islamic state of iraq and levant, or the i.s.i.l. the kurdish forces, pesh mrca were seen firing rockets. i.s.i.l. is a splinter group making advances across iraq over the last few day, and its fighters push towards baghdad. there are fears they could push towards sunni shia and kurdish zones. what do we make of the statement made bit the iranian president and its reception in baghdad? >> well, it's a clear show of support and backing for prime minister nouri al-maliki. the iranians have traditionally been close to the nouri al-maliki government and have supported him in the past. it has to be said this last yeent election they were -- recent election they were not as vocal in the support as in 2010.

it's a definite statement of support. baghdad has to ask for help. what we are hearing is that there are members of the elite revolutionary guard, coutts force, fighting in iraq. they may be - this is unconfirmed - they may be in dearticlea province, and they are stopping the advance of sunni rebels, who have taken two towns in the deala province, and they may stop them getting where they want to go. there's no official confirmation. that is what we are told by three different sources. >> if you look at the north of the country. depending on your perspective, how you look at the situation. peshmerga forces alongside iraqi

police may not be a support for prime minister nouri al-maliki. >> you can cop this in several different ways. what we see is cooperation that's a necessity to bring kirkuk back upped the control of iraqi and kurdish forces. they are trying to blad out the sunni -- bleed out the sunni rebels. we'll see more of this kind of cooperation as the event move and as iraqi and kurdish forces try to decide what to do to get inside mossual, which is under the control of sunni rebels. >> we'll come back to you throughout the day. president obama says it's up to iraq to deal with its own problems inside the country, but the u.s. is considering how it might be able to help, and whether military intervention is needed. we have the latest from

washington. >> reporter: president obama pledged his for for the iraqi government. >> any action that we may take to provide assistance to iraqi security forces has to be joined by a serious and sincere effort by iraq's leaders to set aside sectarian differences. to promote stability and account for the legitimate interest of all of iraq's communities, and to continue to build the capacity of an effective security force. we can't do it for them. >> it's not clear whether u.s. military action will only take place if there are signs of reconciliation in iraq. the state department bristled at the suggestion that the u.s. should have insisted on political reckon sillation before supplying the nouri al-maliki government with $14 billion of aid. >> military assistance goes to the iraqi government.

that's an important point. now you are imposing conditionalties, shouldn't very then imposed. >> no one is arming nouri al-maliki, it goes to the iraqi army and the security forces. he's the prime minister, this is not all about prime minister nouri al-maliki, but all of iraq's leaders. we called on them for months and years to take forward the reconciliation. >> reporter: fundamental questions remain, what will be achieved, what will the targets be. can iraqi intelligence be trusted given that the government bombed sunni areas in the past. will civilian casualties end the possibility of reconciliation. critics accept that military action should only be taken with caution. >> there's no political heat here. this is a big news story.

there's no strong cohesive opposition saying to obama administration, do something big in iraq. >> for the moment it seems that president obama is taking had time. he says that any action, political or military will take days to plan. moving to asia, where afghans are voting in a presidential run off. they have a choice of two candidates. voters are picking a successor to president hamid karzai, who has been in power since the u.s.-led invasion in 2001. the run-off hits a former anti-taliban fighter against a world bank economist. the winner will inherit a country with a struggling economy or ongoing threat. we follow the event in kabul. polls opened for a few hours now. what is the latest on security?

it's not great. in two provinces there's fighting going on. in kunar province a number of districts see fighting. there was rocket fire at two other provinces and near provinces as well. we understand a number of people were injured in the attack. in kabul, before the polls opened, we hear or understand there is rocket attacks as well. outside a polling station in the capital, what is described as a mine went off. a few hours later at this polling station one of the candidates went to go vote. what has been interesting about the level of security in afghanistan, the is size of it. there's around 160,000 soldiers and other security forces over the country trying to protect voters as they go to the polls.

there are channels that have been made. not much attention happens been paid to the attacks because they don't want to scare the voters. many have a vested interesting in them going to the polls, and another reason is - the stark reality is in this country we see the violence, and that's why we haven't seen the coverage around the attacks. >> how much of a concern is voter turn out in respect to the fact that a lower tonne out could not jeopardise the vote, but the reputation of the run-off and some might say it's not a legitimate vote if you don't have many people voting at the end of the day. >> one of the real concerns is if the voter turn out is lower than hoped, is if this end up being a close vote, one of the

two candidates will not succeed. really, the reality is that we were at a polling station not far from here. there weren't a lot of people there, some suggesting it's not out of interest, but the process is going a lot faster. voters are not voting for provincial candidates, they are choosing between presidential candidates. i think part of the issue is because they are only choosing presidential candidates, they are not looking for provincial candidates that many vote for in larger numbers. there is a concern that if we don't see the voter turn out. there'll be question marks over the election. >> you are following the elections, we'll see what happens during the rest of the day. still ahead here on al jazeera - dinging up a -- digging up a dark past.

we report on the scandal discovering human remains at a former mother and baby home. and the latest bollywood offering. offering. can it match the past success.

the performance review. offering. can it match the past success. that corporate trial by fire when every slacker gets his due. and yet, there's someone around the office who hasn't had a performance review in a while. someone whose poor performance is slowing down the entire organization.

i'm looking at you phone company dsl. check your speed. see how fast your internet can be. switch now and add voice and tv for $34.90. comcast business built for business. welcome back. you are watching al jazeera. a reminder of the top stories - the ukranian military is launching air strikes against separatist strongholds in eastern ukraine, following the shooting of a ukranian plane near luhansk. 49 were killed in the attack.

the iranian president says his government is ready to help iraq fight annest lambist in -- islamist insurgency if asked but they have not asked yet. afghan voters pick a success or to hamid karzai. the presidential run off pits abdullah abdullah, an anti-taliban fighter against ashraf ghani, an ex-world bank economist. let's look at the background of the two candidates in afghanistan. abdullah abdullah is an afghan statesman. and a trained eye surgeon. he built his reputation in the 1980s, when aligning with the ain taliban northern alliance and became advisor to the leader. after international forces ousted the taliban, he served as

afghanistan's foreign minister from 2002 to 2005 and ran as an independent in the 2009 presidential elections, but lost to hamid karzai. the vote then, he said, was frewed u lant. ashraf ghani was educated in the u.s. he worked in the field of economics, including at the world bank. he pledged to sign a bihateral security agreement with the united states. joining me from kabul is helena malikia, an afghan historian. thank you for joining us life. the first democratic change from one president to another, it's historic, this vote. >> it is historic for afghanistan, and what is more exciting is that this time

around the people of afghanistan seem to have a much awareness. democratic process and the right to vote and use the vote. the people wanted to see a free and transparent government, that is there for the potential winner. >> definitely. there are many things that - many challenges that the new president will have to face. the economy is in a bad state. unemployment, especially for the young is higher than 30%. and with the drawdown of the international forces and reduction of foreign aid, the economy will suffer greatly. plus in the past year or so, the

sort of 2014 u.s. withdrawal and n.a.t.o. withdrawal had already damaged business in this country. so the new president will be faced with a lot of economic challenges, as well as security challenges. plus, because unfortunately this election and the run-off has become polarized in terms of ethnicities, there'll be a lot of issues to face the new president, in terms of establishing his legitimacy as a national leader, as opposed to a leader of one or two ethnic factions. >> of course, as an historian, you have to guage the opinion of the public at large as you travel around the country or speak to those in the capital. what seems to be the priority for the common man and woman in the country, in the capital.

>> security and economy are the highest requirementies of people in the urban areas, and rural areas of afghanistan. and both candidates have presented programs as to how to tackle these two issues among others. but i think in the end, unfortunately, lofty promises have been made, but the eth nisizing of the campaign is going to be the higher - the more stronger determining factor in this election day. >> briefly, because we are running out of time, how important is it to engage the taliban in talks. there are varying factions. how important will that be for the incoming president, and do you see success on the horizon in any shape or form?

>> to engage the taliban must be a priority of any future president. and they know it, both of them. however, there is a growing sense among a lot of afghans that engaging the taliban must be done in the right way, and that we should not compromise the gains of the past decade, especially women's rights and status, freedom of press and, you know, civil society that has developed. so a lot of people, especially in urban areas which are populated by large numbers of afghans, there are concerns - they are wary that they would not be compromised in a deal, in a quick deal to bring the taliban to the negotiating table.

>> so see what happens at the moment. thank you for joining us from the afghan ka call. >> israel says the palestine authority is responsible for the safety of three teenagers missing in the west bank. reports suggest the israeli citizens might have been kidnapped. the palestinian authority says it knows nothing about the case and is not responsible. israeli soldiers are searching for the boys who went missing on thursday night. >> ireland's government will launch an inquiry into the death of possibly thousands of children in former mother and baby homes. for decades women were forced to go to catholic-run institutions if they became pregnant outside of marriage. >> reporter: ireland's history is being dug up, and witnesses are people like john rogers. he was born here when this was a mother and baby home run by nun, to detain women who committed the sin of becoming pregnant outside marriage.

he remembers a childhood of loneliness and illness. >> i remember being on a bed for weeks and months, i can't recall how long it was. i was in a comatic state for a long time. >> reporter: with what? >> i don't know. >> reporter: and could have been tb, measles. >> it could have been a number of things. >> reporter: you could have died. >> i could have been, yes. >> reporter: the nuns took him away from his mother, which was the practice. all she was left with as a lock of his hair before being sent off to the work in the laundress. visitors turned up looking to buy a baby. >> it was like a supermarket saying "we'll take the child." if he wasable-bodied he went to the farm. if he was a wee thing like me, you remained there. no one took me out until i was three or four.

>> reporter: if the good children had a value, the weak ones didn't. this is one of several places where it's feared the bodies of hundreds of children that died of malnutrition, tuberculosis or measles may have been buried unmarked by the nuns. all the headlines focused on whether there could be 800 young children buried in the ground. none of that addresses a large crisis threatening to engulf the catholic establishment, which is that it stands accused of being involved in child trafficking, the enslavement of women and a financial racquet under the guys of religious morality. >> would you think this is too much to pay for an infant. >> reporter: even though society knew about the mother and baby homes, a full picture is only now becoming clear thanks to extraordinary evidence being

unearthed, in relation to the carefree way that the church did all this. >> they were happy to support this. this was their policy. it's hard to separate who has who, because it's an overlap of church and state at this time. >> all this after the scandal of forced labour of women in catholic work houses by the state took years to amand for which no -- to acknowledge, and which the state took a long time to acknowledge. >> when we look at the church's involvement in school, primary and secondary, there is a will out there and a call for that separation to take place. for campaign e the aim is church and state. and if the deaths of thousands

of children don't change things, it's hard to say what will. a new generation is bringing bangladeshi films, a drive to depict the modern society and move away from bollywood style games. we caught up with a film director. movies won is number of awards. >> they didn't think they'd end up as an ambassador. by taking movies to festivals abroad. he became a representative to the rest of the world. they are calling themselves the bangladeshi new waive. >> we can't call it a big movement. i small that it is growing. if we look at the pipe line, the film that is in the pipeline, we are making telephones for television. if we look at them.

i can see, you know, the possibilities. >> faruqy is at the center of the film industry search for its own identity. its files are praised for the modern approach. mainstream bangladeshi films are different. full of seconding and dance, copying from bollywood. while it can't match the box office favourites of traditional melodramas, they have started drawing larger crowds. a larger savvy audience tuned in to what he and his colleagues tried to do. films are luring bangladeshis to the theatre. many ignored local movies, turning to foreign fair on cable

television. >> me and my friend haven't watched before. what is special is the way faruqy shows our culture the way it is. it connects with people from my generation. >> he is taking his latest movie to the shanghai international film festival. he is competing in impressive company. foor uky hopes he'll be joined by bangladeshi faces. now there were three games an day 2 of the football world cup and the largest shock of the tournament much defending champion spain went into the broup b with the netherlands, having not conceded a single goal in 500 minutes of the world cup football. sara coates reports on how that

record came to an abrupt end. >> reporter: it was billed as a match of the football heavy weights in the clash between spain and the netherlands. thinks began well for spain, xavier lonso scoring a penalty. that was as good as it got. at half-time robin van percy levelled the score and the netherlands scored another four goals, humiliating spain 5-1. spain next plays chile, beating a cuttsy -- gutsy australian team. the chileans were up, and the sokk ruse put in a performance to be proud of tim cahill scoring for the third conservative world cup. they couldn't get an equalizer, chile completing a 3-1 win. the other game was a group a

clash, mexico beating cameroon 1-0. and you can follow the sports and current affairs news on the website at aljazeera.com. the story we are covering on the front page is the afghan presidential run-off election. more on that after be get it. stay with us here on al jazeera. forgiven for thinking it's 2004 again. maps of iraq, escalating warfare and fleeing civilians. now the grand ayatollah is calling up for armies to protect it's shrines. iraq at its brink is the inside story.