>> stronger than ever, the israeli prime minister says, there's no strain in his country's relationship with the united states. hello there i'm barbara serra, you're watching al jazeera live from london. launching an operation to retake the city of tikrit from i.s.i.l. fighters. as the u.n. hux rights council human rights council meets in geneva,. and you thest gadgets go on

display in spain. . pps. >> hello there thank you for joining us. israel's prime minister has defended his scheduled speech to the u.s. congress saying he does not mean to disrespect president barack obama. benjamin netanyahu's invitation by the house speaker to address congress is seen as a rebuke to president obama. israel is at odds to the obama administration's views on the iran program. >> we are more than friends we're like a family. we're practically meshpuka. now, disagreements in the family are always uncomfortable. but we must always remember that we are family. [applause]

rooted in a common heritage, upholding common values, sharing a common destiny and that's the message i came to tell you today today. our alliance is sound our friendship is strong and with your efforts it will get even stronger in the years to come. >> let's go live to tom ackerman. following issues in washington d.c. what reaction has there been so far by the obama administration to this visit? this address at aipec but the address on tuesday to congress? >> reporter: we should be hearing from president obama himself in an interview that is expected to be released in a couple of hours. it may be in rebuttal to some of the comments that netanyahu made. specifically netanyahu used the

language that iran should not be allowed to have the capacity to develop a nuclear weapon. whereas the administration position which was reinforced or reiterated by u.s. ambassador to the u.n. samantha power just before netanyahu was that america will not allow iran to develop a nuclear weapon and if it does so, america will prevent the development of the weapon. it may sound like a nuance, but to israel it makes all the difference. apparently conceded in these negotiations there are other provisions 20 israelis are really lobbying hard against. so the question here is by bringing this debate before the u.s. congress on tuesday will it deepen the divide, will it force democrats, bowx's obama's party

democrats to choose between israel and the obama position, do not allow the undermining of the negotiations that are going on now barbara. >> do you think anything going on now netanyahu's speeches, the way that a lot of u.s. politicians are dividing over this could it have an impact on negotiations between the obama administration and iran? >> well, secretary of state kerry in geneva today alluded to that very fact. he said that -- he wonder against the dif ulsence of specific deals of the -- dif ul divulgenve of details. whether netanyahu will speak of that in his congressional speech we don't know. but that very fact helps to undermine the success of the

negotiations. because nothing has been decided until everything has been decide and that is american position. so if israel is trying to basically sabotage these negotiations before they concluded, the americans are making it plain that they will not cowns nens countenance that. >> tom ackerman, thank you. imtiaz tyab is in jerusalem. >> there's a few camps. there's one camp that's strongly supporting the prime minister that says that any opportunity an israeli leader is given to address u.s. lawmakers for a threat or perceived threat to israel he should take it. but on the other side, you have those who are teenly critical of the prime minister's decision to address the house of congress.

they say he is trying to score political points at the expense of israel's relationship with the united states. its most powerful ally. but in the background of all of that you also have those israelis who are somewhat indifferent to all of this noise that is coming out of washington about this speech, especially when you consider this election which is going to be held in two weeks time. if you look at the polling data, most are concerned about the economy. mr. netanyahu is talking about security, specifically about the threat that he perceives this iran could be with any kind of deal that it doesn't ensure that iran doesn't -- or is capable of enriching uranium at any stage. these people, these voters if you will, really want limb to be looking at the economy something that netanyahu has been accused of being at in the past.

>> iraqi security force he have launched a major offensive to retake the city of tikrit from i.s.i.l. forces . it lies on the road connecting baghdad to mosul. but it's not just the iraqi army involved in the operation. an estimated 2,000 sunni tribal fighters are taking part and according to iranian media the commander of iran's elite revolutionary force is involved. the general reportedly arrived in the area two days ago to help direct. if the operation in tikrit is successful and the iraqi government and their allies intend to relaunch an offensive to recapture mosul in i.s.i.l. fighters. in april or may.

>> today god willing we will start an important military campaign to liberate the citizens other areas in the province from islamic state militants. i call upon you to deal with citizens well, our goal is to liberate people from the oppression and militarism of daesh. >> jane arraf has more from baghdad. this is the first bald for a major sunni city, since i.s.i.l. took over last june. tikrit was one of the first cities they seized and has remained pretty much an i.s.i.l. stronghold since then. they tried otake back the city but stopped short of this kind of major offensive. this one is huge. more than 20,000 fighters. iraqi military forces along with

iranian backed shia militias. and sunni tribes men about 2,000 of them. it is the sunnis that prime minister haider al-abadi appealed to saying those who had been misled would be pardoned if they lay down their arms. he reached out to the iraqi parliament going had and talking to sunni members of parliament who ended their boycott. on the ground, military forces have approached the city from three fronts and in the town of andur they have taken it back after street to street fighting. there are major worries still. not only taking back that city which has been rigged by explosives by i.s.i.l. but revenge killings which might happen in conjunction with the fighting. this city is important not just militarily but because it was close to a camp spiker, where 1,000 recruits were killed by

i.s.i.l. a huge political issue. nadim baba takes a look at the issue. >> by june 2014 it was declaring a caliphate and held territory stretching all the way from aleppo to diyala province in iraq. army officers from the saddam era and tribal officers. in april u.s. led air strikes helped kurdish forces break the siege of mount sinjar. pro government force he recaptured beiji. a coordinated mission to retake mosul will probably begin in april or may involving up to

25,000 iraqi troops. need to recapture the city of tikrit because of its strategic location of the north south supply route from baghdad. at the very least there's expected to be strong resistance there. >> more to come here on al jazeera, including: more on why a u.s. backed rebel group in syria has decided to disband. and, south africa's sex workers demand a change of law to bring a change to their lives.

>> the new al jazeera america primetime. get the real news you've been looking for. at 7:00, a thorough wrapup of the day's events. then at 8:00, john seigenthaler digs deeper into the stories of the day. and at 9:00, get a global perspective on the news. weeknights, on al jazeera america .

>> a reminder of the top stories on al jazeera. israeli's prime minister has defended his scheduled speech to the u.s. congress saying he does not mean to disrespect president barack obama. benjamin netanyahu will address congress on tuesday as the two nations remain at odds over their iran nuclear policy. >> our alliance is sound. our friendship is strong. and with your efforts, it will get even stronger in the years to come. >> iraqi army has launched a major military operation to retake town of tikrit from i.s.i.l. fighters. a force of 20,000 including shia militias and sunni tribes men are attempting to driver the armed group from the province north of baghdad. the u.s. secretary of state has threatened russia over more

military sanctions for its actions in ukraine. it comes as the u.n. human rights office says the death toll in the reasoning has passed 6,000. barb biphillips reports. >> reporter: at a lake side hotel in geneva, another round of talks between john kerry and sergey lavrov. two men who know each other very well but yet they seem to have a dialogue of the deaf. minsk agreement was beginning to have a positive impact on eastern ukraine according to lavrov. >> those who are calling for weapons deliveries for ukraine will bear a heavy responsibility for breaking the peace process. >> reporter: but john kerry said the minsk agreement was being selectively implemented and threatened more sanctions

against russia. >> if there continue to be broad swaths of noncompliance or cherry picking then there will be inevitably further consequences that will place added strain on russia's already troubled economy. >> dabilitiesdebaltseve is one of several places that fighting continued after the minsk agreement. john kerry said lack of clarity as to what should happen this this strategic town. the u.n.'s latest report on this area paints obleak picture of the humanitarian situation. it speaks of the credible accounts of heavy weaponry and foreign fighters are continuing to flow into eastern ukraine from russia. i asked the report's author for more details on human rights

abuses. >> we had for example serious allegations of people being tortured there was some video release they'd groups were at least threatening or possibly using hammers, as well as surgery equipment to make people confess. this is very serious. >> who is doing this? >> well, rebel groups. >> this is the ninth report the u.n. in geneva has released on human rm terms in ukraine. barnaby phillips, al jazeera geneva. >> both ukraine and the rebels say they are acting in line with the agreement made last month in minsk. john hendren has more from donetsk. >> the machinery of war keeps rolling through a fragile

ceasefire. the silence is broken daily by the sound of small arms fire and mortars. that's ours he says. >> translator: in principal the ceasefire is holding but there's regular small arms fire so complete ceasefire can't exist. before you arrived here several small shells landed on our side. before we fired back there were grenade launchers firing on us. >> reporter: as occasional volleys continue to violate the ceasefire, separatists say it is ukrainian forces who are violating the ceasefire. >> we are not just trying, we are upholding it completely. the firing yesterday started to open fire. >> a year a into the conflict in eastern ukraine the death toll continues to rise, on a landscape transformed by the

war. and with each passing day the front line continues to shift. in weekend fighting, few were killed, but few in pietske expect the ceasefire to hold. >> we are preparing to deflect their attack. >> reporter: if that happens with separatist troops appearing to want to expand on the gains they've already made the front line could shift again. john hendren, al jazeera donetsk, eastern ukraine. >> meanwhile nato's deputy secretary general has also criticized russia sayings it's violating its commitments and stoking fear in neighboring countries. alexander vesko made the comments on a three day conference on weapons of mass destruction. let's go to egypt. the second bomb attack in cairo in less than a week.

a coalition.syrian rebels has disbanded after days of fighting with the al qaeda-linked nusra front. infighting has distracted the opposition for battling the real target the syrian government. zeina khodr reports from beirut. >> these syrian rebels were not killed by the government, they were killed in the western country side of aleppo. a knew few days ago the nusra front nevertheless, the hasa movement has decided to disband. in a statement the spokesman said the syrian military began to advance on several separatist groups in the past days, a distraction for the opposition. the fighting in aleppo was not

the first confrontation with nusra. nusra pushed the hasa movement out from idlib. it was the first group to receive sophisticated weapons from the u.s. but its links with the west only earned it conflict on the ground. this is not only obstacle the obama administration faces. it is finding it hard to convince rebels that the force it wants to train will be used to train the islamic state of iraq and the levant. for opposition, the priority should be fighting the government. syrians in opposition controlled areas are worried. coincides with government control of aleppo city and cut off opposition sidelines to turkey. >> translator: we call on the rebels to stop fighting each other. nusra should go to the front appliance and fight regime

instead. we are being attacked by militias and others, they are trying to lay siege to aleppo. >> hasem was one of the few rebel groups the obama administration trusted in syria. it chose it to be part of the training program. some of its individual members may still join. but if and when that u.s. force is ready it will face opposition not just from government and i.s.i.l. but from within rebel ranks. zeina khodr, al jazeera beirut. >> the united nations special envoy on yemen have announced that all parties are returning to the negotiating table. it comes as three suspected al qaeda members have been killed in a drone strike in yemen. presidents abdel mansour hadi spoke for the first time. natasha johnston reports.

>> after his rebel shia houthis put him under house arrest. now he's conducting business in the southern port city of aden. on sunday hadi met with leaders from other districts. >> the president asked the heughtszhouthis to help unite yemen. he accused them of scuttling a democratic transition. >> we do not know that the dlool, supports a eunt yemen. >> but houthi leaders appear to be focused on the relationship with iran. the first direct flight from tehran arrived in sanaa this week with it aid workers bringing medical supplies. houthi signed an agreement with

iran to have 14 flights a week. >> these flights come in the middle of impositions on america and saudi arabia on yemen. other spheres for yemen. >> critics fear those flights may bring weapons to arm the houthis, international allies split along religious lines leaving the country's path forward as uncertain as ever. natasha guinane, al jazeera . >> leaked recordings have allegedly revealed how egypt's army preparations for a meeting between the former british prime minister tony blair and abdel fattah al-sisi the then commander in chief of the egyptian army. and another an aid is heard talking to another official about using money from the united arab emirates to bankroll

the tamarod movement which led the campaign against morsi which ended in a coup in 2013. it is the oldest profession in the world and in south africa one of the most risky. 60% of sex workers on south africa's streets are hiv positive and as tanya page reports, they are demanding a law to make their jobs safer. >> as sex workers services cost about $2.50 but some men pay more so they don't have to wear a condom. 60% of south africa's sex workers are hiv positive but many don't get help because their trade is illegal. so some human rights workers want sex work decriminalized. they argue the law isn't in tune with reality. the government encourages condom use but some police use them as proof of criminality and brings their use to an abrupt end.

some sex workers fear carrying condoms, because that states i am a sex worker. she didn't think they'd take her seriously. she's hiv positive too but says the government's first prevention program for sex workers which is due to be launched this year won't work. >> translator: the house program will only work when sex work has been decriminalized because we are too afraid of the stigma from nurses. >> registers on whether the law should be changed, there is some precedent. south africa is a largely conservative society but has taken a more liberal stance on civil issues. both abortion and same sex marriage is legal here. the deputy minister of justice agrees the current situation

does not work. >> it's happening that criminalization hasn't stopped it so there's a variety of factors that needs to be looked at and we will ultimately have to do what is right. >> many people will take some convincing. but south africa's unenviable status of having the highest rate of hiv in the world that may in itself convince the government to decriminalize the oldest profession in the world. tanya page, al jazeera johannesburg. >> the industry's latest innovations, many of the gadgets involved sensors are taking center stage. tarek bazley reports. >> until now motion sensors have been too expensive and not

accurate enough. >> so a lot of the accomplishments we do are performance based what we're doing is bringing in performance measures which help the audience and the judges truly measure what the athletes did all metrics go into determining your final score. >> and data becomes important for action sports as well. this bmx rider has on board a motion tracker that allows him to track movements as small as 5 millimeters in real time. data recorded 400 times a second. sensors are small enough to be fit in the handle of a tennis record. that means every stroke can be recorded and analyzed. >> you have your average and the forehand and the backhand. then, at that you can analyze your play and this is way i

taught before, the rocket, that means you improve. the improve came from you. >> help industries including agriculture and manufacturing. the use of smart vending machines like this one tell the vend which products are selling and which need to be replaced. >> we see the internet of things spread all over the world. communication technology is used in latin america europe, south africa. >> with innovations like these the speed and capacity of the data networks will have to be much larger than they are today. mobile 5. gbltion technology which could power an imagined holographic hand set like this one, 100 times faster communications, with billions of sensors to come online in the years ahead connecting them

will become the next great challenge. tarek bazley, al jazeera, south america. >> speaking ever technology, the website for al jazeera is on your screen, aljazeera.com. very few people get up in evil. what evil can i do today? >> he wrote the epic novel, a song of fire and ice, the basis for the hbo series "game of thrones" now in its fourth season, george r.r. martin is working fotin issue the series. >> there are days i wonder if i bit off more than i could chew. did it have dotcoms? >> his characters are often consumed with power struggles making them blind to the greater threats to their kingdom did. found. >> we have things going on our