♪ almost five years of fighting and more than a quarter of a million people killed, the diplomatic push to end the conflict in syria takes center stage. ♪ hello you are with al jazeera live from doha and also to come in the program, police scuffle with protesters outside of a beijing courthouse as a well-known rights lawyer stands trial for online posts, south africa president zuma appoints a third finance minister in less

than a week plus disappointment for france's far right as the national front slumps in regional elections. ♪ but first we have some news coming from northern iraq and within last hour or so we have heard that some turkish troops stationed near mosul have now been withdrawn. their deployment of course caused diplomatic roe between baghdad and ankara and the latest from irbil in northern iraq and what more do you know? >> marteen we know the turkish troops who have been here for weeks and causing the rift between ankara and baghdad are out and we have spoken to sources in the peshmerga and

forces loyal to the kurds here in northern iraq and say they saw multiple trucks, military-grade trucks arriving into iraqi territory from turkey last night and the trucks are on their way out with troops and heavy military equipment and the amount of troops are not clear and we heard numbers and turks saying 150 troops were sent and iraqis say more than a thousand troops have been stationed there but we know they are leaving after intense negotiations between ankara and baghdad and pressure coming from the u.n. after the government reached out to u.n. asking them to make turkey pull back its troops. turkey insists these troops are here for training purposes and not withdraw all of them but withdrawing most of them but the trainers will remain on the ground. >> live in irbil in northern iraq and let's go across the border now and almost five years

of fighting, blood shed and an intractable humanitarian crisis and still the war this syria seems to have no end in sight but the diplomatic push to put an end to the crisis seems to be in full swing and on several different fronts this monday. the u.n. humanitarian chief is in the capitol damascus to workout the impact of all this fighting on civilians. later on today france is hosting a meeting of foreign ministers, obviously talking about the conflict and they are preparing specifically for another round of talks that will take place in new york next week. well, the human toll of this five-year civil war of course has been enormous, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and over a million injured, many of these people have been civilians. more than seven and a half million syrians are displaced making in the largest displacement of people in the

world right now. the u.n. says more than 12 million people inside the country are in need of humanitarian assistance and that is 12 times more than at the start of the war. well, there have been more casualties reported within the past 24 hours alone, government missiles along with russian jets hit a rebel stronghold on the outskirts of damascus and dozens of people including women and children were killed and paul reports now and a warning that some of the images in paul's report are distressing. >> reporter: in this moment of sheer panic and desperation talk of a truce is irrelevant. bloody bodies clutter the floor of an tempora temporary basemen in duma and in a stronghold outside of damascus lifeless infants are checked for vital signs, on another table a doctor tries to save another child who has lost his legs. the streets of duma are littered

with debris and shards of glass making it difficult to reach those in need. most of the victims were children and women at a market and a school. activists say syrian and russian jets were targeting rebels who shelled damascus from the area. this latest exchange of fire between rebels and the government comes as united nations humanitarian chief steven o'brien toured government held areas including damascus and homs. o'brien is trying to assess the needs of millions of the syrians, the u.n. has proposed a ceasefire deal that would allow humanitarian aid in and some civilians to leave. it's also hoping it will lead to a nationwide truce. this follows the saudi and opposition and hold direct talks with the regime but leader of one of the most prominent groups el nusra front is criticizing

the proposal saying syria's government is no longer in charge. >> translator: the regime only controls 20% of syria and regime lost the power, the army has turned into groups of factions. this is not an army. now the armored groups have more weapons than the regime has. >> reporter: the u.n. says at least 250,000 people have been killed since the start of the war in march 2011. and for the millions of syrians living in this devastation there appears to be no end in sight, paul with al jazeera. we have a syrian analyst at the doha institute and he says today's meetings are an attempt to find some common ground between the western vows and russia. >> the meeting is another attempt by the americans actually to get what the russians really want from this whole process because as you know the russians have been opposing the riyadh meetings of

the syrian opposition and number one is president bashar al-assad when they said it will be decided by the syrian people ie at the end and not the beginning of the period and should have been through elections. number two is the other point we are opposing on the riyadh meeting is the presence of what they call terrorist groups within that meeting and to be clear by meeting actually is trying to get with him a list of terrorist organizations that have been actually listed by jordan because if you remember the vienna meeting on november 24 gave jordan the task of listing the group of terrorist organizations in syria in coordination with other intelligence agencies in the countries concerned with the syrian conflict. >> reporter: child of one of china's most prominent people is ending after five hours and

human rights lawyer pu zhiqiang spent a year and a half in prison because of comments he made on line criticizing the ruling party and adrian brown reports from beijing. >> reporter: china's constitution guarantees free speech. but there wasn't much of that outside beijing's second intermediate court. police pushed away diplomatics supporters of a best known person and someone shouted that china's president is despicable. it's a very sensitive case and the police have been doing their best as you can see to prevent the media getting away from court and also the same treatment met out to foreign diplomates and of course many people are watch ing this trial with great interest, he is a very prominent person and as you can see it's very difficult to film now. among the diplomates turned away the first secretary of the u.s.

embassy. >> civil society leaders such as mr. pu zhiqiang should not be subject to continuing oppression. >> reporter: that is about as much as he was able to say before he too was pushed away. he was here to show support to one of the leading advocates for free speech and pu zhiqiang was arrested 19 months ago after posts he made on social media mocking china's government and he was charged with provoking quarrels and inciting ethnic hatred and clients include another decenting voice, the internationally acclaimed artist wayway and a show of defiance by a group of pu zhiqiang supporters and says he is not guilty it says, that is enough to get you arrested in the current climate. >> translator: there is no freedom at all. you are guilty if you talk. you are even guilty if you send flowers, there are no human rights in china.

>> reporter: pu zhiqiang is more than 300 human activists rights lawyers and journalists detained since the president sync sync began a campaign of political and social decent almost two years ago, china's government routinely rejects critical similar of the human rights record. >> translator: china's legal institutions heard the case in question in accordance with the law, china's law enforcement authorities carried out the management in the same in accordance with the law and the people in question should cooperate. >> reporter: last week one state-owned newspaper urged judges in this case to ignore pressure from western governments. adrian brown, al jazeera, beijing. staying in china and the head of one of the country's biggest companies has reemerged after disappearing from public view on thursday and china authorities say the chief was helping them with their investigation and the government has benatar get e- -- has been

targeting them. this is a third in a week and on wednesday president zuma sent the country's currency tumbling. president zuma criticized without stating a reason and thought replacing him with a relatively unknown david van ryan, due to public pressure zuma will replace van ryan with gordon who held the position before and live now to our miller who is in joe han hand-johannesburg and is the economy responding? >> so far marteen we saw a steady recovery in the last 24 hours immediately after the announcement was made that there would be a new finance minister gordon who of course served in

that position from 2009-2014 and says capable hands with the history and political standing and experience to at least have a way forward to see increasingly more gains as well as stabilizing the economy and also reensuring inversers that south africa will be okay and this is shortly after south africa narrowly missed being downgrade to junk status by international ratings agencies however economists are worried and seeing what will happen in the new year >> that is the economic consequences, tell us about the political consequences there and the rather unusual sequence of events. >> well, president zuma has seen a significant amount of criticism during his presidency and this is just the latest in a string of controversial incidents and the national african congress said they initially when he sat the first

finance minister nana and the congress came out to say they note and respect his decision. they didn't say very much more after that. usually coming to his defense. now it's only after the appointment of gordon which was announced on sunday night did they say they support the decision. reports indicate that the anc the national executive committee members of the high ranking committee met with the president. he also consulted with the members of a tri alliance, the south african trade unions as well after massive amount of criticism and saw him on the weekend and that is where we saw the result of gordon being reinstated as finance minister removing david from that position. >> live in johannesburg. thank you. we have a lot more to come here at al jazeera including a peace accord brought an end to the war in bosnia and how secure is the future 20 years on.

in new york street art like this is becoming more prevalent and the street artists themselves gaining worldwide attention, i'm gabrielle and that story coming up. the only way to get better is to challenge yourself,

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♪ hello again, you are with al jazeera and these are our top stories a number of turkish troops based near mosul in northern iraq have pulled out of the area. their deployment has caused a diplomatic roe between iraq and

turkey. france has a meeting with foreign ministers later on monday to discuss the conflict in syria and the latest diplomatic push to bring an end to the five-year war. new finance minister and the third in less than a week. on wednesday president zuma sacked one and sent the currency tumbling. now saudi arabia has confirmed that its head of special operations and a commander killed in fighting in yemen on monday morning and the saudi arabia colonel died while taking part in offensive in the city of thai and seen here meeting the yemeni president abd rabbuh mansur hadi. so this is the scene on thai on sunday, saudi-led coalition air strikes killed at least 54 houthi rebels and their rallys and five pro-government fighters also lost their lives during

fighting. finance ministers in brussels are ready to help libya with the conflict there but the policy chief will say the money will only come if a u.n. backed peace deal become as reality. >> we will work on the package of support that european leaders have prepared in the last month including financial support to libyan authorities in the moment when the new government would be formed and we expect the libyan process to bring some results in the coming days as you know. obviously there is a libyan owned and led process but the important thing is the eu in particular supports united in a coherent and coordinated way and with all our means. >> reporter: meanwhile western powers are calling for a comprehensive ceasefire in libya to pave the way for a national unity government. libya's rival factions due to sign the agreement in morocco on

wednesday and dana reports. >> reporter: rome is where the international community spoke with a strong and united voice expressing its support of a u.n. deal to bring about a government of national accord in libya. it was also in rome where some of libya's rival factions showed support for the international unity plan and expected to sign the deal on wednesday but there is still opposition to the plan and u.s. secretary of state john kerry addressed those concerns. >> there are still some inside and outside of libya for their own selfish purposes who are uninterested in reconciliation, unwilling to compromise and who actually want this process to fail. those responsible for violence and those who obstruct and under mine libya's democratic transaction need to be held strongly accountable. >> reporter: they have the general national congress in the west and the house of representatives in the east and there are splits within the rival administration over the

u.n. deal but the delegates who came to rome represent powerful groups from both sides, among them delegation from misrata but these forces are among the most powerful and can guaranty the security of a newly installed government in tripoli. >> consensus of the meeting today is also to address the problem of security, security in tripoli to bring the government which must be based at the end of the day in tripoli back to the capitol. the seat of its institutions and the future seats of the government of national unity. >> reporter: there were encouraging statements by leaders here and also warned that problems still need to be resolved and could be a big problem ahead and warning that libya is in a race against time. the military conflict has taken a toll on the civilian population, lawlessness is worsening but it's not just that. world leaders gathered here amid mounding concerns that

i.s.i.l.'s growing strength in libya will give it a gate way to europe and why the international community is pressuring libya's rivals to come together and stop fighting each other and focus on defeating i.s.i.l., under the u.n. plan the new government would be able to request international military assistance in the fight against the armed group. [gunfire] military option is on the table and the world is in agreement to prevent libya from becoming another base for i.s.i.l. >> the threat that i.s.i.l. poses is significant, it's especially concentrated in the area around cert, the international community will tackle this threat in the next few months the same way we attack yet in other countries. >> reporter: for now in is a victory. libyans seem to be on the road to peace and the words of the u.n. envoy the train has left the station but years of power struggles and divisions mean the road ahead could still lead to a turn for the worse, dana with al

jazeera, rome. leader of france's national front party has vowed to fight on after failing to secure a single region in elections. the far right party has been leading in six of the 13 regions. in the first round in beijing over a week ago but after the second round the socialists were winners in the five regions and former right of nicholas won in seven. 20 years since the official signing of a deal that restored peace in bosnia and dayton agreement was ratified this day in paris, it ended one of europe's most bloody conflicts and the bosnia war which over 100,000 people were killed and it was preserved as a single state but split in two parts the muslim federation and the republic and the deal did bring peace but from time to time it

had ethnic divisions as david now explains. >> reporter: serebia was the heart of the brutal ethnic conflicts that marked the disintegration of yugoslavia and the siege of forces lasted for 44 months, the longest recorded in modern warfare. shells and sniper fire reigned down on civilians and defenders alike, killing more than 11,000 of its people. and monday is the 20th anniversary of the signing of the dayton peace accord in paris that brought peace to serebio and a war that forced two million people from their homes and killed an estimated 100,000 across the former state. with such a painful past the question is can serebio future be secure and the conflict may be frozen but politicians in the

city fear the past could come back to haunt them. >> the presence of the past is eating the everyday lives of people away. we are going back to the polarization of the ethnic divisions that are still that still exist in the country and are a byproduct of the war and in a way they were cemented by the peace accord. >> reporter: cemented too in the streets of the city reminders of where civilians were cut down during the siege. the so called roses of serebio. at the art gallery in the historical heart of the city she told me about the explosion of color that has come back to her work since the siege ended. a siege that strangled any desire in her to paint. >> translator: we all were exposed to daily shelling. our lives were so simple and we didn't know whether we would wake up the next morning alive. >> reporter: hope for the

future is hard to find in this city. the city still besieged by its past, david with al jazeera, serebio. mixed signals coming from the third's largest economy japan and the bank says the confidence is flat though there are signs of recovery. rachel reports on what it takes to keep a traditional family business going in tokyo. >> the textile company has faced many challenges over its long history. it began in 1901 with workers using age-old techniques to dye silks used for c an minos and hundreds were in the operation and the area became known for textiles and the factory still stands on the same spot but now it's one of only nine similar companies in tokyo. >> translator: it's been our challenge from my father's time

not to go to seas but continue production here in japan and may be making things china is making but we will do something they cannot. >> reporter: he is the fourth generation of his family to run the company. in 2011 as demand for the traditional products fell away, he created a line of designer scarves for lost business and it rejuvenated the firm and it will die if japan's economy doesn't continue to improve. >> translator: relocating factories overseas is still happening and people talk about factories returning here but i can't feel it yet. >> reporter: it's a familiar message from businesses across japan. while revived figures reveal that japan's economy grew by an annual percent in the september quarter and may take time for it to flow to businesses and data

shows that business investment was up and private spending has also improved. >> companies are optimistic and i would not expect we will see over the next half year much more optimism but what we see long-term investment plans improving and particular with smaller companies and investing again. >> reporter: patches of good news in the economy should ease the pressure on japan central bank to expand its stimulus program and the board of the bank meets later this week but it's expected to stick to the current monetary policy and the emphasis will now shift to the government which is preparing a supplemental budget to give aid to families and pensioners. he is hoping broader economic improvements continue so he can open a store to sell directly to customers next year and help secure his business for generations to come. rachel with al jazeera, tokyo.

and anonymous street artist putting video games on tiles in new york city as part of an increasingly lucrative art scene and some street artists tests are world famous. >> reporter: new art has people looking up by a street artist have been popping up all over city, the anonymous artist goes by invader, a name taken from a classic video game and new york city was the latest target of tile murals he has installed in 65 other cities around the globe and category is in the top ranks of artists and resent works sold at an action for hundreds of thousands of dollars, that kind of money caused some of his earlier works to disappear from their original spots. >> enjoy what he does and stuff and want to see him before because a lot of people like to destroy his stuff so got to act

quick to see him. >> reporter: 2013 when he visited us pretty much every single piece he put up was stolen. now he has to go higher. sometimes as high as the building's top stories. graffiti and street art may have started as a reaction to urban blight and decay but more often street artists are gaining worldwide attention. >> i think of street art growing up in the different moment of citys where the experience that people have the street is of ads and brands and then people come along and doing this more kind of poppy and stencil-based stuff creating their own brand and taking back space in that way. >> reporter: while classic art collectors may look down on street artists people here continue to look up at the next piece of art to appear. gabrielle with al jazeera, new jersey. you can keep right up to date with all the day's

developing stories and there you see the front page yemen ceasefire due to come in effect later on monday. on the al jazeera website, al jazeera.com, there is a lot of opinion and background information as well as well as very nice pictures, al jazeera.com. has something to say to the republican front runner. it's no surprise that more americans are outraged by rising prescription drugs. 50% of all adults takes at least