♪ >> announcer: this is al jazeera. ♪ hello and welcome to the news hour, i'm live from our headquarters in doha and coming up, in the next 60 minutes. [gunfire back back the syrian army retakes the key town gaining leverage around diplomacy. stock market in china and sell the shares and causing the market to fall more than 6 pefr sent and % and a race for the white house and democratic hopefuls face off in iowa days

before the crucial nomination contest begins and fighting for an apology, the philippine women kept as sex slaves by japanese soldiers during the second world war. ♪ the syrian army is striking hard at rebel positions gaining ground and leverage ahead of proposed talks between warring parties this week and activists say government helicopters pounding aleppo and focusing on the southern city of hama and captured the strategic town of sheikh maskin in the southern providence offender -- of deraa and russia air strikes have been key to the gains and moscow says

the intervention helped the ground and we report on the government's resent advances. >> reporter: the syrian flag flies again on shake shake and it has take intense fiebling with rebels to retake the town in the southwest providence of deraa and show them entering the town center after securing supply lines and also reported to be continuing on the out-k t outskirts and it is on the main road linking damascus with deraa and they began giving up until the intervention and it's being seen as a game changer. >> things have just changed around 180 degrees for the regime since the russians came in. just last summer the nusra front

al-qaeda affiliate was making gains in the providence and now there is a significant reversal which will affect the rebel logistics. >> reporter: russian jets carried out thousands of missions helping the syrian government regain control of territory nationwide. it's just recaptured the town of rabi a key base for rebels in the northern providence of latakia and the bombardment is criticized for being discriminate and say i.s.i.l. and other armed groups are being targeted and some human rights groups say the air strikes have killed more civilians than fighters, gerald tan, al jazeera. >> meanwhile diplomatic efforts are underway ahead of friday's indirect talks on syria and invitations expected to be sent out in hours and sergei fedorov said it's impossible to reach an

agreement in syria without inviting kurds to take part in the negotiations. >> translator: the fighters which the u.s. supports and who are fighting i.s.i.l. are trying to prevent them from participating in the syrian talks. this is our common problem. >> reporter: it's not simply unfair and counter productive it's a problem with the u.s. the u.s. believes the kurds are one of its closest allies in the fight against terrorism, i hope the u.s. will not leave this problem unsolved. >> reporter: we have james base in geneva where talks are due to begin later this week and disagreement on the role of the kurdish groups and if they should be included in the negotiations and do we know first of all who is going to be invited and who is likely to accept the invasion to talks? >> well, certainly mr. staffan de mistura was pressed specifically on kurdish representation of these talks

when he gave a news conference and he didn't answer the question. but i'm hearing that, yes, the kurds are going to be invited in the shape of the pyd muslim, in fact, one reporter i heard from one source suggesting that he is even going to be here in geneva in the coming hours, in the next couple of hours. so that looks likely that they will be represented and that is controversial because the pyd has been an important fighting group in the north of syria fighting i.s.i.l. in the north of syria but other opposition groups say they have not really been fighting the assad regime and that is why they are not acceptable to them and certainly not acceptable to one of the key regional players supporting the idea of these talks until now and that is turkey. turkey believes the participation of the pyd is a red line for them. clearly we don't know which other opposition players will be coming here because the into

vacations as we speak right now have not yet been sent out and there are those groups that are based in saudi arabia where saudi arabia has been preparing for these talks and brought many of the groups to riyadh to have discussion of the talks and came up with a list for those to come to the talks including some of the main fighting groups in syria and it's russia that didn't like that list and said there need to be more secular players on the list and representation of the kurds and in the end the decision according to a u.n. security council resolution drawn up at the end of last year is the u.n.'s position to send out invitations and seems that staffan de mistura is going to listen to the russians and broaden the representation of the opposition. in fact, he told reporters he wanted a broad representation as possible as the opposition, that angers those who are on the saudi list, the riyadh list and others to come, it's not clear. >> so once they are all there, those at least who decide to

come, there are obviously going to be a great deal of issues to discuss james, what are priorities and top of the agenda? >> well, mr. staffan de mistura has said what he believes is top of the agenda and he says that what they do here must show instant results for the people of syria and that is why among the top issues they are going to be talking about is trying to get cease fires on the ground to stop the fighting in parts of syria, that i think explains why you are seeing the resent military action that has taken place in deraa and they say let's grab some land quickly before the fighting in the area is stopped because once it's stopped the military conflict there we won't be able to make any further gains and explains the increased in fighting. the other thing they will be talking about is humanitarian access trying to get humanitarian aid in and we are going to hear more about that in the next half hour or so when

the humanitarian chiefs will give a briefing here in geneva. >> thank you for that, diplomatic editor in geneva. let's now take a closer look at who controls different regions of syria and reporting restrictions make it hard to be precise on this and rebels hold areas near the border with turkey and idlib previously held by rebels is in army hands but rebels control the countryside and capitol damascus is largely under state control and provinces held by the government except for a few pockets of resistance and activists estimate that two thirds is in rebel hands. military and rebels both control hearts of homs the epicenter of the up rising and home to syria's minority is under state control and on monday the syrian army recaptured a strategic town in the southern providence of deraa although fighting is

continuing on the outskirts and let bring in a senior fellow at the american university of beirut and live us with from the lebanese capitol and i think we all agree that the over all picture right now is that the russian air support has shored up the assad regime in the last few months and warring sides typically intensify efforts to gain territory ahead of peace talks and how significant are the territorial gains made by the assad government right now in areas like aleppo or deraa giving international affairs like the u.s., like russia who will determine the outcome of these talks as much as the syrians who are fighting on the ground? >> it's a combination of all of these things together so the gains that the syrian government has made are important but not decisive and that is because these are gains that are made heavily due to support on the

ground militarily by hezbollah, by iran and by the russian airforce. so without these external three support groups the syrian government would probably have vanished by now because they were really in bad shape about a year ago but now the syrian government is much more confident, regaining some ground but it is also losing ground in other places so the pattern in syria has been constant shifting of territorial control and this depends on external support to the government, external support to the rebels and the ability of the rebels which has not been very great so far to coordinate their military campaigns on the ground and i.s.i.s. is still pushing in places like derazor and made some gains regio recen and losing around aleppo and the area that is critical to the government and the heart land of the alo whites or core of the

government supporters the government regained land there recently so there is a shifting pattern on the ground and it's important because one of the talks go ahead in geneva and if they achieve ceasefires who controls more land will gain more political and economic and humanitarian power. but the point of all this is that there are external players as you mentioned, big regional and global players, there are people on the ground fighting and there are territorial issues including legitimacy issues inside syria that are contested and all of these three keep interacting like a kaleidoscope and keep turning it with different patterns and images but in reality they have to at some point come together and either find a solution or fight to the end. >> given what you just said and when you think about the fact that these talks in geneva, these indirect talks which are due to begin friday are being dumped on geneva three and given what we know about what happened to geneva one and two how

optimistic are you remy they will be talking about and there will be any progress at all in the next few days? >> i think people are not optimistic at all but everybody would like to try to find a diplomatic move forward. that could at least bring about more cease fires. there is already dozens of local cease fires in syria and some are supported by the external powers which is important. if we can get more cease fires locally and agree on one national ceasefire that would be a huge step forward. the problem is that two of the biggest groups the islamic state, so called islamic state and el nusra the affiliate are not involved in peace talks and other important groups may not be involved at all and ceasefires are the main hope to come out of these talks in geneva and some humanitarian aid perhaps which could possibly

lead to some repatriation of refugees, that is about the maximum that people can hope for and it might be tried on a localized basis and may take one or two provinces in syria and test these things out there. there is no agreement on the future political evolution, the roll of the assad government and this is the most important point of the peace talks to get an evolution to oppose assad government in the eyes of the opposition whereas the russians, iranians and assad don't particularly see a post assad outcome as something they have to agree to at the beginning of the talks. >> okay so small steps and thank you so much for speaking to us remy of the university in beirut there. still ahead on the al jazeera news hour. ♪ praying for a new life, why thousands of ethiopia jews are calling on israel to open its doors. a severe cold snap hits parts of

eastern asia bringing with it dangerously low temperature and in sport after 17 consecutive defeats maria looks for a win over williams in over a decade and action from the australian open coming up, later with jo. ♪ there has been a miserable day for markets across asia after mainland chinese shares slumped to a 14-month low and china's two main markets dropped 6% to finish at the lowest level since 2014 and they were compounded by panic selling. the low price of oil is having a major impact on international markets and joining us live from beijing is benjamin from the advisory firm china policy and benjamin good to have you with us on al jazeera and wild ride on the chinese market since the beginning of the year and the

liquidity and how much does it reflect the under lying health of the chinese economy? >> really good to be with you, that is right and we have seen a wild ride. there has been panic selling across the board for a number of months now and it's really a case of the animal spirit in action here in china. panic gripping investors both individual and institutional investors and the panic is spreading to global industries where we are seeing other significant sell offices and part of what is happening in china also fueling the oil drop as well, these two things combining to really lead to a general sell off across markets around the world but it's important to keep in mind that this ride, a great deal of this is what you might call sound and fury not signifying a great deal and what i mean by that is that

despite these fluctuates many of the fundamental indicators of the chinese economy are still in really good health so the latest trash of gdp data that came in has the chinese growing 6.9% which is a really healthy rate then we have a whole host of relatively positive indicators vis-a-vis consumers as well so we have consumer confidence still being in a relatively high level. it is slipping slightly but still puts china at the top of the international lead table of consumer confidence then you have things like real incomes still growing. >> let me ask you in the fact that consumer confidence is high and people are still borrowing heavily in china isn't that a bit dangerous though? isn't there concern, more concern about chinese debt, more so than about the stock markets itself? >> yes, so this is the really

important issue of debt in china which is a serious economic risk for the country. but it's crucial to keep in mind that this debt is not primarily individual debt. personal saving rates in china are incredibly high, some of the highest in the world so chinese consumers are still able to invest in property and save in chinese banks. the issue is with debt held by chinese corporations and by chine chinese governments and there is $28 trillion debt in china which is a massive debt to gdp like 283% and at the local provincial level we have $4 trillion u.s. dollars worth of debt in china which is equivalent of gdp of france and germany combine so debt out there is a serious issue but there is a recognition understanding in beijing is the need to unwind those dangerously high levels of debt and so

policy moves are entrained to transfer that debt from risky chinese enterprises or debt-laden local governments back to the central government which is much more flush with cash. >> benjamin thank you so much for your insight and benjamin is research manager at the china policy firm joining us live from beijing. the bodies of 13 people have been discovered after their boat capsized off the coast of malaysia. police believe those on board were illegal migrants from indonesia, the bodies of four men and nine women were discovered on a beach in southern johor and search and rescue operation is underway to find other survivors. malaysia's prime minister cleared of wrongdoing in a corruption scandal and money was transferred in 2013 but attorney general says it was a personal donation from the saudi royal

family and most returned however 60 million remains unaccounted for and we have more from kuala-lumpur. >> various media outlets in malaysia speculating as to what the conclusion of the attorney general's report would be into his investigation over allegations of corruption made against the prime minister and while those allegations have been put to one side by his statement at a press conference on tuesday saying that the prime minister had done no wrong and that there were no reasons for anyone to think that the prime minister had done anything corrupt and that the donation of over $600 million was made by sources within the saudi royal family, but the actual scenario now leads to as many questions as it does solutions. the questions within its own party as to what happened to the money and going to party coffers and questions about the ex

position and should he stay on as prime minister with the cloud still really hanging over him because the opposition is certainly not going to let this issue lie and that they will completely continue to hammer the ruling party as this country heads towards a general election within the next two years, do they want to allow him to step aside and allow a new face to take the helm of the party and lead it into the next general election and perhaps the questions will be answered in the next few weeks. in the united states democratic presidential hopefuls have held a town hall forum in iowa less than a week ahead of the first nomination contest of the campaign season and bernie sanders sharpened against hillary clinton and the last chance to hear from all three democratic hopefuls assembled in one place and kim reports. >> reporter: i was a chance for iowa voters to pose can questions directly to the

democratic presidential candidates including hillary clinton no longer leading opinion polls in iowa and struggling to overcome scandals of the past and win the support of young voters. >> i heard from people my age they think you are dishonest but i'd like to hear it from you and why you feel the enthusiasm is not there. >> there is nothing to it and they throw all this stuff as me and i'm still standing. >> reporter: she used the stage to echo statements she made on the campaign trail and as former secretary of state she has the most foreign policy experience to be president and take aim at donald trump against muslims. >> we need a coalition with muslims to defeat i.s.i.s. and it's pretty hard to figure out how you're going to make a coalition with the very nations you need if you spend your time insulting their religion. >> reporter: her main rival bernie sanders acknowledged clinton has considerable foreign experience he highlighted what

he considers her biggest foreign policy mistakes as the senator in the u.s. congress. >> hillary clinton voted for the war in iraq. >> reporter: as an antiestablishment candidate who hazard pledged to overcome income inequality in the united states by breaking up major banks and rairning in wall street sanders reminded iowa voters for deregulating when her husband bill was president. >> i led the effort against wall street deregulation and see where hillary clinton was on this issue. >> reporter: despite polling showing clinton and sanders leading the race for the democratic nomination in iowa there is martin o'malley who said he is the best man to overcome the racial tensions plaguing the united states. >> black lives matter. >> reporter: telling supporters to stand strong his biggest challenge will be to prove he is still relevant, in a nominating

contest that has become a two-person race. kimberly with al jazeera, washington. dozens of people have died as an extreme cold snap continues to grip parts of asia and experiencing the lowest temperatures in half a century and we report from beijing. >> reporter: asia is freezing plummeting temperatures and heavy snowfalls in japan are blocking roads and reducing traffic to a crawl. cancellations and delays mean public transport is in chaos. businesses are grinding to a halt because staff are struggling to get to work. >> translator: i was supposed to board the 2:00 train but i'm thinking of going home since i don't know when the trains will arrive. >> reporter: in taiwan dozens of people many of them frail and elderly have died. the sudden drops in temperature strains their heart and lungs and many homes don't have central heating. in vietnam farmers are helplessly watching their crops freeze and their animals die.

>> translator: since i was born i've never seen anything like this. this weather is badly affecting our society and my family's economy. >> reporter: the south korean island had the heaviest snowfall in more than 30 years. airports were shut over the weekend leaving many travelers stranded. >> translator: staying in the airport is really exhausting and i really want to get out of here. i've been at the airport for 12 hours. >> reporter: hong kong experienced its coldest day in nearly 60 years, in other parts of northern china temperatures dropped below minus 40. in china the cold front is forecast to exit on tuesday and allow temperatures to creep backup to normal. this will come as a relief to many, in particular to the millions of people who will be traveling home for the upcoming lunar new year holiday, beijing. let's get an update on the weather in asia and it's going to be cold in japan for a few more days everton but china is warming up. >> that is right and as are

seeing and warm air pushing in and japan staying on the cold side at least for a few more days and we will see the warm air pushing in and we have largely clear skies across northern parts of china pushing up into japan and you can see the clearer skies here quite nicely on the dish and here is our next area of cold air behind the cold front and we have the cold air tucked in behind and we will start with the temperature at minus five celsius and should be minus five or eight and it's on the warm side actually and it will be cold on the eastern side of russia and pushing to the peninsula and japan itself is still down in single fingers but eventually we will have to see tokyo getting up to ten degrees. might see a few wintry flurries in the next couple of days and sleeting showers a possibility but chance of dry and brighter weather pushing in at least

until we get to the second half of the week and then coming from the eastern side of china we will see the wet weather pushing its way through shanghai and here we go with that wet weather and lots of cloud pushing in southern parts of china, wetter and warmer way making its way this as we go through the next few days and sunday hong kong struggled to get up to 14 degrees celsius and we will see temperatures picking up higher as we go on through this week. >> thank you very much indeed the sla lar sri-lanka, this is moving through the port of columbo. >> 75% of the country and we have no way of looking at the information to get down and unloaded. that is the main difficulty.

>> reporter: now essentially on the international market ivory fetchs 5,000 a kilo and one can imagine 1 half tons of ivory what that would hold and as far as authorities and ceremony to destroy the ivory the clergy here as is tradition in the country invoking blessings on the dead elephant very much indifference with what happened a couple years ago when the former president wrote to the customs essentially asking that responsibility and custody of these tusks be transferred to his secretary and saying that behind me will see all of the 359tusks going through the course of the day and resulting fragments that come out of the crusher will be weighed up, essentially bagged up and taken to an industrial incinerator where they will be burned. now very much what the central

sort of theme and thinking behind this is showing that there is no value essentially for contraband and that poaching and the international trade will not be encouraged. still ahead on the al jazeera news hour the world health organization issues a new warning on the zika virus suspected of causing birth defects in the americas. in sport the two top teams in the nba meet as the gold end state warriors host the san antonio spurs and stay with us, we will be back after the break. ♪

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welcome back you are watching the news hour with me and reminder of the top stories now activists say government forces recaptured one of the most important towns in syria and sheikh maskin is on a key supply line linking the damascus and city of deraa and costs billions of losses and the stock market in shanghai fell more than 6% to 14 month low following a further fall in the price of oil. malaysia's prime minister has been cleared of criminal behavior after receiving $680 million from saudi arabia and malaysia's attorney general said he received a personal donation from the saudi royal family but most of it was returned. day two of iran's president rohani visit to italy and leaders visiting italy as part of his first european tour since

the lifting of sanctions on tehran earlier this month and live to jackie roland who is in rome for us and what is on the agenda today for the iranian president? >> well, very importantly today president rouhani is due to meet france at the vatican and it's a very important meeting because it's the first time that an iranian leader is meeting a pope since president hatami came in 1989 and that was a significant period of time and pope francis is really going to use his meeting to emphasize the use of human rights and peace. in particular he will be urging president rouhani to use his influence and good offices of the syrian regime of bashar al-assad to try to encourage as far as possible more efforts

towards a peaceful solution to the conflict in syria and obviously a helpful attitude towards getting peace talks started as soon as possible. >> jackie as we said this is rouhani's first tour since the lifting of international sanctions, what is iran hoping to get out of this visit? >> this visit essentially is about bringing iran back into the international fold and ending its isolation both politically and economically and for western firms, european firms and italian firms means big opportunities but a number of risks. the iranian delegation includes around 100 business leaders dashes through the streets of rome towards the italian presidency. this is rouhani's first official trip to europe since international sanctions against

iran were lifted a week ago and he chose to make rome rather than par 'tis his first destination. italian companies fought off fierce competition to clinch contracts with iran and these are among the first deals to be signed, an indication of the longstanding cooperation between italy and iran. >> translator: we have all been in the front line in the battle against terrorism, if iran had not taken this role we would be in a much more difficult situation today. we have worked well with italy in many sectors and have to continue the cooperation to ensure genuine peace in the east. 100 billion in frozen assets which it will now be able to access. it plans to buy more than 160 european planes mainly from air bus. and it is to sign deals worth $18 billion largely with italian energy and steel firms. the european union and the united states still have a

number of issues with iran notably in the field of human rights and also on its support for groups like hezbollah and hamas but however have come to a conclusion there is more to be engaged with engaging with iran than isolating it. iranian infrastructure desperately needs investment and state of the art equipment from the west especially in the oil and gas sector where iran is already ramping up production. there is also a huge appetite for consumer goods including designer brands. in return the west hopes iran will contribute positively to reducing tensions and conflict in the region. >> being an eu member, a member of nato and an ally of the usa can also sort of establish and sort of develop and intense political dialog with russia, with iran which are a crucial partner for any issue in the middle east both in syria and in libya. >> reporter: the visit

continues on tuesday when the iranian president heads to the vatican to meet pope francis. and president rouhani is in the vatican now talking to the pope and will bring you more on that crucial meeting in the next hour, back to you. >> jackie thank you so much and we will be speaking to you later of course, jackie roland in rome there. iranian government being criticized for executing teenagers, amnesty international has 73 cases where people under 18 were executed over the past decade. human rights group says iran has failed to follow-up promises made two decades ago to abolish the death penalty for juveniles and u.n. says at least 160 are on death row. in haiti political leaders are trying to find a solution to the political crisis following the indefinite postpone of election and runoff to choose a successor was cancelled following allegations of fraud and refusal

to take part of opposition candidate was accompanied by anti-government protests. the president is said to be determined to leave office in two weeks even though he is not -- he has not had a replacement yet. >> translator: this environment there won't be an election while the president is still in power. we are discussing the situation and are many scenarios that could occur but in the end we could have the second around after they give us power which will be after february 7. the u.n. has agreed to monitor the end of the civil war in columbia. the u.n. security council unanimously adopt add resolution which will see international observers monitoring the disarming of farc rebels, after years of negotiations the leaders are inching towards a deal, the conflict which lasted for five decades killed more than 220,000 columbias and displaced $6 million. columbia on the historic

agreement and forging a peace agreement will not resolve columbia challenges or instantly help heel and the deep wounds inflicted over the last five decades and cannot undo what happened in so many communities but if the fighting truly ends then a new and long over due chapter can finally begin. >> translator: today is a very important day for columbia. with the resolution adopted by the security council we see the fight which means the end of the conflict is closer. as a columbia i know i can absolutely see in all colombians the optimism and illusion to finally achieve peace after 50 years of conflict. >> reporter: the world health organization is warning the zika virus could spread to almost every country in the americas and finders have a link between the mosquito-borne illness and birth defects in thousands of babies in brazil and u.s.

government is warning pregnant women against visiting zika hot spots and we report from mexico city. >> reporter: it all started last may with brazil's first case of the zika virus and even calling in the army couldn't stop it infecting 1 1/2 million people say brazilian health authorities and it's spread by a specific mosquito and not normally life threatening for adults but brazil doctors think it causes microencephaly where newborns heads do not develop and they noticed a rise in the illness after zika arrived and it is not proven but elbow -- el salvadore and other countries say not to get pregnant there and issued guidelines on travel to zika hot spots.

>> we are quite concerned about the potential complications to the fetus of zika virus infection of pregnant women so we really are advising that pregnant women seriously consider postponing travel to these areas if possible. >> reporter: according to the world health organization there 21 countrys across the americas already can cases of zika and say it will probably spread to every country in the region except chile and canada that don't have the type of mosquitos that carry the virus and currently there is no vaccine or cure. mexico is fumigating to try to get ahead of the virus. >> we have not been able to stop chikungunya or dange and go against the mosquitos and avoid being bitten by the mosquitos and how?

long sleeves, pants and repellant. >> this is months away from the brazil olympics where a huge influx of visitors will also be vulnerable to the apparent threat of this virus. john holman mexico city. emperor is in the philippines to boost ties between the two countries and japanese troops occupied the philippines during the second year world and it is better but no japanese apology to philippine women who were captured and forces to be sex slaves and we report from manila. >> reporter: fighting for justice, these women have kept silent most of their lives, traumatized and ashamed of being forced into the army during world war ii and she is almost 90 years old and clearly recalls

the day she was abducted. >> translator: one japanese soldier started to rape me while the other two held my arms and legs down. when he was done the other one started. even though i was screaming because of the pain my body was in they kept at it. >> reporter: she is one of almost 200 philippine women who first came forward 25 years ago and say they were kept as sex slaves in so called comfort stations to service emperil japanese soldiers and want to be recognized officially and an apology by the government of japan. the japanese emperor will be here five days but the use of war time sex slaves is not up for discussion and japanese signed a 150 million operation in 1956 and those focused on rebuilding infrastructure and developing industry the

philippine government considers the matter of war time sexual slavery closed. japan is the largest aid donor to the philippines and now mutual concerns over china intentions in the region the two countries are also strengthening defense corporation and could see japanese forces back in the philippines. >> the philippines government has not done much with comfort women are concerned because they are so revolved around the economic partnership and aid and bigger political issues. unfortunately that relegates this aspect of history to the backdoor. >> reporter: women like her don't want to be cast aside. >> translator: no matter how hard it is for me i'm still here just to ask for due, what was done to us by the government of japan. >> reporter: every year there are fewer of them left but beyond compensation they long for an official apology from the

japanese government. only then they say can they start to reclaim the dignity taken from them 75 years ago. al jazeera, manila. we want to take you now live to geneva where the u.n. humanitarian agency is holding a press conference about the situation in syria. this is the u.n. humanitarian coordinator for syria and let's listen in to what he has to say. >> talks in geneva because the people coming or the parties coming to geneva to talk politics cannot agree on the basic things then i don't know what else they can agree on. the people of syria matter and it is our responsibility to convey that message. the united nations and partners are in syria and all parts and we continue to be there and we will continue to do so but there will be no humanitarian solution to the crisis in syria. this has been said many of times and there will be no humanitarian solution to the crisis in syria that the

solution must be political. thank you very much. >> thank you very much for that very succinct and heart wrenching introduction and i will ask the panelist if they want to make opening remarks and limit themselves to two or three minutes each so we can get the largest number of questions possible. do you mind if i invite unicef and wha colleagues first and then we will go to john and yourself? shall we start with hanna singer from unicef please? >> thank you very much. syria is probably the most dangerous place on earth now to be a child. even the very simple act of playing is no longer safe. a few months ago 19 children were killed in a playground in homs as they were celebrating

the eat holidays and in the same week six children were killed when they hit a child friendly space in aleppo. and i will always be haunted with the faces of the mothers and the children of a school in homs during the memorial ceremony after a suicide bomber attacked a school and killed at least 30 children between the ages of 9-11. the impact of this war on education has been staggering. two million children are out of school, one in four schools can no longer be used, 35 schools were attacked this year. the education sector has lost over 50,000 teachers because they were killed or forced to flee the conflict. for a country that before the conflict education enrollment or school enrollment was over 90%

syria has now lost two decades of education or progress, this is a real risk. there is a real risk that a whole generation of children will be lost. one symptom of that is that the number of children becoming involved in the war itself is increasing. at the start of the conflict children were taking on support roles as cooks or reporters. today we see more and younger children right on the front line. at checkpoints carrying weapons and even taking part of the fighting and execution sometimes. war is putting an immense pressure on services and civilian infrastructure, water, water availability in syria has dropped down by 70%. facilities have been directly attacked and at times water was cutoff deliberately as a tactic of war.

last summer it happened more than 40 times in aleppo leaving whole neighborhoods without running water to consecutively for over two weeks but this is throughout the summer and children once again bore the brunt because instead of playing and going to school they were the ones forced to fetch the water and some got killed by either by mortar at one of the water wells. in 2013 unicef launched the no lost generation initiative with the aim of putting education and protection of children at the center and the core of the humanitarian response. hundreds of schools were rehabilitated and self learning in reaching children living in the hard to reach area was developed. this work is being carried on by staff and partners and great partners on the ground like the syrian arab red crescent and

managed to put water in the reach of nearly 8 million people and deliver it by trucks and wells and critical infrastructure repair but this is not enough. millions are still out of reach and we cannot reach them by sustained service. less than two weeks ago in a makeshift hospital in madai i witnessed with horror as a 16-year-old boy named ali died before our eyes from the complications of severe malnutrition. his friend hassan who we were so relieved to evacuate from madai passed away a couple days ago. he also died before from severe complications due to malnutrition. and that is why on behalf of ali, on behalf of hassan, but also on behalf of the million

other children that are still proudly trying to go to school on a daily basis, i join my other colleagues and millions around the world in calling on all parties to the conflict and those who have influence over them to let us do our work on the ground and provide humanitarian workers with unimpeded u un kon disconditio humanitarian efforts and end attacks on water facilities and on schools and education in accordance with humanitarian law. schools are a place of learning and a space for children to heal as well as a safe haven for normalcy and hope for a better future. >> thank you very much hanna and syria is probably the most dangerous place on earth for a child today and ladies and gentlemen there is more to come. and elizabeth w.h.o. >> good morning my name is elizabeth and i'm w.h.o.'s

representative to syria, this is my fourth year in damascus and i have been reporting to you many of you on the health challenges that we have faced over these four years and i must say when i arrived in 2012 the situation was just starting to be bad but today i'm reporting from a different syria, a totally different health situation is deteriorating in front of my eyes and we have shortness of medicine and supplies and 50% of the health workers have left the country, we have 60% of the hospitals, the public hospitals have been destroyed, they are either closed or only partially functioning, 50% of the primary healthcare centers are closed. access is a main problem. access for the health workers to get to work, access for patients to reach the health facility and to cross checkpoints and also

sometimes under with shooting they have to try to get to facilities to get care. we also see very high risk of infectious diseases outbreak. we have had many. we have also been able to prevent cholera for example and we know that those who are internally displaced live in shelters and are between 50-70 to share one toilet. this is the situation that many of them are facing. so what is our challenge as p.h.o. and for the health workers in syria? it is access, access to the people in need and also to send supplies. what we have seen is that and we have reported on this consistently is that surgical supplies and this is how they define surgical supplies and it's not only surgical supplies

and they are being removed when they get approval from the central level i'm constantly facing for example in homs that the national security forces are removing therapy for children with diarrhea and going to send this and they are removing needles and they are removing syringes and appealing for immobilization to take place across syria. there are many areas where this is not happening. this should be the right of every child and every family. before the crisis as we reported over 90% of the children were vaccinated routinely in syria. today this has dropped to less than 50% and in many areas for example in pockets in idlib it's less than 10% and also we have areas in the besieged and not

vaccinated for two years and we have outbreaks of measles and per tuesd tussis and getting si because of basic rights and immobilization is the most cost effective public health intervention and this alert came to us very stronglyhen we had an outbreak after 15 years of being polio free in syria. we had 36 cases of polio again but we were able to control it. today we have more difficulties than what we had up until 2014 when the control of polio but we are specifically appealing to the parties to the conflict of please give us where we can enter into syria with vaccination campaigns. we need three or four campaigns. we need to do this three campaigns with three to four

weeks intervals and we need to reach 2.9 million children across syria. and this is really what we are really and strongly appealing for, these courses to take place as a minimum but we would like to access all the people. i was recently in madia and the children had not been vaccinated for ten months and the vaccines are available and the syringes and needles were there but didn't have advocate health personnel to carry this out and also when the soldiers and people were for getting their food supplies so they couldn't even have the strength to come to the health centers. they need actually mobile teams to reach their homes because if they don't have the strength to seek care we need to reach them and i live in a town on the vast coast of norway and we have 40,000 inhabitants, the same number as madaya and in madaya

they had two certified doctors a gynecologist and he was trying to do his beth best and treating malnutrition and do this work and i'm appealing to you and also all the political partners to try to help the people of syria to get their basic rights and try to protect the most vulnerable, the children and let them get the right for their vaccination. thank you. >> elizabeth thank you very much. so there you have it, people are dying before the eyes of our humanitarian workers. john director of operations ocha new york. >> thank you very much, dear colleagues i will be very brief what is being said about this being the largest, the biggest humanitarian crisis that we face

in the world today and for a long, long time, you know, cannot be overstated. it's about the human cost, it's about human beings and what we are now at a moment of hope in this darkness and this despair of the reality of the horror that the human beings of syria have suffered for far too long. i'm privileges to be here this morning in the company of people, people, human beings who are doing heroic work for those same people in syria who are despairing and suffering unspeakable horrors and hanna and elizabeth, these are the heros of our humanitarian world. these are the people who risk their lives and it is very tragic that yet another colleague has lost her life trying to save lives but here before us today are people who

are doing all that they can do and much more than we would ever ask them to do. they are leading convoys into conflict zones, they are risking their lives with their colleagues to reach people who are so in need of humanitarian assistance, month after month we report this to the security council, day after day, people continue to be killed, continue to suffer and needlessly. we should all be inspired by the actions of our humanitarian colleagues and salute them and we hope their efforts because the failure in syria is most ethnically not the humanitarian organization's failure, it's a political failure and that is why we are now looking with great hope for this political process to do what is needed which is to deliver us a

solution which will end the conflict and put people back on the track and the path that they deserve. thank you. >> john. >> thank you, i speak today as secretary-general of one of the large non-government organization active in syria and in all of the neighboring countries. the council has 3,000 local relief workers on the ground. i'm more hopeful today than i have been in a long time because yesterday the u.n. envoy announced, staffan de mistura announced that the representatives of the parties will come to geneva this weekend. your expectation is that they will immediately do the following which they can if the games are over, the preconditions are now over, they sit down and do what they should do.

number one, end the starving of civilians in besieged areas. number two end attacks on schools, homes and hospitals and, three, tear down this berlin wall of hinderances of us as humanitarians who want to help people who have the right to get the help we can offer. we have learned now through these five years the better lesson as humanitarians and there is no humanitarian solution to this crisis and i think those who are bombing, attacking, maiming each other and civilians in syria have understood there is no military solution. in fact, what we have seen of late is colleagues have already detained that it has become worse of late and intensified fighting from yarmuk in the east to dansour in the east and the

east and my own organization saw two of the schools we had in aleppo bombed to pieces by aerial bombing this month. a center for the poor displaced was bombed more of the civilian displaced dead. every hour, in fact, that is wasted now from the talks started until we getting ament agreements means more displaced from the homes trudging in the snow and bitter cold in syria, 50 families every wasted hour. so we also expect sponsor, supporters and military partners of these parties who all sit in international support group for syria to do their job which is to put much more pressure for peace to do much more