like chainsaws or gunshots and in australia indigenous practices being used to fight fire with fire if they wreck a fire like this to make a fire right about the time that we hike it fair and just stop yeah innovation and tradition. at this time on. and.

zimbabwe's army denies carrying out a military takeover and the growing political tensions in the country. hello i'm daryn jordan this is live from doha also coming up. frankly i had no recollection of this meeting until i saw these news reports i do now recall u.s. attorney general goes on the defensive as he faces questions about alleged ties between russia and donald trump's presidential campaign. australians out to say yes to same sex marriages plus i'm reporting from austria on the return of the wooden eight i'll get to the turning back time on construction. now it's been

a tense night in zimbabwe's capital explosions have been heard in harare and the reuters news agency says soldiers have taken over the headquarters of the state broadcaster said b.b.c. but the army says it's not a military takeover well several images have been posted on social media showing unusual military activity inside. the capital tension has been rising since the head of the army criticized a purge of the president's ruling zanu p.f. well the party responded by accusing general constantino chiwenga of treasonable conduct when a military spokesperson has just read a statement on state radio he says president robert mugabe and his family a safe and the military's targeting what they called criminals around him it continued as soon as the criminals have been apprehended the situation will return to normalcy and this is not a military takeover where the soldiers said oliva members of the defense forces canceled but people with critical businesses are encouraged to go about their day well the u.s. and the u.k.

have warned their citizens living in zimbabwe to stay indoors the country's been ruled by robert mugabe since the country gained independence in one thousand nine hundred eighty last week he fired his vice president. who was widely considered a possible successor the first lady grace mugabe had been pushing for his removal for some time with these events prompted the military to weigh in with a warning against purging senior members of the ruling party. well me a quitter is an independent africa policy analyst on the former executive director for africa action he joins us live from washington d.c. good to have you back on the program this deal first of the reports of explosions and gunfire in harare a military vehicle seen on the streets this is very highly unusual for zimbabwe what do you think is going on. well you know. it looks and smells like a coup and so are prehensile i mean soldiers have no business in their normal normal run of

a country to be doing this especially when the president has not me ahead or from and therefore it's smells and sounds like a like a cool on the other hand they have said that it is not are. not making a cool and. you know. bob way the southern africa region and africa in general there is great hostility to military takeovers that is in the past and so it doesn't surprise me that they seem to be shy to to call what they are doing but it is very very specious it is unusual and i don't have a good feeling about it and that's an important point to make me because that's further confusion because the state radio channel broadcast this message saying the gobby and his family are safe and that the army is targeting what they call criminals around him and then i mean that sort of odds with what we're seeing on the streets isn't it. yes it is yes it is and if there are criminals around the president

it should be their president who should who should kick them out but we haven't heard from him the army defends the country's external board is they are not a crime fighting organization so once again what you know the situation is unfolding rapidly there are many other usual suspects to is so we will watch it closely is see what happens but so far while the army has done and where they have tried to explain it doesn't pass muster with me and in terms of some of the background to this nie we know that the head of the armed forces general constantine chiwenga came out and said the army would act if the purges within the ruling party didn't stop i mean how much to soon as he is there within the ranks of the armed forces. yes i mean one one why don't their oppose that kid in his monday press conference of course he had military brass around him but by some town there were ninety of them and there were other people clemmie especially

their spokesperson for the youth league and others within the ruling party who are saying that the army is split so we will see i sit on full you know he is the top brass we have seen in other countries where the top bra's can take one position but the ordinary foot soldiers there are the bulk of the army we haven't heard from them and so there is every reason to think that the whole army is not involved in this new question we have to leave it there for now thank you very much for your time. now on the iran iraq border rescuers are digging through the rubble of buildings toppled by sunday's powerful earthquake in a desperate search for survivors the quake killed more than four hundred thirty people but many victims are still buried so the real figure could be much higher the number of people injured in the seven point three magnitude quake is now almost eight thousand and the quake destroyed more than twelve thousand homes leaving seventy thousand people homeless worst hit was the iranian town. where former

president mahmoud ahmadinejad ordered the construction of many low income housing projects where near the quake's epicenter in northern iraq many people say they were afraid to return home. one family that survived. people in the smelly kurdish town and province are trying to recover from disaster for iraqis all of the suffering from the fact so poor and prices last year were changed by sunday's earthquake near the border with iraq. fergal and his by frazier escaped war four years ago back then their home was demolished in baghdad now once again they have nothing left. and dirt from their home. i can still feel the shake it lasted so long i'm still shaking i just can't get over the shock because i. just managed to escape officials told us to

evacuate the neighborhood for the last two days we have been sleeping in the city parks at night but thank god they have survived a few buildings collapsed during sunday's quake the ones which are badly damaged and the same so people are afraid to go there since so with the nights becoming called rain in iraq aid groups are providing mats and blankets for those who fear they have no option but to stay outside. al-jazeera. northern iraq. the u.s. attorney general has denied he misled congress when he testified before politicians last month it was part of a probe into allegations of russian meddling in the twenty sixteen presidential elections speaking before a congressional committee on tuesday jeff sessions said that he simply forgot about a meeting where a former trump advisor boasted about ties with moscow jabatan see reports. it's

raise your right hand. swear that this isn't the first time the attorney general has been accused of not being honest with congress but jeff sessions was adamant i don't think i'm. is right there choose me doing something wrong i had no participation in any wrongdoing at issue sessions previous testimony that there were no contacts between members of the trump campaign and russians claiming to represent the kremlin since his last congressional appearance to trump campaign staffers have testified that they told sessions they were in contact with what they thought were russian officials and that's sessions memory i do now recall that the march twenty sixteen meeting at the drop out tail that mr papadopoulos attended but i have no clear recollection of the details of what he said at that meeting after reading his account into the best of my recollection i believe that i wanted to

make clear to him that he would not authorize to represent the campaign with the russian government or any other foreign government for that matter democrats on the committee working to pursue another issue as well it's emerged that the department of justice is evaluating whether to appoint a special counsel into hillary clinton into among other issues lingering questions about clinton's foundation donations and government policy while she was secretary of state for example republicans welcomed the prospect but were impatient what's it going to take to get a special council democrats were less enthusiastic in a functioning democracy is it common for the leader of the country to order the criminal justice system to retaliate against is political opponents their department of justice can never be used to retaliate politically against opponents and that would be wrong however sessions' reiterated his.

commitments made during his confirmation hearing were there to fear an investigation into clinton he would recuse himself she ever term. washington well bruce fein is a former u.s. deputy attorney general he says it's unlikely sessions will be forced to resign the fact that rush it was such a sensitive part of the campaign from the beginning and ordinarily if you forget something then suddenly the remembrance isn't in detail especially when you are the chief speaker and saying don't have anything to do with russia whatsoever if that would as set off an alarm that would cause him to be so adamant you'd feel that he would remember it i don't think that there's a whole lot more to to to travel here yeah he did make misstatements but ordinarily would have to be a misstatement on a sufficiently material issue that you'd say probably wouldn't have been confirmed if this information were known to the senate and this seems to be more at the

margins than something that would cause a senator to flip from support to opposition i don't feel that other than maybe a few media histrionics it's going to result in his resignation or anything like you know congressional saying sions justice requires the appearance of justice whether or not he in fact was influenced by the president trumps statement that well why are you investigating the democrats for doing things far more egregious than myself it has the appearance of that being the case especially because we know that mr trump at one point was on the verge of firing mr sessions or mr sessions was ready to leave australians a vote in favor of changing the rule to allow same sex marriage more than two thirds of all potential voters responded to a non-binding postol so that initial results found more than sixty two percent support changing the law prime minister malcolm turnbull promised to make same sex marriage legal if a majority of the i.d.f. the strident people have spoken in their millions. and i have voted

overwhelmingly yes for marriage equality they voted yes with fairness they voted yes for commitment they voted yes for love and now it is up to us here in the parliament of a stray to get on with that they get on with the job the astray and people of task has to do and get this done this year time for a short break here and i'll just say when we come back russia under fire after claiming this video game footage was proof the u.s. was working alongside eisel and a new pill can tell your doctor whether your taking your medication at the right time and in the right dose but that raises a lot of other issues more in that state.

how the weather is not looking too bad along the eastern seaboard of the us in parts of canada to largely clear skies but you see two distinct areas of cloud there's one here that's just making its way over towards the lakes just pushing on beyond the lakes stretching down along the appalachian mountains and then further west we've got another system has been pushing in across the or west coast some very heavy rain coming in here actually i did notice some snow over the rockies and that's going to filter its way it's very keen winds to possibly see some flooding into washington state into oregon and northern parts of california even san francisco could see some rather wet weather over the next day or two to deal with the rain that's no bad thing wet weather there you can see just pushing across the lakes and further north snow over the high gravel ollie's its way further east which is we go through thursday petering out along the eastern seaboard of the u.s. i suspect temperatures around thirteen degrees celsius for the south too bad seventeen celsius in atlanta maybe the odd shower just sliding across texas over

the next day or two more than just your showers still lingering across central parts of the caribbean mind you greater antilles saying this huge massive cloud is seeing flooding rains into jamaica into southern parts of cuba and will be more heavy rain for his back. demain the intersection of reality and comedy and post revolution to. mission to entertain educate and prevent debate through satire. how weapon of choice. and internet look at what inspires one of his most popular comedians to make people. at this time on al-jazeera.

welcome back a bit recap of our top stories here this hour a spokesman for zimbabwe's army says there's no military takeover explosions have been heard in the capital harare and the reuters news agency says soldiers have taken over the headquarters of the state broadcaster. the u.s. attorney general has denied misleading congress in his october testimony about contacts between donald trump's presidential campaign and russia jeff sessions told a congressional committee on tuesday that he simply forgot about a meeting with a former trump advisor post of ties to moscow. and australians vote yes in favor of changing the law to allow same sex marriage results of a postal survey found more than sixty percent support the measure mr malcolm turnbull promised to make same sex marriage legal if

a majority backed the idea. now russia's defense ministry has been accused of lying after releasing what it calls evidence of the us working alongside eisel it turns out the footage was taken from a video game or a challenge reports from moscow. when russia's ministry of defense accused the united states on tuesday of affectively collaborating with i still in syria it wasn't the first time that it had made such accusations but this time it said it had irrefutable proof photos which were put out on the ministry of defense as facebook and twitter accounts grainy drone images apparently of a convoy being left alone by u.s. forces but it didn't take too long for eagle eyed observers on social media organizations like the citizen journalists belling katz and conflicts intelligence team to see that they had noticed these images before and actually they weren't what they were training they had come from what he was one of them from

a mobile phone computer game called the a c one thirty gunship simulator others from this collection of images had come from a two thousand and sixteen video put out by iraqi forces showing them attacking a convoy leaving for leadership it didn't take long after that for the ministry of defense to delete them although they stood by their original accusations they have since subsequently admitted that this was a mistake and they're blaming it on a civilian employee at the ministry of defense and say they're launching an investigation lebanon's prime minister has tweeted he will return home from saudi arabia in the coming days saad hariri also called for calm he said his family will be staying in riyadh earlier hariri met with the head of lebanon's maronite church patriarch bashar is the first lebanese official to visit the kingdom since hariri unexpectedly announced his resignation more than a week ago well after the meeting rice said he supported terrorism reasons for

resigning lebanon's foreign minister says the only way for saad hariri to prove that he's not being held against his will is to return to beirut he also said that of saudi arabia as an issue with iran it should not punish lebanon. if there are any of problems they can be it is solved if they have problems with iran let them have these problem solved with iran iran is not lebanon lebanon is not syria lebanon is not iran we have an independent foreign policy where the end terrorist of lebanon comes first now venezuela is not only facing a humanitarian crisis it's also suffering a debt crisis the rating agency standard and poor's has declared the nation in selective default the country's leaders say u.s. sanctions are making it impossible to refinance its debt is john hendren. then this

whaler is in default with apparently little hope of paying off its creditors the declaration by the ratings agency standard and poor's comes after venezuela with sixty billion dollars in debt in just nine point six billion in its bank accounts missed the second deadline on a debt payment the red carpet was rolled out for a few foreign investors who might be willing to keep the country afloat at a price that as well as vice president tariq ali seamy said the country is the victim of an economic war being waged by the us in foreign lenders and. this is salt of the us government is made jointly with the venezuelan opposition today venezuela is limited to seek financing finding ourselves faced with the need to consider new formulas to get out of this complexity critics say then as well as leaders have prioritized clearing debt over a growing humanitarian crisis that has left many of its people hungry and children dying in hospitals with medical shortages venezuelan president nicolas maduro

blames the u.s. for his country's crisis so he's turning to his traditional rivals the compromise front that i'm not sure not like all that i pointed up the international agreements with the people's republic of china are working perfectly and will continue to go that way so i could announce that we have reached a renegotiate. a refinancing agreement with the russian federation. in spite of president we do rose plans u.s. firms still own much of venezuela's debt and the trumpet ministration wary of providing an economic lifeline to his administration has blocked americans from british said beating in any debt restructuring talks with diminishing cash revenues then as well as financial problems are likely to get even worse john hendren al-jazeera u.s. secretary of state rex tillerson is on his way to me and mob the talks with chief the two met earlier on the sidelines of the apec summit ranger refugees accuse me and security forces of massacres rape and torching villages the claims have been backed by the un was describes the violence as ethnic cleansing it's got highlight

as more from nato. u.s. secretary of state rex tillerson here in naperville or on wednesday will have two meetings the head of the military with the commander in chief and then also the head of the civilian government on song suchi he met with her on the sidelines of asean summit in manila philippines on tuesday but didn't say anything neither leader said anything after that meeting yesterday tuesday today wednesday they will hold a press conference in the early afternoon local time now we don't know exactly what will here we do know that the situation with the russians or refugees and the violence in rakhine state will be discussed in both of those meetings probably won't hear too much of the detail coming out of the military meeting we do know the united states administration has been more pressure on the military saying those who have been carrying out these attacks this violent crackdown there were kind state need to be held accountable the government here the military here on monday issued a report saying that they essentially exonerated themselves from their behavior from their actions in rakhine state over the last couple of months saying they did

nothing wrong that will most likely be brought up what the what hasn't been coming out from the united states is how things are moving forward with the idea of sanctions reimplementing sanctions on the military leadership in myanmar that's something that's been floated in the u.s. senate but not directly discussed but we'll be hearing from rex tillerson and on song suchi in the afternoon here in a bit or now do you have trouble remembering to take your medication well the first of its kind digital pill unveiled in the u.s. is designed to let your doctor know when you forget the result is it was kristen salumi reports the pill is raising questions about the presence of big brother in medicine. patients who don't take their medicine as directed not only risk their health they cost about one hundred billion dollars a year according to one study about avoidable costs in medicine that's because the patients often end up sicker or needing additional treatment enter a new digital pill just approved for use by the u.s.

food and drug administration in people with schizophrenia bipolar disorder and other forms of mental illness it actually lets your doctor know if you've taken it the problem of not adhering to treatment when it's administered on a regular basis daily multiple times a day and. the way that that compromises the effectiveness of the treatment is a huge problem in medicine and particularly in treatment of mental disorders the pill sensor is made of copper magnesium and silicon ingredients already found in foods it generates an electrical signal when it comes into contact with stomach fluids that signal is that picked up by a wearable patch on the patient's rib cage the patch sends the date time in patient activity level via bluetooth to an app on the patient's mobile phone and a database to which researchers have access through the app the patient can have

a record send of every time he or she takes the pill to up to four people family members or caregivers but the technology raises questions about privacy medical ethics experts find the fact that the pill is prescribed for mental illness especially troubling if you give someone a pill that's going to record for someone else whether they've taken the medication not it poses problems these are people who may not understand all the issues because they have involved because it was like a condition many people with psychiatric condition can understand all the issues their problems because this be feed into their paranoia they may think oh my god people want to spy on my and other doctors saying he's going to give me a drug that's going to spy on me the cost of the drug is another concern prompting experts to say more study will be necessary to weigh the risks versus the benefits and make this pill easier to swallow kristen salumi al-jazeera new york well stuff college is a reporter for x.e. us that's a news website covering technology and politics she explains the good and bad sides

to the. i think there is going to be good conversations as well as some more worried and skepticism on the part of patients so the good thing is patients who want to take their medication and want those reminders are going to see it as a good thing it's a way for them to ensure that they're taking the medication they're supposed to when they're supposed to and getting better and avoiding getting more sick or having more expensive treatments down the line but there's also a little bit of a big brother fear out there that their doctor can now see whether or not they take their pills and i think there's some fears that down the line this could result in mechanisms that would punish patients who aren't taking their medication when they're supposed to especially when it comes to court orders oftentimes a judge will tell someone that they have to take a certain medication and so if the judge can see if they stop taking their medication they could revoke parole or sun someone back to

a psychiatric hospital so there are good sides and bad sides to this and there are a lot of ethical questions that are going to need to be answered the environmental group greenpeace is launching a legal challenge against norway's oil industry it's gone to court in the capital all slow i mean to prove the granting of government licenses to drill for oil in the arctic is unconstitutional greenpeace argues it violates norway's constitution because the government signed up to the paris accord which i aim to stop the use of fossil fuel before the end of the century. our aim is to get the court to invalidate the licenses that the government has handed out which will see. very important precedents for how much more mental damage government is allowed to do while it is going now a major source of pollution that often goes unnoticed is the construction industry building the concrete jungles of the world cities has created a huge amount of c o two emissions but now some architects are turning to an older

form of building material that's cheaper faster and more sustainable. travel to the astronauts to find out more. in the austrians illa tell they've been building houses out of wood for as long as anybody can remember but now the global demand for timber construction is soaring business is booming at the bin to hold sawmill every day twenty thousand trees go through the system six million trees a year the scale of production is staggering. to mainstream and i think that the mainstream arrives because we have to change. back to the nature absolutely everyone is talking about green living much of the wood is compressed into a production note it's cross laminated timber or c l t incredibly strong and durable and surprisingly fire resistant. it is the material of choice of more and

more architects around the world especially in the u.k. like this residential development in dalston in london it's faster to put up than traditional construction materials and five times lighter we don't tend to think of the carbon footprint of our buildings but concrete and steel production is actually responsible for up to eighty percent of global emissions. every suck in c o two and when the timber is used for construction read the carbon remains locked away. nearly all been to holes to make comes from within one hundred kilometer radius all sustainably produced air is a felled off the fifty or sixty years of growth and then tree regenerate sorted by size and quality the logs are huge into planks to be used around the world and for more local projects. architect thomas uses e.l.t.

for many of his designs. or exposes and i know that it's in the big advantage of it is that it presents new possibilities with the traditional way of building the carpenter creates in a three day plan and sends it to the sales a machine for the parts to be made and it's all put together like a puzzle on site at the sawmill anything that is not turned into timber is burned to supply district heating for nearby communities and electricity to the national grid there is next to no waste in the whole process. the wooden age may not yet to returned but mankind's original construction material is making a definitive comeback nick clarke al-jazeera zillah tell austria. ok remind the top stories here on al-jazeera a spokesman for zimbabwe's army says there is no military takeover explosions have

been heard in the capital harare the reuters news agency says soldiers have taken over the headquarters of the state broadcaster said b. c. the u.s. attorney general has the night he misled congress in his october testimony in a probe of donald trump's campaign contacts with russia jeff sessions told a congressional committee on tuesday that he simply forgot about a meeting where a former trump advisor boasted of ties with moscow rescue work continues in iran and iraq with more than four hundred thirty people killed in sunday's powerful earthquake along the border most of the casualties are in iran in the number of deads expected to rise the seven point three magnitude quake injured almost eight thousand people and left tens of thousands homeless australians have voted in favor of changing the law to allow same sex marriage initial results found more than sixty two percent support the measure the australian people have spoken in their millions and i have voted overwhelmingly yes for marriage equality

they voted yes fairness they voted yes for commitment they voted yes for love and now it is up to us here in the parliament of a strike to get on with it. to get the job. to do and get this done this year lebanon's prime minister has tweeted he will return home from saudi arabia in the coming days saad hariri also called for calm he says his family will stay in riyadh though. head of lebanon's church. is the first lebanese official to visit the kingdom since her resignation more than a week ago rice says he supports his reasons for resigning yemeni officials say the saudi led coalition has bombed the airport in the capital sana'a there are conflicting reports about the extent of the damage to who these who control the airport say the runway and grandmother. were damaged.

shortly for talks with. the two met earlier on the sidelines of the apec summit the focus is expected to be stabilising. crackdown has forced more than six hundred thousand people to flee to bangladesh when the headlines the news continues on al-jazeera. provides a critical point. on al-jazeera.