africa at this time. the head of the september twenty fourth national election survey showed a satisfied to the state of their economy this is easily the slow news biggest tech success story the company was bought by microsoft in two thousand and eleven we bring you the stories the economic world we live in the cost at this time on al-jazeera. of race to rescue tracks of i was off to an earthquake in taiwan these buildings tell taking on the brink of collapse. and welcome to al-jazeera live from my headquarters in doha with me elizabeth bron

i'm also ahead. people killed in just twenty four hours as russian and syrian government jets head to rebel held areas. speculation builds about the future of south africa's president jacob zuma often on the president to delay to his state of the nation address plus. three. left off from florida for the world's most powerful rock and what could be a turning point in space exploration. a magnitude six point four earthquake has hit eastern time on killing at least four people and injuring more than two hundred others it happened in the port city of while then very far far to say at least five people remain trapped inside a hotel on the brink of collapse one hundred and forty five people remain

unaccounted for. has the latest. working against the clock to search for survivors. rescuers are using cranes to get to those trapped in what's left of while ins marshall hotel when the earthquake struck just before midnight local time the ground floor katie dean leaving the entire building slanting on its site. one of them says. there are two people left inside one is my older brother and another is a colleague who is in the rescue is a tried to dig further down to look for my brother that's the situation for now. taiwan's president trying one arriving fly in on wednesday morning to say when they hit that kind of assume that they're building steel frames the prop up the collapsed building this will ensure rescuers received when they get in we are racing against time and now is the crucial time. i once fire agency reports that

five more buildings including a hospital were also damaged as were several roads leading to the city this earthquake followed another one over the weekend off the coast of quali and this earthquake today in the sequence for the last few days has been right in one of the hot spots on the northeast coast of taiwan so it's not a surprise oh it's in an area where half the sharks are inevitable you know the question is how many big aftershocks will there be in our usual odds are one in ten or one in twenty chance of a bigger earthquake so they need to be prepared at least for a few days for more action the city lies along the pacific rim of fire known for regular seismic activity from alaska to southeast asia to on the silver how does iraq. look a only evan thomas a senior editor at taiwan news and he says local authorities may have been caught unprepared for some of recent quakes in the area. i think that as far as might have

been down i was many believe that the biggest plague was on sunday which is a five point eight and so there was even then some of the officials were saying that that was the major shock there's going to be some minor aftershocks that will gradually get way and so this was a surprise that right away that was a message even bigger quake much more damaging than the previous one was we are exactly as. well at this point is that it happened thirty eight hundred thirty aftershocks from this place before that we had also had. one hundred something. small ways then sunday. and sandy was as was five was that it was diminishing but we were surprised that it actually three but that's our depth of that is was really made it possible we could all feel as. i say browse the aisles

of the law and i think that's also what fog a lot of the damage. has or is was much greater than what you normally expect from us that on our way. let's move on to other news now at least ninety one people have been killed in just one day in rebel held areas of syria's eastern and edna province it has the highest number of casualties and months. and russian jets are targeting the areas with air strikes despite mounting western and u.n. pressure for a truce the region's being hit with four so-called deescalation songs agreed by iran russia and turkey shaded here. while the u. the u.n. says the increasing violence is making a mockery of the zones but it's not reports. this is supposed to be a deescalation part of the russian the true story of the territory held by anti-government forces and syria. but if anything the bombing is escalating here in

eastern. the un's head of the international commission of inquiry on syria says the government siege of the area involves the international crimes of indiscriminate bombing and deliberate starvation of the civilian population. there are reports that at least three hospitals have been hit with the help of the russian air force on the iranian backed groups syria's president is pursuing the last major pockets of territory held by his opponents in western syria. the offensive intensified after fighters from one rebel group shot down a russian aircraft on saturday. now the syrian army says it's deployed add offenses and anti aircraft missiles to its front lines in aleppo and to cover northern airspace i had there from the us four hundred

a russian and they are controlled by the russian intelligence not the syrian regime so this is russia we need to understand there is an direct confrontation between the u.s. and russia it's dangerous because at the same time turkey is trying to force its presence in the area northwestern syria is where turkey is carrying out an operation to push kurdish forces out of afrin it's using syrian airspace and has got russia's agreement to do so but at the same time the syrian government has threatened to shoot down turkish jets turkey also wants to wipe e.g. out of another northern syrian town bam bitch but there are u.s. forces there too much to be irritation of the turkish president we can you. know that you can why are you there go ahead and leave who did you bring the y.p. g p k k you took them there and you're still telling us not to come tomorrow we will come to you could deliver the land to its true owners. as ever

across syria it's civilians who are caught in the middle the u.n. wants fighting across the country to be suspended for a month to allow the sick and wounded to get out and aid to get in. we are going to go back to our lead story now a magnitude six point four earthquake has hit taiwan our correspondent rob mcbride is joining us live from the port city of where the earthquake struck what's the latest from on the face hell it is on the engine raise the missing. that's right a little bit slower is a major rescue operation now underway here on the east coast to pile wind in the city of our quality and i don't phrase that has to be deadly that is not being held by torrential rains that are suddenly started the last hour or so with the main focus of the of this operation is now in a number of buildings behind me which have either collapsed or at least toppled

over one of the buildings i don't know if you can see this is like being held up by the poles it wasn't for those metal poles it would be about on this side and the concern is for all the people who are still missing after this earthquake it has nothing confirmed that five people have died but polls of other people on this ng around fifty are those all thought to be one of the building behind me and the search is on now to try to find them and it's now getting on for well over twelve hours since this earthquake happened and obviously as time goes by the risks concern about the conditions that the people are in this is a resort town and a couple of the buildings that were affected here elizabeth were radzivill hotel and there have been various stories of a number of the guests being in the upper floors of those hotels actually using their hang phones the smoke i talked to flashlight on my hand phones to signal that

they were there and to be calm and i rescued but the concern now is for the last fifty or so other people who are thought to be trapped unaccounted for in these buildings hundreds of other people as we said all right shelters around here there have been a number of oster shocks and people a lot of people simply don't trust being back in their buildings a number of other buildings have been damaged and so as they have to be surveyed they have to be reviewed to see if they are safe to to go back in but people here have been saying that ahead of this earthquake they felt a number of. because in the hours leading up to this earthquake and the concern is of course that we're going to have more aftershocks after this one yeah absolutely extraordinary sight behind you from that building that as tilting at the angle that it's at we know that when then. it's a not uncommon but what about the magnitude of this one six point four.

people here do tell you that they haven't had an earthquake like this in living memory it happened out at sea some twenty miles we understand out at sea as you mentioned taiwan is is is used to earthquakes this is an area of high seismic activity the point at which a couple of geological faults and the so people are used to these earthquakes and it has to be said that on the upside if you like all of the emergency services they are very much geared to dealing with these quakes what often happens is that teams from around the surrounding area will be rushed here they are very experienced in going into rubble looking for survivors and i think it's also worth mentioning. this sadly sadly reminiscent of another earthquake that happened almost exactly two years ago in the run up to lunar new year which is a very important most important holiday for chinese communities around the world

here in taiwan to there was another earthquake on the other side of the island again which resulted in buildings similar to this question at least schools of critical lost their lives the hope is here that with the amount of rescuers they're going to rescue teams that are in place they will find in the coming hours scores of people that can be rescued from these buildings all right rob thank you very much for that for now that is our correspondent from the bride with the very latest from quantum thank you. all right to south africa now with the ruling a.n.c. party has postponed a meeting which had been expected to decide on the potential removal of president jacob zuma from office the meeting is being delayed to the seventeenth of february as the end of creasing pressure to resign over corruption allegations and several scandals the postponement of the meeting came after zuma state of the nation address was also delayed let's go live to our correspondent farm in

a minute now she's joining us from johannesburg this is of course the latest farm in the latest step in a very familiar story but is the government in crisis. well elizabeth it's not so much about a government crisis as it is about a party grappling with what to do with a president of a country that is not a popular one that has come under a lot of criticism and as you say it is under fire and there's increasing calls for him to step down now that top that meeting of the stop decision making body of the a.n.c. has been postponed which is very confusing for south africans given that that meeting was supposed to decide jacob zuma future but while that has happened they are reports that the president of the party so remote course of his deputy president of south africa has been in talks with jacob zuma and it appears that they could have reached some sort of decision or some sort of solution about the way forward but

the sentiment really is that jacob zuma is indeed on his way out it's just about where so this really is about how the african national congress is dealing with the quite says it's facing given that there is a split there are factions within the party some supporting jacob zuma but very many also wanting the president to leave office so that they can bring some stability to the party and also look for a way forward ahead of elections in twenty one thousand given that the a.n.c. has lost a significant amount of support in the last couple of years around the controversies of jacob zuma and what is the feeling on the ground from either about the crisis that the a.n.c. is feeling and how they are dealing with it the confusion over if and when zuma goes. out of mclean this is that this is all about confusion south africans really don't know what's going on

a given that there were these plans for meetings there was an indication that the a.n.c. would be making decisive steps around jacob zuma future and then the meetings are called off but if you look at some of the major papers in south. outer mentally the idea is that jacob zuma is on his way out and he the stars going with zuma as endgame saying that the meeting will still run of course of quoting the a.n.c. that they were fruitful and constructive discussions and the deal could have been reached but also progress in seumas talks a says the a.n.c. still so the africans are looking for clarity they're looking for the a.n.c. to make a clear statement they want to know if they're going to have the same president in a week's time over the weekend when the perspire own state of the nation address will happen that would of course was scheduled for this week thursday a given the political climate parliament presiding officers had said it would be best to perspire own the state of the nation address that jacob zuma was meant to

give and this is of course after. he's so there has been some progress of course still a lot of speculation a lot of rumors a little uncertainty about what exactly might happen but of course some indication that the agency is closer to some sort of resolution than ever before or at famu the thank you very much for that it's fun at the minute with all the very latest joining us from johannesburg thank you. and ahead on the bulletin dozens of schools shut down as tensions between india and pakistan continue to rise to the disputed kashmir region and why that impressions main rival of this year's russia election introducing herself to the u.s. . from brisk. to the trunk of southeast

diction. how i will find less cold actually we say coming in across western parts of europe over the next couple days behind this next bad of cloud of the rain which will polish way in across all of this we go through the next twenty four hours or so the moment plenty of rain across the western side of the mediterranean with this deep area of low pressure so violent storms rumbling away here and west the weather will gradually push its way across italy and eventually feet across into the bowl consider thirty celsius in rome thirty eight celsius two for ankara athens gets up to around sixty the southerly push here further north first still pretty cold in moscow to around minus celsius and currently still pretty cold in paris where temperatures are struggling to get to freezing five celsius with clear skies for london a little bit of cloud there drifting in off the north sea so you go on through the next couple days to see that western weather just sliding its way across the far northwest of the british isles of feeding down temps getting up to eight celsius in london that stage is the model which is in still

a chance of wanted to twenty four hours across northern parts of spain and wintry weather still in place there over towards ukraine and feeding of over across both garia had some wintry weather recently into the northwest of africa should be quite that bad over the next couple of days but still rather chilly and wet in rebounds. there with sponsored by. the scene for us there on line which is a very new sign in yemen the. number not because the situation is. or if you join us on sat. this is a dialogue i want to get in one more comment because this is someone. close to the story join the global conversation at this time on al-jazeera.

good to have you with us on al-jazeera top stories a magnitude six point four earthquake has hit eastern todd long killing at least four people and injuring more than two hundred others in the port city of ali and say several people remain trapped in buildings that are on the brink of collapse. at least one people have been killed in just one day in the rebel held areas of syria's east and good province government and russian jets have increased their attacks despite mounting western and u.n. pressure for troops and south africa's morning a.n.c. party has postponed which had been expected to decide on the potential removal of president jacob zuma from office zuma is under increasing pressure to resign over corruption allegations. a palestinian man has been shot and killed by

a security guard in the settlement of the occupied west bank the palestinian stabbed and injured an israeli settler on wednesday morning while tensions have risen in the occupied west bank since u.s. president donald trump decided to recognize jerusalem as. israel's capital and another palestinian man was killed during raids by the israeli army in the occupied west bank city of nablus thirty people were wounded as this as israeli forces fired tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets during protests on tuesday five of them remain in a critical condition on monday an israeli settler stabbed and killed in the illegal settlement of our real. at least eighty four schools have been forced to close off the border shelling by the pakistani army in the disputed himalayan region of kashmir india says for that soldiers were killed in the strikes in the district on monday which injured another soldier and

a number of civilians violence last month also saw several schools closed let's get more on this now we're joined by happy man jacob associate professor of diplomacy and disarmament at the university and he's joining us via skype from new delhi mr jacob always good to have you with us on al-jazeera i understand you have recently come back from the line of control what did you see on both sides of the border and are we seeing more cross border firing along the. thank you those of a pull that person in fact i just came back from the pakistani side of the lake not going door to visit leaders out of the wonderful girls who i have struggled along the line or put on all the internet buckets on the site and i guess it with their good amount of certainty that i have seen the destruction of course two billion happy dance on board science in fact in the recent past the us would actually like these and the destruction officer to be a topic that's not been on the increase in fact in twenty seventeen last year our

deep pockets on his initial are killed by the infighting and surely even gives were killed by the pakistani by and saw what it what is happening on the line of control of news that let you add the flag of limitations happened. religious religious not iraq where did the assholes are saddam and in private want something or part of our making our share who buggers one of them gets out of the water what is happening is not city something new but it is on the right and students its leaders and why is that on the rise mounting think. so one of the reasons it's not a dream and it's not going. to be there for six years ago or one nine hundred new very strong going to be in the. response will be disproportionately with this proportionately to the pakistani side so there are a lot of what we need cite the silliness is not coming out and there's a lot more or less a company. like a sunny side and you have

a vortex near things that can seem nice but not dying down to not some of these and not reductions coming up well it's not you know if you think it may be election year you know none of the sides who want to be seen. getting into the collapse of its life sort of it's a michael of the can we. not misleading we you know i see why there's an executive and as you said this is a very familiar story that there doesn't seem to be any end in sight this is in fact gone on for decades but in the meantime what we're seeing now is the closing down of schools again this happens so often and this area what impact is the constant closing of schools having on children's education and on generations of children now have known nothing but violence. you know it is interesting that artifice by the fact that civilians are all of these maids who are sort of close

people are getting killed on the nationalism on all sides especially on the mind of i'm going to miss not decreasing. the core of like the people who are on the minor compared to the good side or the things i use that they should read nightly and to the other side rather than into it so there is that there is a there's a mix. of nationalism there's a lick of. destruction killing i'm so little i think this is a really tragic loss of where we're clearly the last week like there's. a lot more than. i would be in their plans for months to get yeah clearly they're not able to get there to get themselves and get it thinking at the end of that and just lastly mr jacob and briefly how does that ability that inability to educate yourself and lack of education does that tie and what the hyper nationalism that we see on both sides. clearly there is

a huge imbalance we in india and in pakistan today what you do bugs maybe if we go to europe or in in in situation such as this where you have a brand new eight years and you have in the summer and they were looking at that was it was oscar race message i give it as a great as always to get your thoughts and your insights into this thank you very much for your time having long jacob joining us live from new delhi thank you. now markets across asia have seen a volatile day of trading as nervous investors try movement on wall street while japan's nikkei index and the hong kong hang saying both regained more than two percent in early trading after plummeting around five percent on tuesday but the nikkei is now closed and it's up just a zero point one percent and the hang seng has closed in the red down zero point seven percent well earlier as shares on wall street rallied after plunging on monday the dow jones industrial average opened two percent down on tuesday and into

monday's full of a four and a half percent the stock stabilized and recovered the morning losses gaining two percent by the close. the woman being presented as a vet in my patients was high profile opposition and has been in washington d.c. on a charm offensive. run and much as presidential election been a figure in russia's pop culture since the early two thousand shihab rattansi report. from a right wing think tank to the national press club but the message to send truck brought to washington d.c. was exactly what many u.s. opponents of liberia putin would want to hear from a russian presidential candidate to embrace nato this is the right a goal for russia often called russia's paris hilton for her well documented social life and reality t.v. shows her father was one of lattimer putin's mentors. but in twenty eleven she joined opposition protests and this since emerged as

a government critic with millions of followers on social media however she's only polling around one percent since leaving opposition candidate alexina valmy was barred from running questions have been raised as to whether she is a kremlin plans or the very least a useful distraction to give legitimacy to forthcoming polls that president putin is expected to win by a landslide she rejects that when a league scene of all me my colleague on opposition movement went also to take part on the elections would it legitimated putin why no one said that it will lead you to meet putin so that's in kind of absurd thing it's either we all legitimated putin or not of us does she says rather putin presides over a corrupt regime and her economic prescription is based on privatization loosening state control do you just represent another bunch of oligarchy snoozer reach people

who've done very well out of a corrupt system i mean there's nothing to be different here for the average poor person you don't know bernie sanders. well i have first of all. i'm a really self-made. businesswoman but i never. could have any corruption from the state because i never had any business with the state she may soon be able to make her case directly to the white house members of congress have invited her to washington's annual national prayer breakfast on thursday donald trump will also attend she ever turns the old zero washington. a british court has turned on a request by wiki leaks founder julian assange is to cancel has a rest want the lawyers for asylum she is living in the ecuadorian embassy in london say they will continue to fight in the courts of sanjeev virginia took refuge in the game to say to avoid being extradited to sweden of allegations of sexual assault he'll be extradited from there to the u.s. . now billionaire entrepreneur and on mosques ambitious plans to colonize mars have

taken another step forward as company space x. has successfully launched its most powerful rocket yet a twenty three story falcon heavy blasted off from the kennedy space center in florida the tesla sports car on board reports three. with its twenty seven rocket engines roaring the space x. falcon heavy sword into the florida sky it's the most powerful rocket on earth with a thrust equal to eighteen seven forty seven jumbo jets working simultaneously at full power the successful launch gives a powerful boost to billionaire entrepreneur elon musk's company which once lucrative contracts with nasa the u.s. military and satellite companies. onboard the unmanned ship own cherry red tesla roadster from his electric car company with the space suit

a dummy in the seat and the stereo playing the late david bowie's space oddity repeat the rockets side boosters separated from the main body and flew back to earth touching down in a perfectly choreographed double landing the boosters will eventually be reused another mission another booster was designed to lend aboard a ship at sea musk says felt going to have these payload will go into an elliptical orbit of the sun that extends as far out as the orbit of mars and will continue circling for hundreds of millions of years robert oulds al-jazeera. again on there's a problem and with the headlines on al-jazeera a magnitude six point four earthquake has hit eastern taiwan killing at least four people and injuring more than two hundred others were rescuers in the port city of

falling and say several people remain trapped in buildings that are on the brink of collapse at least ninety one people have been killed in just one day in a better house areas of serious it's to good to and at the providence government and russian jets have increased their attacks despite mounting western and u.n. pressure for a truce and syrian state media is reporting that israel has attacked a side on the outskirts of damascus early on wednesday the missiles were reportedly aimed at a research center in the town of what has been the target of previous israeli strikes as well usually targets the shia group hezbollah and syria south africa's ruling a.n.c. party has postponed a meeting which had been expected to decide on the potential removal of president jacob zuma from office zuma is under increasing pressure to resign or the corruption allegations we decide. i did to approach the president. to propose that we postpone the droit see you are down to thirty eight. zero is that

much more to steve. mills a palestinian man has been shot and killed by a security guard in the settlement of the occupied west bank the palestinian stabbed and injured an israeli settler on wednesday morning said it was stabbed in the hand and treated at the scene and another palestinian man was killed during the raids by the israeli army in the occupied west bank city of nablus thirty people wounded as israeli forces fired tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets during protests on tuesday on monday and israeli settler was stabbed and killed in the illegal settlement of. billionaire entrepreneur company space x. has successfully launched its most powerful rockets yet the twenty three story falcon heavy blasted off from the kennedy space center in florida. a tesla sports car inside representing the car company that he owns right those are the headlines

on al-jazeera the stream that's coming up next thank you for watching. news has never been more available but the message is simplistic and misinformation is rife listening post provides a critical counterpoint challenging mainstream you do narrative at this time on al-jazeera. ok add your own history today should u.s. president donald trump be actively resisted i guess today has been a vocal part of that leave but for more than a year now you may not know his name but it's likely that you know it's work today meet michael skolnik and they could be loud and i'll be bringing the questions from our community to my god keep them coming with a.j. stream and you can also send them to me via you tube.