al-jazeera. where ever you will. the human cost of war nearly two hundred syrians are killed in just three days as the government and its russian basses increase their a touch from the air. a welcome dodge's there live from doha i'm all teamed and it's also coming out

weekend ineffective the verdict on the world's response to the ethnic cleansing of mere miles range of people. israeli police say though recommended benjamin netanyahu be indicted on corruption charges the prime minister says it will never happen. and the president's chief of staff it had full confidence and trust in his abilities and his performance. another key trump aide is force out of the white house this one accused of abusing two ex-wives. almost two hundred people have been killed in the past three days alone in rebel held parts of syria after some of the most intense fighting and shelling in months thirty four people died oh when. a rebel on klav on the outskirts of damascus where

four hundred thousand people are thought to be besieged by government forces since twenty four others died in a province which has been the target of recent chemical attacks a government offensive backed by russian air support has been underway there for weeks russian bombing in the areas being ramped up since a pilot was shot down and killed on saturday both. supposed to be part of so-called the escalation zones where fighting in air strikes were to be scaled back the attacks take the death toll to at least one hundred eighty four after almost ninety people were killed on tuesday sixty were killed among these in the hold a report from beirut. civil defense volunteers look for survivors but instead they're pulling out the dead from the rubble of what was once homes children women men dozens of them have been killed in air strikes that are leveling residential buildings. this man just lost his son. god bless you

he says clearly still in a state of shock. it's day three of an intensified military campaign. multiple areas of the rebel held damascus suburb of eastern who are coming under fire people there are saying russian and syrian government aircraft have been carried out one strike after another. people here believe russia is taking revenge after his plane was shot down by the rebels and its pilot was killed it is intense bombardment at least eight hundred people are wounded some of them very seriously and they can't be treated here. there is a lack of medical supplies and doctors eastern huta has been besieged by pro-government forces for years it is both home and the traffic for some four hundred thousand people doctors have put up makeshift health centers but they too are being helped that sort of a center is now out of service it was hit by the planes it was the only medical

center in this town and fifteen thousand people the united nations is calling for the fighting throughout syria to stop for a month to allow aid deliveries and evacuations of the sick and wounded at least five hundred are in. the enclave just outside the capital has been heavily bombarded since mid december but the past few days have been the worst many believe pro-government forces are pushing for a decisive outcome. they want thirteen on our own me not fight them everywhere is ready now to fight two fronts and the north. pole. the northwestern province of idlib which is also under the control of the opposition has been hit by dozens of strikes in recent days there are two residential neighborhoods and hospitals are being targeted prosperi and government forces have taken ground in the southern edges of it live in recent weeks

recapturing the whole province will not be easy but many believe the immediate goals involve the securing the north to south highway and lifting the siege on to loyalist towns. in the procurement forces have been struggling to bring eastern huta under their control for years and now that russia appears to be holding in rebel areas syria is once again in the midst of a major escalation especially with no progress on the diplomatic side this will only bring more suffering. people. and the news just in it's being reported that more than one hundred syrian government allied fighters have been killed it's apparently being this is coming from the u.s. led coalition official who says that it and its allies thought it an attack when. the headquarters of the s.d.f. that's a u.s. backed rebel force its headquarters were the subject of an attack.

in syria so that's the very latest being reported by the news agencies and look at more on that of course as soon as we can. the nine pro-democracy supporters in bangkok are reporting to police after they were charged by thailand's military following a protest last month dozens of other demonstrators are also due to appear at the police station they had been calling for elections and for an end to military rule when hey has the latest from bangkok. this case stems from a small but symbolic protest that was staged in bangkok late last month by a group of protesters calling for the military government in thailand to return the country to democracy to hold an election in november this year something that seems increasingly increasingly unlikely the nine people who led that protest who organized the gathering in the heart of the capital city have now been charged with sedition so that carries

a maximum jail term of seven years there were at least thirty other people who have been charged because they attended that protest now have been charged with illegal essentially which carries a jail term of up to six months and a fine this been a noticeable change in thailand so far this year with several small protests popping up in the capital city and in other parts of the country by people calling for the military government to return the country to democracy symbolic and noticeable because over the past four years since the military staged that coup they have been quite effective at stamping out any dissent so there are signs that perhaps people are becoming tired of the constant postponements to elections again the latest is that the government says an election will be held in november this year but already there are indications that they could be yet another delay and the election won't be held until two thousand and nineteen. israeli media reporting

that the police had to to recommend prime minister benjamin netanyahu be indicted on corruption charges the prime minister and his wife is suspected of receiving less illicit gifts from billionaire benefactors including a major hollywood producer is also a lead serving involved in a dale with a leading newspaper which would have weakened a rival daily in return for favorable coverage the prime minister denies the allegations and says he's confident the case will not be perceived as the one count sent a small firm west curious and his prime minister benjamin netanyahu has long been defined of all of these accusations he said they are political in nature and he's used various different platforms to talk about how this is a political witch hunt against him now what he's normally done is take to his facebook page there is a facebook page has been very active of let's talking about the operations going on in the west bank but what he's done is say to the israeli public that what is going

on with them is a witch hunt against him but more importantly that the attorney general will rule on the rule will rule on the state of the law itself is confident that he can beat anything that's thrown against it let's take a listen to what he had to say. are you. so many of you ask what will happen so i want to reassure you they'll be nothing because i know the truth the state of israel is a state of law the law says that the one to determine whether there is evidence against the prime minister is the attorney general and he consults with the state attorney and the state prosecutor recently said in the knesset that about half of the police's recommendations and with nothing was going to happen next is likely the prime minister benjamin netanyahu will find any kind of recommendation that the police make against him both publicly in the court of public opinion and if you get legal in any kind of legal case let's see what happens if the attorney general

decides to take case against the prime minister north korean athletes have arrived in the south ahead of the winter olympics in q one chang leading the delegation is expected to be kim jong un sr and one of the largest peacetime crossings of the korean border a group of two hundred eighty north koreans travelled to the south on wednesday kim jong un says that kim jong il is expected to arrive empty on chinese soon but the real concern is over a north korean official listed in the u.n. travel ban more now from a diplomatic editor james bays who's at the united nations in new york. there's been a great deal of attention on the fact that kim jong un's sister is leading north korea's delegation to the winter olympics but the u.n. security council is actually more concerned about another name on the delegation list and that's choi who is a senior north korean party official and chair of the national sports guidance

committee but the security council is concerned about him because he appears in one of their resolutions through june last year and he is under sanctions in that resolution for his role as the voice director of the propaganda and agitation department of north korea he's in charge of censorship in effect north korea's censor in chief in fact the resolution says he controls all media in the country and is used by the government to control the public members of the security council will now discuss this issue they've been given twenty four hours if in twenty four hours any of them wishes to object then the sanctions will remain in place otherwise he will be given an exemption and allowed to travel to the winter olympics and pyongyang is expected to hold a military parade on thursday which would mark the seventieth anniversary of the

establishment of its army we can now speak to andrei lang cough is professor of korean studies at cookman university is joining us live from the south korean capital seoul first of all what do you make of this. military parade which is being is essential to happen today thursday when actually ordinarily it would be held in april or message are they sending. will. change is the official army foundation day because it used to be believed there the north korean military forces were found in april beach was factually incorrect but it was a common assumption and no they decided to go back to that all day beach was sort of health for wharton and it's probably done exactly to hit a good excuse for they needed the parade today because the parade is definitely issue no i was going to suggest that this is perhaps an attempt by pyongyang to

balance out the soft power of their athletes taking part in the olympics alongside the south with hard power and a show of military might absolutely is the shore of defiance but it's a short of mortars and velde measured defiance as a continuing their charm offensive as they have sent a delegation to there in big games it gives pretty much everybody's expectation and they're the same time they have a military parade their message is simple the a nuclear and missile power and nor much of what we wrote that he made such a power in the face you will future and that he had a nuclear test. would be dangerous but yet what do you make of the seniority then of the delegation if indeed this is true that kim jong un sister is to lead the delegation i mean that's quite significant isnt it. well it's probably

sort of overstated to study yes for all practical purposes she is like you two deeds a delegation but formally she is not very high in the official hierarchy technically as the deliberation is heated by your nom as the chairman of their rubber stamp parliament and who sort of sydney morning will kweisi head of the state he is a more senior member of the did a geisha but he has little if any power and this young lady is of course the most powerful member it's a part of the i would see cham offensive because the warty. of signals from washington on the border is that if the pool a bit harder and their records might deliver a military strike they're afraid of that they would like to sort of reduce the level of tension so they decided to participate in there and he gave us a send a high level delegation a lot of good looking girls whom the whole view would become

a kind of you know all will be the center of attention of their selves get in media just. of thus reducing chances that americans we'll start shooting ok they're behind behind the charm offensive as you call it is there any likelihood of there being. any meetings of substance you've got the vice president of the united states mike pence he'll be there and as you've already outlined a fairly a fairly significant delegation some of whom could be given the power to have conversations with mike pence or at least a delegation. i can not all that but i'm generally speaking quite skeptical because right now americans believe that decision to send they did a geisha is a sign that their pressure policy sanctions and he at the possibility of a military strike that this policy ease walking or probably they are not very eager

to start talking right now and if they do they don't need to do during the olympic games they have a lot of separate secret channels to came in here and they would expect that if north koreans and americans really good to talk they will talk in some different place and some different time all right andrei lanka very interesting to talk to you thank you so as we've already mentioned mike pence the u.s. vice president he's due to go to south korea for those games which start officially on friday but before he gets there he's actually been. a u.s. forces base in japan where he's been speaking about the north korean crisis within less than thirty days los year the regime launched two missiles here over germany's territory and conducted in the same period of time another nuclear test north korea's continued throats have stirred the united states of america to act and we

will continue to act with vigilance and resolve as our lodestar. lots more to come here it out is there including one man is sentenced to death thirty others are jailed for the lynching of a student in pakistan we speak to the victim's family. and d.n.a. tests showed the surprising enough of a ten thousand year old european ancestor. hello if you look down from space by satellite you see quite a lot of activity in iran in particular more streaks of cloud from is through the eastern med would actually all that you see here is just cloud high in the sky it's not actually doing very much not dropping very much it's indicating just motion up

there and actually the weather is a little unusual bug that's twenty four degrees is pretty high for this time of the year turnarounds it's about where it should be the case turned out to be snow a little bit further east and we still subzero manas ten but the event is quite warm as the cloud comes across the breezes still more or less from the sas for egypt to stay warm but it's turning right to more of a northerly or northwest and that runs down through the gulf temps haven't yet changed for the dust is now gathering and that will come more apparent if you're in bahrain kuwait. than votes how we get to friday that breeze will be strong enough that even twenty five twenty six degrees it'll feel maybe a little children will certainly be dust in the air that's true for the eastern side as well it's settled in quite warm in mecca at such a four degrees throughout southern africa we've been waiting for writing cape time and it fell not much more to come most of the showers do develop in south africa but a long way to the east to cli jo'burg. i

am doing this on the benefit of saddam people. so bad they see the importance of their our cars. witness documentaries that open your eyes. at this time on al-jazeera.

hi chance take a look at the top stories here almost two hundred people have been killed in the past three days alone in rebel held parts of syria after an intense air and ground offensive by government forces backed by russia thirty four people died on wednesday and. that's close to the capital damascus and four others died in. north korean athletes arrived in the south ahead of the winter olympics in pune chang kim jong un sr is expected to arrive on friday to leave the delegation israeli media say police will recommend that prime minister benjamin netanyahu will be indicted on corruption charges the prime minister and his wife are suspected of receiving illicit gifts from billionaire benefactors. a pakistani court has convicted thirty one people over the campus lynching of a university student who was falsely accused of blasphemy one of the defendants was

sentenced to death the killing of twenty three year old. crime raise new questions about the misuse of harsh blasphemy laws zain buzz ravi has been speaking to the family. his family has kept his room the same as it was the day he left home for the last time a reminder of the kind of man he was. was studying journalism at a university and more than in april last year he was lynched by two hundred fellow students the mob was spurred by rumors that khan had somehow insulted islam but earlier this year a police investigation found that there was no evidence he ever violated any blasphemy laws. police did find that university officials from khan had publicly criticized for corruption and incompetence conspired to make false allegations against him and rallied the mob that killed him he was just only going to sidle the

system and you and me and him so i intend to build my toe or diminish when issue. because if we were not if these rules in these last promised. and we were not will make peace so i think that more and more michels will be killed in this war more and more mashal as many as they see naked because this is a very easy blame on someone. for his mother losing one child has been so traumatic that she won't let her other children go back to school too afraid of what might happen to them she says when her son's body was brought home he had been so badly beaten she only recognised him from the tips of his fingers and when she kissed him on his toes in the aftermath police were accused of not responding quickly enough to stop the attack and in some cases even facilitating police say they're reassessing their approach to blasphemy cases come i think that's for me or not is

a separate issue the man thing is we're going to be even in our people to lower their head again and the person we're coming thinks any kind of a crime so my answer is no they will not know any one particular on their hands and can anyone for committing certain type of crime. even in death mush is not safe a police unit guards his grave because of threats from religious hardliners of digging up and burning his body. the final resting place of this young man has become a kind of symbol in this community people with a little more liberal a point of view come here to pay their respects to someone who was beaten to death for thinking a little bit differently. despite the fact that one is innocent of allegations against him in pakistan facts are often ignored in the court of public opinion. many people here still believe that what happened to him on the day he died was the

right thing. same bus ravi al-jazeera down. i'm a c. international says an ethnic cleansing campaign against the ranger mia ma is continuing in a new report the human rights group condemns the international response to the crisis as weak and ineffective and the sea also holds the agreed repatriation of refugees from bangladesh back to me amar is premature me amal security forces are accused of causing what amnesty calls force to starvation by denying ranger farmers access to their fields confiscating livestock and setting markets on fire the rangers say the abduction of girls and young women is common raising concerns about rape and sexual slavery and the refugees accuse security forces of setting up checkpoints along routes to bangladesh where they are robbed and women forced to have humiliating body searches much welles is a senior crisis advisor at amnesty and the author of the report. you know what

we've seen is condemnation after condemnation from the international community but there has been a real failure to act to impose real consequences on the me and our military for what is now been more than five months of a campaign of ethnic cleansing and so we think that there needs to be an arms embargo targeted financial sanctions against senior officials in the military who are who have committed this this these horrific human rights violations over the last five months in the last couple months the meanwhile our government has said that it's ready to start repatriation the returns and what our report today shows is that the military hasn't even stopped committing horrific human rights violations against the rango who remain in northern rakhine state consistently for people who arrived in bangladesh and the last month or two you know we had reports of starvation of people who've been denied access going out to the rice fields who've seen their markets burned or or blocked from from access to have watched as

humanitarian aid has been severely restricted throughout northern rakhine state all of this is led to a situation in which people are struggling to find food which is forcing these new arrivals to bangladesh and this represents really you know the final blow after months of a horrific ethnic cleansing campaign in which we and others have consistently documented widespread killings sexual violence against rango women and girls and the targeted burning of ring of villages across northern rakhine state the leader of south africa's governing party says is in direct discussions with president jacob zuma a possible transition of leadership cyril ramaphosa has a valve for a speedy resolution and says the talks will be concluded in the coming days and again see a sions prompted the african national congress to postpone a special executive committee meeting on whether to force president zuma out of office for me to miller has more from janice that. there's certainly is

a lot of confusion and uncertainty especially after the national executive meeting which was to discuss jacob zuma future was cancelled late and choose day now this is after talks between the president of the a.n.c. so rama post and president jacob zuma now of course as office has described this discussion as fruitful and constructive and it would appear that the a.n.c. is closer than ever to removing jacob zuma as president we know zuma met with the top six leadership of the party on sunday and reports indicate that at that time he refused to resign but this latest indication from the a.n.c. is that progress has been made since then opposition parties say though i have criticized the a.n.c. leadership saying that is not strong enough to push jacob zuma out there demanding decisive action from the a n c this is a party split between support for jacob zuma and demands for him to step down now south africans are looking for clarity from

a party that throughout these difficulties president zuma has constantly insisted that a solution will come from within the party and nowhere else white house official who worked closely with president trump has resigned after his two ex-wives claim they've been physically assaulted alan fischer ripple. a staff secretary reporter essentially monitors the paperwork that goes across the president's desk he often travels with the president and had a hand in writing the state of the union address he's not a well known name but he plays a key role in the west wing but in the past few days the daily mail dot com has published stories quoting his two ex-wives who say they were physically abused by him one to the extent she obtained a restraining order after dismissing the claims is that regis and false he is no decided to quit from the podium of the white house briefing room there was a defense from the highest level rob has been ineffective in his role as staff

secretary and the president's chief of staff have had full confidence and trust in his abilities and his performance in a more of an update on that front rob this played out a statement which i can read to you now and i think your dress some of those other questions these outrageous allegations are simply false i took the photos given to the media nearly fifteen years ago and the reality behind them is nowhere close to what has been described it's reported the f.b.i. knew of the assault allegations and that could have impacted on porter security clearance he'll leave the white house after a transition period but the date of his final day of the president's sight has not been decided alan fischer washington scientists have concluded that britain's oldest known resident looked rather different than average and he thought research is extracted d.n.a. from trip chatham and that's when these then as the ukase oldest complete skeleton which was discovered in an area called the cheddar goldfish in the southwest of

england he lived ten thousand years ago and is now known to have had blue eyes dark curly hair and dark to black skin scientists say the evidence suggests that europeans pale with skin developed much later than previously thought. because it's very striking for ten thousand year old human or expectations a few years ago would have been this individual would have had maybe dog hair but fairly proud skin possibly blue eyes and what we've got is a corner unusual combination of this dog's curly hair really corn dog skin and quite striking blue eyes. these are the top stories here and there are almost three hundred people have been killed in the past three days alone in rebel held parts of syria following an intense air and ground offensive by the government and their russian allies thirty

four people died in the most recent attack that was on wednesday in eastern guta four others died in italy province. the reuters news agency is reporting that more than one hundred syrian government allied fighters have been killed in the east of the country the headquarters of the u.s. backed syrian democratic forces or s.d.f. in dera zoo or the apparent target of the attack an unnamed u.s. led coalition official says it and its allies thought it an attack by about five hundred opposing forces on wednesday. and then the scene to national report says the ethnic cleansing campaign against the ranger continues unabated in miramar refugees arrived in bangladesh describe a systemic campaign of false starvation kidnapping and sexual violence ripples in israeli media suggest the police will recommend benjamin netanyahu be indicted on corruption charges the prime minister and his wife are suspected of receiving

illicit gifts from billionaire benefactors including a major hollywood producer this in yahoo denies the allegations and says he's confident the attorney general won't pursue the case. many of you asked what will happen so i want to reassure you there will be nothing because i know the truth the state of israel is a state of law the law says of the one to determine whether there is evidence against the prime minister is the attorney general and he consults with the state attorney the state prosecutor said recently in knesset that about half of the police recommendations and with nothing. north korea has staged a military parade in the capital pyongyang to mark the seventieth anniversary of the establishment of it's all me the parades come off the north korean athletes and drive in the south ahead of the winter olympics. sister is expected to arrive on friday to lead the delegation but those are the latest headlines coming

up next. more than seven decades ago a country was split into really big but did anything and now i'm. going to be based only told it was a pan a mile and a collapsing empire when the british had to draw a line they pulled the six seven two hundred have been to india before al-jazeera examines the violent birth of india and pakistan and docks what the future holds for these nuclear neighbors partition borders of blood at this time.