and. where every. turkish military helicopter is shot down in syria during an operation against kurdish fighters. sam is a band this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up. syria's

war escalates the israeli fighter jet is down one targeting the bahraini and positions inside syria. kim jong un uses feelin pics to invite south korea's president of pyongyang it would be the first meeting of korean leaders in more than a decade plus. ocean. saving the shark activists trying to put an end to a chinese tradition dating back thousands of years. turkish military helicopter has been shot down in syria during an operation against kurdish fighters this video is said to show the helicopter moments before it was downed killing two soldiers on board turkish president of the one says it happened

near the time province. joins us now from the turkish city of near the border with syria so bring us up to speed with the details we know about what happened. well i mean this is a turkish manufactured helicopter known as the attack helicopter as you mentioned shot down we understand probably by kurdish rebels the so why p.g. there are a faction that took his role in some military operation on three weeks ago today actually pass today marks the third week of this operation titled all of branches and that's to create a buffer zone a safe zone inside syria and push back these kurdish fighters have been essentially launching attacks on so you'll including dozens of rockets attacks which are killed at least seven civilians and now with this truce or soldiers dying more than twenty minutes or present have lost their lives in this operation on the other hand there is more than one hundred fifty p.g.

cards fighters that have been killed in this operation according to sources the y.p. g. also claims that he has been killing civilians as well as the fighters something that's ankara strongly denies so this is a significant step in the sense that prints are now obviously the to and fro that has been going on has been the turkish military pushing forward trying to gain more ground together with their allies the free syrian army and the y.p. due to be limited to launching these rockets from across the border the fact that it's now managed to ground those helicopters going to incur the wrath of the turkish military has already been very agitated by the fact that they see the why putin has been hiding behind civilians they accuse them of centuries setting up human shields by predator civilians in order to hamper the military's progress all right jim out of shape on that thanks for that update. let's take a closer look at the turkish offensive in syria then turkey launched operation olive branch on january the twentieth in order to remove kurdish forces from the

african leader in northwest syria the turkish government says the offensive is to establish security and stability along the border area according to the syrian observatory for human rights more than three hundred sixty five citizens and kurds and fighters both kurdish and turkish have died thousands of people have been forced from their homes two hours earlier an israeli fighter jet crashed near the border with syria israel believes it was shot down by syrian government forces or that's still unconfirmed early israel reported downing an iranian drone that was launched from a syrian base in the homs desert and strayed into its territory also unconfirmed because iran is dismissing that as ridiculous shortly after that the israeli f. sixteen crashed in northern israel the jets had been targeting the base in homs syria says it shot down the plane in response to an israeli act of aggression both

pilots ejected and parachuted into northern israel one was severely injured run high on has the latest from west jerusalem. the operation is ongoing but we haven't heard of any fresh attacks from anywhere inside syria in the last hour or so but the official line is that the operation is ongoing and they're also not commenting on what brought down the israeli f. sixteen fighter jets however across social media here the blame is being placed squarely in the hands of iran saying that iran is a big problem for the israelis and has be dealt with very quickly now to the iranians have actually reacted to issued a statement it says shooting down the israeli jet is a clear message the days of carrying out attacks inside syria a go on any new attack will be confronted iran stands by syria against any foolish

move by israel so there's a lot of strong reaction coming out from iran there's been about one hundred israeli airstrikes inside syria against various targets including hezbollah convoys and the like what we saw in the last four few a few hours today is attacks against what they call the iranian targets and against syrian air defense batteries twelve in total. save mostafa hold on sharon is a political commentator and professor of media news faculty he says it's a serious provocation by israel. the joint operations room that's run by iran syria russia and hizbullah in syria and in the war against terrorism in there they have stressed that their drone base at the four in central holmes province in central syria has come under attack by the ease release and they have followed rejected these really allegations that their drone was flying into israeli

aerospace stressing that their drone has never come close even to the borders with israel basically speaking this is nothing new israel has been you know all raiding galaxy orient facilities military facilities all in various parts of the country for the last several years that the country has been gauged in war on various militant groups you know the iran and its allies in syria they are all looking at this story this single incidents incident as well as similar incidents in the past as a serious problem occasioned by the israeli regime because now the war the proxy war is coming to an end this war of attrition after seven years the israelis are trying to weaken syrian military capability by you know escalating tensions and nobody has wrapped up his first official visit find indian prime minister to

the palestinian territory he's met palestinian president mahmoud abass trip to the west bank on to the three nation tool to strengthen ties for the middle east he laid a wreath on the tomb of former palestinian leader yasser arafat's sternness smith has more from ramallah. it's a very short visit three hours he flew over took a helicopter from the jordanian side landed here in the occupied west bank and is leaving in about an hour or so time now from the indian perspective this is a visit aimed they said helping build up palestinian capacity in the health technology and education areas they're investing in a technology park here in ramallah is also a school that the indians have helped fund it's a very different to the relationship from from the early relationship decades ago between the indians and the palestinians the unions were the first to record the first non arab state back in one thousand nine hundred to recognize the state of palestine and then they view their relationship through the sort of colonial prism

the indians are being colonized by the british and they saw the palestinians as being colonized by zionist palestinian territory being colonized by zionists so then there was a lot more solidarity today the indian relationship is much more pragmatic israel is what really matters to india forty one percent of israel's arms exports go to india so it's that that's important but modi has decided to separately visit the west bank to show that they still believe there is a sort of special relationship if you like between the palestinians and the indians north korea's leader kim jong un has extended a rare invitation to the south korean president mungy and to visit pyongyang moon hosted kim sr for talks in seoul on the sidelines of the winter olympics that of her name has more from going long. in the presidential blue house in the capital seoul relations between the two koreas continued to thaw the meeting

had two firsts kim jong is the first member of the ruling family to cross into the south since the korean war the sister of the north korean leader came with the first ever invitation kim jong un is asking south korean president moon jay in to come to pyongyang at a convenient time soon when that's all know it's key president moon said early talks between north korea and the united states are essential to improve relations north korea to be more proactive to move forward to have a dialogue with the united states. it's unclear when that might happen the u.s. and north korea have rebuffed lose attempts so far if an interesting meeting transpires it will be the first time kim jong un has met with the south korean president since assuming power in twenty eleven the last time leaders from the north and south met was eleven years ago during

a summit in. jordan because of all the global attention i believe reunification will be brought forth the government is making efforts and i think people are rooting for it organizers of the olympics say they've been moved by the diplomatic breakthrough it was quite on the story a moment. and something that as you know the i.o.c. has been generally working for since probably two thousand and fourteen. and you know i think it shows it opens opens the door maybe just a little bit. critics say they doubt that door will ultimately open much more for now there is hope that the winter olympics is the catalyst for a reboot in intercourse and relations natasha going to name jazeera south korea and least nineteen people have been killed when a double decker bus toppled over in hong kong more than thirty people have been

taken to hospital where this is say the bus was going much faster than usual. still ahead of al jazeera thirty nine years since the return of a lot of me and the for all of the sharp iran three of the slavic revolution coming up plus. and does sheen fame gets ready to elect a new leader here in dublin i'll be looking at the political journey of gerry adams who's headed the party for decades. hello there is staying cool for many of us in the southeast in parts of china at the moment during the day the temperatures on doing too badly we're looking good about nine degrees there in shanghai and around twenty in hong kong but at night they're still dropping down to below freezing in shanghai so certainly feeling cool here again dancing back up as we head through monday to around seven degrees

further west a little bit of cloud is building here but as yet not various too much in the way of what weather what chad if you're in the philippines though the increasing cloud of rain here is ahead of a tropical storm that's galloping its way towards us over towards india plenty of cloud snaking its way across us and across bangladesh at the moment but it's not really giving us too much in the way of significant rain the next feature though that's working its way towards the northern parts that is going to give us some more intense rain so but whether they're over parts of pakistan or on sunday then that gradually pushes its way towards the northeast on monday turning wintery over the mountains as you'd expect but still plenty of rain here and that also pushing for the southeast as well so not poor we could see some role the shop show is here on monday not for kolkata not yet anyway even further towards the west and here in doha pretty warm at the moment for this time of year twenty six degrees our maximum on sunday little bit of cloud perhaps coming and going.

what makes this moment this era we're living through so unique this is really an attack on truth itself is a lot of misunderstanding a distortion even of what free speech is supposed to be about the context is hugely important we have a right to publish if you choose to be offensive or provocative or whatever nice people do. step in this stage to serious debate. up front at this time on al-jazeera.

you're watching out to syria time to recap our headlines now turkish military helicopter has been shot down during an operation against kurdish fighters in syria this video is said to show the helicopter moments before it was downed killing two soldiers on board turkey's president roger tiber the one is warning the perpetrators will pay a heavy price. in israeli fighter jet crashed near the border with syria israel believes it was most likely shot down by syrian government forces syria says it was responding to an israeli act of aggression. that under modi has made the first official visit by an indian prime minister to the palestinian territory the trip to the west bank is part of a three nation tour to strengthen ties with the middle east. and one of the most famous faces in northern ireland is retiring gerry adams was considered the spokesman for the irish republican army in its thirty year water when british rule of northern ireland and since then he's played

a pivotal part in the peace process. join. us now from dublin so tell us a little bit about who takes over what we know about mary lou. well sammy this is a momentous occasion mary lou mcdonald who's will be speaking fairly shortly gerry adams the man she takes over from has been round largely applauded here he's not speaking but there have been tributes to him and what he's achieved both for the party in terms of getting them into power in the power sharing government in northern ireland but also the inroads that he's monies to make here in the republic of ireland as well of their own party activists members and officials from all over the island of islands here i'm not something that should really striking the move towards strengthening the party on both sides of the border and at the same time

amongst the wider population there still is a debate over exactly what gerry adams his political legacy will be. over the years gerry adams has been praised as a brave political leader and condemned as a secret terrorist commando the boy from belfast became active in northern ireland civil rights movement in the one nine hundred sixty s. . following the arrival of british troops the province descended into decades of sectarian conflict the troubles. in the one nine hundred seventy s. as events like the bloody sunday shooting of catholic protesters by the british army hit the headlines adams was very sickly and turned and arrested he always denied being a member of the provisional ira the irish republican army but many people on both sides of the border believe that's a nonsense in one thousand nine hundred three out of his became president of the ira's political wing shin fein. that same year osting stacks father a chief prison officer was shot dead by the ira he later met adams trying to find

out who ordered the killing all the evidence points to the fact that he had a leadership role i mean there's a new autobiography out on him and it's quite obvious from that even that the way that when he was in terror that the other prisoners there had a parade past him every day and saluted him and you don't do that to someone who's just in the political arm of the organizations of this week soon though gerry adams was arguing that shin fein had more to gain by contesting elections he want to seat in the u.k. parliament in westminster but never took it up all the while the ira's bombing campaign continued to kill people not just in northern ireland but on the mainland to those whose tools are bombs and bullets. your way is not the right way in one thousand nine hundred eight protracted talks led to what's known as the good friday agreement setting up a power sharing executive at stormont as well as the decommissioning of weapons and the early release of paramilitary prisoners while shin fein's martin mcguinness

went on to become deputy first minister of northern ireland adams took a back seat briefly in twenty eleven he contested and won a seat in the republic of ireland part of a deliberate shift in the focus for shin fein strategy as then she became becoming involved in decision making on both sides of the border in the north they quickly establish themselves as the dominant political party and have been the dominant nationalist party for a generation now but in the south they needed to build up from a very low base under gerry adams his leadership shin fein has become not only the largest nationalist party in northern ireland but the third largest group here in the irish dorell or parliament and they're hoping to be in government here in the not so distant future when martin mcguinness was buried gerry adams carried his coffin so too did mary lou mcdonald who officially becomes shin feigns new leader on saturday her challenge now is to broaden the party's appeal to a younger generation that never knew the troubles. well there are significant

challenges facing the party under the new leadership of mary lou mcdonald i think people here are quite positive but there's a new generation of leader her deputy michelle o'neill is just forty one mary lou mcdonald is forty nine an acknowledgement that they have to make more they have to make a breakthrough here in the republic of ireland passed working class voters to the wider electorate in the north they have to try to get the power sharing devolved government back on track it's been frozen for more than a year now but something got burned but non of their politicians will be varying from is a promise in the long term. if you're fighting for your thank you the one thing i found that is the demon barber there in the from both. iranians to celebrating their thirty ninth revolution day marking the return of a lot of halachah mainly from exile bashar of iran was removed from power and the

slamming republic of iran was born but many iranians talk about the stomach revolution as though it never ended december savi has morphed into iran. the founder of the islamist republic of iran ayatollah ruhollah khomeini is still watching over his people and you never have to look very far to catch a glimpse of the man at the center of the islamic revolution in one nine hundred seventy nine still in exile in paris khomeini famously ordered every runyan onto the streets to help overthrow the shah. one of the women who answered the call was sub. born in japan. she changed her name when she married an iranian businessman she met in tokyo they moved to iran after their first son was born it was the one nine hundred sixty s. and iran was a very different place. it was before the revolution society was different then and it wasn't like today no one cared about is. said the shah's

government tried to ban women from wearing head scarves and attempt to replace iranian culture with western values all part of a plan by foreign governments she says to control iran and iran's natural resources . message of independence she says resonated with many people. he said there shouldn't be any. he meant we should take care of poor people that should be justice everyone should be equal well many of the iranians welcomed this survived the nuclear bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki in world war two and lived through the iran iraq war that started almost immediately after the revolution when iraqi forces led by saddam hussein invaded iran. volunteered to fight and was killed he was nineteen years old decades later she still struggles to talk about it but says even knowing the pain of losing him she would sacrifice him again

to preserve the islamic revolution for many iranians the teachings of the country's first supreme leader are as relevant today as they were in one nine hundred seventy nine but for some. and has not fulfilled all of its promises. while they do not necessarily want to tear down their country's government most iranians we spoke to said they just want their leaders to do a little more to solve their problems as. people or important figures in history many of them died for the revolution but our demand is that current government should care about the nation all different classes of people from the rich to those who don't have a good economic situation. behind she's a kid the best thing that could happen in a society is the equality between a man and a woman the more we work for this the base of society will have when making policy iran's government often looks to the past for much of its inspiration iranian

people it seems want them to look more to the future zain. polls have closed in sri lanka where voters the choosing representatives from more than three hundred local elections the president and prime minister campaign. trying to push their respective parties forward more than seventeen thousand women of vying to be elected to change in the law now requires women to fill a quarter of all seats. and animal rights activists in hong kong want to get a popular dish off the menu demand is high for shark fin soup during chinese new year activists say hong kong imports five thousand tonnes of shark a year the animals are facing extinction difficult hala now. with chinese new year just around the corner it's the busiest time of the year for shops selling traditional seafood and sales are brisk for one of their most popular items

shark fin. i guess we should be concerned about shark fin because i feel it depends on how we score it after all we have been eating it for a long long time and when it's time to celebrate the traditional delicacy is seen as a sign of prosperity and good fortune consume at last i just have no choice because in order to chinese new year man you each of the man you have sufi sally. conservation groups and young activists are lobbying one of hong kong's biggest restaurant chains to take shark fin soup off the menu and this is not tested is just a transition they're just forced to either rule. that a piece of fruit we can only kill them so that expands the protesters are also highlighting the cruelty and brutality involved a charge finning the fins are the most profitable part in most cases they're hacked off while the shark is still alive then it's thrown back into the sea to drown are

starving its estimated one hundred million sharks us watered each year and seventy percent of those are killed solely for their friends hong kong is at the center of the shark fin business accounting for more than a horse the global trade every year most of the fins are packaged and exported to mainland china. once a rare delicacy only then ability and lead could afford it is now widely available due to improved fishing techniques and logistics china's economic boom and growing middle class have also added to the demand but there is an increasing awareness that chileans think we are having less shafi now because youngsters are more concerned about the environment but it's our custom to have a grant meal at the end of the year a recent study using d.n.a. analysis found that a third of shark fin products sold in hong kong shops come from species that are vulnerable are endangered conservationists are calling on the government to step in they say they're running out of time in the battle between thousands of years of

tradition and millions of years of shark evolution if you go palin are jazeera hong kong ride sharing company uber is giving a stake to a rival firm to settle a trade dispute two hundred forty five million dollars worth of shares will go to way moa which is developing self driving cars why no allowed to the former engineer took confidential documents just before he became chief of a driving car project has agreed not to use any of that information colombia is tightening border controls with venezuela as hundreds of thousands of migrants try to enter the country present one manuel santos is suspending new daily entry cancer venezuelans and deploying three thousand more guards and soldiers to the border colombia has seen a mass influx of people from venezuela in recent months as its economic crisis worsens mexican marines have arrested a drug leader with a five million dollars bounty on his head because a myriad of n.c.

is the leader of the last that has cartel which is accused of trafficking cocaine and methamphetamine to the u.s. . it's that time of the year again carnival underway in brazil for most people that means the sound of parades of rio de janeiro but the most traditional carnival of wool is in the northeastern state of. latin america at its newman is there. i'm in the sea for the capital of penumbra states where carnival is a multicultural multi news affair that lasts for five days behind me on the ball nickels these are the giant dolls for which this state is famous they began in the early one nine hundred step pay homage to different personalities past and as you can see present more than eighty will be parading next week and the longtime coordinator of the event was kind enough to give us a sneak preview. here to see if it has stephen he's got under way over night.

this is called monica to approve caution based music with strong african roots brought here to the seafront by slate's eighteenth century. and there was also the for table and nineteenth century rhythm that that number is famous for it's a fusion of martial music a kind of brazilian tango and some african rhythms. carnival is a time for celebration but also for excesses especially of alcohol which is increasingly leading to sex abuses out here on the streets for the second year in a row activist and we're currently is taking part in a campaign for women to speak out and to monitor places where abuses are most likely to happen. during carnival there's a culture of permissiveness people think it's normal to grope you to force you to kiss them to have sex with women specially. but even

with millions of brazilians and foreigners have come here to celebrate the preparations are underway for what will be. the main event on saturday called the rooster of the dawn that's when this gigantic rooster will lead the world's largest street parade more than a million people taking part and it begins at the early hours of the morning when no one knows. and you can get much more of your head over to our website al-jazeera dot com. and let's take you through some of the headlines now a turkish military helicopter has been shot down during an operation against kurdish fighters in syria this video said to show the helicopter moments before it was downed killing two soldiers on board president. is warning the perpetrators will pay a heavy price. maybe one of our helicopters is gone but they will pay for this not

in kind but so much more because we are determined we believe we are superior we will succeed in this as well earlier an israeli fighter jet crashed near the border with syria israel believes it was most likely shot down by syrian government forces syria says it was responding to an israeli act of aggression israeli army says it struck twelve targets in syria including an air defense system so in a hole that has more from beirut this up the first time they've targeted this area the base is not operational yet but clearly it is a message to you we will not allow you to set up permanent bases we will not allow you to entrench yourself militarily and we want you away from the border so serious escalation hezbollah media issuing a statement and for the first time this statement was signed by syria's allies it said that any aggression against the syrian government or syria will be met by

force. no wonder modi is made the first official visit by an indian prime minister to the palestinian territory he met the palestinian president mahmoud abbas the trip to the west bank part of a three nation tour to strengthen ties with the middle east earlier he laid a wreath on the tomb of former palestinian leader yasser arafat's north korea's leader kim goldman has extended a rare invitation to the south korean president moon j.n. to visit pyongyang moon hosted kim sr for talks in seoul the sidelines of the winter olympics at least nineteen people have been killed in a double decker bus toppled over in hong kong witnesses say the bus was going much faster than usual. but one of the most controversial public figures in northern ireland is retiring shin fein leader gerry adams is being replaced by mary lou mcdonald he was considered the spokesman for the irish republican army in its thirty year was when british rule of northern ireland since then he's played a pivotal part in the peace process there's

a headline the news continues after front stay with us here announcer zero. zero zero zero where ever you. he's been called one of the most wanted political fugitives of twenty one team and former georgian president mikheil saakashvili faces possible extradition to his home country from his new country ukraine i'll ask him if he's prepared for life behind bars and later i'll talk to the somali refugee turned u.s. politician about life in trump's america.