al jazeera. you ever get your. more than two hundred fifty killed in forty eight hours rebel held eastern libya activists say it's the bloodiest onslaught by syrian forces in five years. i'm richelle carey this is al jazeera life and soha also coming up. last minute

cancellation the u.s. says more korea called off the meeting with vice president mike pence during his visit to the winter olympics. we have to do more to protect our children days after the florida school shooting u.s. president responds by proposing a ban on devices that turn illegal weapons into machine guns plus we'll look at why some scientists say artificial intelligence may not always be a smart idea. there's been no let up in the syrian government's assault on the eastern good despite a growing international outcry syrian forces are backed by their allies russia bombs rockets and shells of killed at least two hundred fifty people since sunday and the last rebel stronghold near damascus activists are describing the death toll in the last forty eight hours as a massacre and say it's the highest since the two thousand and thirteen chemical attack on that area eastern go to has been besieged by the government since two

thousand and thirteen four hundred thousand people are estimated to be trapped in this rebel held on klav eastern good as only a fluke a few kilometers out is away from the government center of power in the presidential palace and central damascus there are fears this bombardment could lead to a larger ground operation say knowhow to reports from beirut. panic in the streets not. to. use you our fear in people's faces. neighborhoods flattened the airstrikes are almost continuous killing towns across eastern who are coming under intense fire i survivors emerge in shock children traumatized. was killed one of them some four hundred thousand people are trapped in this

besieged syrian opposition enclave nowhere is safe. the sound of fighter jets in the skies frightens the population. and muhammad and her son the same say they can only hope the walls in their home will save them if a shell or an airstrike hit nearby i didn't we have no choice but to stay in our harm's despite be in strikes and shelling out building and those in the street said i don't have underground shelter. in the u.n. says the humanitarian situation is spiraling out of control because of what it calls an extreme escalation of hostilities scores of civilians have been killed since sunday and the number continues to rise. there are hundreds of injuries as well doctors are appealing to the international community to force the government to allow supplies in several cars food we have shortages in medicine and medical

supplies because the regime has been hitting this area for weeks we've had to deal with many injuries imagine we know how longer have blood bags to be. the un is demanding an end to the targeting of civilians but for the syrian government and its allies this is a military tactic and. they hope that by inflicting suffering on the population they will turn against the rebels and force them to surrender. eastern who has the last remaining opposition stronghold around damascus comments made by russia's foreign minister sergei lavrov about what he calls using the experience in . eastern libya are causing concern the syrian government pregame focus for all of the city of aleppo in life is thousand of its after months and a full blown military assault that. the main opposition

body the syrian national coalition is calling the latest wave of violence a war of extermination it is also condemning what it calls the international silence. this is not the first bombing campaign in eastern. hundreds of civilians were killed in weeks of bombardment earlier this year many believe the renewed bombardment could be the final assault senator. and government forces have entered the northwestern a-frame region to help kurdish fighters there fend off the turkish assault i have the. syrian state t.v. showed pictures of their forces celebrating it as they did so turkish forces reportedly targeted them with shellfire president says the soldiers have now forced fighters backed by the government to leave the kurdish controlled parts of the brain. to capture the area within days some avenge of a gas more from turkey's border with syria. a group of fighters loyal to president

bashar assad's government has retreated from the city of our freedom these fighters were trying to get close to the city of kurdish by p.g. fighters had asked for help from the syrian government and it said that it will not send its regular forces but will provide them with irregular militias and should cause a popular forces this happened after turkish artillery hit these areas when it saw that these forces were going in it happened only a couple of hours after the turkish president whether they have a gun announced that he and his forces are in another phase of the operation because we know ongoing since last month and he promised his cabinet members that the city of offering is going to be captured by turkish forces and their allies these arab f.s.a. fighters in a matter of days this operation has been ongoing since january the twentieth and it has come at a heavy toll to the turkish government as well i need to kill the saga at the same

time it takes to make certain perforations in the field the c.g. of the effort city will start rapidly in the coming days military sources on the ground have been telling us that it is easier said than done to capture the city of our freedom because it's very tough terrain and these dry p.g. kurdish fighters are locals to this area so the advance of the turkish government as well as the f.s.a. fighters who say they've captured a number of villages around the city of african which will help them encircled and besieged have been very very slow their advance according to them has been slow not only because of the tough terrain but also because they want to avoid civilian casualties but as we've seen in the syrian conflict as more forces arrive as a bigger of powers come to take areas that they had they want to control it's the civilians who suffered the most. russia's foreign minister says the syrian conflict can only be resolved if all parties respect each other's territorial integrity

sergey lavrov has also called on turkey and syria to settle be offering prices through direct talks. i'm convinced that turkish interest with regards to ensuring security can be satisfied through direct dialogue with the syrian government i really hope that we will continue firmly standing against any attempts to arm twist the kurdish problems for the sake of interest which lie in deepening chaos in the region and in destroying countries located the. state department says north korean officials decided at the last minute not to meet vice president mike pence during his visit to south korea washington says pence seeing right here sitting in front of the north korean leader kim jong un sister had been willing to hold a meeting with her and other officials from pyongyang they were in the south korean county of pyongyang for the opening ceremony of the winter olympics the meeting would have been the first between senior officials from the two countries name has

more from seoul. this aborted meeting was two weeks in the making the cia got word that the north koreans wanted to meet the south koreans were to be the intermediary we do know that vice president mike pence attended the v.i.p. reception for the opening ceremony sat within an arm's length of kim jong un sister kim yo jiang and the ceremonial head of state and there was much comments made about the. lack of interaction between the two sides but in any event this meeting was supposed to take place the following day in seoul at the presidential blue house only the united states and north koreans were expected to be in that room and the hope was according to the pence team that the united states would use this as an opportunity to convey a face to face to kim jong un sr the quote maximum pressure kind of policy that the united states plans to continue exerting on north korea unless it

denuclearize is bear in mind north korea likely cancel about meeting because it was upset that earlier that week pence had said that the toughest round of economic sanctions sanctions were coming to north korea said that he wouldn't allow the north korean propaganda to whitewash their murderous regime and he met with north korean defectors. well u.s. president donald trump has called for a ban on bomb stocks that's a device that allows a semiautomatic rifle to fire at the rate of a machine god. florida school shootings sparked renewed debate on gun control like and safety advocates say it's only the bare minimum of what the government should do to prevent mattia things i did to castro has more. the bomb stocks of deadly threat was witnessed in october when a gunman used them to rain down bullets on a crowd in las vegas killing fifty eight people the call to bamba stocks was swift . but it took until now four months later for president donald trump to take action

. after the deadly shooting in las vegas i directed the attorney general to clarify whether certain bob stock devices like the one used in las vegas are illegal under current law that process began in december and just a few moments ago i signed a memorandum directing the attorney general to propose regulations to ban all devices that turn illegal weapons into machine guns announcement came six days after yet another mass shooting dominated the headlines seventeen people mostly students were killed in a florida high school there's no indication the shooter also used a bomb stock in the attack but trump's move to ban the devices now appears to be the president bending to growing pressure. polling shows the majority of americans

think trump and congress haven't done enough to stop mass shootings and while gun safety advocates say banning bomb stops is good they say there's still much more that needs to be done as it comes to choosing to say. i'm a shade a day the guy. made it was shot i think. the young survivors of the florida shooting are expected to meet with trump on wednesday for what the white house calls a listening session expected to join them are survivors of past school shootings sandy hook elementary columbine high school and many others. heidi joe castro al-jazeera washington meanwhile survivors of the florida school shooting are taking their message to florida's capital after legislators there rejected a state ban on assault rifles and

a gallagher has more. last wednesday's school shooting in parklane florida was one of the worst in this country's history seventeen people died when former student nicholas cruz walked into a school with an a r fifteen assault rifle but despite the fact that many of the students from that school are still going through the grieving process they're on their way here to florida state capital tallahassee where they'll meet with lawmakers on wednesday but a bill that would have banned assault rifles has already been overwhelmingly voted down in the state legislature giving us some idea of the challenges they will face but these teenagers have been praised for their eloquence and they're determined to keep the momentum going we've opened doors that i feel like haven't been opened but . finally our lawmakers are talking we're on the national stage right now international stage action and. you know it's the first time that i've ever seen people survive a shooting and then directly after it demand change which is i think something that should have happened in this country a long time ago but it's taking kids fifteen years. on tuesday fifteen year old

peter wang was laid to rest he'd been holding the door open for his classmates when he died in a hail of bullets a military could at he's now been posthumously accepted into west point military academy on tuesday also president trump is now pushing legislation that would ban bump stock modification that was used in the last vegas shooting but the students no matter how determined they are will face an uphill battle convincing politicians in this state and across the nation to change gun laws will be extremely difficult but they are determined to carry on with their campaign and plan another protest in march in washington d.c. they'll gather here by the hundreds on wednesday their voices will be heard but where the change comes will be another thing. still ahead on al-jazeera. these are lonely to begin by see whose story are you on about what. i'm a she talks about the face tough questions from british politicians about

a prostitution scandal and a. look at how the economic crisis and political turmoil in venezuela is splitting families. hello there were some heavy downpours over parts of north america at the moment is this area of cloud here that's giving us the wettest of the weather and that's really the border between the very cold air towards the northwest and the very warm air down in the southeast this mild air will continue to feed up towards the eastern coast as we head through wednesday so a maximum temperature of twenty one or twenty two in new york and force in washington d.c. will get to around twenty five which is seventy seven in fahrenheit things will change those this weather system gradually edges its way eastwards on thursday this time new york no higher than around eight whereas washington d.c.

will go to around twelve the southeast corner though still very mild hay with around twenty six in atlanta and a twenty seven in miami i mean further towards the south and generally it's quite quiet across the central americas at the moment a loss of fine weather to be found most of the showers as usual i read for parts of costa rica and feeding up a further north maybe one or two making their way through the temp an inch on wednesday but even here it looks like it should be dry as we come into thursday the further towards the south and there's been plenty of showers hair particularly over parts of french guyana and into syria now and that's all stretching down through rio more rain to come here does look drier and when it's always there at twenty six . monitored truck one too far i'm sorry you see beta be the new car for. your day to your identity is a commodity and you have to understand where i'm from when it come from our sleeves

it's time to reclaim our cyber so we have to give them a something that cannot be sold we are creators we are our lives we are. give us back our data at this time on a jersey. says al jazeera and these are the top stories right now one of syria's last couple held areas eastern ghouta has been under heavy bombardment by government and russian forces more than two hundred fifty people have been killed since sunday. the u.s. says north korean officials decided at the last minute not to meet vice president mike pence during his visit to south korea washington says spends as you can see

right there sitting right in front of the north korean leader's sister had been willing to hold a meeting with her and other officials from pyongyang. and u.s. president donald trump is recommending a ban on devices that can turn firearms into machine guns it would include so-called bomb stocks which for apparently used in the last vegas mass shooting back in october fifty eight people were killed. palestinian leader mahmoud abbas has proposed a new international peace summit with israel that rolls out the united states as the chief broker an address to the u.n. security council abbas said palestinians have lost faith in the u.s. government's ability to mediate abandoning a policy which had lasted twenty five years i was there is to monitor james bays reports from the headquarters of the u.n. . president abbas's presence here was rare and carefully calculated normally his ambassador attends this monthly meeting he came himself to express his displeasure at the trumpet ministration he suggested its decision to

recognize jerusalem as israel's capital and to cut funding to the un agency that helps palestinians disqualified it from leading peace efforts instead he proposed a new approach very early on. i would call for the convening of an international peace conference by mid two thousand and eighteen based on international law and relevant un resolutions with broad international participation including the two concerned parties and regional and international stakeholders present a bias left immediately after his speech nothing unusual there in terms of un protocol he was the only head of state in a room full of ambassadors and had another engagement to attend it didn't stop the israeli ambassador using it to score a point i expected news that a bass to stay with us and have a dialogue unfortunately is once again running away. the u.s.

ambassador came to the meeting accompanied by the two men president trump has tasked with leading negotiations jason greenblatt and his own son in law jared coercion or she said president abbas had a choice the united states stands ready to work with the palestinian leader since our negotiators are sitting right behind me ready to talk but we will not chase after you the choice mr president is yours it was a security council session full of drama and theatrical but the reality is depressingly familiar this meeting in no way brings any close a resolution to a conflict that's already lasted over seventy years james byrd zerah of the united nations. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is remaining defiant despite being embroiled in two more bribery scandals on top of

a corruption investigation police now allege one of his closest advisers tried to bribe a judge into dropping a criminal case in two thousand and fifteen and valving netanyahu his wife their fates is accused of using a middle man to offer the judge help to become attorney general if she closed the case against sarah netanyahu successive household spending on tuesday police revealed that if he's was one of several that yahoo confidants arrested over a separate probe into allegations of corruption at israel's biggest telecom company last week investigators recommended the prime minister be indicted in two corruption cases involving bribery and fraud that yahoo says he's the victim of a witch hunt i should believe. what's happened in recent days is simply total madness scandalous they bring to crazy fabricated claims as part of a witch hunt against me and my family that has gone on for years any crime that i acted on the benefit of basic at the expense of road considerations is simply unfounded to its core. the second quite concerning the appointment of the attorney

general is no less crazy and malicious to never consulted new hits on this matter he never proposed anything to me on this issue and you know what i don't believe that he suggested this possibility with anyone senior management at the charity oxfam have been answering questions from britain's british m.p.'s in london of all those allegations that its staff paid women in haiti for sex in the wake of the two thousand and ten earthquake oxfam's chief executive told a parliamentary committee it's now investigating a further twenty six cases of alleged sexual abuse on me philip supports. oxfam senior officials came to parliament knowing they were in for a grilling. in the chaotic aftermath of haiti's earthquake how could oxfam have allowed staff to take advantage of such vulnerable people and when it found out why did it tell the public. my colleagues at the time made a set of decisions as to how public to not all organizations choose to go public at

all with hindsight they made the wrong call as to how public to be they should if we were going to if we were culpable which we were. they should've been completely transparent everybody knew that the aid sector was pretty rotten because if i thought all these people who were abusing women and girls regularly in all countries but nobody not one organization was actually tracking it and doing nothing about it. that's shocking and they were supposed to be part of the people trying to help the world but it would appear that you know it was good you should be indeed some people in toto and see see moon didn't share our burdens buz to the trust of oxfam the power of books one in their hands the abuse the trust of the british public haunted. and turned on the big people who were supposed to

protect them it's true the most being deeply sorry for that going to bring members of parliament we're told that seven thousand people have cancelled their regular donations to oxfam since the scandal broke but other british aid organizations acknowledge there is nothing unique about oxfam's failings. the head of save the children told the same committee that sexual abuse is in the not just a few bad apples this is the problem it's laws we have to fix the youth. is is probably the most effective in the walters worse accountable to the world we cannot afford to this issue to pollute the water discussion about the role of the youth. leadership. if the aid dries up charities argue then people in disaster and war zones will pay the highest price that makes the aid industry's

credibility crisis all the more tragic to be phillip's al-jazeera london venezuela has become the first government to launch its own crypto currency the petro president nicolas maduro is hoping it will ease the deepening financial crisis and offset a collapse in venezuela's currency that has prices tied to the cost of a barrel of oil and it's backed by more than five billion barrels in the country's national reserves the number of venezuelans venezuelans escaping to neighboring colombia is rising at an alarming rate despite tighter border controls. airport some on the colombian israel and border. in this central plaza hundreds of business welland stand in line for up to seven hours they wait for a wire transfer that will help them and where the economic crisis back home cattlemen travels to this colombian border town every month she needs the money her son sends from the children to buy medicine no i don't think so that you might

think that we are happy to come here and receive a little money but instead it's very sad that we can't afford the basic things we need it's painful to be here but it's a sacrifice we have to make it's an excruciating but essential wait in a swell and scam to receive remittances at home due to the exchange controls imposed by the government of president nicolas maduro they used the money to buy basic items for ever more often bus tickets to reach those who already left in search of a better life. oh if they would leave us i'm here to go to korea with my son my husband is already there he saved for fifteen months to pay for our chickens we wanted to stay in venezuela but it's becoming impossible with the upcoming presidential elections we're the worried they'll shut the border so we decided it was time to go oh my goodness well an immigration experts say a fifth of the population has left the country in the last two years some stay in colombia but increasing numbers continue to other south american countries where it

might be easier to find work the number of buses leaving this station for the ecuadorian border the next stop on these migrants journey has passed from six or seven a week to more than seventy every single day but even that is not enough and some people after wait up to four days for a ticket i finally struggle to save enough for just one bus ticket but when it's time to separate the heartache is palpable. that i mean this sold all they could to get their eldest son a passport in a bus fare to argentina. what i make is not enough to feed us it's sad because we used to have a food in jobs but not many more that's why my son is leaving and my heart is broken no one can resist forever that's why he must go a scene that repeats itself with painful regularity as each bus takes off and more families are torn apart by mississippi leaving behind

a sad trail of trauma in tears i was some of them just. twenty six of the world's leading experts and emerging technologies are warning of the dangers of artificial intelligence they say cybercrime will grow and drones will be misused during the next decade from cambridge in the united kingdom and the hayward reports. it is the stuff of science fiction or at least it used to be a computer able to master and a chinese boardgame without human help to win every time and a truck drives to sell computers in big holes powered by artificial intelligence now leading academics a warning not to put the brakes on ai but that the technology is increasingly being used for malicious purposes for political or financial gain to extort and to gain influence cyber attacks on infrastructure as we've seen in ukraine

attacks on computers in hospitals manipulation people for example we've seen some. attempts to manipulate political elections in the us and in europe recently now those are being varying degrees of effectiveness with the techniques we have today but artificial intelligence will allow new types of cyber attacks that might be more capable than we had before very safe. from health care to walk their machine based thinking is revolutionizing the way we live exposing us to the benefits and the risks the robot here has been designed to pick up these little bricks and put them back on the green mass now this is just a laboratory setting but in five or ten years time it could be developed to work on a construction site or support in the design or wouldn't want the technology hijacked the report's authors a calling on governments in the industry to do more to protect us from all the

pitfalls experts warned of the serious consequences it's absolutely right that we issue warnings where they are because the capabilities of the possibilities for it going wrong are absolutely they could be actually tragic we need to be able to get to grips with this now ai is clearly here to stay and staying one step ahead of those who were. to abuse it will be a constant challenge and he would. cambridge. this is al jazeera and these are the top stories on of syria's last rebel held areas has been under heavy bombardment by government and russian forces more than two hundred fifty people have been reported dead from do to just since sunday activists are describing the death toll as a massacre and say it's the highest since a two thousand and thirteen chemical attack on that area children are turning to

social media for help everyone bookend the army we are hearing that as a vision has brought much stuff toward this is just really good people can give themselves. and the children out and there's an old fart joke that the children are going back before it's too late. from decision. turkish forces have reportedly pushed back pro syrian government fighters from a frayne fighters loyal to president bashar al assad enter the area to help kurdish fighters there fend off the turkish assault president raja typer and one has vowed to capture the area within days. the u.s. says north korean officials decided at the last minute not to meet vice president mike pence during his visit to south korea earlier this month as you can see in this picture he sat right in front of north korean leader kim jong un sr they had been willing to meet to hold

a meeting with her and other officials from pyongyang u.s. president donald trump is recommending a ban on devices that can turn semiautomatic firearms into machine guns it would include so-called bomb stocks which were used in the last vegas massacre shooting in october where fifty eight people were killed white house says it's open to raising the minimum age for people buying it the type of rifle that was shoes to last week school shooting in florida that killed seventeen people palestinian leader mahmoud abbas has proposed a new international peace summit with israel at the u.n. one that rules out the united states as the chief broker the u.s. says it remains ready to talk but won't chase after the palestinians. oxfam says it's investigating twenty six new cases of sexual abuse by its staff the charity's senior management was questioned about eight staff using prostitutes while working in haiti in two thousand and eleven right after the earthquake the thermos apologized for not being transparent about what happened there so the headline news

continues keep it here on al-jazeera rebel geek's is next. news has never been more available but the message is a simplistic and misinformation is rife the listening post provides a critical counterpoint challenging mainstream media narrative at this time on al-jazeera digital technology of is that imus intimacy an easement and even longer life in the ability to billions of calculations in our pockets it seems we just covered in the internet age. in which everything in our lives can be increased and tracked and intended for money. that is convenience profit and surveillance the only use these powers. now a new generation.