the snake charmers ahmed khan witness at this time on a visitor. we understand the difference. and the similarities of cultures across the world so no matter how you take it. we'll bring you the news and current affairs that matter to al-jazeera. russia calls it a daily pause but in syria it barely allows enough time to bury the day. that mrs al jazeera live from also coming up south korea's president says japan

must do more to acknowledge its role in world war two sex slavery. amnesty international accuses egypt of using cluster bombs as part of its offensive in sinai. and a busy day in washington as a top trump aide resigns and the president seems to change direction on gun it's. the third day of a five hour pause in fighting is underway in syria's eastern goods and that follows the deaths of at least fourteen civilians on wednesday from russian and government air raids the u.n. estimates more than five hundred eighty people have been killed and well of a thousand injured since an upsurge in violence on february eighteenth aid deliveries and evacuations are yet to take place despite the russian late truce. in the past ten days there was a lot of pressure on medical care and we have large numbers of were injured and now

seem to as there are thousands of wounded and more than five hundred martyrs there is a shortage of medical supplies we have been in a besieged area for more than five years the regime for habits medical care for the wounded it is extremely hard to work with the medical supplies we have we did everything in our power but we have an extreme shortage of medical supplies a lot of supplies are not even available we cannot ensure any medical supplies some that we are only supposed to use once we use twice some specialist care is not even available and go to for example we only have one nurse doctor and it is impossible for him to treat all the wounded emergency rooms are limited and they were full from the first day we were despite the pause and go to there have been government strikes a solid bunch of aid reports from gaza on top in turkey near the syrian border digging more graves is how some spend the five hour pause in the daily bombardment of eastern ghouta with many deaths every day the local council arranges for mass

burials on the syrian government's side of the buffer been crossing buses an ambulance has waited for civilians to cross but people deny a claim by the russian president that some civilians crossed over on the second day of the poison fighting and we have managed to get out quite a big group of those who wanted to leave but the second group could not leave because the militants just did not give them an opportunity to do so people in eastern called a five hour daily pause in hostilities a joke they ask how can anyone expect them to want to cross for the same people who bomb them for the other nineteen hours of the day. not much has changed for the nearly four hundred thousand in besieged east and many have been stranded in basements like this one right here this woman says her family has survived on pieces of bradish for the last three days oh my gosh there's human flesh everywhere says this man who also tells how he has been disabled by his injuries there are similar tales of despair in other shelters ever the situation here is just hunger

and sickness no showers the children sleep hungry here. activists say the price of bread is one hundred times more than just a few kilometers away in the syrian capital damascus and very expensive rice is rarely available this woman says he found some spinach near the river and that's going to be their meal. medical supplies are limited and many hospitals have been destroyed doctors in eastern hold to have recent a list of eighty five people to the united nations who are mostly women and children among the more than one thousand people who are gently need medical evacuation but in east of water no aid has come in and then on the people who are sick or wounded have been able to go out osama bin job. on the turkey syria border russia's ambassador to the u.n. has contradicted president vladimir putin's claim that large numbers of people have been moved out of eastern diplomatic james bays reports from united nations syria

approved just days after these ambassadors unanimously demanded a ceasefire their resolution continues to be ignored and repeatedly violated the u.n. undersecretary general mark low called this the world's most senior humanitarian official told them he would answer some of the question is he's received in recent days have there been any medical evacuations. have any civilians left eastern ghouta. is there any actual improvement in the humanitarian situation in eastern guta since the passage of the resolution demanding as it did unimpeded access. he ended his briefing with one last question for the ambassadors when will your resolution be implemented when the u.s. and the u.k. put the blame squarely on russia since we adopted resolution twenty four zero one

russia has announced a daily five hour humanitarian cause in the it in the aerial bombing of civilians in eastern good. this is senekal callous and flagrant defiance of the demands of twenty four a one the russian ambassador didn't repeat earlier claims by his boss president putin that a large number of people have been evacuated but he said some medical help had been provided to eastern ghouta underscores the need for the parties to agree on human ukrainian pauses these of binocular he read part of the resolution passed on saturday before giving his explanation why it was not yet halting the violence because there's a new stooge attorney. did you read the resolution the whole resolution we stated that any enduring pause must be preceded by agreement by the parties for deescalation demanding an overnight and immediate halt toss deliveries suggests

either a failure to understand realities on the ground or a deliberate exploitation of human tragedy. the three main opposition fighting groups in eastern cooter of written a letter to the president of the security council they pledged to kick out the group the council still refers to by its form and i'm al nasra they also say they will give the un resolution their full support. the syrian government's representative ambassador bashar al jeffrey was in the council chamber he gave a typically rambling nineteen minutes speech but he made no such commitment james out of the united nations south korea's president says japan hasn't resolved the issue of the so-called comfort woman moon spoke of an event to mark ninety nine years since korea rose up against japanese rule thousands of korean women were forced into sexual slavery for japanese soldiers during world war two the government of japan is apologize and offer to compensate victims. not.

resolving the comfort women issue the government of japan as the perpetrator should not say it is over the inhuman crimes against humanity cannot be covered up by saying it is over the unfortunate history should be remembered even more and learning from such a history is the real resolution to the issue japan's chief cabinet secretary has criticized president moon speech. while president and citizen against japan south korea agreement on it is totally unacceptable and extremely regrettable we immediately logic in light of the celtic green government the greenman is an violent irreversible solution to the issue when japan has conducted all of the obligations based on the agreement and now which is south korea to do the same that amnesty international says egypt's army is using banned cluster bombs in its military operation north sinai the human rights group made the accusation after analyzing this egyptian military video it says the munitions serial number

number circled over that proves beyond doubt that it is a u.s. made cluster bomb which could any of been dropped by the egyptian air force the military argues the weapons were improvised explosive devices planted by what it calls terrorist elements jeffrey marcus the egypt country specialist at amnesty international usa he says it's not the first time egypt has used cluster bombs. they've done it before just earlier in the month. indeed ships in military officer posted to his twitter account when we indicated another us type cluster munition being used by loaded onto any gyptian plane and in plane that had gyptian airforce flags on it so they seem to be quite proud of this these custom bombs are so dangerous and so deadly because they're

indiscriminate the it cannot be used with precision they excel in harming maiming and killing civilians it is this danger that his or an international treaty to ban and their sale in use egypt is not a party to that but hundreds of countries are we need the us to step up on this they. we have we go laws here that ban the use of us missions in what is in war crimes or human rights violations we think the quest for bombs are de facto human rights violations we made the connection between the us and the use of these prosper bombs it's time for the u.s. government to step up u.s. senators are trying to overrule the president's military authorization by forcing a vote on the country's involvement in the war in yemen members of congress are

using a nine hundred seventy three no one to try to force the withdrawal of american forces from what they call and an authorized war the united states has provided weapons and intelligence for the side and that kind of thing iran that fight is in yemen some twenty fifteen. u.s. military support of the saudi coalition mosque and. without congressional authorization our engagement in this war should be restricted to providing desperately needed humanitarian aid and diplomatic efforts to resolve it that is why today so little leeway annoyance and the murphy are introducing a joint resolution pursuant to the one nine hundred seventy three wars power war powers resolution calling for an end to u.s. support for the saudi war in yemen an independent israeli human rights group has released security footage showing soldiers mistreating a palestinian man in the hours before he died in custody yes in saturday appears to

charge that israeli soldiers with a metal rod protests in the city of jericho before being shot then beaten by the group a force that has more from ramallah in the occupied west bank. yes you know our sara lee was killed during the course of an israeli raid a week ago in the early hours of last thursday morning but the precise circumstances surrounding his death have been the subject of sun dispute and indeed of changing accounts from the israeli military initially they said that he tried to attack soldiers with a knife tried to disarm one of them and was subdued as a result that the investigation initially into his death found that the probable cause of that death was from tear gas inhalation in the meantime this video emerged of him running out soldiers with an iron bar he was shot at by one of the soldiers he fell to the ground he was then kicked and beaten as he lay on the floor kicked and beaten with a rifle butts he is seen trying to grab one of those weapons during the course of

that and he's then dragged away into an alleyway this new video from the human rights group that cell and shows him inside that alley surrounded by israeli soldiers but seven saying that he received no medical attention during the course of twenty five minutes until he was picked up by an israeli military jeep now an autopsy report leaked to the media said that he was indeed shot in the abdomen and that that was the cause of his death the israeli media is reporting sources close to the soldiers involved as saying that they weren't aware that he'd been shot they weren't aware that he was bleeding because of the darkness of that night however but some is saying that that is not good enough they're saying that the israeli mean military needs to offer some firm response to this or otherwise it would be condoning the actions of the soldiers involved and saying that this kind of treatment of palestinians in the course of these raids is fair game. still ahead on

al-jazeera n.t.v. torture sri lanka's minority tunnels continue to face persecution at the hands of the security forces we have an exclusive report. the usual scattering of showers across southeast asia more heavy downpours coming in across borneo into malaysia the big thunderstorms they continue to rumble away across jobber we have seen flooding here recently and that wet weather never really too far away easterly winds driving those showers in across the region more showers there into the mill a potential little bit of cloud into thailand but should be largely dry here temperatures of around thirty four celsius in bangkok good deal to try weather to into center the southern possible strike a bit further north massive down posts just around the queensland to the north of townsville little area of low pressure hey we've seen top amounts of rainfall over

the last twenty four to thirty six hours many areas seeing in excess of one hundred millimeters of rain i'm seeing one hundred seventy eight millimeters of rain in twenty four hours more showers here as we go on through the next twenty four hours pushing up towards the gulf of carpentaria before the south doesn't it too bad adelaide twenty seven celsius the twenty four there in melbourne perth also lost a fine and right around twenty five twenty six maybe twenty seven degrees here by sas day in that dry weather that continues to feed its way over into the southeastern corner melbourne a lovely one on sas day one thirty degrees celsius but those showers continue for the north. but it also did in less than one generation of developing countries one of the news developing countries in the world we have to be critical for just any point you bridge and fear to pretty rough and tough men singapore's founding father created

a nation of political dynasty put a family disputes undermining that legacy what's happened to the family and what's happened in singapore's institutions i just don't know what would have cost them all great people in power investigates the house that leap at this time on al-jazeera. today what you know is there a lot of our top stories this hour the third day of a five hour pause in fighting is underway in syria's eastern goods on wednesday fourteen civilians were killed in russian and syrian government air raids on the rebel enclave the u.n. estimates more than five hundred eighty people have been killed and well over

thousand injured since february that eighteen. south korea's president in says japan hasn't resolved the issue of so-called comfort women thousands of korean woman were forced into sexual slavery for japanese soldiers during world war two japan is described means comments as extremely regrettable. a missed international says egypt's army is using banned cluster bombs in its military operation in north sinai the human rights group made the accusation after analyzing this egyptian military video the military argues the weapons were improvised explosive devices planted by what it calls terrorist elements. the next phase of china's anti corruption crackdown is set to become law a new detention measure and an anti corruption super ministry will give the government the power to investigate all states employees president xi jinping is valid to root out illegal behavior among chinese officials joseph chang is

a political scientist and former professor of social sciences at city university of hong kong he joins us now from hong kong thank you very much for joining us it seems he really is tightening its grip on power is any. yes it appears that siege in paint would like to stay longer as the part among the need of time now for more than ten years are like all powerful leaders he believes thirty years indispensable but at the same time certainly. what he does goes against the masters introduced by dental pain in the early one nine hundred eighty s. including them attention on terms of ten years of pollution of a lifelong ten your four carders of all rans as well as emphasis. on collective leadership so what he does will be rod to these purple icing in the sense that as we all know when power is highly concentrated in the high hands of

one person this is the step alighting long term leadership not good for many countries and not good for china i should imagine. i believe so because this intention to concentrate power in the hands of one person discourage deliberations open discussions of policies. the leader himself will certainly discourage and the potential emergence of other leaders who may be in a position to challenge him and there will be less. checks and balances more and more tolerant of criticisms well that polygamy leader they worried do think of this super draft agency which has extensive powers to investigate and detain any state employees. yes.

the national's supervision commission follows the example of the national security commission created two or three years ago. one cannot criticize for concentrating power in the hands of one organ. corruption it will probably improve coordination but unfortunately we know that can be investigation of corruption has been very much used as an instrument to to hit huge and pains political enemies at the same time be all or understand if you really want to remove corruption at least you have to allow a freedom of the media to expose the corrupt practices of this shows to allow the people's congress system some master of tests and balances to criticize the

later officials eventually to make sure that the rule of law is respected and perhaps even more democratic i say ssion but apparently the comeback of corruption in china still takes this form of a kind of campaign told to just check thank you. donald trump's white house communications director is resigning she's the third person to leave the role since the us president came into office thirteen months ago hope picks is one of trump's longest serving advisers she previously worked for his business organization and was press secretary joining the election campaign the resignation comes one day off to she testified before a congressional panel investigating accusations of russian interference in the twenty sixteen campaign bill schneider is an international affairs professor at george mason university he says hope picks act as as an important intermediary for

trump and the white house stuff her timing could have been better she testified before congress she didn't answer a lot of the questions in fact she acknowledged that in her tenure as the white house communications director she had told some white lies meaning she's not spoken the truth but it was an innocent decision it didn't do any damage or harm we don't know what they were and she was a very valuable person to person a job she was known to be the one in the white house who understood him best and who was able she was called trump's translator namely she understood what he wanted better than anyone else and she could explain that to the white house staff she will be missed to stay in the u.s. president broken away from the traditional republican party stance on guns signaling he wants to see tough legislation brought in during a bipartisan meeting on gun violence chung called for expanded background checks and told politicians to seriously consider raising the age limit for purchasing

some file. we have to keep the guns out of the hands of those that pose the threat . and this really includes background checks and i know senator that you're working on things joe i know you're working on and. i mean i'm looking at a number of the folks around the table you're working in different bills we have to get them we have to get them done we have to get them done. and they have to be strong the background check say look. i'm the biggest fan of the second amendment many of you are i'm a big fan of the n.r.a. but i bet i had lunch with them with wayne and chris and david on sunday and said it's time. going to stop this nonsense and start kim taylor is a board member texas gun sense she says even if the smallest gun regulations coming it can make a big difference there's always been a black market for it in the u.s. for guns as long as guns have been sold and regulated by any means but but over the

last twenty years the regulations of guns have been decreasing because of the n.r.a. and the n.r.a. is influence over our government and our elected officials and so what we know with tighter gun control laws on the books we're safer we know when we had an assault weapons ban that. mass killing shootings were were down in the united states we know if you point out any other country in the world that has sensible gun laws on the books they have significantly less gun violence than we do here in the united states and you can address straw purchasers you can limit the number of weapons that any one person can buy it at any one time so there are a number of things that you can put in place universal background checks. anyone that poses a threat to the community because of a mal health crisis or has a serious dangerous criminal background they should have access to

a weapon it's that simple russian president vladimir putin is given his annual address to parliament just weeks ahead of presidential elections the domestic focus address is normally given in december but last just speech was delayed until this month putin is expected to outline a roadmap for the next six years including increasing spending for health education and infrastructure he's running for his fourth term in office. it's more than three years since president but three process city center came to power in sri lanka he replaced a government which was accused of human rights abuses during the war against tamil separatists but al jazeera has seen disturbing evidence of the continued use of torture as i u.k. correspondent barnaby phillips reports cigarette burns lash marks still visible many months on but there was worse no more that our little brother or my posts into the water but. they poured petrol spray politan back oh my head you

made me suffer. and i was made to lie facing down on my bench then beat me with bet on soles off my feet and sexually abuse. me it was cruel and humiliating. and squeeze my penis and i find difficult to talk about what happened to me in terms of sex who taught me goes into effect on me i'm up went and . if he's not alone this support group has helped seventy six times with english lessons in art therapy who all say they've been tortured in the past three years since sherline because new government came to power long after the end of the civil war and you see a separate team abducting a separate team interrogating and torturing another team releasing you see

a very systematic pattern of violations across the country and it's the same in the last three years as it was in the previous years under the rajapaksa regime so i'm not saying that the prime minister or the president is ordering this but clearly this is very systematic within the security forces the police and the army still was at the sri lankan embassy in london tamils protest against human rights abuses by the government that was that many carried the flag of the l t t which itself carried out many abuses during the civil war there's clearly distrust between at least parts of the tamil community in this country and the sri lankan authorities we put the allegations in our report to the sri lankan government it says it takes all violations of human rights extremely seriously it argues that the situation in sri lanka is improving it says it will investigate and prosecute all alleged cases of torture and is working with the un and human rights groups to this

and a different man whom we met through different contacts but the story is depressingly similar they use some kind. of routes and just one of my legs is so upside down and to just pulling from my knee with a pulley. i totally believed. he too was accused of supporting b l t t he too says he was tortured by the police's criminal investigation department and he too paid a bribe and fled sure lanka he's been refused asylum in britain but is appealing so were many at the support group after also being refused although the british government told us there are credible reports of ongoing tortured sri lanka and it says it has updated its asylum policy accordingly to be phillip's al jazeera london snow forced geneva airport to close and trains across many parts of continental europe and the u.k.

are facing severe delays local officials in amsterdam are allowing people to skate on the city's frozen waterways and canals and freezing conditions from a siberian cold snap are causing heavy snowfalls across much of europe if more from london. there be many more disruptions up and down the country is the so-called peace from the east cruising much more on a much more smooth dumping it up and down the u.k. and across the continent at launch here at heathrow airport dozens of flights had to be counsel reshape mainly to other parts of the u.k. or to the republic of ireland a small airport struggled with a deluge of snow there. is a fact for you it takes roughly four thousand lorry loads to shift only ten centimeters of snow from this entire trip and given the amount of snow that we've seen here recently is pretty much a twenty four hour endeavor cold weather in winter the whole of the a surprise you

may be asking but what's worrying the climatologists is that for the past few days it's been consistently colder here in europe than it has been in the arctic and they are blaming manmade global warming for causing all of this they say the woman there is being drawn up north over the arctic displacing colder air and pushing it down south over siberia and here first into eastern europe and then into western europe here in the u.k. and over in ireland they know we have to do much more research to find out whether or not all of this freak weather is the shape of things to come. it's still just there these are the top stories at least six civilians including a young girl have been killed by russian and syrian government air raids in eastern go to on thursday it's unclear whether they occurred during the third day of a five hour so-called humanitarian pause that's currently underway in the rebel

enclave the u.n. estimates more than five hundred eighty people have been killed there since every the eighteen. south korea's president mean jane says japan hasn't resolved the issue of so-called comfort women japan has described means comments as extremely regrettable thousands of korean women were forced into sexual slavery for japanese soldiers during world war two. not. resolving the comfort women issue the government of japan as the perpetrator should not say it is over the inhuman crimes against humanity cannot be covered up by saying it is over the unfortunate history should be remembered even more and learning from such a history is the real resolution to be issue amnesty international says egypt's army is using banned cluster bombs and its military operation in north sinai the human rights group made the accusation after analyzing this egyptian military video the military argues the weapons were improvised explosive devices planted by what

it calls terrorist elements. an independent israeli human rights group has released security footage showing soldiers mistreating a palestinian man in the hours before he died in custody yassin al assad of the appears to charge at israeli soldiers with a metal rod during protests in the city of jericho before being shot then beaten by the group he was pronounced dead later that night the israeli military says it's investigating the incident donald trump's white house communications director is resigning hope picks made the announcement today after she testified before a congressional panel that's investigating accusations of russian interference in the twenty sixteen election she's the third person to leave the role since trump came into office thirteen months ago. the u.s. president has broken away from the traditional rub republican party stance on guns signaling he wants to see tougher legislation brought in during a bipartisan meeting on gun violence trump called for expanded background checks as

the headlines the news continues after people and power. head of the september twenty fourth national election survey showed this a satisfied for the state of their economy this is easily a study as biggest tech success story the company was bought by microsoft in two thousand and eleven we bring you the stories that are shaping the economic world we live in counting the cost at this time on ounces era. by the time of his death in twenty fifteen singapore's founding father lee kuan yew at one widespread respect is the architect of the city state's prosperity but he'd also been accused of restricting freedom of speech and repressing political opposition now his complex legacy is under scrutiny amid a bit of family to speak.