all in the mail man city and the story bill meant to be forced to leave the room just. when people need to be heard to women and girls are being bought and given away in refugee camps al-jazeera has teams on the ground to bring you the mood winning documentaries and. i got to commend you all i'm hearing is good journalism . and. probably on scientist even hawking who helped unlock the mysteries of the universe has died at the age of seventy six. and richelle carey this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up. we disagreed

on board you look at the iran deal i think it's terrible i guess. tillerson al pompei awareness u.s. president tunnel trump replaces a secretary of state after months of strained relations. russia defies an ultimatum from the u.k. over the poisoning of a former spy. a la the latest from the u.s. on a tightly contested special election that could empacher on president trump's agenda . one of the world's greatest scientist stephen hawking has died at the age of seventy six his work focused on the evolution of the universe and his book a brief history of time was an international bestseller and the statement his children paid tribute to their father saying he was an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years and the hayward looks back on his life and achievements . this was and i thought the clue was an accolade. stephen hawking

was often treated like a rock star scientist millions revered him for his gift of communicating complex matters to the masses the common man's genius i we are alive we are intelligent decoded some of the most enigmatic mysteries of the universe its origins structure and end from big bang to black hole his life was also an enigma nine hundred sixty three hawking was always twenty one and a student at cambridge university when he was diagnosed with a degenerative motor nearing condition he was given just two and a half years but went on to live for more than half a century taught me not. because we're worse off. than before i developed the condition i am like me work and theoretical one of.

which disability is not a serious handicap. as the disease progressed talking lost mobility and had to rely on a wheelchair his speech then began to slur an emergency operation rope to move his voice but not prolong. your. turn to a speech synthesizer which allowed him to select was by moving the muscles of his cheek it was a tedious process but warm that gave him the ability to express his pine airing ideas it also gave the british cosmologist his trademark american accent. dark hawking was respected early on in scientific circles for helping prove the big bang theory when the universe burst into existence fourteen billion years ago global acclaim came in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight with the release of his book a brief history of time the introduction to cosmology was

a runaway hit standing more than ten million copies and eventually translated into dozens of languages hawking's only magnified with time a pop culture figure he guest starred on shows such as the simpsons and star trek. again. the first. public press a nation with hawking culminated in the blockbuster hollywood film of his remarkable life the theory of everything the universe is expanding if you have us talking to investors all stephen hawking devoted his life to seeking answers to the questions of our existence and in doing so he helped us to pay a deeper into how our universe works martians is a space analyst and joins me via skype from sydney thank you so much it's so often that this name becomes a household name how did that happen for stephen hawking. well i think it happened

note it was in purely because the science. actually i think like how. he was charismatic you could. be. in that you're there. and you're out there. and. you know. you. are going on. and fortunately mr jones. mr jones unfortunately we're having a very difficult time hearing you and i really apologize to our viewers for that this is really important to talk about so we're going to step away and move on and try to get this sorted out and connect with you again. outgoing your secretary of

state rex tillerson is urging a smooth transition after his dismissal by donald trump via twitter one of his top aides released a statement saying tillerson was unaware of why he was forced out and that that official was later fired as well the democrats say it had another sign of chaos in the white house trump insists policy differences are to blame the two disagreed over a number of issues including the iran deal and the blockade of qatar so tell us and we'll be replaced by cia director mike pompei oh he advocates a more aggressive stance on north korea and also iran now his job will go to china has bill who is set to become the first female leader of the cia we'll get more on that shortly first though also in jordan looks back at the friction between tillerson and trump. it's not every day you lose your job to be a social meeting but an emotional rex tillerson deliberately ignored that detail when he addressed reporters on tuesday all received a call today from the president night states at low afternoon time from air force

one my commission as secretary of state will terminate at midnight march thirty first tillerson served as u.s. secretary of state for a little more than a year he spent much of that time pushing back against reports that the president donald trump wanted to fire him on tuesday morning on twitter trump did just that mike pompei a will become our new secretary of state thank you to rex tillerson for his service trump then told reporters this we disagreed on things when you look at the iran deal i think it's terrible i guess it was ok i wanted he's a regular to something he felt a little bit differently so we were not really thinking the same looking back it's clear trump and tillerson disagreed on the big problems of the day whether or not to engage directly with north korea how far to hold russia accountable brits meddling in u.s. political and civic affairs something tillerson made

a point of stressing the u.s. must do ultimately former u.s. diplomats say taylor since firing is no surprise and neither is the choice of his replacement the cia director mike pompei oh he's well known for his support of trump's policy trump is impulsive and trump is temperamental trump wants. once a neighbor's and validators more than he wants advisors tillerson didn't have many fans at state because of his plans to cut staffing by nearly thirty percent some senior diplomats quit in protest but the firings of state didn't end there at lunchtime the white house dismissed under secretary of state steve goldstein after he released this statement suggesting tillerson thought his job was safe the secretary did not speak to the president this morning and is unaware of the reason for his dismissal in any case tillerson said he had no regrets rex tillerson didn't

lose his job because he didn't agree with the president analysts say he lost his job because he refused to pretend that he agreed if confirmed my pump ale will face a very high standard of agreeing with the president all the time especially because the president believes he already does rosalynn jordan al-jazeera the state department christopher hill is a former assistant secretary of state for east asian and pacific affairs and a former ambassador to south korea he says it was clear trump until our son we're not saying i die. certainly people have been expecting this for a long time really rumors back him over of the november december and people thought maybe he would wait for his first anniversary office which were a bit in february but frankly speaking it was it was absolutely inevitable and i think a big problem was that the president wants people who. instinctively agree with him and so still listen who is and his own share of problems at the

state department i can assure you there are not too many people in the state department who regret seeing him go but he was very clear with president trump that he didn't approve of some of the things he was doing he felt that we were on the right track with north korea especially sanctions program and so he thought we should do that and then all of a sudden president drop announces that he's going to meet with kim jong and so i think to some extent it was a last straw there are other issues as well of course tillerson became more and more strong on the issue of dealing with russia and i think clearly the president didn't agree with it but more now on the woman who is set to take over the cia tina hassle she could face a tough confirmation hearing in the senate given past allegations she oversaw the torture of detainees had explained as more from washington. gina has spent most of

her career at the cia undercover so there isn't much video of her but as she prepares to try and take the top job we're going to see a lot more of her and hear much more about her past she was in charge of the facility in thailand codenamed detention site green the senate has detailed what happened to captors there like abu zubaida he was water boarded eighty three times beaten by having his head slammed into a wall deprived of sleep for days he was kept in a coffin sized box possibly with insects for more than eleven days and held in a small box less than a meter tall for twenty nine hours the report also says that. he was held and tortured at the same site according to reports she was clearly in charge according to one cia cable quote only the detention site green chief of base would be allowed to interrupt or stop an interrogation in process and that the chief of base would be the final decision making authority as to whether the cia's interrogation

techniques applied to zubeida would be discontinued. zubaida had to be revived once after waterboarding torture didn't stop human rights groups are outraged by her nomination the idea that she would be put in charge of the cia should send. shimmers terrorists are most people who care about international law this is a woman who was complicit directly in the torture of two detainees in thailand and then the chief of staff of the counterterrorism center back lushington as they rendered dozens and dozens of other detainees some of them merely innocent people who were swept up shall have to answer for more than that there were videos of some of that torture has reportedly signed the directive to have them destroyed all of this will be a big debate when she comes before the senate is to try and get confirms democrats will be under pressure not to vote for her and if that's the case you can only

afford to lose one republican vote and still get the job still president donald trump is sending a message with this nomination just like he said on the campaign trail he's fine with torture and also apparently fine with promoting those involved with that party call him al-jazeera washington former south korean president lee myung has been questioned in court over a string of corruption charges speaking before the hearing he apologized for causing concern to the public the charges include embezzlement and of use of power and he is also accused of taking more than ten billion dollars in bribes from the state spy agency pay denies any wrongdoing he served as president for five years from two thousand and eight russia has defied an ultimatum from the u.k. over the poisoning of a former spy prime minister theresa may had given moscow till the end of tuesday to explain how a soviet era nerve agent was used in the attack against ripple and his daughter but the kremlin has refused to cooperate with that investigation part of

a philips reports. is this the level before the storm the british government says it's looking at ways of responding to what it believes is not really just act by russia to this is part of a pack of behavior by that new putin and his regime. and you'll seeing this reckless support for the use of chemical weapons or all the way from syria to the streets. in our country. being encouraged by the determination of our friends to stand with us except that friends aren't so predictable these days the american president shortly after sacking a secretary of state who was highly regarded by the british government says it sounds to him as if russia was involved in the nerve agent attack but in moscow the russian foreign minister said britain was being obstructive refusing to give russia samples of a nerve agent so that it could carry out its own investigation. its russia is not

guilty but russia is ready to cooperate in the framework of the chemical weapons convention only in the united kingdom takes pains to fulfill their legal obligations i cling to the same document that was the london's luxury properties luxury shops could britain target russians who spend money here an anti corruption group estimates more than a billion dollars of suspicious russian wealth is invested in u.k. property well it's certainly the case that some of the individuals that we've identified in this research are well known to the kremlin so if they were to find themselves subjected to police investigations by unexplained well for days for example then that would send a very clear message to the kremlin the corrupt individuals and their illicit cash no longer welcome here british politicians want to send a message to russia that they won't tolerate what they see as a brazen attack on british soil but they also hope to cooperate with russia on

issues like containing iran and north korea's nuclear ambitions in other words russia's international significance presents britain with a diplomatic dilemma britain says it's ready to act but if this crisis escalates western unity could come under great strain barnaby phillips al-jazeera london. markson accosts he is a senior fellow at the atlantic council he says that the u.k. has several options on how to respond to russia's lack of cooperation you know i think the u.k. government is coming to a critical crossroads they understand that in the past they may not have acted in response as robustly as they should have because they obviously are now a target of a new attack and as a result they're going to want to try to prevent this from happening again so one i think they're looking very seriously at economic sanctions against russia similar to the united states magnitsky law that could target corrupt and human rights violators from the russian federation to obviously they're going to look potentially at expelling russian diplomats and intelligence officers from the

embassy again that likely won't be enough and three they're likely to take this issue to multilateral institutions like the united nations nato and the e.u. with cooperation with u.k. allies to present a case that russia serves as a threat to u.k. interests and western interests and respond appropriately which which they should do so head on al-jazeera and the u.s. president takes a first hand look at what is proposed border wall with mexico might look like. plus no clear winner in sierra leone's presidential election a runoff will be held in two weeks. however wicks settled in sunny across much of the middle east over the next few days not too many surprises a little more clear to the eastern side of the region's afghanistan turkmenistan

pushing up into his back a stand seeing some wintry flurries over the next several more cloud to into the far north of pakistan fifteen celsius in kabul fighting dry over the western side of the region little more clout as we go on into thursday time is not fairing too badly though so still getting up to around one thousand nine hundred in beirut sixteen celsius for couple come further south this worboys it warm across the regen but it's the thirty one celsius here in doha but bad with the winds forty light less of that with the dust and sand it's warmest sterile as we go on into day more that sunshine coming through of course there are some studies in madagascar at the moment though we are looking at a topical sod possible to pick sides i'm just developing here bringing some very heavy rain into that eastern side of madagascar flooding rain possibility add the damaging winds a few showers too into the eastern side of south africa madi even see some welcome showers into the western cape over the next day or so not too much but

a little bit weather but some very heavy rain into northern zimbabwe and also tents in the. looming the will of the people hinges on the mass media and state p.r. machine it's going to overdrive. but just who is going through in saying. we just don't know yet where the lines will be drawn between what can be said and what conduct that. some journalists decided to sacrifice their integrity for outside polling the media opinion the listening post base time on al-jazeera.

watching al-jazeera let's recap the top stories for you this hour one of the world's greatest scientists stephen hawking has died at the age of seventy six his work focused on the evolution of the universe in his book brief history of time it was an international bestseller as children say hawking was an extraordinary man and his legacy will live on for many years. not going a second u.s. or start rex tillerson is urging a smooth transition after he was dismissed by donald trump via twitter the president says policy differences were to blame torsen will be replaced by cia director mike pompei o and russia has defied an ultimatum from the u.k. over the poisoning of a former spy prime minister theresa may have given moscow till the end of tuesday to explain how a soviet or a nerve agent was used in the attack against progress cripple and his daughter. the democratic candidate in a special election in the u.s.

state of pennsylvania is claiming victory though the republican hasn't conceded yet color lamb leads rick's account by five hundred seventy nine votes and several hundred absentee and provisional ballots still to be counted at all. carried the district by twenty points in two thousand and sixteen such a dramatic reversal less than two years after trump's victory be a sign that the democrats are well placed to take back control of the house of representatives in november's midterm elections john hendren joins us live from washington so in a heavily republican district the democrat is claiming victory and this is not official these results are not official but that's that's quite a turnaround what does this tell us about this this district or or the race. that's right richelle this is a nail biter and it shouldn't have been a heavily republican district one that donald trump won just two years ago by twenty percentage points they haven't even the democrats have not even fielded a candidate in this very race the past two election cycles so this is a bit of

a shock so here we are with zero point three percentage points separating them connor lamb slightly ahead but we still have to count these this small number of absentee ballots so in terms of expectations he absolutely decimated this election the republican was widely expected to win the republican party had pumped ten million dollars into that race compared to one point seven million by democrats toward connor lamb that is by democratic allied groups outside of the state and yet here lamb was just absolutely devastating expectations in this race the republican rick sic own came out early tonight and he told his supporters look don't give up we're going to win in the end and then he went home and so did all his supporters but lamps stayed there until one hundred percent of the ballots cast today were counted and then he came out and declared

victory this is what he had to say or show. was. thank you thank you. it was. it was thank you it was now in spite of the fact that that looks like a victory rally there is not a to clear winner just yet john so he said that all of the ballots that have been cast have been counted but not the absentee and provisional so what what happens next what if this race stay so close even after those additional votes are counted . well there could be legal challenges the republicans have the republican party has already issued a release saying we will fight to make sure every legal vote is counted we saw that

of course in bush v gore way back years ago and you know you might see that kind of legal battle again but in pennsylvania there's no automatic recount these are electronic ballots these aren't paper ballots where there can be hanging chads and other problems with the actual paper so there may not be much dispute about the actual ballots cast nevertheless are going to count these votes these counties who are planning on counting them tomorrow some of them are already counting them tonight and we're talking a very small number of votes so legal challenges to the side there will probably be a victory declared perhaps as soon as twenty four hours from now but whatever happens whether lam wins or not the democratic party is already declaring victory in fact it's already put out a press release saying so because they've massively exceeded expectations here and the reason this is such a big election there's little special election is that in congress there are about twenty five seats away from capturing control of the lower house the u.s.

house of representatives and if they do that they can do that in this district this republican district they believe they can do it throughout the country and then they can take control of the u.s. house of representatives that's important for a number of reasons but one of those reasons is that if they want to continue to investigate the trumpet ministration they will finally have a perch from which to which to do so with some kind of power they trumpet ministration of course very much is concerned about that that's why there's been so much republican money there that's why donald trump went there and that's why donald trump jr went there the democrats are going to declare victory no matter what show ok john hendren live for us in washington d.c. john thank you. the federal appeals court has upheld a ruling in the u.s. state of texas allowing police to ask people if they're in the country illegally the law takes aim at so-called sanctuary cities which have been targeted by president trump for defying his immigration crackdown he's been in california examining wall prototypes for a proposed project to restrict illegal immigration from mexico and also has more

from san diego. president trump toured prototypes near the us mexico border guided by border protection officials he seemed to like several of the eight concrete and steel monoliths he criticize the existing border barriers as inadequate attributing enormous physical strength to migrants but getting over the top is easy it is of like professional mountain climbers who are credible climbers they can find some of these will be on the spot inspection came despite the fact that the long promised border wall as done been funded by congress nor by mexico trump said would pay experts estimate the project could cost twenty billion dollars trump also criticized california's democratic governor jerry brown plumber if you have a grandson a very poor job running california they have the highest taxes in the united states the place is totally out of control you have sanctuary cities where you have

criminals living in the sanctuary cities earlier this week brown invited trump to visit other parts of the state saying california is about building bridges not walls on his brief visit to san diego trump did not see this small group of his supporters who gathered a few kilometers from the wall prototypes it's not just about keeping people from mexico illegally crossing our borders it's also keeping a lot of other things out like drugs and even strange odd things like the exotic animals. a much larger group of trump opponents rallied on the grounds of a catholic church in nearby sandy seed row they reject the wall and the administration's crackdown on immigrants only here with the community to say loud and clear that tempus a welcome here and born in communities don't want california is an overwhelmingly democratic state with a large hispanic population this is president drops first visit to california since

he took office he describes this. eight as out of control many people here prefer to think of california as the center of the anti troll resistance instead of him walking. the walk he should be coming to the community even seen that in the unlike what waiting in the getting to know them getting to understand the way they've seen you know what they've been through california officials have sued the trumpet ministration twenty eight times on issues ranging from refugee and immigrant policy to environmental protection rob reynolds san diego california fighting broke out in turkey's parliament after a controversial law was passed changing election regulations government and opposition politicians as you can see here shoved each other punched each other chased each other across the chamber the opposition is unhappy with the law which allows the poor or to merge voting districts and make ballots admissible without an official stamp. google is launching

a network of free wi-fi hotspots across mexico as the first of its kind in latin america the tech giant is aiming to improve connectivity and emerging markets the number of people accessing the internet in mexico has risen by twenty million over the past five years but it's still lags behind many other countries certainly a presidential election is heading to a runoff in two weeks opposition leader julius b o narrowly won the first round that fell short of an outright majority so he is up against the ruling all people's congress party candidate. the vote will decide who replaces president ernest bai koroma who served the maximum ten years in office as has more from the town in the northern province. former military head of state brigadier general julius mudd a buell wins the first round of certainly wouldn't presidential election with forty three point three percent of the vote but not enough to avoid

a runoff he leads the anointed candidate of president and is by color all made up to come out who scored forty two point seven percent of the vote now the third and fourth candidates who intrust only broke away from seventy two main political parties to form their own and challenge for the seat of president may decide who becomes the country's next president according to the election commission ninety four point eight percent of registered voters like to preach it in the election so i run over several full two weeks from now that means that similarly owners will be required to come out again on the twenty some of march to vote the next president of this country. is al jazeera these are the top stories right now one of the world's most renowned scientist stephen hawking has died at the age of seventy six his work focused on the evolution of the universe and his book a brief history of time was an

international bestseller his children say that hawking was an extraordinary man whose legacy will live on for many years outgoing u.s. secretary of state rex tillerson is urging a smooth transition after he was dismissed by donald trump via twitter the president says policy differences were to blame tillerson will be replaced by cia director mike pay out. work. or just. prevent this energy from ending in the last we are always on the same wavelength. the relationship has been very good that's why the secretary of state with mike mike from we have a very similar thought process i think it's going to go very well the democratic candidate in a special election in the u.s. . pennsylvania is claiming victory though the republican has not conceded yet connor lamb leads rick's a column by five hundred seventy nine votes that is but several hundred absentee

and provisional ballots and still need to be counted donald trump carried that district by twenty points in two thousand and sixteen such a dramatic reversal less than two years after trump's victory would be a sign the democrats are well placed to take back control of the house of representatives in november's midterm elections russia has not responded to an ultimatum from the u.k. over the poisoning of a former spy prime minister theresa may have given moscow to the end of tuesday to explain how a silvia era nerve agent was used in the attack against targets cripple and his daughter. palestinian prime minister rami huntelaar has escaped unharmed after a bomb explosion hit his convoy in gaza the palestinian authority has accused rival group hamas of trying to assassinate him. former south korean president lee myung bok has been questioned in court over a string of corruption charges he's accused of taking more than ten billion dollars in bribes from the state agency the state spy agency that is he denies any wrongdoing he served as president for five years from two thousand and eight. those

are the headlines news continues here on al-jazeera the listening post this next. g. problem is something which is a geopolitical issue that's for governments and mushrooms chieftains to manage under one thousand refugees don't have the right to move freely on the other goods can move freely as far and as much as they want it's a multinational colonialism this is a v a moment over the democratic process these companies they just want the money europe's forbidden colony episode one at this time on al-jazeera. broken heart in yet another american town shocked by devastating violence this time at the four high school on valentine's day the survivors of the deadly school shooting in florida say they're turning their anger into action never again that's the rallying cry until politicians on the playing around my generation as our lives

below are meant to give but if you're at the listening post here are some of the me .