deadline passes and russia doesn't respond to a british ultimatum over the poisoning of a former spy. in this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up world renowned scientist stephen hawking who helped unlock the mysteries of the universe dies at the age of seventy

six. we disagreed on what you look at iraq i think it's terrible i guess you would go. to the sun and replaces him the cia director mike pompei a plus. the palestinian authority blames rival group hamas for an attack on prime minister rami convoy in gaza. russia has missed britain's deadline for answers on the poisoning of former double agent surrogate scruple and his daughter prime minister to resign may want to know why a soviet era nerve agent was used the kremlin says it won't respond without samples of the substance maze expected to discuss britain's reply when she meets her national security council later on wednesday to be phillips reports. is this the level before the storm the british government says it's looking at ways of

responding to what it believes is now re just backed by russia this is part of a pack of behavior by the putin regime and you'll seeing this reckless support for the use of chemical weapons all the way from syria to the streets of. 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 the 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 when the united kingdom takes pains to fulfill their legal obligations and cling to the same document that was the book 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 and 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. iran the 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 west to duty could come under great strain to be phillips al jazeera. british counterterrorism police are investigating the death of a high profile russian businessman nikolai was found dead in his london home late on monday the sixty eight year old was an ally of the late on a dog boris berezovsky a critic of the president vladimir putin police say there is no evidence to suggest a link to the poisoning of sergei skin to paul and his daughter more than ten prominent russians have died in unusual circumstances in the u.k. in recent years lawrence lee joins us live now from london for more on this and what are you hearing about how all of these suspicions are being dealt with there. well there clearly there's nothing to suggest that this this other guy the beta

bearers of ski who was found out he was sixty eight years old and i think it happened soon but it says something about the mood in the country in the air of suspicion that any death of a russian emigre is now being treated as something out of a john le carré novel you know but the main issue at the moment is what on earth the british government thinks it can do that is in any sense meaningful as regards retaliation for the poisoning of scruple on the assumption of course the that you blame the russians for it and i think the thing to understand jane primarily is that the the narrative from russia is that britain is effectively a sort of tiny insignificant puny little country and how dare they tell us the mighty russia what to do you hear this routinely expressed from russian politicians that britain says little tiny country over the seas that is nothing compared to us and actually if you look at what the what the british have a set of cards it isn't really very strong if they don't kick out some diplomats

the russians say well we'll do the same if the trying to shut down these t.v. channel russia today that the russians are so well will shut the b.b.c. down in moscow or something you know if they try and kick out some of the rich russians from london's barnaby was talking about in that report that the russian government would say well that's great because they're all crooks and we want to prosecute them in our country if the brits think that they can try and get the american support that the russians though that's difficult because troops very volatile they they know that britain is leaving the european union so getting european unity against russia is also very difficult and so the russians know in a sense that britain's in a bit of a bind and there isn't really that much they can do that actually has any sense of threat appropriately against the kremlin ok so i'm wondering where this leaves russia and how you think this might play out in the presidential election in russia on sunday. well i think it's very useful i think for the emir putin even if what you know whether or not you think the russians had anything to do with this it is

extremely useful as a point in time when putin is about to get his fourth term in office a lot of the russian electorate is a bit bored putin himself actually has taken almost no part in the in the campaigning and what they're worried about in russia the kremlin is that turnout is going to be really low because people are bored of politics and there's no opposition really to to putin and so if he's very useful in that context right in the days before for all the russians each other member russians get all their news from t.v. wall to wall coverage on russian state t.v. of look at the british blaming us for it look at all these westerners are hostile to russia it plays exactly into the putin narrative that you know russia is under threat it's under siege the west is vile and hates us and there's only one man who can save us from this onslaught and that's bloody mir planted by lawrence thank you . well the world's greatest scientists stephen hawking has died he was seventy six in

a statement his children paid tribute to their father as an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years and i have looks back on his life and achievements. this was a life of applause and accolades 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. 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 born in a student to cambridge university when he was diagnosed with a degenerative motor neuron condition he was given just two and a half years but went on to live for more than half a century. before

i developed a condition. like me work. in which. the serious. 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 for long. periods. turned 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 but helping proved 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 gets starred on shows such as the simpsons and star trek. again. the first. public class 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 time and universe going to 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 morris jones is an analyst and author on space

he joins us now from sydney very good to see you quite a loss isn't it thank you. it really is hard to think of any other figure in science who could match his achievements apart from albert einstein i'd say is hawking an einstein will go down in history as two of the greatest the probably the two greatest scientists of our age and to beat einstein or even just to be on a par with einstein is quite an achievement and how do you see him using his fame to get his message across and tell us more about his incredible communication skills turning something that's relatively difficult for most of us into something vaguely understandable well at the think about hawking is that despite his disability he was very. very lucid and very good at terms of composing phrases and ideas some of his

concepts or was poetic and i think instead of just being very dry and very calculating people could see the human side of him as well as this brilliant scientist and mathematician and so there was definitely that charisma and that mystique about him he was a personality as well as a genius so what does he leave behind now what sort of influence has he had on the next generation of scientists well i think that there are a lot of people who probably wouldn't be scientists unless they had grown up alongside stephen hawking and come under his influence through his media appearances and his books and want to buy his long term legacies i think is the fact that towards the end of his life he was focused on some questions beyond physics and sofa like does the human race have a future and he was considering how we could survive or if we would survive and i think those questions really caught public attention because it's something that we

all worry about is there anyone else out there like him that you know of. right now i would say hawking was very much a product of his time there were a lot of other brilliant scientists there are a lot of other very good communicators but hawking was just so far above anyone who's cowardly walking the earth in terms of communicating science being a scientist still pondering these questions that i think it will take a long time before we see another thinker who approaches his stature so he really was very unique doctors for this time but for a period of probably a century around which he lived ok most chance good to have you with us thanks for talking to us from sydney. outgoing u.s. secretary of state rex tillerson is urging a smooth transition after president donald trump fired him over twitter one of his top aides released a statement saying to listen didn't know why he was forced out that official was

later fired as well democrats say it's another sign of chaos in the white house chung blamed policy differences too had disagreed over a number of issues including the iran nuclear deal the blockade of cata. tell us it will be replaced by cia director mike pompei he advocates a more aggressive stance on north korea and iran and his job will go to gina has said to become the first female leader of the cia roselyn jordan looks back at the friction between to listen and talk. 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 for its 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 trumps 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 at 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 palm pale 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 the woman said to take over the cia gina has full as more than thirty years of intelligence experience she still needs to be confirmed by the senate and is expected to face tough questions of allegations that she oversaw the torture of detainees particular pain as well 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 duties 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 to try and get confirmed 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. al-jazeera washington lots more coming up the philippines president turns his back on the international criminal court plus he might need to be. trapped for

twelve hours a woman is pulled out alive from relentless shelling in syria. from a fresh coastal breeze. to watching the sunset on the australian outback. hello and welcome to international weather forecast the weather across europe pretty unsettled still at the moment there's an area of high pressure towards the east and that's going to push colder air westwards across many parts of europe in the coming days but in the meantime rowsley mark additions across central areas run there sixteen degrees athens at nineteen degrees deep area of low pressure pushing in from the west and that's going to be giving some pretty heavy rain i think across western areas over next twenty four hours and there's a move the forecast on the rain pushing in with snow likely over the alps we will have central areas still looking reasonable but snow developing across parts of

russia so they had down into central or northern parts of africa weather conditions here generally fine from a cloud around the coast of all cheery and she is here with some showers pushing the way through morocco so then into central parts of africa and here you see some fairly decent shower clients have certainly had some heavy rain reported into kenya and also for the ivory coast further showers are likely here in the forecast and certainly across parts of kenya tanzania really see some heavy rain as we head down to southern portions of africa it is fine across much of south africa but we would see some showers affecting parts of cape town. there with sponsored by qatar and release. the scene for us when they're on line what is a very sign in yemen that peace is always possible but it never happens not because the situation is complicated but because no one can use or if you join a son sat there people that there are choosing between buying medication eating

this is a dialogue i want to get in one more comment because this is someone who is an activist and has posted a story join the global conversation at this time on al-jazeera. again you watching our. top stories that russia has missed britain's deadline for answers on the poisoning of former double agent and his daughter the u.k. wants to know why a soviet era nerve agent was used the kremlin says it won't respond without samples of the. world renowned physicist stephen hawking died he was seventy six his

children paid tribute to their father as an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years. and he was fired on twitter by president urging a. replacement to listen is also warning of what he calls russia's troubling behavior and actions. the philippines is withdrawing from the treaty that founded the international criminal court president rodriguez that says it follows what he calls baseless unprecedented and outrageous attacks from union officials the i.c.c. was investigating his campaign against illegal drugs which has left thousands of people dead to tend to is accusing the court of violating due process by trying to have jurisdiction over him she joins us live from mina how will this affect the ongoing investigation by the i.c.c. . well definitely you know based on the written order issued by

the president today which he personally signed basically he says that he would like to the philippines to withdraw its ratification of the room statute effective immediately but that's now how it works jane because based on the rules of the i.c.c. and the member states it will take a year after the u.n. secretary general receives the letter before it becomes effective it also cannot include countries with pending cases and investigations including this government who is now being investigated for crimes against humanity or under mass murder cases basically for its so-called war on drugs since president was very good at there too was long voted elected in two thousand and sixteen according to rights groups around ten thousand filipinos have already been killed that's something that the police deny basically a lot of these filipinos these say and drug suspects were killed by vigilante groups but that remains to be pending one of the reasons why the i.c.c.

has to come in jane is that what i ceased to be the end willingness of the local justice system or the local courts here to prosecute and to continue a truthful investigation just this week in fact top three drug lords suspects have been freed by a local court prompting public out uproar here so it remains to be seen how this will impact but in the coming months not much will change for the philippines it will remain to be a member of the i.c.c. and the investigations and examination will continue or even you for that jamila. the taliban says it was behind an attack that killed at least ten security personnel in western afghanistan around two hundred taliban fighters told of a security checkpoint in far a province provincial leaders say five of the dead were police and the other five were from the intelligence service and a taliban suicide bomb blast has killed at least six policeman in the southern

helmand province the bomber rammed a truck full of explosives into a border police base. the u.n. says more than three hundred civilians have managed to leave rebel held east and go to in syria despite ongoing airstrikes the syrian civil defense says russian planes dropped cluster bombs on residential areas in the city of kufa button on air raids and shelling by government allied forces also targeted neighboring towns at least eighteen civilians were killed and dozens wounded. and falling airstrikes in libya rescuers worked to free a woman from a collapsed building for twelve hours at least five civilians were killed and another five are missing from the same attack. human rights watch is urging saudi arabia to immediately investigate reports of coersion and abuse during its campaign against corruption the new york times says seventeen detainees including members of

the royal family needed hospital treatment after interrogation in the body of a national guard general who died in detention showed signs of torture the saudi crown prince mohammed bin solomon is due to visit the u.s. next week to gaza now where hamas is denying accusations of trying to assassinate the palestinian prime minister remi was unhurt but the bomb blast injured others forces more from the gaza strip. the palestinian prime minister had come to gaza to demonstrate progress by attending the opening of a new water treatment plant. instead just a few hundred meters into gaza territory. visit became a demonstration of the level of insecurity here a powerful bomb buried by the road blasted the end of his convoy vehicles were damaged seven people were lightly injured. and his delegation pressed on to the water project where he said the attack would only make him more determined to

return. they blew up three of our cars on entering the gaza strip this proves to you one hundred percent that it will not prevent us from continuing our path putting an end to this division. but that division between the palestinian authority dominated by fatah and its political rival hamas in gaza was once again on full display the palestinian president's office accused hamas of responsibility for the attack given its continued control of security in the strip condemned both the explosion and the p.a.'s accusation. these three written accusations can only achieve the goals of the criminals that targeted the convoy of. the main suspect who wants to destroy the palestinian clans is the occupation. but some analysts suggest salafist groups aiming to cause political chaos were behind the attack on the crater itself shows you just what

a sizable device this was the immediate impact obviously substantial the question now is how far the shock waves of what happened here will carry over into the political process between fatah and hamas. reconciliation efforts have been stalled for months since hamas dissolved its administration last year so far there's been no full resumption of p.a. control in gaza with talks pondering on issues such as jobs for tens of thousands of hamas members and control of its military wings weapons we are living. between. us or that if. that's not enough to. have. the palestinian prime minister arrived back in ramallah in the occupied west bank his spokesman accusing hamas leaders of declining an invitation to meet gaza's people desperate for some kind of government to address

a worsening humanitarian and now security situation the wait goes on. al-jazeera gaza and that wraps up this bulletin if you missed it we've got the headlines coming up very shortly in the meantime you can always go to our web site the address for that is al-jazeera dot com and the story continues to be the fact that the secretary of state rex tillerson is out of the cia pompei. top stories in al-jazeera russia has missed britain's deadline for answers on the poisoning of former double agent cripple and his daughter the u.k. wants to know why a soviet era nerve agent was used the kremlin says it won't respond without samples of the substance mase expected to discuss britain's response when she meets her national security council later on wednesday. the former u.s.

sailors state reps to listen it was fired on twitter by president donald trump is warning of what he calls russia's troubling behavior and actions and he's urging a smooth transition for his replacement the head of the cia mike pompei a. work from now for quite some time. prevent its energy from and the like are always on the same wavelength. the relationship is very good that's what i. would stay with my bike from very or we have a very similar sort process i think it's going to go over well world renowned physicist stephen hawking has died he was seventy six he's children paid tribute to their father as an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years the philippines is withdrawing from the treaty that founded the international criminal court president roderigo to ted to says it follows what he calls baseless

unprecedented and outrageous attacks from un officials the i.c.c. was investigating his campaign against illegal drugs which has left thousands of people that the u.n. says more than three hundred civilians have managed to leave rebel held eastern go to in syria despite ongoing strikes the syrian civil defense is russian planes dropped cluster bombs on residential areas in the city of kufa but at least thirteen people died in air raids and shelling by government allied forces. and funniest trikes an adlib rescuers work to free a woman from a collapsed building she'd been there for twelve hours at least five civilians were killed and another five are missing from the same attack human rights watch is urging saudi arabia to immediately investigate reports of coersion and abuse during its campaign against corruption the new york times says seventeen detainees including members of the world family needed hospital treatment after interrogation

because of the top stories the stream is of mixed. the differences. and the similarities of cultures of. al-jazeera. hi emily could be and you're in the stream you're joining us for our second show this week covering the south by southwest festival in the u.s. city of austin texas so they will look at how musicians are expressing political activism through their work at a time when politics is becoming ever more polarized but me is at the festival and we'll be talking to three very different artists.