the will of the people hinges on the mass media state p.r. machine it's going to overdrive. but just who he's been filling in saying. we just don't know yet where the lines will be drawn between what can be said and what can't just that. some journalists decided to sacrifice their integrity for outside the polling the media opinion the listening post base time on al-jazeera. russia. says on the poisoning of a former spy. in the. world renowned scientist stephen hawkins who helped unlock the

mysteries of the universe dies at the age of seventy six. we disagree. i think it will be the. same with cia director mike. tells the world its economy is back on the right track but foreign investors. russia has missed britain's deadline for the poisoning of form a double agent sergei 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 may is expected to discuss britain's reply when she meets a national security council later on wednesday reports. is this the lull 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 that putin and his regime and you'll seeing this reckless support for the use of chemical weapons all the way from syria to the streets of the. 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 obligation to cling to the same document that was the london's luxury properties luxury shops could britain target russians who spend money here and anticorruption 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 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. could come under great strain to be phillips al jazeera. british counterterrorism police are investigating the death of a high profile russian businessman. was found dead in the london home late on monday the sixty eight year old was an ally of the late boris berezovsky a critic of president vladimir putin police say there's no evidence to suggest a link to the poisoning of sergei scrape and his daughter let's bring. in london with more on the story what are you hearing about the responses out there lawrence . well the prime minister to reason is going to hold a meeting in it in an hour or two's time with the national security council are they going to go through what they think are all the options available to them

since the russians are now completely ignored. their demand that they respond by midnight last night and the trouble is for the british government that none of the options that that really got of their disposal are particularly threatening to the russian mindset as i was saying before there is this narrative from moscow that for some time now for some years has basically said how dare this little tiny country britain challenge us or threaten us the mighty russia you know you give it britain but a hundred fifty times into russia there in terms of land mass it's a big difference in the world obviously russia's got enormous nuclear arsenal and the british armed forces a tiny interesting thing all the time so in that sense russia feels very unfair by the u.k. and if you look at the things that the u.k. government are thinking about apparently things to do with expelling if you diplomats well they can do a tit for tat response and british diplomats from moscow if they want to shut down the russia today t.v. channel has already said well in that case we might kick out the british t.v.

from moscow if they want to hoof out some. rich russian ex-pats moscow won't care about that at all i think i think obviously the only thing that the u.k. could conceivably do to her russia in response to this is to turn to the european union and say look as a block and a continent we need to stop importing russian gas because it's the mainstay of the russian economy and that would genuinely hurt russia but obviously moscow knows that at this point in time the u.k. is in the middle of leaving the european union and so the chance of the u.k. getting european support anything major. as a strategic goal like that is almost nil and so in that sense it also moscow particularly well because it can then portray the u.k. as trying to be threatening but actually failing and might itself could go well in the upcoming election. yes i mean and i think it is a theory now this that has been doing the rounds really more or less since it started how can it be that this poisoning happened with

a direct link back to moscow about a fortnight before the russian election surely these things might be linked says the theory if you assume that the russians had something to do with this in the argument is that even though putin is obviously a shoo in for a fourth term as as as president the problem for the kremlin is apathy and people not turning out to vote that's what they're worried about and so to try to it is theorized reenergize the population around kremlin strategy that says putin is our savior we're under attack from all these western powers who are trying to despise us and decry at every single thing about us look here's the british even saying that we poisoned one of these guys even though we never heard of him in the thing to do with him anymore it all plays into this idea of russia being under attack and putin being the only man who can salvage russian pride thank you for that alliance lee. one of 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 his

work and legacy will live on for many years in maywood 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 coded 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 taught me a lot. because.

before i developed a condition. like me work. in which disability is not a 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. serially. turn to a speech synthesizer which allowed him to select was by moving the muscles of his cheek it was a tedious process but one 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 guessed 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 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 morris jones is an analyst and author in space he says hawking was

a brilliant communicate as well as one of the world's greatest physicists. he was very. very lucid and very good at terms of composing phrases and ideas some of his concepts are 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 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 one of i his long term legacy 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 court public attention because it's something that we

all worry about outgoing u.s. secretary of state rex tillerson is urging a smooth transition after president donald trump fired him on twitter one of his top aides released a statement saying tell us and 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 trump blamed policy differences the two had disagreed over a number of issues including the iran nuclear deal and the blockade of cattle tillotson 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 haskell who set to become the first female leader of the cia wasn't jordan looks back at the friction between tennis 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 want to use 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 pump ale will face a very high standard of agreeing with the president all the time especially because the president believes he already does rosalyn jordan al-jazeera the state department still ahead on al-jazeera the philippines president turned his back on the international criminal court plus. i'm a quote reporter will be increased in krill fishing and and off the water in a bid to try and restricted. hello again across southeastern parts of asia we've got some pretty heavy showers affecting southern portion of borneo and java barely seen some heavy rain the last

twenty four hours or so indeed further towards the east is looking pretty wet we've got to show is moving in towards the philippines or think through much of thursday weather conditions should be dry and fine but through friday in the showers are likely to arrive i think for java showers probably decreasing little bit through friday and then moving up through them in a place where we've got scattered showers but your i think weather conditions for both singapore and kuala lumpur looking reasonable but still a chance for one or two showers around the gulf of thailand the forecast indicates largely dry weather for bangkok now as you head down into a stray here this was a tropical cyclone linda but has been downgraded now the less is going to have an impact across the region and we saw some pretty heavy showers across the top end daryn could see wanted to downpours otherwise that that flow is going to quite warm for townsville a thirty but the south westerly wind is going to keep temperatures is nineteen in melbourne but a warm one for sydney twenty nine degrees cooler conditions likely in perth as a move the forecast through sydney's temperature dropping down

a little bit to twenty five degrees the high and across in new zealand looks to be some showers pushing up in the southwest highs of twenty two in wellington. subzero temperatures extreme altitudes. this is where the hard part is the extraordinary journey from polish pathetic east on braved quite ordinary joy to the border we do high up there's no oxygen. just to experience life simple pleasures. risking it all kurdistan at this time on al-jazeera.

top stories on al-jazeera russia has missed. the poisoning of former. soviet. without samples. world renowned physicist stephen hawking has died he was seventy six children paid tribute to their fathers an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years. u.s. . president donald trump is. warning of what he calls russia's troubling behavior and action. in the u.s. state of pennsylvania the democratic candidate is claiming victory in a special election despite his republican rival not just conceding defeat leads

rick kerney by around six hundred votes with several hundred absentee and provisional ballots still to be counted john hendren has more from washington d.c. . it was a race that shouldn't have been close it all and that makes connor lamb the new hope of the democratic party it's a little longer than we thought but we did it. be. you did it you did it. in a nail biter the young charismatic former marine and republican state legislator ric's a cone finished in a near dead heat in a special election for a u.s. congressional seat in pennsylvania traditionally leans republican and we're going to keep fighting and don't give up and we'll keep it up. democrats believing they can retake congress with trump donald trump won the district by about twenty percentage points in two thousand and sixteen analysts say this election. could be

a sign of things to come this really will be seen as a referendum on donald trump democrats are going to take. are going to take that as an indication an early indication that the november results could be very good for them and they're going to believe that they have a real chance of taking a majority in the house of representatives late in the campaign succumbed reach out to his party's president for health since we have shut your face. with the president hoping to keep congress republican reach that go out and vote on tuesday for rick succumb the president even dispatched his son donald trump jr hoping to push the cone ahead he's going to support things that my vote is doing to get a real conservative is going to fight for america you must push through this agenda but here in steel and coal country lamb appealed to many of the union workers and blue collar democrats who supported trump two years ago many are now disillusioned

despite the protective steel tariffs trump hoped would keep them voting republican it's heartbreaking because i voted for trump we all had hopes that he would change everything but. i guess we were wrong or maybe we're wrong right now i don't know democrats hope to make more gains like they have in pennsylvania but that will depend on whether they can run electorally appealing get it it's like lamb and whether they continue to face an unpopular president john hendren al-jazeera washington germany's chancellor angela merkel has been reelected for fourth ten parliaments voted by three hundred sixty four to three hundred fifteen in favor the new government will be sworn in ninety six months off to national elections earlier this week medicals christian democrats party a bavarian party at the center left social democrats signed official agreement to form a grand coalition. philippines is withdrawing from the treaty that founded the international criminal court prison drug regurgitator says it follows what he calls baseless

unprecedented not rageous attacks from unifications the i.c.c. was investigating his campaign against illegal drugs which is left thousands of people dead to ted ted is accusing the court of violating due process by trying to have jurisdiction over him. gun has more from manila. in the where are written order coming from the president himself he says that the country is withdrawing its ratification of the rome statute immediately but that's not how it works because based on the rules of the i.c.c. which covers a member states like the philippines it will take a year after the un secretary general receives the letter before there is basically withdrawal it becomes effective it also cannot and will not have any impact on countries with pending investigations such as the philippines and president will be good to tary does government currently going through

a preliminary investigation by the i.c.c. for crimes against humanity since president with the good authority was born in two thousand and sixteen rights groups say at least ten thousand filipinos have already been killed because of this so-called war on drugs that something that is government and the police forces deny the cv sickly that many of these filipinos have been killed by vigilante groups that this is a drug war and that basically a lot of them and the question is the number itself whether that then thousand is really accurate or not but what is going to be sure here is that in the next coming months not much will change the philippines will still be part of the i.c.c. and the investigation when it comes to the probability of a case to be filed against a president with a good third and members of his cabinet will continue human rights watch is urging saudi arabia to immediately investigate reports of coercion 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 and the body of a national guard general showed signs of torture of three died in detention saudi crown prince mohammed bin is due to visit the u.s. next week. the u.n. says more than three hundred civilians have managed to leave rebel held eastern 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 butner air raids and shelling by government forces also targeted neighboring towns at least thirteen civilians were killed and dozens wounded. to be very well known was going on. and following airstrikes an adlib rescuers work to free a woman from a collapsed building for twelve hours at least five civilians were killed and another five on missing from the same. reason paris have used tear gas to clear

kurds protesting outside the u.s. embassy they want the u.s. to stop turkey's targeting of kurdish held areas in northern syria including a free and several demonstrators were injured in the scuffles with police used backs some kurdish groups fighting isis in syria. zimbabwe's business community is calling for all international sanctions to be removed to help improve the struggling economy president. wants to attract more foreign investors but some are cautious about doing business with zimbabwe and which are says more from below where. company produces one thousand eight hundred tons of flour a month he thinks he could double production if sanctions imposed on zimbabwe by the waste nearly two decades ago are removed they targeted specific individuals loyal to former president robert mugabe was not his company is not on the sanctions list but he feels being zimbabwean means many others like him are considered guilty

by association with. countries. sending money to zimbabwe ultimately. good friends to suburban banks to be frozen. that affected us. from the from you know a number of companies afflicted with equipment bought from europe and the u.s. can't easily be replaced the state owned railway company is one of several that needs urgent foreign direct investment. right now president was government is leasing locomotives and wagons from neighboring south africa he says it's a temporary solution until people are ready to do business with zimbabwe again president. and hold free and. once that then perhaps all remaining sanctions will be removed. to law foreign investment

when god was government says it will amend black economic empowerment laws to limit majority ownership for the state to only diamonds and platinum so right now all they have to work with is promising. but not many. actually being actively kept. encourage people to believe that everything. transcriber. not quite enough. and until those investors season as low risk which could take a while remnants of the once thriving industrial sector towered over the jobless al-jazeera. conservationists are warning that the industrial fishing of krill inland article is threatening the future of its eco system and the clock as a story be arctic sunrise sails down the west coast of the antarctic peninsula in the hope of observing krill fishing boats in the main focus of the

crow fishery across the entire area is in this insular and insular region the expedition helicopter takes off and the rare view of krill boats with spotted fishing close to shore they are operating within their rights feeding. the growing demand for krill based health products like a look at three fish oil and they want to expand their fishery. the krill obviously densely packed into this area up against the island in the basin just circling round and round and overing them out and in the months that all the whales are feeding and see them growing in whale tails disappearing flippers showing it's weaving about the grill company say they're tapping into a resort that is sustainable but if you hear on board is that that is what they said about other species like the bison in north america called stop so if you found for both with decimated the areas closest to the shore almost always where

the penguin parching grounds are while feeding grounds. westsail foraging grounds and it's exactly where these plants are choosing to come in. put their nets and take the crown that they're directly competing with these animals with by radio the campaign team suggests that company bosses should consider fishing in less ecologically sensitive areas and with that the arctic sunrise moves on for the team this is just the beginning of the battle against krill fishing. time to batten down the hatches the ship is returning to port in chile there's still a major obstacle in the way the drake passage between the and talk to confident to make a pull in and the weather quickly deteriorates they call the arctic sunrise the washing machine you can see why. i think with the wind there will be probably around three in the morning it's a living crease so if it gets too bad what will do is put the nose of the ship into

it and slow down and then just run this well. next morning as predicted. right. away right now. tell me that this is. going to. vary with. the weather. five days of stories. into the magellan straight our expedition over the continent behind us and south america to head. al-jazeera chile. the top stories on al-jazeera russia has rejected u.k. claims it was involved in the poisoning of a former spy and his daughter says it doesn't accept baseless allegations the u.k.

has demanded to know why a soviet era nerve agent was used to poison sergei schiphol and his daughter the two collapsed in a shopping center in salzburg just over a week ago they were taken to hospital and have been in critical condition ever since the outgoing u.s. state rex tillerson who was fired on by president donald trump is warning of what he calls russia's troubling behavior and actions and. a smooth transition for his replacement the head of the cia mike. the philippines is withdrawing from the treaty that founded the international criminal court president rodriguez to texas says it follows what he calls baseless unprecedented and outrageous attacks from uniphase shows the i.c.c. was investigating his campaign against illegal drugs which is there thousands of people did but the withdrawal went happen immediately. explains. based on the rules of the i.c.c.

which covers a member states like the philippines it will take a year after the un secretary general receives the letter before the is it basically withdrawal while it becomes effective it also cannot and will not have any impact on countries with pending investigations such as the philippines and president it would be good to tary does government currently going through a preliminary investigation by the i.c.c. for crimes against humanity world renowned physicist stephen hawking has died he was seventy six his children pay tribute to their father as an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years germany's chancellor angela merkel has been reelected for a fourth term three hundred sixty four members of parliament voted in favor of merkel two hundred fifteen voted against earlier this week merkel's christian democrats party

a very in party and the center of social democrats sons official agreement to form a grand coalition those are the headlines risking it all is up next al-jazeera is a very important source of information for many people around the world when all the cameras are gone i'm still here i go into areas that nobody else is going to talk to people that nobody else is talking to and bringing that story to the forefront. thank. you. thank you. thank you you. thank

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