bruton's tight grip on the kremlin as mandate seen is now when the russian people voice on march the eighteenth there's every indication that they will return him to power is the fourth presidential to. follow the russian elections here on al-jazeera. a global economic superpower that's underperformed in the world of football one on one east explores how china is now spending billions in his quest to conquer the beautiful game. at this time on al-jazeera. it is tragic that president putin has chosen to act in this way. to expel twenty three russian diplomats and suspend high level contacts over the poisoning of a russian former double agent and his daughter.

alone barbarous area watching al-jazeera live from london also coming up. school students to stage a walkout across the u.s. in their push for tighter gun controls residence cleavages in syria is a free an enclave as turkish forces turn up the heat on kurdish fighters football's governing body warns greece it could be thrown out after a club owner came onto the pitch with a gun. persons government has announced the range of measures against russia in response to the nerve gas poisoning of a former double agent and his daughter in southern england last week prime minister to resign may said the only conclusion was that the russian state is responsible she told parliament the u.k.

will expel twenty three russian diplomats alleged to be undeclared intelligence officers giving them just a week to leave may said the u.k. will suspend all high level bilateral contacts with russia and cancel a planned visit by russian foreign minister sergey lavrov ministers and members of the royal family will also boy called russia's world cup in june three some may also said the government would freeze russian state assets if there is evidence they may be used to threaten the life or property of u.k. nationals or residence where the u.k. is also called an emergency un security council session in a few hours time threesome a told parliament britain our ready has international support. many of us looked at a post soviet russia with hope we wanted a better relationship and it is tragic that president putin has chosen to act in this way. but we will not tolerate the threat to life of british people and others on british soil from the russian government nor will we tolerate such

a flagrant breach of russia's international obligations mr speaker as i set out on monday the united kingdom is not stand alone in confronting russian aggression in the last twenty four hours i have spoken to president trump chancellor merkel and president. we have agreed to cooperate closely in responding to this barbaric act and to coordinate our efforts to stand up for the rules based international order which russia seeks to undermine. barnaby phillips's outside parliament in central london so barnaby how were these measures that were announced by terrorism a greeted by parliament. they seem to have been pretty well received by most members barbara certainly within her own governing conservative party and in large parts of the opposition labor party the opposition labor party leader jeremy corbyn i think there perhaps an interesting distinction

he still perhaps probing for more questions more evidence that would explicitly link what happened in salzburg to the russian government and that intervention caused i suppose you might say some controversy both within his party and sun condemnation from the opposition from the governing conservative party but i'll bring in my guest at this point tom to who is the chair of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee a member of the conservative party what did you think of what the prime minister announced today but i thought the prime minister was very clear and i think you made some excellent points it was a really good beginning to a firm response but look the further we need to go we need to make sure that the measures that she began to speak about in terms of sanctions in terms of unexplained wealth or does and so on are used to their full extent what we're dealing here with is a kleptocratic regime a thieving regime that has stolen off the russian people for the best part of twenty years and too many of them and laundering their money through london because expelling diplomats or not sending dignitaries to the world cup isn't easy and

a test of britain's determination i suppose will be the extent to which it might even hurt its own financial interest by going after russian money in london well that's absolutely right but let's i mean let's put this in context. foreign investment foreign direct investment into the united kingdom is enormous the amount that comes from russia is tiny so although of course it will hurt a little bit the reality is that the russian economy is smaller than benelux i mean it's not as really we were talking with all respect to anticorruption groups who are telling us that there might be one hundred billion dollars worth of suspicious russian money in property in the u.k. that's not tiny is it when you can't take the property out so the amount of money that is worth as it were is not the same as the amount of money that is movable so that's a different that's a different thing but the amount of money that is in the u.k. economy is trillions it's not measured in the billions measured in the trillions first of all and secondly the movable assets of russian money is not significant

you know we're dealing with frankly an impoverished state in russia a weakened state it is entirely wrong reliant on the oil price and arms sales and so actually what we've got to do is we've got to clean up our own system and make sure that they can't normally cash through us and you accept the premise that this is a very difficult time for britain to try and engineer multilateral support on this issue in the era of brics it and in the era of donald trump there are always challenges with every era with every time and of course there are challenges that these ones are unprecedented well the new in that sense they're on precedented but they're but they have always been challenges we've had many challenges in our foreign affairs for years but we've got really good allies you know we have allies in the middle east we have allies across europe and i as chair of the foreign affairs committee have been speaking to many of my opposite numbers in parliaments around europe and around the world in nato countries as well and in the commonwealth and the support we're getting is absolutely universal this simply isn't a cigarette paper you could put between us because people realize that what russia

is doing at the moment may not be an act of war but it is certainly a war like hacked. the leader of the opposition jeremy called in his concerns implied concerns that the hard evidence that links this explicitly to the russian state and if we can draw the distinction between a nerve agent that may. of slipped out of the control of the russian state do you accept that there are doubts still out there no i simply don't and what jeremy corbyn is doing is he's repeating the kremlin line he's not actually seeking to talk to questions what he's seeking to do is to undermine the facts because the facts are very clear this is a chemical that has been made in a russian abara treat the chemical signatures of a russian chemical made in recent years we know exactly where it was made we know exactly how it was produced and the idea that the kremlin has lost control of its chemical weapon stocks should either fill us with absolute fear or mean nobody should ever go to russia all it means the country has become a completely rogue state and is now willing to do anything because the regime is so

enfeebled in knows it has no other means of control. chairman of parliament's foreign affairs committee thank you very much for joining us now is there thank you barbara back to you in london barnaby outside the houses of parliament barnaby thank you for that and now let's go to moscow zero jelena hull so what response are some russia so far to the measures announced by too easily. barbara so far fair to say that moscow seems to be pretty moved by all of this so gay lover of the foreign minister you may recall or earlier in the week dismissing the accusations against russia as a circus he now says that the u.k. is basically acting out of political drama here his foreign ministry has gone further calling it a gross provocation these measures by tourism a and a hostile move but we await of course russia's official response in kind likely to be a sort of tit for tat range of diplomatic expulsions possibly going further than

that we don't know but in the meantime it's more targeted response is already happening in the public eye perhaps aimed at a domestic audience on state media you've got the speaker of the upper house of the federal council talking about a despicable and unscrupulous act by the u.k. a provocation attempting to tarnish russia's image on the world stage the chairman of the foreign relations committee talking about a groundless provocation and russian analysts saying that this is the response of a country trying to compensate for a lack of evidence and it all begins to fit barbara into a pretty well rehearsed narrative here that goes back many years the kremlin and the president putin putting out this idea of russia increasingly under threat under assault by the west undermined by the west and of course with an election just a few days away the connected narrative that it is not a mere putin who is the only man able to hold russia's head up high and protect its place on the world stage so listening to all of that does it appear then that the

crime kremlin just doesn't care very much about the british government's measures. well look i think it's worth asking that question the context of putin giving his final election rally this evening after eighteen years in power in sevastopol the capital of crimea a place and next by russia just four years ago in contravention of international law how much does that say about how much russia cares about the west there is an election coming it is an election that vladimir putin is going to win what the kremlin cares about is legitimacy they want to see as high a turnout for him as possible in a country struggling with voter apathy to that extent this sort of crisis plays quite well that narrative plays well there hope to be hoping for a turnout bump in the polls i think where the calculation changes as tom was saying there a little earlier is if and when the u.k. follows through on its threats to target russian financial assets in the u.k. to hit russia's influential rich where it hurts most in their pockets in their bank

balances and for them then to put pressure on putin at that point i think the calculation changes but we'll have to see how far the u.k. is prepared to go with the latest from moscow journal. students have walked out of classrooms across the united states calling for tighter gun safety laws following that school shooting in florida last month. five from washington to new york to florida the walkouts began at ten am local time across each u.s. state coordinated using the hash tag enough and they lasted for seventeen minutes in memory of the seventeen people killed at parkland high school last lines and the gallagher has more now from parkland and florida. the seventeen minutes of protest

and remembrance have just finished a look at what's happening here you can see the students from the marjorie stillman douglas high school in the field behind the fence and then over my of the shoulder students from local schools that have come out to support them remember across this entire nation is something like two thousand eight hundred students or two thousand eight hundred schools i should say taking part in this mass protest what they want is what they call commonsense gun reform chief of which means a ban on assault rifles and increased background checks what they don't want to see is armed teachers in schools like this that is predominantly what students have told us over the past few weeks here but what there is here is an energy a determination if nothing else this is the voice of a new generation. than see sent us this update from the protest in washington d.c. . here in washington it was more than just seventeen minutes of walking out for the students have gathered outside capitol hill and they seem to be being joined now by

many members of congress who are converging on the steps of capitol hill now which is very interesting will see whether there's a meaningful dialogue but we have two of the students with us right now. my name's ashley ramos diner and so what are you hoping from these members of congress we're hoping that they realize that we are the voice of the future i mean this was organized by kids high school kids all around the region i'm were students from d.c. but we live in maryland and this is a bigger problem this is just more than just like us in this region this is everyone here and in my post we're not just talking about high school shootings were talking about shootings in general shootings are caused by guns and we're here because you see baltimore and you see all these other cities we're trying to represent that we're trying to stop the violence that are coming from guns not because of the machinations and kids like this is about the bigger picture the guns are a part of a bigger problem but we see it in the past often mass shootings there's

a lot of energy a lot of outrage specially for members of congress but the nothing is done do you think anything will be will change this time i think we've definitely seen change so far we've seen young people from florida meet with congressmen and we've seen companies cut deals with the n.r.a. already so that's just a small part of what we've been able to do so far but i'm really hopeful that change will come from this because as you can see there's a lot of kids out here and we all believe that the second amendment should be weighed over our right to be safe in schools thank you very much like you both of you unfortunately the adult consensus here in washington d.c. is the change is very unlikely there isn't really much mood on capitol hill to push through the sort of legislation these kids are all skin for having said that though they're putting more demonstrations and public opinion is on their site. she has the latest from washington well still to come in this half hour a true genius with an extraordinary night the world pays tribute to superstar

scientists stephen hawking has died at the age of seventy six. and captured in the share so there's a slave in libya saved in tunisia only reporting the desperate journey of one refugee trying to cross to you. hello and welcome back look at weather conditions across the levant and western parts of asia you see this massive cloud across more eastern areas are being bringing in some snow and still though during the course of thursday so head on through into front most of and should have cleared away tashkent their respective star eleven degrees around the caspian sea from a cloud but it should be largely dry more unsettled conditions across parts of turkey extending into syria with a brace of rain but it should be dry further south in beirut in lebanon with highs of eighteen degrees it's fine in the arabian peninsula and indeed decidedly summer

a temperature of thirty two degrees in tow who wins largely from the south of the stage as we head into the weekend temperatures still into the thirty's that move the way of cloud around but still staying fine and warm woman the other side the potential of the maximum of thirty five degrees in mecca let's head down into southern portions of africa where we've got to tropical cyclone currently approaching madagascar and that's going to be giving very heavy rain here the next few days because again it just works its way very slowly along the coast also some heavy showers affecting northern parts of symbiote way in through into zambia with the psycho seen some heavy downpours those continue during the course of friday wanted to show us the eastern cape but it should be drawing cape town with a high here of nineteen.

though they here's a reminder of the top stories on al-jazeera the u.k. government is expelling twenty three russian diplomats as part of a series of measures against moscow in response to the poisoning of a former russian spy and this torture in english students and teachers across the

u.s. a verdict out of classrooms to the man that tighter gun laws exactly a months after seventeen people were killed in a school shooting in florida. turkish president of the han says he hopes the northern syrian town of a free man will be totally encircled by the end of the day the fighting there is this place the sounds of people and for those left behind water supplies have been cut as well as internet access alan fischer reports now on the turkey syria border . i slowly they're closing in on our friend these free syrian army fighters are no taking up positions on the edge of the city the next move could come at any moment. where the special forces that belong to homs a brigade were preparing for an operation which you'll hear about in a few hours it's a big operation at a meeting in ankara the turkish president confidently predicted an end to this phase of operation all of branch in the coming hours. before i came here today i

checked the latest numbers of how many terrorists were neutralized enough rain three thousand four hundred forty four terrorists or neutralized and we have gotten closer to africa and i hope that by this evening inshallah african will be completely fallen but within twenty minutes of the president speaking his advisors were qualifying that what he meant was the city of african would be completely surrounded within a few hours not taken over accomplish more leisure the y.p. g c the idea that the city is about to fall is completely false i the turks say they've created a humanitarian corridor to a low people in the city to leave safely a number of people have already done just that the international red cross has reminded everyone that any civilians who evacuated anywhere in syria must be treated humanely among the key points the emphasize are any evacuees must be informed in advance on the thames of the agreement destination site and evacuation process that they must be protected from attack if they're staying or leaving

family unity must be protected that their loads to take and keep personal belongings including important documents and property and possessions. left behind must be protected the national city itself the cuts of us people to donate blood in the. doing that a battle be a lie ahead in the coming hours bloody that might be alan fischer al jazeera on the turkey syria border. well the u.n. says more than three hundred civilians of managed to leave the rebel held east who turn syria this fight ongoing airstrikes the syrian civil defense says russian planes dropped cluster bombs on residential areas in the city of kufa about air raids and shelling by government allied forces also targeted neighboring towns at least thirteen civilians were killed and dozens of war there. human rights groups have criticized the deal between its lee and libya aimed at curbing migration they say it's led to even more appalling conditions for people hoping to cross the

mediterranean sea one refugee from the share has told al-jazeera he was captured bought and sold while in libya before seeking safety in tunisia mohammed june reports now from the tennessee imports city of sadducees life may still be hard but at the very least mohammed feel safe here in tunisia. today he's picked up a job cleaning a beachside villa work that helps keep his mind off the horrors he experienced in libya. you're always welcome it's enough if you run away from diminishes they feel free to shoot you because well it's a cheap mohammad left his home in is year because the people of his town were being terrorized by boko haram he had hoped to cross the mediterranean and settle in europe but after reaching libya he found himself stuck in a vicious cycle of violence repeatedly captured and beaten by militias who would always demand payment for his release. at one point he couldn't afford to buy his

freedom from one of the armed groups that had imprisoned him so the fighters found another way to get the money. i don't buy or like it they sold me i was sold i'm. forced to work for the man who bought him mohammed was in slave for months before being freed why the incident then is if i am a human just like him because it and only difference between me and him is that god created me with that skin and he was white this is not my fault god created me like this i was very upset because i didn't hold any value to any of them i wasn't worth anything to them as if i'm not even a human being i wish like many others in his position mohammad eventually made it onto a smuggler's boat but it never reached italy instead he ended up in southeastern tunisia humanitarian workers hearings are aziz expect the migration crisis to

continue that's why they're asking the tunisian government to do more to protect the rights of migrants and refugees now mohammed lives at a center in nearby made mean run by the tunisian red crescent dr manji slim who heads the southern tunisian branch of the aid organization says that as long as human traffickers continue to exploit the chaos and conflict in neighboring libya things won't improve their lot with. them the choosing authorities have many other issues that the focusing on so we hope that the international community will remember these migrants and help them to achieve a solution either with a voluntary return to their countries or with integration or by helping them seek asylum even though he's barely making ends meet mohammed still feels lucky. to have escaped the kind of trauma most people could never imagine to be in a place where despite the difficulties he says he's being treated like a person. is

a disease tunisia. angler merkel has officially started her fourth term as german chancellor almost six months after losing significant support in the two thousand and seventeen election merkel was formally appointed by president from her son meyer before taking the oath of office in the lower house her new coalition has three hundred and ninety nine votes in parliament but she was only reelected to continue as chancellor by three hundred sixty four votes to three hundred and fifteen merkel has been chancellor since two thousand and five and most germans believe that this will be her final term. in the u.s. state of pennsylvania the democratic candidate is claiming victory in a special election despite his republican rival insisting that he is not conceding defeat connor last leads a cone by about six hundred votes but several hundred absentee and provisional ballots are still being counted trump kerry did this trick by twenty points in two

thousand and sixteen analysts see this as a sign that the democrats are well placed to take back control of the house of representatives in this year's midterm election. football's governing body fifa has warned greece it could be thrown out of the world game unless it takes appropriate action against the club owner who came onto the field with a gun the. president the events of this strode on to the pitch carrying a whole story on sunday after his team had a late goal disallowed the greek government has suspended the top division matches and definitely well there f.a. has hit with several disciplinary charges fifa representatives have travelled to greece john psaropoulos says more. we face here in greece to monitor to observe and to advise the government and the football clubs and the governing body of the football league here in greece and the super league the two separate tournaments

which have both been suspended since since sunday's incident what fifo saying is that greek football is going to the edge their words and the grex it is not impossible in other words greece may get kicked out of people at least temporarily the situation is very see via even a suspension it's not unthinkable if we don't know what people will decide but the first step to heal these situation is to stop while it's the thoughts of weapons that are carried to football fields in greece include modes of cocktails. knuckle dusters clubs there are all sorts of mind a violent sport domino that don't usually make it into international news but it is a regular phenomenon for the tournament for the football league here to be suspended because of acts of violence it's happened five or six times in the last ten years alone and the police have been roundly criticized for failing to arrest

events of the the gun toting park owner on the field on sunday evening but police have said if we had done that with forty five thousand fans in the field they would probably have been an eruption of violence and that would have made have made matters much worse science is brightest star stephen hawking has died at the age of seventy six from his seminal work on black holes and relativity to his bestselling books and appearances on shows like the simpsons hawking helped to make physics more accessible to the masses motor neuron disease may have robbed him of his voice and mobility but it also made him an inspiration to many at the battle looks back at his life. stephen hawking was a devoted scientist was often treated like a statesman millions revered him for his gift of communicating complex matters to the masses i and on wednesday there were expressions of sadness across the world

a cambridge university where hawking studied and worked for decades they were particularly proud of the professor xavier has just has such a huge impact as as a person he's inspired generation after generation of individuals to go into sciences inspired people who are disabled and the foreign ministry in china a country he visited several times offered its condolences to hawkings family what it is or she witnessed as stephen hawking was an outstanding scientist who has been battling disease he made great contributions to science and to mankind we are alive we are intelligent hawking decoded some of the most enigmatic mysteries of the universe its origins structure and end from big bang to black holes he also beat the odds spectacularly hawking was almost twenty one and a student at cambridge university when he was diagnosed with a less 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. well

i still got. that but. as the disease progressed talking last mobility and had to rely on a wheelchair after losing the ability to speak hawking turn to a voice synthesizer selecting words by moving his cheek muscles a tedious process but one that allowed him to express his pioneering ideas was respected early on in scientific circles for helping to prove the big bang theory about how the universe burst into existence fourteen billion years ago global acclaim came in one thousand nine hundred eight with the release of his book a brief history of time this introduction to cosmology was a global hit it sold more than ten million copies and been translated into dozens of languages at this tokyo bookstore his fans have been paying tribute showing i assure you he had a mind that no ordinary person could fathom i wonder if he was able to convey

everything that he wanted to convey through his research. stephen hawking became a figure in popular culture guest starring on shows such as the simpsons and star trek the presses in washington is called money and public fascination with him culminated in the hollywood film of his remarkable life the theory of everything the universe is expanding if you reverse time and the universe is getting smaller. stephen hawking devoted his life to seeking answers to the questions of our existence and in doing so he helped us to peer deeper into how our universe works. now the top stories on al-jazeera the u.k. government has announced a series of measures against moscow in response to the poisoning of a former russian spy and this daughter in england last week prime minister to resign may says she'll expel twenty three russian diplomats alleged to be under

cleared intelligence officers the u.k. will also suspend all high level bilateral contacts with russia including a planned visit by russian foreign minister sergey love many of us look to the post soviet russia with hope we wanted a better relationship and it is tragic that president putin has chosen to act in this way. but we will not tolerate the threat to life of british people and others on british soil from the russian government nor will we tolerate such a flagrant breach of russia's international obligations mr speaker as i said out on monday the united kingdom is not stand a load in confronting russian aggression in the last twenty four hours i have spoken to president trump chancellor merkel and president. we have agreed to cooperate closely in responding to this barbaric act. students and teachers across the u.s. are staging a mass walkout from their classroom to demand tighter gun laws.

in cities all over the country they began protest protesting at ten am local time coordinated using the hash tag enough and walk out lasted seventeen minutes in memory of the seventeen people killed at parkland high school in florida exactly a month ago. turkish president says he hopes the northern syrian town of a free meal will be totally encircled by the end of today turkey and fighters from the free syrian army launched an offensive to take the kurdish health town in january the fighting has this place thousands of people. in the u.s. the democratic candidate is claiming victory in a special election in pennsylvania despite leading the ballot by just six hundred votes color lam's that republican rival has yet to concede defeat the congressional election is being seen as a referendum on donald trump's performance he wanted this strict in the two thousand and sixteen presidential election by almost twenty points and i have more

on that than all of the other news today on the al-jazeera news hour that's less than half an hour next inside story. one of washington's relations with the rest of the whoa donald trump america's top diplomat will rx telethons replacement the line in the president's vision of foreign policy this is inside story.

hello and welcome to the program i'm laura kyle it was not.