europe's forbidden colony episode two at this time on al-jazeera. al-jazeera. where ever you are. nicholas hitting back russia slams accusations that poison to form a double agent while the u.s. joins the u.k. calling for the security council to act. hello i'm maryam namazie this is al jazeera live from london also coming up

a seventeen minute walk out to remember the seventeen killed in parkland florida tens of thousands of students across the u.s. make a stand against gun violence. a brilliant mind an extraordinary life we remember while renowned physicist stephen hawking has died at age seventy six. and how one t.v. reports his eye roll stole the show it china's tightly orchestrated annual parliament session. we begin in new york where the diplomatic standoff between the u.k. and russia over the poisoning of a former russian spy and his daughter has moved to the u.n. the u.k. requested an emergency meeting just hours after the british prime minister to resign may announce the expulsion of twenty three russian diplomats and suspended high level contacts with russia christianson aimee's at un headquarters in new york and joins us now the british government is looking for international support at the

moment did they get it from the security council today. they did get it from many members prime minister theresa may in her letter to secretary general of the united nations antonio tara said that not only is the use of this banned crim chemical weapon itself a crime but by in this case it is a clear challenge to the rules based international order so she is saying this is definitely an issue and a cause of concern for the international community and many of the united kingdom strongest allies on the council supported her wholeheartedly most strongly the united states sweden france traditional allies of the united kingdom other security council members also spoke and while they were not going as far as pointing a finger at russia they expressed their concern about the use of such a banned chemical weapon nikki haley the american however was

unequivocal in her support for the united kingdom and said that if the security council was unable to hold russia accountable its very credibility would be at stake where here today to discuss the use of a chemical weapon by one council member in the territory of another council member let me make one thing clear from the very beginning the united states stands in absolute solidarity with great britain the united states believes that russia is responsible for the attack on two people and the united kingdom using a military grade nerve agent dozens of civilians and first responders were also exposed the last of it a good bit danielson known and used we are compelled to make the following conclusion the truth is the last thing the british authorities are interested in finding they are guided by something else which they using the same propaganda war

of recent is and the trying to influence the public which is easy to influence and not very well educated. was it we've seen today the british government outlined retaliatory measures the russians are continuing to deny any involvement what happens as far as the international community is concerned well the united kingdom has referred all of their evidence to the o.p.c. w. which is the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons they've asked the o.p.c. w. to confirm the findings of their investigation russia who does deny these allegations said yeah sure we're willing to cooperate but they have as we just heard accuse the united kingdom of doing this for political reasons and they say well we don't respond ultimatums and that was their explanation for not cooperating thus far the united kingdom's deputy ambassador here at the un jonathan allen gave a point by point rebuttal to accusations made by the russian that the u.k.

wasn't following international protocol with this and he's promising to keep the council apprised of their investigation as it continues. thank you very much chris and salumi with all the latest from the united nations. spoke to tom mccall macca lecturer in international relations at the university of leicester and believes it's premature to assume the russian government is definitively responsible. we've seen a real kind of rush to judgment and a real rush to action so we have this very interesting situation where we have an in-depth police investigation with the police to standing out you know on camera saying this investigation is going to take a long time weeks if not months it's extremely complicated and yet almost from the minute it's. paul and his daughter were found we had a huge kind of push both in

a much of the media militarily much of the media and many many parliamentarians to blame and punish russia i would caution any rush to judgment in cases like this particularly when we come to foreign policy things which can escalate into quite serious conflict will situations we need to have absolutely we need to take the time we need to have as much evidence as possible. well let's look closer detail measures against russia an ounce to earlier today by the british prime minister to raise in may among some she ordered twenty three russian diplomats out of the country giving them a week to leave our u.k. correspondent bonamy phillips has more. there was an air of inevitability to the prime minister's announcement given what she calls the contempt with which russia has responded to her demands for an explanation of what the british authorities say

was a nerve agent attack so mr speaker there is no alternative conclusion other than that the russian state was culpable for the attempted murder of mr script powell and his daughter and for threatening the lives of other british citizens in salzburg including detective sergeant nick daly this represents an unlawful use of force by the russian state against the united kingdom she told parliament she's expelling twenty three russian diplomats alleged to be undeclared intelligence officers they have a week to leave she said the u.k. will suspend all high level bilateral contacts with russia and cancel a planned visit by foreign minister sergei lavrov ministers and the royal family will boycott russia's world cup in june and she said the government would freeze russian state assets if there's evidence they may be used to threaten the life or property of u.k. nationals or residence the opposition labor party leader jeremy corbyn was

supportive up to a point his spokesman later refused to say the russian state was definitely at fault if the government believes that it is still a possibility that russia negligently lost control of a military grade nerve agent what action is being taken through the o.p.c. w. with our allies i will come the fact the police are working with the o.p.c. w. . and has the prime minister taken the necessary steps under the chemical weapons convention to make a formal request for evidence from the russian government under article nine point two from russia itself the message remains consistent speaking before to receive may's announcement the foreign minister was characteristically dismissive would you stay with news a little move we will demand vs location of international laws we see no argument from our partners and without demonstrating concrete facts they'll be responsible

for attempting to deceive the international community so that the russian embassy in london they'll be packing their bags and low russian relations at their lowest point since the cold war but even now britain needs to keep open some lines of communication with moscow on so many issues from iran to north korea britain called to forward to ignore russia. the measures which have been announced here would have been largely anticipated by the russians what would really hurt them would be further multilateral sanctions involving other western countries for that to happen britain needs to convince its allies that this is not just a bilateral spat between london and moscow but an issue which has the potential to threaten the security of many western countries to be phillip's al-jazeera westminster in central london. the u.s. house of representatives has a privilege just lation to increase federal funding to help schools and police

prevent gun violence a bipartisan vote coincides with a master walkout from classrooms across the country calling for tighter gun laws and protests last in seventeen minutes in memory of the seventeen people killed at a high school in park in florida last month from there and he gallacher reports. across the united states students left their classrooms in droves from the east coast to the west this was a mass protest by a generation calling for gun reform on the capitol lawn in washington activists laid out thousands of shoes each pair represents a child killed by gun violence. in new york with sentiments of many reflect the pain in george by those in florida that is why it is important for us to stand here today to show that gun control isn't a suggestion but a demand from the american people the protests lasted seventeen minutes one for each of the victims that were killed a month ago some t.v. networks followed suit paying tribute to those that died on discourse around the

country doing just based on what we've been doing so i think if we can keep that momentum we can really start changing. the prosecutors in florida and now seeking the death penalty for the alleged shooter nicholas cruz. yes but more than anything else these students are determined to campaign for change no matter how long it takes a deep we care about. the difference and the long. stop until the. only thing that we're going to start to see politicians realize that they need to make a difference if they want to stay in office and congress hearings into the aftermath of the park when shooting continue. on the streets demands for gun reform grow if there is a message from the students of the marjorie stoneman douglas high school it's one of hope and remembrance they will continue to honor the friends that they lost one month ago but they will also continue to campaign for change this is the voice of

a new generation and they gallacher al-jazeera park in florida. still to come for you this half hour. makes a special appearance in primate head of sunday's presidential vote. i'm not quite reporting on the increase in krill fishing and all that water in the pit to try and restrict it. hello linda wishes she was so prominent this is spinning cycling only twenty four thirty six hours ago just before the part of the massive cloud others still i think some legacy highways are going to head towards the gulf coast of australia but weather wise power for a few showers that's about it wind direction that determines the temperature still thirty one in sydney nineteen in melbourne as you can see that in perth about

twenty three now there is a circulation above my head there so we're talking about around darwin and the reasons particularly heavy rain here i think the tropical queensland the time being at least looks dry but there are showers trying to form once again so what's going to happen with the remains of linda you know what normally happens with these things they head down towards new zealand well there's the picture and there's a destination and it does look like it but as it's full not part now they go to have to seize tropical air search potentially very wet and it would increase the clout of the north island to some degree the sas out of twenty in oakland and being a fairly wet twenty to come friday with a few showers to the south of that otherwise the line has well broken up and talking about warmth and we were more or less right about twenty in tokyo and in contrast it's story again in kind of all stark. to train and equip the opposition in syria so they can help push back these

terrorists people in power investigates how the us supplies soviet style weapons to its allies through private companies and the us government could wash their hands and say well we didn't know where it was so weapon that was supplied by the us government may well end up being pointed at us soldiers yes absolutely pick it up less than two months off in the professional americas guns secret pipeline to syria and this time on al jazeera. welcome back with al-jazeera recap the top stories this hour moscow's told the u.n. security council that accusations by the u.k. it's behind the poisoning of

a former russian spy and his daughter are unfounded the u.s. says it warrants security council action. the u.k. government is expelling twenty three russian diplomats as part of a series of measures taken against moscow in response to the attack last sunday. and there are the headline this hour students and teachers across the u.s. have walked out of classrooms to demand tighter gun laws exactly a month after seventeen people were killed in a school shooting in florida. all in all the stories we're following the u.n. says more than three hundred civilians have managed to leave rebel held eastern ghouta in syria despite ongoing as strikes the syrian civil defense says russian planes dropped cluster bombs on residential areas in the city of kufa but now air raids and shelling by government forces also targeted neighboring towns well in other developments the turkish president worship says he hopes the northern syrian town of our frame will be totally encircled the fighting there is displaced thousands of people and for those left water supplies have been cut as well as

internet access alan fischer reports from gaza on the turkey syria border. they're closing in on a few of these free syrian army fighters and no to your positions on the edge of the city the next group coming. up with the special forces that belong to all homes of brigade we're 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 in africa in three thousand four hundred forty four terrorists were 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 the cutlash militia the y p g so the idea that the city

is about to fall is completely false. 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 terms 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 there are loads to take and keep personal belongings including important documents and property and possessions left behind must be protected the national city itself the cards have asked people to donate blood such knowing that a battle may lie ahead in the coming hours or bloody that might be alan fischer al

jazeera on the turkey syria border. seven people have been killed and eighteen injured after a bomb blast ripped through a police checkpoint in pakistan it happened in the eastern city of lahore while police were changing god checkpoint was outside an annual religious meeting when eighty thousand people were gathered. the prime minister of slovakia's says he will resign if the country's president agrees to give his party the right to choose the next leader all good fico has been under pressure to stand down following mass protests that were prompted by the murder of a journalist involved in the panama papers and in government corruption cases. russia's president has appeared at a rally in crimea and thanked them for supporting the annexation of the peninsula from ukraine in two thousand and fourteen but in a putin's visit comes just a few days ahead of the presidential election which is set to return him to power for a second consecutive term from sevastopol in crimea reports. on sunday

crime ins will be voting for the first time in a russian presidential election and. has come here to the port city of sevastopol to hold one of his last big campaign events this place has always felt russian it's the home of the black sea fleet people have come here to hear him speak and many of them are excited but you would get it but yet in the us it's clear why we have these case stevie's we're all here for russia why is the president we'd like to think that he loves us more than others sevastopol is one of his favorite sixteenth when your don't wish to see it i think it's one hundred percent true that every true citizen of sevastopol every two crimean supports putin short of the date of this election was specifically chosen to fall on the fourth anniversary of the reunification of crimea with russia he will rarely hear a cold and an exception here and person is reminding people that he is the gatherer

a russian. could be a burden of that will just go than four years ago you made a historical decision thanks to our historical decisions of us topple and crimea reunited with our common home oh marland mommer russia. now crimea is a special case and the enthusiasm for putin isn't necessarily matched in russia's biggest cities but with his tight control of the media his suppression of political competition and his reputation as a strong leader it's an election he's almost certain to win. at least two people have been killed in anti-government protests in guinea and demonstrators were shot during clashes with the police in the capital conakry thousands of people have been protesting for three days against the government's handling of a teachers' strike calling for higher salaries schools have been closed for more than a month. one of the most well known scientists of the twenty first century stephen

hawking as 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. disease may have robbed him of his voice in my ability but it also made him an inspiration to many a team barber looks back at his life. stephen hawking was a devoted scientist but 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 ok but university where hawking studied and worked for decades they were particularly proud of the professor xavier has just has such a huge impact 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 the

country he visited several times offered its condolences to hawkins family. mr 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 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. because. weather still could. develop. 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 hundred eighty 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 friends have been paying tribute. i assure you he had a mind that no ordinary person could problem 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 the washington discourse and public fascination with him culminated in the hollywood film of his remarkable life the theory of everything

the universe is expanding if you will first time in the universe 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 our chinese reporter has got into trouble with the authorities after dramatic i rolled during the annual national people's congress went viral. on the left couldn't contain her disdain a soft questioning from a colleague chinese government has tried to censor the clip and took away her accreditation of forces at the event have had their questions vetted by the authorities beforehand scott i know has more on this from beijing. it was the eye roll seen around the world and it's still being viewed now the young is a financial magazine journalist here in china she's wearing a blue dress in this video she is seen reacting to her colleagues in a red dress there asking a very long winded softball question at

a press conference on tuesday what's going on in china right now is the national people's congress this is their version of the annual parliamentary session and what's known to take place during these two weeks are a lot of press conferences heads of ministries officials will hold these kinds of press conferences but there it's also known that a lot of these questions at the press conferences are state or choreographed people took it off screen because it was aired live on state run television here in china than reposed and posted it was interesting to see how quickly censors here in china went away about to bring down those video clips but also even phrases lady in blue was a phrase that also being censored and still is being censored now so it's very interesting to see how quickly they stepped up the great firewall here in china to control this message that came out of this press conference now what's interesting is that it's very sensitive time during this national people's congress generally every year it happens but what's even more so now is there are a lot of changes being put forth by the communist party so even you know during

a sensitive time normally it's even more sensitive now there's even a constitutional change that lifted term limits on the presidency and the vice presidency so. the current president is very sensitive about that change and about controlling the message in these very choreographed press conferences this goes against that seeing this woman role arise so they're obviously trying to control that. now despite its harsh climate and dark winters finland is the world's happiest country according to an annual survey the world happiness report ranks one hundred fifty six countries on things like social support life expectancy social freedom generosity and the absence of corruption then finland which was fifth the last year ousted norway from the top spot. i joke with the other americans that we are living the american dream here in finland i think everything in the society is set up for people to be a success starting with university and transportation that works really well for

the real of the full of people the services here that we need the daycare is nearby and the pope says well we can play and slide down here as if we want to call it still appears that. during the winter we put on a coat during summer we put on sowing trunks during autumn we put rain coats on so everything is a question of attitude here us all. now krill of the tiny sherm like animals that eaten by everything from whales to penguins and even seals but conservationists are warning that the industrial fishing of krill in antarctica is threatening the future of the ecosystem our environment at it and it can join a greenpeace ship to see the fight for food unfold he is the final installment of his series the 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 peninsula and into the region the

expedition helicopter takes off and the rare view of crew boats with the nets out spotted fishing place to sure they are operating within their rights feeding the growing demand for krill based health products like a we get three fish oil and they want to expand their fishery. the krill are obviously densely packed into this area up against the island is the base and just circling round and round this bring them out of the month and all the whales are feeding you see them growing in whale tails disappearing flippers showing it's really about the krill companies 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 well called stops you found for both with decimated the areas closest to the shore almost always where penguin foraging 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 and then directly competing with these animals for food 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 antarctic confident and cape pull in and the weather quickly deteriorates they call the arctic sunrise the washing machine you can see why. i think with the wind it 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 into swell. next morning as predicted it's

blowing hard. drive over the rim of the great passage six major ways right now seventeen kilometer an hour winds right they tell me that this is quite mild i think but i don't know if they're landing very with the first i think is over that this is where a broken well south of cape horn. i know we're about to be rolling your. god after five days of story c s we finally pass into the magellan straight our expedition over the antarctic continent behind us and south america dead ahead mcclung al-jazeera chile. a quick recap of the top stories now moscow has told the u.n. security council that accusations by the u.k. it's behind the poisoning of a former russian spy and his daughter iran find founded the u.s. says it warrants security council action the u.k.

requested that emergency meeting just hours after the british prime minister to resign may announce the expulsion of twenty three russian diplomats and suspended all high level contact with russia. but russia is representative to the united nations says the nerve agent used in the attack could have come from anywhere and dismissed forces accusations as unjustified of loss to recruit the new civilian used were compelled to make the following conclusion the truth is the last thing the british authorities are interested in finding they are guided by something else they're using the same propaganda war of recent years of the trying to influence the public which is easy to influence and not very well educated. well and all the top stories students and teachers across the u.s. have staged a mass walkout from their classrooms to demand tighter gun laws. in cities all over the country they began protesting at ten am local time coordinated using the hash tag enough the walk outs lasted seventeen minutes in memory of the

seventeen killed at parkland high school in florida exactly a month ago. the u.n. says more than three hundred civilians have managed to leave rebel held east and go to in syria despite ongoing as strikes the syrian civil defense says russian planes dropped cluster bombs on residential areas in the city of kufa. arrowheads and shelling by government allied forces also targeted neighboring towns at least thirteen civilians were killed the prime minister of survivor says he'll resign if the country's president agrees to give his party the right to choose the next leader of the fico has been on the pressure to stand down following mass protests prompted by the murder of a journalist involved in the panama papers and government corruption cases and at least two people have been killed in anti-government protests in guinea the demonstrators were shot during clashes with the police in the capital conakry thousands of people have been protesting against the government's handling of

a teacher's strike calling for highest salaries you're up to date with all of our top stories that set for myself in the team here in london people in power starts now. we understand the differences and the similarities of cultures across the world. so no matter where you call home al-jazeera will bring in the news and current affairs that might to tease. out is iraq. its role or the united states or excludes billions of dollars worth of almost which are loans which isn't as widely understood is that many of the go music certainly seem to be used in the middle east. here of the mission for truth in which to show how to the supply routes from should wear to the work. in the first.