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it's a major. war. also on the. almost. one. armed with. what could be the most.

facebook live. dot com thanks for joining us almost two months after launching their campaign turn. and its rebel allies say they've taken over the northern syrian town off and they hoisted the turkish flag see it right there above the town center earlier on sunday was previously controlled by kurdish militia known as the people's defense units or why she will turkey regards them as terrorists despite the y.p. g.'s rule as a key u.s. ally in the fight against isis and just a reminder about. important location there you see it right there on that map that's on our website so you see in the northern part of the country towards the left let's cross over to see them cross world low she's joining us from

istanbul with all the very latest updates coming out of hosley incident also or two on himself has been speaking about that operation what did he have to say. yesterday and today actually. turkey has announced a victory in our friend you can see that everywhere in the news lines and the turkish media and the officials have been stating that today is very important for two things once offering it has been captured by the turkish military and its allies f.s.a. free syrian army but also it is a commemoration of to one hundred third anniversary of the battle of gallipoli which is a kind of milestone in turkish history in terms of building a nation state don has been announcing since the morning that turkish army is in control of the city and after after the capture of the city there has been

a security operation launched and. the military turkish ministry is now trying to. trying to defuse the booby traps that they're in sold inside installed inside the city and prison that are gone into mourning he said that they will not give off to the syrian government until everything is under total control of the turkish military and actually there are some debates about this side of the operation they're in because. often supporters i'm in the white p.g. n.p.o. ideas supporters who are named to be an offshoot of the p.k. k. out the kurdistan workers party for turkey they have been saying that turkey has actually captured the city and they're ready to fight to liberate our friend from the turkish forces on the other side on the other hand the turkish territory get about the african operation has been that they're trying to clear the out the organization by its border to protect their boundaries and protect their

territorial integrity and that's why the turkish operatives have been saying that we support serious territorial integrity we don't actually compromise any kind of. cordis come tongs or a semi autonomous regions in syria these are the base have been fighting each other since the beginning of the operation which was actually january twenty eighth right is what well i look at today the military and the turkish officials have been saying that they're going to complete a complete operation in two months and it is the if if the eighth day of the operation but the operation is going to continue as according to the turkish president until there is full security and safety and the cities that are captured by the y.p. g m p k k will be given back to its real orders the civilians the local people there very ok some of us will live with the update from istanbul frank you let's

bring in our social media producer sarah what are the conversations about how free online about sarah bouldering actually earlier today the top ten day of the five of the top ten to ten trending hashtags worldwide have been coming out of turkey in that kind of gives you an idea on how many people in turkey are active on social media especially when it comes to issues that relate to the turkish military operations and one of those is of the sea been afrin it's been a huge part of that conversation now pictures and videos that have been shown shared quite so law is of the turkish flag being pulled up in africa in the center of reference i just bring that up a little bit that that was shed on instagram and in a minute just a few seconds you see they go there's a turkish soldier saluting the flag as well and another thing that's also being shared a lot of the time is videos of the turkish turkish troops that they've been sharing footage of them going through the towns in the center as well since they've been

since they've seized and turkish people on social media are also feeling politicly patriotic today because us and mentioned earlier it's their hundred third anniversary of the battle of gallup poll me this week also shows this video. it's a reenactment of that battle in which a shoulder a soldier replaces a british flag with a turkish one and it marks turkey's big ship over the allied forces during world war one see can imagine this coupled with the victory in africa has been feeding into the country's patriotic feelings now people supporting the turkish troops have been showing pictures of what appears to be very little destruction in syria this is one of those here with a hashtag afrin for an operation and you can see that much destruction obviously it's very hard for us to verify when this photo was taken taken but the tweet says in takesh the aerial view of the city is the main way for it to recover by not spending down all the houses and that's one of those of this being shed another one

is hit by a comment he's posted saying remember he's posted this picture if i scroll up that says how us captions rocka and then if i bring that says how turkey captured a friend so he's saying the same thing he wants to remind people that any destruction that's being carried out by the turkish forces doesn't compare to that by the u.s. in syria and despite all of that unite country at present stiv in syria he's been tweeting these photos of civilians leaving afrin and he talks of heartbreaking stories that people been hearing of those fleeing to northern aleppo mostly on foot now if you have any thoughts or questions even on this story and afrin then we'd love to hear from you get in touch with me or on social media sara thank you all joining us right here in the studios hole gardner he's a professor of international politics of the american university of paris joining us here as i said and are coming into this because it was your initial thoughts about the situation and often also when turkey says that it won't hand over. to the

government in damascus after removes the kurdish might be what is so certainly something to do first is the continuation of the humanitarian crisis the horrors of the taking place me. it's free free in the area one hundred fifty thousand people at least are fully secondly it for warns of a new partition attack. a partition of syria if the turkish troops remain as you've just suggested and this partition is aimed at preventing a kurdish state from forming in that area and this is aimed at the saddam regime too because it's right near the mass so it's and close enough to put pressure on assad with the turkish troops presence there third it is a clash between the u.s. and turkey because the u.s. did not have have been supporting the kurdish fighters that's their freedom fighters americans don't want to put forces on the ground so they've been depending on the kurdish fighters but the kurds see these kurds the sort of the turks see the

kurds as as so-called terrorists because they may want to struggle for independence or succession within turkey itself so every time i've gone to the turks in the morning we for years do not support the kurdish movements americans do not support the kurds movements and this is a tremendous touch of the trouble mission station that sent several on voice to turkey the last of the people that are just dissect this issue a little bit more so what does this mean then for us turkey relations and a lot of people are saying well should everyone now begun looking at what's going to happen in men best because that is in fact where there are u.s. troops yes if consensus is spared expand eastward he would come up against american forces that are aligned with the kurdish fighters so i don't think he's going to the east than he's been pretty cautious about not not getting involved with the americans but there are tensions within nato the tensions between the u.s. and turkey are building up and and turkey has been looking closer and closer to

russia as a kind of lever against the united states of trying to balance itself between russia and the united states but russia stayed out of this it's just let you know let turkey do what do it in order to so it turns the the gears against united states what is the ultimate end you think of this operation that as the turks call it operation all the branches i think i think their idea there is once again aimed at two forces a. but the kurds preventing them from creating a stay on the border that could influence the kurds inside turkey but secondly to put pressure on the assad regime if the turks are pro assad that they may be working with the russians right now but they would like to see the assad regime step down and so you want to get turkish pressure to get assad out as fast as possible and put a new government so i think this is a double gambit on the on the turkish part to really put pressure on the side and put the end to end of this war but at same time their main goal is preventing kurdish independence from ok we thank you very much the whole partner for speaking

to us thank you let's stay in syria that's where the main rebel group in eastern of all clave in that enclave rather says it's negotiating a possible ceasefire with the un more than twenty thousand people have fled fighting there as reports. this is still happening in the besieged pockets of rebel held eastern buthe the strikes and shelling have continued on duma one of the largest and most populated parts of the entries from inside duma this footage from a drone shows the shrinking boundary between rebel fighters and advancing forces loyal to president bashar al assad thousands of people have been wounded in more than fifteen hundred killed in the latest on slot for. sure that we hold the united nations and the security council directly responsible for their silence around these crimes and for failing to take action to prevent these crimes but let us not forget the party that holds direct responsibility of the syrian regime and

the countries that continue to stand by it. like much else of rebel held syria relentless. has forced most of it into submission the buildings over parking garridge is no longer stand that's a washing machine hanging out from the shell of an apartment block a fridge shows what was once a kitchen another floor appears to show bottoms and the caved in roof. the cameraman who filmed it says this used to be his neighborhood creatures on top of buildings are the entry points from where rockets and bombs entered these buildings until recently eastern there was home to almost four hundred thousand people the u.n. is said to be negotiating with rebels for an evacuation deal many don't want to leave because they fear conscription arrests reprisals and revenge wants to leave. more than twenty thousand have fled to government controlled areas but tens of thousands still remain inside. we lived in horrible conditions we did not have food water

or wood. syria's military has released videos of tanks and soldiers rolling into the streets of towns across the east and in addition to russian air cover government forces are backed by iranian troops hezbollah fighters and shia militias from iraq and afghanistan they say they have almost one but they're taking over another area decimated by syria seventy a war some of a job with al jazeera and the boss of a pro-government online cation called. dot com has just tweeted these pictures right there which he says show the syrian president bashar al assad meeting soldiers in eastern. you can get in touch with us here on the news when we'd like to hear from you about these stories sending your comments to any one of our online platforms we're on twitter at aging us we're also on facebook at facebook dot com slash a.j.

news grid and you can send us a whatsapp message plus line seven four five a triple one one four nine just a reminder to always use the hash tag news grid. now to russia where a few people if anyone doubt that vladimir putin will win the presidential election happening right now the only real question is whether voters will turn out in big enough numbers to hand him a convincing mandate's the election is taking place on the anniversary of russia's twenty fourteen an exception of crimea from ukraine that is where we're at chalons is joining us from in the port city of sevastopol but first we'll begin with jonah who is joining us from moscow to tell us how the past few hours went john and for the kremlin they do one big turnouts have they gotten it in. well we'll have to wait and see what we're taking towards the end of the voting here in moscow at least another couple of hours left here much of the rest of the

country to the east of me as finished voting across a great many times owns of course. as you say the result of this election is in no doubt will be blood in me of putin's day and election it is really not in the sense that this additional sense of any other election but mccrimmon cares about more than just a win for vladimir putin or what the kremlin really cares about as you alluded to there is a high turnout why because what they want to be able to put the stamp of legitimacy on his inevitable victory is my report you know there's a presidential election going on because of the banners in the street that say presidential election and schools are full of adults on a sunday voters are presented with a seemingly vibrant to rev choices eight candidates have veteran politicians as a communist an ultra nationalist and a former reality t.v.

star who some fancy is a future leader but not this time. this time the result is not in doubt. this man says he's voting for the father of the nation. and i like the way he. televise election debates over the past fortnight featuring seven of the eight candidates minus putin of course quickly descended into a circus like fast in fact circus is a word the kremlin has used to describe the other seven election candidates so it's more a show of democracy than the real thing. conspicuously absent from the ballot is this man alexina valmy and to corruption lawyer turned opposition figure who's led enormous street protests in the past he's putin's most outspoken critic barred from taking part after a conviction for embezzlement

a charge he says was politically motivated novelli has called on his supporters to boycott the election as the voting day wore on low turnout what the kremlin really cares about seem to be high so to the number of alleged vote violations reported on social media big numbers will add legitimacy to the putin victory and it does appear that big numbers have turned out to vote. now the turnout figures coming out of the central election commission so far do point to a pretty healthy turnout at this point but there are multiple reports coming out as there have been all day on social media about irregularities at polling stations across the country lots of videos of course we can't verify them and certainly look at them showing pretty blatant attempts to rig the ballot stuffing ballot boxes multiple votes and all that sort of thing not necessarily to sway the vote in mr putin's favor not many people will feel that is necessary but to get this this

turnout to get the voting numbers up at the very least they will be hoping to match or better the turnout at the two thousand and twelve election around sixty five percent why is this important well because. mr putin is going into a fourth term as the president of the six years here he's got a lot of critics at home he's got a lot of critics abroad in the kremlin wants to be able to point to them point them rather to figures that show that he really does enjoy a broad mandate that he really does have the support of a majority of russians ok thank you very much jonah for that update from moscow now to rory challenge joining us from crimea and crimea itself very significant story and the selection just put all of this into context for us and tell us about turnout there. yeah well here down on the warm assures of the black sea i think pro putin feeling is perhaps even higher than

it is in other parts of of russia of course since the antics ation of crimea in two thousand and fourteen and an exception that most countries around the world say was illegal this has been incorporated into the russian administrative system and a lot of attention has been put on making sure that the vote here in crimea goes the right way and that the turnout is high i mean in sevastopol where i am that didn't need much work after say because this is always been a russian leaning place this is the home of the black sea fleet. and that we saw a large warship going process just a few minutes ago so the role of service stoppel was perhaps in like it integral in putin's thinking about taking over crimea two thousand and fourteen so what we

have here i think is the celebration of russian notice there are pro russian songs old songs playing on the loudspeakers around the city and people here have felt that this is basically a chance for them to reaffirm the decision that they made in two thousand and fourteen when they voted in the referendum and that's part of hoops in this platform is that taking back crime is a central part of his achievements in his last presidential ok thank you were a challenge giving us the update from cry me a divisive comments coming to us on our social media feed here at the news grid so we have dave saying the world would be a safer place without putin in charge jim saying the russian elections are a sham and then the other end of the spectrum you have a hamas saying i support putin he is brilliant will keep you right up to date to well with the russian elections here at al-jazeera and take a look at this. article right there which you'll find on our home page it details

the russian election who's running as well as the opposition calls for a boycott and if you scroll all the way down you will see this so russia twenty eight elections at a glance there it is as well check it out on al-jazeera dot com. reports are swirling in the u.s. that they fired f.b.i. dip deputy director kept personal memos detailing his interactions with the president donald trump so they go on to say that andrew mccabe's notes have been handed to the special counsel robert muller if true the memos could factor into miller's investigation into alleged ties between trump's campaign and russia as well as possible obstruction off justice mccabe was fired by attorney general just sessions after an internal f.b.i. investigation he says he was unfairly targeted by the trump administration so trump

has been back on twitter and in one of his tweets directly attacked muller and his investigation here's what he said why does the miller team have thirteen hardened democrats some big crooked hillary supporters and zero republicans another exam recently added does anyone think this is fair and yet there is no collusion in cap's let's speak to eric levitz he's an associate editor a new york magazine's daily intelligence or he is joining us from new york thanks very much for speaking to us your comments on that latest tweet that i was just reading out by. sure. it's really simple why it's. basically a. major one is that. white. refused. it's read.

or write i apologize i think we're having some some technical issues with you eric we will try and we'll try and bring eric back in just a few moments we'll try and set up that skype connection for you. let me show you all right what we'll do is we'll take a break so if you're watching us on facebook it's a plus meets the colombian musician who's turning guns into instruments of harmony and peace up on facebook and also ahead on the news grid sri lanka's president lifts a twelve day state from urgency and reinstates social media right across the country facebook and other platforms had been accused of fueling violence between buddhists and muslims so we explore what role social media plays in civil unrest that's coming up.

welcome back a look at the weather around the levant and western parts of asia we've got a weather front which should be moving across the eastern areas bringing some rain indeed a higher elevations some snow but as we move into tuesday that will tend to clear way further towards the east but you see some snow up over the mountains but for a couple we'll look at temperatures of sixteen degrees or fine and sunny around the caspian sea air on the eastern side of the mediterranean to the weather is now looking decide the spring like temperatures of twenty three that for beirut in lebanon here in the arabian peninsula we've been spring light for a very long time away through the winter months we've got fine conditions on the western side of the potential over thirty eight in mecca and temperatures here in doha still close to thirty degrees expected much change as we head on through into tuesday so let's head down into southern parts of africa where we've got a tropical cycle working its way down the eastern side of madagascar giving some very heavy rain here that will continue to cause problems in the next few days otherwise heavy showers across the northern parts of. zambia on the way into was

angola but if you come southward into namibia and through botswana weather conditions we can draw and find twenty seven that when talk we get into south africa should be a fine day in cape town with my son twenty degrees so just chance i want to showers for the east because he'll downpour in johannesburg. what went wrong in society that opened up the space for m p a me get a break she is the european parliament that's not accountable and it's impossible for the people to bear the costs for link up our people don't want to take money from their need that different from a stronger man our song woman who was getting the growth of protectionism of this world because the model doesn't work europe's forbidden colony episode two at this time on al-jazeera.

al-jazeera. where every.

lines on. what's trending right now on our web site al-jazeera a dot com the first story on the trail of trying to destabilize security and then just to draw your attention to the fourth story the fired f.b.i. deputy can't tell notes on trunk so what we are going to talk about. that so the latest developments out of us in fact in just a right before the break we were speaking to my guest out off new york eric levitz thanks very much for sticking around i hope you can hear me better this time and right before we lost you i was just asking your comments about donald trump's

latest tweet so for anyone to just miss the tweet let me tell you what it is why does the miller team have thirteen hardened democrats some big crooked hillary supporters and zero republicans another dam recently added does anyone think this is fair he asks and yet there is no collusion in caps so i was asking you eric levitz whether there was a strategy behind this tweets yet and they're absolutely. what happened right now is within the last year. robert mueller scheme second donald trump a list of the questions that you intend to ask you and he has now just for the first time really gotten a sense of what mueller has i'm going to end here also at the same time there is just subpoenaed to trump organization his business which was something that trump

said last year was a red line and if you are starting to look into his business and says and that would be potentially cause hiring you know that's what happened last couple days now from strategy is to do you know your best again to have the pretense in order to end the poor those places that you know i have to go and here's a report out is that this is actually a democratic and. at the time and investigation is based on that. and the general. gist of it yes i took that and it was whole books of it. all right to add that the problem is of course that you know erica thank you very much i have to leave it once again we're here because apologies but yet again the audio is just not clear but we did get the gist of what you were saying we thank you very much for speaking to us and sticking around. now cats are government has filed a lawsuit in the u.s. against persons it accuses of being associated with

a campaign called qatar exposed so the case filed in new york describes it as an illegal effort to smear cats are linking it to terrorist groups and supporting the blockade against it there is a websites and corresponding facebook and twitter pages as well as a you tube channel which was created a week before the diplomatic crisis began on june fifth saudi arabia the u.a.e. behavior and egypt sever ties that impose the blockade accusing cats are of financing terrorism which cats are firmly denies so earlier i spoke with the chef safe he's the director of the qatar government communications office and he says the real cost of the walk eight is yet to be calculated. because many of us human social. circle i think the. propaganda campaigns. filing in new york is. one

out of actually ten ten different cases out of dozens that would be through all of the you. know the different states and also in other international countries the issue of fake news is not a new one as you know and we do have an indication of just how serious fake news can actually be but let me just put to you something that your office has said and what you're saying is that those involved use the alias accounts to post negatively about the country or the ramifications of which could cause quote irreversible damage can you however quantify that irreversible damage see quantifying it as it's up to the fact that you know what it will need time to do to tell fully however the effects. of. the effects financial. economic and. the effects as emotional damage is. just.

since you know and people living and and. so the damages are in that sense qatar says that the gulf diplomatic crisis was sparked by a fake news story in fact and we know that a formal complaint was then made to the british regulatory body off calm where does that stand right now we're still continuing. the procedure and we have seen. some action and what are waiting for that action on this but another interesting thing is doing all of us together and we found that some some of the websites and some of the social media accounts have been legist of been opened. months some have been even in two thousand and sixteen but i just sort of put an aside and saved until. the end of the blockade was taken place so you know we want to know

the the identities of of the individuals that what our security and who are the executing it. and who are the ultimate finance finance of us all of these companies and qatar has asked us regulators to investigate a subsidiary of the biggest bank in the united arab emirates over currency manipulation allegations cats are says that n.b.a. america which is linked to the state owned first abu dhabi bank engaged in fake foreign exchange deals designed to undermine the cats are we really our harm its economy well it's a good time right now to remind you of this page so it's always on the home page of al-jazeera dot com updated with the latest developments as you can see today is the two hundred eighty fourth day off of the blockades off qatar before we head over to sue turton will join us from london with more of the

international news let's just show you the picture out of a russia that is where people continue to vote in moscow about election taking place right now and polls close in a less than two hours time so we're keeping an eye out on all the developments out of russia for now it's a suit certain joining us from london hi sue. russia's ambassador to the e.u. has suggested that the nerve agent used to poison a foreigner a former spy could have originated in the u.k. the british government has dismissed the claims saying the poison used on sergei scriptural and his daughter came from russia britain accuses moscow of being behind the attack a charge it denies foreign secretary boris johnson says international experts will conduct further analysis on the poison tomorrow. technical experts from the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons i will come from the hague

to the u.k. we will share the samples with them they will then be tested by the most reputable possible international the burra trees association of southeast asian nations summit task concluded in australia with leaders expressing grave concerns about the situation on the korean peninsula leaders from the ten us and nations and australia have also been discussing the militarization of the south china sea trade and counterterrorism but as andrew thomas reports from sydney at the summit attracted a variety of protests sydney felt like part of southeast asia on sunday it was unusually hot and humid but australia is not a member of the association of southeast asian nations so hosting an assay and summit was a diplomatic coup for australia's prime minister malcolm turnbull but to kill or lay in the face of the ever growing power of china and a more isolationist united states turnbull wants australia and as the end countries

to speak with one voice and says that's what he got. the countries of r.c.n. are among our closest neighbors they're our friends and increasingly our family as well the so-called sydney declaration issued at the end of the summit commits the end countries to support trade and resist all forms of protectionism it supports action to address climate change and the full implementation of the powers agreement the declaration stresses grave concerns about the escalation of tensions on the korean peninsula and it commits as he and countries to further cooperation on counterterrorism it just sensual it just keep and it is imperative that we have legislations that prevent acts of terrorism rather than just deal with the aftermath the declaration also calls for restraint in the south china sea before the summit some analysts said but one test of the

final declaration strength we whether it mentioned china as a country by name this declaration doesn't presumably that was seen as too provocative but it does emphasize the need for non militarization and self restraint in the south china sea outside the summit venue there were protests against some of the leaders attending australia welcomed me and unsung to cheat despite the range of crisis viet nam's prime minister knew and when folk was there too despite human rights abuses in the one party state but the biggest protests were against cambodia's prime minister hun sen who has cracked down on opponents and had promised before the summit to find and beat up anyone who burned in effigy of him in sydney protesters did it anyway the fact that there were protests here is a great sign a lot of asean countries when they hold these summits they're not progress or they're at such a far distance from the summit site that it can't possibly have an impact it's forecast to cool down in sydney on monday by then most as the end leaders will be

home after thomas al-jazeera sydney. and australia's foreign minister says white south african farmers will not be given special visa privileges julie bishop denied there were plans to give them priority over other humanitarian visa applicants it comes after comments by another australian minister caused a diplomatic route last week peter dutton suggested south african white farmers should be given preferential visa treatment to escape what he called persecution at home south africa's government denied any danger existed and demanded an explanation new video has emerged of the moment a newly built gesture in bridge collapsed in miami killing six people these dash cam pictures taken on the road at florida international university in miami show how in a split second the bridge crashed on to vehicles below the university says engineers meant hours before it collapsed and concluded a crack in the structure was not

a safety concern. from a back now to dairy into so frank you well sri lanka has lifted an island wide state of emergency that had been declared twelve days ago to control ethnic violence. members of the sinhalese majority community attacked shops and houses belonging to minority muslims in the central district of candy well social media was also whacked out or nuts with that's a norther and. let's just talk about this issue of social media being whacked out why was that the case and did anybody get around that bernard. well the room we're in the real ice cream here in jackson or wherever but he's happily back on social media after two weeks without access to what's up without access to facebook viber another social messaging services and now when you click

on your facebook it opens. as it used to before previously when you tried to do that you got a little cannot connect to the message or from facebook and that's how it's been the last couple of weeks the reason the government shut down access is because it says racist inflammatory language material is being propagated is being spread by some members of the majority sinhalese nationalist group inciting violence against muslims so the government shutdown will closed off access to those social media websites that sad the government has told us that about eight hundred thousand people got around those blocks by using virtual private networks v.p.n. is this is where you can centrally dial a tunnel through a block and access those websites from outside the country and still get your social media fix those that were particularly badly hit actually with those migrant workers in the gulf many sure lankans millions are trying to work in the gulf

concept their families in this part of the world using whatsapp and viber and they've got to cough up or normal mobile phone call challenge history so so do people feel there or are they concerned for haps that the governments will do this again. well one of the things that challenges the government is the challenge that lots of democratic governments around the world is trying to balance the need to respect freedom of expression expression free speech with a need to stop the spreading of insightful hateful language and the sri lankan government says the lessons learned from this is that it's going to spend concentrate a lot more on the moment sharing what sort of material is spread online and even called in facebook for a talk about how they could challenge this hour to stop this language being spread and facebook said he's going to work with the short term to do it one of facebook's problem is they don't have enough people who speak sinhalese the main language you

to monitor what is said in the sinhalese language fire facebook so this is one of the challenges they face the government also has no legislation there's nothing in the law books that compressor to people who spread this sort of material so the government is looking at legislating to try and prevent this from happening in the past because as ever technology is one step ahead of the government and the government is chasing up on technology and technological innovations ok a surf report of rafa northern sri lanka thank you sir it's also been looking at. responded to the social media about sarah well during that people are always going to find ways around but in this day trying to stop people from using social media does doesn't go down very well in ensuring to this week it certainly wasn't a popular move by the government is that nearly all the top suites just like the one behind me critical of that decision which was done in response to the recent riots but jumping on that same bandwagon maziar some bastard sister lanka he called

the band damaging to two isn't the i-t. sect of business and the nation's reputation for freedom and openness and say no to censorship was a theme among many including this group a e p f s their community on facebook they posted this pictured and if you see a say no send. the ship and it was in protest of the seats of the band those that groups mostly made of entrepreneurs who use social media for their businesses and of courses but it had said it many people struggle to chat so that loved ones as well and in fact this facebook page is called. internet freedom full strength and it said this post which was by a person's assange since that ban i couldn't connect with my son on his birthday thanks sri lankan government you are going home and staying with the same potsie theme the founder of this policy planning business told the climbed it is that her organization suffered because of the social media shutdowns of course many businesses when raising out during those days but the government insists it did it

for the safety of its people became the government intern if you didn't you had only three point two million piece book users in two years he jumped two for this and today very very dangerous situation how social media has run the country if you do a facebook play video and this your kid come we have yard attacking this base right now we're going to take you to six o'clock in the seat at five o'clock get there are indeed we're going to take the voice down at that moment it's going so giving that kind of a situation so we needed to block it out but critics have accused the government and shanker of exaggerating seychelle media's importance and that's only because one inforce lankans are on facebook and or is just a little bit over twenty five percent. actually on face the regardless of that rights activists that in shanghai all cute can be a force for good. you really need social media back to pass that message

the best example is repeat forty eight dollars some of those more will be back some of those shops will be back we didn't forty dollars because supporter of similar people that is the message should go back to community again and people should hear that is doherty the fact that things are settling down and there is no give there is no head begin and time to work with their communities again. ben smith mentions of the government met with officials from facebook and facebook has promised sense that they'll make an effort to cut down on the hay speech and what ended up happening was that the government did reverse that bond of course a great relief to many there but interestingly where the show anchors government presidents or made the announcement was actually on twitter say he was the one who went to say sure media news and washington's all back online the prime minister did say the government's next move is to regulate social media so as to prevent the hey

speech then not ban but just to regulate and this is what he told the daily mirror i'm the one who introduced internet in strength or in one thousand nine hundred ninety three by sign an agreement with the then u.s. president al gore vice president al gore therefore we are fully aware of the value of it our objective is to encourage positive use of social media and minimize the wrong usage well perhaps you're in a country where social media has been bangle maybe you think the regulation is a sort of happy medium so he got in touch with me using the hash tag which is always a genius grades a mass shooting that killed seventeen people mostly teenagers at a high school in florida has seen america once again debate its gun laws and how to keep students safe so donald trump believes teachers should be armed and florida's government has passed a law allowing that but it's not a new concept john hendren reports from ohio. this might be the most heavily

armed public school in america in the rural town of sidney ohio would be attackers are warned each entrance to every school scattered throughout this school or several safes opened with a fingerprint it put a glock nineteen handgun in reach of a team of teachers and staff trained to take out the shooter i don't necessarily like having guns in school either mental health backpacks background checks assault rifles gun control laws all of those things i don't necessarily agree disagree with but at the same time all of those things combined are not going to stop an active shooter five years before president trump said this if you had a teacher with who was adept at firearms they could very well end the attack very quickly educators like this former soldier were volunteering to train for classroom combat back when we first started this. i second guessed whether this was the

correct thing to do and sometimes i still do but. if if we save one once one student or we say a whole building where the students and i think it's worth it i think it's. i don't it's it's just sad that we have to do that now after the massacre at connecticut sandy hook elementary school in two thousand and twelve sheriff john lindh heart decided that if anyone starts shooting here there would be a small army to fire back its case in america i cannot wait on the state i cannot wait on the federal government i can wait on psychologists to figure out why one person hurts another person you have to protect yourselves if i could wave a wand and make it all go away i would prefer no guns period. but that's not what happened in the states. each school in sydney also has an armed deputy and each classroom is numbered on the outside so first responders can pinpoint a gunman the locations of the weapons and the identities of the first responders

are secret so that if a gunman came to this school he wouldn't know who might be armed because it's all caught on camera the first responders can see him many teachers say they're already overburdened without adding security to their duties they're there to teach so what they would rather have than guns is to have training on how to i identify mental health problems but here in sydney some parents of reluctantly come around like it's not the world i think any of us well event but i think it's the reality of where we're at and. you know we take all kinds of measures to protect banks and our money and museums and why would we to do the same thing for our kids as shaken schools across the u.s. return to focusing on the so-called three r's reading writing and arithmetic here in sydney they've added a fourth responder john hendren zero sidney ohio joe is here in a moment so with your top trending sports stories including march madness and why

everyone is loving this popcorn eating ninety eight year old. team details coming up. stories of life. and inspiration. a series of short documentaries from around the world. that celebrate the human spirit against the odds come up come on to something else ok. al-jazeera selects change makers at this time. it's not just about miskolczi it's about telling those that want to restore it it's about breaking down the nation breaking it down again then it's me remaining in the city behind the big headlines to go behind government lines and tell the stories of

the people actually affected by these events that make up for their rights and watches and as a citizen i want to see her hands with journalism i think. i heard back so what are people talking about in sports and i joe wilder remember if you're a fan of bosket no escaping much madness and even though it's you would have seen it trending a little bit earlier around two hundred thirty thousand tweets in the last twenty four hours that is at is at its peak that's one thousand two hundred tweets per minute the usa going mad over march madness but also i phones over in the

philippines and new zealand what is march madness well it's when college teams play in the national basketball tournament for men and women and in the weeks leading up to it hundreds of college teams across the usa fight and it's false in the last sixty eight then seeded and over three weekends the sixty eight teams play in all counts who are meant to find the winner of the tournament generated one billion dollars in t.v. revenue in two thousand and seventeen coaches a paid millions but the players want a single cent on the college rules. almost madness often throws up cinderella sports stories and this year it's a private catholic college called loyola chicago they haven't made the field since one thousand nine hundred five but this year they're back and fans of fall in love with their motivational speaker that's this lady ninety eight year old sister jean who serves as the team's chaplain she had her popcorn courtside as her team b. tenn in a dramatic sixty three to six two victory in the last three seconds of the game on

saturday it put them in the last sixteen of the tournament no doubt spurred on by the words of sister jean before the game. don't let those tennis chain members scare you with their height height doesn't mean much you hear good jumpers you're good rebounders you're good at everything and just keep that in mind everyone needs a bit of sister jeanne in their lives even if it turns out brooke a bomb of a chicago native tweeting his congratulations to the team and sister jeanne in his no the interesting thing about march madness every year millions of people fill out their own brackets trying to predict the winners a bomb had t.v. cameras into the oval office every march tearing his presidency so unveil his picks and his continue that tradition on twitter since leaving his chosen michigan state for the win this year and that started something of a presidential standoff george bush sr said he respectfully differed with president obama instead picking texas a and m.

for this year's victory while the winter paralympics have wrapped up in south korea with the closing ceremony a few hours ago in months the end of a historic winter games which saw north and south korea uniting at the olympics a north korean athletes process pacing in their first winter paralympics kathy novak reports. just over five weeks ago athletes and visitors arrived in this snowy region of south korea for the winter games now that much of the snow has melted and the final medals have been awarded it's time to say farewell with the closing ceremony for the biggest ever winter paralympics about five hundred seventy athletes from forty nine countries took part in clude ing for the first time in a winter paralympics north korea the show of unity started with athletes from both koreas marching under a unified flag at the olympic opening ceremony they helped to make these the pisa lympics that the south korean government had hoped for. the olympics acted as the

path that led to donald trump and kim jong un agreeing to hold talks and korea became a driving force behind promoting peace to single you don't like a really big deal a lot of people have said that the winter games lead to the easing of into korean ties which is very positive and i feel great about it south koreans enthusiastically supported the paralympics with record breaking ticket sales but many complained they couldn't watch korean athletes competing because of a lack of television coverage. it was difficult to tell our children who was competing at the paralympics them with what kind of disability is hard to find out if it's not in the media so that was a bit disappointing petitions to the president lead to broadcasters showing more paralympic events it's hope to these paralympics will help improve conditions for people with disabilities in south korea here in the host city organizers build and

upgraded facilities to help make them more accessible but around the country older buildings narrow pathways and an even surfaces can make getting around challenging for those with impairments. there is shoes being shared with the host cities of the next summer and winter games tokyo and beijing so we want to take advantage of the fact that we are staying here in asia for a decade to really prove accessibility but also the way people perceive persons with an impairment because it's not only about physical structures is about mentality as the international paralympic committee president closed to this celebration he paid tribute to the renowned scientist stephen hawking who passed away on wednesday and like the athletes here refused to allow his disability to hold him back kathy novak al-jazeera chang south korea. well you can say a full season the hash tag a.j. news great or tweet me at the i'll be back with more eight hundred g.m.t.

but for now i'll hand you back to the read so thank you we'll see you later on thanks for watching a very newsgroup that'll do it for this show you can keep in touch with us on social media just a reminder to use the hashtag a.j. news read we'll see you back here in studio fourteen fifteen g.m.t. on monday thanks for watching. facing realities growing up when did you realize that you were living in a special place the so-called secret city getting to the heart of the matter why is activists to live in jail just because he expressed himself he had a store on the talk to al-jazeera at this time. perception.

powerful documentary. from around the globe. it was a big sound like a plane coming down. it's journalism. debates and discussion this is a lot of misunderstanding and distortion isn't the only argument i find against that is all over the corded history. see the world from a different perspective on al-jazeera a scandal that's rocked the nation to its core and exposed hundreds of court official. brides just to show the most dangerous comedy team on air sometimes take a spot in a difference to blow up a personal find these judicial corruption as. i have. come out of my car in an exclusive documentary al-jazeera examine one man's extraordinary battle for

justice in ghana. east and the differences. and the similarities of cultures across the world. al-jazeera. my. thank you i thank you says its forces have taken full control of the syrian town of a free and from this crisis and president assad me syrian troops in eastern guta where they've now we take an eighty percent of them.