it never happens not because the situation is complicated but because no one cares or if you join us on sat there are people choosing between buying medication and eating this is a dialogue i want to get in one more comment because this is someone who's been out to this has posted a story join the global conversation at this time on al-jazeera. airstrikes killed children sheltering in a school in syria's eastern huta. alive has i'm sick of this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up palestinian president mahmoud abbas lashes out at the u.s.

and how mass. china's president xi jinping closes the people's congress with a warning to those who he says want to divide his country. facebook fallout revelations that millions of users have their profile stolen from the popular social network. hello we begin in syria as eastern huta a month into an intense government bombing campaign that split rebel held areas into three parts local media and activists are reporting a government asteroid has hit a school where people are trying to take shelter the estimate thirty two civilians have been killed in overnight shelling more than a thousand people have been killed in the past month. the is live for us in beirut . well has him there were a few days a brief lull in the fighting but that changed late yesterday a renewed bombardment

a renewed escalation clearly a sign that negotiations are not going well we do know that the three rebel factions. are involved in separate negotiations with the russian military the renewed escalation on the ground signaling that's not progress the not been a lot of progress on the ground you mentioned more than thirty people killed they were taking shelter in urban urban is a rebel controlled area in the southern pocket also overnight we are hearing intensive air strikes targeting. the main town in the northern procket which is controlled by the stamp so we have this renewed escalation on the ground thousands of people really trapped in this war zone with little aid this ongoing bombing campaign and people are also afraid for their safety and their protection because a lot of these people are wanted by the government if they are caught they will either be arrested there even worried about the execution so these people are trapped inside and appealing to the international community to open safe or doors

that are monitored by international observers. estimates vary on the number of civilians who have crossed into government controlled territory because of military operations in eastern huta but it's believed to be in the tens of thousands many people found themselves back under government rule as frontlines quickly changed the pro syrian government camp is calling this a victory liberation but human rights organizations are expressing concern following as of yet unverified reports of people going missing or arrested. no one it's fair minded about the violations that we have seen in places of detention by government forces from torture ill treatment sexual violence and even executions in order to ensure the security of these people that are fleeing from the center. we do need to have independent monitors on the ground thousands remain trapped inside an ever shrinking rebel enclave many of them are wanted by the state because they

were involved in opposition activities medics civil defense volunteers are particularly vulnerable so are media activists who the government accuses of being terrorists a reporter working for the syrian opposition orient t.v. is missing the organization says he is being held along with members of his family by the government it is demanding his release. activists and journalists are demanding. the. international. leading through status quo goes on the president of the un and other international communities what is. the pro-government alliance has recaptured approximately eighty percent of the enclave eastern huta is now divided into three pockets in the north the largest town duma is surrounded it's the same case in nearby harasta and both are split off from the rest of the area the rebels still

control some towns in the southern edge. each rebel faction controls different pockets after a sham controls harassed or. controls the north and five man controls the southern towns the three rebel factions are involved in separate negotiations with the russian military they are insisting that the negotiations do not involve an evacuation of civilians and rebels but it is clear that anything short of a surrender will be a nonstarter for the pro-government alliance the situation on the ground is an indication that talks are not going well the pro-government alliance resumed its offensive from the air and on the ground after a brief lull piling more pressure on the opposition since the military campaign began just over a month ago the russian military and the syrian government have made clear that agreeing to leave to go to other rebel held areas is the only option the opposition has if the military assault for this is taking campaign entering its second month

and the pro-government alliance pushing for all out military victory thousands of civilians trapped and really the suffering is immense. so they know how to live for us there in beirut. the u.n. rights chief says the siege of eastern ghouta has involved war crimes including using starvation as a weapon zero a sane was speaking at u.n. headquarters his briefing was officially labeled informal after russia blocked a meeting of the security council my can explains. but it was a very rare occurrence within the security council when a procedural motion to dismiss a session was actually up held what happened the un human rights chief was due to brief the security council on the human rights situation in syria it was expected that russia would object having argued that the forum for such a briefing should be the human rights council in geneva not the security council

chamber as expected it was backed in its photon a procedural issue by its normal allies including china but what was not expected what's this. the result of the voting is this follows eight votes in favor for votes against three abstentions the provisional agenda has not been adopted it have been filled to obtain the required number of votes and abstention by the three african members of the council equitorial guinea ethiopia and cote d'ivoire this is only the fourth time in some four decades that a procedural vote has actually been carried in the security council what happens next well the meeting went ahead the briefing went ahead but in an informal aria form and that means that it did not carry the weight politically or diplomatically

of a formal security council session the human rights chief went ahead and brief security council members and as expected deep criticisms of the syrian government the siege of eastern war torn by the syrian government forces half a decade long has involved pervasive war crimes the use of chemical weaponry in forced starvation and serve weapon of war for and the denial of essential life saving. in the current relentless month long bombardment of hundreds of thousands of terrified and trapped civilians. at the end of the day though perhaps a tactical miscalculation by those who want to the briefing to take place in the security council chamber in a formal session because now with the abstention by the african members the security council is divided as never before. of the syrian government has called

turkey's military operation in the northern town of affray in an occupation it is demanding their forces would draw but turkey says it plans to expand to other kurdish held towns in syria victoria they can be reports remotely similar enough rain some much needed aid is starting to flow in the turks say they were careful to leave the towns infrastructure intact and have told civilians they can return to those who've already made it home there's a huge sense of relief not only job but i'm talking to the people of my village of lift on what they can hear me return to your village we're comfortable here there's nothing to worry about it's quiet now. the syrian government has criticized what it calls turkey's occupation of the town and blames the united states for allowing it to happen if turkey is part of the nato and the nato is involved into the bloodshed in the area in iraq as well as in syria so the nato is protecting turkey don't

believe in this hollywood show you are seeing in ankara and elsewhere turkey is doing what it is doing with the blessing of the americans turkey started pushing into kurdish held territory marked in yellow in january the green is held by turkish troops in the syrian rebels they support almost two months later they've taken a free the next major target is members where kurdish forces are directly supported by u.s. troops then of initiated marriages you know after controlling the city center of afrin yesterday we completed the most important. phase of operation olive branch now we will continue this process with members i know and ras al-ain and camus li until we remove all of this corridor war. with turkey's plan to push further east and directly into the path of us forces the situation on the ground is likely to become even more difficult i would expect the americans to avoid

a full scale crisis with turkey and they will ose alternatives scenarios perhaps a different force to be. created over here well. turkey's operation has been criticised by all sides in the syrian conflict a monday the u.s. state department said while it respected turkey security concerns the operation a gates kurdish forces has distracted from the campaign against the remnants of i saw in the area it calls that a serious and growing concern the tour it gave him be al jazeera. a palestinian president mahmoud abbas has blamed the political faction have asked for an attack on the prime minister in gaza and army humvee wasn't hurt when the roadside bomb exploded as his convoy entered the gaza strip abass has also angrily head out of a u.s. ambassador to israel at

a meeting of fattah how fishel is in ramallah to criticize the u.s. decision to recognize jerusalem as israel's capital and dismissed its plan for reconciliation talks. hot dog i love you but i did go to delays at the time this plan began being implemented when trump's administration declared jerusalem as israel's capital decided to move its embassy to it could donations to the un relief agency and regarded settlements as illegal and that was said by more than one american official the first of them was their own boss or to tel aviv david friedman who said that the israelis are building on their land the son of a dog says they build in their land and he is a settler and his family are settlers and he is the u.s. ambassador in tel aviv what should we expect from him. a u.s. president donald trump has released a holiday statement to mark the iranian new year now lose he started by wishing iran well but then slammed its armed forces saying the islamic revolutionary guard

corps is a hostile army that brutalizes and steals from the iranian people to fund terrorism abroad and that since twenty two of the i.r.g.c. has spent more than sixteen billion dollars of iran's wealth to prop up the regime and support terrorists in syria iraq and yemen he goes on to say it employs propaganda and censorship to hide the fact the iranian regime plunders iran's wealth and abuses its people and to hide the truth iran's rulers suppress their own citizens rights to free assembly access to information and equal opportunity. still ahead on al-jazeera saudi arabia's crown prince heads for the u.s. trumpet ministration prepares a welcome fit for a future king. and the world's last male white rhino has died.

how low the temperature is slowly recovering now across much of europe we'll see if it's a little more spring like as we go through the next. few days spring downpours across the mediterranean sea some very heavy rain in and around the balkans that will slide its way through the research as we go through the next day i'll say still some lively showers there coming into the bad guy into spy and portugal will see that what's the weather just drifting its way into the western side of the mediterranean sea some nasty weather in store here's a go through tuesday some rough weather in day seven for london in paris temperatures about where they should be about where should be two in moscow with a high of around freezing you'll notice this warming up here as well from about to snow that around pushing out of vogue area pushing up into rumania into ukraine that will continue to just push a little further east which is we go on through the next few days warming up to minus one in kiev for weapons day warming up to around eight or nine celsius there for london and paris winds going just west of north so starting to feel that to add

the last cold ass starts to push into northwestern pass all of europe it will be cold enough across parts of northern africa have a mixed day also lossy dry on tuesday but temperatures now it is really struggle on wednesday a top temperatures just nine degrees celsius in the cloud and rain. ard .

and again you're watching i just need a mind of on top stories thirty two people have been killed in overnight and strikes in the rebel held eastern huta in the south of syria local media activists reporting that a school was hit by regime air raids the syrian government backed by russia launched an offensive against rebels controlling the area near damascus a month ago. palestinian president mahmoud abbas has blamed the political fashion hammer asked for an attack on the prime minister in gaza abass has also hit out of the u.s. ambassador to israel and dismissed the u.s. plan for reconciliation talks with israel. chinese president xi jinping has

warning against any effort to divide china saying they will be punished by history and she made the remarks during his closing speech in the annual parliamentary meeting it is seen as his strongest warning yet to taiwan which china claims as its territory the loss of a u.s. president donald trump angered beijing after signing a bill that encourages senior officials to meet directly with taiwan's government should understand it's a shared aspiration of all chinese people and in their basic interest to safeguard china's sovereignty and territorial integrity and realize china's complete reunification in the face of the will of the people and the trend of history any actions in tricks to split china are doomed to fail and will meet with the people's condemnations and the punishment of history. a saudi arabia's crown prince mohammed bin man is set to meet with u.s. president donald trump at the white house he is the first of several gulf leaders who will visit washington over the next few weeks and this particle he reports

behind the scenes all this diplomacy is generating a lot of business for one of washington's biggest industries lobbying. u.s. president donald trump was clearly impressed with the reception he received in saudi arabia and it's likely the saudi crown prince mohammed bin solomon can expect a similar greeting perhaps just a bit more understated when the two speak their words will be closely watched trump initially sided with the blockading countries against cutter but then reportedly pushed by then secretary of state rex tillerson he later called for the crisis to be resolved but tillerson is gone fired by tweet millions have been spent trying to influence this debate alexei if there's any winner in the blockade cation k. street is a euphemism for lobbyists ben freeman studies the influence of foreign money he says millions have been spent since the start in june according to public records since the blockade saudi arabia spent more than two million dollars a new contracts with lobbyists but many of the amounts are recorded so it's likely much more the

u.a.e. has also increased its lobbying and qatar did as well according to the center for responsive politics spending at least five million as of last october and they continue to sign contracts after that worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a month but freeman points out saudi arabia has a big head start they started lobbying after nine eleven was working before they just didn't have anywhere near the scale of the saudi lobby before and to be fair cutter so as one of the largest lobby is that that there is it's it's a very powerful effective lobby too it's just simply not in the scale of the saudi lobby right now you might be asking why people pour millions of dollars into the lobbying firms that lined the streets of washington d.c. well they are trying to buy access to policymakers and they are also trying to shape public opinion the firms have to detail their work public records show several sunday in talking points to reporters posting twitter ads and putting competing commercials on cable news they want to limit all seventeen could tar and

north korea partners in terror saudi arabia how. benefited from some positive press some of the most influential columnists have praised the crown prince as a reformer but there have also been some negative stories as well one alleging been some man has been secretly keeping his mother away from his father for years and she was under house arrest and they believe that he did this because. i felt that she was not on board with his plans for a paragraph and several organizations have printed detailed accounts of the alleged torture of prominent saudis at the ritz carlton in riyadh still been solomon has spent millions to make sure he will find a friendly reception at the white house and on wall street while millions more have been spent in hopes he won't political gain al-jazeera washington. a lebanese american businessman is reported to have organized a summit of arab leaders suggesting they create an elite regional group london

based website middle east i says george never set up the meeting on a yacht in the red sea his name is surfaced in recent weeks as a witness in the investigation into alleged foreign influence on the trumpet ministration official reports. which claimed george need to organize the power some at least twenty fifteen five middle east leaders were on the guest list was mohammed bin so mundane deputy crown prince of saudi arabia mohammed bin zayed the crown prince of abu dhabi egyptian president abdul fattah el-sisi the crown prince of bahrain prince so money the king abdullah of jordan middle east ice says leader of them to create a new power block in the middle east to combine turkey and iran and he would lobby for them to libya was to join the group later its alleged leader a convicted paedophile was told they like the idea that the meeting were concerned that as the u.s. presidential election was moving into high gear democratic nominee hillary clinton would protect the iran nuclear deal and would be less keen to abandon old alliances

. at the meeting thought the republican candidate donald trump might be more likely to support the initiative we have seen for the last nine months that there has been a new alliance that has emerged between the united arab emirates saudi arabia egypt and what bahrain as a junior party as a junior partner and what or not that alliance can sustain itself in the long run that is unclear but there are certainly efforts to boost that alliance at the expense of the gulf cooperation council it was reported to king abdullah of jordan congressional leaders in the u.s. that turkey was the main regional threat to stability but he later allegedly fell foul of the group for not fully supporting the blockade against qatar which is no ten months old and jordan voted against donald trump's controversial move to recognize jerusalem as the capital of israel this bloc that has so to speak emerges is not and that a bloc that can implement and carry out actual policy. and what we have seen us

that the u.s. prefers a bilateral relationships with each of the sixty six countries and therefore unity us this essential thank you very much leader is being investigated as a possible key link between donald trump and the emma ratties and to see if there was an attempt to buy influence by indirectly sending money to the trump presidential campaign later also arrange the meeting in trump tower in december twenty sixth in the brought together the trump son in law and key advisor gerry krishna then chief strategist steve bannon and the crown prince of abu dhabi he was also at the second meeting in the seychelles which brought together significant truck donor erik prince and this man killed dimitri of a russian banker with close links to president vladimir putin several embassies were approached for comment on the middle east as allegations no one provided any reaction alan fischer al-jazeera. our council of ethiopia's ruling alliance is

meeting on tuesday to elect a new prime minister haley mario resigned last month saying the move was needed to enable reforms a growing protest movement since twenty fifteen has put pressure on the coalition's twenty seven year long grip on power stephanie decker reports from the capital added. as if europeans go about their daily lives in the capital a deep political crisis is being discussed behind closed doors i think you can say or arguably this is the biggest challenge the party has fest. in the past i'm an infusion of governing fuel but this point i mean the party of the coalition of the four parties they're experiencing unprecedented level of divisions there has been growing and unprecedented pressure on the government a wave of protests have been swelling across the room here and of heart region since two thousand and fifteen strongholds of the two largest ethnic groups in the country many been killed in the government crackdown that followed it's largely the

youth who've been leading the protests they say they feel disenfranchised not represented by the government and are frustrated at the lack of jobs and opportunities it's a turning point because. the people of ethiopia have. demonstrated that are going to be owned by undemocratic means. going through the mcchrystal thing with. the government has made some concessions releasing thousands of political prisoners including opposition leaders and some journalists who've been arrested over the last few years one of them is but i had a good dinner leader of the main opposition group he says the priorities for the next prime minister should be clear it's going to be anybody but this person should be old enough or allowed by the ruling by the party itself to lead this country to a national dialogue. a year from now to use for now

the government is imposed a state of emergency across the country after the prime minister resigned in february it bans public gatherings and it also allows security forces to make arrests and search homes without a warrant now these are sensitive times here in ethiopia and many people we speak to don't want to talk on camera about the political situation the government says the state of emergency is in place to ensure the security and stability of the country it also says it will address the public's demands many here tell us it almost doesn't matter who takes over as prime minister what matters for them is what will be done to address the people's concerns. real reforms are needed were told not cosmetic ones anything less than that and the millions who have found their voice will continue to demand change stephanie decker al jazeera. britain's data protection authority is reportedly seeking a warrant to search the offices of cambridge analytical that's the company at the

center of a huge facebook data breach london based political consultancy work for donald trump's donald trump's presidential campaign it's accused of gaining almost arised access to the data of fifty million facebook users to swing the twenty sixteen u.s. election cambridge analytic as executives have been secretly taped by news reporters boasting about their ability to sway elections scandal led to facebook shares falling nearly seven percent on monday wiping nearly forty billion dollars of the social network's value. cambridge analytic. was birthed out of a company called s.t.l. group which is a military contractor based in london. this data was used to create profiling algorithms that would allow us to explore mental vulnerabilities of people and then map out ways to inject information into different in

different streams or channels of content online so that people started to see things all over the place that may or may not have been true this is a company that really took fake news too to the next level by pairing it with algorithms well michel sleiman is the c.e.o. of tech company elusive who set up and ran the in-house analytics department for barack obama's presidential campaign he says the he says facebook's poor response to the data breach has already heard the company. facebook's reaction to a series of embarrassing sort of egg on their face moments including this one revolving the recent us elections have been. surprisingly slow for a company whose motto is move fast and break things. they've been very reactive very behind the ball this particularly of this particular event. this theft of data happened over four years ago so it's very surprising to see them be so reactors at

a proactive i think you're going to starting to see members of congress of both parties really wake up and start to see a problem and start to sort of shake the cage and demand that back in january and number of sort of mid-level executives from facebook and google and twitter were called before congress testify about a unrelated matter regarding the u.s. election and foreign meddling but they said middle executives that in the send the c.e.o. i think when your company loses almost forty billion dollars market value in one day that probably is deserving of sending the c.e.o. to to account for it. britain and the european union have reached a deal given the u.k. twenty month transition period out of the block the deal designed to reduce any sudden shocks when the u.k. leaves next march it will be able to negotiate trade deals with the rest of the world during that transition but there's still no agreement on the question of the

irish border. the world's last male more than white rhino has died sudan died at the age of forty five in kenya on monday his condition and worsened in its final twenty four hours leading to a decision to euthanize the animal a copy of the genetic material was taken on the day of his death in the hopes the future technology could potentially revive the species are now only two female of the species left after decades of rampant poaching. this is hedges in let's get around to the top stories in syria's eastern guta a month long government bombing campaign has split rebel held areas into three parts local media and activists are reporting a government asked strike has hit a school where people are trying to take shelter they estimate thirty two civilians

have been killed in overnight shelling in the thousand people have been killed in the past month. turkey has criticised the u.s. state department after voiced concern over the situation in northwest syria in the aftermath of the turkish led takeover of affray in from the kurds ankara says the u.s. doesn't understand the purpose of the operation syrian government says turkey's presence is an occupation and wants its forces to withdraw. palestinian president mahmoud abbas has blamed a rival political faction have mass for an attack on the prime minister in gaza. wasn't hurt when the roadside bomb exploded this is convoy entered the gaza strip bass has also angrily hit out at the u.s. ambassador to israel at a meeting of fattah officials in ramallah the criticize the u.s. decision to recognize jerusalem as israel's capital and dismissed its plan for reconciliation talks. hotdog i love you but. this plan began being implemented when troops administration declared jerusalem as

israel's capital decided to move its embassy to it could donations to a u.n. relief agency and regarded settlements as illegal and that was said by more than one american official the first of them was their own bus or to tel aviv david friedman who said that the israelis are building on their land the son of a dog says they build in their land and he is a settler and his family are circulars he is the us ambassador in tel aviv what should we expect from him. a chinese president xi jinping has warned against any effort to divide china she made the remarks during his closing speech in the annual parliamentary meeting is seen as the strongest warning yet to taiwan which china claims as its territory last week u.s. president donald trump angered beijing after signing a bill that encourages senior officials to meet directly with taiwan's government those are the headlines just before we go some breaking news we're just just coming into us now former french president nicolas sarkozy in police custody of an

investigation of a campaign of a campaign financing more on that as and when we get inside stories next. we understand the differences and the similarities of colton's across the world. so no matter where you call home al-jazeera will bring you the news and current affirms that matter to you. al-jazeera. the u.s. attorney general fired the f.b.i.'s deputy director on friday there are now bears president donald trump flight five sacks special counsel robert muller so what does all this mean for the russell investigation this is inside story.