al-jazeera. entry. air strikes killed children sheltering in a school in syria's eastern huta. lot has i'm sick of this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up palestinian president mahmoud that bastard lashes out at the u.s.

and how mass. china's president xi jinping closes the people's congress with a warning to those he says want to divide his country. facebook fallout new questions over revelations that millions of users had their profiles stolen. alone we begin in syria eastern where there has been more fighting after a brief lull in the past few days local media and activists estimate thirty two civilians have been killed in overnight shelling one of the rebel groups in the region jaish al islam has launched a counterattack more than a thousand people have been killed in the past month as the syrian government and its russian allies attempt to seize the area from rebel fighters is live for us in beirut so dana what's the latest you're hearing from there. well hasn't

mentioned a resumption of the argument the last few days there was a brief lull in the fighting there was an agreement between the rebel factions and the russian military an agreement to talk to hold negotiations and that is what has been happening but clearly with the renewed bombardment it shows an indication that the talks are not going well now we do know what the pro-government alliance wants they want a full so render to the rebels want they want some sort of a deal a cease fire but they are in a very weak position for the time being they are now in ever in shrinking rebel controlled territories those territories under under heavy fire particularly the main town of that is in the north as well as urbin this is a town in the southern pocket so renewed bombardment renewed shelling and thousands of people trapped inside it's not only the lack of aid the lack of medical supplies but these people are increasingly afraid of their fate they are appealing for

international help international monitors for their safety and protection in case they find themselves in government controlled territory. 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 a 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 state quarters 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 are a sham controls harassed or socialist controls the north and five man controls the southern towns those 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 is to end many in the opposition don't want to leave

they say that this is their home this is their land and they don't want to be forced to live elsewhere but you know they're facing very little choice for the time being especially since the rebels have been really weakened by this ongoing bombing campaign. they know how to live for us there in beirut now the un's human rights chief says the siege of eastern huta has involved war crimes including using starvation as a weapon zayid has same speaking at u.n. headquarters briefing was officially labeled informal after russia blocked a meeting of the security council my camera explains. well 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 having failed 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 happened 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 offer for more 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 water by the syrian government forces half a decade long has involved pervasive war crimes the use of chemical weaponry in forced starvation and certain weapon of warfare and the denial of essential life saving a community in the current relentless month long bombardment of of hundreds. thousands of terrified and trapped civilians at the end of the day 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 palestinian president mahmoud abbas has blamed rival factions have asked for an attack on the palestinian prime minister in gaza romney wasn't hurt when the roadside bomb exploded as his convoy into the gaza strip ambassador's also angrily hit out of the u.s. ambassador to israel at a meeting of fattah have fishel is in ramallah he criticized the u.s. decision to recognize jerusalem as israel's capital and dismissed a u.s. plan for reconciliation talks. to her only we offer well wishes and safety to our brother. the prime minister and murdered for the head of intelligence and the rest of our brothers from the security detail that went through this despicable incident that was done by hamas in the gaza strip. that hamid is live for us in ramallah so. we just hearing there from the palestinian president to was pretty

direct in a lot of the things that he he had to say there. yes absolutely it was actually quite a hearts speech and also quite a blunt speech in which mahmoud abbas did not mince his words mean he did. point the finger. for what happened that attack on the convoy of the prime minister hamdullah he said that had met was definitely in charge and there was no need for hamas to actually call from in an investigation because it knew exactly what happened and how that happened now i think what he said also further which might be more important is that you get a feeling that now any talk of reconsider is further away than ever actually my best said bluntly we were trying to find through to the government of national consensus a way of power sharing now it's either we are in charge we meaning the palestinian

authority or how mass is in charge of absolutely all defiles in gaza that meaning administration security and everything else so you do have now this situation where you have a very angry mahmoud abbas who has bluntly spoken against him as and was bluntly said that reconciliation a demo man there's no talk about it so where where does this leave what does leave things now. well certainly that is the big question there is a meeting later today that's the weekly cabinet meeting in which we will hear from the prime minister. himself but if you listen to the last sentence of the speech of mahmoud abbas he said that some measures will be taken against him as and the gaza strip but he did not spell out what those measures would be but we have seen in the past what kind of measures the palestinian authorities can take for example

stopping the salaries for all the civil servants who are living in gaza now we also know that he is coming under pressure from regional powers namely egypt not to make any harsh decision a rash decision in the coming days palestinian senior officials have told us that beza had a very long phone conversation last night with the egyptian president. and injuring that conversation president c.c. would have called on mahmoud our best to just hold off spelling out any kind of measures against hamas to gaza strip for at least a week i think the thinking there on behalf of the egyptian president is maybe trying to cool down the temper of mahmoud abbas and then think about what the next step could be. life for us there in ramallah are some breaking news to tell you about now the former french president nicolas sarkozy has been taken into

custody just outside paris he is being questioned in an investigation over irregularities in campaign financing french police are looking into suspected illegal funding for libya of psycho's these two thousand and seven presidential bid . joins us on the phone from paris with more on the senate session where is he being held do we know. because of the present in the crisper case these being held by police. just outside of paris now leave the gate to possible illegal funding all to two thousand and seven presidential election campaign. money now police actually in two thousand and. five. times that she in question directly have a direct. the saying is that we can now be held. to

questioning after that much is right we'll have to decide whether or not they're going to place him under formal investigation and what more do we know about this investigation and where it stands in the general scheme of things. well it was it was big news there french newspaper french news website such they actually published its documents to the chest examples then the libya colonel gadhafi helped to fund nicolas sarkozy two thousand and seven percent to campaign now the year after last introduces the french police opened an investigation into the case never changed magistrates would be trying to gather information and evidence on a blew up again during the last presidential election campaign because nicolas sarkozy was running dead at the cottage on tuesday and a video a man came forward saying sixty vote carries with self i think you'd be right it was a cash tripoli the carrot cake of one of cocktails the i in two thousand and seven

police is be validation the really don't talk for many years but even more as a direct link to this cache the latest is that it is just that maybe the magistrate gathered enough evidence that maybe the magistrate gathered enough evidence to link him to the case at least they have arrested him and they will be questioning is that natasha thanks for that session but on the line for us there in paris with the latest on the revelations the former french president nicolas sarkozy has been taken into police custody over alleged campaign finance irregularities with not much more ahead on al jazeera saudi arabia's crown prince heads for the u.s. and the trumpet ministrations of paris a welcome fit for a future king. and the world's last male white rhino has died.

from dusky sunset it's proving something. to summarize the talking in metropolis hello there we've got plenty of cold weather gripping europe at the moment this is what it looks like in paris there's the eiffel tower with a little friend missed a snow bank daily very cold there and there's plenty more wintry weather to come for some of us in europe at least you can see on the satellite picture most of the wet weather is spiraling around the southern parts of course the mediterranean and then up the eastern parts of europe and that's really where we're expecting most of the storms to track over the next few days because it's so cold some of that is turning to snow this is what it looks like in hungary at the moment and i think for some of us in the region it's going to be pretty wintery over the next few days so there's the latest batch of snow then making its way through remain here into ukraine very very winter ahead of working up into russia as we head through

wednesday and the next system is following it bringing plenty of snow on its northern edge as well further south where it's just too warm here we see some heavy rain instead elsewhere across europe there's plenty of dry weather to be found on wednesday and it's also turning milder now so any snow that's around will melt london probably getting up to double figures for the other side of the mediterranean here there's also been a fair amount of unsettled weather recently too and it's all thanks to the systems over the mediterranean just grazing the north coast we're looking at some heavy rain in algeria there for woods day. the weather sponsored by qatar and greece. the scene for us where on line what is american sign in yemen that peace is possible but 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. eating this is a dialogue i want to get in one more comment because this is someone who's an

activist has posted a story join the global conversation at this time on al-jazeera. hello again you're watching al-jazeera reminder of our top stories syria's eastern loot the local media and activists say thirty two civilians were killed in overnight shelling one of the rebel groups in the region. counterattack more than a thousand people have been killed in the past month syrian government and its russian allies attempt to seize the area for the rebel fighters. palestinian president has blamed rival faction hammer us for an attack on the prime minister in

gaza a bass also hit out at the u.s. ambassador to israel and dismissed the u.s. plan for reconciliation talks with israel. former french president nicolas sarkozy has been taken into police custody just outside paris is being questioned in an investigation over irregularities in campaign finance of french police are looking into suspected illegal funding from libya sarkozy's two thousand and seven presidential bid. the chinese president xi jinping has warned against any effort to . divide china saying they will be punished by history 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 considers its territory a loss we us president donald trump angered beijing after signing a bill that encourages senior officials to meet directly with taiwan's government should. 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 condemnation and the punishment of history. scott heil as more from beijing during the closing ceremony of the eighteen days of the national people's congress here in beijing xi jinping the president addressed the nearly three thousand delegates now this is something new he normally the president normally doesn't address the delegates on the last eight he did that very broad stroke broad themes speech to the people here the delegates here saying it's important for them to realize they work for the people and also kind of looking into the future of china's importance now but then it's growing importance in the global arena and they need to realize that and they need to move toward being a more modern nation but during these eighteen days are all of a lot of new things to the constitution was reforms change one of the most important one where the most significant ones were term limits were lifted for the

presidency and the vice presidency obviously that means choosing paying will probably be taking an oath more times than we saw these last eighteen days because there have been a lot of sweeping changes with in how the government is going to be run a lot of reform that we haven't seen for years but also going back to the oath taking that's also something new that hasn't happened before so right now she's thinking as he mentioned in closing ceremonies making sure that the delegates here in the government realizes that they need to really kind of continue with this track of modernization. saudi arabia's crown prince mohammed bin men will meet with u.s. president donald trump but the white house sees the first of several gulf leaders who visit washington over the next few weeks and as patty kohei reports behind the scenes all this does promise he 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 qatar 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 power grab and several organizations have printed detailed accounts of the alleged torture of prominent saudis at the ritz carlton in riyadh still been so man 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 net have 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 twenty sixteen u.s. election alan fischer reports. it's claimed george need to organize the power some

at least twenty fifteen five middle east leaders were on the guest list was mohammed bin selman then 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 selma. of jordan middle east ice says leader of them to create a new power balkan 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 and it was reported to king abdullah of jordan congressional leaders in the us 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 sixty 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 leader also arrange the meeting in trump tower in december twenty sixth in the brought together the trump son in law and key advisor joe 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 eyes allegations no one provided any reaction alan fischer al-jazeera. britain's data protection wash dog is seeking a search warrant for the company in a for a company in a computer hacking scandal involving millions of facebook users cambridge analytical work for donald trump's presidential campaign and brags it's in the u.k.

the political consultancy based in london is accused of gaining an all surprised access to the data of fifty million facebook users journalists of secretly recorded executives boasting about their ability to sway elections and news of the scandal wife nearly forty billion dollars off the value of facebook's shares on monday cambridge analytics. was birthed out of a company called s.q.l. group which is the 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 michael simon is the c.e.o.

of tech company elucidated you set up and ran the in-house analytics department for barack obama's presidential campaign he says facebook's poor response to the data breach is 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 had a proactive i think you're 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 a 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 a species of the rhinoceros is a step closer towards extinction after the last male died in kenya vets ended the life of the northern white rhino called sudan when his health worsened d.n.a. samples were taken just before the forty five year old died in the hope that future technology could revive the species only to northern white females survive after decades of poaching for rhino horn. this is just

a let's get him out of the top stories in syria's eastern huta local media and activists say thirty two civilians have been killed in overnight shelling one of the rebel groups in the region j.c.l. islamabad launched a counterattack we're going to thousand people have been killed in the past month as the syrian government and its russian allies attempt to seize the area from rebel fighters. palestinian president mahmoud abbas has blamed rival political faction hamm asked for an attack on the prime minister in gaza rami hundred dollar wasn't heard when the roadside bomb exploded as his convoy entered the gaza strip bassa has also hit out of the u.s. ambassador to israel and dismissed the u.s. plan for reconciliation talks with israel. what do. we offer well wishes and sleep through to our brother from below the prime minister and merge approach the head of intelligence and the rest of our brothers from the security detail that went through this despicable incident that was done by hamas in the gaza strip

former french president nicolas sarkozy has been taken into custody just outside paris he is being questioned an investigation over irregularities in campaign finance french police are looking into suspected illegal funding from libya of sarkozy's two thousand and seven presidential bid. chinese president xi jinping has warned against any effort to divide china she made the remarks during his closing speeds in the annual parliamentary meeting it's seen as his strongest warning yet to taiwan which china considers 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 a species of the rhinoceros is a step closer towards extinction after the last male died in kenya vets ended the life of the northern white rhino called sudan when his health worsened d.n.a. samples were taken just before the forty five year old died in the hope that future technology could revive the species only two northern white females survive after

decades of poaching for ronald horn. those are the headlines of the day we're back with more in half an hour right now it's the stream. 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 while activists to live in jail just because she expressed herself hear their story on talk to al-jazeera at this time. hi i'm ali could be loud and here in the stream live on al-jazeera and you tube today india is for been loved.