u.s. and british companies have announced the biggest discovery of. but what to do with these resources is already a source of heated debate nothing much has changed they still spend most of their days looking forward to full drive this one five years on the syrians still feel battered or even those who managed to escape their country have been truly unable to escape. the world to see syria's fighters up close and personal but those behind the camera pay the price filmmaker. and behind the front lines. his life is. an exclusive documentary series the last assignment at this time.

in the united states and across europe a diplomatic rebuke to moscow. and . russia's foreign ministry says. a. poisonous by the crisis. and other news voting is underway in egypt for an election that involves.

a sweeping coordinated action the united states and e.u. countries have announced they are expelling dozens of russian officials and ordering the closure of some diplomatic missions the action is in response to the nerve agent attack on a former russian spy sergei scrapple and his daughter who were poisoned with a nerve agent in the united kingdom earlier this month let's get a sense of just how broad this move is the u.s. is sending sixty russian diplomats home including twelve stationed at the russian mission to the u.n. and has ordered the closure of russia's consulate in seattle and the european council president donald tusk says fourteen the e.u. member states are also expelling embassy staff these include for each from france germany and poland ukraine which is not an e.u. member is also taking action there expelling thirteen russian diplomats from the country we've got correspondents right across this breaking news and sasha butler

standing by for us in paris with a view from europe but first let's go she have returned see who's at the white house she had this is the largest number of diplomats that are going to be expelled sixty do we know who they are. we don't but they're being presented as intelligence operatives all sixty aren't in fact the twelve outs of the u.n. mission specifically being being accused by the un mission the us is un mission of abusing their diplomatic status it order for the purposes of espionage just aside from the wiki leaks u.s. diplomatic cables we know that the u.s. engages in that sort of thing routinely at the u.n. but that's another story so there's twelve and then forty eight from the embassy here in d.c. all of them being described as intelligence operatives in fact in a background briefing that we had just before the announcement was made official said that according to them this would leave russia with forty spies left in the

u.s. out of the original one hundred but it was aimed at not just showing solidarity with what now all branches from the states to the u.n. to the white house are saying is their belief that russia was behind the chemical attack in the u.k. and showing their solidarity with the u.k. but also trying to reduce russia's ability for covert operations on u.s. saw that live also a seattle consul general that's being shot that's because according to the white house of its proximity to a u.s. submarine base on the operations of the boeing aviation company again a sense of this picture that they're trying to build off immense russian spying operations in the u.s. which will be curtailed as a result of these explosions. if we look at this in context of this being a trump white house it's an incredibly surprising response when no one would have predicted it would go this far. well we were told last week in fact

that if there was a concerted effort by all of the u.s. as the u.s. would act we were told that over the weekend these preparations were being made and in fact on sunday evening when we were told that they would be back down simmons early this morning we kind of figured out that something like this might be up in fact actually talking about allies i think reuters is reporting now that canada is expect a russian russian diplomats as well who are also being accused of being spies by accountable so we did know this but you know you've always got to try and separate what donald trump says his actions his sense of well you know it looks like the russians did it when he when he was asked about this alleged russian attack in the u.k. with the rest of the administration the state department the pentagon the u.n. mission elsewhere where there is actually a very very bad relationship right now with russia on all of the other on all of the in all of the other all moves of government and in fact you know the latest strategy reviews everything else russia has been named as enemy number one along

with china equal number one. job list and so on so you always have to separate what trump says and what the administration is working on behind him sometimes ok indeed we'll try and you have to see every time she joins us from washington d.c. thanks for that let's go over now to natasha butler she joins us live from paris and it's interesting an extraordinary call was made to the effort also from the e.u. . yes the european union sending a very strong message to moscow that the soulsby chemical attack is unacceptable and the european union leaders believe that russia is behind it we have seen fourteen. nations actually come out and say that they are going to expel diplomats from their countries we heard a little bit earlier from the french foreign ministry they put out a statement saying that they will expel four russian diplomats from paris and those diplomats have to leave within

a week we've seen the same picture in germany for example where four diplomats are being told to leave the country there as well so definitely a coordinated response the e.u. president donald tusk also said that we could see more expulsions in the coming days or additional measures and last week at an e.u. summit in brussels the french president actually said that this chemical attack in solsbury was an attack on the e.u. sovereignty against an ally and that the countries within europe would not stand by and do nothing in he demanded a coordinated response along with other e.u. leaders and that is what we're seeing today. the diplomats being expelled from france we just heard from shihab but the ones in the u.s. were known intelligence officers will believe to be intelligence operatives do we know who the diplomats in france are. at this stage we have no further information from the foreign ministry as to who exactly will be leaving

paris and returning to moscow just that there are four diplomats this whole solsbury chemical attack though has put the french president in something of a very difficult diplomatic position because emanuel markhor when he came to power last year he said that it was very important that france has a very open and frank dialogue with russia he believes that only that kind of open dialogue with moscow couldn't come up with results the sort of results you want to see he doesn't believe in isolating russia and that is why soon after mark was elected he invited vladimir putin the first foreign leaders to be invited to paris under presidency to come to versailles he says that it's very important to keep russia one side which is different to pretty to the previous government of france all on where relations with moscow was starting to go grab the ballots was the end of all once presidency now though martin was faced with

a situation in which european leaders really felt they had to come together they had to give a coordinated response and there's no doubt that mark was now trying to put himself a little bit of the forefront all of this initiative in this strategy which is why we heard such tough words in brussels last week but it is tricky of course because he will want to continue to have a good relationship with putin and continue to talk to him about issues such as syria for example a little bit harder to do that now again thanks for joining us live from paris well as we mentioned among the fifty russians being expelled from the united states there are twelve who are accredited to russia's u.n. mission. joins us now live from the u.n. james we know one thing about these twelve. we don't know who the twelve are of these russian diplomats in fact we tried to speak to a senior russian diplomat the deputy ambassador a short time ago when he was arriving for a security council meeting that's now under way on the situation in israel and

palestine he would make no comment he said his boss the ambassador would probably be coming here in the next few hours so we will certainly be trying to speak to. about the twelve diplomats from his staff that are being kicked out and told to return to moscow that's twelve out of and i'm looking at the current version of the u.n. list ninety three accredited russian diplomats that are here at the united nations that's a very large mission from russia i can tell you many european countries have much smaller missions than that most of them have less than fifty and one diplomat i spoke to said i always meet these russians and i never quite know what they all do so that obviously have been some suspicions for some time it's worth pointing out that these diplomats that are being expelled are not to do with the chemical attack in the u.k. this is because the trumpet ministration in the statement comes from the u.s. ambassador to the u.n.

nikki haley believes that they have been involved in espionage to engaged in espionage activities are the words of the nikki haley ok is this ever happened in the history of the u.n. before. i would have to look back to the history books of soviet time to tell you whether that has happened i'm not aware of that but certainly it is going to be a difficult moment for the united nations because these are diplomats that are not here in new york. with a good agreement with the u.s. they're here accredited to the united nations and i'm sure russia is going to question the u.s. is ability to expel them the u.s. says it's in line with its agreement that it has to be the host nation of the united nations but i think there'll be a disagreement with russia all maps and i think what it will do is further poison relations here at the united nations which have deteriorated so much in recent

years particularly after the annexation of crimea are just going to get worse it's going to make it much harder i think for the russian ambassador to sit down with with the american ambassador nikki haley and try and get things done on important issues like syria and yemen we are maybe not quite in the in. days reminiscent of the cold war but it's certainly getting very chilly indeed because it's such broad coordination isn't it by countries throughout the world that it's extraordinary to me if against russia in this quarter naked way. yes and i think this is really going to anger the russian authorities and in particular president putin coming as it does after his reelection the reasons given in the u.s. for the expulsion from washington and from these u.n. diplomats are different from some of the other ones that are coming from other

parts of the world they are talking about new allegations here of espionage by these diplomats but it's either a very big coincidence or as you say this is being very carefully coordinated to put some significant pressure on russia and interesting that it is coming from the trumpet ministration which has been criticized so heavily over more than a year now for inaction on the issue of russia well they are taking action right now action that i think will particularly touch russia with regard to the united nations because one of the things that russia is very proud of and thinks is very important strategically is the fact that it has that seat as a permanent member of the united nations are affecting russia here at the u.n. i think is something that will anger moscow greatly ok james ways live from the united nations thanks very much let's take all this back to russia now and the foreign ministry that has already bell to apply in kind to this wave of expulsions

let's bring in our moscow correspondent rory challenge i mean that we can as they say we're going to expect something as pretty strong and hard coming out of moscow i mean. you know the words that have come from the foreign ministry so far in the wake of this are that this is a provocative unfriendly step by all these countries as sensually i think the russian government is going to be formulating what they're going to call a symmetrical response this is a serious and unfolding diplomatic situation for russia at the moment i mean when this news started breaking about an hour. no i was sitting warming up with a cup of coffee and so i had to start writing all of these countries and explaining russian diplomats on the back of the receipts and say i ran out of space fairly quickly since then there have been even more we've had to croatia the screen added to the list we've had canada finland except for rumania so russia is looking into

a worsening diplomatic situation it is coming on the day in which russia is already reeling from a domestic tragedy there's been a horrendous fire in siberia on sunday which has killed at least sixty people in a shopping mall there so already this is a terrible day for russia it's getting worse and i think for the russian perspective they will be looking with a great deal of surprise at the amount of insulin that supports that the united kingdom has managed to get in the wake of this poisoning and cold war donate something which russia i do not think saw coming it is important to note isn't it that moscow has always denied any involvement in that poisoning of the acts by sergei scrapple and his door saying you're. yeah the messaging from moscow has been the this could have originated in any number of other countries it

could have been coordinated by the united states it could have been done by the united kingdom they could have been some kind of contamination coming from the u.k.'s ports and down a research facility not far from soulsby there could have been poison chemicals coming from sweden from the czech republic exam all these sorts of things and an enormous amount of conjecture coming from russia about what exactly might have happened that would show that it was not russia's fault and i think domestically all of this is going to be spawned certainly as it has been over the past few weeks and certainly as similar events over the past few years have been spawn here in russia i'm looking thinking about the emmett seventeen. disaster over eastern ukraine about the russia's involvement in syria about various other things as essentially the world is against russia the west is against russia russia is abysses fortress russia russians have to resist this kind of aggressive behavior

from the west and it shows that vladimir putin is rights to be bolstering russia's nuclear defenses at a time when the security situation for russia is looking more and more perilous as its social standing in the world dorie challenge thanks very much for joining us there from moscow just getting lines from british prime minister to resume a coming in she has welcomed actions by the u.k. as allies saying it clearly demonstrates that we stand shoulder to shoulder in sending the strongest signal to russia that it cannot continue to flout international law that's the message from to ease the maze message over this wave of expulsions of diplomats that we've seen from the u.s. and the you after the poisoning of the ex russian spy sky. scrapple and his daughter in salzburg a few weeks ago. now when we return we'll bring you some of the day's other news

including election day in egypt and the outcome isn't in doubt but what it says about the country's future is much less clear. welcome back the weather across much of southern and eastern china is fine at the moment away from shanghai down to hong kong plenty of sunshine and point decent temperatures to different picture further towards the south and west with more in the way of rain and this area of rain is like the push into northern parts of vietnam as we head on through into wednesday fine for the east for yang ghonim him our temperatures there of thirty seven degrees heading across into south asia it's a largely fine picture here too although you can see the cloud across sri lanka given the threat of wanted to shower so she look at the forecast we could see gold shower facts in colombo and generally across more so in parts of india fair amount

of cloud at times but a largely dry picture is fine for the north and getting quite hot now and early highs there of thirty eight degrees the fine conditions continue to head on through into wednesday night before coming in at a maximum of forty degrees celsius so as you move across into the arabian peninsula it remains pretty warm here at the moment temperatures already kicking on towards summertime values thirty five the high in doha abu dhabi there thirty on the other side the potential little bit of cloud around the world and of the red sea but it should remain dry and fine with a temperature of thirty eight degrees in both mecca medina in fact temperatures rise a little bit as that wind continues to push up from the desert south. as the u.s. has withdrawn from the trans-pacific partnership deal others have committed to its first small countries countries with small populations such as yours is this actually a better deal without divided states signatories of the world's newest trade block

al-jazeera. again you're watching al-jazeera has a reminder of our top stories this hour u.k. prime minister tourism a is welcomed the actions of countries that have expelled russian diplomats pulteney used states and the u.s. and others of all of the departure of dozens of russian diplomats from that country also ordered the closure of russia's consulate in seattle this is in response to

the nerve agent attack on forward double agents in the united kingdom this month. gyptian have begun causing the ballots in three days of presidential voting incumbent. poised to win after several opponents withdrew saying they faced intimidation as any challenge as most of the stuff a muso has previously expressed support for sisi now the opposition says the vote is a charade and have called for a boycott. ahmed el masri is chair of the journalism program at the doha is judy joins us here on set gitai back with a little bit more about this. guy who's. challenging sisi but not really right i mean he's not a serious challenger all of the serious challengers as you mentioned in your lead up or intimidated into withdrawing or were actually arrested so he's the guy that's supposed to give sort of the new year of legitimacy to this election but he's just

a token figure up until mid january he was actually campaigning on c.c.s. behalf on the day that he announced his candidacy his facebook profile picture was a picture of the for the i.c.c. with the phrase we we love you and we support you or something to that effect written written underneath so he's not a serious candidate he doesn't have any chance to win all of the media support c.c. it's a completely singular media narrative media propaganda thousands and thousands of posters of all across egypt almost none of them so given that the wind is all but assured it's the ten out number doesn't it that seems he's going to be looking at and we'll see whether or not it just summarize is his victory what have they been doing what's he been doing to try to encourage people to come out and vote right it's interesting because the situation sort of mirrors the two thousand and fourteen election the government was terrified at that time of a low turnout they threaten people with fines they gave people free transportation

to the polls they extended voting by a day this time around there are reports from the guardian foreign correspondent who's in cairo that they've been offering payment to people to go vote one hundred pounds to poor egyptians if they go to the polls and in some cases offering people food rations if they can show proof that they've that they voted in the form of a pink stain or ink stain on their on their finger i mean when you talk about food rations and you talk about one hundred tips gyptian pounds i take it right. he did that and it just shows that just how many people are in poverty and how dire the economy is and this is something that seems he said he was supposed to be fixing right i mean his major economic projects of unfortunately failed and egypt is suffering from skyrocketing inflation which is really harmed the middle and lower classes the cost of goods has increased dramatically meanwhile salaries have only

increased incrementally so it's life is very difficult for the for the average egyptian and as you mentioned there is acute poverty it's widespread in egypt why does time here gyptian then still support a strong man image they still support sisi that's probably a question better left to psychologist frankly but you know i think we shouldn't overestimate his support i mean we don't have any scientific polling coming out of egypt right now. so the research associates last did polls in egypt at the end of two thousand and thirteen even at that time at the height of his popularity he was only supported by about half of egyptians so i'm pretty sure that the numbers have gone down pretty pretty dramatically but we don't know we don't have any way of knowing because there is no there's no you know there are no data available and we might not find out from this election either i'm done has say thanks for not coming in. now saudi arabia's minute she says it shot down seven missiles fired from

yemen hit the rebels say they carried out the strikes targeting several airports saudi authorities say at least one person was killed some advantage of it has the latest. as the rockets rained down there were moments panic. this is what's left of a missile fired by hutu rebels in yemen which targeted the saudi capital riyadh on sunday. and the fragment landed on an island on a busy road. of seven ballistic missiles were intercepted by saudi arabia's air defense multiple social media users posted videos of the u.s. patriot missile defense system used by the saudi military. at least one egyptian resident was killed in the attack as forensic teams collect evidence the saudi coalition is again blaming iran for arming the hooty fighters the cuts force who have operatives on the ground in yemen have helped the who are these and the yemeni armed forces to basically augment the capability of the missiles in order to make

them more capable and who they say you know if you don't negotiate with us we will continue with more sophisticated weaponry more missiles being fired and there will be more dead on the side of saudi arabia which is something that can sustain these types of attacks continue despite the saudi coalition announcing in two thousand and fifteen that most of the route is ballistic arsenal was destroyed the objective is to continue to look for this guy and of missiles targeted destroyed. we believe that we destroy most of these abilities thousands gathered in the capital sanaa to mark three years since the saudi led coalition launched a military campaign to fight the who these in support of yemen's government just before the missile attack the hooty leader talked about his group's capabilities we . will use a long range drones which have excellent military capabilities we will activate the military institutions in an unprecedented way and open up more opportunities to

recruit the children and men of our people to fight. the hoodies of been sharing images of the destruction caused by saudi attacks in yemen they say their missiles are acts of revenge. these ten thousand people on all sides have been killed in yemen and millions more suffer in what the u.n. calls the worst humanitarian crisis in recent years and through all this the war continues some of the job aid out there. former president is on his way to court after being detained in a german prison was arrested on sunday after traveling through finland and denmark he faces charges of rebellion and sedition in spain from last year's accession vote in catalonia the court will decide if to remain in custody with pending extradition proceedings. united states and south korea have agreed to revise a trade pact shoppy criticized by president trump it will mean south korea cutting

its steel exports to the u.s. by thirty percent but it will avoid the heavy tariffs after terrorist being imposed on other countries and u.s. automakers will be allowed to export fifty thousand vehicles a year to. the usual number. of. uncertainties in the global market due to the united states treat actions against china the agreement has moved to uncertainties the u.s. steel duty exemption and the united states are free trade agreements before the agreement provisions automakers in the u.s. shipped more than ten thousand vehicles the spy the three being twenty five thousand but they are allowed to bring in fifty thousand vehicles. however china has called on the world trade organization to take action against u.s. trade tariffs targeting china's alleged theft of intellectual property members to work together and quote look this beast back into the cage of the rules that comes

after the us president announced tariffs starting sixty billion dollars worth of chinese goods china says it's willing to hold talks with the u.s. to resolve trade differences and growing. regarding economic and trade issues between china and the us china is willing to negotiate to manage and control our differences on the basis of mutual respect and be in effect our daughter dialogue has always been on penn. the high court in sierra leone has ruled that a presidential election runoff can now be held on tuesday and then truman junction to delay the vote was granted on saturday after a request by the ruling all people's congress it wants allegations of voting irregularities investigated the opposition has criticized the move as a delaying tactic and want it could provoke large scale violence facebook c.e.o. mark zuckerberg has taken out full page newspaper ads to apologize for what he calls a breach of trust the ad say he's sorry more wasn't done when data was leaked in

two thousand and fourteen he says limits are being placed on the data that can collect from uses the firm is also investigating apps that have access to large amounts of data technology journalist and author marc saltzman says facebook is in damage control mode. they're doing what they can to plug in the holes they need more transparency they need to review and over you know totally over you know redo their entire security and privacy protocols look them over and if they wanted to you know keep this you know what close to two billion user accounts they have to have more transparency and perhaps more importantly you know once the users leave then the advertisers are. even jump ship also so this is a big thing that they need to do so is it enough it's something you know that the silence right after this story broke by was deafening because it took them a few days to come forward clearly he was figuring out what this p.r. team how to come out so they did is it enough we'll have to see they lost quite

a bit of money in their market value last last week about fifty billion dollars u.s. . and without it there are these are the top stories new prime and situation may as well come the actions of the countries that have expelled russian diplomats fourteen e.u. states and the u.s. have expelled a slew of russian diplomats and on this it's in response to the nerve agent attack on form a double agent second script and the united kingdom at this month u.s. president trumpeted sixty russian diplomats to meet and he's also close the russian consulate in seattle voting is underway in egypt in a presidential election widely expected to attend abdul fattah el-sisi to power a full military general is running virtually unchallenged after opponents withdrew they may face intimidation critics say the vote is a charade and have called for

a boycott saudi arabia says it shot down seven missiles fired from yemen and the rebels have claimed responsibility for the strikes which talented athletes in the capital riyadh and three other cities saudi authorities say at least one person was killed. and thousands of movies are rallying in santa to mark three years since the saudi led air campaign began control large parts of yemen including the capital saudi arabia's bombing campaign in support of the government which began in march two thousand and fifteen has failed to push the rebels out of sun up and cause large numbers of civilian casualties sparking criticism from rights groups and the united nations for a president is on his way to caught on to being detained in a german prison or was arrested on sunday after travelling through finland and denmark charges of rebellion and sedition in spain stemming from last year's accession vote in catalonia the court will decide to remain in custody with pending

execution proceedings and the high court in sierra leone has ruled that a presidential election runoff cannot be held on tuesday an interim injunction to delay the vote was granted on saturday after a request by the ruling all people's congress it wants allegations of voting irregularities investigated the opposition has criticized the move as a delaying tactic unwanted could provoke large scale violence opposition. buyer won the first round by around fifteen thousand votes. those are your headlines do stay with us more news continues after talked out there there were seven candidates vying for egypt's presidency. there are just two and with president abdul fattah el-sisi for his second term in power international rights groups are calling this election. we'll bring you the latest coverage and analysis of the egypt election on al-jazeera.