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this is al-jazeera. launch has i'm sick of this is the news hour live from doha here's what's coming up in the next sixty minutes a mysterious v.i.p. visitor in beijing fueling speculation about north korea and nuclear diplomacy. russia's president visits the site of a shopping center fire that killed sixty four people angry protesters are demanding justice for the victims. a second day of holes in egypt's election which president had to fight to his sisi is certain to win. and civil rights campaigners mourn the death of linda brown helped bring an end to racial segregation in u.s. schools.

hello it is a visit shrouded in mystery and rife with speculation there's no word as to who exactly was on the train that left north korea for the chinese capital and is now on its way back but if it is who many believe it would be north korean leader kim jong un's first foreign trip since coming to power in two thousand and eleven a launch convoy with heavy security was seen on the streets with some reports saying it was a high level north korean delegation china's foreign ministry has denied any knowledge of the visit we've got our correspondent kathy novak standing by in seoul but first let's go to adrian brown in beijing so adrian what are they saying at the moment there as there been any light shed a toll on this visit. you know this is had an almost sort of comic feel to it today especially at the ministry of foreign affairs

on tuesday afternoon she arrived in the room with a sort of expression on her face that said i know exactly what you want to ask me but any questions about whether the mystery guest really was kim jong un were batted away she was asked the question four times and again she simply refused to say she said i have absolutely no information about your question well when the press conference came to an end i remember this news conference was happening just as the train carrying this mystery v.i.p. guest was leaving beijing railway station just down the road i managed to ask the foreign ministry spokeswoman how ching yen one more time about why she the spokeswoman for the foreign ministry was unable to say who this guest was. is it possible that you wouldn't know that you can drive on this here. everything that worked for me. but the really big chill it's here it's here

and you know you. see it seems to me you have more information i've been getting in the house of possible places how's that possible for you to do i'll be there for you. so all good humored but no answers to the one question that we wanted to answer i think that you know all along china has felt that it doesn't want president trump to get all the limelight when he's due to hold his meeting with kim jong un before may china you know really wants to remind the world that it's been taking the lead role than enforcing sanctions against north korea something it didn't want to do because it's always favored of course negotiations so has president xi jinping been also in a sense trying to steal the thunder away from president trump if indeed this was kim jong un who has been in beijing if it was them of course this will be the first

time that the north korean leader has stepped outside of his country since becoming leader of north korea more than six years ago and during that time of course relations between beijing and pyongyang have gone from good to basically disastrous because of p.r. yang's repeated refusal to halt its missile and nuclear programs but possibly now normal service has been resumed and the leadership of the two countries are perhaps once more talking to one another adrian thanks for that adrian brown live for us in beijing or kathy novak is in seoul for us so kathy the chinese as we just heard they're being very tight lipped about who was visiting north korea and the immense security measures surrounding the visit was it what are people in north in in south korea rather saying. well if the south korean government knows who was on that train it is certainly not revealing that information publicly this speculation has

been swirling as you might imagine here in south korea it's been the biggest news story throughout the day earlier in the day we're hearing reports from local media that perhaps it was kim jong un's sister on board that train of course she was the first member of the kim family to come to south korea since kim jong un took power and more recently to south korea newspapers have reported sourcing intelligence sources that it was kim jong un on that train but the national intelligence service the spy agency here is not confirming those reports and spokespeople for the government are neither confirming nor denying these reports that it could either be kim jong un or kim jong un sr but a spokesperson for the presidential blue house did note that any improvement in times between pyongyang and beijing would be a positive signal ahead of planned summits between the leaders of south korea and

north korea and indeed the leaders of north korea and the united states of course the government of mungy and has long been pushing a policy of more engagement and more dialogue with north korea and as far south korea is concerned it's full steam ahead towards the planned summit between president and kim jong un next month in fact there are high level talks between the two koreas planned for this thursday ahead of that summit kathy novak live for us there in seoul thanks kate. now russian president vladimir putin is blaming criminal negligence for the shopping mall fire that killed sixty four people on sunday forty one of those who died were children who didn't went to the side of the fire in the eastern city of camera in siberia on tuesday people they're angry and they're calling for justice for the victims and investigators say a smoke alarm system in the mall was not working and the exit doors were blocked four people have been detained including the head of the company operating the more

. troops who what happened here is not a military action it's not an unexpected release of messina to mine people and the children came here to get some rest we're talking about demographic decline and losing so many people to what do to criminal negligence due to carelessness. or correspondent rory challenge his life for us now in moscow so rory as we said there the russian president went to the site himself and this is given this is not something that he normally does what sort of a message does that send. i think it shows that the kremlin is taking this very very seriously indeed in knows that this is a very sensitive moment and that anger is running high not just in a matter of a but around the country in a week in which there are two crises which of gather pace very fast there's

obviously the fire but there's also the diplomatic expulsions from embassies around the world it's interesting that vladimir putin has chosen the fire as the issue that needs presidential attention most quickly. and motion so that he's gone there basically and is going there is kind of you know that kind of goods are figure he talks about criminal negligence and about carelessness as being responsible for these deaths but he must know somewhere in his hearts that because he's been at the top of russian power politics for eighteen years it's a system that he has some responsibility for and therefore when you know kids are being burnt to death in their cinema seats and when eleven year old kids have to jump from a four story window of

a burning shopping mall to escape the fire that's just killed his whole family that's something that the kremlin and write him a person has to handle very very carefully or a challenge life for us there in moscow thankfully. now more than twenty countries including the u.s. and canada and several european nations have expelled russian diplomats it is a coordinated response to a nerve agent attack on a former russian spy in britain which the west is blaming on moscow the u.s. has shut down the russian consulate in seattle and all of the expulsion of sixty diplomats including twelve attach the united nations in new york more than fifty russians are being expelled by other countries most of them in europe or ukraine which is involved in its own conflict with moscow is expelling thirteen russians and moscow says it will respond she has britain see reports from washington. the trumpet ministration had said it would expel russian diplomats if its allies also

did so in a coordinated action and on monday that coordination was revealed countries across western and eastern europe and canada joined the us in the expulsions the british prime minister expressed her gratitude international solidarity following what the u.k. alleges was a russian nerve agent attack on a former russian double agent and his daughter in an english town this is the largest collective expulsion of russian intelligence officers in history. i have found great solidarity from our friends and partners in the e.u. north america and nato and beyond over the past three weeks as we have confronted the aftermath of the soulsby incident the russian ambassador to the u.s. expressed his concern the deal would she would never say union leaders that they meet again what the united states of america is doing today they are destroying what little remained of us russian ties i would add that all the responsibility for ruining russian american relations is on the united states of america. sloma however a different tone was struck on twitter the russian embassy asking the public for

suggestions on which u.s. consulate to now close in russia u.s. officials said there expulsions weren't just about standing with the u.k. but about curtailing russia's covert operations against u.s. national security they presented all of those being expelled from the russian embassy the seattle consulate and the u.n. as part of a pool of some one hundred agents moscow currently has in the country administration officials here said that with these expulsions some forty russian spies would remain in the u.s. but that russia's covert operations would be severely curtailed in all three statements from the white house the state department and the u.s. is u.n. mission there was unequivocal agreement with the u.k. that russia was behind the chemical weapon attack something that donald trump or sounded less convinced of in his statement so far she has. washington. iran's revolutionary guard has denied saudi accusations it is all mean hooty rebels in yemen on sunday that these five several missiles across the border targeting saudi

arabia's capital riyadh iran has been accused of sending weapons to the in the past but a report by the iranian news agency to the revolutionary guard saying yemenis are capable of producing their own weapons. is live for us in beirut so. what more do we have on this. well it seems that you would like me to talk about syria and the evacuations that are under way in eastern new batch of fighters and their family members are about to leave already one of the biggest convoys left in the early hours of the morning up to six thousand seven hundred people in one hundred buses according to the russian defense ministry a total of thirteen thousand people have left the southern pocket in the past three days and last week five thousand people left the town of harassed so we're talking

about eighteen thousand people displaced arriving in the northwestern province of idlib which is under the control of the opposition they're arriving with nothing really some of them are being housed in mosques and in some areas camps are being set up for for these people to live now of course there is still one pocket under the control of the rebel faction in eastern that is the town of. what we understand is negotiations are still underway with the russian military on a possible surrender deal so eighteen thousand people displaced as a result of this bombing campaign against eastern time the pro-government alliance really close to consolidating its control of these suburbs just outside damascus so you know what a life for us there in beirut. plenty more ahead. on the news hour including. my sister was.

new wave of rebel recruits are taking on the military. the disappearance of iraq's once lush forests. will examine its impact on local communities. lost at sea a sailor is swept overboard in and around the world details coming up with joe. now a second day of voting is underway in egypt's presidential election which the incumbent . is certain to win opponents have called for a boycott after many candidates withdrew saying they faced intimidation the president's only rival is. was known as a supporter of. sure is a professor of security studies at the institute for graduate studies he joins me now in the studio thanks for being with us now let me ask you first of all what do

you expect i mean the outcome of this is not really in any doubt is it but i guess the bigger question here is the turnout how how important is the voter turnout for president in terms of giving him another mandate to govern this very important that's why you have most of the state sponsored medio the state owned media and the private media urging voters to come you have religious faith was saying that if you did not vote then you are a it which means i had to take off some sort. of more or less the nationalist media saying that if you'd not vote then you are treated to a lot of pressure on trade in general fifty nine million of them to turn and vote thing is we know that egypt. with these very widespread during the the only time when there was like real elections real free and fair elections was between twenty

seven and twenty thirteen the maximum that went to vote back then was twenty six million in the parliamentary elections of twenty years twelve twenty seven. and this was basically half like almost fifty percent of the of the voters turned out and this is when there was like again freedom multiple candidates free and fair elections and so on. in this case i don't think there will be a high turnout i think be very very surprised if there was high turnout we know that the thirteen thousand in a total centers will not match the fifty nine million voters so we know already that if there was a high turnout you will see many many queues over these ridiculous centers and it will take more than three days to cover pretty much half of this half of the fifty nine million voters so i believe there will be low turnout but. also the official. statement will be very different from that they will probably say that there is a high turnout although they will not be able to prove that on the ground and it's been it's been a quite

a tumultuous seven years in egypt since since those eighteen days that brought down president hosni mubarak in twenty eleven how would you compare where things are now in egypt in the current dared to the mubarak era. it's probably in terms of freedoms and even if total freedoms it's worse last election was into saddam in fife you had a few not very serious contenders but you had once you discontent which was a minority and he garnered some. significant amount of votes and i think that's why he end up in jail if you do it in the water afterwards back then if i remember correctly got around eighty percent of the vote or allegedly eighty percent of the vote but there was still very low voter turnout in that elections right now it's there are no serious contenders the oldest contenders either are or are in jail like former chief of staff general simon and all were very much pressured to hand

it over basically from the u.a.e. to egypt kind of a house arrest like general much a few and then you have the ones who are coming from that evolutionary ranks like. pressure to and then finally saying that there's no point in contesting elections so most of the relatively serious contenders were marginalized and you have only one contender who we all know that he see his party endorse the presidency in more or less like a facade or a declaration for this elections when you talk to many supporters of president sisi they say that what he has given the country is stability which is something that it has lacked for a long time. and that that's that's the sense that they that they get from him that he is this strong leader and this is what the what the country needs what what do you say to that gets more psychological than rational numbers completely different story center which is an official body officials think tank issued

a report on how many operations happened in the country on the c.c. between twenty fourteen and twenty sixteen there was one hundred one thousand one hundred sixty five operations this means an operation almost per day and a half undersea disses unprecedented. the level of the insurgency that was going in egypt never happened on the backcourt on the military council or on the morsi some of the worst terrorist operations happened under the sea the bombing of the metra jet flight in october twenty fifteen the worst the second worst terrorist attack in the world in twenty seven thousand happened under. attack over three hundred people were killed so in terms of this debility and we were talking still about about five organizations that are operating on the egyptian soil from sinai to to the western desert so i think in terms of numbers and facts on the ground this is not true in terms of patrolling that image or being a strongman of military general cracking down on opposition executing or sentencing

to death over eight hundred people curtailing freedoms and sending this image of this maybe psychologically comfortable for his supporters mainly for his opposition of course this is very. easy but that it is on the ground see that no it is not a stable the on the mubarak it was most able under the military council it was mostly a relatively speaking and even under morsi the things were. much more stable compared to the situation to the situation now in terms of the violence in terms of purely political violence kamil violence is a different story good to get your thoughts on this omar sure thanks so much for being with us thank you now myanmar has shown off its military strength with a parade in the capital armed forces day now in its seventy third year honors myanmar's resistance to japanese occupation during world war two this year celebrations coming at a controversial time with the army accused of ethnic cleansing against the

country's muslims. and in myanmar's northern catchin state rebels say they faced similar violence for years when he reports. in northern new recruits are joining an armed struggle here there's no sign of nationwide peace that myanmar's government says it seeks instead the rebel kitchen independence army is preparing for the next attack from the me and maher army. they burnt down the houses shoot people and rape women these are three tactics they use all the time that tactics the world has become aware of in the western state of rakhine where hundreds of thousands of ring you have fled to bangladesh because of attacks by security forces the united nations and others have called it ethnic cleansing the kitchin say they have faced similar violence for years it's estimated around one hundred thousand are in camps along the border with china because of fighting between the kitchen independence army and the myanmar army which some still call

berm e.-s. referring to me and miles form a name a cease fire which had lasted for seventeen years broke down in two thousand and eleven and the battle for control of the resource rich area restarted. and so did the attacks on civilians which kitchen soldiers say are continuing. my mother or my sister was killed by burma's army my house was burnt down and very sad and feel helpless so i made the decision to join the army to fight back myanmar's military generals rarely speak publicly while the government consistently denies that soldiers carry out abuses when the party of me and my state councillor own son suchi won the election in two thousand and fifteen she said peace in the ethnic minority areas was her priority but negotiations with the rebel groups have stalled the kitchen independence army doesn't agree with the process and has instead joined sever.