and ports of entry into the u.k. particularly focused on flights coming in from russia and they obviously feel that they've made a visual connection we don't believe that they've named any suspects or certainly haven't been in the arrests but clearly this investigation taking a long and in conjunction with it of course another investigation into a second not a truck poisoning using this nerve agent or bundle of nerve agents called knob which are produced in soviet times a woman named dawn sturges died earlier this month we believe from spraying a quantity of nabi talk directly onto her skin from a used perf human bottle now police are will be looking at where she may have got that bottle or partner is currently in intensive care where they may have got that bottle whether that came from the same batch of navi truckers that used to poison the strip aisles at those lines of investigation feeding into the st paul investigation and quite possibly now producing new leads we await more from the police well plenty more ahead here on the al-jazeera news hour including a victory for levanon l.g.b. t. community it signals new hope for gay rights. the south korean court gets two

hundred million dollars to the families of victims of the ferry disaster that killed more than three hundred passengers. here truth doesn't. even and you are not alone the victims of the biggest sexual abuse scandal in sport receive an award for their courage and speaking out. we'll have more on that later . than the families of the victims of a ferry disaster in south korea are to get two hundred million dollars in compensation for the first time a course rule the government and ferry operator are liable for the deaths of three hundred four passengers and crew but some grieving relatives are unhappy with the ruling florence louis has more in the capital seoul. the say well disaster

caused months of mourning the ferry was on a routine voyage off the southwest coast of south korea when it capsized four years ago three hundred four people mostly students on a school trip were killed grief turned to anger when investigators found the vessel was structurally unsound overloaded and capsized because it was speeding as it changed course for the first time a court in seoul acknowledged the government's liability and ordered the state and the ferry operator to pay around two hundred ten thousand dollars to each family relatives say the judge's ruling doesn't go far enough. we are not pleased that the court has acknowledged liability we take it as a matter of course we wanted the court to explicitly state what this country had done wrong and to what extent the company should be responsible for their actions not whether or not they were guilty the civil lawsuit was brought by the relatives of one hundred eighteen victims they had rejected the government's earlier offer of

compensation because they wanted a legal ruling on the government's liability. lawsuits advice on evidence and we had difficulty providing liability with the information we could gather such a simple media reports so we needed further objective evidence from the relevant institutions such as a special investigation committee the say was sinking caused whitebread outrage not just over poor safety standards but also to the president at the time park and pay for his slow response that provoked the largest ever protests in south korea which eventually led to him pietschmann last year lawrence louis al-jazeera. one top story as well the israeli government having one in education in parliament to allow it to call itself a nation an israeli nation state a jewish state of course. many detractors from the palestinian arab world also weighing in with their opinions let's join gil hoffman he's from the jerusalem post

chief political correspondent of you with us on al-jazeera again mr hoffman i mean many observers that have been quoted across the media spectrum inside and outside of his were critical of the new law describing it as nothing more than apartheid i mean such language is something that tel of eve is going to find hard to play down in global capitals. well in apartheid you had no black serving in their parliament from nine hundred forty eight until one thousand nine hundred four in israel you have eighteen arabs in the parliament and have had in every parliament we've had here this bill ends up not harming them at all you have arabic specifically protected in the bill there were attempts to add things that might have been considered racist they were not included in the final draft of the bill need to make sure they wouldn't be included in the final draft of the bill this could have been a lot more controversial than it ended up being so how does it actually benefit the

arab population of the palestinian population within israel and this bill which they get out of it. i have the i have the bill in front of me and it's specifically guarantees the rights of arabic as a special language it guarantees that citizens of israel no matter what their religion is and their nationality can act to preserve their culture and their heritage and their language and their identity there are things here that are bad for jews and there are things here that protect arabs and i think that that hasn't been emphasized enough in your reporting is this is this about show is this about pres prime minister netanyahu shoring up his political base he's under a lot of pressure from right wing parties to make sure that he toes the line and and sees to be leading a government the broad approach jewish agenda look there have been thirteen basic laws that have been passed in israel over the last

seventy years all preserving israel as a democratic state this is the first and only one that looks at israel as a jewish state and puts into law what that means and it's now doesn't need this politically knitting i was doing extremely well politically right now there is no real serious competition to him and so he did this because he thought this was right it's not really that a political thing and i don't see it harming israel too much internationally either because the more people look at the facts the more they realize that this bill is largely declarative largely reinforcing things that have been true for seventy years and doesn't really end up hurting anyone reinforcing the now it's in favor of the jewish community i mean is there anything in this law that is detrimental to the jewish community and we seem to have lost good health in the ok so first of all how do you find great mr hope to have you visual problems but we can hear you very clearly so we will continue what is detrimental about this particular bill when it

comes to the jewish community is there anything that sort of anti jewish innit. ok so the law in israel right now is that an arab community can borrow a jew from living in it and a jewish community cannot bar an arab from living in it and there are members of parliament who try to change that in and allow there to be jewish communities they can bar arabs from living there as well and that was change that was voted out. so there is something that could have been harmful to arabs that was removed from the bill. all of the rights that there have been provided to the arab community for seventy years are reinforced and not taken away by the bill so it really is much ado about nothing sir well you say that mr hoffman a few moments ago you said that prime minister netanyahu didn't need this bill everything's absolutely fine but the full the son of

a late prime minister from the look could party benny begin son of menachem begin said this isn't a decision the good leadership should be making a wall actually of a growing disconnect with human rights so the alarm bells are ringing within the look could parties who shouldn't prime minister netanyahu be aware of what is party members m.p.'s are actually thinking ok so and then the other twenty nine members of the knesset inside the party voted in favor of it and that just shows what israeli democracy is i ask you how many jews are there in arab parliaments around the middle east how many jewish states are there besides israel that this is the only one you've got twenty two arab states fifty seven muslim states there can be a jewish state in the world without it being that much of a controversy that a jewish state exists well we should see how this pans out over the next few weeks and that's for the moment thanks so much for joining us from west jerusalem. i were in court in lebanon on home it's

a court ruling pardon me in lebanon on homosexuality is being held as a victory for lesbian gay bisexual and transgender people gay sex is considered a criminal offense under a lebanese law prohibiting sexual acts considered to be against nature convictions carry a twelve month prison sentence the appeals court has acquitted nine people prosecuted for being gay judges ruled that the law and shouldn't apply to homosexuality now the appeals court is the second highest in lebanon and its ruling could influence others in the lower courts georgia as easy is executive director for the arab foundation for freedoms and equality says the court ruling is a major step for lebanon and for the middle east i mean i think it's important to understand that for us to change the law we have to receive it what i mean really with the parliament or through court but throughout the recent years our parliament has the complete its functional change was practically impossible and most of the

those of human rights have been through courts i think of thirty four which condemns natural intercourse has been used against their jewish community the article is too varied. it's going to perdition is actually a very complicated so having this kind of rooting for the court that be it saying that this i think is cannot be used to beat the community that is a huge step towards changing the meaning of this though it is only many other countries don't have specific laws against homosexuality but they do communism six worked out the difference because that what i would say this is the case of egypt and jordan for example that have been driven insane appreciate that we will not achieve its people in jail that we made them definitely the first country and we're hoping that this will create the domino effect gets onto other countries as well. well the reports of troops in eritrea are always drawing from the border with ethiopia gesture of reconciliation coincides with the expected arrival of ethiopia's ambassador to eritrea for the first time in twenty years the appointment

of red one hussein follows the reopening of the eritrean embassy in addis ababa few days ago relations are being restored to the leaders of both countries agreed to a peace deal following war over the disputed border twenty years ago mohammed out has more from addis ababa. a statement from there to try and press agency saying the move to withdraw their forces from the border was an act of reconciliation one meant to force goodwill between the two countries the statement also appealed to all false value is the ability of the horn of africa region to help at it and if you appear move beyond senseless wall and in a move that shows if your people could be thinking about following suit and withdrawing its forces from the border the parliament has been called from recess to discuss on friday what officials say. related to the peace process between military and if you appear to be as also appointed an ambassador on far as they trust is mr one the same

a former minister for communications and the current ambassador to ireland. footage showing one of the french president's top security officers beating a student protester in may has triggered a fierce public backlash in a video that emerged on wednesday evening alexander is seen dragging the protester on the ground before hitting him in the head several times and i was not on duty at the time but he was given permission permission to observe police operations the government has launched an investigation but a member macro is refusing to comment. more on this from senior guy correspondent in paris a controversial video that seems to got politicians very angry. what . the hell and simply because according to them they say that it is just yet another indication of just how entitle the president is and how his behavior is

getting more and more that of behavior of a king rather than a french president who was supposed to support the values of liberty equality and fraternity and what got these opposition politicians really angry is the fact that this. alexander. should have been reported to the police as a public servant that was the duty when the information about mr better lie was relayed to the french president he said that he should be suspended and of course many saying that this is simply just far too. easy a way for the man in question to get off and that really he should face should face of full investigation and some are even calling him to face jail time for what he's done so really it's course the now not just left wing politicians but also those on the right including the national front so well of course questions are going to be asked about the sort of the procedures surrounding what we see in this video right

now but they'll be asking why government has tried to really keep it under wraps for the last two to three months quite a positive. approval rating and i suppose he doesn't want to be dented. well precisely that he's been riding on a high internationally he's been. applauded for sort of facing off. the american president donald trump he's presided over a very successful world cup for france as well he's also really been seem to keen to be a relaxed kind of of liberal but in actual fact of course there have been certain occasions where perhaps they have been cracks on that surface and where he's been caught saying things for example how he's had to reduce how he wants to reduce costs to the welfare service very important institutional regard is extremely

important institution here in france as well so that's really sort of indicating exactly how really the politics of mr merkel really side less so with that kind of thinking of keeping a large welfare state but he's also been accused of sort of having sort of more of a haughty manner more regard for the office so really that that this is an opportunity really or has been opportunistically use for politicians to really sort of kick it into mr mack when he has been writing high on the success of france recently and they're sort of determined to put that dent in to try and bring him down to earth as it were we will see what transpires with this video plays out in the in the days ahead for a moment when you you think. well chinese premier league has ordered officials to speed up efforts to cut the prices of cancer drugs there's been intense debate across the country after a film about smuggling cheaper medication from india to china became a box office hit from beijing adrian brown explains. well this is

a film that's really struck a chord here in china and this is one of the many cinemas in beijing that is now showing dying to survive some of us say that it's destined to become china's movie of the year it is based on the real life story of a chinese shopkeeper who imports drugs from india to sell at a profit to leukemia patients here in china who can't afford to buy those drugs in china at first he's in it for the money but gradually compassion creeps in as he realizes all their lives could be saved so what impact has this film had on people who've seen it. i cried many times they feel me is very a list pick is shows many problems about the medical care system in china. many ordinary people cannot afford expensive medicine i can feel their desperation this is a sensitive subject because cancer it's estimated claims the lives of some four million

people a year in china it is the country's biggest killer and some medical experts attribute some of those cancers to the sort of pollution we have in beijing today pollution that also afflicts other towns and cities across china dying to survive has now caught the attention of china's premier league who is said more has to be done to improve treatment for cancer patients in china it is an acknowledgment that inequality exists in china's health care system the issue has now started a big debate online but for now the censors appear to be holding off. but it's time for them here's richard sort of rather strange weather it's going to navy air but you have a map of north africa behind you i do think you. well i just thought this over context where there is none talk about temperatures but you have to put it in context so yes it has been a very warm day so hail in north africa and cheers there with a maximum of thirty degrees and cheers at thirty six degrees north but what about

the weather at forty six degrees north or fifty six degrees north or sixty six degrees north once you get into the arctic circle where if you're watching yesterday you'll notice reporter some incredible temperatures if they're right in the far north of finland the temperature of thirty two point seven recorded on choose day but if you look at temperature of the last twenty four hours central northern sweden temperatures thirty two point eight finland again coming in with thirty three point seven much to buy somewhere at sixty eight degrees north thirty three point seven degrees celsius just emotions or temperature way up in the arctic circle the problem with all this of course is that. it's really hammered the grazing particularly in sweden these horses being see the rip sticking that they're really suffering because of grazing to extremely poor because of lack of rain now we've also got wildfires to some we've got more than forty wildfires burning across sweden alone the more in norway and in finland and the problem we have at the

moment is that we've got a frontal system and this frontal system is giving some severe storms across parts of norway and sweden which could well ignite even more wildfires across the region thanks richard well still ahead here on the news our. as the leader of a country would have to hold him responsible more damage control who has disastrous helsinki summit with vladimir putin. also five years old we examine the successes and failures of the australian program to prevent refugees reaching the mainland. liverpool could be about to break the transfer record as they pursue a new goalkeeper that needs coming up with tatiana in school. and monday put it well on i j z the us and british companies have announced the biggest discovery of natural gas in west africa but what to do with these untapped natural resources is already

a source of heated debate nothing much has changed they still spend most of their days looking forward to for the dry river beds like this one five years on the syrians still feel battered or even those who managed to escape their country haven't truly been able to escape the war. in iraq waste inefficiencies and a growing population i've led to do in living water supplies. have been determined to extract water from any source possible this is what we see as a result now of the country's future it's. attitude to change and innovative solutions are being followed the people in power investigates iran's water crisis on al-jazeera.

welcome back you're watching the al-jazeera news our i'm so whole robin a reminder of our top news stories of two towns in syria's it live province have been evacuated after a deal was struck between opposition fighters and pro-government forces pro regime forces and their families were bussed out of florida and in the northwest the shia towns have been under siege by sunni rebels football and for years. also british detectives are reported to have identified russian suspects who poisoned a former double agent and his daughter the presidency ation says police have security camera video of a nerve agent being planted the kremlin denies involvement in attacking sergei and us four months ago. and israel has passed a controversial law that for the first time declares the country to be the nation

state of the jewish people the legislation also makes hebrew the only official language downgrading the status of arabic class it encourages the building of jewish only communities. let's get more on this with more on bashar al jazeera senior political analyst he joins me now live from london marwan a short time ago gil hoffman on from the jerusalem post and he said that this law doesn't actually hurt israeli palestinians tall. the. israeli. delusion or the course of the deniers apart this issue has been going on for seventy years. you know israelis have been saying that they are. the only democracy in the middle east even in the first twenty years of the state when palestinians were under military government in fact and later on in the for the following twenty years under the strong hands of the intelligence and security

agencies of israel and throughout the last seventy years palestinians have seen their land confiscated their rights confiscated their livelihood destroyed and certainly have seen their brethren across the borders palestinian refugees in their hundreds of thousands millions not allowed to go back to their homes within israel simply because of the racist policies of certain israeli governments so all in all this new bill basically enshrines all of the discrimination of the last seventy years in one law you can say that everything that's went wrong over the last seventy years that was kept under the carpet is now coming through in one bill that makes sure or underlines jewish supremacy over other minorities notably the palestinian arabs indeed it will also affect the

the the bedouin it will also affect the druze that are part of that community but why legislate in this particular fashion because it doesn't seem to lead to any avenues that would obviously be a route to a peace deal or a way of getting the palestinian palestinians in the future to the negotiating table. well let's just say that this. jewish nation state bill has more to do with netanyahu than it has to do with brown it has more to do with donald trump than it has to do with moses this is not about history and religion and certainly not about peace per se it is about netanyahu taking advantage of the existence of president netanyahu president trump in order to pass those discriminatory laws because his own coalition insists on them you have now openly vocal racist parties in the israeli coalition that has been

putting pressure on prime minister netanyahu who himself is of course an extreme zionist in order to pass these laws that block the way of any peace deal moving forward with the palestinians that would allow any refugees to come back to their homeland or allow for the opening of the question of east jerusalem and its becoming a capital of a future palestinian state so if you will this is part and parcel of a larger greater radical zionist march within israel taking advantage of the term presidency again let me remind viewers around the world that . president obama opposed this sort of legislation because again this has been going on for some decades now in fact if this this very particular law has

passed in its first reading in two thousand and eleven and again in two thousand and fourteen but president obama's objection to it as well as certain coalition members of the netanyahu government or previous governments opposed it now it's sort of the perfect timing that the now is under pressure and he wants to pass this bill president trump approves this bill. if there is going to be any deal of a censure coming forward israel has already protecting its most extreme. vision of peace that will allow it took tick tock total control of jerusalem total control of the arabs within its own borders and expand settlements illegal settlements in occupied west bank and just briefly a moment how do you then assess the scenario where you have objections from us to base jewish groups who oppose the slow and the policy that's being formulated by the current government in tel aviv and then from within israel you know we talk

about the voices that are against this the voices within israel you have the son of the former and late prime minister benny begin actually saying the son of menachem begin saying that this isn't the decision that the look could leadership should be making and he warns of a growing disconnect with human rights i mean these are the alarm bells ringing within the look could party. absolutely and i think this is a fundamental a very important question to be asking in the coming days simply because as i said earlier this is not about or moses this is about netanyahu and trump this is about modern zionism it's not about judaism it's not about jews in fact as we all know more jews voted for barack obama than the jews who voted for prime minister netanyahu the jews are not necessarily abiding by the new law or netanyahu is views

that that is that represents all the jewish people in fact almost half of the knesset the israeli parliament voted against this law and certainly a lot of the jewish community in the united states that number more than the jews in israel or poses that type of policies from prime minister netanyahu because like many begin like even president rivlin by the way president of it himself the israeli president is certainly a far more liberal like many big and more liberal than netanyahu and his coalition partners so there are liberal jewish voices there are humanist jewish voices there are progressive jewish voices who do not prescribe to that type of discriminatory slash as some would say a racist policies by the new coalition government in israel we'll see how this transpires for the moment to moment bashar our senior political analyst thanks for joining us from london well sitting in the region garza's health ministry says one

person has been killed in an attack by the israeli army on palestinians flying burning balloons towards israel for nearly four months protesters in gaza have been flying kites carrying petrol bombs over the border fence not the group hamas has told protesters they have every right to keep doing it that's despite reports the israeli army is preparing for an offensive along the gaza strip if the kites continue to be flown. let's head to the u.s. where there's even more confusion about what donald trump believes or doesn't believe about russian interference in the twenty sixteen u.s. presidential election the latest twist see him at odds with his aides and contradicting his own statements can really help that joins us now from washington d.c. to try and ravel what's being going on kimberly how are americans reacting to the sort of the latest wave rings by the president when it comes to election interference. i think we have to look at what's driving the

conversation that is the president his statements himself as you point out very confusing and changing by the moment including just in the last twenty minutes or so the president trying to dominate the conversation and the fact that the criticism about that helsinki press conference have been largely negative but the president in just last few moments has been tweeting saying the summit with russia was a great success even goes on to say that he looks forward to a second meeting with the russian president vladimir putin so that we can start implementing things discussed including stopping terrorism security for israel nuclear proliferation cyberattacks trade ukraine middle east peace north korea and more so certainly the president trying to portray the meeting as a success even as he has found himself trying to clarify not once but twice his position on whether or not there was russian meddling in the twenty six thousand u.s. election of course in the united states what has been dominating conversation for

many days is the fact that most americans believe he handled according to the latest c.b.s. news poll handled that conversation very badly there are concerns about the two hour conversation what was just has not been disclosed and during that private conversation the fact that he did not come out forcefully enough to confront lattimer putin in the public press conference so certainly the president trying to portray this is no one has been more tough on russia at the same time saying he believes that a good relationship would be valuable it's also interesting to note while most americans are reacting to this very badly saying they did not like how the president handled that conversation going into that helsinki summit russia was not be primary concern for most americans what it was according to a gallup poll going into that was the economy immigration and so we also see the president on social mean. this morning trying to shift the conversation to lowering

drug prices as well as creating jobs of course it does beg the question completely when you going to meetings like this you want to be briefed by your aides properly so one does really how much the president did know about election interference how well drift was he before he went into that meeting with putin well not only have there been repeated public statements on capitol hill in hearings there was a very public statement by his director of national intelligence dan coats saying very clearly that russia continues to meddle in fact he said the red lights are flashing but there is also a new york times reporting that came out in the last twenty four hours that details how the president was briefed going back as as early as january of two thousand and seventeen where the obama administration intelligence chiefs the cia director former cia director john brennan the former director of the f.b.i. james comey who is of course fired by donald trump among others very clearly stating that there had been expressed consent by the russian president vladimir

putin to meddle in the elections to use a dissin from asian campaign but coming out of that briefing donald trump issued a public statement saying it wasn't just russia but many countries this is certainly true but when the president stands on the stage with the russian president americans expected him to be forceful and the overwhelming reaction and used to be the conversation of disappointment to anger and outrage that the president didn't come out as forcefully as many americans believe he should while it's early morning where you are complete of course i'm sure will be much more to discuss through the day for the moment we'll leave it there thank you pakistan tribal region will vote for the first time in next week's general election it's home to five million people who maybe from the bush ethnic group now they say they've been victims of government oppression including ethnic stereotyping and full disappearances military operations against groups in the region who have also displaced large numbers of people has moved from bush on while you're gone did you

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