news is created we're going to have a better understanding of what. the listening post on al-jazeera. air strikes rained down on as russia dismisses president trump's warning not to recklessly attack the syrian province. alone barbara starr you're watching al-jazeera live from london also coming up on the program at least fifty dead after a week of fighting in libya's capital but the u.n. says the warring sides have agreed to a ceasefire japan is hit by its strongest typhoon in twenty five years battering the west of the country and whipping up massive waves plus.

protests inside the senate has the confirmation for trump's supreme court nominee gets off to a bumpy start. hello thank you for joining us activists say the last rebel controlled province in syria is being attacked from the air and that's the spy the white house warning syria's government against a reckless escalation in the area it's believed more than twenty separate air strikes have been carried out killing at least seventeen people five of them children the united nations as warned that a full assault on it could spark a humanitarian catastrophe on a scale not yet seen in syria's seven year stephanie decker has more now from riyadh in the near turkey's border with syria. after three weeks of quiet skies air strikes have resumed on the province particularly the southwest of the province there have been civilian casualties including five children and most of the

airstrikes were around the arab world this is an area that rumor over the last couple of weeks had it that perhaps a first phase of this expected offensive would take place it's too early to tell whether this is the start of the offensive certainly has been quiet over the last couple of hours but there are huge concerns when it comes to this looming offensive when it comes to the civilians to the internally displaced that is it look province just behind us you can see how tightly packed those tents are those are the internally displaced that's just a tiny snapshot of just how massive this problem is and we've been speaking to the head of turkey's red crescent he just went into it lib to do a recchi so to speak saying he was incredibly concerned about the situation for the civilians that they were trying to put you know extra extra tents in place to receive what they know will be an influx of people they don't want to open the borders with turkey and they also said that there is no light at the end of the tunnel for the rebel groups there could only be

a political solution when it comes to the opposition it lib is majorly important it is seen as the last rebel stronghold it will be the last battle is one rebel told us who is inside a blip who came to live from southern damascus saying that it lives is our damascus and if the regime takes it back if it takes back that means for us the revolution is over we're a challenge though has more from moscow on what the kremlin has been saying about the situation in italy. a few hours ago the kremlin spokesperson dmitri peskov said that it live had become a hotbed of terrorists and this was impeding the political settlement of the syrian conflict and it was a problem for russia as well because from it live attacks have been launched drone attacks against russia's air base come a member and the russians are basically saying that this is a problem that needs to be sought to douse this this festering sore of terrorists

as they put it in live and that the syrian army is preparing to do just this now what the kremlin is not saying at the moment is just how much air support russia is willing to provide for the upcoming offensive in previous damascus offensives going back months years of this civil war it is russian air power that is basically allow those to be successful it was russian air power that turned the tide of this war in favor of damascus so you would assume that if there is going to be a successful assault on. then the russians and their bombs and their planes would have to be fully involved we don't know quite how much russian air power is going to be given in this one the turkish are trying to persuade the russians to

give more time to a separate process which the russians have actually been pretty adept at over recent months and years which is negotiations on the grounds trying to persuade different rebel factions different groups different villages to defect essentially peel away from the opposition cause and turkey wants more time to be given to that process the united nation wants more time to be given to that process as well but it's damascus is champing at the bit and saying let's get this over with as quickly as possible and russia is kind of split at the moments we're having to listen to turkey and the united nations on one side and damascus on the other. meanwhile syria's a state news agency says air defenses of intercepted missiles fired by israeli jets the jets attacked targets in hama and talked to a spokesman says the agency said it says one person was killed and twelve injured while it released this video showing what it says is

a missile being intercepted this is a senior israeli official made a rare admission saying his country had carried out more than two hundred attacks against the iranian targets in syria in the last two years. a cease fire has been agreed between rival factions in libya who've been fighting in the capital for more than a week at least fifty people have been killed and the round one hundred fifty more injured in and around the tripoli around under the deal all fighting will end the city's only airport will reopen earlier hundreds of refugees and migrants were released from of the tension center because of the unrest the who would have been what he has more now from tripoli. the united nations support the mission in libya has announced that it has reached a cease fire between the warring groups we understand that the united nations

support the mission in libya has held a meeting with representatives from the groups in tripoli alongside the representatives from the internationally recognized government of national accord and the aim of that meeting was to put an end to this conflict in tripoli and to save the lives of civilians who understand that the conflict or the clashes that have been going on for more than a week now have taken a heavy toll on civilians more than a thousand illegal migrants who have been detained in a detention center close to the. area where the clashes are going on they have been released by the illegal migration combat department and supervisors of that illegal immigration combat department say that they had to release the illegal migrants in order to save their lives we understand also that many civilians have been forced out of their homes in the southern suburbs of the libyan capital tripoli since the

beginning of the clashes on the twenty seventh of august also the have been a lot of random stray rockets landing in densely populated areas and more than forty people have been killed since since the beginning of the clashes and many of them many of them are civilians six protesters have been killed in a state of emergency has been declared in the southern iraqi city of basra following clashes between security forces and protesters fighting broke out when the security forces moved in to contain the protests a government building was stormed and set on fire anger over poor government services and corruption a swept through cities in the south which is iraq's shia heartland and sequence. japan has issued evacuation advisories for more than a million people and canceled hundreds of flights as typhoon sliced across the west killing at least six people j.b.

is reportedly the strongest typhoon to hit japan in twenty five years and is the latest storm to hit japan this summer and the hayward reports. japan's most powerful storm but maybe twenty five years typhoon finally makes landfall. ripping apart buildings. and sending daybreak in kioto station. i. with winds of up to one hundred eighty kilometers an hour the full force of the storm struck japan's western coastline bringing with it tyrangiel rain and destruction several thousand people were left stranded poor into can saya international airport little could be done to keep the floodwaters out and tundra the plights have been counseled atenco which had been sheltering from the storm career it into the bridge which links the airport to the mainland the crew on board

a said to be say there are thirty is in japan have a biased more than a million people to evacuate their properties one point six million homes are without power. this is the latest in a series of suburbia weather systems to hit japan in recent months. has already claimed lives and caused dozens of injuries many here and now hoping for a break from the deluge ever haywood al-jazeera. a highway bridge has collapsed in the crowded indian city of killing one person and injuring nineteen half a dozen vehicles including a bus plummeted to the ground when a thirty metre section of concrete gave way police and firefighters have been sifting through the day breach checking for other casualties twenty seven people died in a similar collapse in the city two years ago. well it's been

a bumpy start to the senate confirmation hearing for brett kavanaugh president trump's controversial pick for the supreme court around two dozen protesters were dragged out and democratic party senators tried to have the whole thing adjourned complaining that the republicans are blocking access to documents sent me from having his previous work in the white house on the george bush i welcome everyone to this confirmation hearing on the nomination of mr brett kavanaugh mr chairman i very warm welcome not the god given add on to have a meeting his wife. their two daughters mr chairman or and i agree with and i ran into harris mr chairman of the revenuers morty log files and documents that we have and everyone else joined we know you last night and we believe this hearing she knows is known to you or you're out of order i'll proceed. jordan has more now from outside the hearing. it's the first of four confirmation hearing days

for judge brett kavanaugh he's hoping to join the u.s. supreme court the hearing which started tuesday morning has already been interrupted dozens of times and at least twenty two people have been arrested by capitol police for interrupting the proceedings democratic senators also interrupted the proceedings they tried it first to a gear in the session because they said they haven't received nearly enough information about kavanagh's record both on the high court that appellate court i should say as well as serving in the administration of george w. bush and they say that a late night dump of papers on monday is simply irresponsible however republicans say that they are not worried about kavanaugh his record they say that he exhibits the kind of judicial temperament they want to see on the high court and they believe that he would hold the rule of law those who object to his nomination however say that he is a threat to

a woman's right to choose an abortion to reproductive rights in general to gay and lesbian rights as well as to the rights of his workers of immigrants and of those who believe in a clean environment they're trying as hard as they can including with this rally behind me in order to darrelle the nomination but because republicans control the house and because they control the senate and the judiciary committee it's almost certain that he's going to become the ninth member of the u.s. supreme court. saying in the u.s. the u.s. senate seat left vacant by john mccain's that will be filled by john cole a former republican senator from arizona col served alongside mccain for three terms and was republican whip in the senate until he retired in two thousand and thirteen he voted against the affordable care act that had been working to guide trump's supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh sue the confirmation process still to

come here on al-jazeera will the adoption of an international definition of anti semitism help the u.k. opposition put aside its differences. and protest so social media but backing from sports stars after nike makes american football or colin kaepernick the face of its latest campaign. had other been big thunderstorms wandering around australia for what two days they're still doing it the circulation is to the becoming a little bit weaker it's going to drift eastwards but it's left you know one storm gives you twenty thirty millimeters so to give you sixty and that's what's been happening they'll be further north east and the capital from the capital than yesterday's version but uses cloud elsewhere big showers have been forming in

northern spade in southern france and they're in the forecast to overnight quite possibly in fact the whole the regime slowly changing roles in this high summer heat wave which is restricted to very very edges of europe if there were at all without in the twenty's with rain likely to drift eastwards into the baltic states don't remain here have a few showers popping up elsewhere nearly thirty in madrid still twenty three in paris for the breezes from the north it's not particularly warm direction you notice more significant greenstreet that's more rain dance for the low countries in germany and over the alps come thursday austria looks dry by the state the temperature differential we see in northern africa is still there thirty seven in two days because the breeze coming out of the interior city in benghazi with an onshore breeze and by twenty five in a rather significantly cooler about there are big shall around the sahara but fewer than there were.

the occupied west bank city of hebron is on the front line of the arab israeli conflict you don't really care after all well about palestinians you don't like it i don't like it but you just don't care at all but one man is standing up to israeli pressure to sell his house for an unimaginable figure you could call a good guy who is the man but the government of al-jazeera world tells the story of the house the symbol of resistance to continuing occupation the hundred million dollar home. welcome back here's a reminder of the top stories on our activists say the last rebel controlled province in syria is being attacked from the air despite president trump warning

against recklessly attacking the area at least seventeen civilians have been killed including children a ceasefire has been agreed between rival factions in libya been fighting in the capital tripoli for more than a week at least fifty people have been killed one hundred fifty more injured in the unrest and japan has been battered by its strongest typhoon in more than twenty five years pausing at least six deaths and one hundred sixty injuries head straight for straight now to the united nations with the u.s. ambassador to the highway and nikki haley is taking questions at a news conference to mark the u.s. assuming the month's leave the rotating presidency of the u.n. security council she's already announced the security council will hold a meeting in syria's glebe region on a fidei now she is talking about me and my legs incident a serious issue you combine that with the two reporters yesterday that just for covering the issues in burma they are now being they were sentenced to seven years

in prison so we will get even more loud about that as well for being imprisoned for telling the truth basically the us report does mirror the u.n. report quite a bit. and both are horrible and both have cases that are that will turn your stomach and so for that reason i think you will see not just the united states but then tire security council continue to really try and shed light on burma and for the government and the military to acknowledge that this is a terrible situation that until they acknowledge happened can't be fixed so when it comes to your question on sanctions the u.s. you know obviously the report. to come out first and then we'll see what actions happen after the fact in terms of the security council that was a topic that came up at breakfast that no one wants to let that go so i think you'll continue to see conversations in the security council on what else can be

done when it comes to iran i think that that role of applies just like it would in nicaragua that the country can speak. if there is a security council meeting so i think that would be up to him as to whether he would want to speak but i believe that according to the rules he would have that right and you would agree so that yes and just a quick follow up what what kind of action do you think the council could take on. i mean i think it it really is a discussion that the security council has to make because i think everyone has acknowledged that it's bad and everyone stopped at the fact that the government still has not acknowledged it was bad and i think if you heard in the last security council meeting there was still a denial there by the ambassador and not an acceptance of what has happened and so i think that if we continue to talk about it they will continue to know it's not going to go away but i think the council has to make some hard decisions we can't just continue to say we're unified against burma we have to say we're unified for

the for the people of burma and this is what we're going to do about it. yes. thank you very much madam president and good luck on the money though we're looking forward to from pummel for him c.b.s. news my question is about south korea the blue house has announced that president troubled meeting with president. what do you expect out of that and is there anything the security council can do particularly in light of the russia and china blocking of additional designations thank you thank you pam i can tell you that obviously the united states and south korea continue to have a strong relationship a strong working relationship as we continue with japan on this issue you know the sanctions were important because the sanctions unfortunately was the only way we could get the attention of north korea i think that combined with the rough talk from the president and the international community as isolation of north korea really brought them to the table i think south korea and the united states want to

continue working together to figure out how we can constructively get north korea to denuclearize and. we knew this was going to happen overnight we knew this wasn't going to be easy but i think that so far we should all take comfort in the fact that there have not been any more ballistic missile tests that dialogue is actually happening but that will only happen as long as we stand firm on the sanctions as we stand firm on all of the isolation and we let chairman kim know that just because we shake hands and we smile at each other does not mean that the international community is ok with their building of ballistic missiles so having said that i think that you will continue to see that strength the security council again today a kind of made that point known this morning in our breakfast that we have to make sure we stand strong on this and we'll see what happens russia and china continue to cause problems i know where in the seventeen eighteen committee now we're trying

to release a report they're trying to block it i think that you know. it flies in the face of the international community for russia and china to not follow the same rules as everyone else and we have to make sure that they know they are not exempt on their relationship with north korea compared to every other country we're all in this together they can't all of a sudden decide to jump ship and do that and so the united states has made it very clear that if we see any violations in the sanctions we're going to act and i think the security council believes that was a lot of work to get through those three sanctions packages we i mean we will take that strongly if we see violations we have seen that on the on the cap on the fuel cap we've seen that with russia on the laborers and i think that it is incumbent on every member of the international community to not give anyone a pass unless they want to see that testing start back up again thank you richard.

thank you john richard roth c.n.n. it's good to see you we don't often hear from you would part of the press support the weak news wheel of fate has delivered the bob woodward book today. it's see your southern smile disappearing there it's back to you look your cabinet member the book trade is a devastating portrait of senior trump administration aides hiding documents exasperated with the president the creasing lee worried about erratic behavior ignorance penchant for lying. would you for the documentary which will be done i'm sure in the future your answer care to comment confirm thank you i just found out before i walked in here the that there were some sort of leaks from the book or things that were coming out about the book so i don't know exactly what is being said i can tell you this this like every other book that has come out and every book that's going to come out you're going to have a certain group of readers that love the book and want to talk about all the

salacious parts of the book and you're going to have a lot of people who denounce the book and say this is what divides america so i think people read in it what they want to read i think they see what they want to see what i can tell you is what i know and i know that the president has been a great partner to me on foreign security i meet with him often i talk with him often when i have concerns i bring them to him he listens he's respectful and he engages back so if there are people who say certain things in the book i'll just tell you to take it with a grain of salt it's like we've done every book before and you know every president has had these types of books come out they'll be more and i'll tell you the same thing we all have some who love it and some who hate it based on what they think of the president. james jay spacer mouches era can i ask you about it lib. you've called for a meeting on friday you've already put out strong words in

a tweet the president has put out strong words in a tweet to end they've been dismissed by moscow and damascus we're obviously going to get words of condemnation on friday but what more than words what action can you do and going back to that book staying on the subject of syria the book claims the president trump ordered assad to be assassinated and general mattis refused to carry out those orders from your knowledge of the situation is the truth and that thank you i will tell you it live is serious. you know less just acknowledge the elephant in the room and that is the fact that. there are rumblings yes russia is making accusations about opponents white helmets everything else. assad is doing the same thing that is the exact formula they always follow before a chemical weapons attack that assad does on his own people what you are seeing is

the president. saying to iran russia and assad don't go there we're not going to accept it it's not ok what you're saying from us and the fact that the security council wants to talk about it is do not let a chemical weapons attack happen on the people of it lib the people of syria have been through too much this is a tragic situation and if they want to continue to go the route of taking over syria they can do that but they cannot do it with chemical weapons they can't do it assaulting their people and we're not going to fall for it if there are chemical weapons that are used we know exactly who's going to use them and this is the exact same playbook that russia and iran and assad have used every time and the o.p.c. w. has come out and said that we know chemical weapons were used there's no denying it the only ones that deny it or russia iran and assad so i think this is for us very typical but what you're seeing is the security council come together and say we're

not going to stand by and wait until after the chemical weapons attack we want to have a meeting now to discuss what should not happen i think you saw the president get out in front of it yesterday and say don't make us have to respond because he's made it very clear if chemical weapons are used the united states will respond sustentation of assad you are privy to all of those secret talks can you tell us has that ever been planned or contemplated i have the pleasure of big privy to those conversations when we've dealt with each chemical weapon story cohen we've dealt with all of the responses when we've dealt with everything and i have not once ever heard the president talk about assassinating assad. welcome back to durban avenue new york post where mulling over here over the way the back of. so. you've been you visited latin america

recently in and let's try with iran oh let's start first with iran what exactly are you group planning to have in that meeting on iran is it going to be on j.c. p.o. way. of course there's a dispute between you and other members of the council including allies about there and also did you learn a thing in latin america about the iran's involvement in that region. i think that you know there is a growing concern about iran and some are old things some are new things but i think if you continue to look at the spread of iran has had on supporting terrorism if you continue to look at the ballistic missile testing that they're doing if you continue to look at the sales of weapons like we see with the who these in yemen these are all violations of security council resolutions and

these are all threats to the region and these are all things that the international community need to talk about president trump is very adamant that we have to start making sure that iran is following in line with international order like every other country and we continue to see them engage in things that are not helpful and whether it's in lebanon whether it's in yemen whether we're looking in syria all of these issues we continue to see one factor that is exactly the same and that's the presence of iran so we are going to talk about that and. i understand that there are some members who find that uncomfortable to talk about and i personally think that when we talk about things that are uncomfortable in the security council good things happen the things that drug. but store in iran latin america could you address that question that i asked. you know respond to that you. joseph klein care a free press and

a proud new yorker mr anyway my question is regarding a statement by the un special rapporteur tour who deals with iran who criticize the us sanctions on iran and claims that only the security council under the u.n. charter has the authority to impose sanctions and he called u.s. sanctions quote illegitimate like to know your views in both your capacity to know as a president of the security council in your national capacity regarding this assertion thank you my views in both capacities are the same which is we made this very clear at the time that when we saw that iran was violating. security council resolutions we called on the international community to do something about it we asked them to address it we told them we would work with them on it we tried to talk to them

about them about resolutions and we got nothing and so the president trump said we're not going to be in a deal that's a farce and since then we have talked with our european allies we've talked with other allies about the situations of iran they all agree it's a problem i think that this was a situation where sometimes you have to admit that a deal you worked on was not perfect and you know we had hoped that they would try and correct it they didn't want to do that so now we're back at where we were the united states believes that we have the ability to have those sanctions put on iran because it goes back to the fact that we think they violated security council resolutions and others we have seen that whether it's north korea or whether it's venezuela they all have issues when we put sanctions down on their countries for certain reasons but the united states feels that we have that right. sorry. i hear. thank you do you

think that the iran meeting will segue into the palestinian issue and secondly while iran has been condemned for all sorts of actions in yemen. the council's been has agenda about condemning saudi arabia and the coalition not just for the latest strike against children but there are constant. air strikes that have killed civilians. on the iran issue no i don't see that necessarily segue to segue into the palestinians i can't promise that but that's not the intent in terms of what has happened in yemen i think each country put out their own comments i know i personally put out comments that we can't ever see innocent. people killed under the auspices of trying to settle

a dispute since then we certainly gave our concerns to saudi arabia i will tell you that we appreciated the transparency of them saying they were going to do an investigation we were concerned but they surprised us all because they did the investigation very quickly came out and admitted fault and said they would you can't totally make it right with families but said that they would do something to try and do that and then followed up by saying they're going to try and figure out what went wrong and how they can make it right having said that you know we'll continue to say that both the huth these and the coalition need to work with martin gryphus on this we are completely behind martin and everything he's trying to do to bring peace to that area the people of yemen have suffered long enough and this dispute has gone on long enough and when we have to go and start talking about.