there they launched off with a series of kind of educated guesses basically they judge by the men's apparent ages that they must have been in a military academy round the year two thousand and one two thousand and three and at that time a particular prestigious military academy for covert operations and foreign language training was the far eastern military command academy so then they went and started looking through old photos yearbooks essentially that sort of thing they found a group photo of a bunch of soldiers taken in chechnya some years ago which said that all of these men were recipients of the. hero of russia award one of them looks like it could be a younger bush era of so then they started going from that. to online searches with the name of this academy chechnya the name of this this medal this award that's when they first came across the name topeka and eventually they

went back to find ship peakers passport file that's where they got the photo that they were able to compare with the later photos that we have seen before and get their match a century and how much does this discovery create for russia's argument that it had nothing to do with description points. well i mean the russian government the foreign ministry is maintaining its position the dare is no evidence that this is just new folse news that it's a diversion but i think you know since that clumsy interview that was given by these two men to a russian television some weeks ago where they said that they were just innocent tourists basically who want to see solsbury spire the kind of art the argument has been unraveling and certainly that interview came across as very very clumsy

russians started ridiculing it it was ridiculed internationally as well a series of mistakes really him and you know you could argue that vladimir putin who should and could have kept his distance from this whole mess basically dumped himself right in the middle by publicly calling for these two men to come forward to give that interview and saying that they were civilians so basically you know this this poor little deniability. that the kremlin could have meant tain is is falling away you could argue what difference does this make does it actually matter for russia well perhaps internationally it doesn't because the damage has already been done there are sanctions etc etc domestically though this could matter more because you know if russians start laughing their own intelligence service is thinking that they're a bunch of bunglers and that the governments the kremlin is involved in some kind

of laughable cover up that does i think make a difference in the long run or iran chalons life in moscow. plenty more ahead on this news hour without a trace the long wait for iraqi families waiting to hear about the fate of their relatives detained by government forces. mexico's president elect vows to investigate the case of forty three missing students on the fourth anniversary of their disappearance. and the hosts of the twenty twenty four european football championships will be named later on thursday andy will tell us who's in the running in sport. is all that still ahead but first in the coming hours donald trump supremum court nominee brett kavanaugh and his first accuser will appear in front of the u.s.

senate judiciary committee and with the political firestorm growing even trump now says he could change his mind if the evidence is compelling enough castro reports from washington. even as u.s. president donald trump tried to deal with the issue of weapons of mass destruction at the u.n. security council his supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh was being accused again of teenage sexual abuse behavior julie sweat nick says kevin and his friends organized alcohol and drug filled parties in the early one nine hundred eighty s. just so they could gang rape girls including her the president of the united states trumka called this yet another example of democratic party dirty tricks why didn't they bring this right at the beginning during the hearings you would have had all the time in the world for the f.b.i. it would have been fine now the f.b.i. as you know did investigate this time as they have five or six other times and they did a very thorough investigation but cavanagh's joining the high court once considered

a sure thing has become less certain in the last two weeks and some of that uncertainty is now coming from the president himself julie sweat nick is the third woman by name to accuse kavanagh of teenage sexual abuse never ramirez says cavanagh exposed himself to her while they were first year students at yale and christine blazin ford says kavanagh try to force himself on her and that she feared he could kill her when they were both in high school the senate judiciary committee is also investigating two other reports that cavanagh abused women last week trump questioned whether blazin ford is telling the truth the result of a polygraph test she took in august suggest that she is but now as for prepares to repeat her story before the senate judiciary committee on thursday trump says he will give her testimony a fair hearing in that it could change his support for kavanaugh oh it's possible i'll hear that and i'll say hey i'm changing my mind that is possible. in

light of growing anger among u.s. women over the cavanagh case the twelve republican senators all men won't be directly questioning by. ozzie ford they brought in a woman prosecutor from arizona to do that democrats on the panel and in the chamber at large say the hearing shouldn't even be happening until the f.b.i. can investigate if our republican colleagues rush to proceed without an investigation it would be a travesty for the honor of the supreme court and the honor of our country where at any rate brett kavanaugh says he's not withdrawing his nomination and that the latest allegations are straight out of the twilight zone but with five weeks to go before congressional elections republicans may have to decide which they want more their preferred man on the supreme court or keeping control of congress heidi joe castro al-jazeera washington. dozens of

iraqi men and young boys have disappeared in the last four years many blame pro-government forces the families of those missing say not enough being done to help help them find out what happened rather matheson reports from baghdad cradled in the arms of distraught mothers photographs of missing iraqi men and boys their families say they vanished from nineveh province as pro-government forces hunted down eisel fighters and their supporters and that the men have almost the security forces have taken two of my sons going to a geisha after liberating us from eisel we keep calling on the government for help but it seems there is no hope. in twenty four telling i saw swept across the western provinces of nineveh and anbar some sonny's opposed to the country's shia dominated government a set of been fighting alongside eisel or simply giving its support the. iraqi troops fought back aided by armed groups many of them

a shia who backed the government i saw fighters were either killed or detained some accused of supporting eisel have vanished. their families are demanding answers and even though no one would say that we keep asking if my sons were forced to sign and confess to something they did not do if they are that we want to bury them if they're alive we need to see them human rights watch says it knows of at least seventy eight cases where men and boys have been what it calls forcibly disappeared international law defines in force detention as they arrest of a person by the state or with the knowledge of the state followed by a refusal to acknowledge the arrest or a refusal to save the person is but it also says the state has a responsibility to investigate allegations of enforced attention and to prosecute those responsible. some of those detained have been released. others like here in anbar province have come home in coffins. oh. oh

my god i can't speak any more the security forces told us my sons would be released in days now it has been three years i call on the speaker the prime minister the government to find where my sons are. the government in anbar says it set up a committee to investigate but that it's proving hard to find all the missing men but our ground. so far we have not been able to locate them the central government is still investigating these cases we have the local government want this solved these women say it's bad enough to have lost someone it's even worse not knowing if they were alive or dead rob matheson al-jazeera back that vietnam's former president has been buried in his home province after state funeral was held earlier on thursday in the capital annoyed tranda kwang died on friday from a rare virus when he reports from hanoi. during

a brief service in vietnam as capital hanoi those closest to the late president in his private and professional lives said goodbye. family members of. communist party leaders government officials filled the national few. bad. it was also a special moment for those on the outside who still played a big part in the service. to serve the state funeral of the president is a big honor for me and the staff and or vietnamese humbled to witness the funeral. was just sixty one when he died the government said he was the victim of a rare virus you rose to the top of vietnamese politics through a career in the ministry of public security he appeared to bring that background to the presidency as you have a saw

a crackdown on dissent this is quite understandable because not only was he. of public security but he had grown up in st. you also supported closer ties with the united states hosting two u.s. presidents during his brief tenure moving closer to washington was perhaps a deliberate move in response to vietnam's tension with china over territorial disputes in the south china sea the. means that vietnam now has its first female head of state with vice-president duncan knocked in moving up to be acting president the national assembly is due to begin its next session on the twenty second of october and that's when a new president may be elected. the late president kwan's last journey was in a long motorcade out of hanoi and to the south he was born and raised in a small rural community in indian province which is also his final resting place

wayne hay al jazeera hanoi. argentina has received the biggest loan package ever from the international monetary fund it's been struggling to repay its debts and the steep interest rates argentina's strengthened economy. both through incompetence and bundling on a book or of the new plan is. in the strengthening in this position and having a sustainable all appropriate on the budget. and strong monetary policy focus on reducing breakeven and a bloating existing rate policy with our intervention. mexico's incoming government says it is going to investigate the disappearance of forty three students in the southern city of equality the abduction and suspected killings of the students four years ago was one of the worst crisis during the time of outgoing president enrique pena nieto john heilemann reports from mexico city.

the flicker of hope for those still campaigning for justice in a case that's outraged many mexicans it's the fourth anniversary of the night that forty three students were kidnapped by police inclusion with the gang they became symbols of the tens of thousands of missing in the country the slow moving and deeply flawed government investigation into the tragedy also became symbolic of official indifference towards the disappeared. the students' parents have never given up their fight fronts is now a new government is about to take power a bit there and to believe that things could change. it's the first day in four years that we feel hope the first day that the government has yes i'm going to help you yes we'll get to the truth that's why we're content and have our hearts full of hope of the. president elect and his mother his or her daughter met with the parents made the right noises proposing

a new committee to take charge of the case and invite him back international experts say their investigation was blocked oh really i believe that justice will come and it will strengthen not weaken our institutions when we all know what really happened with the young people ah and when the guilty a punished. those marching to mark the anniversary won't let him forget his promises you know outgoing government's reaction to the tragedy of this year it's really more the point where it fell from grace and it never recovered now it's going to be a big task andres manuel lopez obrador once he takes power how it goes with this but also with the more than thirty thousand disappeared in the country and the record levels of violence. so many stories echo hilda's she and a husband have given up their former lives to true jails army barracks moved to mass graves and search for their son says he seen as even their own turn or

it's been really difficult it's painful and frustrating we're angry about all the impunity. for her and tens of thousands of others the worst thing is simply the not knowing the hope is that in this case the parents and the country might finally get closer to the truth john homewood how does it or it's personal. all right another will have the weather with staff but still ahead on ideas into. handling more than traffic afghanistan's pioneering women get behind the wheel to drive through stigma . twenty years of on train questions has made google the number one search engine. later it's for you ventus extend their winning streak in the italian league do those details coming up with andy.

from flowing in the winds to an enchanting desert breeze. hello there typhoon tragedy is churning away just to the east of taiwan and this is a photo from the international space center showing the beautiful i of that storm now let's see it disappear into our satellite picture not quite such good resolution but it still shows a very well defined eye there and it's churning its way steadily northwards now it's a steadily actually moving credibly slowly only around two kilometers per hour very slowly that's slow walk for most of us now is for weaker than it was it was a super typhoon with winds of two hundred fifty kilometers per hour now the sustained winds are more like one hundred sixty or one hundred seventy which is slightly confusing when you first look at it because it's in quite a favorable part of the environment for it to strengthen we've got weak upper level winds that means it can strengthen pretty readily without being pushed over there is good air flow is going in out of the system over very very well so again you

would expect it to strengthen given that on the sea here it's very very warm so why has it weakened well the reason is is because it's moving so slowly that's churned up the seas to such an extent that the water directly under it is far cooler than it should be so this storm that is running its way northward and it should still be a category three by the time it makes landfall. the way that sponsored by the time race. when. i have almost my entire professional life. so there were eventually and fight against corruption and what i ever heard is that we need champions we need also to shine the light on those chapters and this award bridges that gap that existed in this.

nominate your own version of your own child the light on what they do and do it not shine a light on your hero with your nomination for the international space award two thousand and eighteen for more information go to isa war dot com. again you're watching al-jazeera a reminder of our top stories this hour china has rejected an accusation made by

u.s. president donald trump that it's trying to interfere in november's mid-term elections made the claims of a u.n. security council session and said it was because of his tough policy on trade with china. one of the two suspects in the nerve agent attack in the u.k. has been identified as a russian military officer who received an on off from president vladimir putin investigative journalism website belling katz says these photos prove the man named on the body show is anatoly moscow denies any involvement in the attack. on donald trump's supremes court nominee brett kavanaugh and his first accuser christine blassie ford will appear in front of the senate judiciary committee a number of women have now accused kavanagh of sexual assault trial now says he could change his mind if the evidence is compelling enough. about two events at the united nations and the president trumps rhetoric dominated the security council

meeting the main focus of the discussion was chemical biological and nuclear weapons it's been at the heart of several tense meetings in recent years but those discussions of rarely resulted in action mike hanna explains. this is the most exclusive political club in the world the high stakes table in the united nations to get a permanent seat in the game requires a unique buy in nuclear capability the issue under discussion with president trump in the chair the five permanent members were not only allies at the end of the second world war but were also nuclear powers no permanent members have been added since each of these five wields of itoh so any resolution one opposes is simply not passed even if there is an absolute majority in the fifteen seed council what the sometimes means the body is unable to carry out its prime function

the maintenance of international peace and security yes or no the veto was used regularly during the cold war period resulting in heightened instead up decreasing tensions the only unity in the council between the blocks of east and west the us able to rely on the absolute support of its p five allies france and the united kingdom. in recent times have been a flurry of vetoes in the council particularly over issues like syria where the permanent five members have opposing agenda. but there is one sharp difference now a u.s. administration under president trump but can no longer rely on the unquestioning support of old friends i think that trumps isolationism is making even staunch u.s. allies like france and the u.k. start to think about the need to work with china more than needs to prepare. to

work without the us on a lot of issues you see a gradual real drift apart among the western powers here a possibly unforeseen consequence of the trompe and decision to go it alone the rise of china as a prominent potentially dominant force within the united nations and beyond mike hanna al-jazeera united nations the palestinians have been rejecting the u.s. role as a mediator in the conflict in the middle east conflict trump says he wants to broker a peace in the next few months but so far his administration's decisions have had a never negative effect on the lives of palestinians on the ground like cutting aid to for example which is a vital lifeline for millions of palestinian refugees as you see it as it should have returns he spoke with the underwear commissioner. we've clearly rejected that accompanying narrative accompanying of course the decision to cut funding to

entirely as was communicated on the first thirty first of august so for us it's very clear winner is a very well established organization very active on a very polarized front lines in syria gaza and elsewhere the united states has supported on raw for decades and here we have a decision that is a decision to politicize humanitarian funding in a very difficult operation environment so you don't think this is part of a reasoned critique what do you think is underlying all of us in november last year i was in washington and received a lot of recognition and acknowledgement for the rest work we signed a new framework agreement with the united states in december and then there was a decision on jerusalem the debate on the tensions between palestinians and the u.s. and after that decision to cut funding to iran so there's no doubt in my mind that cutting the funding was a part of steps to put in place the palestinian authority in leadership under pressure but surely that suggests the goal is simply to create as much palestinian suffering is possible but we saw of course that it wasn't didn't stop with the

rather was also the cut to the funding of hospitals in east jerusalem for example so i think it is part of a wider issue but of course the scale phone role was very serious because we lost essentially three hundred million this year and in total three hundred fifty million of income which is of course for an organization like ours very severe because we for example run seven hundred schools for half a million boys and girls throughout the middle east it's a matter of dignity and rights for the students to have access to education so of course we had to engage with other partners and donors to try and make up for that shortfall for all you making up that shortfall who is contributing who isn't a contributor so we have progressed sixty percent of what we needed to cover has been covered so we essentially mobilize well two hundred sixty million u.s. dollars to date and have another hundred eighty five million to mobilize countries in the gulf were very instrumental we have cut are coming forward early and then followed. saudi arabia in the night there ben rhodes we know that call it is currently considering and we've had support in asia and europe and elsewhere so it

has been actually a very strong movement of solidarity in our favor but because of the size of the shortfall we still have a very critical amount of one hundred eighty five million to mobilize in order to close the shortfall and. our un human rights council report is highlighting concerns of a cambodia's recent election in which the ruling cambodian people's party won all one hundred twenty five seats before the vote the main opposition party was dissolved and its candidates jailed the un special rapporteur run a smith says this calls into question the genuineness in his words of the words of the vote she says she is particularly concerned by reports that voters were threatened and intimidated after they called for a boycott smith says it was encouraging to see opposition figures like kim saw her released from jail but noted that they remain under judicial supervision special

rapporteur is calling on cambodia's government to make concerted efforts to improve human rights around a smith is a united nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in cambodia and she joins us now from geneva thanks very much for being with us so first of all what impact are you hoping that the release of this report will have on cambodia as the u.n. special opportunity my hope is that the report will help the government in trying to prioritize areas in which it can improve the human race situation on the ground . what the cambodian government's response to this is that they did the lections of twenty eighteen were in their words reflected a. prevailing stable and functioning democratic process in cambodia and they went on to point to the eighty three percent election turnout which they say no one can be disputes people people went to went to. went to vote on their own accord

no one was intimidated at all that this was democracy in action as far as they're concerned what's your response to that. i would not dispute the turn of the elections my concern leads to the fact that the. constitution and the national law should be a moti party a liberal democracy and at the moment it is defacto a one party state i also am concerned a new meaning can stand at the arrests and detentions of a number of political tears judy in the lead up to the election notwithstanding the release which you mentioned in your opening remarks i think there was an atmosphere in which was a crackdown on civil society and political space in during the election p.d.s. and what effect do you think this has on the overall space for political debate in cambodia while there. there was very little room for robust

political to be and challenging of the government during the election p.d. it when the ruling c.p.p. party have one hundred percent of the elected seats in senate and the elected seats the national assembly that is a set of facts to one party state there is therefore the need for much more to bust political to be and who of the government and of the legislature for laws that are passed and as far as the jailing in the human rights violations what effect is that have on people's ability to to to work safely their. i think it's certainly not an easy place to be a human race defender or to be a journalist at the moment in cambodia so i do think it does impede theism of expression freedom of assembly of association. good to speak with iran a smith joining us there from geneva thanks very much now gun battles have been

raging between indian forces and rebels in indian administered kashmir. protesters in the regional capital srinagar say security forces killed an innocent civilian during a raid elsewhere in kashmir a soldier and a rebel commander were killed in gun battles now while afghanistan is making progress in some areas on women's rights in others change is coming slower only a tiny percentage of licensed drivers are women for example and many of them often face abuse and threats from men who see it as an affront to afghan culture tony berkeley reports from the capital kabul. to cope with driving in kabul you need nerves of steel and a strong heart the afghan capital has some of the most challenging driving conditions anywhere more than half a million vehicles compete for space on narrow roads is difficult for the experienced driver but downright daunting for a learner and even more so if you're

a woman it's not easy because even though women are allowed to drive by law many men say culturally it is wrong but they are but then again there are a lot of men who verbal abuse you they block your car motorcyclists right alongside shouting about things no one helps us other members i driving school instructors teach them about road signs and engines and prepare them psychologically for the abuse they will face. the women sometimes say they don't want to drive again because of the abuse but i tell them you need to fight these people not given just ignore them there's nothing you can do. three thousand five hundred learners of pass their tests through the school forty percent of them women to persevered they have to be competent and also mentally tough call them what are we going to be and i want to take my car out to get my groceries if i need to get to hospital go to work i go to work to earn money and put it in my pocket i like my dinner if. and

when the taliban were in control women were forbidden to drive but outside of the main cities it is rare even now to see a woman behind the wheel in the last fifteen years garbles traffic department has issued more than seven hundred thousand driving licenses to men but only three thousand and fourteen for women the has been real progress in women's rights mainly here in the capital but that hasn't gone as far as the car. in this conservative society many men here see it as a male only dumain. the women are just driving for fun not facilitating people they are creating problems for us they should drive in a specific time when we are not working. some women find it all too much and give up driving but others like in july typify the resolve of the modern afghan woman. that. we don't care about their abuse and we will carry on driving because god has ordered in the koran that there is no difference between men and women we are more

educated and can stand on our own feet. society is changing albeit slowly but the women drivers of afghanistan there is a long road ahead before they are fully accepted tony berkeley al jazeera kabul how police in slovakia have detained a number of suspects over the murder of journalist jan and his fiance the couple were both age twenty seven when they were shot dead at their home in february was investigating political corruption his death wanted protests which forced out the prime minister interior minister and police chief. how it began as a simple search engine is now a global technology giant but as google celebrates twenty years its power and involvement in our lives has also led to concerns over issues like privacy and some say it's a far cry from the company's original motto don't be evil reports from california this is what google's search page looked like the day it was launched and this is

the company's first headquarters with founders larry page and sergey brin twenty years later google's enormous success has given it this huge ever expanding silicon valley headquarters known as the googleplex page and brin are multi-billionaires and google knows a lot about us they know who you are they know a lot about your habits they know what kind of videos he watched they don't how many emails he gets they are very large an important part of most people's daily lives its search engine processes three and a half billion requests per day or one point two trillion a year that information is power google uses the information to lucratively target advertising to customers the more they know about you the more the can market you to advertisers a collection of.