border crossing remains closed including to journalists other than from humanitarian issues is that they are seeing this as a lost opportunity where expecting a huge amount of people to come out and protest along that border fence how is israel going to react is going to lead to yet another escalation we're going to have to wait and see the u.s. secretary of state says the trumpet ministration is still working to identify anyone responsible for the murder of society journalist tamara shoji microamp a.o. made the comments at a congressional hearing where he was being questions over foreign policy roslyn jordan has more from washington d.c. . u.s. secretary of state mike pompei o is on capitol hill on wednesday to argue for the upcoming years budget for the state department but it's not just a matter of deciding how many diplomats should be hired or how many facilities should be remodeled in the coming fiscal year the secretary of state also took questions on a number of foreign policy concerns including the investigation into the murder of

jamal khashoggi a saudi journalist who had been living and working in the united states this is what my pompei o told the committee on wednesday we are continuing all across the government certainly and overt means and all the tools that we have in our capacity to learn more facts about this president. as made very clear that we will continue to work to identify those who are responsible for these murder and hold them accountable we will i stand by that today because representatives are interested in a number of foreign policy concerns including israel palestine venezuela and north korea there hasn't been much follow up when having mike pompei o before them on precisely how the u.s. is holding saudi officials responsible for the murder of jamal khashoggi but that aside members of congress are still very much interested in trying to hold all those responsible including the saudi crown prince mohammed bin sol mun they've

already passed a number of resolutions and legislation that would cite him and hold him personally responsible but the full force of congressional anger has yet to be brought on to this matter and certainly their efforts to try to get more information from the trumpet ministration continue. the u.s. energy secretary has authorized several companies to sell nuclear power technology to saudi arabia that's according to media reports the reuters news agency says the companies have requested the deals be kept secrets russia south korea and the u.s. are all competing to strike a deal with the kingdom which is planning to build at least two nuclear plants there are concerns it could fuel a nuclear arms race in the middle east what will satan is a nuclear security specialist with these civilian research and development foundation and he joins us now from washington d.c.

mr center given the trumpet ministrations resistance opposition to the iranian nuclear deal why are they so keen to sell nuclear technology to the saudis. well first of all thanks for having me on and there's a pretty big difference between the iran nuclear deal and the trumpet ministrations attempts to sell nuclear technology to the saudi arabians the nuclear technology that we want to sell to saudi arabia is civilian it's for their civilian energy program which is a big difference than what we suspected that iran was trying to do now ironically the equipment that they were using for the pursuit of their nuclear weapons program was actually from it originated from the united states we sold it to the shah of iran back in the seventy's the regime is now quite difference and the story is quite different however as you pointed out the j c p a way the joint comprehensive plan of action effectively cut their pathway off to

ever developing a nuclear weapon and iran willingly did this so the concern now is that saudi arabia might go down the same path that they might use this technology that they would be acquiring for their civilian nuclear energy program for development of a weapons program down the line is there a risk in this case then over a nuclear arms race developing in the middle east. yes so that is a big concern about a year ago mohamed bin solomon the crown prince of saudi arabia when it's all on national television he told reporters that if iran were to develop a nuclear weapon that saudi arabia would also develop a nuclear weapon full stop no ambiguity there whatsoever the problem is now that the united states has decided that it wants to withdraw from the j c p a way of the

nuclear deal that we had with iran preventing them from developing a nuclear weapon that has become a more likely scenario so when the story initially erupted a month ago that the united states was in talks with saudi arabia discretely about transfers a civilian nuclear technology that they wanted to go around this what is called a one two three agreement that would centrally guaranteed saudi arabia would guarantee that the technology that we sold them would not be used for the development of a nuclear weapons program. it was uncovered that they were trying to circumvent this issue both republicans and democrats in the united states congress of voice serious opposition to this they in fact launched legislation called the saudi saudi arabia nonproliferation act essentially stipulating that congress needs oversight to prevent them from ever going down this route so it is

a big concern if it's something that democrats and republicans can agree upon you know it's a big deal there have been many concerns raised in congress about. some particularly after the merger do you think congress will push back against these developments with technology. i do i both hope so and i do think so. going back to that discussion that was happening in the united states congress a month ago brad sherman made the point he's a congressman brad sherman made the point that if we can't trust mohamed bin solomon with a bone saw how can we trust him with nuclear technology now that's a completely fair points and it's a valid concern. if even if we can get to this type of one two three agreement that guarantees that saudi arabia won't develop a nuclear weapon can we really rely on them to keep their word the other concern of

course is that there are other actors in play here. was mentioned earlier both russia china and korea are being considered to develop civilian nuclear energy programs in saudi arabia so the trumpet ministration is making the argument that if we don't sell them to technology and put some form of safeguards in place the russians are just going to turn around and do this so the big question is how do we do this in the most safe and secure way possible that that maximizes the chances that saudi arabia will never attempt to proliferate and develop nuclear weapons question remains unanswered that but thank you very much i will say ssion for giving us your thoughts analysis here on al-jazeera thank you. thanks for having me . plenty more still to come on the news hour including. i'm joined now in eastern

ukraine where they're still fighting a war with russia which the rest of the country with an election looming would rather forget. and celebrating a nation's past and present qatar opens the doors to its new national museum. and this french world cup winner makes a record breaking near to a new club all the details in sports. the questions being raised in the u.k. parliament's about direct british military involvement in the war in yemen the opposition labor party is demanding on cers after british media reports aides that special forces had been involved in far fights with yemen's rebels the government's has also been questioned over allegations that british forces may have provided support for child soldiers as part of the site

a unique coalition there is one especially disturbing allegation in the mail on sunday's report which was that our forces are providing support to locally recruited saudi funded militia where many of the fighters up to forty percent it was alleged are children as young as thirteen years old so i would ask the minister of state if that is in any way true because if he is then he will confirm and off forces are not just a party to this conflict but witnesses to war crimes i feel that we get to the bottom of those allegations again i am very keen also not to in any way risk mislead the house. but the allegations that were made in relation to any engagement that involves bringing a child soldiers on board would be i think it would be appalling. well charlie i'm sure has more now from london. this source of these allegations is

a mail on sunday newspaper article which alleges that elite special boat service troops are present in yemen and five were injured after battles insider if true it would wholly contradict the government promises that the u.k. is not participating in the conflict but just providing logistical support to the saudis in riyadh now back in february there were some reports on social media suggesting british soldiers had been injured in a firefight and the daily express newspaper claimed two s.a.'s members had been injured during a humanitarian operation the difference with this these new revelations is that the mail on sunday is claiming the special boat service squadron were not involved in humanitarian operations but they were providing mentoring teens in yemen translators medics and forward air command whose role is to request air support from the saudis. italy and mole to see migrants have hijacked

a merchant ship that rescued them it happened off the coast of libya on the ship is believed to be heading towards malta one hundred and it's migrants were picked up by the ship turns or so to have taken control of the vessel after discovering it was taking them back to libya. are but one hose has been following developments from the libyan capital tripoli. italy's interior minister salvini accuses the migrants of hijacking the tanker tanker picked up the migrants in the international waters and according to sylvania it was loaded with the migrants and was sent back to the libyan capital tripoli we understand that the international waters were the migrants were picked up or risk you'd. patrolled by libya's coast to god and libya's coast guard officials say it's

their right to escape grants and send them back to libya because they believe that the migrants have violated libya's sovereignty by first of all entering get libya illegally and second by sailing of libyan sure. also illegally according to salvini the tanker was sent back to tripoli but when it was about six no tickle my eyes away from the capital tripoli it changes its course and turn it back to the north and we understand that the migrants my. fear being sent back to tripoli because they're afraid that the in my face the same violations the usually face at the hands of people smugglers and that includes extortion

beatings and in some cases killing rape. five cases of cholera have been confirmed in mozambique's badly damaged port city of beira six weeks after cyclon devastated the area the u.n. fears the disease will spread and says it needs nearly three hundred million dollars in aid to help one point seven million texans cyclon is i killed more than seven hundred people across southern africa well tony pertly travel to one community in mozambique that's been cut off for twelve days. it's a race against time to reach isolated psychosis vive years before my nutrition and disease break out helicopters are scouring the three thousand square kilometer disaster zone in central mozambique searching for the vulnerable and overlooked who desperately need help. in the village of greater two hundred kilometers from here

or they found a thousand hungry people if they ate something once a day they were among the more fortunate we are very happy very happy because one remembered it without food without a clean water and we got an extension as well so when we saw this helicopter people were very happy. the world food program brought two tons of high nutritional food much to the relief of the villagers who lost everything in the psych lone homes crops possessions and some their loved ones they say this comes just in the nick of time for these people their food had run out they were cut off for twelve days the water's only receded here four days ago they still need flour they still need oil and they still need medicine but for now they're ok they're going to survive but there are other isolated pockets like these around the country who still need help in this area they're used to flooding but not with such ferocious winds more into went for when we didn't expect the cycling to be so bad it was frightening when we

were told that the winds will be more than two hundred kilometers per hour we didn't take it seriously that's why so many people suffered. five people from the community were swept away in drowning clued in a young boy most are now having to live in a local school. aid agencies estimate that they have reached six hundred thousand people so far but they need to get to another one million who need assistance there a lot of risk we really need to make a lot of efforts we need more money argentina to be able to bring here on the ground before what it what or since then that many things that we need to distribute on time because now bang for is of athens. just a few days ago the land below was covered in water after two days without rain the levels are receding more roads and tracks are becoming passable and that allows the more effective and cheaper way of delivering aid involved. but that help will need to be long term it's harvest season in this region for the villages

a barrage like tens of thousands of others have no crops to harvest no fish left to catch today they will eat but what will the future bring. many cycling victims will be dependent on international support for the forseeable future. tony virtually al-jazeera or rather central mozambique. cyclon it i has devastated parts of zimbabwe too but there are concerns on social media about how the aid there is being distributed it's regular mahomet's has more. it's been almost two weeks since my county die hit zimbabwe's eastern province the district of new money and shipping the hardest hit areas more than one hundred people have been killed and hundreds more on missing aid agencies from the united nations the e.u. and international governments have been donating tons of humanitarian aid including tents medical supplies and food but someone now accusing the government of the

rulings on appeal of party of politicizing the disaster and relief donations this video is being shared on twitter claiming state run vans a lining up to collect aid saying it's only being distributed to their supporters or being looted a local news outlet news day zimbabwe said this report online detailing personal accounts of those affected. council gave me two cups of dried beans and potatoes such as i make you and we didn't get anything all our property was destroyed by the cycling if you want to some effect like political they don't give us anything because the accuser m.d.c. supporters. we came at six am to wait for food but none has been brought to us yet and the spokesman of zimbabwe's opposition party movement for democratic change says their aid is being shed along party lines they are moving ahead. they want to put stickers for. on the tracks so this is.

this is discriminatory. but the rulings on appeal party strongly denied those accusations here's what a local government minister had to say. that. that is allowed but i know that. what we're trying to do. with their drugs. but it hasn't stopped many zimbabweans from expressing their frustration online some say agencies on the ground should be the ones handing over aid to those in need well steve says when we donated we didn't mention all political parties we did it as zimbabweans and a journalist says all donations must reach victims of like tony di no political party must benefit from the generosity of the public and international community.

still to come on al-jazeera. killer robots the stuff of science fiction which kids seem become reality we explore growing international calls for a ban. and some on how it ferments on course to reclaim the top spot in the world rankings details in sports. and there was a lot of cloud over the southeastern parts of china at the moment it's snaking its way up through parts of it now and all the way up to will shanghai and i think this is where we'll see some of the wettest of the weather as we head through thursday on friday the whole system will be slipping its way towards the south still giving want to run the shop outbreaks of rain and that again will be stretching into parts

of vietnam to the south of all of that there is home kong where we'll get to twenty six degrees and this should be a good deal of sunshine as well for the southeastern parts of asia lots of showers at the moment and the showers really getting going as we head through the next few days as well so the philippines seeing more of them than we've seen recently and that's good news because we are in a drought and it looks like the showers will continue as we head through thursday towards the west we've also seen quite a few showers even parts of thailand recently and there's the risk of seeing a few war those as we head through friday as well out towards the west and we've got plenty of cloud. plenty of rain with us at the moment that has caused a lot of problems through parts of iran a lot of flooding here the whole system as you can see stretches up towards the north over parts of afghanistan where that gradually eases as we head through the day on thursday so it does break up a lot here to the south of that we'll just notice it's getting hot now so if new delhi were up at thirty six degrees on the day. it was

a sponsor can tolerate. eastoe more on truth whether on my watch t.v. has taught us is to be able to concise being expressing exactly what is happening in the moment and what it means for the future or if you join us on sand israel is an apartheid state and in the ethnic cleansing of the palestinian people this is a dialogue everyone has a voice and we want to hear from you join the colobus conversation amount is iraq one of the really special things about working for al-jazeera is that even as a camera woman i get to have so much and put in contribution to a story i feel we cover this region better than anyone else would be what it is you know it's that it shouldn't be but in the particular because you have a lot of people that are divided on political issues. the people believe to tell the real story so i'll just mend it is to deliver in-depth journalism we don't feel inferior to the audiences across the globe.

you're watching all jazeera quick reminder of the top stories this hour. the president parliament's moves to wrest control of the brics a process from prime minister to resign me as an didn't care will switch no agreements on an alternative for her deal with the e.u. over the past few hours m.p.'s rejected all eight options from the country's withdrawal from the european union. a session of the united nations security council is on the way to discuss u.s. president donald trump's recognition of the occupied golan heights as israeli

territory there originally said comes at the request of the syrian government on monday trump signed a proclamation and which the u.s. recognized israel's annexation of the area. questions have been raised in the u.k. parliament about direct british military involvement in the war in yemen the opposition labor party is demanding answers after british media reports its special forces have been involved in far fights with yemen's rebels. as scientists and the health care professionals have written a letter to the un calling for an international ban on so-called killer robots they don't exist yet but campaigners say they're just a year or two away twenty eight countries have signed up so far but the u.s. and russia are among those resisting our science and technology had so mariana holmes has more. mention killer robots and many of us saying. of

this machine able to think feel and kill we have no way of knowing whether the kind of artificial general intelligence needed to create a scene tiant robot like this will ever be possible but here's what we already have sameeh autonomous machines dryers tanks aircraft robots big and small machines that can be witnessed even programmed to find targets but the final decision of whether to take a life lies with us so-called killer robots fully autonomous weapons that can select and kill without human intervention well they don't exist. here we don't want to see killing outsourced to machines on the battlefield or in policing or in border control an obvious circumstances this is why we call for a preemptive ban on the development production and use of killer robots as soon as possible we already have facial recognition technology to unlock hellfire and they

could be used by a fully autonomous weapon and trying say to identify and then attack a target without a human heavy in the final say but what if it kills the wrong person or the machine malfunctions and continues to hunt and kill long after a conflict has been resolved whose responsibility is it when a fully autonomous weapon gets it wrong so everybody's got their experience with computers not working with barnes and i pads failing. and that's an inconvenience at best imagine that when you have the weapon system which is failing which is failing to turn off killer robots could be hacked and then used by your enemy forces against you and against your population and that they could be programmed to target a certain popular part of the population to go out there and to seek all military age males. you know and determined them to be legitimate targets and fire upon them sixty one percent of people polled in twenty six countries last year oppose fully

autonomous weapons twenty eight countries have signed up to a ban take company's scientists researches and engineers in their thousands have over the years pledged not to knowingly create killer robots but plenty a lot of those are embracing artificial intelligence and warfare and states like israel russia south korea and the united states are among those resisting the ban countries may agree we're all better off without killer robots but no one wants to be left behind on the battlefield well let's stay with this poll cheri is senior fellow and director of the technology and national security program at the center for a new american security he joins us now live via skype from tacoma washington these reports seem fairly alarming to the viewer i mean how concerned should we be.

well the good news is that the kind of science fiction scenarios that we see in say the terminator movies where robots rise up and turn against people would have to worry about those those are clearly still in the realm of science fiction and what we are talking about as you mentioned earlier is ever more sophisticated robots that militaries are building that have increasing levels of autonomy so at least ninety countries around the globe already have drones today including many non-state groups there are well over a dozen countries that have armed drones and with each generation these become more autonomous so the real question is what happens when a drone has as much autonomy as a self driving a car and our military is going to be willing to delegate life and death decisions to these armed drones now no country has said that they are going to definitely build a top of this weapons that could go out and hunt for their own targets but very few

countries have sworn them off either and of the twenty eight countries that have said this is where banned none of those are major military powers were bonded to developers and so the technology continues to race forward and what the could the technology is contained to every spot among people who are saying they're not going to to go ahead with this the ristal some resistance from the u.s. and russia why is that this resistance. i think there's a couple reasons one is a belief that a lot of this area is that people are concerned about robots running amok and killing civilians would be things that are already prohibited under the laws of war it's illegal right now to build any weapon that would be indiscriminate that could indiscriminately kill civilians that's already were crime and so a number of countries have said that the u.s. and russia and we have the laws of war they work fine we don't need new treaties

but another really important factor is that countries don't trust each other that's what countries have militaries in the first place is because they don't trust others and so one of the concerns with this is that even a country said ok we'll ban them how do you know that they're actually compliant that they're not building these weapons in secret and that's a real obstacle to reaching any kind of agreement on this technology well you mentioned that the rules of war you see several occasions of these rules of war not being respect you mentioned also that we're still a few years away from having the nightmare terminates of will but scenario but the a list that may be able to stop this progress i mean the drones are already out there hasn't the pandora's box already been opened. i mean there's no question that in terms of the availability of the technology it's already out there a you know a malicious person a terrorist of rogue state could go and build a crude

a thomas weapon with existing technology today and look there are always going to be some bad actors who don't care about the laws of war chemical weapons are illegal we still seen other root actors use them for charlotte still using them in syria against civility so they'll always be some who don't care and that's one of the arguments against this technology is look in the hands of those who do care about the laws of war automation could possibly be used in ways that are lawful that make warfare more precise more discriminant and a band that disarmed only those who cares about the law could be the worst of all possible outcomes impose sharia from the center for the american security thank you so much for speaking to us and al-jazeera and keep it from happening. now ukrainians will vote on sunday and a tightly for presidential election one of forty candidates are running but it's

really a three horse race president petro poroshenko is seeking reelection for the first time since coming to power in twenty fourteen ease up against opposition leader yulia tymoshenko a former prime minister popular among older voters she's promising a three fold increase in pensions the wild card there was this man who was a mere selenski he's a comedian who plays a fictional president of the popular t.v. series he's tapped since a growing discontent over corruption and he appears to be leading in the polls they're winning candidates on these at least fifty percent of the votes to avoid a runoff or this is happening against the backdrop of the conflicts in the east with russian backed fighters now in its fifth year the war has hurt ukraine's most economically important region drains public resources and exhausted voices and there's no ends insights out to syria's journal reports in the city of mariupol

where the conflicts is never far away. in ukraine's war zone a new breed of intrapreneur. alexi used his disability payout as an injured veteran to set up a pizza business. being given a motivator people are happy to spend their money rather than save it because they know anything can happen at any moment. he's not particularly enthusiastic about the upcoming presidential election or have a better back. because of their spinelessness it took volunteers to protect this country where the leadership was too weak to protect it it's all soldiers like alexi from the port city of mariupol formed the hours off but talon in two thousand and fourteen claim is for preventing russian backed separatists from extending their territorial gains in the donbass region all the way to the sea but mario poll

has paid a heavy price its once busy port sits idle empty of the cargo ships that carried steel and coal produced here to international markets russia's efforts to disrupt sea traffic off the annexed crimea peninsula include illegal cargo inspections and a bridge built across the curch strait that's too low for larger vessels heading for mariupol to pass beneath you more but if. they can forgive us that our country is in the band until zenda stands that ukraine is a free and democratic country unfortunately it will be hard to establish these. then late last year an unprovoked russian attack on three ukrainian navy boats twenty four captured ukrainian sailors are still being held in moscow and international shipping is far less frequently seen in these waters since last november's attacks on those ukrainian naval vessel suggested russia had no.