so tibetans here have been able to access the indian system so they become self-sufficient setting up a business is looking for work independently but for some it's not enough. rockets hit the u.s. embassy insider walks high security green zone. watch al-jazeera live from headquarters and. also ahead the chinese prime minister is in on his beijing puts aside nearly $9000000000.00 to fight the corona virus outbreak which has now killed $81.00 people. donald trump puts out it is former national security adviser after john bolton makes claims that undermine trump's

defense of the senate impeachment trial. and basketball fans gathered to pay their respects to kobe bryant's who was killed in a helicopter crash his daughter is also among the 8 other victims. but we begin with breaking news this hour and we're getting reports that a passenger plane has crashed in afghanistan the flight came down 15 kilometers from the center of the day district in eastern afghanistan the province there's no information yet about casualties. us from kabul what more are you learning about the zain. well daryn it's happened a few hours ago and information is still relatively difficult to come by details are still unclear and there seems to be disagreement among those responsible and in charge that really should know what is going on now what we do know is that

a passenger plane certainly has crashed in the central gaza need province initial reports suggest that the area where the aircraft has gone down it is in snow covered mountainous terrain and it is interesting that it's controlled reportedly by the taliban so that may make getting details more details more difficult it may be difficult to carry out any sort of search and rescue effort at this stage but again we are hearing initial reports that this passenger plane belonged to ariana airlines now the chairman of that airline 'd said that is not the case however the vice president for that airline said that indeed it was one of their planes eyewitnesses reported in local media also seem to suggest that it wasn't good and ariana airlines aircraft but again the fact that it may have gone down in taliban controlled areas is likely to make getting details and clarity in a quick fashion more difficult ok then we'll cross back to them when you get some more information thank you for the time being. the u.s. embassy in baghdad has been targeted by rockets the 1st direct hit after months of

near misses 3 rockets landed inside the compound one struck near a dining area during meal time the embassy is located inside the heavily fortified green zone in central baghdad previous attacks have landed near the facility the u.s. state department described the situation as tense and says its forces remain vigilant it's called on iraq to ensure its diplomatic facilities are protected meanwhile iraqi security forces have used tear gas to try to clear anti-government protesters from vera camp in the capital a crackdown began after the influential cleric. withdrew his support for the demonstrators let's bring in for any updates he's joining us from baghdad so what more are you learning about the rocket attacks on the u.s. embassy in iraq the government's reaction. well we're not hearing too much from the iraqi government itself has said that it will investigate the

incident and it will produce those results in the coming days however the us have blamed iranian backed militias and iran for these attacks those militias have actually reacted how the one of the key command is has actually condemned the attack on the embassy another commander of one of the bigger militias has also come out and spoke and what he said is actually quite interesting he said this wasn't the militias that took part in this attack if they were to make an attack to revenge the death of. another key militia leader they would have reacted in the same way that iran would have reacted so we are having this reaction now from the popular mobilisation forces the shia militias that been blamed by the americans for this is now let me give you some geography of the actual embassy itself when you walk through the perimeter you have to walk quite far to where that rocket landed

actually landed almost in the middle of the embassy compound itself by the canteen area where there are some residential compounds as well and that's going to be very alarming to the u.s. however we've heard no reports of injuries and if they were casualties if there were injuries you would have expected the of american reaction to be so much more but we haven't had that and despite the crackdown as it's being described by some on iraqi protesters demanding and changing government how much momentum does that continue to have. well what's going on right now is all still clashes taking place and i'll just get out the way so you can get a better view this is talk risk where this is the focal point for the protest movement it's where the iraqi government the protesters come back to just one square alone is where all the clashes are taking place there's a cat and mouse game going on between the protesters and the police they come from

here they go down to the other square colonia square they throw rocks at the police and they try and move forward and they're pushed back by the the riot police who've been using large fire was actually heard in the last couple of hours and take us as well the protesters are determined to try and have their protests as wide as possible the government will come here but there's still a stalemate between the protesters and the government. the protest is the bond haven't actually been listened to yet there's no new prime minister and there's no call for new elections ok i'm on the leave it there thank you for that update from baghdad china's prime minister of china has met medical staff and residents in the epicenter of the corona virus outbreak is now on his way to beijing to meet the head of the world health organization as the number of people killed by the virus rises to $81.00 more than $2700.00 have been infected the chinese government is putting aside nearly $9000000000.00 to fight the outbreak and that's extended the

lunar new year holiday until next sunday. she means. president xi jinping organized amusing of the standing committee the meeting clearly requires the strengthening of inspection on migrant people patients that are infected must be strictly quarantined inspections and examinations on suspected cases and people who are in close contact with patients should be done carefully according to medical requirements so as the busiest international airport in central china on thursday airlines began cancelling flights to and from the city but before the shutdown flights from were going to 30 destinations outside mainland china that's including 21 cities in asia pacific 5 in europe one in the middle east and 2 in the united states the number of domestic destinations is also significant flights from who normally go to 77 destinations across mainland china scarred heiler the latest

on beijing's efforts to contain the outbreak. the control of the reaction the government's reaction the local government's reaction the nation's reaction to this this outbreak has steadily gone up the chain of command if you will and it just went to the very highest levels over the weekend and that's when there was a very rare standing committee standing politburo committee meeting on the 1st day of lunar new year which makes it even rarer and then we knew that at that stage one of the 7 standing members was going to front the efforts by the chinese government when it comes to cracking down to controlling this corona virus and we know now that is a prime minister they could chang we've seen those images and yes that's something that it's a very obviously a very strong message that they're sending internally but also extremely to the outside world is just how seriously this government is taking the situation there was a lot of criticism about the local government and how they handled the situation 5000000 people got out before they closed down or locked down the transportation from

holland so obviously that's a very very large number so then soon after that we saw it kind of go up the chain of command and that's what we saw today visually the prime minister down there in rouhani and interesting one of the places he visited was the construction site for one of these 2 new hospitals purpose built hospitals that are going up and we want to deal with the patients from coronavirus one is going to be finished in just about a week the other one maybe a couple weeks after that so probably at least 2000 plus beds for these patients from this virus but obviously the optics are pretty clear sending him down there and sending and sending out these images around the world and into china that the government is directly at the high levels of the government are directly involved. while leading for all of us and hong kong are warning the outbreak is far worse than what the chinese government has said adrian brown has more. we've been hearing the softer noone from caprio long he's

a leading epidemiologist he is the head and he's the dean of hong kong university's medical medical faculty and he basically says based on commuter computer modeling that they've been using as other experts are around the world right now he estimates that in fact 44000 people have been infected by this virus in who hand and he also says that the rate of infection will double every 6 to 7 days so again this is based on computer modeling it doesn't mean it's necessarily going to happen but he said it is their forecast as sort of worst case scenario you might say so these are alarming words coming from hong kong and they appear to in a sense contradict what the world health organization has been saying because the world health organization so far hasn't felt compelled to declare an international public health alert the experts in hong kong are saying that draconian measures will be needed not just by hong kong's government and china's government but by

other governments around the world in the case of hong kong for instance you know someone has to give out things like food imported everything it eats just about is imported much of it coming from the mainland so his message was you know unless there is good planning unless we heed the warnings then you know we could be facing a global pandemic epidemic and in his words with cities across asia on high alert against the corona virus outbreak supplies a face masks are quickly running out in seoul were 4th case of the disease has been confirmed many pharmacies are making huge profits from chinese visitors rob mcbride reports. with facemasks selling out in many mainland chinese cities and in places like neighboring hong kong then pharmacies here in seoul have been doing a roaring trade catering for some of the 10s of thousands of mainland chinese

visitors who are reckoned to be in south korea at the moment for the lunar new year we've been watching at this one pharmacy and this is a scene that's repeated at pharmacies throughout seoul where a steady stream of mainland visitors have been coming up and snapping up literally armfuls of face masks filling up the bags and in some instances the cases that they're going to be returning to china with at the end of their holiday as this corona virus continues to spread in hong kong and that's a huge shock tate i cannot buy in everywhere. it's difficult to buy meth in mainland china right now there is a shortage so we have to take some back from overseas the increasing numbers of chinese visitors to south korea have certainly been good for business in recent years but it has led to a certain resentment building on the age old animosities that have existed between the koreans and the chinese and it's something which has been made worse with this

coronavirus in fact a petition on the official presidential a website calling for a complete ban on chinese visitors during this lunar new year period has gained hundreds of thousands of signatures a ban would seem to be a drastic measure but in fact the main doctors association here has said that if things continue to get worse as a last resort that may be the way forward. still ahead on al-jazeera. a stand off 11 on scamps home protesters try to block going into parliament ahead of a vote on a new budget. and arms race a report finds that china has grown to become the world's. and biggest weapons producer.

and oh that had to rain still pushing across areas over japan ideas even fairly swiftly but the rain is also pretty heavy at times what it does mean is the skies continuing to kiss steadily away from central and eastern areas of china maybe even some sunshine cheese or trolls into how with a high of a celsius 9 in shanghai and then look at this system not what tends to happen is it tends to really just sit in the sea of japan for the next couple of days so dragging in a lot of moisture we will see some snow to the mountains but not particularly cold and take a 15 degree celsius ace in sendai in fact also milder as well in support with a high of a full celsius 18 degrees in hong kong and as a say this should be some pretty good sunshine it has been mostly clear throughout much of but there is some rain on the way it will continue to say to impact to areas to the north it'll bring some showers across into new delhi into that cold air we're going to see some fairly have 2 months of snow really through tuesday and wednesday along the line of the himalayas to say that rain tending to push through

to pradesh 18 celsius few new delhi on wednesday. 33 degrees in colombia right down in the south where we have a gangle is dry conditions mostly kids throughout much of the middle east the arabian peninsula this is choose day and all into wednesday we'll see those showers but. with a high of 9 in ankara. a journey of discovery. which is the copy of a letter germany addressed to my grandfather 0. traces of family links to the regime of benito mussolini. is fascism returned to a tally i'm pleased to fresh in the family it makes me sick this letter. i found. on al jazeera.

on the top stories on al-jazeera breaking news from afghanistan a passenger plane has reportedly crashed near the center of a day act district in the eastern province there's no information yet about casualties. the u.s. embassy in baghdad has been struck by rockets the 1st direct hit after months of near misses one hit a dining area during meal time. china's prime minister they keep trying has visited on the epicenter of the corona virus outbreak we met medical staff and residents and is now on his way to beijing for talks with the head of the world health organization. donald trump has criticized his former national security advisor who

appears to be undercutting the u.s. president's impeachment defense he reportedly wrote that trump told him to tie you cranium military aid to an investigation into a political rival priyanka gupta reports this allegation is at the center of efforts to remove truong from office is highly respected by everybody in this room and john i want to thank you very much john bolton wants donald trump's national security adviser now a potential witness who could expose the u.s. president a new york times to pore details excerpts from a draft of bolton's upcoming book the report says the book reveals how trump wanted to hold back nearly 400 $1000000.00 in military assistance to ukraine until its officials aided investigations into his democratic rival former vice president joe biden his son and other democrats for the democrats these revelations from

a former white house insider seem to directly contradict trump's defense in the senate impeachment trial and have both stood they demands to call bolton as a witness in the house speaker nancy pelosi saying excluding him is now indefensible and calling it a choice between the constitution or a cover up until now the democrats have been struggling against a republican majority senate to seek testimonies if they were really interested in the american people knowing all the facts they wouldn't be fighting to make sure that this is the 1st trial in history without witnesses. i can promise you this mick mulvaney knows a lot more about this than any whistleblower. and john bolton knows more about this than the whistleblower trump has denied bolton's claims saying he never told him that the 8 to ukraine was tied to investigations into democrats including the

bidens and that if bolton said this it was only to sell a book trump has issued a blanket order barring his aides from cooperating in the investigation particularly bolton i would rather interview bolton i would rather interview a lot of people the problem with john is that it's a national security problem but analysts believe that's just an excuse so many presidents have used the national security card to actually hide the truth which was not a national security issue in this case on the usenet is not a national security issue if it's what bolton saying is true it is to be exposed so we can actually clean up our democracy and abide by the rule of law that will not be easy democrats need at least for republicans to vote with them to have witnesses included in the trial and in a deeply divided washington it's unclear if republicans will rise above partisan interests and be swayed by these new revelations priyanka gupta al-jazeera.

protesters in lebanon have been trying to a block politicians from getting into parliament to debate votes on a new budget of troops have been deployed on to major roads in the capital and have been physically removing demonstrators politicians are holding a 2 day session let's get an update from sara highroad she's joining us from beirut so they've made it into parliament sara but why are some protesters who are out on the streets unhappy with the session. well things have died down since those scuffles earlier there's been pockets of protest says there have been trying to stop the members of parliament from entering in the 1st place now this budget is a legacy of the old government which was under former prime minister. it was agreed upon last year and then there have been several delays since to actually vote on this budget now also the protesters are saying that it's actually on constitutional the reason why they're saying that is because of an article called article $69.00

which means that the current cabinet the current government needs to receive a vote of confidence from parliament 1st before they can decide through on this budget now we have 2 days of deliberation over this is today and they will be going into tomorrow the speaker of parliament said that he's trying to wrap up the situation all the discussions within parliament as soon as possible because of the security situation that's happening in lebanon at the moment here and as you're saying it's a 2 day session and all reports seem to indicate that this budget is indeed going to be possible are we expecting any surprises over the next 2 days from what you're hearing. so the budget there was some amendments made in december we spoke to some of the people on the budget and finance commission and they said that they are quite keen to get this budget to go through as soon as possible of course the reason why the protests started in the 1st place back in october was because of the economic crisis that is happening in lebanon and in fact the finance minister just last week said that they are

desperate for foreign loans and looking to have $4.00 to $5000000000.00 still foreign loans to be received from the international donor community some of those had been agreed on last year but whether this current government is going to be able to appease the protesters and their demands the process is still out on the streets they say they're not leaving and they also coming going to be coming back tomorrow to try and block the m.p.'s from entering parliament that's what they've told us earlier but the thing is is that whether this government is able to also appease the international community because the international community has said that they will look into may be possibly helping them financially only if major economic reforms are implemented and if those demands by the protesters it's ok sara thank you. and recognize government says it's reconsidering its participation in talks softer the collapse of a shaky truce to love and government soldiers were killed near misrata when the

world launched an offensive to take this city on sunday have to its forces are accused of bombarding civilians in the capital tripoli is well jna says the countries that attended the recent summit in berlin are responsible for the failure of the cease fire. new research suggests china is now the world's 2nd biggest producer of weapons the stockholm international peace research institute looked into 4 companies and found a clear shift from a decade ago when china relied on arms made elsewhere alexei o'brien reports. china's military might on show as a parade last year with some weight pins on display for the 1st time back in october analysts said china's technological advances were almost unprecedented and new research is lifting the lid on just how many of these weapons are being produced by beijing. the stucco mentor national peace research institute says china

is now the 2nd biggest manufacturer in the world a dramatic shift from a decade ago when it relied on munitions from elsewhere there have been a number of shifts in military policy within china 1st off they reduced over that period though almost $600000.00 troops but they put more money into moderates in the army the $2.00 aircraft carriers are in production one they had bought those are big ticket items as are rockets to report puts china behind the u.s. as the world's biggest producer with russia and the place until now the size of china's industries being largely traveled in mystery with beijing keeping reliable dasa secret but the stock on international peace research institute has now been able to look into 4 major chinese companies and says 3 of them would be in the top 10 global produces selling billions of dollars worth of weapons every year remember

although trying to may be rising in the ranks of manufacturers in terms of arms exports it's a very very small amount compared to the u.s. russia and e.u. and 20. $1.00 trillion dollars with spain told weapons across the globe the highest since the end of the cold wool with the research pointing to increased spending from washington and beijing alexia prime al-jazeera. u.s. presidents all the sects a have back to back meetings with israel's political rivals prime minister benjamin netanyahu in the opposition leader benny gantz are in washington where they're expected to hear details of trump's long delayed middle east peace plan that's. set to face off in march and israel's 3rd election in the space of a year the last 2 votes didn't produce a decisive winner with no leader able to form

a new government. and italy's right wing opposition leader matteo salvini has failed in his bid to win an important regional election the former deputy prime minister was hoping to swing the traditionally leftist region of. and for snap elections but a high voter turnout driven in part by and populist movements saw the center left democratic party win the votes nearly 200 holocaust survivors are at a ceremony in outs with birkenau camp in poland 75 years after it was liberated these survivors are laying wreaths at the execution wall of what was nazi germany's biggest death sites more than a 1000000 people mainly jews were killed there between 194-1945 basketball fans around the world are mourning the loss of superstar n.b.a. player kobe bryant's who's been killed in a helicopter crash in california his teenage daughter and 7 others on board also

died reports from calabasas just outside of los angeles. bryant's helicopter disintegrated on this fuel site calabasas outside los angeles. witnesses said there was heavy fog and poor visibility in the area at the time of the accident. resident paula dolan heard multiple explosions before the helicopter went down wired one bang one of was in the air and then the 2nd their 2nd bang as it was just sunday and then i heard a huge crash on board with a 41 year old retired superstar and his 13 year old daughter giana as well as 7 others including the pilot police have not released their names there was a wide speculation as to their dinner these are however it is being entirely inappropriate right now to identify anyone by name until the coroner has made their

identification through their very deliberative process and they've made made numerous occasions and next of kin. the cause of the crash is unknown the helicopter a sikorsky $76.00 b. has a robust safety record federal crash investigators will search the wreckage and more our team will be looking at the history of the pilots and whatever crew was on board will be looking at maintenance records of the helicopter bryant's prowess thrilled fans in l.a. and beyond for 2 decades. a crowd has gathered here below the crash site many people are wearing lakers colors purple and gold some people say it's as if a piece of their lives have been ripped apart even more than you can imagine and you can put in words just the passion and the grit in the sweat and blood and he's

giving to lausanne just for the basketball family is i can say beyond words seething with and i had all everyone up dumb l.a. is very sad right now he is just human he was not great player as a reason why i got into baskets of him that i have is changing it still like unbelievable for me to say that kobe bryant is not here with us anymore it's just tragedy it's just that i'm no words on a sitting. president donald trump tweeted bryant was one of the truly great basketball players of all time the loss of his beautiful daughter giana makes this moment even more devastating president barack obama an avid basketball fan said koby was a legend on the court and was just getting started in what would have been just as meaningful a 2nd act amid an outpouring of sorrow from players from across the spectrum of sports players from the euston rockets and the denver nuggets held

a moment of silence before their game on sunday players looked down shaking their heads. he leaves behind a sport that is grieving a city in mourning and a legacy of greatness that will be remembered as long as basketball is played robert oulds al-jazeera calabasas california. hello again the headlines on al-jazeera the sour and breaking news from afghanistan a passenger plane has reportedly crashed near the center of the day act this strikes in the eastern gazan province there's no information yet about casualties samus ravi has more from kabul now what we do know is that a passenger plane certainly has crashed in the central guys in the province initial reports suggest that the area where the aircraft has gone down it is in snow

covered mountainous terrain and it is interesting that it's controlled reportedly by the taliban so that may make getting details more details more difficult it may be difficult to carry out any sort of search and rescue effort at this stage the u.s. embassy in baghdad has been struck by rockets the 1st direct hit after months of near misses one hit a dining area during meal time china's prime minister lee he chang has visited who han the epicenter of the corona virus outbreak me met medical staff and residents and is now on his way to beijing for talks with the head of the world health organization. true witches president xi jinping organized a meeting of the standing committee the meeting clearly requires the strengthening of inspection on migrant people patients that are infected must be strictly quarantined inspections and examinations on suspected cases and people who are in close contact with patients should be done carefully according to medical

requirements protesters in lebanon have been trying to block politicians from getting into parliament to debate votes on a new budget thousands of troops have been deployed in the capital and have been physically removing demonstrators libya's un recognized government says it's reconsidering its participation in talks after the collapse of a shaky truce at least 11 government soldiers were killed. in the world. offensive to take the city on sunday u.s. president donald trump is said to have back to back meetings with israel's political rivals prime minister benjamin netanyahu and the opposition leader benny gantz are in washington where they're expected to hear details of trump's long delayed middle east peace plan. there's a headline on al-jazeera inside story is coming up next thanks for watching bye bye .

they are the ongoing wars all over the world land mines from iraq to egypt ukraine to afghanistan they continue to kill long after the financing is ended and how big is the challenge of clearing them and all of these explosive remnants treated with the same seriousness as in an active conflict this is inside story. hello everyone i'm come all santamaria they are the dormant legacy of war until colts they are traded land mines continue to affect the lives of so many people off

to conflicts and even decades later as is with the leftovers from the iran iraq war for example in the 1980 s. .