>> another warm welcome back to france 24. these are our top stories this hour. survivors of last week's school shooting tell donald trump why the u.s. needs new gun control measures. the presidident has promised action, including giving guns to school teachers. the syrian rebel held enclave is shaken by more heavy shelling. the u.n. secretary-general has

described the situation as "hell on earth." -- the 30 day cease-fire. nfusion surrounding schoolgirls rereportedly kidnapd by boko haram insurgents earlier this week. nigerian officials say several are still missing. thank you for joining us. also coming up in our special series focusing on poland, we will focus on -- 30 years ago, led a revolt against communist rule, and now fear that the country is slowly drifting away from thehe west. dozens of flights grounded as air france staff walk off the job overpay. ♪

>> donald trump has promised to introduce strong background checks for people purchasing firearms. the u.s. president was speaking at a so-called listening session with survivors of the last school shooting, televised from the white house wednesday. rebecca brings you the details. students and parents of the parkhill shooting victims -- listening session at the white house. >> it should have been one school shooting and we should have fixed it. because mysed, daughter, i'm not going to see again. she is not here. she is an north lauderdale or

wherever she is, king davidd cemetery. that is where i see my kid now. >> trump responded by saying he was prepared to take action. >> we are going to be strong on background checks. strong emphasis on the mental health of somebody. we are going to do plenty of other things. >> trump has been an outspoken supporter of gun rights, but sources say the president is considering imposing an age restriction on certain types of weapons, like the ar-15 used to kill 17 people during last week's shooting. students marched toward the capital, for gun control. even more flooded the florida state capital, including more than 100 survivors of the shooting. >> nobody should have to go

through what we went through. and i do not want to stand by this any longer. we will not be silenced by the connection of our senators -- by the inaction of our senators and legislators. >> their demands, greater care for the mentally ill, bans on assault weapons. >> the syrian government has -- province.mbarded -- continued to rain down on civilians this thursday. the un security council is set to work on a draft resolution, calling for a 30 day cease-fire. for many residents on the ground, it is too late. our regional correspondent, chloe domat. it does not look like this devastating shelling is ending anytime soon. >> no, the violence continues

today. the shelling was more sporadic during the night, but it resumed heavily this morning. it has now been five days since the syrian regime and its allies have launched a massive error offensive against eastern good -- near damascus. on humanitarian situation the ground is disastrous. about 400,000 people are stranded with nowhere to go. we were able to speak on the phone with a doctor there. he says the shelling is quasi- -constant. he says that hospitals are targeted regularly and that the number of casualties keeps rising as people don't hahave accessss to medical facilities.

thingsgs as simple as food, clen water, basic commodities. council hascurity to30 day pause in fighting deliver food. is that enough? absolutely, the un security council is supposed to vote on a 30 day cease-fire that would allow for humanitarian aid to reach ghouta, and for some of the civilians to be evacuated. to be honest, there is little .ope the international community has called countless times for cease-fires in ghouta. since yesterday, the international red cross thanked president emmanuel macron, angela merkel -- calling for a

truce. the u.n. security general that -- thery-gegeneral called u.n. secretary-general calleled ghoutata hell on earth. -- that no one will step in to stop it from reaching its goal. the violence could even escalate even more if the regime decides to push an offensive on the ground in addition to its airstrikes. beirut, the humanitarian catastrophe in ghouta. -- published an annual report painting a grim picture on the state of global rights -- of human rights globally. u.u.s. president donald and russian leader vladimir putin -- the report also addresses the treatment of migrants and who amnesty says have

been -- a major issue in france. let's look at the president of amnesty in france. -- would likent it is good france -- to be efficient. it is not so good to try to be only purposehe would be to increase the number of migrants expelled and to of refugeesumber welcome. we are worried about this new emphasis on efficiency. we could hide a form of inefficiency, or some things that are not according to the law. nigeria, a number of girls reported missing monday after an attack b by boko haram insurgens -- they have been found. -- claim that some of the girls are still unaccounted for.

-- some of the students were rescued by the "gallant officers and men of the nigerian army." repeat of thehe 2014 mass kidnapping of more than 200 girls from a school. we havave the story. >> a new attack on a nigerian boarding school and new fears of a mass kidnapping of schoolgirls. monday night, boko haram jihadists stormed a village. dozens of girls were reported missining as of wednesday, wit officicials and local media getting confnflicting accounts f ththe numbers.s. the nigerian government says some of those girls were that t some, but not all, have since bebeen rescued.

---- explosionsescribed and gunfire as, militants rating schools. comes nearly four years after the boko haram attack in which 276 girls were kidnapped. over 100 of whom are still believed to be held by the group, schoolgirls once again the target of jihadi rage. advocacy groups say not enough is being done. >> even if we are not understanding the emphasis of this -- schools must be protected enough to prevent abduction of innocent young, naive girls. 2009, bo boko haram's insurgency has claimed over 20,000 lives and displaced some

2.6 million people. >> in venezuela, nicolas maduro has sworn to consolidate his power by calling for earlier presidential -- earlier collections to coincide with the presidential vote. they may recall the presidential race -- unlikely to face any major challenges. throw developments could the future of the political opposition further into doubt. now for our series, focusing on poland. the citywe travel to of devils, poland, where -- of .avos, poland when communism ended, they felt like a new era had begun. the decade for struggle of democracy -- poland seems to increasingly slip away from western values. long gone are the days when

the port city -- communism in poland. three decades ago. stanislav remembers when he joined the strike, led by the shipyard electrician who became the country's first democratically elected president. >> they wanted to see where he lived. there it is. >> stanislav often drives by y e home and rewinds to that dark time. the soviets ruled with an iron fist. the economy was battered. when he joinedhe protestst, he was fired from hisis job as a sp cook. >> i would do it again if i had to. i would not want communism to return. not ideal,on is though. those in power only care about themselves and not about the ordinary people.

,> when the soviet era ended free market reforms were introduced, and poland joined the eu. many are worried that the country has become a bastion of the far right. what is left of the revolution is a place of pilgrimage. the museum has been set up right whwhere the solidarity movement helped overthrow communism. >> all of the tables that you .ee here are original tables displayed exactly in the same way they were during the negotiations with strikers. day, dozens of visitors come to the site to patron view to those who died or were imprisoned by the regime. i want my kids to remember we live in a free country, that we should appreciate it and hold on to our freedom, because --

shipyard workers rising against the communist beast is a story parents tellsh their children. the story that is also beingng hijacked by politicians from the ruling conservatives to left-wing politicians. an actressn which was made up to appear african. the advertisement aired on their lunar new year -- it provoked accusations of racism. this is not the first time a chinese television show is causing problems with its portrayal of other ethnicities. if there are people who want to seize on an incident and exaggerate matters to create a dispute between china and african countries, this is doomed to fail. china and africa have weathered many storms and have been successful. the relationship between china and africa is good -- african

countries and the people of africa in their heart know exactly how things stand. >> time now to remind you of headlines -- >> the parents of last week's school shooting -- the president has promised action, including endorsing guns for school teachers. the syrian rebel held enclosure in ghouta is shaken by more heavy shelling. the u.n. secretary-general has described the situation as hell on earth. on are expected to vote resolution, demandg a 30 day cease-fire. plus, confusion surrounding schoolgirls reportedly kidnapped i boko haram insurges earlier this week. nigerian officials say several are still missing. let's start now, off with the strike in air

france. ofhalf of the airlines out paris have been canceled, along with some medium and short of flights. grandstaff walked off the job in a dispute over pay. virginia robertson has the story. >> the heart of many an industrial dispute: pay. air france started demanding a 6% wage increase after years of job cuts and eight salary freeze since 2011. that prompted this monday strike by pilate, cabinet crew, and ground staff. don't know if they are going to give me back my luggage. retirement -- my retirement home is complicated. if they are on strike, it is not just for the fun of it.

>> a spokesperson for the company says disruption is minimal. >> we will find solutions for our clients. that is why all of our air france commercial team has been at the airport doing everything we can to help customers. relations have been tested. 20 15, 2 executives were left running with ripped clothes after a meeting about the proposed 2900 layoffs of ground crew pilots -- of ground, crew, and pilots. euros in 2017, so employees are seeking their reward. the company's counter offer is a one cent pay raise, with a topper for ground staff. -- acknowledged improvement in business, but called for realistic balance between

rewarding staff and reinvesting in the company. >> we move on to the carmaker, ford. has been fired from his job after what ford said was behavior inconsistent with their code of conduct. they have not specified what led to his dismissal, but it happened on an investigation into him after an anonymous complaint. they are warned profits will slip this year because of the slow dive in t the u.s. car market. -- investigation into claims that senior politicians received bribes from -- to promote a swiss drugs from. prime minister samaria's -- both denied wrongdoing. -- the australian airline is reporting record profits for the

six months at the end of december, 15%. it is a remarkable turnaround for the carrier known as the flying kangaroo, which three years ago, suffered record losses. wrote was in the airlines domestic business, facing tough competition on the international route. the british bank berkeley reported 1.9 billion pounds in -- and over 2.1 billion euros. that worked out to one-off charges. -- rose by 10%. >> and how is all of that affecting the market? >> european shares trading in the red following a trend that started on wall street yesterday after the minutes from the federal reserve meeting hinted at a faster pace of interest rate hikes. in london after their latest results, and in finland, shares

of the maker of angry birds dived. >> finally, it is a digital revolution for a chinese tradition. exchanging red envelopes stuffed with cash over the chinese new year holiday. four years ago, the chinese tech introduced a digitatal application -- which s seen explosive growth. this year, almost 800 million people havave sent or received money via their mobile phone. other companies, including allie are, are getting -- alibaba getting involved. >> thank you for the business update. it is now time for the press review.

>> -- been looking at one of our top stories. the growing movement among young people in the u.s. for gun control, especially after last week's shooting in florida. at thes take a look tampa bay times, a florida based newspaper. it covers how thousands descended on tallahassee, the capital of florida, to demand that congress debate the issue of gun control. the florida representatives valued guns and not kids. they voted down a request to even debate the issue, 71-36. the paper quotes a student who was at the rally, the biggest in two decades in florida, who said how can they do this to us? >> on a national level, there is also a movement under the #never again. about trump'salks

tone and how he listened to parents yesterday at the white house, and also students, and his proposal of increasing the of buying guns, or banning bump stocks. they say it almost looked good. he almost seemed amenable to their demands to curb the number of assault weapons in the u.s.. odds are that nothing is going to change, but beating the odds is essential because life depends on it. >> something else making --dlines is that photographs a cheat, basically, that photographers caught with a telephoto lens. number five says "i hear you." press is teasing trump about this. on a more serious note, you notice the 45 on his cough. -- on a more serious note, this

may be a reminder of what some in the media are calling scripted reactions by pro-gun politicians. that all of this is a fight to control the media narrative. the l.a. times says this is already in play among conspiracy theorists. are already falsely portraying the victims as crisis actors, people who are being paid to act like victims to boost the gun control cause. the l.a. times debunks the videos and rumors, saying the right wing media is getting it wrong. that these are actual victims, and the times says the right-wing media has begun circulating such conspiracy theories. >> incredible. you've been looking at another tragic story that has been grabbing headlines. that is the government bombing of eastern ghouta in syria. --one of the many papers this says the west is powerless

when faced with the syria tragedy. that sayse an op-ed the u.s. and eu are not putting they foot down, and until do so, russia and the regime will do what they want. they say vladimir putin have the last word in syria.. in a similar vein, the new york times says that it is a soft and and putin who have the most blood on their hands, but that the world powers have done nothing. they take issue with the u.n. in particular, saying they have been particularly at the tent. it is a point of view illustrated by this cartoon. you have a u.n. official measuring the number of bombs -- it will come up soon. measuring the number of bombs, but not actually doing anything else. talksabic paper also about this difference between words and actions. that it is just a letter to the

dead, and instead of it being -- >> it's interesting that some of these headlines say the west is powerless, yet they have the opportunity to vote for a cease-fire. the man hailed as america's most beloved preacher. >> in the u.s. media today, there is a slew of tributes from conservative and liberal media. let's take one, from fox news's website. it equates billy graham with nelson mandela and mother teresa , mainly for bringing evangelism into the lives of americans through televised service. guardian says not so fast with the praise. instead of a tribute, it says that graham was on the wrong side of history. it says he feigned support of , andivil rights movement he, in the end, did not want the government to intervene. he also later in life denied climate change.

a man that, for the washington post, says was often touted as an a political figure, yet he consistently sided with conservatives and was quite vain and naive. that is from the washington post. >> tributes pouring in from u.s. presidents. let's move onto something for people like myself, art aficionados. >> this might talk to your fashion instincts. an article that explains how u.s. skier, mikaela shiffrin, brought 35 peers of skis to south korea. and she usually brings 70. explains that there is actually someone working skatesme to wax those behind the scenes and make them perfect for whatever snow or weather conditions. it seems to be working, because she has won a gold and silver metal. on thecan catch up

france 24 website, france24.com >> that is it for us. more news coming up shortly.

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