. >> james bayes is at the united nations. james what is the natest on this?reporter: well, the latest is some important developments in the coming hours ahead of that truce or cessation of hostilities which is supposed to start at midnight damascus, the beginning of saturday, that is here in the u.s., eastern time, 5:00 p.m. before that, to give it a little bit more weight going into it, the u.n. security council will be meeting two hours before that 3:00 pm eastern time. they will be passing a resolution, we believe to endorse the idea of this cessation of hostilities. and we wait for 5:00 pm eastern, when everyone will be watching very, very closely, whether there is a lull in the violence in syria. they are hoping that perhaps there could be a significant lull. >> and james, so, yeah, let's more about that. is anybody optimistic that this is going to work? >> reporter: yes, i think certainly the u.s. and russia are hopeful that if there is a bit of a lull, if they can perhaps get some more humanitarian aid into some of the besieged areas, then perhaps you

our diplomatic editor, james bayes joins us live now from the u.n. and james what can we expect?porter: this is a meeting, i think that is supposed to galvanize support for the cessation of hostilities. it is supposed to be just a couple of hours ahead of when the cessation of hostilities is starting. they will vote on a resolution. this was drawn up by the u.s. and russia. they managed to come to some consensus and merge together their resolutions to make one, so we're going to see in one hour's time that vote, the idea that this will give an extra push to this cessation of hostilities, which some of the main warring parties in syria say they are going to respect. the syrian government says they will respect it, the high negotiations committee say they will respect it. there were groups that weren't even invited, including of course, isil and al-nusra, and it's also worth noting when you look at the agreement for the cessation of hostilities that the other groups have pledged to stick to, it does even allow there to be self-defense, if you feel you are being attacked, you are al

. >> james bayes is at the united nations in new york, and joins us live now. s quite a lot of talk about lots of developments. let's start with the most heart breaking of stories, that is the aid that was meant to be dropped in deir al-zour, and it didn't get there. did they say they are going to attempt another drop soon? >> they are going to try again. this was really a last resort. they don't like to deliver aid from the air. they would much rather deliver it with trucks on the ground, because the aid in this case, the 21 tons that the kwif -- equivalent of a truckload of aid. this is something they practiced. i'm told there were a number of trial air drops that took place outside of syria to see that they could do this, and those were a success, but on this occasion, gusts of wind that they hadn't predicted, and when they pushed the pallets of aid out of the plane the gusts of wind took some of the aid where it was not supposed to go, and other parts of aid, the parachutes off, and that meant the aid fell to the ground and was destroyed when it hit the grou

let's bring in james bayes at the united nations in new york. james what more do you know?> reporter: well, this is happening at the same time as other things are happening here at the united nations. and what i think they are try doing is put all of the pieces in place to try to give this idea of a cessation of hostilities the best chance it could have. i can tell you the other very important development in the past few minutes news from the united nations, an announcement to the u.n. security council that for the first time, the u.n. has air dropped aid to daraa, the place where they can't get aid in by land, because it is effectively besieged by isil. 21 tons of aid have been delivered to daraa. that is an important development. but also at the same meeting, we have stringing criticism of the syrian government from steven o'brien, the humanitarian chief of the united nations, who said that they put in place lots of bureaucratic complexities. he described them as staggering, which are making it very, hard to get the aid to the besieged areas by the government. and they sa

our diplomatic editor, james bayes is at the united nations in new york, and joins us live. e have any more details, james? >> reporter: yes, we have been getting more details when this was announced to the u.n. security council. this is very important that this aid is getting to daraa zor, as you say a place effectively surrounded by isil. it's important that the humanitarian aid is getting in too, as part of the political process to try to encourage everyone this is seen as one of those items that could encourage sides involved in the conflict to take part in the cessation of hostilities, which is supposed to take place from saturday.com mat cuss time. the announcement was made by the u.n.'s humanitarian chief, steven o'brien. >> earlier this morning a wfp plane dropped the first cargo of 21 tons of items into daraa zor. we have received initial reports that targets have landed as planned. >> and the humanitarian chief is also strongly critical of the syrian government. >> reporter: yes, he came out with stringing criticism of the syrian government saying they have been put

. >> i'm going to be talking to james bayes in a moment. as a precursor to that, can you tell me about the syrian government's position as far as talks go. there is this idea of syrian-lead talks, where does that place the government? >> well, the government has repeatedly said this, we believe in syria-lead talks, the syrian people will decide the future of their country, dismissing, really, the international efforts to forge peace. the u.n.-lead talks, they are dismissing the opposition. they have never considered them as legitimate partners, and we also heard the syrian government make it clear how he sees the solution to the syrian crisis, by forging local reconciliation agreements, but for the opposition, this is not making peace, and this is not bringing about reconciliation, basically what the government does is from a position of strength because these areas are under siege, these people inside starve, they immediate medical equipment, so civilians surrender and give up. so it makes it very clear that they don't believe in a ceasefi

. >> james bayes is live for us in london. james how is that aid effort coming together?reporter: certainly the money is coming in, some of the money, but a very ambitious total that they need in order to fund the satisfy that is the humanitarian situation in syria. they want some $9 billion, and it's worth reminding you, sami, that this is the fourth one of these conferences, i was at the first one, where they wanted $1.2 billion. so i think it shows you the scale of what has happened in syria in recent years. it is only getting worse. and the misery continues. and every humanitarian will tale you they can raise the money to deal with the war, but clearly raising this money does not stop the fighting. >> and it doesn't .seem like those talks in geneva are heading in the direction of stopping the fighting, does it? >> reporter: no, it's really pretty grim when you looked at what happened in geneva in recent days, and the comments of the parties that were involved. the und.n. officially saying the talks are paused and start again later. but many say that they think it is g

james bayes is at the united nations in new york.l us a bit more about this first air drop of aid. >> reporter: well, this is important, because the town of dare -- deir al-zour is effectively cut off by isil. and this is the first time the u.n. has brought aid in from the air. any delivery at this point is not just to help the desperately needy people in those areas, it is also to try to encourage the peace process, because they want to get peace talks started again next week in geneva. the announcement of the air drop was made to the security council by steven o'brien. >> earlier this morning, a wfp plane dropped the first cargo of 21 tons of items into deir al-zour. we have received initial reports that pellets have landed in the target area as planned. >> reporter: he also as well as welcoming that air drop, was critical, though, of the syrian government. and the syrian ambassador was sitting there, and he said that syrian government put all sorts of bureaucratic obstacles in the way of aid deliveries to some besieged communities

if he was given that list, he would give it to the government side and ask for their release. >> james bayesorting for us from geneva. that's all of our time. thanks for watching. i'm tony harris in new york city. john siegenthaler and ali velshi are up next with special coverage of the iowa caucuses. al jazeera america. >>> and good evening, everyone. welcome to our special coverage of the iowa caucus. i'm john siegenthaler in new york. tonight, the first contest of the 2016 presidential race. an important night for republicans and democrats. this is a live look at a caucus at drake university in des moines. there has been a lot of talk about the polls. soon we'll find out if the polls were actually right. my coanchor ali velshi is in des

more from james bayes in munich. >> reporter: well it was interesting that staffan de mistura, said he had been told by syrians we don't want more meetings about meetings. we want action. have they come up with action? i don't know. i think it will be debated. because they have come up with the decision to create a rask force. they say that will meet very, very soon, it will take place in geneva and they say there will be action on getting humanitarian supplies to those hard to reach and besieged areas soon, by monday. the second task force is to deal with the issue of a ceasefire, although they are now not using that term which was in the original u.n. resolution. they are talking about a cessation of hostilities. and yet when the russian foreign minister discussed the very same thing, he said we're setting up this task force which will come up in one week with a modality for a regime for cessation. so will they manage to stop the violence in a week or just come up with a plan and a regime to stop the violence in one week. it's clear behind the scenes as the e.u. high representative s

james bayes has more on just what lead to the break down in talks?> reporter: the talks were halted, because i think the opposition were about to pull out of the talks, and the whole process was going to collapse, and so for that reason i think the u.n. felt the best option was to announce a pause -- a delay for three weeks, and this was the announce made by the u.n. special envoy. >> there is more work to be done, not only by us, but by the stake holders who have been telling us go and start this initiative. >> reporter: staffan de mistura speaking in geneva, he, like me has made his way in the last couple of hours from geneva to here in london. i saw him here, and he told me he was going straight away to brief ban ki-moon to give him his candid and frank assessment of the situation. i can also tell you that i have been speaking to another u.n. insider who is involved with the de mistura team, and this insider told me that they felt the situation was very difficult now. it is going to be very hard to put this process back together. yes, they have an

james bayes is here with me. let's walk away from the money, and talk about the turkish prime minister. he was talking about the aid that was going to be given, the burden that has been put on his country, and he specifically said the russians have done nothing to help the cause. 350-plus air strikes in the time where there have been talking going on in geneva and here. he was the only one that was pretty pointed about it, though, wasn't he? >> yes, and do remember the context of relations between russia and turkey nflt other countries, i think, are avoiding absolutely naming russia in their public statements. but behind the scenes the whole of this conference, which has done a very good job to try to raise money to deal with the crisis on the ground in syria, people are talking about the failure of the talks. because as you heard the turkish prime minister say, if you don't solve the actual war, you are going to have donor conferences like this every year. this is the fourth of these conferences that have taken

let's bring in james bayes with me in the studio.alk is of an urgent need to get humanitarian aid in there, and that's understandable, but we have been here before, haven't we? >> we have david. this is a new initiative, a new effort, with a new task force being set up, the meeting chaired by the man who has been doing all of the work behind the scenes, he used to be the humanitarian chief of the u.n. he is now the special advisor for staffan de mistura, to try to get access to these besieged areas. and he was selling me most of his besiege areas, it's quite simple, all you need to do is get permission from the groups. the difficult one of course is isil. the proposal there is air drops. what is a new task force going to achieve that the u.n. security council hasn't achieved? >> so if this is what they are asking for, and it is that easy, you have to take it forward politically, so what will change politically to make the situation anymore likely to succeed in terms of getting the help these people need. >> if you get talks going in,