let's cut some deals between baghdad and kurdistan. this will move to maybe the next level of disagreement over territories. we are trying to broker that, and i think that is an important thing to do. we cannot tell them what to do. we cannot have a favored candidate, and we cannot push for that. publicly is not doing bad either although privately i think we all learned that he does not like. [indiscernible] he has mentioned to people that he would like to see an alternative. working on that. i am told, but i don't know if it is true or not. so -- and i would also remind the kurds that we support the territorial and political integrity of the united irak. this is not the time to start waving the flag of we are going to leave if you don't do what we want you to do. not good. those are areas where we can and should be speaking to remind and saying what we stand for, what could go wrong? everything. i -- i think mainly, though, the war with the terrorists gets worse. it is already getting worse. there is no sign of better. they're is a se

because i'm in kurdistan! someone get me a fan, someone get me a fan because i'm in kurdistan!i could have done that for you live. now it's too late. >> we blew it there. but i just wanted to give you a sense, carefree, young friends and lovers hiking. you were playing this game, would you rather -- you were hiking on the hill? would you rather come across mountain lions or al-qaeda. but you had no idea that iranian guards were even in the mix. so you go up the trail, you see a sarah, and he waves towards you. >> yeah, we assumed he was a kurdish, soldier, he would just want to talk to you. it is a common occurrence when you're an american traveling in the middle east, various intelligence or soldiers and police in countries to want to take a few minutes of your time and entertain themselves with questioning. we didn't think there was anything to worry about. >> there was no markings or borders or fence. >> no. >> and what went through your mind when you realized, oh, my gosh, we're in iran? >> well, i think that i tried to believe that everything was going to go okay for a lon

like in iraq am a the kurdistan pop -- the kurdish population is trying to stay out of this conflict. with increasingly blurred front lines, that's a tricky agenda. assad forces are fighting the free syrian army and both are fighting al qaeda-linked groups. kurdish militia are trying to keep all of the above out of distance of their communities. for now, they say they are only defending their homes. we met some kurdish women who have taken up arms in the struggle first ability. >> the combat fighters are on an exercise this morning. but this is the kind of thing they have already experienced for real in the syrian civil war. the young women belong to one of the kurdish people's defense units. here, they are practicing how to ambush an enemy fighter. the kurds main enemies in this war are islamists linked to al qaeda. they show no mercy to these enemies. >> we take no prisoners. we eliminate them. because they could have a bomb and blow us up along with themselves. >> kitchen duty. she's one of 35 women who live together here as if it were a military ballot -- military barracks. >> ord

lower, but there are quite significant parts of iraq where there is relative calm, obviously in the kurdistanrovince, but elsewhere. >>> all rights from syria suggest a school in aleppo has been hit by an air strike. activists say at least 30 people have been killed, most of them children. here is our report from lebanon. >> reporter: the government war plains hit around 9:00 am in the morning, and this time it was a school in eastern aleppo. according to the activists there was an exhibition going on there for drawings and paintings done by the children of the school and other neighborhoods. it's a neighborhood controlled by the rebels and it's not the first time the government uses its airplanes to strike at residential neighborhoods in the city. what we know is the death toll is rising. the people of aleppo are trying to pull out the bodies and save any living if that is still possible. >> ukraine's acting president says police and security forces are helpless to quell the unrest in the east. the rebels have been patrolling checking points outside of the city of slaviansk to stop an advanc

as we have the hydrocarbon law between baghdad and kurdistan this will move to maybe the next level over the territories, whatever. i think that is an important thing to do. but we cannot tell them what to do. we cannot have a favorite candidate and we cannot push for that. he publicly is not doing that either. although privately i think that we have all learned he has mentioned to people that he would like to see an alternative working on that he was told by an official. i pulled but i don't know if it is true or not. i would also remind them that we support the territorial and political integrity of the united iraq. this is not the time to start waving the flag. we are going to do what you don't want to do. those are areas where we can and should be speaking our mind and saying what we stand for. what could go wrong? i think the war gets worse. there is no sign of better but if there is a serious defeat of the forces come if not only are they operating in the areas they are around baghdad and they've blocked major roads. if that cannot be stopped, turned around, and if they cannot be d

especially, there are actually two elections going on now in kurdistan. the iraqi parliamentary elections. the other is the provisional elections, the local elections to elect the city councils and the governors of the three provinces here in kurdistan. so this is an issue. but, of course, the major issues for the kurds in this poll are, of course, the issues of their relations with the central government. the disputed areas that extend along the borders between the kurdish part of iraq and the wider arab part. and their representation in the central government after these elections. >> rafid jaboori. thank you both very much. >>> let's catch up with some of the other main news today. pro-russian separatists have seized control of more official buildings a town in eastern ukraine extending hold on the region. this follows the seizure of official buildings in nearby luhansk by pro-russian militants tuesday. russia continues to deny accusations it's funding and orchestrating the unrest. >>> coordinators of the search effort for the missing ma lay airlines f

that are out there and looked at town as simply the middle east the middle east out of iraq and kurdistan. they are. re allocating some of the resources back to asia pacific so it's not an absolute plus it's more of a new military terms of military presence elsewhere might be nice but then perhaps asia pacific states present but then as a given result what you will get is the ad you know seemingly at the hands of an increase in asia pacific. i just didn't think i did i just don't think that the reason didn't find that very convincing who he had specially has authentic convincing off to the us response on ukraine and i would imagine that joyner is feeling quite costs and by the us response to ukraine i think the anxiety and the anxiety from da us have espoused the fight to crimea situation and um is definitely there will be sent on masterpiece an example and that i gave the greater anxiety it in in asia and again i think it kind of started from last year. as if you recall there was this allegation to the syrian government about the chemical use weapon against its people and how the us posi

the iraqi-kurdistan, i think, wants to become independent. iraq will not accept that. no oil has been exported through the iraqi-turkish pipeline to the coast of the medicin medite. and that trouble could lead to the dishel dismemberment of irat treated. the infrastructure, iraq needs more outlets to be able to export more of its oil. and of course if there is no stability, the foreign companies operating in iraq will be hesitant to spend more and more billions of dollars to raise iraq's oil production. >> doctor, thank you, we appreciate your time. thank yothank you for your timem london. >> thank you. >> a school in aleppo is attacked. the rubble here was a school building which despite all the violence in the city have been continue to go operate. rescuers are still digging through the debris that they believe 25 people died here. the majority of them school children. the children had been preparing an exhibition on the war in syria, drawing images of the violence that they themselves had experienced. a travesty that no youngster should have to endure. a future that

the semiautonomous area has a kurdistan government.reas further south are a mix of sunni, arabs and kurds in oil-rich kirkuk and mosul. a third of the population are sunni muslims and are in central and western parts, accusing the shi'a-led government of discrimination. baghdad and its surrounding areas have been a mix of sunni and shia muslims. both wrestled for control of districts and neighbourhoods. the majority of the shia population is concentrated in the eastern and southern parts of iraq. including cities like basra. >> so for iraqis heading to the polls, it's not just sectarian challenges, there are regional ones as well. >> iraqi president is showing the rare public appearance at a hospital in germany where he is being treated. the ballot he is passing is for the first parliamentary elections since 2011 when the u.s. pulled out of iraq. these elections are seen as crucial. voting in some regions is expected to be difficult. in places like anbar, there's intense fighting between the army and members of the islamic state in ira

but last week, i was in iraqi kurdistan. that is a small country, to, smaller than cuba.s a small region within a iraq.- within a it is fascinating to watch people build a new society at of horrible conflicts and difficulties, economic problems. the hills of kurdistan were stripped of all of their forest in order to heat homes during the repression by saddam hussein. for those of us who do international affairs, cuba is really, really interesting. the process soge that it produces a half decent result without gigantic cost to the united states is very important. host: on our line for democrats, fortune in bronx. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. my comment is, i'm a little concerned that i'm hearing about intervention in cuba. anyone that knows the history of -- united dates relationship the united states's relationship with cuba and that part of the world has always talked about the need for u.s. intervention. if you go back as far as the bay , there, and even earlier is always some excuse for u.s. military intervention in cuba. i'm wondering whether that i

kurdistan every year and in 2011 it was one of the top places to visit in the world. we went there for a few days and visited some capsules and museums and we wanted to get out of the city so we asked people where we could go in our hotel manager and a taxi driver told us the same place. this place where there was a waterfall. it wasn't a big waterfall but, you know there's not a lot of waterfalls in the region so it was kind of an attraction and there were hundreds of people there. we went there and we asked for a trail to hike and we slept near the bottom of the trail and we hiked for quite a long time and when we got near the top of this kind of mountain, we stopped and had lunch and then we were deciding where to keep going or turn back and we thought let's just go up there. so we saw a couple soldiers and they waved us to them and when we got to vent we saw that they were iranian and we didn't know we were close to the border and so we were really shocked and asked for a passport was found out that we were american and they took us into the next town. we managed

sir it's very understated feel impressive ok but i have learned over here since you mentioned like kurdistan this is a problem with. maggie in london and that is not what happened in crimea let's go to matt in london for equal time what i think is the problem in many ways with many of the votes is that the the goalpost keep changing sometimes the west is in favor of the rule of law and they make a lot of noise about that and sometimes they don't seem to care about that it was interesting was that many of the states were. former soviet union did so by a process that was creating contravention of the route of rule the constitution to . provide for the independence of obvious stone. of number of these entities and yet they were recognized by the west the same was true for the gov where the west so you must have a referendum then it's acceptable now twenty years later it's a completely different ball game on the other hand you could look at kosovo the the russians believe that was illegitimate and then they call it use the same process for crimea so that i think what we need to have is that we n

starting inside iraq's kurdistan and also extending to other provinces like kirkuk which is very deard important for the iraqi kurds. these different alliances, this new competition, uk and kdp, there's party differences, the absence of the iraqi president and leader of the puk. but for the iraq kurds it's a complete different dynamic. by competing separately you would waste iraqi kurdish votes in the elections as a country and the political system is essentially working to reinvent itself after 11 years of authoritarian system. with all of these issues in mind, you might get the impression that after the election all of these groups will continue to work against each other, or at least not ally and former government together. it is very likely that after the elections those groups, they will represent a unified front. because, and will come together and negotiate as a block. that's one likelihood of the other likely it is that will not happen because if the result will indicate that one group is stronger, that group will not necessarily work to form an alliance to go with the governm