Earthquake which killed at least five hundred and thirty people. Hello im Barbara Starr youre watching aljazeera live from london also coming up on the program Zimbabwes Army chief puts the military on a collision course with mugabe after threatening to intervene over the president s party purge the yemeni children who have to walk through a minefield to get to whats left of their school in titans and me on mars military careers itself of committing atrocities against iran just in an investigation that Rights Groups have branded a whitewash. The iranian government is scrambling to get aid to the remote area devastated by sundays. Hour for the earthquake on the iran iraq border more than five hundred thirty people are known to have been killed almost all of them in iran but many victims have been buried without the authorities knowledge so the real figure could actually be much higher the number of people injured in the seven point three magnitude quake now stands at nearly eight thousand the quake destroyed more than Twelve Thousand homes leaving a staggering seventy thousand people homeless worst hit was the rainy and town of southwell is a hob were former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the construction of many low Income Housing projects seen in casio glued reports now from the barn and near the quakes epicenter in northern iraq. Well you know they won after sundays earthquake on the iraq iran border and the community which frees their dead from the rubble the loudest sounds of morning come from irans come onshore province more than three hundred of the dead lived here thousands more were injured. I was under the rubble of a destroyed war it collapsed on my head infrastructure has been devastated so medics improvise in a field irans government has sent in twenty helicopters and created four field hospitals using trucks of medicine and buses to treat divonne did those whose injuries were too severe were transferred to the capital to her on her neck there were no facility has no access to electricity or water in the seconds that the earthquake rolled through at nine eighteen on sunday night an estimated seventy thousand people became homeless iran is one of the most systemic active countries in the world several major fault lines cross said. In iraq there are less common but this time the destruction across the border the record astounded brenda hanna was also shaken by sundays earthquake a few buildings have collapsed and many are badly damaged the government is warning people to stay away from them. When the earthquake hit i was lying in my bed because i wasnt feeling well my son started shouting mom wake up theres an earthquake we all went to the corridor and you could see the house collapsing behind us and hear the sound of things falling. Its played many people are still under the rubble communities in iran and iraq are scrambling optimistically to find out. How they came along the building was flattened by the earthquake that struck yesterday it fell in a seven member family we managed to rescue only five of them both the other two were killed it was the first time ive ever seen an earthquake its a divine act that no one can prevent because severe losses. Professionals have been brought in ever to believe their work will see to that all right the area was already fragile economically and politically quick has broken their independence. The Turkish Red Crescent has deployed fifty five cargo trucks of aid to kurdish how the areas of iraq and iran tuesday has been declared a national day of mourning the true cost of the earthquake slowly becoming clear. Aljazeera depp and northern iraq. Woman so whatever gary is the rector of International Operations of the Iranian Red Crescent Society she says her teams have reached most of the affected areas and the priority now is sheltering people the bitter cold the focus now on the actually emergency sheltering and food. But the and the solution of the food but the point is that because the wide area is reaching to the people it takes a little bit time so we are actually doing our best to accelerate this procedure and to send the items to all of the people receive the items from our a starbucks from the sixteen provincial branches around the areas in order just to not to waste the time so that i can say that all the needed items are now deployed. To the. Province it is which is the main province of that severely damaged. And i can say that. Our people. They do their most. To reach the people in the in different religious. Four tanks have been seen on a road outside the zimbabwe and capital harare and witnesses also told the voters news agency two more tanks were parked beside the main road from harare to chinoy it follows a warning from the head of zimbabwes armed forces that the military may intervene if president Robert Mugabe did not stop purging members of his ruling Party Last Week mugabe sacked his Vice President a man who has close ties to the military many believe that mugabes wife grace is being primed for the position how the hawk star reports. Some regard it as a standoff between the old guard and the new on the one side a youth faction law to grace mugabe the wife of the long time president on the other some of those who fought for the countrys independence miniature leaders including general constantine chinwag a scene has been loyal to the ousted Vice President and defense minister. You cannot benefit from these one. With the former minister of defense and. The current page which is general chiwenga spoke to reporters twenty four hours warning the military will intervene if the targeting of former war fighters continues. On account of what is. In the party must be exposed and fished out. Zimbabwes military leadership is powerful but usually stay silent not this time. The general spoke out a week after his ally. Was sacked as Vice President and expelled from the ruling zanu p. F. Party its understood his ousting followed a route with the president s wife grace mugabe. When a gag was removal its been seen as boosting the first ladys leadership. The faction dispute and the ruling party is nothing new with the ailing president forced to publicly intervene last year when the g forty or generation forty section clashed with the war veterans within the zanu p. F. Fracture fracture. Shatter. Is the worlds oldest leader at ninety three years old having been in power for nearly forty years since secure in zimbabwe is independent throughout his time in office who is counted on support from the military the army has always maintained it would only support candidates to succeed him who food in the independence war. Is fifty two year old wife its not only. The latest is put him in a difficult position ahead of the zanu p. F. Conference next month. Lebanons absent Prime Minister has tweeted that he will return home from saudi arabia in the coming days saad hariri also called for calm and said his family would be staying in saudi. The head of lebanons Maronite Church in riyadh patriarch bashar rai is the first lebanese official to visit the kingdom since hariri unexpectedly announced his resignation there more than a week ago after the meeting he said he supported her reasons for resigning yemeni Officials Say the Saudi Led Coalition has bombed the airport in the capital sanaa which is controlled by the who the rebels there are conflicting reports about the extent of the damage the who these say the runway and ground navigation tower were damaged but the u. N. Says most of the airport is intact and can receive aid shipments once saudi arabia loosens its blockade of the country as it announced on monday. Earlier a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb outside a camp used by Security Forces in yemen at least six people were killed and several others injured in the attack that happened in the southern port city of aden i so have after claimed responsibility for it. The United Nations has called on the Saudi Led Coalition to open all sea ports in yemen to allow in food and other essentials James Mcgoldrick the u. N. Humanitarian coordinator for yemen says seven million yemenis already enduring what he calls famine like conditions but for other yemenis the danger is far more sinister the country is littered with landmines many of which were planted deliberately to kill civilians Bernard Smith has more. Its perhaps the most dangerous walk to school in the world because every step these children in yemen take could be their last to get the class they must walk through a minefield. This school or whats left of it is in time a yemeni city that is one of the major front lines in the battle for control of yemen. Its been besieged for two and a half years by whos the forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh they planted the mines when they controlled this area. Were asking the your thirtys to remove these mines weve got so many students we cant control all of them and anyway they are so young and at the back of the school all the windows are shattered. Much of the school was blown up by the who the fighters as they were pushed from this part of thais by a Saudi Led Coalition that is supporting ousted president apt rubber mansell hardy the School Teachers are trying to block pathways where they think there might be mines and the mining teams have made attempts to clean up the area but lots of metal debora in the soil the mine detecting equipment didnt work effectively nagaland ahead and there are still landmines in the School Grounds the demining teams werent able to detect them all because of all the rubble around here so asking the government and humanitarian organizations to lend a hand the mines pose a direct threat to the students lives narcan the after an estimated quarter of a million mines planted in yemen the government says one hundred thousand of them are in ties yemen banned their use in one thousand nine hundred eight but didnt destroy its stockpiles as required by International Law in the last two years those mines have killed more than six hundred yemenis and maimed another thousand Bernard Smith aljazeera. Human Rights Groups have filed the suit of the International Criminal court in the hague accusing armed groups in libya of war crimes and crimes against humanity the accusations are being made against forces loyal to renegade general. Have torres opposed to the un backed the government of National Accord in tripoli the i. C. C. Has already demanded have to our hands over one of his commanders mahmoud filey who is accused of war crimes or britain joins us live now from the hague so paul what exactly are the lawyers alleging. Well i mean the room where the news conferences and his daughter im the guy weve been listening to what that played out and its a preliminary investigative reports and because of that the contents of it remain largely confidential what the lawyers did say though that the allegations relate to two specific incidents two attacks that took place in two thousand and fourteen and another attack a third incident which took place early in two thousand and seventeen and the lawyers are being instructed by victims of those attacks and Civil Society groups and theyve also been gathering evidence on video and from analyzing the public speeches of those in commanding particular the renegade general Khalifa Haftar himself now unlike the previous case that you mentioned the commander whos already been wanted by the i. C. C. What the lawyers here have argued is that the command structure shows that responsibility goes to the very top to the renegade general after himself and they accept that although i have to has been to a certain extent feted and hosted and welcomed by certain western leaders im thinking specifically the french president manuel macron he was in paris just outside just outside paris in july meeting with. Both of them committed to a kind of peace deal the lawyers here dont put a lot of weight in what have to is saying they say that there should be no impunity for the kind of crimes that are taking place and we talk about murder crimes against humanity these are serious crimes what happens now though is the i. C. C. Has to decide whether the evidence has been presented is credible and whether it should filter into its larger investigation and the timetable for that could be a few months from now when with the latest from the hague paul thank you. And still to come in this half hour the u. S. Attorney general testifies in washington with his questions over his contacts with the russians during last years president ial campaign plus a shock and horror in italy is the National Football team failed to qualify for the world cup for the first time. The weathers looking pretty quiet across central and southern parts of china was a possibility maybe the odd shower there just into the far east to china down towards south west as well have to was high now again you could catch one or two showers getting pushed in all that northeasterly wind and theyre still very much in place as we go on through thursday hong kong on the other hand looking fine and dry temperatures here again getting up into the mid to high twentys with the next few days in north easterly wind also affecting parts of south asia goal of this massive cloud were looking at this little area this circulation which has developed in the back been goal for some time now and that has been producing some very heavy rain down towards deschutes not a little further northwards easing up a dish towards west bengal very heavy rain coming in here with the risk of some flooding and. We go one day very heavy rain also pushing into the southern half of bangladesh to the south it does to dry that a bit of cloud that towards kerala and also into maybe the odd shabbat nothing much to speak of now sort of the showers across the region potentially here stays warm dry and sunny in the way in is easing down so wolf will present here in doha where the top temperature thirty one. Short films of hope. And inspiration. A series of short possible stories that highlight the human triumph against the odds. I prepared for the four hundred people one you know here in the. City are prepared are computed a free copy for everybody one aljazeera selects at this time. Welcome back heres a reminder of the top stories on aljazeera thousands of iranians face another night of freezing temperatures after sundays powerful earthquake on the iran iraq border more than five hundred thirty people are known to have been killed almost all of them in iran four tanks have been spotted outside zimbabwes capital harare a day after the head of zimbabwes military rule into that the army may intervene if president mugabe doesnt stop purging members of his ruling party and yemeni Officials Say the Saudi Led Coalition has bombed the airport in the capital sanaa which is controlled by the who the rebels. May have more as military has cleared itself of committing any atrocities against the range a minority in iraq kind state ranger refugees accuse me and maher Security Forces of massacres rape and the burning of villages the claims have been backed by the un which describe the violence there as ethnic cleansing but the military says it carried out its own investigation and found no wrongdoing Rights Groups have dismissed it as a whitewash the Army Crackdown forced more than six. Hundred thousand people to flee to bangladesh has more now from the capital of me and. Released on the myanmar commander in chiefs Facebook Page late on monday the investigation an internal investigation carried out by the military here on its actions in the Rakhine State over the last couple of months has exonerated itself saying that those who carried out this operation this antiterrorist operation as they coined it in the western Rakhine State say that they had of themselves within the rules of engagement now this is was met by human rights activists around the world as a white washing of what took place over the last several months in Rakhine State that sent over six hundred thousand range into neighboring bangladesh now its interesting that they say you know detailed that they didnt carry out any killings murders of innocent civilians no rapes and no torching of villages again this goes directly against what i witness is have been saying in neighboring bangladesh those who have fled now itll be on wednesday Rex Tillerson the u. S. Secretary of state will be visiting here in april or the capital will be meeting with top military officials and already met on the sidelines of down in the philippines with song suchi the civilian leader of this nation Rex Tillerson tomorrow on wednesday with meeting with the military leaders will be interesting to hear what comes out of that if anything we really havent heard any schedule we havent been notified of any public statements to come out of those meetings well myanmars leader on sun suu kyi has come under enormous pressure from World Leaders over the range of prices at the summit in the philippines both kind of this Prime Minister just introduced and un secretary general and tony highlighted the plight of the refugees of the regional summit however in keeping with as a whole a sea of noninterference in internal affairs the issue was largely put aside during talks disappointing. Canada will continue to support our c. N. C. Military and political efforts to find a sustainable and just solution to the ongoing crisis and we will also continue to work with the governments of myanmar and bangladesh to allow for the safe return of displaced people. During my excellent discussions with the state councilor we discussed the importance of the recommendations put forth in the final report of the Advisory Commission on the Rakhine State which will help chart the path forward towards a peaceful resolution of the conflict and we discussed how canada can help achieve this goal u. S. Attorney general Jeff Sessions is testifying before a House Judiciary Committee hearing hes on the scrutiny over Donald Trumps contact with the russians during last years president ial campaign he says he now recalls a meeting in march two thousand and sixteen with a former Campaign Adviser in which they discussed the possible meeting with russian president Vladimir Putin was she ever tense he has been listening in to that Committee Hearing joins us live now from washington the so the sessions are either is not a jolt in his memory or has changed the story. Thats very much what Jeff Sessions are saying its a jolt of his memories as during a campaign you meet many many people you have many different conversations and in fact even though he does not recall some some some Campaign Members of the campaign suggesting that they might be able to broker a meeting with the russians he shut down any such discussion very quickly but as you said now he he says despite what he and already testified to congress under oath that as far as he knew there were no contacts with russian officials during the campaign by Campaign Staff he now has a different story as a result of his memory suddenly suddenly having a definite. I would like to address recent news reports regarding meetings during the campaign attended by George Papadopoulos and carter page among others frankly i had no real recollection of this meeting until i saw these news reports i do now recall that the march twenty sixth meeting at the dropout tell that most of us attended but i have no clear recollection the details of what he said at that meeting after reading his account and to the best of my recollection i believe that i wanted to make clear to him that he would not authorize to represent the campaign with the russian government or any other Foreign Government for that matter. Have there also been reports of a possible clinton investigation and what we sponsor have you heard to that one. Right and we should say at the outset there are many questions about the Clinton Foundation and its dealings with haiti what was going on around the time of the sale of u. S. Uranium rights of the russians Clinton Foundation getting hundreds of thousands of dollars from russian interests who wanted that deal to go forward the clintons always say look she was secretary of state she cant be on top of everything but there are questions however the prospects of a Trump Department of justice now having a special counsel into his defeated opponent Hillary Clinton is raising accusations of trump running potentially running the u. S. Like a Banana Republic one question is is it a problem for a leader in a functioning democracy to retaliate with the criminal Justice System versus their political opponents Jeff Sessions as never would be wrong and he insisted that he is not being unduly influenced by a president from the start and best but the other interesting thing about this is Jeff Sessions at his confirmation hearing said there to be any investigations into Hillary Clinton he would recuse himself so he was asked well are you accusing yourself from even the disease deliberations about whether to open an investigation into Hillary Clinton and he said look i can also that question because to say that im accusing myself would be to suggest that the investigation is already under way however under further questioning he did say he stands by his statement that he would recuse himself were there to be an investigation into Hillary Clinton. With the latest there from washington thank you. Well the Russian Defense ministry has been accused of lying after releasing what it called evidence that the u. S. Is working alongside i saw yeah it turns out the footage which allegedly shows u. S. Forces covering for an i saw convoy was in fact screenshots taken from a mobile phone game the ministry of defense has now deleted the post very chalons joins us live now from moscow i mean rory the whole thing just reading that out loud it just sounds pretty incredible just explain to us exactly whats been going on. Well certainly when the russian minister of defense accused the us on tuesday of effectively collaborated with syria it wasnt the first time that it had made such accusations but this time it said it had irrefutable proof and that there were various photos that were put on the ministry of defenses. Twitter accounts and Facebook Accounts in various languages these were picked up by russian state media t. V. Stations and the press there they were supposed to show drone images of a convoy in syria that was being left alone by u. S. Air forces but it didnt take long for eagle eyed social media observers people like the betting that collective and the conflict Intelligence Team to say notice or theyd seen some of these before and some of them were actually from a mobile phone computer game called a c one thirty gunship simulator others had been lifted from a two thousand and sixteen video put out by the iraqis showing them attacking a convoy leaving for lucero last year so that the posts were rather quickly cleaned up the pictures were got rid of and i have to say though that the russians are Still Standing by their original accusations against the United States but so did the Russian Ministry of defense assume that people just wouldnt notice where these pictures came from. Its difficult to know i mean this says they have since theyd put out this post they have acknowledged that this was some sort of a mistake and they have said that. It was a civilian employee in the ministry of defense put the ins outs and theyre launching an investigation a little while ago i spoke to from bet and katz was he thinks about this and he said he thought that it probably was incompetence in that p. R. Department but i have to say this is not a unique example its happened before weve had the incident where. Vladimir putin was showing the filmmaker all of a star in footage on his mobile phone that he said was Russian Air Force attacking i said in syria actually it was the United States in afghanistan then there are various other fabricated bits of evidence around seventeen and mislabeled videos from syria so they have form in doing this before or he challenges with the latest from moscow really thank you venezuelas economy has slipped further into crisis with the news one of the worlds major Credit Rating agencies has ruled the south american nation is in quote selective default it comes less than twenty four hours after president Nicolas Maduro is negotiating committee met with creditors from nine different nations in the capital caracas the government is attempting to refinance around sixty billion dollars worth of bonds the Ratings Agency standard and poors say that israel has missed repayments and is likely to do so again soon. Italian football is in a state of shock after its National Team one of the most successful in history failed to qualify for next years world cup needing to beat sweden in their playoff match in milan they were held to a goalless draw with the swedes heading to russia in their place its the first time that the four time world champions will miss the world cup since nineteen fifty eight but it up more to the march did not make sense bonjour had a team that didnt deserve to be on the pitch the team could have done much much better than this if it doesnt show the hunger the will to win everybody was saying that we were strong but its not true sweden is going through and were going home is disgusting the world cup context without italy it just context just well there is one small consolation for the only telling astronaut on the International Space station a delivery of pizza and ice cream thats the payload of a supply capsule that is successfully docked at the station as it orbited four hundred kilometers above the indian ocean the three thousand kilos of cargo were was mostly made up of scientific equipment with the ice cream and ingredients for making pizza an added bonus fittingly it was a common astronaut Paolo Nespoli who operated the robot arm for docking no disappointment too big that pizza and ice cream cant cure it. The top stories here on aljazeera rescuers are continuing to search for survivors of sundays powerful earthquake on the iran iraq border more than five hundred thirty people are known to have been killed almost all of them in iran but many victims have been buried without the authorities knowledge so the real figure could be much higher the director of International Operations at the iran Red Crescent Society says her teams have reached most of the affected areas and theyre now sheltering people from the cold. I can say that all the needed items are now deployed. To the. Province it is which is the main province of that severely damaged. And i can say that. Our people. They do their most. To reach the people in the indifferent religious lebanons absent Prime Minister has tweeted that he will return home from saudi arabia in the coming days sad reveal so called for calm and said his family would be staying in saudi Arabia Hariri met with the head of lebanons Maronite Church in riyadh patriarch bashar rai is the first the lebanese official to visit the kingdom since hariri unexpectedly announced his resignation there more than a week ago four tanks have been seen outside the zimbabwean capital harare a witness has told avoiders news agency two more tanks were parked beside the main road from harare to chinoy it follows a warning from the head of zimbabwes armed forces that the military may intervene if president Robert Mugabe did not stop purging members of his ruling party. Yemeni Officials Say the Saudi Led Coalition has bombed the airport in the capital sanaa which is controlled by the who the rebels there are conflicting reports about the extent of the damage to who these say the runway and ground never gave power were damaged the u. N. Though says most of the airport is intact and it can receive aid shipments once saudi arabia loosens its blockade of the country were going to have more on all those stories for you at the top of the hour stay with us though a. J. Selects is next on refugees at an eritrean boarding school in israel thanks for watching right. With the. The the illinois