Killed at least five hundred and thirty people. Hello im Barbara Starr this is al jazeera 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 lebanons Prime Minister says hell return home within days more than a week after his shock resignation in riyadh and the yemeni children who have to walk through a minefield to get to whats left of their school in times. The iranian government is scrambling to get aid to the remote area devastated by 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. Well 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 also the story more than Twelve Thousand home and that leaves around seventy thousand people homeless worst hit was the iranian town of supple is a hog where former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered the construction of many low Income Housing projects neve barker reports. Tents lined the main road into the city of kermanshah hardest hit in sundays earthquake more than one hundred aftershocks followed many survivors now feel safer living in the open with belongings salvaged from their ruined homes. All of a sudden we started to feel shaking we tried to take shelter next but then left our building immediately one of our neighbors died and my brother was injured. When we felt the quake my wife and i to cover we managed to rescue our son but my wife fractured her back the seven point three magnitude quake lasted only four minutes but struck with immense force when it was over hundreds were dead thousands injured and vast sections of the city destroyed further afield more than two thousand villages and seven more cities were also hit Twelve Thousand homes flattened. Weve lost everything in the earthquake we hope the authorities will live up to their responsibilities and help us. Iranian president Hassan Rouhani arrived in the region promising to support those affected by the earthquake. Rescue operations are over the dead are being buried and now the daunting task of rebuilding homes and lives begins. Four tanks have been seen on a road outside the zimbabwean capital harare a witness also told Reuters News Agency that two more times were parked beside the main road from harare to chinoy zimbabwes currently on edge following a warning from the head of the armed forces on monday that the military may intervene if president Robert Mugabe does not stop purging members of his ruling party well last week mugabe sacked his Vice President a man who has close ties to the military many believe the mugabes wife grace is being primed for the position had a hawk star reports. Some regard it as a standoff between the old guard and the new on the one side a huge faction low to grace mcgarvie the wife of the long time president on the other some of those who fought for the countrys independence military leaders including general constantine chinwag a scene has been loyal to the ousted Vice President and defense minister. Also cannot benefit from his one. With the former minister of defense and. The current page which is general chiwenga spoke to reporters twenty four hours earlier when the military will intervene if the targeting of former war fighters continues normally counted. Or if the current is that the party must be exposed and. Zimbabwes military leadership is powerful but usually stay silent not this time. The general spoke out. A week after his ally. Was sacked and Vice President and expelled from the ruling zanu p. F. Party its understood his ousting father to raul with the president s wife grace mugabi. When a guard was removal has been seen as boosting the first ladys leadership. The factual dispute in 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. Faction that fractured. Shattered. Mugabe is the worlds oldest leader at ninety three years old having been in power for nearly forty years since secure in zimbabwe as independence throughout his time in office his counsel from the military the army has always maintained it would only support candidates to succeed him who fought in the independence war. Crisis fifty two year old wife is not. The latest is pushing and 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 also called for calm and said his family would be staying in saudi arabia met the head of lebanons Maronite Church in riyadh patriarch bashar rai is the first lebanese official to visit the kingdom sensory unexpectedly announced his resignation there more than a week ago after the meeting he said he supported every reason reasons for resigning well evidence foreign minister meanwhile has said sod who we received only be proven once he returns to beirut and theyve saudi arabia has an issue with iran and should not punish lebanon. If. They can be solved if they have problems with iran let them have the Problem Solved with iran iran is not lebanon lebanon is not syria lebanon is not iran we have an independent Foreign Policy where the end terrorist of lebanon comes first collecting the tasha butler in paris so that hash as weve been hearing hariri has tweeted he may come back and then the foreign minister i guess the moment been spent he will. Call the Lebanese Foreign minister said that as far as he was aware saad hariri has indicated that he will return to lebanon in the next two or three days until hes tweeted as much of the foreign minister said that every situation was ambiguous it wasnt totally clear whether or not he had freedom of movement or not he said he comes back to lebanon in the next few days that might indicate that he has had freedom of movement if he doesnt it could indicate the contrary now what he said was that would if hariri doesnt return at least by sunday then perhaps lebanon if its exhausted all other forms of dialogue all other avenues or perhaps lebanon with then escalate this to a wider International Level and even take it to the u. N. Security council with the latest from paris where the Lebanese Foreign minister was speaking at pascha thank you. Human Rights Groups have filed the suit at the International Criminal court in the hague accusing on groups in libya of war crimes and crimes against humanity the accusations are being made against forces loyal to renegade general have tar after is opposed to the un backed government of National Accord in tripoli the i. C. C. Has already demanded that have to hands over one of his commanders mom with a family who is accused of war crimes. What we have detailed within the submission. Was a kind of evidence that we have been allies for from videos from speeches and just sitting at the broad picture as to what we consider is an important. Issue for the i. C. C. To look at a suicide bomber detonated a car bomb outside a camp used by Security Forces in southern yemen at least six people were killed and several others injured in the attack which happened in the port city of aden eisel has claimed responsibility for it. Meanwhile yemeni Officials Say the Saudi Led Coalition has bombed the airport in the capital sanaa which is controlled by the who the rebels the who these say the runway and ground avocation tower were damaged however the u. N. Says most of the airport is intact and it can receive aid shipments once a saudi arabia loosens the blockade imposed on the country eight days ago the u. N. Has also urged the Saudi Led Coalition to immediately open all sea ports in yemen to allow in food and other essentials its humanitarian coordinator for yemen says seven million yemenis are already in during a 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 as mine. 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 huth 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 under head 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 like in 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. Well still to come in this half hour military clears itself of committing atrocities against a ranger and an investigation right in an investigation Rights Groups have branded a whitewash and russia is under fire after claiming this video footage which is actually from a video game was proof the u. S. Was working alongside i saw. Just around the quake zone i am pleased to say so least that will not have. The operations going on here a little bit of cloud just coming through we are going to see rather more the way like a cloud just spilling out around the black sea easing towards the caspian sea chance of a little bit of doubt whether for somebody since he doesnt look like backed out of the around twenty seven celsius and quite so were looking at temperatures into the the low to mid twentys by day forty back to around twelve thirteen overnight further east still a chance of some wintry flowers into northern parts of afghanistan maybe also into the north of pakistan in the process of pushing away over the next couple of days for a dry here across the river and potentially some places of sunshine here and winds easing back so not so much of a problem with the lifted dust and sand that we have seen in recent days we get up to around thirty or thirty one celsius on wednesday and thursday. Less sunshine into southern parts of south africa with seeds and lots of very heavy showers just draining out of the the tropics pushing a little further south was wet weather coming in across a good part of south africa particularly towards the eastern cape where we have cooler weather coming in. A reminder of the top stories here 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 warned that the army may intervene if president mugabe doesnt stop purging members of his ruling party and lebanons absent Prime Minister says he will return home from saudi arabia in the coming days it follows a meeting between saddam and the head of lebanons Maronite Church in riyadh. Manned mars military has cleared itself of committing any atrocities against the range of minority in an internal investigation which Rights Groups have branded a whitewash range of refugees accuse me of more Security Forces of massacres rape and the burning of villages in Rakhine State the claims have been backed by the un which describe the violence there as ethnic cleansing the Army Crackdown has forced more than six hundred thousand people to flee bangladesh scott hardly 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 reconstitute 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 recon 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 recounting 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 eyewitnesses 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 naples or the capital will be meeting with top military officials Rex Tillerson already met on the sidelines of aussie on down in the philippines with on 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. The u. S. Attorney general has been defending himself against allegations that he misled congress over contacts between russians and members of Donald TrumpsCampaign TeamJeff Sessions is currently testifying before a House Judiciary Committee hearing he said 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. Has been listening in to that Committee Hearing and joins us live now from washington so i guess hes just changed the story. But what he says is look it was a brilliant chaotic president ial campaign with long days with which he met many many people there are lots of meetings however now he does recall having seen the media reports of this conversation took place with George Papadopoulos about the possibility of russian contacts and he shut it down very quickly but he is sure that no further meetings took place about russian contacts but yes now that you mention that that meeting or conversation did take place. 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 team meeting at the drop out tail that mr papadopoulos attended but i have no clear recollection of the details of what he said at that meeting after reading his account into the best of my recollection i believe that i wanted to make clear to him that he would not. Represent the campaign with the russian government or any other Foreign Government for that matter and chair while all of this is going on were getting reports of a possible clinton investigation so what reaction has there been to that because it would be quite controversial. This emerged overnight so that the department of justice was considering appointing a special counsel into Hillary Clinton dealings at least one member of this Congressional Committee said finally you know whats going to take to get the special counsel clearly that wasnt the reaction of the democrats it should be said by the way there are many many lingering questions about the Clinton Foundation its effect on policy under the Obama Administration and so on having said that there the idea that the trumpet administration would use or would have a department of justice. Investigate appoint a special counsel into Hillary Clinton is raising the alarm amongst many who say look this sounds like what they call a Banana Republic there was one particular question from john conyers is it proper for a leader to retaliate. Against his political opponents using the justice system. Which sessions said look no it wouldnt be it wouldnt be proper this would have to be take would have to be the utmost care would have to be taken for such a counsel of such an investigation to be taking place and he insisted that donald trump is not having any undue influence on Jeff Sessions however theres another question to him during his confirmation Jeff Sessions has said were there to be an investigation into clinton he would recuse himself so he was asked well are you accusing yourself or even the sort of deliberations about whether to appoint a special counsel and he said he couldnt answer that question because to say that he was recused himself would suggest an investigation is under way which is sort of put but pretending to misunderstand what the question was then he was asked again yes but would you stand by your comments that were there to be an investigation you would recuse yourself and he said yes i would. Thank you. The Russian Defense ministry has been accused of lying after releasing what it called evidence that the u. S. Is working alongside i saw it turns out the footage which allegedly showed u. S. Forces covering for an eyesore convoy was in fact screenshots taken from a mobile phone game or a challenge is in moscow with more on that. When russias ministry of defense accused the United States on tuesday of effectively collaborating with eisel in syria it wasnt the first time that it had made such accusations but this time it said it had irrefutable proof photos which were put out on the ministry of defense as facebook and twitter accounts grainy drone images apparently of a convoy being left alone by u. S. Forces but it didnt take too long for eagle eyed observers on social media organizations like the citizen journalists belling katz and Conflicts Intelligence Team to see that they had noticed these images before and actually they werent what they were training they had come from what he was one of them from a mobile phone computer game called the a c one thirty gunship simulator others from this collection of images had come from a two thousand and sixteen video put out by iraq e forces showing them attacking a convoy leaving for lucia it didnt take long after that for the ministry of defense to delete them although they stood by their original accusations they have since subsequently admitted that this was a mistake and theyre blaming it on a civilian employee at the ministry of defense and say theyre launching an investigation i spoke to eric holder from belling katz and he told me that he thought this was probably a case of incompetence in their p. R. Department but i have to say its not a unique incidence this is happened before theres the famous example of all of a star in the filmmaker being shown by Vladimir Putin footage on putins mobile phone which he said was all of russian planes attacking us and in syria but actually had come from u. S. Forces in afghanistan then there are various mislabeled videos put out by the ministry of defense abouts. And strikes in syria and of course going back to two thousand and fourteen the evidence that the mr defense put out about the downing of the civilian law and. Seven see much of that turned out to be false so they do have form making these kind of mistakes before we can speak to our a consoler from belling katz he joins us live now on skype from charlotte in North Carolina thank you for being with us very mentioned the some of your comments just give us again your reaction to this which seems a pretty i mean credible sequence of events. You know it doesnt come incredible but its definitely not a new story is various talking about they have the brush minister defense and also the minister of Foreign Affairs and some other organs of the body of another government body have been putting out ridiculous fake materials fairly often over the last few years and this is kind of a very very very clear example of how it was you know they put out a screenshot from a computer game saying it was u. S. Drones whatever and since then theyve retracted impose a new image is a very blurry image is from a russian drone apparently but i mean if youve been following the russian minister of finance and Foreign Affairs for a while they put out lots and lots lots of things like this is expected most blenders example. Do you think that most in the get found out so was it inevitable that people were going to figure out what these images actually were do you think youre some kind of fall under the radar. I think there are some that probably fall into under the radar but most of these get caught out pretty quickly because there is kind of a Small Community people online who watch out for these things or they crossreference the videos and photos that minister defense and also the pentagon and other foreign bodies put out a cross reference them against other materials we know that the pentagon and the Foreign Office and u. K. Arent always exactly terkel but they arent quite as clumsy with the way they misrepresent things as first minister defense if you dont. Forgive me for interrupting i mean you said the word clumsy which which in a way is actually really apt one and to describe all this how damaging do you think this is going to be for russia or as you mentioned yourself the kind of they seem to do it quite often so this is nothing really think that im. Not really how you would think that it would be that this would be some big disasters p. R. Thing for them but honestly i dont know its not so much because theyve been doing this for years and years and it hasnt damage i mean international enough im not sure what want to do but of course this is kind of a flashy example right a very obvious mistake theyve made in the course of maybe make people more doubtful about something about the future but i mean this is far from the first example and theyve made far more incriminating and i dont know probably scandalous in the past this is just kind of a harmless but just very obvious example eric toler from belling cabin open source Investigation Group thank you so much for joining us here on aljazeera thank you now the u. S. Based Advocacy GroupFreedom House says medication of social media and this information campaigns have resulted in a global decline in Internet Freedom for the seventh year in a row board has more now from san francisco. Roughly half the planet is connected to the internet using it to learn new skills find work and to coordinate and organize Political Action information as the saying goes wants to be free but a new report suggests that governments around the world are attempting to strangle the Free Internet well unfortunately for the seventh Consecutive Year our study showcases that Internet Freedom has been on the client we have identified several other trends that are quite worrisome one being that more and more governments are increasingly using internet shutdowns around elections or around antigovernment protests to stiffle that the sent theyve also seen a dramatic increase in the number of people who are being attacked for just posting their antigovernment views online the tactics for controlling our online behavior are growing more sophisticated in china where the web is heavily censored a new social Credit System called sesame credit rewards and punishes citizens for what they do and what their friends do on social media around the World Governments pay for positive commentary online and surveillance is rampant. In the us Companies Like facebook here in california have created a perfectly addictive product by appealing to our emotions and our circle of friends but in the process theyve also inadvertently created a way for geo political enemies to reach across to each other citizens using some of the most advanced Marketing Tactics in the world unfortunately it does at the same tactics that advertisers use to help people like their products and now we see actually governments using the same methods to spread their own progovernment messages and to keep themselves in power the internet seems like a place of freedom but groups like Freedom House say until we learn how to protect transparency and factual information and clearly identify censorship and propaganda it will remain a global battleground. Jacob or al jazeera san francisco. 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. The march did not make sense ventura 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 its disgusting the world cup context is to our italy it just context just a little bit probably can there is one small consolation for the only italian astronaut on the International Space station that consolation is pizza ice cream thats the payload of a supply capsule that has successfully docked at the station as it orbited four hundred kilometers above the indian ocean the three thousand kilos of cargo was mostly made up of scientific equipment but the ice cream and being greedy ins for making pizza an added bonus fittingly the italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli operated the robot arm for docking. Now reminder of the top stories on aljazeera rescuers are continuing to search for survivors of sundays powerful earthquake on the iran iraq border more than four 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 lebanons absent Prime Minister has tweeted that hell return home from saudi arabia in the coming days saturday the also call for calm and said his family would be staying in saudi arabia earlier harry reid met 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 eleven as foreign minister has said Saad Hariri Reese freedom will only be proven once he is returned to beirut and of saudi arabia as an issue with iran should not punish lebanon if. They have problems they can be solved if they have problems with iran let them have these problems solved with iran iran is not lebanon lebanon is not syria lebanon is not iran we have an independent Foreign Policy when the end terrorist of lebanon comes first there have been reports of four tanks outside the zimbabwean capital harare a witness has told the voices news agency two more tanks were parked beside the main road from harare to chinoy follows a warning from the head of zimbabwes armed forces that the military may intervene if president mugabe does not stop purging members of his ruling Party Last Week mugabe sacked his Vice President a man who has close ties to the military. Yemeni Officials Say the Saudi Led Coalition has bombed the airport in the capital sanaa which is controlled by who the rebels there are conflicting reports about the extent of the damage and who they say the runway and ground navigation tower were damaged but the u. N. Says most of the airport is intact and it can receive aid shipments once saudi arabia loosens its blockade of the country on going to have all of those stories and much more on the aljazeera news hour thats coming up in about half an hour from now stay with us though coming up next its inside story very soon by. The the. Whos to blame for the of the g. C. C. Crisis the emir of qatar says he is ready to talk with the blockading countries have to do so so what will it take to break the deadlock this is inside story