>> more than 50 people are killed on a syrian market strike in damascus. and diplomats of around 20 countries are meeting to try to bring an end to the conflict. hello there, these are your top stories on al jazeera. greece's prime minister says he feels ashamed of the e.u.'s response to the refugee crisis.

and overcrowding in u.s. prisons forces the government to consider early release for as many as 48,000 inmates. ♪ the syrian government missile attack on a busy market has killed 55 people. around 100 others were wounded in the rebel-held area in duma east of damascus. more than a quarter of a million people have died since the brutal civil war began in 2011. diplomats of all of the important regional stakeholders are meeting in vienna. mohammed jamjoom joins us live outside of the hotel where all of those top diplomats have been talking for a very long time.

are we getting any inkling of what is happening behind those closed doors? >> reporter: in short, no. the french foreign minister was scheduled to come out of the hotel and brief the press a little over an hour ago. and that still hasn't happened. what has happened is several protesters between 20 and 30 have assembled here in front of the hotel imperial, chanting anti-bashar al-assad slogans. they are supporters of the syrian opposition. and they are opposed to any type of political solution that would keep bashar al-assad in power. they say that more will be coming in the hours -- in the hours ahead. they were moved away from the direct entrance of the hotel by austrian police a short while ago, but they say they are committed to stay out here to get their points across.

earlier in the day it was yet more guarded optimism by those who have gathered here. let's take a listen to a little bit of what u.k. foreign secretary had to say. >> we're gathered here this morning to see if there is any scope for bridging the gap that we know exists between the russian iranian position on the one hand and the position adopted by most of the rest of the countries represented on the other. this is an exploratory discussion. we want to see if there's a way forward, if there's a way of establishing a process which can end the suffering and kills in syria. >> reporter: certainly very interesting that there have been no updates, really since the plenary session began. it was not scheduled to last this long. this is only added to the

speculation that perhaps these talks may not be over today. there have been indicates that perhaps they could go on into tomorrow or even have another round next week. of course it is very significant that both the iranians and the saudis, arch rivals in the middle east are both here trying to come up with a compromise for the syrian civil war, but even as this is happening, dozens more people in syria dead, those missile strikes reportedly happened in duma today. and just another reminder of how bad the situation remains in syria, what a stark juxtaposition on the ground there is, and this setting here in vienna. >> thank you for bringing us up to date with what you know there in vienna. thank you. now greece's prime minister has said he feels ashamed by

europe's response to the refugee crisis. he spoke after two boats sank. at least 22 people, including 11 people drowned. more than 100 people were rescued from the water. >> translator: i want to say that as a european leader afeel shame, shame both for the inability of europe to deal with this human crisis, but also for the quality of the debate. today the waves of the aegean aren't just washing up dead children. the e.u. wants greece to create holding facilities for tens of thousands of refugees, but it is already struggling to cope. >> reporter: these people are heading for athens and a

perilous track on foot. but right now they are relieved that they have crossed daj rows waters from turkey in these rubber ding give -- dinghies. this man is still waiting for his papers. he was hunted down by the taliban. >> the taliban they shoot bullets in front of my home, and they post a letter on my door. when my dad got the letter, he said i told you don't work with these guys. because you worked with these guys my family life is in risk. take my money and get out of afghanistan. don't come back in my home. >> he has waited for two years for an american visa. he can wait no more.

but the process for him and thousands more who arrive daily is bureaucratic and slow. this camp built for 1500 is overrun by twice that many. there is no running water, nothing to eat, and nowhere to sit down. only children manage to escape briefly from these daily realities. this is greece's first e.u. hot spot where new arrivals are screened. there is room for about 10,000 people in camps across the country, but greece has been forced to raise that capacity to 50,000. the reason is that'sern european countries are overwhelmed by the convoys of thousands prompting some to shut their borders. the greek migration minister says european leaders were pressing greece to do even more.

>> translator: instead of the 60,000 hospitality positions in one camp that they were asking of us, which would be more like a concentration camp, we succeeded to get approval for 20,000 places of temporary residence with subsidized rent. now the last british president to be held in guantanamo bay has arrived back on u.k. soil. a private jet landed at the airport outside of london just a short time ago. he was released from the notorious prison in cuba hours earlier. emma hayward reports. >> reporter: he was held for more than 5,000 days never charged, never convicted. the last british resident to be

detained at the base has now been released. >> the americans announced some weeks ago that they were going to release him from guantanamo, and i can confirm he is on his way back to the u.k. now, and will arrive there britain later today. >> reporter: his supporters have always maintained he is an event man. and his family have been robbed of a father and a husband. his campaign for his release has been a long one. >> 14 years of torture. torture is bad enough, but when someone has never been charged it is intel lorable. >> reporter: he was detained in 2001 while working for a charity. in 2002 he was transferred to guantanamo bay. by 2007, the bush administration had cleared him for release, yet he was still in custody in 2009 when the obama administration also cleared him for release.

he went on hunger strike many times. campaigners say he was held in appalling conditions, sometimes in solitary confinement, and also allege he was beaten. it is expected he'll be reunited with his family, including one child born during the initial stage of his incarceration. israel has agreed to release bodies of palestinians who died in recent fighting. all died in hebron. israeli forces shot two palestinians on friday. one died and the other is in critical condition. israeli police say they overed fire after the men tried to stab a policemen. 67 palestinians and 9 israelis have died in the violence since the beginning of the month. stephanie decker has more. >> reporter: this is the first incident in two weeks in jerusalem where we have had

according to the israeli police, say they a 23 year old from the occupied east jerusalem area, behind the separation wall in the occupied west bank, but certainly a complicated area, but they say he stabbed a student. that student is in moderate condition and he has been shot. he is in critical condition. this happened on the line which separates east from west jerusalem. and we had one of our al jazeera colleagues on the ground. he saw the latter half of what happened. he didn't see an attempted stabbing but he saw a young man lying on the ground and then shot seven or eight times. a lot of these incidents have been happening in the occupied west bank. this latest wave started here in jerusalem, moved towards the west bank. so this is the first time we have had an incident of this nature in the last two weeks. >> do stay with us here on al

jazeera, still to come, a proposal to create the world's biggest marine reserve hits another hurdle.

hello gone. a syrian government missile attack in a busy market have killed 50 people. two more boats carries

refugees from turkey to greece have sunk. at least 22 people, including 11 children have drowned in the aegean sea. and the last british prisoner in guantanamo bay has been released. he has been detained without charge at the u.s. prison since 2002. let's go back to the talks in vienna. we're joined by our senior political analyst. so 20 nations arrange the table, no syrians, why is that? >> well, they are fighting, and it's very hard to get them to talk nowadays. certainly those around the table you could call them directly or indirectly the patrons of those fighting in syria. so as a british foreign secretary said these are just exploratory talks to see what is

what? and if the syria people are watching al jazeera and heard them, they are probably not crossing their fingers, saying we'll be at peace tomorrow. >> we were talk earlier about the format of the meeting, and we see the u.s., u.s. secretary of state john kerry right in the center. is this all about the u.s. trying to get back in the game? >> absolutely. the u.s. has abandoned syria since they said that assad has no future in syria. since they said the use of chemical weapons is a red line. the obama administration had no real interest or will to intervene in syria, so they basically left it to deteriorate, and when that happened it is the iranians and russians that went in and filled the void. and when that happened, i think the united states felt that the

rug had been pulled from under its feet and it has to act. surely the u.s. does remain the world superpower, and the middle east superpower, so who would call such a meeting? the united states, and who sits in the middle? the united states. >> the russians and saudis are there. what common ground can they find? >> it's clear from what they say is that the gap between them is too big to bridge any sometime soon, however, i'm not sure if what they are saying is what they mean, or if what they are saying is how they maneuver their way into a deal. i think clearly it's just how to reach a transitional period with some sort of presence or no

presence. my sense is the people on the ground fighting against the assad regime, they say no to isil and no to assad. >> okay. thank you very much for joining us once again. >> thank you. houthi leader in yemen says efforts to find a political solution have failed. he leader says the war has become a matter of survival. he is also condemning the u.n. envoy who he accuses of being manipulated by the saudis. doctors in yemen are accusing the saudis for an attack on their hospital. >> it is very clear that the hospital was.commed by an aerial

bomb, so a bomb by the coalition. there is only the coalition occupying the skies. russia has failed to back the creation of what would be the world's largest ocean sanctuary in antarctica. conservations have asked for two vast areas to be designated marine protection areas. the first is a 1.25 square kilometer area in the one of the last seas on earth that remains largely unaffected by human activities. the second, 940,000 square kilometers in east antarctica. >> reporter: it is the least-touched area on earth. no polar bears. but penguins, other birds and fish that live nowhere else.

the ecosystems are available in themselves but the antarctic and southern ocean are also laboratories for climate change. >> it's important that we can distinguish what has happened through climate change and what has happened through fishing, so by having control areas, which are parts of the marine reserves, you can have those areas protected. >> reporter: for the past five years annual meetings here, delegates from 24 countries, plus the european union have been negotiating to establish marine-protected area. agreement needs consensus. in previous years russia and china vetoes proposals. they want the right to fish freely. >> every year that these mp's are not established it open to

destruction. >> reporter: disappointing then, but delegates this week again failed to reach consensus. there is of course, some frustration here. but most delegates are leaving more optimistic than in previous years. they say substantial progress has been made. importantly for the first time, china says it now supports win of the two proposed protected areas. russia, though, remains opposed. >> they have indicated they are not quite ready yet, but they have indicated that they are willing to talk with us, and we'll take them up on that offer. >> reporter: so there's growing hope it's coming, but for now

antarctica lacks the protection it needs. world leaders are meeting to try to come up with a legally binding climate agreement. a climate ngo spokesperson says if the temperature rises by just 1 degrees it will be devastating. >> reporter: emissions of carbon dioxide is going to keep increasing to 2030. we don't know when the governments start bending. what is quite clear is that in 2030, the emissions will be at least 25% more than what it should be. we should be about 40 billion tons. even at a temperature rise of

about a degree that certain part of the world is experiencing right now, it is devastating. you're talking about category 5 hurricane in arabian sea. philippines have been battered by hurricanes. you have droughts and floods. one degree is devastating for the whole. think about 2 degrees, and then 3 degrees is unimaginable. starting today in the united states the first of up to 48,000 federal prison inmates will be released early. they are all being held in federal jails. they have been serving sentences for non-violent drug crimes now considered to be unjustified. patty culhane has more. >> reporter: charles folder is a man who really likes to talk about his brother todd. >> comedian, just he commands the room. always has. >> reporter: his pictures show

an inseparable pair. always smiling. but this is where the pictures stop. at 24 years old, todd foster was found guilty of a non-violent crime. dealing crack cocaine. they possessed a combined 15 kilograms, that meant his sentence, life in prison, no chance of parole. >> you sell drugs, you do your time, but life without parole for something you can put in your pocket? na, i never -- i would never see that in a million years. >> reporter: the judge had very little discretion because federal law requires mandatory minimum sentences. it's a formula, and it adds up to the sentence. the independent commission that oversees sentences just changed the formula. shaving an average of two careers of prison time for drug

offenses. but for people sentenced to life, it means they will know freedom. part of the reason, money. the u.s. spends $80 billion a year on prisons, they are overcrowded. almost half of the inmates are there on drug charges. congress is considering lowering the penalties further. >> that is going to drive the crime rate up, because these people are unfortunately -- they are going to go back, many of them to what they did previously, that is victimize the public by selling a poison. these are all in fact poisons that destroy people's lives. >> reporter: the vast majority of prisoners that get out end up being send back to prison. >> with me in his life, his support system, will be he can go anywhere. you want to say, hey, you need to call somebody, i'm there. i'm going to be tied like to. so he's going to be good. he is definitely going to be

good. i promise you that. he ain't got no choice but to do the right thing. >> reporter: now he'll have a chance at freedom. patty culhane, al jazeera, washington. china says it won't participate at a dutch arbitration court over a maritime dispute. the court ruled it has jurisdiction to hear the case. >> translator: this ruling was an inappropriate ruling. you can see the philippines aim is not to resolve the dispute. it's aim is to deny china's right in the south china sea and affirm its own rights. this is not an approach to resolve the dispute. rwanda has passed a

constitutional amendment to allow the president to run for a third term. it will allow him to remain in power until 2034. it is widely expected to be passed. government leaders in zimbabwe are looking to the sun to overcome electricity shortages. haru matasa reports. >> reporter: continuous electricity shortages in zimbabwe haven't stopped this man from working. this $50 solar system he has had for six months keeps him in business. >> from morning to evening in my business, uninterrupted. >> reporter: zimbabwe produces about 1,000 megawatts of electricity a day, less than half of what is needed.

to try to plug the gap government leaders are telling zimbabweans that they have to buy solar heaters. >> people are being laid off jobs, and the cash is not available. >> reporter: a 100-liter water heater costs about $400 after installation. the average life span is about three years before some maintenance is needed. >> we are likely to be serving 300 or more megawatts of electricity. so if we go solar it means we're going to be saving 60% of what we pay. >> reporter: a poor families are being told they will be able to buy the heaters at a government subsidized price which will be announced soon. >> we are working with india and china, and also with countries outside of those regions. we are working also with

european countries, in particular germany, because they have got the technology in the solar sector, but we are working with all countries and would welcome any investments into those -- into the energy sector. >> reporter: this current energy crisis is partly being caused by low water levels in the hyde droe electric dams. these streetlights don't always work, so they are being replaced by these solar ones. around 8 million of zimbabwe's 13 million people don't have access to electricity. using more solar energy could solve that. the u.s. space agency nasa has released more pictures of

the planet pluto. the photos show the layers of the atmosphere, as well as the mountains on the dwarf planet. it's the first spacecraft to visit pluto. you can always keep up to date with the very latest news on our website, aljazeera.com. dozens are killed in a strike on a damascus area market, the violence turning up the pressure for the u.s., russia, and iran tend to the crisis. releasing non-violent inmates. and a spooky situation for pumpkin lovers. a pumpkin shortage that could stretch through the holiday season.