rival governments sign a underup-backed agreement, bringing hope of a united leadership for libya. ♪ hello, you are watching al jazeera, live from london. also coming up. a huge explosion in a heavily fortified part of kabul, the taliban claim responsibility. a major deal on climate change as negotiators extend their deadline to reach an agreement. we're live in paris. and the missing billionaire, the latest top businessman assisting in inquiries as china cracks

down on its entrepreneurs. ♪ now hopes have been raised of a path to peace in libya, after rival governments reached a deal in the tunisian capitol. representatives of the two rival administrations have agreed to formally sign a u.n.-brokered plan. the development is a major step to resolving the conflict which began in 2011 when gadhafi was forced out of power. zana hoda reports from rome where more talks will be taking place. >> reporter: italy is where world leaders will meet on -- sunday to give a final push to bring about a unity government in libya. now members of the rival

parliaments say it will be signed on december 16th. that follows last week's agreement in tunis, which saw the warring parties agree on the urgent need to work together. the announcement was made by the u.n. special envoy who held last-minute discussions with the two sides. but even he said the way forward won't be easy. >> many problems remain. but this has to be solved by the new government in place. that's what governments are there for. that's why the implementation phase will start with many open problems, and the united nations is already ready to support the new government. >> reporter: libya has been at war since the overthrow of gadhafi. there are armed groups who have rejected previous attempts to disarm. it is not clear if all of them are backing the u.n.-deal. italy's foreign minister told us

that no deal is perfect, but he is hoping the majority of libyans will put their differences aside. >> this is the goal of the conference sunday is to have any more inclusive possible solution. so we will not have 100%. i hope we'll have 90%, because we need, obviously an inclusive solution. those against the solution supported by all of the international community will have the responsibility to contrast something that is strategic for the libyan people. >> reporter: for the international community ending the security and political vacuum in libya is their strategic priority, and that is why world leaders are throwing their weight and pressuring the libyans to unite. some officials say libya is becoming what they are

describing as a fall-back position for isil since it has been becoming under pressure in syria and iraq. italy is particularly concerned not just migrants and refugees use libya as a transit point to reach europe, but isil is just a few hundred kilometers away. and isil has been attempting to take more ground and push in to areas where oil and gas terminals are giving it a source of revenue. the international community hasn't ruled out the option of concerted military action. >> i think we have to concentrate not on plan b, but on the effort of the international community to reach a diplomatic agreement. the only solution, the only stable solution is a libyan unity government to stabilize

the country. >> reporter: for now there is an agreement, the days ahead, however, will give an indication on whether the u.n. deal has the quorum to form what can be called a national unity government. zana hoda, al jazeera, rome. >> the deal to set up a unity government was brokened by the u.n. this tunisia. our correspondent has more from the tap call. >> reporter: i think the reason why these talks have succeeded while others have failed is because of the sense of urgency. the u.n. special envoy to libya talked about the clock ticking. the fact that groups affiliating to isil has taken more important territory effecting the oil industry, that has been a wake-up call for these delegates who have been fighting it out for so long. a presidential council will rule

alongside the unity government. but where will the unity government be placed? that is still not clear. so all of these potentially could impact on the stability of this new unity government. ♪ now a car bomb has exploded in a heavily fortified area of the afghan capitol kabul. three gunmen attacked a guest house during evening rush hour. embassy staff were safe. the taliban has claimed responsibility. >> translator: a car was blown up, we turned off our lights and our night operation special forces have started searching

the vicinity. >> reporter: jennifer glasse is on the phone now from kabul, what more can you tell us, jennifer? >> reporter: well, it started off with a car bomb just after 6:00 in the evening right by the spanish embassy. there was some confusion as to what the actual target juz. the taliban said it was a guest house with foreigners right next to the spanish embassy. the embassy personnel have been evacuated, and the operation with police and special forces in the area. the operation is now in its fifth hour. we understand there's a bit of a standoff going on -- some of the fighters got into high floors of that guest house, and the afghan forces, including the crisis response unit here, trying to figure out how to get them out nflt we have seen these kind of standoffs before in kabul.

there was one at another guest house that went on all right long. it's a very, very cold winter's evening here, so a very difficult operation now. the police have cordoned off the area, turned off the lights in trying to make sure that they get all of the attackers. >> and this follows a major attack in the south of afghanistan in kandahar, jennifer are serious questions being asked now about the preparedness of the afghan security forces, and their strategy in preventing such attacks, which only seem to increase. >> reporter: exactly. the attack here today -- it was only a few attackers. the f afghan capitol does have what the police call a ring of steel, that's a series of check points where they look for anything suspicious, but it is a very, very large sprawling city,

so it's hard to watch everyone. this is just a few attackers. they -- police and security forces say they do their very best, but they are not going to stop everyone. and the taliban i think are timing these attacks. this came a few hours after the president went on television saying he hopes that peace talks will resume in the next couple of weeks, and the attack in kandahar earlier this week, came as the president was in pakistan also talking about peace talks. >> thanks very much. jennifer glasse reporting live for us in the afghan capitol. the islamic state of iraq and the levant has claimed responsibility for an attack that killed at least 22 people in a kurdish-held town in northeastern syria. three isil suicide bombers attacked the town on thursday. the area is a base for kurdish

fighters battles isil, and kurdish security forces are thought to be among the dead. meanwhile syrian opposition groups meeting in riyadh have agreed to basic principaling for ending the civil war. but president assad said he is unwilling to leave syria and has the support of the majority of the country. he also says he is unwilling to negotiate with what he calls terrorists, but will speak to the opposition if they are unarmed. >> translator: we are ready to start negotiations with the opposition, but it depends on the definition of opposition. opposition for everyone in this world doesn't mean militant. there's a big difference between militants, terrorists, and oppositi opposition. opposition is a political term, not a military term. still to come for you on al jazeera, we'll have the latest from burundi, as gunmen attack

three army bases in the capitol. and we'll being looking at the debate of altering human dna.

welcome back. you are watching al jazeera, an update of the top stories. libya's rival factions have agreed to sign a u.n.-backed national unity government. a car bomb has exploded near the spanish embassy compound in a heavily protected area of the afghan capitol. and syrian opposition groups

have agreed to appoint a joint negotiating committee after a two-day conference in riyadh. now financing the cost of tackling climate change remains one of the top sticking points at the climate talks in paris. the summit has now been extended for an extra day, but delegates suggest they are close to reaching a deal. from paris our environment editor, nick clark reports. >> reporter: all night and all day they worked and all night and all day again and there is still no resolution. we're told, though, we're very close. >> translator: after the consultations that i'm going to have, at 9:00 saturday morning i will be in a position to present a text to all of the parties, which i'm sure will be approved. >> reporter: he had hoped to finalize a deal on friday night, but getting 196 countries all with differing interests to

agree to a way forward is a monumental challenge. >> i think we're in a pretty food place. but there are positions that are quite hard to get to. it's very political at the moment. we have a good text. there's a lot we can live with, and we just have to push the bar a bit. it's a huge task with 194 interests. and even though you put them into like-minded groups and the regional grouping there are still issues there that are tough to sort. i think we're on a good path. it's just a struggle to try to get over the hill and deal with what we really need and not just what we want. >> reporter: it's the same old problem of blocking progress, the issue of finance, who pays who what. how to get to 2 pgs or below, and the old argument between developed and developing nations. it's all about what countries

are prepared to trade off. >> loss and damage is a very important concept within the negotiation text, and that's the whole concept that the poorest countries of the world who had nothing to do with climate change need some sort of process where they can either get compensated, liability, risk management mittation, so that's a very key point. >> reporter: but what do scientists make of this. >> reporter: [ inaudible ] cut emissions by 40 to 70% by 2050 or even more. those options are out. instead what is in the text at the moment is language saying that [ inaudible ] and then decline and then [ inaudible ] sometime in the next half of the century, you need emissions neutrality. so it's quite vague compared to what science says we need to do. >> reporter: oil producing countries like saudi arabia and venezuela seem to be blacking

progress, particularly over the issue of decarbonization. if and when it come deal will be full of compromises. >> nick joins us live from paris now. the deal appears to have missed its deadline, nick. how much work is left do? >> reporter: we're in this holding pattern now until the next draft text is read about 9:00 tomorrow morning. a lot of press going home, but politicians and the negotiators will be staying. they will work through the night again in this concerted effort to get to this climate deal that everybody wants. you have this coalition -- so-called coalition of ambition which includes the united states, e.u., brazil as well, caribbean islands, african nations who are really pushing trying to bring everybody

tonight. and then you have the coalition of deletion where people are putting red lines through the text, and that's people like saudi arabia and venezuela, and to a certain extent china. the job here is to try to bring everybody together. the french president want a resolution around 2:00 tomorrow afternoon, and the french president would come and take think idealization for a specific deal. >> i know you spoke about the traditional division between the developed and developing countries, but what is causing the hold up in this final agreement? >> yeah, well, what the last draft text did is it just highlighted those key issues. the issues of finance, ambition, and responsibility. if you take one out one threat, it unravels the whole lot. and you have developed nations who are now suggesting that the

richer developing nations could contribute more to the climate fund, countries like india and china, and they don't want to play ball with that. every day there are these awards given those countries perceived to be not entering the spirit here. but today was the world cup of those awards, and it was given to saudi arabia for consistently blocking proceedings especially on the 1.5 degree celsius element to be put into the text. we asked them to speak with us, but we have had no response, unfortunately. in the meantime, everyone is focusing on the new text. >> thank you very much.

now the u.n. is holding a special session on burundi next thursday. it follows a coordinated attack on three army barracks in the capitol which killed at least 15 people. malcolm webb reports. >> gunfire and explosions shut down the capitol of burundi on friday morning. violence has intensified over the past few days. militias have ambushed the police and the military, sometimes exchanging gunfire for several hours. the attacks have mostly taken place in areas where there's strong opposition to the president's third term in power. in this suburb, residents say men in police uniforms shot and killed five of their neighbors. witnesses say the victims were taken from their homes, marched to the street, and executed at

point-blank range. >> translator: the police entered and took my mobile phone, they broke down the door and found this man in there, they carried him to the road and shot him. >> reporter: police say they have been conducting house-to-house searches looking for illegal weapons. unrest began in april when the president announced he would seek a third term in power. it's disputed whether or not the constitution allows it, and critics say a third five-year term violates the peace agreement that ended burundi's 12-year civil war and put the president in power. more than 300,000 people were killed between '93 and 2006. the ethnic violence pitted two sides against each other. the political violence since

april has already killed 280 people, now world powers are concerned that burundi could be on the brink of another civil war. now one of -- excuse me. one of china's top entrepreneurs is assisting with a judicial investigation which is a possible sign that china's anti-corruption campaign is widening its reach beyond state companies. his company clarified its chairman's where abouts after first reporting him as missing. meanwhile two financial executives may have been detained for questioning. rob mcbride has more from hong kong. >> reporter: as the market opens in hong kong, four companies celebrate their listings. an auspicious day that comes at the end of a year of tour moil on the financial markets.

hong kong and mainland chinese exchanges have become more integrated this year. that's a concern for market watchers, alarmed at the way china has targeted some of its biggest institutions. >> it's normal in any market to have a regulator who looks into allegations of insider dealing and market manipulation and so forth, but the concern must be in china that the government is looking to blame anyone but itself for the market bubble and its subsequent partial collapse. this business is at the center of the scrutiny. following media reports that two more of its executives have disappeared bringing to six the number thought to be under investigation, the company issued a statement to the hong kong stock exchange, confirming it had no idea where they were. the greater transparency is seen as crucial. also absent, say human rights

activists is adequate legal protection for those who fall foul of the law or the government. >> quite often political consideration prevails over legal issues. >> reporter: human rights lawyers in hong kong have long campaigned on behalf of political activists across the border. the vanishing executives, could be victims of the same system. >> that's why quite often these people will disappear and after some time they will reemerge, and no one understands -- or in what way these matters are settled. >> reporter: as investors end the year with bullish tloeps won't be a repeat of the turmoil in mainland shares, there is still concern about what will happen if the market turns sour once more. one of the inventors of gebetic altering procedures is

calling for a halt on proceed doing as. >> reporter: these mice are providing embryos for microscopic cells who's genes are being manipulated to fix what nature has broken. it's a technology called crisper, a relatively simple and precise method of altering dna. >> we can go into a specific chromesome, a specific spot to one of the millions of molecules that make up that dna and change it. >> reporter: it controls the cutting of any piece of dna either altering an undesirable gene, removing it or replacing it with a healthy one. >> we can use it to alter

mutations. we can design cell lines that allow drug discovery. >> reporter: and ultimately to correct mutations. one company says that by 2017 it plans to begin clinical trials in children who suffer from a con genital defect that causes them to go blind. yet crisper also offers the promise to enhance undesirable characteristics, creating designer babies. that's one reason the inventor is making a global appeal for a moratorium. >> in the end this technology will be used for -- for human engineering. but i think that to do that without careful consideration and discussion of the risks and the potential complications would not be responsible. >> reporter: yet chinese researchers say they have

already attempted to modify human embryos, an effort that failed so far. the nobel peace prize winner was awarded his prize for his efforts. >> reporter: askewing children from slavery is the priority in this office has it has been for more than 30 years. the man who leads an international movement against child labor, says his cause has been strengthened by the nobel peace prize and his work load has only increased. >> i made it clear last year on the very first moment that this is a comma in my life and work, it is not a full stop. i'm not going to sit here. but new journey begins from here. by new journey began last year,

using this recognization to the cause, to the children, for much more faster and deeper impact. >> reporter: he has been fighting for children's rights for years. he says the visibility that the nobel prize gave him as obliged world leaders to take his cause more seriously. this man was rescued from bonded labor as a child. he says every child rescue touches countless lives. >> translator: he taught me. he is the one who freed me and put me through school. i was educated because of him. and today i'm the treasurer of his organization. the biggest benefit is that today my children are getting an education because of him. >> reporter: one of the drawbacks of being a nobel laureate, is he didn't take part in surprise rescue operations

anymore. his face is just too well-known. but those who continue the dangerous work of freeing children are fining more support on the ground. he says this good news. but warns the nobel peace prize has yet to translate into stronger child protection laws in india. >> if indian government, indian society, indian political class is not able to protect children from these kind of exploitations and abusive situations, then there is no reason to just praising me and my work and just congratulating me, and being proud. the proud comes -- will come only when child labor, child slavery, child trafficking, child late -- literacy, is

fixed in this land. >> reporter: in the year since he has accepted the award has shown that while international accolades may help, they are not enough on their own to fix deep-rooted problems. >> we're going to explore the intersection of hardware and humanity but we're doing it in a unique way. this is a show about science, by scientists. tonight: trash. it's everywhere. >> what's the out put of this facility? >> landfills overflowing. >> it just smells so bad. >> but some of our trash ... ... could be recycled.