the military says it's advanced into the center of ramadi driving fighters out of many residential areas. iraqian intelligence estimates there are only around 300 rebels left in the capital. >> reporter: it has been described as the final assault to retap tour ramadi from i.s.i.l.-- recapture. it says its troops are moving in on the center of the city. it has been under i.s.i.l.'s

control for months. for weeks those forces have been tried to reach the complex. but ramadi is the urban battleground. progress has been slow. i.s.i.l. has been fighting back. it is not known how many men the armed group has in the city, but the intelligence believes there could be up to 300. there are also civilians trapped inside and there are reports of casualties. the iraqi military dropped leaflets a few days ago calling on people to leave, but i.s.i.l. is reportedly stopping them so they can use them as human shields. i.s.i.l. stormed ramadi in may at the time in much of iraq's western province was already under the armed group's control. ramadi's fall was an embarrassment for the iraqi government. the iraqi army didn't put up much of a fight and roup quickly. they're back on the front lines and the suppose man says it is being led by special forces and

para military troops are not taking part, but a member of parliament from the province said the sunni tribal force are involved >> there is big support from the coalition air forces. there is a big support from the fighters also, the attack was good coordinated and they attack i.s.i.l. from areas they didn't expect it. i think by the weekend it is everything gone as they plan. they will protect it. ramadi is a strategic city. it is on the doorstep of the capital baghdad. taking ramadi as was i.s.i.l.'s biggest victory this year. losing it will be a setback. that is a test of u.s. strategy of relying on eye ago eau troops. victory here is not just about defeating i.s.i.l. it will determine if the shia-led government in baghdad

is able to win over anwar's community afghan police say 570 soldiers have joined security forces battling the taliban in helmand. they're trying to recapture the town of sangin which fell to the taliban on monday. it is an important city because of its production of opium and was a taliban stronghold. the police chief says at least 60 taliban fighters were killed over night on tuesday and four military personnel have also died. the afghan government has confirmed british soldiers have rived in helmand. the british ministry of defense says a small number of u.k. personnel have been sent in an advisory role. >> translation: a group of british forces has been deployed in helmand to participate in the resolute support mission. they will support and help afghan security forces as advisers and they will not

participate in the military operations. military operations is the task of afghan security forces a 19-year-old has been pulled alive from the rubble from a southern chinese city of conscience zen-- chinese city of shenghen. adrian brown here. >> reporter: rescuers have found one man alive. he is 19 years old and a migrant worker. when rescuers finally reached him, and by this stage he had been under debris for more than 67 hours, his voice was very weak, his pulse was feeble but he was able to give his name and name of a second person nearby. that person was found to be dead. at the rescue site itself scenes

of frantic activity on wednesday morning there are 4,000 rescuers taking parliament in this operation and they're-- part in this operation and they're backed up by dozens of mechanical diggers. police meanwhile have raid the officers of the company that manage the dump where all this waste had been stored. he is a deputy general manager. what happened on sunday was that heavy rains caused this mound of soil and construction waste, a mound that was actually more than a hundred metres high to come powering down on an industrial complex where there were also worker dormitories. more than 70 people are still missing. local media reports say that a local government report had identified problems at this sights a number of months ago and in its words had warned of a catastrophe and that's what has happened now 76 people are still missing at sea after a passenger ferry capsized in central indonesia.

the boat went missing off the coast on saturday. three people have been confirmed dead and 41 others, include the captain, have been rescued. emergency services say stormy waters caused the accident. european court of justice is said to shortly rule on the future of cigarette packaging. a new directive will make mandatory health warnings more prominent across the year but it will allow member states to introduce their own set of stringent rules and tobacco companies have been fighting that. >> reporter: as more and more countries crack down on smoking, many of these iconic logos will soon vanish from the shelves. australia led the way three years ago with stark warnings and standardised lettering. it cut smoke is rates by 15%. from next year, under new european union regulation, 65%

of each cigarette packet will be covered in warnings leaving much less room for logos. >> there is good evidence that health warnings do work in terms of deterring young people from taking up smoking, and helping adult smokers to quick. text warnings are fine up to a point, but picture warnings are much more powerful. >> reporter: but the u.k. ireland and france are going beyond the directive. like australia they're introducing plain logoless packaging next year something which the tobacco giants are determined to fight. many leading tobacco companies, all filed lawsuits here he high court in london. a verdict is expected in january. they also appeal to the european court of justice in lexemburg claiming the white label of the packages on contravene freedom

of expression. lobbying groups say it will have little effect. as far as i'm concerned, it is basically medical pornography. some pictures are quite gruesome. we know our brand. i've been smoking the same brand for 30 years. i smoke it because i enjoy it. >> this is a man who smokes marlborugh cigarettes. >> reporter: in the past cigarette companies promote freely. they were encouraged to smoke at breakfast. after spofrt. even in the shower. - sport. today most countries have banned tobacco ads replacing them with warnings >> every 15 cigarettes you smoke will cause a mutation. >> reporter: it is believed to cost the british economy 20 billion dollars a year in reduced productivity and treating refugees. much more than the 14 billion

dollars that the that tax is brought in. with turkey and canada also set to introduce plain packaging, tobacco companies are feeling the jeez - squueze more to come, women in peru fighting. leading the change, cape town is recognised by u.n. for combatting global warming. we find out why. find out why.

welcome back.

the top stories. activists are accusing the syrian government of carrying out a gas attack near the capital damascus. at least five civilians have been killed and dozens injured in the residential area. opcw said the last of syria's chemical weapons had been shipped out of the country. iraqi soldiers are fighting to recapture the city of ramadi from i.s.i.l. the military says it has advanced into the center of ramadi and controls more than half of the city. european courts of justice is said to rule in the future of cigarette packaging. tobacco companies have been fighting a new directive allowing member states to introduce more stringent rules on top of an e.u. wide standard. thousands of students in chile's capital have taken to the

streets in a push for educational reform. police used water cannons to contain the crowds as the march turned violent. the protesters want the president to make good on several promises clueing free higher education. -- including. a group of women in peru is trying to take the government to court. they're more than a quarter million women who went through forced sterilisations in the 1990s. a report from southern peru. >> reporter: it has been nearly 20 years and these women have stayed together working and maintaining themselves, together surviving their pain. back then under the government they all underwent sterilisations. they say they were forced into it long with thousands of other women in poor indigenous communities - along. the women from the region of south peru are among thousands who say they were blackmailed,

harassed or lied to as they were taken by force into the operating rooms. most were illiterate. some thought they were just going for free health check ups. >> translation: two nurses forced me into an ambulance. then they locked me in a room and asked me until when are you going to give birth like a pig? >> reporter: in 1996 the government launched its sterilisation campaign aimed at bringing the birth rate down to reduce poverty. the health authorities say that the women have consented to the operations. amnesty international says more than 270,000 women were sterilised in a four-year campaign. >> they only suffered the shock of being sterilised without their consent. many of them were rejected by their husbands and other people in their communities. >> translation: we were marginalised from community activities.

now we want justice, reparation and life insurances for our families. >> reporter: the victims' lawyers want to prove that it was a state policy and not individual cases of malpractice as allies say. >> translation: the question is not whether these are gross human rights violations, but what is the responsibility of the mastermind in these types of crimes and what is former president responsibility in implementing a state policy to control birth rates. >> reporter: the government has recently passed a law to register all victims, but amnesty international is demanding that it should adopt a clear policy on reparations. prosecutors have more than 2700 separate cases under investigation in a process lawyers say will take years. they want prosecutors to move ahead and take one test case to court to set a precedent for the rest of the victims. for years women around the country have thought for their

rights and they say-- fought for their rights and they will continue to demand justice no long matter how long it takes and how long they will be in this fight a russian court has issued an international arrest warrant for the former businessman cordokoskki warps founded a poo democrat - democracy office. two weeks earlier investigators he was accused of organising a contract killing. he was arrested in 2003 after he fell out with putin and since his release in 2013 spends most of his time in london. internet entremendous (our king.com is appealing a new zealand court ruling that he can be extradited to the u.s. to face piracy-related charges. the german national has been fighting the case for four

years. it was a file-sharing website. illegal downloads costs companies more than a billion dollars. the website was shut down in 2012. hundreds of thousands of farmers in zimbabwe have been slammed with higher taxes. they were resettled on land seized from white owners, but the high costs of managing the land has left many struggling. many fear they will lose their property. >> reporter: this man is already paying land tax to his royal district council. he is one of about 300,000 new farmers who have been resettled on land seized from white owners. now the government want farmers like him to pay for tax. >> spending more a year, two years, the farmer wants to survive here. there needs to be a payment

>> reporter: it is between 3 and $10 a hectare. individuals with more than one thousand hectares of land could end up paying tens ofs of dollars in rent >> we wish the level of rent is at a rate so the farmer remains viable >> reporter: resettled farmers with leases for 99 have been warnld they could lose their farm if they don't comply with the new legislation. some farms are not being fully utilised. it could encourage people from benefited from land reform to see farming as a business and work harder to keep their property. the new farmers who are struggling say high electricity costs, low crop prices and lack of access to bank loanss is to blame for their under performance. >> i think it is a way of domestically immobilising resources. it is a way of increasing the

cost, increasing the revenue base in the country. i think it's positive. it will also result in the intensification of land use in zimbabwe. >> reporter: he doesn't agree. this season he is planting on 12 hectares of land. he says the seeds, labor and fertilizer will cost more than $20,000, money he is still trying to raise. he and many others won't be able to pay the new land taxes somalia is no longer a failed state. that is according to the outgoing representative for the u.n. secretary general in the country. nicholas kay says while the situation is fragile, somalia is recovering. he says it has stabilized political ily over the last few years. the cup has been ravindran it since 1991. justify last week, know, a car bomb attack claimed by al-shabab

claimed at least three. the president wants to bring forward the election. constitutional changes allowing him to run for a third term. the president is one of africa's longest serving rulers. the ewe nudists nations has recognised cape town as one of the ten cities worldwide leading the fight against climate change. the city is carrying out projects and has focused efforts on helping the poor. from cape town our correspondent. >> reporter: high winds and heavy clouds over table mountain. the residents on the outskirts of the city usually a signal of a dusty day ahead. about 40 thousand low income homes in areas like this without ceilin ceilings. this woman has been living here

for 15 years and her home is one of the first to have ceiling installed. it is better to be outside. >> reporter: she says the new ceiling has cut her electricity consumption by half. the project is part of a drive by the city to combat climate change. over the next two years 8 thougs homes will be upgraded. down the road several other units are being fitted with insulated ceilings. the project is expected to see dram attic reduction in electricity consumption and reducing carbon emissions by more than 5,000 tons a year. the city's mayor says fighting climate change will benefit the most desperate. >> reporter: the city will have to catch up fast because the worst thing about climate change is it is hitting the poor people the most. 80% of the people living in africa are poor and living below a dollar a day. when the drafts come, winds, the

floods come, those cities will be hit hard. >> reporter: the city has several other projects on the go to frequent the environment, including support in the installation of solar panels on the roofs of businesses to generate clean energy with excess electricity being fed into the city's grid. water management devices have also been installed in low income homes as part of the environmental drive. water is free, but it is limited to 350 liters a day, but some groups say that has hit the most needy >> this drive for water conservation, water saving, is now a burden that poor people must carry rather than industry mining, agricultural, wealthier households. that is where the savings in water and the savings in electricity should really be targeted first. >> reporter: for residents here, the city's commitment to developing a sustainable environment has for now made life a little more comfortable

the greek government has passed a bill that will allow civil partnerships between same sex couples. legislation was approved two years after the country was condemned by a european court for discrimination. law makers voted 193 to 56 in favor of the bill. they would normally-- you wouldn't normally associate art with explosives and hammer drills. one artist is turning to such for important trying his artwork. he is focusing on hong kong. >> reporter: his studio may be indoors, but he prefers exterior walls on old buildings to exhibit his art. >> i think city has a lot to gain by giving space to artists to create in it not just for the culture life but also for the fact that it basically makes life more interesting. >> reporter: he is an

internationally recognised graffiti artist. these days instead of spray cans, he uses chisels and drills, even controlled explosions to create oversized important traits in public spaces all are which are legally approved >> it is an archeology process. you expose history. you make the invisible visible, and when, this is one of the motives i worked on most judge a city landscape like hong kong is a perfect canvass. old buildings are over shadowed by modern sky scrapers. it's that history that he wants to capture in his art >> i try not to reflect on new buildings. i try to focus on the shadow. i try to think the shadow is where the message of the work is and that's what interests me and where i want to put the focus on >> reporter: this building was once a busy cotton mill in hong kong, it is being turned into a creative and cultural hub and

the owners invited this artist to document the building's transformation >> it's something that we feel proud. we're injecting a different energy into the neighborhood and the communities that it interacts with receive it positively >> reporter: it's not just hong kong. his works are featured around the world from malaysia to spain, brazil and the u.s. the scene of his collection remains the same. to reflect on city's changes and pace of development by uncovering some of its past. what once started as an act of rebellion has won this artist an international following that continues to grow. >> this is one of the most influential young street artists of our time, but i think now he has developed air strong following in the contemporary art world which is why it was decided to bring him to hong kong because he was proven himself in the contrary art scene as an artist worth watching outside of the urban art context

>> reporter: while a lot of his works are temporary installations, with the changing face of asia he says he won't be short of inspiration just remember our website, the address is there at the bottom of the screen. al jazeera.com a show about innovations that can change lives. the science of fighting a humanity and we are doing it in a unique way. this is a show about science by scientists. let's check the team of hardcore nerds. specialising in ecology and revolution. tonight the green game.