skiver what life is like under putin during his travels he meets christians and muslims patriots and separatists i told little locals in the southeast we're on our side when i arrive i don't do something completely different someone to leave petitions russia but for others a russian possible means hope and the challenge of happens in search of putin's russia at this time on al-jazeera. north korea and libya dominate the agenda at a meeting between the u.s. secretary of state but his british counterpart in london. i'm irritated this is our zero ally from london also coming up. suicide bombers

want to read tack in southern iraq killing at least fifty at a checkpoint and restaurant. a fire kills twenty three at a malaysian boarding school most of them teenagers trapped in their dormitory. and an official inquiry opens into a fire to london tower block that killed at least eighty people in june. you know britain's foreign minister says he believes libya's plan to work towards elections in twenty eighteen is the right time scale for us johnson was speaking at a joint news conference with his u.s. counterpart rex tillerson in london the pair also discussed a range of other foreign policy issues including north korea's escalating nuclear program with tears and asking pyongyang to reconsider its current path to try to halt was at that news conference and joins me live now from central london so john what progress on libya from this meeting. well on

the issue of libya was central to the meetings that took place at lancaster house behind me during the course of the afternoon a number of countries in attendance the u.k. and the u.s. of course the u.n. envoy to libya as well as france italy egypt and the u.a.e. and the all of these countries with an interest in what is happening in libya not least because of the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have made their way through north africa using libya as a gateway into europe that issue somewhat eased at the moment but talks about that also of course fears that the ongoing instability in libya will lead to a further rise in the presence of eisel in north africa groups and individuals perhaps fostering and planning attacks on international countries from libya hence the background the purpose of this meeting and the strongest message will have been received heard and received from the new un envoy for libya her son who told the

meeting that there are simply too many international plans on the table to deal with the problems in libya some six or seven different plans floating around at the moment he said simply too many cooks spoil the broth there needs to be one united plan to kick start political talks in libya to bridge the differences between the competing governments in the east and west of that country and pave the way towards elections sometime in two thousand and eighteen and in the press conference that has just taken place boris johnson the u.k. foreign secretary was asked whether that timeline was appropriate he said yes he believed elections could take place a year from now but he cautioned not to move too quickly that the appropriate amount of political groundwork needed to be done in particular a finalizing a constitution for that country and most importantly the message out of this is that everybody's efforts now must rally behind the u.n. as the sole and chief mediator in the form of its envoy her son salomé and joe they also had some strong words on north korea and iran.

yes that's right well talks are on and about iran and north korea started earlier in the day when rex tillerson the u.s. secretary of state visited prime minister trees of may at number ten downing street prime minister may reaffirmed at that point the u.k. belief in the importance of the iran nuclear deal is the best way of preventing iran from getting its hands on nuclear weapons while rex tillerson secretary of state in this press conference a little more circumspect about that he said that the trump administration was continuing its review of the iran nuclear deal of iran's compliance with the full spirit of that deal he said in those terms you have to look at the totality of the threats posed by iran and for instance if it continued its support of bashar al assad well he said that may be interpreted as not in keeping with the full and complete spirit of the deal done with international powers on north korea there was

talk of boosting pressure on pyongyang via those sanctions passed by the u.n. security council the eighth round of sanctions the toughest sanctions ever imposed on any country said boris johnson how to enforce them in particular how to bring china in and get it to do more there was no talk of the sort of fire and fury we've heard from the trumpet ministration this was a call for engagement and for dialogue here's what rex tillerson had to say. along with representatives from france we had a very substantial meeting to discuss how to increase that diplomatic and economic pressure on the d.p. r. k. and and also how we can work together to relay messages to the regime in north korea that we need to stand down your program and engage in dialogue to find a way to a peaceful resolution. so all sorts of issues discussed a day of diplomacy here in london in the end though an opportunity for those two men or as johnson and rex tillerson to stand at the podium there and affirm the

importance and strength of the ongoing special relationship between these two countries during a whole thank you very much indeed. to iraq now at least fifty people have been killed in suicide attacks in the south of the country the attacks targeted a restaurant and a police checkpoint near the southern city of nasiriyah at least eighty others were injured or future of a united iraq is looking ever more uncertain as tensions continue over a controversial referendum on the kurdish independence the iraqi parliament has voted to remove the governor of kirkuk from office after the province voted to take part in the vote on september twenty fifth iraq's prime minister hyderabadi has been authorized by parliament to take all measures to preserve national unity or an eyesore swept across northern and central iraq it was kurdish peshmerga forces who secured kirkuk is also gave them control of a place that's long been claimed as part of an independent kurdistan the population

of kirkuk is diverse with a mix of kurds arabs turkmen and assyrians and the province is very rich in oil and speed tug of war over whether it remains part of iraq as the government in baghdad once or becomes part of kurdistan as the leaders of the autonomous north are pushing for the kurdish president has condemned the removal of kirkuk governor and the man himself told out of there the vote was unlawful and he has no intention of leaving office. they can make whatever decision they want to make i'm staying in my course prime minister does not have the powers to ask the pardon or the movie. because kirk is run by the brim and this is according to the law that was passed in the iraqi parliament in two thousand and eight the he has the power with other governments but not with because. this is unlawful and illegal and we will not abide there is absolutely nothing that for the people from expressing your opinion

with regard to their future does not mean that an independent republic of kurdistan will be formed right on after that on the twenty sixth of september but. it's the will of the people to express their opinion and their will about what they want and then the of course. it's all depends how he's going to go issue seems to me take a year to year and a half just like birds it is so i don't see why you know these people are so much against it and literally making it like as if the whole middle east is going to blow up which is not true. i think talk more about all of this one out here is iran counting joins us live from. brussels can you go back to that attack us off around what more can you tell us about that. well i can tell you it took place just after lunch time is one of the biggest attacks that we've seen in the south of iraq the south of iraq has actually been spared most of the violence that we've seen here in

the north and in the west which if you when i still took over in two thousand and fourteen it took place at the mouth and the checkpoint which leads into southern iraq gunmen opened fire at that checkpoint and two suicide car bombs exploded outside of a restaurant this restaurant was full of tourists at the time we are hearing that four iranians have also been injured in that attack we are expecting the death toll to rise the health minister has said a lot of people still have very serious injuries and they are battling to try and save lives there but like i say it's a very unusual attack it was also claimed by eisel i saw on their website said they that they were behind the attack and we have seen of course in the possible claiming responsibility for all sorts of attack not just in iraq but globally as well but it is likely to be a message from isis saying that you may have got rid of us in mosul you may have destroyed all forces. but we are still able to mount attacks to came places that you were not expecting and was on

a has criticized the iraqi parliament is voting to what does this mean for the referendum. well it's a very interesting legal and constitutional problem that both sides now have you have to take a look at what baghdad has been doing baghdad has passed a law in the last few days saying that the referendum is illegal however the kurdish m.p.'s in baghdad didn't take part in that vote so the kurds are saying well actually the vote is non-binding also there's now a constitutional pressure here for the kurdish parliament to meet to pass a law saying that the referendum can go ahead on september twenty fifth now we're also seeing the international community is only really one country that's actually said the independence referendum is a good idea and that's israel everybody else has said that this needs to either be postponed all be cancelled entirely who's the special representative to be anti eisel coalition american diplomats had a press conference just in the last hour he said he presented a plan the u.s.

the u.k. the u.n. plan he called it to president morsi was hoping that he would be able to try and perspiring the referendum but. he has put in so much political capital he's reputation is really riding on the line if the record to if the referendum doesn't go ahead and that will be a big problem for him politically because the people here within the territory that don't want this referendum to go ahead now because they say the internal problems that need to be addressed so we're seeing a lot of political maneuvering going on and like i say a number of constitutional and legal problems from both baghdad and from a bill that need to be addressed on both sides this place and say that they're absolutely in the right that the referendum is either illegal says by god or it's completely legal and we can do it says avail. thank you very much. twenty three people including twenty one teenage boys have died in a fire at an islamic boarding school in malaysia student and teachers can be heard screaming for help as the father built the only exit to the dormitory which had its

windows covered in metal grills. at your lopez what i am reports. it took more than an hour for firefighters to put out the flames that the double could on eighty funky a school in kuala lumpur by then many people mainly teenage boys had lost their lives and i'm going to have to set the scene we can see from a certain angle their hands waving out for help we had no choice but to ask them to jump out and we tried to catch them we did try to enter the house but the fire was too hot until certain point there was a blackout when that happened things started falling apart we withdrew after that. the fire started near the dormitory on the top floor first thing in the morning it quickly ripped through the entire building opposite me by one of the interior of the building is one hundred percent destroyed the mattresses books and all other things in the very damaged but the cause of the fire is still unclear we're still investigating it would have been difficult for the boys to escape as the rooms had

barred windows and the fire blocked the only exit i could think of a escape through the window we dismantled the window grip open the window and climb don't know if we force a window grille open at the time we couldn't think much. a fire department representative says their bodies were found on top of one another suggesting there was a stampede to try and get out the fire chief says a school should have had to fire escapes but it appears the building codes were not properly followed the initial investigation that. issued by local government and by departments across investigation. and it showed that. a community of religious leader led prayers for the students he described the boys as cheerful when they held religious events in the community

a happy group many of whom have now lost their lives in. tragic circumstances. beyond zero. still to come when i. start registering voters using biometric technology but some fear it will increase the chance of a drinking. and it was a disaster that claimed hundreds of lives despite the threat of another summer's charioteer and residents still refusing to leave their homes. however the skies allies declare across the middle east at the moment the chance of one of was just around the black sea which was the caspian sea over the next few days but as you can see the skies. are clear it will stay that way as we go into the weekend emphasized as you can see maybe the odd rogue shower which was

a media elsewhere is fine and dry twenty some lovely sunshine sunshine life of baghdad still getting up into the mid forty's here with me to the a low forces across much of the writing peninsula here and temperatures hovering around forty forty one degrees over the next couple of days little cloud just around southern parts of the potential easing over towards the south of amman into southern parts of yemen want to see wanted to show was drifting in here over the next day or so and southern parts of south africa also seeing a little more in the way of plow that cloud could be thick enough times to produce some outbreaks of right i think as we go on through friday not too bad a sas day doesn't like the west a day for southern most parts of south africa over towards the east and further north it's looking five and dry until we get up into central africa the heavy showers continue around the highlands uganda seeing some showers showers too for cameroon and also for much of west africa.

eleanor amount of the top stories here. britain's foreign minister says he supports

libya's plan to work towards elections in twenty eighteen. also discussed iran and north korea in a meeting with u.s. counterpart. at least fifty people have been killed in two suicide attacks in southern iraq a restaurant and a police checkpoint near nasiriya were targeted. and twenty three people including twenty one teenage boys have died in a fire at an islamic boarding school in the malaysian capital. to. have drowned making the crossing from bangladesh bringing the number since the start of the crisis to eighty eight they died when a refugee boat heading for the town of tech nuff capsized thousands of minority regime still flooding into bangladesh west four hundred thousand have fled since the military crackdown three weeks ago. attacked a number of police posts. in assistance in bangladesh has traditionally been

quite complex the government has. preferred to certain choices in terms of which agencies our presence on the ground and so forth this was before this big emergency i think that now that the emergency requires a very urgent response these presents would be scaled up very quickly we've had already an airlift of goods from the emirates other organizations are also sending goods and i think that we're going to see. the emergence of very quickly. bangladesh's border with me and. international. you can see thousands of people have lined up here to get rice provided by the. family this is what we saw two weeks ago the very still tense and volatile.

people drowned while trying to cross the border into bangladesh few days back at least four died trying to cross into bangladesh in a mine explosion things are still very volatile in the border area the emir of qatar is holding talks with the turkish president in ankara is his first foreign visit since the blockade of qatar by other gulf states in june. with more. the fact that the mayor of qatar. sees fit to leave the country is a sign as far as many are concerned that he believes qatar has been able to withstand the worst of the onslaught that has been going on has been directed at his country for over one hundred days now in terms of the siege of the blockade that's been imposed by saudi arabia the united arab emirates bahrain as well as egypt as well as what many believe that he's believed to be attempted coup to essentially oust him from power so the fact that he's leaving the country is a sign many would say that he believes that his country is stable enough secure

enough and that he has nothing to worry about what's in terms of the destination going to chart he is the first of his foreign visits since the crisis began a clear sign of gratitude for the solidarity that ankara has demonstrated in manifested throughout the past hundred days in terms of filling the void supermarket shelves as well as the need for basic food produced in qatar found itself in in light of the blockade much of its dairy producers well as other fresh poultry and other things used to come via saudi arabia and obviously the fact that they closed the land border meant that qatar had to look elsewhere significantly obviously the security that turkey has. given qatar via the bilateral military agreements that are between the two countries in the presence of turkish forces there in terms of what's on the agenda what we understand from the. presidential spokesperson abram kalin who spoke just a couple of hours before landed in ankara he said that turkey or the turkish

president would be speaking with the emir about finding a solution to the crisis however they didn't delve into what details that would entail it is significant to mention here however that the kuwaiti prime minister who is country's been leading the mediation efforts albeit unsuccessfully until now is also in turkey. a senior russian negotiator says his country together with turkey and iran is close to finalizing an agreement on deescalation zones in syria but discussing the details at a meeting in the kazakhstan capital istana is the sixth round of talks which aimed to end whether six years of civil war representatives of the syrian government and opposition groups are at their standard talks. with the two of them the through i want to say that the main task of this international meeting on syria is to formalize and create always ends of deescalation to draw a line under all the work which has been done in the last four to five months since a memorandum creating deescalation zones was signed on the fourth of may and

official inquiry has opened into a fire at a london tower block that killed at least eighty people in june many of the residents of grenfell tao from poor backgrounds into criticism that government negligence was responsible for the disaster or u.k. correspondent bonamy phillips reports. we want to know the truth they argue it's a cover up before it's even begun but some martin mull big says he is determined to find out the truth his inquiry began with a minute's silence an acknowledgment of how much suffering the grenfell tower fire has caused. cannot undo and. that it can provide answers to the pressing questions of how a disaster of this kind could occur twenty first century london. and i hope provide a small measure of solace. for the some martin more brick will investigate the

specifics how the fire started how it spread how the emergency services responded but also the background did the refurbishment of the tower make it more dangerous where safety regulations observed how did the local and national governments react after the fire. no one in this part of london can forget what happened how could they with this reminder looming about them so martin will be will face a great deal of suspicion from the community here many people feel he's too much part of the british establishment and they wanted an inquiry with a broader remit that would have looked at questions of social housing even wealth inequality in london at a neighboring church a special screening of the opening of the inquiry it's going to be long it's not going to be a short short. process but yes i'm glad that we start and i do you feel fairly positive i don't think we know how far our forces her to see the justice we want

smarted more because disappointed residents by not including advisors who represent the local community he says he has to be impartial but he offered words of reassurance. a common goal. we are all searching after the truth about the cause of the fire and the massive loss of life caused and we owe it to those who died and to those whose homes have been destroyed to work together to achieve that goal the inquiry has no power to punish or compensate there are likely to be separate criminal trials to do that establishing the truth console everyone it might just prevent similar disasters in the future but to be philip's al-jazeera in west london. zimbabwe is bringing in new voter register head of next year's presidential and parliamentary elections biometric technology will be used for the

first time some people say to increase the chance of vote rigging reports from harare. peter first voted in one thousand nine hundred eighty when zimbabwe won independence from britain he's participated in every election since then now the electoral commission is compiling a new voters role using biometric registration technology peter has concerns he worries ditching the manual process in favor of technology may not be a good thing for example. the using new technology by the election has to be. in context of the problems of electricity. it's the first time by mid to technology is being used to register voters in zimbabwe officials conducted a practice run in april to test the system for years opposition parties have been demanding a new list of voters they accuse president robert mugabe's readings on a party of a new placing the current register you have thousands of people many years ago.

and for. most of these dead voters. mysteriously it isn't actually polling data because their votes. zanu p.f. officials deny the accusations more than six million voters were on the electoral roll four years ago what is essentially starting the process from scratch everyone who's eligible to vote has to register again. at least seven million people by january but only four hundred out of an estimated three thousand registration kits are available it literally official said the rest of the equipment is expected to arrive in the country in a few weeks we appear to be stampeding into the registration process. without necessarily having a full appreciation of what the entire process is going to be about so it's important that we do get a new one and it's important that we start the process but without adequately planning for the process well setting ourselves up for disaster the presidential

and parliamentary elections are next year the world's oldest elected leader is running for reelection when the date for the polls is announced beating up it one knows no voters anywhere in the world is perfect but he just hopes to become pals with at least be acceptable to many. tens of thousands of people. waiting to be re housed after their homes were destroyed in a landslide last month and estimated five hundred people were killed when a mountain collapsed on the outskirts of the capital freetown the government is now calling on remaining residents to leave in case there are more landslides many say they have nowhere else to go. i said to bangor and her husband were fast asleep when they heard the hill above them tumbled down her husband leapt out of bed and round for shelter leaving the rest of his family behind i said who stayed caring for her children.

hundreds died in this landslide the army has now told residents to leave this area saying it's too dangerous fearing another disaster. but i said to her husband tells his wife they need to stay put their life is here he says if they leave they will lose everything. if we leave will the government actually take care of how i'm the only one working and supporting the family my husband depends on knowing he interrupts he says i have a problem with my eyes i count toward this is my home and i want to stay here until i die. there are other families like them refusing to leave but seven thousand five hundred people have left some have lost their homes others fear the same thing would happen to theirs they live in government run makeshift camps supported by the un and aid agencies there so months ago before the end of the rainy season people here are receiving food shelter and medicine to prevent water borne diseases like

cholera this is where most of the international aid money is going to to camps like this one i said to her and her family don't want to come here they say this is a temporary solution to a long term problem. people here are growing impatient they've been promised new homes. for now soldiers are busy setting up more tense. the world food program are no longer just distributing food but also cash to help people get back to work what they need now is not food but they need support to make sure that the it will to recover to rebuild their lives. construction is underway to build affordable homes some thirty miles outside of freetown too far says i said to she spent her life savings building this place from here she runs a small restaurant bringing enough money to keep her family and husband happy. stay she says is

a risk worth taking at least for now nicholas hawk al jazeera freetown nasa scientists are preparing to destroy the cassini spacecraft which has been orbiting saturn for thirteen years since its launch in nine hundred ninety seven and seven year travel to the planet it's been sending back invaluable scientific data to seniors now running out of fuel so nasa will send it on a dive toward saturn is expected to burn up in the atmosphere because saturn is so far away the spacecraft last transmissions will take eighty three minutes to reach earth. the mind of the top stories on our zero britain's foreign minister says he believes libya's plan to work towards elections in twenty eighteen is the right time scale boris johnson was speaking at a joint news conference with his u.s. counterpart rex tillerson in london but also discussed a range of other foreign policy issues including north korea's escalating nuclear

program to sing asking jong un to reconsider its current path along with representatives from france we had a very substantial meeting to discuss how to increase that diplomatic and economic pressure. and also how we can work together to relate messages to the regime in north korea that we need to stand down your program and gauge and. to find a way to a peaceful resolution at least fifty people have been killed in two suicide attacks in southern iraq a restaurant and the police checkpoint near the southern city of nasiriya were targeted at least eighty others were injured many of them seriously so it's not attacks in southern iraq a rare arsenal is claiming responsibility meanwhile tensions are rising over a controversial referendum on kurdish independence the iraqi parliament has voted to remove the governor of kirkuk from his office after the province voted to take part in the september twenty fifth vote iraq's prime minister hyderabadi has been

authorized by parliament to take all measures to preserve national unity but the governor of kirkuk insists he won't leave his post and the kurdish president masoud barzani has also condemned his removal. twenty three people including twenty one teenage boys have died in a fire at an islamic boarding school in the malaysian capital kuala lumpur the five blocks the only exit to the dormitory which had its windows covered in metal grilles u.n. children's fund is calling for new foss eighty procedures to be established and enforced in all nations schools. two more random muslims have drowned making the crossing from man mount to bangladesh bringing the number since the start of the crisis to eighty eight and died when a refugee boat heading for the town of tech nuff capsized thousands of minority revenger a still flooding into bangladesh almost four hundred thousand of fled since the minute she cracked down or launched a crackdown three weeks ago after a range of fighters attacked

a number of police posts. there's the headlines to stay with us up next it's inside story of news after you off to that scene a bit by for. catastrophic and completely unacceptable the words of u.n. secretary general antonio good tears describing the attacks against muslim or hindu and. as more people flee to bang the days when the take to stop this violence this is inside story.