the russian orthodox church is deep pockets and the rapid expansion may bear it's crucial role in putin's grip on power with some elevating the former k.g.b. officer to sainthood president putin is our leader given twelve good people in power investigates how afterwards attempted elimination by the soviet union religion has returned to the hall of the russian state the orthodox connection this time on al-jazeera. with kurdish forces in retreat in northern iraq people returned home after the military declares mission accomplished. you're watching al-jazeera life from a headquarters and i'm dead you know brigade also

a heads thousands of for hens are refugees are stranded at the border of bangladesh as they escape a military crackdown in me and maher. china's most powerful leader in a generation sets out his long term vision for tackling corruption climate change on consolidating his grip on power and conventional writing style will tell you who's won the series of man booker prize. hello we begin in iraq where the army says its mission accomplished in the operation to take back curtis held territory in the north so it's now in control of areas around most of those nineveh province including the mosul down kurdish forces pulled out of several towns and oil fields as well in recent days forced by iraqi military advance the towns were seized by the kurdish peshmerga over the past three years. as part of the war against i saw all the offensive began on monday when

iraqi troops moved into the contested city of kirk koch the prime minister. had ordered his forces to take back road is held areas lying outside the autonomous region charles start furred has more from erbil. iraq a government troops and shia militia on the outskirts of kirkuk less than twenty four hours off the kurdish peshmerga forces withdrew from the oil rich city no one predicted the ease and speed with which iraqi government forces could take control of the oil fields and most of the remaining towns in the disputed areas of northern iraq peshmerga forces withdrew in some areas without even firing a shot the iraqi prime minister says they no orders from bill. what they went against your instruction and didn't kill the iraqi forces please

take this as a lesson many people who have fled kirkuk today before began to return to life and now we're about to enter and we don't know if it's safe or not so we're going to be where else can i go it's better to go back we're going back to our house and our city was. some arab residents in this ethnically diverse region celebrated the arrival of iraqi government forces. and. now all of kirkuk is retaken and we are happy some of the peshmerga killed in the sporadic fighting which taken to a move in the kurdish region second city so many of the regional government hasn't released figures yet on how many peshmerga killed. and this is tell them since last night we received twenty five corpses of troops killed in battles of kirk and its suburbs relatives of those killed in battles received twenty one corpses so far the bereaved relatives are gathering at the morgue to receive dead bodies of their sons and. bill many people say they are shocked and feel betrayed accusing the

international community of signing with the iraqi government against them. it looks like there was an international betrayal of the kurdish nation and that is due to the fact that we had a plan to move towards independence unfortunately we are facing a situation where we lost everything that we had before all this loss is a result of the fact that the kurdish nation is not united evidence of factionalism and rivalry between kurdish groups and political parties is growing in a statement released by the k r g president and head of the k d p party muscled barzani said the withdrawal of peshmerga was because of unilateral decisions made by some officials the peshmerga general command is blaming this incredibly quick withdrawal of peshmerga fighters from these territories as being as a result of what it describes as historical treason by some senior members of the p u k party one former senior aide to the p u k has called for

a transitional government and says more constructive channels of dialogue should be set up with baghdad after the iraqi army has taken so much control of territory that the k r g was hopeful would be part of a future independent kurdish state president barzani is facing one of the biggest political crises of his life charles stuff at al-jazeera north of erbil. there's the titans and abby is iraq's sars the fair in qatar he says that despite the military operation there is no war against the kurds so the prime minister hyderabad confer and reiterated there is no fight there is no war among the iraqi people the kurds are part parcel of the iraqi fabric they are key partners in our country the president of iraq himself is occurred. since two thousand and three all the parties have agreed to the political process

and every time there is a difference or a dispute the political parties sit together and negotiate and the kurds were a key and active part of. the iraqi government clearly stated that it is open and it is speaking to all. parts but as i stated by the prime minister is that a friend is a thing of the past over and there is no. going backwards all the iraqi forces must negotiate on the basis of the constitution and. the prime minister and the commander of the armed forces said there is no fighting among the iraq is there is no fighting against or between the iraqi people and the kurds are part and parcel of the fabric and that's why no fighting is going to wrapped up between the iraqis and i believe following two thousand and three the political leadership has. that act of violence and the language of violence of the language of fighting is no

longer used china's president appears to be consolidating his grip on power at the communist party's nineteen congress in beijing so in a sweeping three and a half hour speech she jumping laid out his political as well as has economic plan for the next five years he highlighted china's successes and vowed to further open its economy but he also warned of severe challenges like rising debt inequality and corruption. corruption is the biggest threat faced by our party we can only get out of the historical cycle and ensure the long term stability of our polity and our country if we persevered in the continuous fight against corruption two and zero that our government its officials and policies clean well critics accuse she if using his anticorruption campaign to purge political opponents he's already seen as china's most powerful leader in a generation and the ruling politburo is expected to be stacked with this with his allies when it's named next week but it wasn't just clean politics he touched on

but also he touched on the dangers posed by climate change saying china must cooperate with other nations to as he put it ensure the survival of mankind's our china correspondent adrian brown has more from beijing. president xi jinping can control a lot of things but he can't influence the weather to the superstitious and many people here are the damp grey start to this congress was perhaps a warning sign. in spite of the weather this was a day of choreographed unity after what has been a tumultuous few years for the party. but there was a stirring welcome for the president. this is as close as the foreign media get to the opaque workings of china's communist party. she reported on his past five years in office saying the party had achieved miracles he also warned serious challenges. our

country is at a strategic point in. the future is extremely bright but the challenges are also extremely serious all party congress must assert their size and the high and the think of it then jeff in times of safety his address lasted three and a half hours if nothing else it showed that she now sixty four is healthy healthy enough to rule for another ten to fifteen years insists his supporters at one stage former president jiang zemin appeared to nod off he was china's top leader twenty five years ago when i reported on the fourteenth party congress as china began to experiment with capitalism the new catch phrase is socialism with chinese characteristics in a new openness and economic anything to go anything that is political

reform twenty five years the faces behind me have changed but the backdrop remains pretty much the same and the prospect of political reform as remote now as it was then. the congress will now meet in secret for the next. seven days after which china's new leaders will be unveiled president xi is assured of a second term and this congress seems set to cement his position this china's top leader for a lot longer adrian brown al-jazeera beijing qatar's leader is calling for a dialogue with the four arab countries have imposed a blockade on his country so after i mean one hundred thirty made the comments during the final stop of his tour through southeast asia he met the indonesian president djoko we do know in jakarta to sign trade agreements. and we've spoken about the continuing embargo imposed on qatar and the humanitarian effect it's having on qatari sites and those from the g.c.c.

cats are as ready for dialogue to solve the g.c.c. crisis there are no winners in this we are all brothers and all losing out and so qatar is open to dialogue as long as demands and expectations are meds for all parties involved everyone sovereignty is respected spain has warned it will take the unprecedented step of seeking to suspend catalonia as autonomy if the region's leader doesn't abandon his secession beds this spanish government says madrid would trigger article one fifty five us spain's constitution and never before used measure allowing it today to take direct control over catalonia spain's prime minister appealed to the castle on leader to quote act sensibly thursday deadline approaches. the only thing i'm asking is to put is that he acts with saturn balance and that he puts the interests of all citizens best all spaniards and all catalans this is simple it is not difficult to answer the question have you declared catalonia his independence or not because if we understand that he has declared

that the government is obliged as it's written in the constitution to respond in a certain way and if he hasn't then we can discuss it here in parliament which we have offered to do so. well in that. same parliamentary session both spanish and catalan politicians protested the jailing of two prominent separatists calling them political prisoners jordi sanchez and. were arrested on monday for allegedly organizing demonstrations earlier catalonia as president carter this huge amount walked out of a cabinet meeting in protest over their jailing israel has shut down two major media service providers in the occupied west bank military force impounded their equipment and close their offices. palestinians have been arrested including two journalists in hebron harry fawcett following developments from the occupied west bank. well this was a major coordinated operation by the israeli army targeting eight offices of three

palestinian media service provider companies in four cities in the occupied west bank they confiscated equipment they arrested two members of staff of the transmedia group and in some instances they sealed the offices with signs saying that they must not open again within six months now these are groups these are companies that provide services to broadcasters and media organizations they don't broadcast information and and programming themselves they provide services to companies such as c.n.n. b.b.c. from twenty four russia today and indeed on occasion al-jazeera as well but in this instance it seems the israeli army is targeting the arabic language networks affiliated to groups such as hamas islamic jihad and hezbollah certainly in the past the israeli army has targeted t.v. the hamas only channel saying that it brainwashes palestinian youth and celebrates the actions of attackers of israeli soldiers and civilians in this instance it says

that it will continue to take action against incitement to violence the palestinian government says that is a lame excuse it should be seen this operation in the context of israel's insistence on attacking palestinians there are calls for protests as well in front of the united nations building the palestinian media watchdog mother says that the infractions against free speech by the israeli army increased slightly in september rising to twenty two and that there were four such actions by the palestinian authority as well still ahead on al-jazeera a senior editorial official internal resigns just days ahead of a presidential election rerun. welcome back a look at the weather across asia this time now in northeastern aries we've got

this frontal system which is just back across southern japan so that's got potential to bring more rain from the size of a nice to twenty four hours so there's a forecast in tokyo seeing some rain through the course of thursday and really temperatures dropping just fifteen degrees celsius is fine across the korean peninsula beijing enjoying sunshine for the south towards shanghai also looking good and then heading on through into friday this front is stationary so really it's not a great deal a change across japan best the weather up across the car there sapporo seen temperatures of thirteen degrees heading into more central and southern parts of china and taiwan. conditions have got some parts of vietnam but jerry nothing to have a unified hanoi look so it should be largely dry and fine now as we head on through into friday hong kong still enjoying subtle weather the circulation of low pressure in the bay of bengal that's likely to enhance some shower activity towards parts of bangladesh in particular southeast asia we've got fact few showers across the philippines that's our typhoon line which is moving away towards japan further

towards the south we've got some showers affect him a western parts of java east towards bali should be dry and fine and general looking fine for singapore in kuala lumpur. she was a society hostess. in the one nine hundred forty. with a lot of people from the lebanese democracy to make this work. she spied for. break. at this time.

hello again the top stories on al-jazeera the iraqi army says it's achieved its goals in the operation to take back kurdish territory in the country's north it's now in control of areas around mosul in the province the iraqi offensive began on monday in a setback to the kurdish administration's hopes for secession china's president appears to be consolidating his grip on power at the communist party's nineteen congress in beijing in a sweeping three and a half hour speech paying laid out his political and economic plan for the next five years. the un refugee agency says between ten and fifteen thousand refugees have arrived in bangladesh and that's just since sunday it's urging the bangladeshi government

to speed up its vetting process as the refugees are stranded on the bangladeshi side her hands are crossing every hour from neighboring me and mar the un says they need to be moved further inland to safety and better conditions our correspondent tanveer choudhry has travelled to a refugee camp at the bangladeshi border with mean mark to see firsthand what conditions are like. a list ten to fifteen thousand people are stranded in no man's land what is called zero line between myanmar and bangladesh brought out this area . this baby will have fled me and my within the last two days that been stranded he has and has no safety to go to most of the people are exposed to whether the majority are women and children elderly people the government has given permission to some of the aid agencies to bring critical care medicine and food but the idea of this still taking shelter in the pedophilia next manmade dike just doesn't make sense are coming under critical review by the un agency and other international aid

agency that while i was still kept yes now we are on the border guard officer that we're undertaking to shelters and put a pole on this said we need a coordinated approach before we take them in that are incredible on a still the idea this people are still here is a major question what is behind the motive of the government to keep them here still in a very badly expose weather condition let's face it to run a house and she's the crisis response director for amnesty international joining us from london good to have you with us if we can just start out with the latest information and that's coming out of bangladesh or those that have been stranded on the border with bangladesh tell us what you're hearing. remember ems day internationals actually has a team on the border at the moment and we've concur that we have hearing about consistent streams of people who are coming in and if the reasons behind why these people are continuing to flee which is really the question that needs to be honest and that is simply because the abuses are ongoing amnesty international has

documented that crimes against humanity have been widespread in systematically carried out by the me and. security forces particularly in our most recent report we've documented that the western command the light in printer division thirty three and the border guard police have been implicated in some of the wood of the abuses. is that from the army the thirty third army i'm assuming you're talking about the western command as it's known what have you seen what have you documented to single out this particular army of committing these atrocities that you speak of. amnesty international in its last report interviewed at least one hundred twenty five years who have fled the violent attacks and what we have heard consistently from the people that we've been speaking to is that they have been crimes against humanity committed under the rome statute of the international

criminal court there actually eleven acts that constitute crimes against humanity and the people that we've been speaking to his consistently documented six of those acts including brain murder forced forced displacement and the deprivation of essential services such as food and in each of these attacks the security forces in conjunction with local militias have been implicated and in some of the worst attacks people have been able to tell us that it was these particular units and were able to identify the badges that they that they had on the uniform and when you are here in our government for access to rakhine state what is the response that you have gotten. unfortunately access to retired state not only for human rights investigators for journalists in humanitarian act as has been completely blocked off and this is a major problem we need to be able to access should they need to be immediate

humanitarian access of course because people are now fleeing into bungler dish the tens of thousands you're thirty or in your report are many of them a telling us that they are fleeing because they are starving but more importantly if we're going to see accountability we need to be able to do independent investigations in northern rakhine state but we're calls for the. facts of action and you are denied access you speak of accountability what hope is there for that to actually happened. well i think that in this instance the government of me in. particular thought it could get away with murder but amnesty international's been on the ground we have done we have documented the abuses in rigorous detail we have spoken to the survivors and the witnesses and we have corroborated and triangulate that this with satellite imagery which actually demonstrates that there have been wide spread and systematic burning that is accompanied many of these attacks and it's being carried out by the security forces and we know that there is

a command structure within the security forces so we are calling on the commander in chief. to be able to reel in the security forces who we believe are implicated in crimes against humanity ok to run a house and we thank you very much for speaking to us and joining us from london. kenya's top electoral commissioner has resigned saying next week's rerun of the presidential vote won't be credible. says the commission had become a party to a political crisis and is under siege she says her staff faced intimidation and threats the supreme court found irregularities in august's original vote which president also won sparking protests from opposition groups from the miller has the latest from the capital nairobi. the allegations made by the commissioner dr congo who's just resigned really are an indictment of the eye be see this is an electoral commission that's already struggled with issues around credibility and

questions about whether or not it would be able to hold a free and fair vote dr converses this isn't the case that's what she believes she says that commissioners within the i.e. b.c. are making decisions based on individual political allegiances she says she's also fears for the lives of staff members over the last few weeks we've seen demonstrations against the i b c from people who believe that they wouldn't be able to hold a free and fair vote and she says that staff members are unable to work in this environment she's also calling into question whether or not the i.v.c. would be able to have an election at all in an environment that is as polarized and as tense as the a political situation is in kenya at the moment now she also says that there have been last minute changes to technology and the how results will be transmitted and she says all of these reasons are why she has resigned from the commission and she doesn't believe the commission would be able to hold

a vote that kenyans would be able to trust in terms of the final result she says she's had no choice but to leave the commission because the commission should tell kenyans that it wouldn't be able to hold a free and fair election the hopes are fading in the search for the missing after a bomb attack in somalia's capital four days ago more than three hundred people were killed in saturday's blast the worst in the country's history so my us president has told al jazeera that his country cannot fight al shabaab on its own and his call for international help mohamad adore reports. a huge crater at the point where the explosion happened rubble from collapsed buildings. the shells of vehicles skeeter that on the blast radius. these images should be familiar to the people of somalia in conflict since the one nine hundred ninety s. yet saturday's attack one of the most lethal anywhere in the world for years has

meant. the way we have never seen anything like this this was a massacre of the weakest and poorest within our society. students were returning from school and the. this changes mogadishu for ever mogadishu has been hit by bombings and listened to you. have been. here the suicide bomber chose the cities the rush hour of its busiest streets today the bomb rescue workers are still searching the rubble for bodies some they say may never be found. there's been no official claim of responsibility for the blast so mali president mohamed not the life. it's the fighters i thought they would claim but maybe they feel. this is a huge. responsibility to to be claimed

but this is their fingerprint this is what they have done. strongholds are concentrated largely in southern somalia with significant presence in many rural areas. troops and african union peacekeepers have been steadily taking back territory from al shabaab in recent years but the loss of territory has not been enough to stop the fighters from cutting out there to get talks the president has this warning for the international community if they succeed here there are easier to. promote their. crazy ideology their political ideology to the youth. in the united states and in europe. for the difficult such full bodies and survivors under the rubble continues investigators are seeking to establish the source of the

military grade explosives that doubtful to have been used in the talk another focus of the investigation officials say is whether help from within the security forces mohammed at the wall just into mogadishu somalia an american writer has won britain's most prestigious literary award george saunders received the man booker prize for his fiction for his novel lincoln in the bardo he's the second american author to win the prize katherine stansell reports from london. lincoln in the book . it was a book on the afterlife such in a washington graveyard during the american civil war that was bestowed with britain's top literary honor lincoln in the bardo sees u.s. president abraham lincoln trying to communicate to his dad eleven year old son who appears to be caught in a supernatural world between the living and the dead the story is told mostly in

dialogue by dozens of spirits in the graveyard with a grief stricken lincoln at its center george saunders says the idea first came to him twenty years ago and he had some doubts about bringing it to life if i go in knowing what the story is supposed to be about it will just be that thing in disappoint everybody whereas if i kind of go in from another daury which for me is usually my you know the sound of the language or in this case a lot of the structural things were kind of talking to me then the story because produce is higher than the one i could have imagined in advance so that's kind of a leap of faith that you know you think it a fifty eight you should have some kind of mastery but i think the true master used to be willing to wade in this something and not be sure how it's going to turn out the novel was praised for its unusual format and writing style something that many of the shortlisted novels had in common we tend to think of them overall as being a certain frame is fixed of course is changed over the years and indeed in some

ways it's still a relatively new art form a new way of writing so it's inevitable really that it will change transform mutate experiment and so on some take on the political upheaval and societal changes in the world today all across the country people felt it was the wrong thing all across the country people felt it was the right thing like scottish author alys smith whose book is that against the backdrop of a post brags that britain in a city. but still mostly at peace. or at least not yet openly at war or most novel exit west which highlights mass immigration oppression and the search for freedom this year's shortlist was made up of authors from the united states and britain some of them well established writers others newcomers to the literary world including a university student who wrote most of her book on her commutes to work but for saunders he joins

a distinguished group that includes salman rushdie hilary meant how margaret atwood and yann martel the nugget of an idea he said he had twenty years ago grown into literary gold catherine stansell al-jazeera london. hello again the headlines on al-jazeera the iraqi army says it's achieved its goals in the operation to take back kurdish held territory in the country's north it's now control of the areas around most of them very province the iraqi offensive began on monday in a setback to the kurdish administration's hopes for. the u.n. refugee agency is urging the bangladeshi government to speed up its vetting process as fifteen thousand refugees remain stranded at the border since sunday enjoy are crossing every hour from neighboring me in march with the u.n. says they need to be moved further inland to safety and better conditions. china's

president appears to be consolidating his grip on power at the communist party's nineteen congress in beijing in a sweeping three and a half hour speech jumping laid out his political and economic plan for the next five years she also warned of severe challenges like rising debts inequality and corruption. corruption is the biggest threat faced by our party we can only get out of the historical cycle and ensure the long term stability of our polity and our country if we persevered in the continuous fight against corruption that our government its officials and policies are clean of spain has warned it will take the young precedented step of seeking to suspend catalonia is autonomy if the region's leader doesn't abandon his secession beds the spanish government says madrid would trigger article one fifty five a spain's constitution and never before used measure allowing it to take direct control over catalonia spain's prime minister appealed to the catalan leader to act

sensibly as the further that line thursday deadline approaches those are the headlines inside stories next on al-jazeera. the iraqi government to seize control of the disputed all rich city of kut cook and kurdish forces retreated from all the major contested areas in the north so how will this affect the kurds push to secede from baghdad this is inside story.