one of two at this time on al jazeera. this is a boon for point people right now and technology there is so much going to help people it's from thanks for calling i read this is there and what are you looking for today we get to the blind with their day to day tasks and give them more independence in this first arc of the middle. exploration process. we have that technology available to us techno at this time on all jazeera. i. a crucial meeting begins in south africa the african national congress passed

a new leader. this is a law you from doha also coming up protestors in israel the prime minister's resignation of corruption allegations which he denies. will tell you why the trumpet ministration as a lot of scientists to stop talking about science and motorbikes are the best way to get around vietnam's capital but now there's a plan to bomb the. south africa's president has called for unity in the governing african national congress as it prepares to select a new leader jacob zuma who's facing corruption allegations is stepping down as head of the party before a successor is elected on sunday well the contest has been marked by deep divisions tanya page reports from johannesburg. i the conference started with two warnings

don't to sing divisive songs and keep the chairs on the ground everybody at speeds that will be flying around this conference or we can say that you will not in this conference. a.n.c. members from competing factions have her cheers at one another in the build up to this crucial event there have been allegations of vote buying and intimidation those accusations have led disgruntled members to take legal action that delayed the start of the conference by several hours but the trend to turn to the country's courts was criticized by president jacob zuma and his last speech as party leader it is actually. we can begin to believe that the courts.

some believe he has eroded the a.n.c. is all for it under president zuma the party has lost considerable support he's no stranger to legal action himself he's fighting an ongoing battle to keep hundreds of corruption charges at bay this race is as much about the old leader as it is about the new if the president's preferred candidate isolated she may be able to protect him from legal action and his post-presidential years but if i wible is selected i may be less inclined to help so there is a lot at stake for jacob zuma one commentator said president zuma is legacy is a damaged a.n.c. possibly he might be the worst president has ever had to splits. the alliance is almost nonexistent the a.n.c. has lost fifteen percent officer. so is it average then say the day

ended with the nominations in a race that some predicts could be close between current deputy president. and in courses on it i mean isn't that the president's supposed favorite whoever wins has an enormous challenge to unite the a.n.c. at a time when its debate has been laid to be a tiny page al jazeera johanna's. the been protests in tel aviv for the third weekend in a row calling on israel's leader to quit demonstrators are demanding the resignation of prime minister benjamin netanyahu on corruption allegations which he denies his hairy forces. throughout december this is what saturday night in downtown tel aviv has looked like while international attention has been on the latest crisis in the peace process with the palestinians for these protesters the focus is on domestic politics and the corruption allegations against prime minister benjamin netanyahu we don't want the outside the government if they don't it's well thought perhaps

that people should go home we are asking the people he's going to be must be going . on friday police arrived in netanya who's residents to question him for a seventh time one case concerns allegations he tried to manipulate media coverage in his favor and other centers on expensive gifts received from wealthy foreign business executives in particular because. the prime minister denies one leak from the investigation suggesting he and his wife requested expensive cigars and champagne when stocks were running low from hollywood producer on the strain billionaire james packer and others welcome to across the world his lawyer has admitted what he calls netanyahu as weakness for wealthy people his wife sarah is awaiting indictment on a separate case involving alleged misuse of public funds they are seen as working very well together to hedonistically wealth wise. again strange for israel not the kind of. public. to show

there's increased scrutiny to regarding another case involving alleged corruption when german submarines were built for the israeli navy netanyahu is not a suspect and he hasn't been questioned but two of his closest and most senior associates have been detained israel's prime minister insisted his innocence will be proven once these investigations have run their course with the new year they get to the end the political pressure on benjamin netanyahu increases very force in algeria television. and the been more protests around the world against u.s. president donald trump's decision to recognize jerusalem as the capital of israel demonstrators marched in washington d.c. and in major cities in europe in the middle east drums decision has been widely condemned because east jerusalem is palestinian territory under illegal occupation by israel to mass graves containing the remains of dozens of people from iraq's years in the minority have been found in the northwestern town of sin joe ninety

bodies were reported discovered including those of women and children i still took over sins are in twenty fourteen killing and in slaving thousands of members of the religious minority group since job was retaken a year later by u.s. backed kurdish fighters the un has declared the massacre of these e.d.'s a genocide there's been a tourist late march in the run up to elections in the spanish region of catalonia protesters in barcelona call for the release of politicians and activists jailed by the central government for organizing isis session referendum in october the spanish government imposed direct ruling catalonia after regional leaders declared independence is called penpals. the march that we're seeing now is a fairly small torchlight mogs by probably independence activists who are with this is part of the wider campaign for the parliamentary elections on this coming thursday but this group in particular are calling for the release of what they called the political prisoners there referring to

a group of catalan pro independence politicians who were imprisoned by the spanish central government. a little bit i just seen it working right now down the iconic last round us who rely on to have the most touristic areas all the low down. willing to late. for the release of political prisoners and that really goes to do something. else coming early ones are they on the you know. the off togo. referendum the spanish government the central government stepping old the crap out of all of the declared. groups from madrid and then set about imprisoning some of the leading politicians road crew who are independents who are catalonia region and so now as they go towards the parliamentary elections on the twenty first of december you have at least four politicians still in prison who are also

candidates you have all the politicians out on bail who are facing a thirty year jail sentence on charges of bread badly and you also have other leading politicians in self exile in brussels chileans had to the polls on sunday and what's expected to be the closest presidential election in decades from voters known as the dissatisfied left could help put a conservative coalition back in power for the first time in almost thirty years america and it's a messy and human explains one. is a community leader in this community of. fifty families living in an informal camp they love what their homes made out of anything they can find like amalia almost all of them work. a lot of people don't have money to pay for rent it's too expensive on a minimum wage and if you have to pay for education food and medicine you are

forced to resort to this. when seventy six year old. became a widow she could no longer pay for rent on her meager pension now her main priority is her health. i haven't been able to see a doctor for a year even though i have chronic illnesses every month i ask for an appointment and when i go it's been changed or there's no doctor. chile so-called free market economic miracle isn't working for too many people in the last four years the number of families living in informal settlements and houses like this one has jumped from twenty seven thousand to forty one thousand chile's two presidential candidates say that they have the solution but the methods that they propose are very different. to the former conservative president. a successful billionaire says he knows how to spur sluggish economic growth and that this time around he

will ensure better basic services but he believes the market rather than the government should regulate. central leftist alley handor good promises to accelerate the social reforms started by the current government the former journalist has little experience and isn't part of the political establishment he barely made it to the runoff but is now technically tied with pineda backed by a new wave of progressive chileans who are tired of politics as usual some people. maybe there's a part of the. beach being pension for. b. or b. an indication that you know maybe we don't want the market to rule everything. chile is indeed at a crossroads and will have to choose between two very different models to try to really make latin america's most stable economy work for everybody to see in human and just see that sente algal the trumpet ministration has told officials of the

top u.s. public health agency not to use certain words in documents relating to their budget staff at the centers for disease control or c.d.c. have been told to avoid the phrase is evidence based science based also on the banned list of vulnerable and title meant and diversity a word criticized by some trump supporters as reflecting a liberal bias also not to be used on fetus and transgender echoing previous steps taken by the administration in pursuit of its social agenda but earlier this year the department of health and human services which oversees the c.d.c. removed information relating to sexuality and gender issues from its website castro has more. this list of banned words puts the twelve thousand some employees of the c.d.c. in a tough spot for example how do they continue researching the zico virus without using the banned word fetus in describing the birth defects that can be caused by

the virus or how do they continue a program to for aids prevention aimed at the transgendered community without calling them transgendered another bad word by name these are all tough issues and the day to day impact of these scientists and doctors in doing their work without using more of the banned words scientific science based evidence based and indication of difficulties and what critics call an attack in a continued attack on the scientific community from the trump administration this is not the first time we've seen this if you look at the disappearing websites from federal servers a website dedicated to helping the community with child adoptions and with the victims of sex trafficking they have disappeared from federal servers and scientists with environmental protective agency have said in the past that they have been silenced or censored in discussing climate change publicly the critics

are calling this just another unprecedented attack in an injection of partisan politics on the science community in the u.s. and they say it has potentially dangerous consequences. time for a short break here al-jazeera when we come back a billionaire palestinian businessman is arrested in riyadh saudi arabia's anti corruption drug appears to widen plus. a month ago here in the u.s. state of georgia where rural hospitals are closing at an alarming rate we'll tell you what the effect is on the local communities and why it could be the difference between life and death. from dusky sunsets over the sprawling savanna. to sunrise atop an asian metropolis. hello whilst proper winter has been held back in europe

just ahead of its movement this bit of south westerly breeze commutes to the levant so too through turkey and he's driving a lot of clout eventually out of africa but the main consequence is temperatures are rising twelve by twenty one much the same but to be also as baghdad is colder in iran it was cold enough for snow in afghanistan when this old frontal system is just a lot of cloud until it tails off gets a bit of rain in the far southwest straits folders for example so quiet gentle picture but increasing cloudy and increasingly warm in lebanon twenty three degrees by the time you get to monday it is drop south inspect that right a bit more than i think for both saturday and sunday possibly monday this cloud has been generating and will generate a bit of rain it rips through to buy a bit dopy trying to get into qatar as well more likely it's going to concentrate on the east and of it does tend to fade away about time to get to monday but the chance for showers still there dry picture for most for arabia thirty three on the

western side is hardly surprised we have showers building again in south africa in the eastern cape and if anything they're going to generate even bigger showers from get to monday. the weather sponsored by cattle and race. shooting people are not able to shoot a gun themselves and their other countries have managed to solve this problem are you worried that this conflict could erupt into a problem right open a war that the city's general security sure the people who pay the price clearly there writeup unprejudiced setting the stage for serious debate up front at this time on al-jazeera.

welcome back a quick reminder of the top stories here on al-jazeera south africa's president jacob zuma has called on the ruling a.n.c. party to unite its members gather to choose a new leader the african national congress is deeply divided over who should replace ooma stepping down from the roles. that are more protests in tel aviv calling for israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu to quit a corruption allegations he's accused of accepting gifts from wealthy business but he denies any wrongdoing. and supporters of independence and spain's catalonia region of hell that torched that march in the run up to a regional election monitor release of politicians and activists jailed by the central government organizing a session for and. police in saudi arabia the rest of the palestinian billionaire who's the head of one of the biggest banks in the middle east summit on masteries

the chairman of the arab bank which is the largest lender in jordan he's a saudi passport holder is the latest move in an anti corruption drive ordered by crown prince mohammed bin solomon reports. he's one of jordan's most prominent businessmen and among the wealthiest but since wednesday musri has been detained in saudi arabia for having what's been described as information relating to corruption the eighty year old palestinian who has a saudi passport is the founder of a major investment group and the chairman of arab bank one of the middle east largest and most influential lenders his detention has shocked family and friends in jordan where his multi-billion dollar portfolio is an important part of the economy that employs thousands of musketry as you know his like michael bloomberg for the economy of new yorkers and he's just a massive figure in jordan and palestine and he's the chairman of the arab bank there a bank is the bank that the jordanian government turns to it's

a commercial bank and the jordanian government what it needs money in terms of the arab bank to get some advances. these detention follows a major anti corruption crackdown in saudi arabia which began last month around two hundred members of the royal family and businessmen have been implicated among those detained or eleven princes for government ministers and several former ministers it's thought many of them are being held at a luxury hotel in the capital riyadh several had their bank accounts frozen and were put on a no fly list they are the latest in a series of measures ordered by crown prince mohammed bin some months the thirty one year old heir to the throne is being seen as trying to assert his power shortly after the first arrests were made king someone been abilities all some announced that his son known as m.p.'s would oversee a newly formed anti corruption commission and it would purge the country of what the king described as widespread corruption it looks like this is following the attempt and cut out of the attempt in lebanon to put stress on these smaller

countries to have them fall in line but the likelihood is that it won't succeed because the jordanians have been through this before many times. they've been under great pressure and they've always found a way to get out of a mystery comes from a prominent palestinian business family from nablus in the israeli occupied west bank with majority holdings in real estate hotels and telecoms he initially made his fortune from partnering with influential saudis in a major catering business to supply troops during the gulf war in one thousand nine hundred one since then his income has grown dramatically through regional investment and as boss of arab bank for the past five years although there's no saudi comment on the bus trees detention it's a sign that the kingdom's anti corruption crackdown is widening india's hype al-jazeera and saudi crown prince mohammed bin soundman has been revealed by the new york times as the mystery buyer of a french stately home thought to be the most expensive house in the world the

chateau latour the fourteenth was sold for more than three hundred million dollars two years ago the heir to the saudi throne is also bought a yacht and in the united eventually painting. the head of argentina's navy has been fired over the loss of a submarine and its crew in the south atlantic contact with the one which had forty four crew members on board was lost last month reported an electrical problem up the coast of patagonia an international search operation has failed to locate it relatives of the crew are demanding the search continue until it's found. bolivia's president ever mandalas shrugged off claims he's a dictator after announcing he will run for a fourth term tens of thousands of his supporters turned out the city of culture to back his twenty nineteen bid but it's also triggered protests adonal foyle and i reports. this has been president of bolivia since january two thousand and six but he says his work is not done the poor indigenous people women still need

him still want him one of the mission completed we're ready to run again this is not up for debate the people voted in a referendum in february two thousand and sixteen against allowing continuous reelection president morales initially accepted that result but then the constitutional court to overturn it. his popularity has waned in recent years however believe his economy is growing and he still has plenty of admirers. around for everything he has managed to achieve we have very thankful to our president was it without us it was it and if it were possible i'd like him to be president for another fifty years there's no one else like him it is a moralist wins in two thousand and nineteen to be president until twenty twenty five a total of nineteen years in office these people believe that you can after much of

a good thing a president they will model this is a relatively young fifty eight years old still has plenty to give bolivia others however believe the power has corrupted him but he's abused the constitution and the beast that goes. the opposition which has been fragmented argumentative is now increasingly united against what they see as a challenge to believe he is democracy some well doria medina finished a distant second to weigh them with alice in the two thousand and fourteen presidential elections because this kind of government. the problem is in venezuela . bolivia. they used their walker as he when they were winning but run very low when they will not so i never feel very love one direction so that's a problem. with elections still two years away it's a problem many believe he's only likely to grow no i. there's no confidence in the

state they've weakened and in many cases destroyed the institutions that are fundamental for the existence of democracy so in the next two years society will be very polarized and what's worse it'll be on the streets when it's decided who will win power. believe is key institutions under his control it's a dilemma potential crisis but an even more honest committed all of them trying now to syria cochabamba bolivia. police are investigating the death of one of canada's richest men the billionaire barry sherman and his wife were found dead in their home in toronto police say the circumstances are suspicious but the deaths are not yet being treated as murder sherman found that apple techs one of the world's largest generic drug makers. so many hospitals in ruin areas of the united states are struggling to operate experts say so-called medical deserts are becoming common across the country since twenty ten more than eighty rule hospitals have closed and hundreds more at risk of shutting their doors. gallagher reports from one area

around mehta in georgia. glenwood really is a blink and you'll miss it kind of rural city only a few hundred people live here even on busy days it's sleepy but at one time it was home to the only hospital in the county an area of almost eight hundred square kilometers that was our kind of our walk to a better term claim to fame with the hospital within three years ago the facility closed its doors and with that the city lost its biggest employer it devastated economically i mean it just took away our lives brooke are you know just the beginning of a domino effect you know small towns you know you know larger town if you lose one hundred twenty jobs you know you could probably overcome it but here it's just hard to do that well run. but for the residents many who are elderly and poor it's the loss of health care that hit the hardest with folks on you know what happened here

and yeah there is. it would be great if we would have found in about an hour's drive away is met or there the county hospital is still open but state officials say it's financially stressed like hundreds of other rural hospitals across the u.s. it's facing serious challenges in the state of georgia there are around two hospital beds for every thousand people but in rural communities it's a very different picture hospitals have a hard time attracting doctors many of the patients don't have insurance and simply can't pay their bills and medicaid a social welfare program designed to help the poor hasn't been expanded here or that means that hospitals that are still open a struggling to get by and we have a lot of folks that come in for heart attacks or strokes hospital c.e.o. david flanders is working hard to turn things around and says serving the community is about more than health care in a great hospital to be able to prosper as

a community and that's kind of our mission and everybody that works here wants to take care of patients they want to see this hospital survive and they don't do it for monetary reasons for sure they do it because they're genuinely concerned about the patients and the people in this community according to the national rural health association a third of the u.s. is rural hospitals are in danger of closing for good leaving the u.s. is most vulnerable without timely access to health care for many the situation is the difference between life and death at a gala crowd zira matter georget more than two hundred fifty refugees have been rescued by the libyan coast guard east of tripoli who are trying to cross the mediterranean in small boats bound for italy more than four hundred sixty have been rescued this week alone. at least three people have been killed in the flooding as tropical storm lashes the philippines it made landfall on saturday barreling through the eastern region of the science with winds of eighty kilometers an hour

eleven thousand people are stranded at various ports. now motorbikes other way to go in vietnam it's estimated that the capitol hill alone has more than five million motorcycles and scooters but the brakes are being put on the boom when hay explains . vietnam's road to economic success is becoming clocked one of the costs of the communist governments embrace of capitalism is traffic congestion and. narrow streets of hanoi can't cope with the influx of cars and motorbikes so government leaders in the capital have decided that after a gradual phase out motorbikes will be completely banned from the city center by two thousand and thirty. it'll be a major change for the so reliant on two will transport our culture i think it's kind of an inconvenience. that was made.

in vietnam using metal. for people but i think traffic is getting worse so if the government does this i think you'll be good to reduce traffic jams. even some who have benefited from the motorbike boom think it change won't be so bad. the number of bucks coming here to be repaired it may go down but it won't affect me too much because maybe i can focus on quality rather than quantity. as recently as the late ninety's the roads were significantly quieter more people rode pushbikes which is something today's government also wants to revive and this is a big part of the motivation a construction boom combined with the increase in vehicles has resulted in falling a quality the fact the government is even considering this law is perhaps a sign that vietnam is becoming a victim of its own success it has one of the best performing economies in the world and while there are still big problems with poverty wages are rising and with

that comes an increase in purchasing power. but not everyone can afford a car and if they could in the congestion and pollution problems would get a lot worse so if the government's plan is to work public transport will need to play a big part but construction of the rail network in the capital has ground to a halt because of funding problems experts say all forms of public transport will have to be overhauled. the government needs to prepare to guarantee the policy can be implemented for example the public bus system needs to be improved to meet increased demand before the new law can be introduced city leaders in hanoi have already done the easy part by passing the law now the hard work begins to try to put it in practice and free up the city streets wayne hay al-jazeera hanoi. a quick reminder of the top stories here al-jazeera south africa's president jacob

zuma has called on the ruling a.n.c. party to unite as members gather to choose a new leader the african national congress is deeply divided over who should replace zuma who is stepping down from the role. the fifty fourth national conference is taking place at a time when i want this moment is at a crossroads. why do we identify corporate. as. a serious threat to the a n c we also need to look at in ten ten weeks we. protesters in tel aviv are once again calling for the resignation of the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is under investigation of a corruption allegations he's accused of accepting gifts from wealthy businessmen he denies any wrongdoing. supporters of independence in spain's catalonia

region of hell the march in the run up to a regional election they demanded the release of politicians and activists jailed by the central government for organizing a succession referendum. chile will hold a runoff election on sunday for the first time in almost three decades a conservative coalition could be swept to power by voters dissatisfied by the performance of the center left government the libya's president ever mahler's has shrugged off claims he's a dictator after announcing he'll run for a fourth term tens of thousands of his supporters turned out in the city of culture to back his twenty nineteen bid but it's triggered protests in several cities. and u.s. president donald trump is over the staff of the top public health agency not to use words and phrases like evidence based vulnerable and fetus in their budget reports the directive follows previous steps in pursuit of its conservative social agenda.

and police are investigating the death of one of canada's richest men billionaire barry sherman and his wife were found dead in their home in toronto police say the circumstances are suspicious but the deaths are not being treated as homicides sherman found the upper texas one of the world's largest generic drug makers well those are the headlines the news continues here on al-jazeera after upfront a statement that sort. where and. when the right to free speech conflicts with protecting minorities how should democracies respond and do muslim communities have any particular problem with the principle of free expression or has islam been unfairly .