we understand the differences and the similarities of cultures across the world. so no matter where you call home al-jazeera will bring in the news and current affairs that matter to you. al-jazeera thing as out by now or you will ask about that but that's the ball is a ball not i see well it's never thought of that this set says they lost their bond with the other guys and also the pitch at the bottom in the first episode of a two part series al-jazeera investigates the world of performance enhancing drugs . sports during the a mystery at this time. the

ballots are being counted in the race to see if there will be a former football great or liberia's vice president who will lead the nation the next six years. i'm richelle carey this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up the kremlin wants a new investigation into alexina bawling over his call to boycott next year's presidential election after he was barred from running against vladimir putin. mosul slowly comes back to life five months after the end of a brutal operation to retake the city from. a show to go on to play both of those terms. but. listen to. the look back on the political violence that took the life of this couple's six month old child in kenya.

they began in liberia where polls have officially closed in the presidential runoff vote it's the first democratic transition of power in the west african nation in seventy three years but turnout was pretty low choosing between former footballing superstar george way and experienced political operator and current vice president joseph. reports in the capital monrovia. with slauson slammed up to pull to more than five thousand polling stations across liberia arriving before the stations opened the tunnel know when the false tome told him that i had been delayed twice up to being contested in court. in the false to the official. say the reduction of candidates from twenty two just to may have caused a pussy among voters. this

morning and i hope. this morning the contests is between a former international football star where i'm vice president just what guy the we know would replace africa's first female head of state ellen johnson sirleaf who came to power after the country's lost civil war told me years ago i'm not associated that would lose him to this this is good. they said that i'm going to win. now we know george seventy two year old joseph walker has served as liberia's vice president since two thousand and six he too voted in the capital they did do because it's a test of democracy we went in one way during your work and i would use it to. we have gone through the process this is what it is the president would use we're willing to live with both where promising peace in liberia and also on and to

corruption and one of the will sport is that countries if the results hold it will be the first time in generations that lead videos will witness the transfer of power from one elected leader to another international observers also praising what they call a violence free pool sis finally in liberia the ballot box hospital placed ballots but this is a big election for everyone who's following democracy west africa the trend is certainly been you know more towards the democratic shift and really rooting that was firmly and i think that is what we will see here in liberia today the liberian people are determined to do it they're ready to do it. and i'm i'm very confident they will then a commission has two weeks within which to declare the results it's official so how about confident that we'll have them ready in four days mohamed atta will just. be a liberia. the kremlin says calls by russian opposition campaign are like saying

a volley to boycott next year's election should be investigated to see if they break the law ali has asked people to stay away from the poll next march after he was barred from running as a candidate against vladimir putin at the she'll say he isn't eligible because of a suspended prison sentence he says his conviction was politically motivated or a challenge as in moscow with the latest it's no surprise that the kremlin seems sensitive to what looks like an attempt by alexei navalny to drive down voter turnout in march the talk has been this year that the kremlin is concerned about voter apathy and want to turn out to be around seventy percent if it dips much below sixty percent well they've got a problem with legitimacy quite how they will prosecutes in the valley for calling for a boycott that remains to be seen i think this can be viewed basically as a shot across as bows a warning now no one really believes that would be able to be seen if they went head to head you know votes the recent polls suggest that

if a vote were taken now we don't you get between two and three percent but perhaps factoring into the kremlin's thinking was the potential damage to the valley could have done if he'd been allowed say on state t.v. with his anti corruption message so in around he will now have to do his appeals and also go back to doing what has been very successful actually for him over this year which is his online videos his anticorruption message reaching out to particularly younger russians and calling them out on to the streets in parts of the country where you do not normally see political protests. russia's president vladimir putin has been nominated for reelection as an independent candidate he's been in power for eighteen years and is expected to went on another six year term so far he has refrained from campaigning but has praised his government's management of the economy and used. the billion dollars and

of course these have been difficult years for both the country and for those who had to ensure stable development and overcome the difficulties that stemmed from the world economy i can say that the russian government not only did everything that it could but in my opinion even more than that you have essentially solved all the economic tasks at hand. russia's opposition party has formally nominated t.v. personality cassini a check to run against putin in next year's election such as the daughter of putin's former mentor and it's holly subject who was the first elected mayor of st petersburg a critics of subjects' say her decision to run plays into the hands of the kremlin by creating an artificial contest their national committee for the red cross and red crescent have begun medical evacuations from eastern ghouta the besieged rebel held areas syria's capital damascus almost four hundred thousand people have been trapped there by government forces since two thousand and thirteen with widespread food shortages the enclave is spend the target of hundreds of airstrikes and

artillery attacks the united nations had earlier call for five hundred people in need of urgent medical care to be allowed to leave meanwhile syrian state t.v. is reporting that a government shut has been shot down over hama province it says the military plane was downed by rebels in the north of the area in the pilot was killed in that attack has been the target of heavy airstrikes by russian and syrian forces throughout the country's civil war. it's an asian official says the united arab emirates has intelligence that female fighters returning from iraq and syria may be trying to use tunisian passports to stage attacks caused outrage earlier this week by banning females nation citizens from landing in the gulf states leading to protests and serious with african country responded by bahrain emirates flights from tunisia and demanded an apology to nation government spokesman says the did not communicate its reasons for the ban properly and says they won't accept how its

citizens are being treated in the way the new you get on the mission and we are not part of emirates we are a sobering country and they should deal with us according to would normally happens in relations between two countries to the continuous calls with the m.b. right to. be it appears they have lifted the ban but they did not give us details on how the ban was lifted the mexican police have arrested the suspect in the murder of a crime journalist juan carlos marina cho is accused of planning the killing. of a breach and march breach was shot several times as she drove out of her garage mexico's one of the world's most dangerous countries for reporters with at least sixteen journalists killed there in the last three years and the us canada and the european union have joined top u.n. officials and demanding the release of two reuters journalists being held in me and maher why lone and quiet so were arrested earlier this month after they were invited to meet police officials in the outskirts of yangon and mark uses the

reporters are planning to sherry of legally acquired information with foreign media that are working on stories about the military crackdown that's forced over six hundred fifty thousand one hundred muslims to flee to bangladesh since august. a former senior official with bruises national football federation has been acquitted of conspiracy by a court in the u.s. manwell burgo was charged with taking bribes in exchange for the award of marketing and media rights to international soccer matches or to walk free just days after two other south american officials were convicted of similar charges cases been linked to corruption at the heart of the international football's governing body the philippine government as setting up more than six hundred temporary shelters for people displaced by a conflict. they are me read to the city from separatist fighters in october after a five month see the fighting caused over a billion dollars in damage and thousands of people are still homeless conditions

have been made even worse by tropical storm tembin rob mcbride has more from murari . on the edge of your our way this is a hopeful sign in an area that has been plagued by conflict and now the effects of these damaging storms this is a new housing development for people who've been displaced by months of fighting between government forces and also fighters who are linked to eisele be given it's important president rhodri go to turkey and will be coming here to perform the ceremony it is very important for him in his presidency he is from mindanao he calls himself a son of mindanao and has promised that the people will find eventually long lasting peace the people here have suffered from the double effects of both the stalled and also conflicts so it's very important around building exercise for the president to be here this whole event in our face is the classic dilemma of a conflict which holds up development then the lack of money and jobs then leads

into the underlying feeling of unrest which then contributes to some of the violence all of this is of course not helped by have been patted by the storms still. in the united states three years five hundred million classics cross every day zero percent recycled it's called a stylus and seattle campaign plastic waste out of the world's oceans. which they tell a story of known as the atlas of palestine it takes deep into the history through some conflict. hello and welcome to look at the weather across the americas from north america is

cold air in place just about everywhere some temperature when it paid monist twenty four minus eleven in toronto ottawa a really struggling as well we're almost twelve in chicago and the colder you see is pushed away down to dallas there are three atlanta georgia seven only the floor of clincher to hang on to the warmer air vance the forecast you see we still hang on to that warm air across florida but otherwise not a great deal of change little bit of snow around a bit of snow for the rockies the lower levels it should be just rain for far northern part of washington state fine conditions for the south los angeles pour into some of the best weather twenty seven degrees let's head some woman now into central parts of america showers very much as they have been for last week to ten days affecting panama through up towards and the character in honduras on the caribbean side further towards the north cherry not looking too bad the islands of the caribbean enjoying lots of sunshine moon that continues as we head on through into thursday with temperatures generally reaching thirty degrees each day into

south america here we have had flooding rain affecting parts of bolivia those showers dying away still some heavy showers affecting parts of peru the rain across paraquat and indeed over in rio we should see it bringing up to highs of thirty one . i'm content to let go of you because you can get a shiny new career in building full glory yes i mean larry shift your attention to the disaster stricken regions of pakistan building upon traditional techniques and people with the knowledge needed to sustain their societies redbone architecture the traditional future at this time to see you.

watching al-jazeera let's recap the top stories right now counting as underway after a peaceful day of voting in liberia's presidential runoff election observers say the turnout is much lower than it was during the first round in october the doors have been choose rather a twenty four hour international football player and the country's current vice president the kremlin says it is investigating whether russian opposition leader alexina volley has broken the law by calling for a boycott of next year's election and while russia's president vladimir putin has been nominated for reelection as an independent candidate. the philippines government says setting up more than six hundred temporary shelters for people displaced by the conflict and merari army read to the city from separatist fighters in october after a five months each conditions had been made even worse by tropical storm ten.

as two thousand and seventeen comes to an end we're looking back at some of the biggest stories of the year through the eyes of five families and part four we speak to a kenyan family who lost their six month old daughter during political violence following a disputed presidential election out of there as katherine sawyer reports on consumer. joseph and his wife lynne saw a still trying to come to terms of the killing of the six month old samantha pendle . they say she died from a severe head injury when police raided their home in the town of. this was in august just after the fast presidential election and president was declared the winner. supporters of opposition leader the took to the streets in protest. police responding with tear gas batons and live ammunition joseph and learned so

however say they were attacked in their home at night. it's been an unpredictable and volatile election year in kenya the supreme court of a time to the oldest paul citing irregularities of fast in africa. then we threw from the repeat election saying the commission first needed reforms. rerun went ahead anyway in october. one thousand percent of the vote sad of the nine hundred million registered voters cast their ballots. all the while political brinkmanship deeply dividing the country along partisan lines continual street confrontations between police and protesters only making things worse more than thirty people including baby pendle have died in the violence since august and i used to play here and on that night in august her family and neighbors say police came banging

on doors they used tear gas to force people out of their houses pendle was in her mother's arms when they were being beaten she did not stand a chance. of a doubt she will ever vote again. i didn't know that that. isn't an informant of all. time whenever i. remember that. she also says they'll continue to seek justice for their. western kenya. it's five. fighters for driven out of the northern iraqi city of mosul it was devastating. government's fight to retake the city but citizens celebrate christmas for the first time in years there are signs that most businesses are

beginning to recover philips reports. in parts of mosul it seems a city is coming back to life the people relieved the economy reviving. mahmoud a tailor so all his equipment destroyed during the shelling somehow he must start again. i cannot resume work simply because i'm short of materials i need textiles and all the requip meant business is an tradesman must join hands to bring back life to decision the state and the people must come together and this has not happened yet. mosul famous for its markets selig produce from the surrounding countryside now the crowds have returned the people hope the city has left its darkest days behind of how to think. how to put them while you're making swith progress at all levels industry commerce the movement of

people we had not expected things to go so fast we are confident the residents of new know and most will want to help the federal and local governments. but all the streets west of the tigris the tangled deborah of war has barely been. this all that remains of the old commercial center the reconstruction of mosul's buildings and its people's confidence will take many years but to be philip's al-jazeera. the u.s. decision to recognize israel's capital is being debated around the world the city is holy for people from three faiths but at the core of the issue is. an occupation that shows no signs of ending so how do you reconcile the conflict without disrupting the right to worship for all expect a historian best known for his fame work the atlas of palestine jerusalem is palestinian longer than london is. is muslim and christian

population have been living there for thousands of years they have no theory that they have been there long time ago and now they are returning they have never left jerusalem and they were absolute majority of population until recently when the colonial jewish european settlement started in palestine they had no legal basis whatsoever for israel to occupy or to declare sovereignty on jerusalem there is a natural right for anybody from any faith muslim christian and jew to live there and worship peacefully what should be in peacefully doesn't mean that you kill people take their homes and kick them out there was no motivation by early zionists about jerusalem from a religious point of view they wanted only to expand the area applied in palestine

to make israel and when that includes at least western jerusalem that will attract more jews from abroad to come to become citizens and palestine the palestinian claim is very simple they always lived in palestine they all lived in jerusalem even before it became christian and then after that it became largely muslim even before that cananites the palestinians are the natural inhabitants of police there and they got loose of the religion they have adopted the time so to talk about people who were there and then came back to recover something. they claim to have lost two thousand years ago is indian it disingenious is really is very strange in eight hundred seventy one the british sent a mission to palestine to make a set of eight of but history they spent forty years surveying palestine and they

produced twenty six maps and ten volumes and in that they have stated that all studies have shown that the palestinians we met at the end of the last century are the same palestinians who have been living there for thousands of years so who is a foreigner a foreigner who came from the ghettos at least in europe to look at the country of palestine and to claim that the people who live there for a thousand years are not natives of the country they are who are the foreigners they are the natives and that is something not accepted by any part in the world except those who believe in racism and about a tired. scientists are finding vast amounts of plastic waste and the world's oceans as the throat of modern civilization degrades it turns into microscopic bits that end of the food chain from fish sea life and birds and eventually to humans

but the people in seattle and the united states i found a unique way to encourage recycling and avoid plastic straws robert also reports. the streets around seattle's famous pike place market are full of cafes and restaurants the coffee is delicious but single use cups utensils and straws generate q.j. amounts of paper and plastic waste in this environmentally conscious city an activist group called lonely whale is urging people to think twice about throw away items leaders called the campaign stronger since yeah so we really wanted to start with something simple that connected every single one of us every single day and that item is to stop the other great thing about there is an alternative don't use worldwide people use one billion plastic straws a day in the united states we have five hundred million single use plastic stross

everyday there zero percent of them are recyclable those that find their way into the marine environment break down into microprocessors and when a marine animal it's plastic they have a fifty percent mortality rate so it's a significant issue can we assume those cars are part of their die unfortunately the strongest in seattle campaign began in september twenty seventh seen and resulted in two point three million straws being permanently removed in that month alone lonely whale has launched what it calls a global viral media challenge called stop sucking and it plans to take the strongest campaign to twenty cities worldwide in twenty eighteen the care premiums not only meant to reduce plastics and. the environment it also seems to get people thinking about our throwaway culture every time we talk about fingers positrons everybody's mind bang goes to hell what about where there's another five to go over there and are we talking to her about that item as well seattle began restricting

plastic waste a decade ago starting with a ban on styrofoam takeaway food containers and disposable plastic bags officials want to help mold a major shift in public attitudes really the bigger thing is getting people to stop and to think do i really need this i have this single use thing is this something that i really need to use right now i'm going to use it for five to ten minutes and then i'm going to throw it away and it's going to go to a landfill so that's really the bigger issue is having people kind of raise and in their consciousness a pushback against the culture of easy come easy go disposables that offers hope for the health of our planet's oceans and the creatures who live in them rob reynolds al-jazeera seattle. the rise of artificial intelligence and robotics is changing health care whopper ations are now carried out by surgeons using robots but we want to machine to look

after us instead of human lawrence live reports. guys hospital in central london and a man is about to have his life chances vastly improved with the help of the robots . he has prostate cancer the surgeon and his team would in the past have cut him open and felt around with their hands. but now they insert choose. and then we let the robot. soon the surgeon is at a console moving the robot remotely it's fine tools stitch up the man's colon before moving in to perform the operation. in principle you could have the surgery carried out or part steps of the surgery did a very clearly defined carried out by a surgical instrument that was basically set up until today i had laser eye surgery

only ten years ago and i know for fat that the op thousand did not i say he met devon think he set a machine hit a button and there was a machine that did the surgery wasn't. all kinds of surgeries are done like this welcomed by those lucky enough in the rich world to have an operation made quicker and less painful than in the past. but the new frontier is not in medicine but in care the robot succumbing to help the aged to consider the role that robots can have in caring for those we love is surely at the sharp end of the debate around automation in the human world after all robots home to modes that don't have the human touch and so how do we as human beings feel about outsourcing the duty of care to machine in the coming weeks these dimentia suffer as a care home in north london will have robots for company the owners run dozens of

places like this across the u.k. they want to roll the machines out everywhere because what we're dealing with is dementia residents people who forget who have a memory lapses and if robots could remember. things about them or their cultural needs aboard that have it's about the back end of living and if they could relate this to a nuclear or even an agency staff was coming in it could be a lot of emotional things that it is these people experience because when you forget things you get agitated and you cannot recollect what you really forgotten how are you very and you robots like this it is dark you could help organize delivery of medicines or relatives could skype their loved ones through it screen but cannot love but it is argued they could help dispenses the agonizing question is whether we want them to i think ethically it's undesirable. robots take the

place of carers for the specific issues of being reassured you know being helped to death and so on i think very few people would say that we should staff our hospice with robots i mean at the end of life that's really where you want a completely human type of interaction in parts of the world robotic care assistance has already been viewed by people as socially acceptable. in japan a nation of technology lovers with an ageing population is becoming common but will carers ever be replaced by machines it would surely to questions about how much we value our own humanity lawrence leigh al-jazeera london and on thursday we'll have part five of our series on artificial intelligence a future with robots and artificial intelligence is coming and it's going to affect all of us al-jazeera talks to those seeking to reduce the fallout.

recap the top stories now for you on al-jazeera counting is underway after a peaceful day of voting and liberia's presidential runoff election observers say the turnout is much lower than it was during the first round in october voters are choosing between a former international football player and the country's vice president the kremlin says it is investigating whether russian opposition leader alexina vallie has broken the law by calling for a boycott of next year's election russia's president vladimir putin has been nominated for reelection as an independent candidate can you see. the billion dollars and of course these would be difficult years for both the country and for those who had to ensure a stable development and overcome the difficulties that stemmed from the world economy i can see that the russian government not only did everything that it could but in my opinion even more than that you have essentially solved all the economic

tasks at hand. a former senior official with the national football federation has been acquitted of conspiracy by a court and the united states and while berger was charged with taking bribes and exchange for the award of marketing and media rights to international soccer matches or to walk free just two days after two other south american officials were convicted of similar charges their national committee for the red cross and red crescent has begun medical evacuations from eastern goodin the besieged rubble hell area of syria's capital damascus the united nations had earlier called for five hundred people in need of urgent medical care to be allowed to leave the government of the philippines they're setting up more than six hundred temporary shelters for people displaced by the conflict in iraq the army to reach to the city from separatist fighters in october after a five month siege conditions had been made even worse though by a tropical storm ten. egypt is asking the world bank for its help to resolve

a ten month impasse with ethiopia over its massive grand renaissance dam project on the nile river they project also involves sudan egypt there's the hydroelectric scheme will reduce its share of the water if the o.p.'s says the dam is needed for economic development. those are the headlines the news continues here on al-jazeera after rebel architecture better news has never been more available but the message is a simplistic and misinformation is rife for the listening post provides a critical counterpoint challenging mainstream media narrative at this time on al-jazeera. architect has always defined the human. from the simplest struck to the greatest monument. rebellion is underway. led by a new breed evocative it puts people before.