just about museums about forming a new life is a part of life it's culture for a man has decided to break with tradition and train to sail competitively we're not that we want to present a positive image and change the steering typical expectation of women for them it's about more than just racing yes you can still be good on lonely woman and also a very talented sailor going off around the world showing everybody how strong our money people are al-jazeera world meets the first all female sailing crew in the gulf oman's sailing stars at this time on al-jazeera. do most surrounded syrian government forces divide the rebels holding out in eastern guta. and turkish forces a closing in on africa and in northern syria it could say they'll form

a human shield. hello i'm maryam namazie this is al jazeera live from london also coming up polls close in colombia's election but a government mishap is so distrust. that lead to full life teaching strengthens his position off to china's people's congress abolishes term limits for the president. and the national gallery party leader marine le pen proposes a new united front says far right party. two key offensives that could define the future of syria are reaching a critical stage in the south of the country syrian state media says government forces have surrounded the town of duma it's part of their attempt to overrun

eastern guta a damascus suburb that still in rebel hands pro-government forces have managed to cut the rebel held area into to establish a chordal to assist the offensive the government has been told she repeated as strikes rebels accuse them of using barrel bombs phosphorus napalm and chlorine gas in a separate offensive in northern syria turkish forces here have surrounded the town of our friend which is under the control of the kurdish y.p. gee now the white b.g. says civilians will form a human shield around the town to protect against any further advances earlier i spoke to dean who lives in duma he told us what he's witnessed over the past few days. i don't see any. regime i i see the russian airplanes and militias of iranian and. on. known. army coming to is doing good.

yesterday in there was so if the civilians in and don't know anything about them. unfortunately the situation here in eastern very very awful and miserable. there is alan fish as more on the developments in northern syria from the tacky syrian border. but what has happened in dumas happened elsewhere in syria we've seen it before where first of all the split the area as they did in eastern guta on saturday and there's no surrounded one tire in the syrian government forces and backed by the russians then turn to use their military advantage to try and gain a political advantage by saying to the fighters maybe you should leave a move to another part of syria as a see that is happened before in this conflict meanwhile in a free and we are hearing that the wipe e.g. the kurdish militia are calling on civilians to help form a human shield to police themselves between the white p.g.

and the advancing free syrian army which of course are backed up by the turkish military no it's not just cards who have responded to this call and we hear that there are buses heading towards our friend but also groups here in turkey clued in women's groups and socialist groups or how they will get across the border which is currently closed is another issue entirely in our friend city we see that there is no water no internet and up to three or four families or no shooting each ice because families that move from the early stages of this assault are no seeking shelter with friends and relatives seeking shelter essentially where they can the leader of the council in a frame says the situation is dire and has called on the united nations not only to investigate but to intervene. polls have closed in colombia where voters are electing members of congress it's a landmark election for the country because candidates representing the fark all upin military will be eligible to take

a seat for the first time but in mishap by the civil registry is prone to an outcry from those already distrustful of national politics election body said it failed to print enough ballot papers for presidential primaries are running alongside a congressional vote so let's go to alison rand getting his in bogota alexandro many people not happy about this why were there not enough ballot papers printed. well this is why it's a government business still trying to understand either the. civil registry been printed in half by alerts or most likely they've been distribute these ballots in an efficient way in the different polling stations be it as it may in dozens of different polling stations in major cities across the country voters were not able for more than an hour to vote in these primaries for the right wing coalition in

the left wing coalition in this wise enough to stoke fears of fraud among many voters we've seen this exploding on twitter for example in general on internet we were talking to voters here who were very angry with the national governments about what was happening and there's all sorts of falls into a situation in which there are errors extreme polarization in the country anger and nerves are frayed among the voters for many reasons the economy has slowed down here in colombia the mostly because of the peace deal and the divisions that the peace deal between the government and the fark abroad in colombia and also about the issue of corruption in many way the signing of the peace deal also brought to the surface or brought more attention to the pervasive corruption that experience in the political system in colombia. the colombian gear up to renovate their

congress and there's one issue on everybody's minds. like what if you go troops soon or corruption is the biggest worry of voters reachin who are on the right or left of the political spectrum colombia's get the war as long overshadowed the legal political practices which are only now coming on their bigger scrutiny scandals in past months have involved most parties and even tainted. president juan manuel santos last campaign. the new study by the peace and reconciliation foundation says that public outcry will not bring political renovation. more than eighty candidates for the senate and the house of representatives that have links with criminal organizations or are involved in corruption scandals such as older brecht or our children our wives are currently jailed representatives all with excellent chances of being elected they represent rural family clans that have for decades run their districts like. most are expected to remain in power doling out

jobs public work contracts for just a little food and money to maintain the loyalty of their impoverished voters. many politicians and thirties corruption circuits to finance their campaigns they buy out local community leaders and pay around one thousand dollars per vote the culprits in the end there to citizens they vote for the same corrupt parties then they complain about corruption it's a vicious cycle you can't vote for bandits and then expect to be well governed. according to this study only three of the main political parties have presented candidates viewed with suspicion for their relations with illicit activities or criminal organizations which have many here worrying that the new congress will have a hard time changing longstanding corruption practices when you tell your own director of political website unless e.m.i. c.-a says the system is per base of i have done like an informal survey with

professional politicians asking them how what is the percentage of pattern versus opinion votes for congress and they all agree that seventy percent pattern as seventy thirty percent opinion votes. and like other major latin american countries jailed many claim chieftain to cleanse remain tough to this large as long as votes can be bought for pennies. and we're getting some early results in the presidential primaries are we have a sandra. that is correct miriam i was actually looking at those numbers right now on the left of the former mayor of bogota i was a very popular but also controversial politician here in colombia he's also a formal get the u.s. fight there and nineteen a movement he seems to have one or is winning. the

primary on the left this was expected on the right candidate to. the democratic center desk the party of former president but who would he be the biggest opposer to the peace deal with the fark seem to be way ahead the with almost seventy percent of the votes in his favor the other interesting point here is that almost doubles of people at least now that around forty percent of the votes have been counted more than double have voted for the right wing primary compared to the left wing primary this also was expected but it will be interesting to see those numbers later because that's going to tell us a lot which way colombian voters to or which direction politically they're most

moving to and in a couple of hours between two or three hours we should get a better idea of the competition of the new congress that will be fundamental to understand which presidential candidate will be ahead and who will most likely become the next president of colombia from bogota hundred p.s.v. thank you very much. china's national people's congress has voted to abolish term limits for the president and the vice president the change in the constitution paves the way for judging and term in office twenty twenty three adrian brown has more from beijing. an army of chinese legislators came to the great hall of the people knowing what was expected of them a display of uniform loyalty to the man who could now be china's leader for life

for formal the constitution is in accordance with our country's reality and the wishes of all the people. this is a big event a very memorable moment in our political life. an historic and controversial moment as well the almost three thousand delegates had been told the amendments were needed because the challenges china faces require a strong leader and the united party. in china's version of legislative government new laws and constitutional changes are always passed unanimously. and so it proved to be the case again on sunday when delegates approved twenty one constitutional revisions including the scrapping of term limits for the president and vice president but there was perhaps token opposition to votes against and three abstentions congress officials insist this process was

transparent. the chinese people have had no say in this historic moment critics accuse president xi jinping of building a personality cult indoctrinating the masses with his political philosophy just as chairman mao once did it was done shopping the other towering figure in recent chinese history who'd insisted on two term limits for the president he wanted to avoid a repeat of the cultish devotion that had surrounded mao but analysts say one party rule is once more turning into one man rule the fact of the matter is seeming has hijacked the entire communist party in the country so we are back to just one person doing the talking one person making the decisions for the entitled party in the entire country we are back to the period of the so-called one wars

echo chamber. the president's influence is now felt in many aspects of life here she jingping thought is now required reading for all party members study groups of spread to businesses and universities. parliament also voted to expand the president's campaign against corruption joining a five year purge more than one and a half million party officials have been punished analysts say the campaign is a guys for getting rid of potential rivals for now at least though she would appear to have none adrian brown al-jazeera beijing. earlier i spoke to carrie brown director of the lao china as you choose it king's college london it told me she could be setting himself up for a full. well he's in control of a much bigger country in a more important country and also a country which is quite soon going to be the world's largest economy probably so it's the stakes are much much higher but i don't really think we should see this is

being a return to a kind of maoist sort of power. don't have an independent kind of basis and charisma that was sort of more than the party that was the problem really whereas i mean she's in pain works within the party and the country that he leads is so much more complicated it's not possible for one person even a complete megalomaniac to make decisions about china on their own because it's got so many different kinds of constituent elements so i think we're a long long way from that in a sense the problem is that we have a you know leader promising so much who might not be able to deliver a great deal because the problems are so complicated president he's the head of the military he's the party secretary he's the chair of all these different kinds of small leading groups that really run policy on areas he's the head of the national security county council them everywhere he's everywhere and that's good when things are going ok it's not so good when things don't go well and you know china's had

a lot of luck in the last few years but there are issues on the way i mean the economic development is still you know highly difficult environment natural environment is not great all sorts of things where people start seeing this all powerful figure and saying well if you're all powerful why isn't it that your able to solve these problems and then he's much more vulnerable still to come for you on the program but has as a back on the front of us a line at demanding the release of jailed politicians. i may quote reporter from the guard because it would be very foul the water went all through. the remote this war. hello there the rain has now east for many of us across queensland the satellite picture isn't picking up a great deal of cloud of talk most of the cloud is actually over the northern

territory at the moment and for queensland it's largely fine and dry that should allow the flood waters to recede elsewhere and it's pretty hot in perfect the moment and that's the way it's going to stay as we head through monday and into tuesday temperatures around thirty four or thirty five degrees for us but also southeastern parts of australia where the winds are all feeding up from the south so here it's quite cool with melbourne struggling to get to around twenty one degrees and over towards the east and we've got the remains of a cycle own here that's just working its way towards the southeast so for the north island incredibly stormy very strong winds damaging seas and we've also got some torrential heavy downpours as well so that system moves through then as we head into chews day and behind it will be a lot calmer or can there put around twenty degrees if we get up towards japan here what has been quite quiet recently weather wise the latest system just edging away towards the east but that didn't bring us a great deal of wet weather staying following force as we head through tuesday with

the temperatures rising for tokyo this time getting to around seventeen degrees meanwhile towards the west even warmer for beijing up at twenty three. over benefits. witness documentaries that open your eyes. at this time on al-jazeera.

talking back more challenges there are let's update you on the top stories this hour syrian state media says pro-government forces have completely surrounded in the east and good evening the main areas still held by the rebels into polls opposing colombia where voters are electing members of the country's congress has been an outcry after the authorities ran out of ballot papers for presidential primaries running alongside the election. and china's national people's congress has voted to abolish term limits for the president and the vice president and change the constitution paves the way for bang to remain in office beyond two thousand and twenty three. now u.s. president donald trump says his plan talks with north korea could either fail or bring about the greatest deal for the while to ease nuclear tensions between the two countries speaking as a rally in pennsylvania he said he believes north korea wants to make peace the

president also warn that he could leave the talks quickly if it didn't look like progress for nuclear disarmament could be made meanwhile the chief south korean officials who met the north korean leader kim jong un last week briefed the leaders of china and japan one of the officials will meet china's president xi jinping on monday the other will see japan's president choose day. the meetings are designed to update leaders on the progress of nuclear talks with north korea mike hanna has more from washington well a number of democrats and several republicans were somewhat critical of president trump in the course of the day some contend that the president was wrong in terms of not eliciting further concessions from north korea before agreeing to a face to face meeting democratic senator elizabeth warren said there was a real danger that north korea could take advantage of president trump as she put it but members of his administration came to his defense treasury secretary steve

newton insisting that the president was not going to lighten the pressure on north korea in the weeks leading into this meeting should it take place and support too from the director of the cia who had this to say this first meeting i think is between the president is the leader of north korea the two people who are the decision makers who alternately decide what arrangements are acceptable but make no mistake about it while these negotiations are going on there will be no concessions made the activity of this administration to disrupt the north korean economy to put pressure on north korea to galvanize the world in a way that you have countries from the middle east to europe and asia placing sanctions on the north korean regime those will continue and walls see how the talks in the negotiations prosy but concerned too about the level of preparation for this face to face meeting there is no ambassador in south korea at present and

the state department's leading expert on north korea resigned just a week ago so questions about whether president trump and his team would be ready for such a face to face meeting. france's far right national front party is rebranding its lead in the rain le pen says it should now be called the national gathering but will a new name attract new voters david reports from the parson's aisle conference in the city of neil in northern france. read the panda wrapped up the river from the party with a classic speech touching the point she will get the cheers from a crowd. of tough most of all of the effects of immigration. the last year only gun is legal and illegal immigration are no longer tenable. that the french people's money must go back to the french people first.

we no longer have the means to welcome to house to careful or to see the whole world. but the high point came at the end when she announced her suggestion to rename the party it was here in existence absolute you know it must signal an absolute demand to unite the country in the defense of its identity its prosperity and its security and freedom i therefore propose that the national front become the national gathering live for national now on the agenda of us some. so the national front is dead but not quite varied yet the members will have a chance to vote on the name change in the next few weeks for the most important thing for me was to keep the war national in a thing that the world gathering is coherent now the idea is no longer to be a france but to get a people together to. demonstrators

took to the streets of lille to show what they called their contempt for the rebranding of the national front they said it was just another attempt to disguise fascism but back in paris a warning from an expert who knows the party had first earned an opposition counselor in one of the hotlines come in but let's not forget the national front got the highest score in its history last year the fact she made a fool of herself at the debate doesn't mean the party is finished but. the party's found a pen has now been stripped of his position as on re president of the national front but he can't be written out of history he's just published the first volume of his autobiography and it's turned into a bestseller he said changing the name was committing political suicide david chaytor al-jazeera live. supporters of catalonia as independence have been protests

. sitting in barcelona demanding the release of politicians jailed in the aftermath of last year's referendum catalonia has postponed until further notice the election of a new regional president after spain supreme court ruled that candidate jodie sanchez would not be allowed to leave prison to attend a parliamentary session planned for monday pennell is in barcelona with the latest on the catalonia independence protest. several thousand catalans of taken to the streets of basra alone are calling on their politicians to show great to unity and press ahead with their plans to set up a breakaway republic separate from the rest of spain now this is certainly the largest produce a session demonstration of the year so far but it's a far cry from the days in the lead up to the october referendum last year when the independence movement was able to put tens and thousands of protesters on the streets now the demonstration sunday evening comes just ahead of the day when the

capsule and palm and had been due to swear in a new first minister of the catalonia region that will not happen however because the man that was due to be elected jordi sanchez remains in prison on charges of rebellion for his part in organizing last year's independence referendum the other candidate carlos pushed him on the former first minister of cuts alone remains in self-imposed exile in brussels he can't take up the sport right now madrid in the central government has backed on trying to head off the secession movement through legal measures and that so far is succeeding in many ways you look around here and it seems that the procession politicians may be running out of ideas and frustration is growing on the streets cubans are voting to ratify a new national assembly a key step towards choosing the next president on the communist front caribbean

island nation eight million cubans are expected to turn out to ratify more than six hundred candidates for an equal number of seats in the assembly the new members of the national assembly will choose a successor to president raul castro. now the antarctic has been described as one of the most remote and treacherous places on earth much of its rich biodiversity is yet to be fully documented and the second part of antarctic series we look at the european union's campaign to protect the deseret region there is environment at it and it can join a greenpeace scientific expedition through the wet l c. the captain's eye view of the voyage as the icebreaker arctic sunrise pushes through into the remote waters of the weddell see a vast unknown territory few ships venture this far. has already made an attempt this antarctic summer but was foiled by ice crackers rather we were way through. to

get it down into the well. tried region before the beginning of what would be protected looks like an opening here least for. yes probably just. finally we break through into the isolated area of the proposed tree at the moment i checked on the. satellite charts this morning and there's someone of the ship in this entire space as another ship about there and that's it and the whole whole area that's slightly scary terrifying. exciting exciting kind of just makes the case that this is pristine this area is not developed his not all industries never had industry. we take a chance in this rare window of weather to take to the air and look down on the

mesmerizing scene below. the western edge of the would be protected zone breath taking the rule power of land and sea and ice constantly reshaping on the move this is nature on a planetary scale so what we're looking at here is melting ice and great icebergs to be. sweeping. the. way to the. proposed area pretty much touched by human activity. scientific research is taking place back to base the arctic sunrise standing by for a return alongside a giant tabula ice pack perhaps a kilometer long the next helicopter sortie is to the very top of it the expedition team is making a dramatic landing to spread the sanctuary message around the world this iceberg thousands of years in the making now adrift in

a process that has been going on for hundreds of thousands of years appraises it seems may be changing because of global warming and did a day of scenic wonder the antarctic day ends with a spectacular show above this apparently a reverse sunset phenomenon while simultaneously the clouds more in shape and color into fantastic unworldly painting across the at the ends of the. al-jazeera and told to go well in the third part of our series nick will look at a multiple threats facing wildlife in antarctica ranging from climate change to terrorism. that's all mind you of the top stories before we go in syria state media saying the army has now completely surrounded the town of duma in eastern guta that leaves the

main area still held by the rebels cut into amid intense as strikes pro-government forces broke through rebel lines to establish a car door through the enclave lyudmila dean lives in duma he told us what he's witnessed. i don't see any. regime i see the russian airplanes and militias of iranian. known. army coming to is to. yesterday there was so few civilians. i don't know anything about them. unfortunately the situation here in eastern good very very awful and miserable further north in the country kurdish forces say civilians plan to form a human shield around the town of afrin to protect it from an expected turkish incursion

turkish and free syrian army forces have surrounded the town warning that the entries in and they've been fighting to drive out the kurdish y p g from the area those of closed in colombia where voters are electing members of congress it's a landmark election for the country because candidates representing the fark former paramilitary group will be eligible to stand for the first time but a mishap by the civil registry has now prompted an outcry from voters already distrustful of national politics the election body says it failed to print enough ballot papers for presidential primaries that are running alongside the parliamentary vote. china's national people's congress has voted to abolish term limits for the president and the vice president the change of the constitution paves the way fifty jingping to remain in office beyond twenty twenty three france's far right even marine le pen has proposed changing the name of a party from the national front to the national gathering and make over is designed

to revive the nationalist party after le pen lost the french presidential election to emmanuel lakhani last year that's it for myself and the team here in london witness is coming up next on al-jazeera as poverty and desperation sweep across ruhi just settlements women and girls are being bought and sold and given away you refugee camps one on one used to best the gates yet another dark sign of the crisis at this time on al-jazeera.