another day another explosion. from one of the thousands of i.e.d. strewn through the landscape of this lawless tribal region in pakistan with only the most basic equipment a fearless bomb disposal unit are determined to counter the horrors of a relentless taliban onslaught. armed with faith but witness documentary at this time on al-jazeera. russian's election commission says voter turnout in the presidential vote is much higher than last time as the kremlin seeks to be. expected when.

hello again i'm with al-jazeera live from doha also coming up the turkish flag is raising the syrian city of a free president everyone says kurdish forces have been pushed out. in a state of emergency lifted but the disputes between. muslim communities is far from over. the blame game continues between russia regarding the poisoning of a double agent. but first to russia's election commission says turnout in this year's presidential vote is much higher than the one. six years ago that amid putin is seeking a fourth term opposition leader alexina valmy who was barred from running says there are dozens of violations in polling stations across the country as a whole reports from moscow the kremlin is hoping for

a high turnout to boost the legitimacy of president putin's expected victory. you know there's a presidential election going on because of the banners in the street that say presidential election and schools are full of adults on a sunday voters are presented with a seemingly vibrant to rove choices eight candidates of veteran politicians is a communist an ultra nationalist and a former reality t.v. star who some fancy is a future leader but not this time. this time the result is not in doubt. this man says he's voting for the father of the nation. i trust and i like the way he treats. the array of choices not all it seems a series of televised election debates over the past fortnight featuring seven of the eight candidates minus putin of course quickly descended into

a circus like fast in fact circus is a word the kremlin has used to describe the other seven election candidates so it's more a show of democracy than the real thing. conspicuously absent from the ballot is this man alexina valmy and to corruption lawyer turned opposition figure has led enormous street protests in the past he's putin's most outspoken critic barred from taking part after a conviction for embezzlement a charge he says was politically motivated novelli has called on his supporters to boycott the election as the voting day wore on low turnout what the kremlin really cares about seem to be high so to the number of alleged vote violations reported on social media big numbers will add legitimacy in victory and it does appear that big numbers have turned out to vote. and get the very latest so do we think that

is going to get the seventy percent of the seventy percent that he wants. well i think it's too early to say that martine it does appear that turnout figures broadly speaking or heading in in the right sort of direction whether they will get as high as seventy percent of turnout is unclear and that would be record breaking incidentally last time around two thousand and twelve there was a turnout of about sixty five percent of which he got sixty three percent of the vote and i think at the very least the kremlin would like to see figures slightly north of that as i say at the moment turnout is looking pretty good with about three four hours three hours or so of voting left but in the meantime lots of reports of irregularities alexina felonies people on the ground activists volunteers who've been out across the country doing what they can to monitor the vote to put lots of videos on social media of ballot box stuffing multiple voting

and that sort of thing that will have to be looked at in time it isn't of course going to impact on the eventual result which will come out later this evening we know what that will be it will be a win for vladimir putin the question mark will be what sort of legitimacy the kremlin can point to to silence both his critics at home and abroad and at what sort of full term do we think putin wants to put in place one of the kind of main themes do we think that he wants to see. well he lined a lot of what he hopes to see happen in the next six years other state of the nation speech which was delayed from december when it was meant to happen it in fact to base two or three weeks ago just in the run up to this election well within the campaign period and that all seemed pretty deliberate if you recall on that occasion he stood up and announced a brand new generation of nuclear weapons that were going to take on everything that the u.s. was able to throw at russia putting russia once again on

a nuclear weapons level eye to eye with the united states and that's been a big theme throughout the eighteen years of his time in office and once again during that speech he promised everything that one could imagine to the russian people a better standard of life more jobs better pay he was going to have poverty. the that still exists in russia over the course of the next six years lots and lots of things that one would expect to hear from a politician but very little in the way of actual detail and key to all of that no plan as to quite how to pay for it all because the economy here is not good or prices are not high that is going to i think be one of the biggest challenges he's going to face over the next six years all right jennifer thanks for that jonah how life in moscow well really chalons has more now from the vast the poll that's the biggest city in crimea which as you may recall russia annexed from ukraine exactly four years ago today. i'll show you something now which puts the importance of crimea in this presidential election campaign in

a bit of context is quite small so i have to explain what's going on here but this is a medal that all the voters here at this public station in sevastopol are being given for voting it's said sevastopol at the top and then underneath it has the date of the referendum in two thousand and fourteen in which crimea was officially reabsorbed into russia now that referendum was of course seen by many countries around the world as the thinnest of democratic veneers for what was essentially an illegal annexation but here in crimea it's seen as a legitimate expression of popular will and so on the back of this metal we have the more so with russia for ever now. the crimean referendum has never been officially made a part of putin's presidential campaign but essentially that's what it is he was here just a few days ago in sevastopol for a big event one of the last in the days before campaigning finished in which he

thanked crimea ins for their choice four years ago and then the sea evening on red square in moscow we're going to get another large events called russia sevastopol crimea it shows how much a crime in views the annexation of crimea as the central achievement really of putin's last in office and how much of course it also resonates with russian troops as a. right now let's go to the conflict in syria and kurdish forces around the city of affray and have warned that they will strike the positions of turkey and its allies at every opportunity this coming just hours after the turkish president bedouin declared the center of afrin to be entirely under the control of his forces well it's almost two months since turkey launched its cross border offensive to push back kurdish forces from the border area free syrian army forces backed by the turkish military captured the city just before dawn on sunday it says

that seventy kurdish y p g fighters were killed in the advance the turkish flag has now been raised to route the center of the city as troops battle to clear the surrounding areas spouses of civilians meanwhile they've been displaced by the fighting and the kurdish administration says it decided to evacuate them to avoid a worse human catastrophe. mamoun abu no r. is a retired jordanian air force general and he says turkey is still achieve its goals in syria. well it's very significant for turkey i think they achieved their strategic objective there is fear of influence in this part of the war they prevented the stablish men and they have the access now to north and. with ed live which is very important also the second state so they have this line of communication between the these two sides in the poll and. that's will affect

also liberal pray ssion and the future concerning the and most. people there and that's will help them out also to finish the front which is inside. by doing this by sabotaging this line of communication well according to a stand meetings what's rules going to happen in april so they will divide syria again and they will divide this field of one for once the iran russia and i think the second stage would be they were looking for men bridge i think they would be looking to have this joint police sort of thing between the u.s. and the people in that part of the world. and to the south the main rebel group in eastern gooda says it's negotiating a possible ceasefire with the united nations phyla ramen says is in discussions

about getting aid to civilians as well as getting people out particularly those with urgent medical needs but the government and its allies are continuing to attack three of these pockets of. which is near to the capital damascus are some of interfaith as the latest. this is still happening in the besieged pockets of rebel held eastern. u.s. strikes and shelling have continued on one of the largest and most populated parts of the entry from inside duma this footage from a drone shows the shrinking boundary between rebel fighters and advancing forces loyal to president bashar al assad thousands of people have been wounded in more than fifteen hundred killed in the latest on slot for. russia we hold the united nations and the security council directly responsible for their silence around these crimes and for failing to take action to prevent these crimes but let us not forget the party that holds direct responsibility of the syrian regime and

the countries that continue to stand by it like much else of rebel held syria relentless bombardment of who has forced most of it into submission the buildings over parking garridge is no longer a stand that's a washing machine hanging out from the shell of an apartment block a fridge shows what was once a kitchen another floor appears to show bottoms and the caved in roof the cameraman who filmed it says this used to be his neighborhood creatures on top of buildings are the entry points from where rockets and bombs enter these buildings. until recently eastern was home to almost four hundred thousand people the u.n. is said to be negotiating with rebels for an evacuation deal many don't want to leave because they fear conscription arrests reprisals and revenge wants to leave. more than twenty thousand have fled to government controlled areas but tens of thousands still remain inside. we lived in horrible conditions we did not her food

water or wood. syria's military has released videos of tanks and soldiers rolling into the streets of towns across eastern in addition to russian air cover government forces are backed by iranian troops has been fighters and shia militias from iraq and afghanistan they see they have almost won but they're taking over another area decimated by syria seven year war some of a job with al jazeera the russia's ambassador to the european union has suggested that the nerve agent used to poison a former russian spy in the united kingdom could have actually originated in britain the government meanwhile has dismissed the claim britain accuses moscow of being the highly attack a charge it denies russia and britain of expelled twenty three of each other's diplomats in this dispute both sides are considering further retaliate tree measures let's go live to the fokker

a correspondent who's in london and neves so claim and counterclaim that this place is one coming from the russian minister suggesting that the nerve agent that was used actually could have come from a british defense syllabi not very far away from sorcery where the incident happened. that's right vladimir chisora off russia's ambassador to the e.u. was referring to a facility called portland which is the government's main medical scientific and chemical research laboratory only about eleven kilometers away from the town of solsbury that has a very strong military connections he implied throwing his own theory into the mix that the british authorities could have either planted this suspect nerve agents in the town of solsbury or may directly have targeted so again usually a script all themselves in a bid to possibly discredit the russian federation when pressed upon his theory he failed to elaborate on any further motive as to why the u.k. would be willing to do that particularly when it comes to possibly jeopardizing

ordinary members of the public as well in the town of souls but of course has been turned upside down and inside out as specialists wearing biohazard suits go about their work the claims have been dismissed as nonsense by the british government boris johnson britain's foreign secretary says that they believe that they have the right theory as to what happened there in the town of solsbury on the balance of evidence they say that the scriptures were likely poisoned by a nerve agent of the navi chalk for riots he produced in the russian federation and that's now they believe that the russian state was responsible for that poisoning new accusations leveled against moscow to come in from boris johnson on sunday morning way accused the russians of stockpiling this and possibly other nerve agents and having something of

a program of possible assassinations using nerve agents something that may have been going on in russia for a decade or so but we now await for the arrival of specialists from the organization for. the prohibition of chemical weapons that arrive here on monday morning to analyze britain's theory this is what boris johnson says what happened next when they arrive here in the u.k. on monday. tomorrow. technical experts from the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons and will come from the hague to the u.k. we will share the samples with them they will then be tested by the most reputable possible international the burra trees all right so the international experts coming on to the scene will whatever they come up with world their verdict to be definitive do you think well they hope it will be they have

a very skilled group of inspectors and what they plan to do is to take samples from the british authorities and distribute them across their trusted laboratories in trusted locations that work would probably take around two weeks before we hear back as to whether britain's theory into what exactly happened to the script all stands up or not britain as i said it is confident in its theory it believes that nerve agent was indeed used i think of recent days the british government's been emboldened by the support that it's received from the united states france and germany backing how britain views the situation unfolded there and solsbury because this is a real crunch time the work of the o.p.c. w. needs to match up to what happened here is what the british authorities have come up with here in the u.k. because over the last few days britain has focus its attention solely on moscow squarely on the russian state and its harden that stance even as far as

a lot of the a putin in his involvement possible involvement in all of this definitely boris johnson has pointed the finger directly at me a putin there's a serious claims most certainly they now need to be validated need live in london thank you very much. now katter has asked us regulators to investigate a subsidiary of the biggest bank in the united arab emirates over currency manipulation claims castro claims n.b.a. de americas which is linked to this state owned first abu dhabi bank engaged in fake foreign exchange deals designed to undermine the cattery real and harm its economy the u.a.e. is one of several states imposing an economic blockade on cattle the saudi led group claims cattle supports armed groups are charged. but the director of katter's government communications office said both us and international regulators have

been asked to look into the matter i can't. comment on the legal procedures of the case but i can confirm that lot of a lot of been sent to us regulators and other international is a little regarding. the market manipulation still to come here we begin a series on water around the world our first stop is of africa's cape town which could run out of the stuff by july. australia takes on china's rising influence in southeast asia hosting the ten nation at blog for the first time. welcome back with some fairly heavy rain in the forecast for much of southern and

eastern china on monday shanghai away down towards fuzhou and hong kong with threats of rain sunny warm rain with the flow coming in from the southwest a few showers in northern parts of vietnam but her noise expected to be dry gerri that rain there it will move further towards the southeast during the course of choose day so fuzhou see temperatures drop a heavy rain developing and it could turn to be quite wet in hong kong stage so let's head across into south asia where we've had a little area of low pressure work its way around sure lanka and then up through the west coast of carola and cannot occur there seems to died out now so weather conditions or returning to how they should be which is basically fine and sunny with temperatures generally in the low to mid thirty's the same goes across northern parts of india and pakistan but there is this area of rain just pushing towards the north and so close to conditions here generally but looking at thirty six as a high in delhi into the arabian peninsula if fairly brisk winds the forecast for monday suggests lighter winds generally around the gulf with the highs of twenty

nine expected here in doha remains fine on the other side the potential despite the southerly breeze bringing some dust willesee temperatures thirty eight in mecca and it stays around that level one choose day. winning the will of the people hinges on the mass media state p.r. machine it's going to overdrive. but just who is influencing. we just don't know yet where the lines will be drawn between what can be said and what can't just that. some journalists decided to sacrifice their integrity for outside the polling the media opinion the listening post base time on al-jazeera.

you know with al jazeera these are our top stories russia's election commission says the turnout in the presidential vote is much higher than the last poll six years ago it. is widely expected to win a fourth term an anti corruption group led by the opposition leader alexina valley says they've been dozens of violations in polling stations across the country. kurdish forces have warned to they'll strike turkish positions at every opportunity after being driven out of the syrian stronghold of affray the turkish president declared the center of african to be entirely under the control of his forces on sunday. chilling because president has lifted a nationwide state of emergency it was imposed twelve days ago following arrest between sinhalese and muslim communities muslim and businesses and

a mosque was set on fire in an attempt to prevent further incitement the government also introduce a show media bans literally lifted a few days ago smith reports now from jaffna in northern sri lanka. i went into communal violence first broke out two weeks ago the police and the government were criticized for not doing enough to stop the violence that was directed mainly of muslim old shops businesses and homes so in response to that they quickly imposed a state of emergency in as part of but they blocked all restricted access to what's up to viber to facebook because the government says messages inciting racial violence were being spread by members of the sinhalese majority nationalist community of the muslim minority now one of the lessons the government has learned is that it says in future it's going to much more closely monitor what goes out on social media because now for two weeks people not been able to get access to watch

baseball all viable. or imo because of those restrictions considerably inconveniencing people here but he says he needs to monitor what's the messages that are spread on the social media platforms and indeed facebook was called in by the government last week to say what it could do and facebook has said it will work with the government to try and stop these messages and messages of traditional violence racial incitement being spread by or it's powerful leaders of southeast asian countries have expressed grave concern about the situation on the korean peninsula at a summit held in sydney the militarization of the south china sea trade and counterterrorism also discussed at the essay on leaders meeting hosted for the first time by a stray or andrew thomas reports sydney felt like parts of southeast asia on sunday it was unusually hot and humid but australia is not a member of the association of southeast asian nations so hosting an assay and

summit was a diplomatic coup for australia's prime minister malcolm turnbull but to kill or lead in the face of the ever growing power of china and a more isolationist united states turnbull wants australia and as the countries to speak with one voice and says that's what he's got the countries of r.c.n. are among our closest neighbors they're our friends and increasingly our family as well the so-called sydney declaration issued at the end of the summits commits as the end countries to support trade and resist all forms of protectionism it supports action to address climate change and the full implementation of the powers agreement the declaration stresses grave concerns about the escalation of tensions on the korean peninsula and it commits as you and countries to further cooperation on counterterrorism you just sensual. it is key and it's imperative that we have legislations that prevent acts of terrorism

rather than just deal with the aftermath the declaration also calls for a strength in the south china sea before the summit some analysts said but one test of the final declaration strength we whether it mentioned china as a country by name this declaration doesn't presumably that was seen as too provocative but it does emphasize the need for non militarization and self restraint in the south china sea outside the summit venue there were protests against some of the leaders attending australia welcomed me and unsung to cheat despite the range of crisis viet nam's prime minister knew and when folk was there too despite human rights abuses in the one party state but the biggest protests were against cambodia's prime minister hun sen who has cracked down on opponents and had promised before the summit to find and beat up anyone who burned in effigy of him in sydney protesters did it anyway the fact that there were protests here is a great sign

a lot of asean countries when they hold these summits they're not progress or they're at such a far distance from the summit site they can't possibly have an impact it's forecast to cool down in sydney on monday by then most as the end leaders will be home after thomas al-jazeera sydney capetonians it may be false or turn off their taps in july because of an unprecedented drought in south africa now if it happens came time will become the first major city in the world to run out of water from weather for what is the first in our first series on water and how conflict drought and mismanagement as well as pollution are affecting availability. cape town's water is running out. this has become a common sight city or thought he said people should use no more than fifty liters of tap water per person per day so some line up at this communal spring collect some extra and take it home it's really very difficult given for some of us

a beautiful gardens everything is dying we just did not wash our cars so it's just a mission to for a book we should never have and think our country lacks and then we should have to . but it's a kind of insurance that many south africans are familiar with about a third of the city's residents live in informal settlements like this one any consume about four percent of the water but for generations they were already being collecting it from communal taps and carrying it. all thora to say the city will reach the day zero on the ninth of july that's when they'll turn off the water in the homes that have it only the communal taps will stay on angela van vike lives right next to one since she heard about the shortage she says as much as she can i save my water by keeping the same or day as i did a wash my dishes i don't i don't want that way i just keep it for tomorrow and i use the same what i did this was. the city's taps are fed by reservoirs

this is one of the largest gazelles gallup where four years ago they would have been on the twenty five meters of water since then the province has suffered the worst drought on record. kevin winter has researched it for years he says the city was vulnerable because it relied only on rain filled reservoirs this climate change wake up call this quarter a school on the back foot and so this is a wake up call in the city like cape time needs these kind of large thumping wake up calls to say it's time to actually diversify that water and now you're going to reprivatize which is what city of cape town is doing. what is now being pumped from aquifers here work began on a plan to desalinate sea water with accessing new sources takes time so for now more lines water saving measures have already postponed day zero by three months

everyone here is hoping the winter will soon bring enough rainfall to make sure they never comes malcolm webb al-jazeera cape town south africa and in the second part of our first series mohammed vall reports from lake charles she's drying up and could vanish within the next century the drought in central africa is affecting the lives of the millions of people who live around this disappearing lake first story in part two of our series the first monday here at al-jazeera. zimbabwe's first presidential and parliamentary elections since robert mccartney. he was removed from office will be held in july president emmas and says he hopes the vote will be violence free and transparent he became president last november after a de facto military coup helped end mugabe's nearly four decade long grip on power .

here with our jazeera these are our top stories russia's election commission says turnout in this year's presidential election is much higher than the last one six years ago the last image putin is seeking a fourth term which would give him six more years in office opposition leader alexina valmy meanwhile he was barred from running called for a boycott of the vote his anticorruption group says they've been dozens of violations in stations across the country. kurdish forces of war and they'll strike turkish positions at every opportunity after being driven out from the syrian stronghold our friend the turkish president declared the center of effort to be entirely under the control of his forces on sunday qataris asked u.s. regulators to investigate a subsidiary of the biggest bank in the united arab emirates the currency manipulation claims cats are claims m.b.a. de americas which is linked to the state owned first abu dabi bank engaged in fake

foreign exchange deals designed to undermine the cattery reale and harm its economy the u.s. ease one of several states imposing an economic blockade on caster the saudi led group claims qatar supports armed groups charged denies. the director of cattle as government communications office said both u.s. and international regulators have been asked to look into the matter. i can't. comment on the legal procedures of the case but i can confirm that letter a letter has been sent to us regulators and other international a little regarding. the market manipulation sri lanka's president has lifted the sale of emergency a nationwide curfew was imposed twelve days ago following armrest between buddhists and muslim communities muslim owned businesses and a mosque were set on fire those are the headlines the news continues after

listening post. on counting the cost are russians getting all they bargained for economically and who didn't heads for reelection plus saudi aramco keeps the financial world guessing the globe's largest i.p.o. on ice will be asking what's behind the delay counting the calls and i just you. on explain to tell us that russian domination second scrip i'll be streaming media at one point frankly that russia way behind the company thank you so when the people of your mosque was like cross relation that there was a point a call coming from. hello and barbara say when you're at the listening post here are some of the stories.