as it always was with his job. it's very difficult as a shuffle restaurant or to buy shrimp with the kong for that that what you're serving is going to be good seafood by nature is a high risk sometimes for instance ruined using production drugs. that are not approved for use in the us the f.d.a. simply isn't testing enough on the imported market to really find all of these biologic bread to take note at this time on al-jazeera. the last remaining polls will close in russia in iowa with an election set to secure six more years of power for vladimir putin.

alarm suits us on this is al jazeera live from london also coming up. turkey says its full says have taken full control of the syrian town of a free kurdish finds says say they'll continue resisting the takeover. republican senators urged president trump not to shut down robert while this investigation after he steps off his twitter attacks on day zero looms for cape town residents of the south african town may be forced to turn that taps off by july. an hour's time the last polling stations will close in russia in an election most people are viewing as a foregone conclusion russia's incumbent president vladimir putin is expected to take a commanding victory in a contest without any serious opposition candidates in the absence of credible

opponents the kremlin has focused on boosting the turnouts to give the election as much the gist of the sea as possible people have reported being pressured to go to the polls and some polling stations have offered free concert tickets and even cancer screenings to them says well john l. with all this from moscow. 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 rev choices eight candidates a 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 with your doc approved. almost a year period which i trust putin and i like the way he rebuilt our country. the

array of choice is 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 farce 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 who's 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 though turnout what the kremlin really cares about seem to be high so to the number of alleged voter violations

reported on social media big numbers will add legitimacy to the putin victory and it does appear that big numbers have turned out to vote join a whole al-jazeera moscow. so let's take a closer look at those seven rivals two percent one high profile name is thirty six year old czech a former reality t.v. star whose father had close ties with president pro tem that is the communist party's candidate strawberry tycoon pawel girl and then those being critical of the government but not person himself that the mayor is an ultra nationalist he's consistently supported putin the united russia party this will be his sixth bid for the presidency economist go right yavlinsky is arguably the most liberal candidate since running against putin in two thousand he's frequently criticized the president and called for more political freedom. but russia's opposition leader

alexina valmy it was barred from running in the vote he had his anticorruption group say there have been dozens of violations in polling stations across the country. thousands of people went to vote and out of curiosity i went on twitter to check on the count just a few theorizing about violations they are behaving as if nothing is happening people who are observing these elections keep writing about other violations and they are complaining about it and the people who are remaining silent who don't care about this they are cowards it is just that kind of election i guess. so let's cross to lawrence lee now who is live for us and mascara learns i'm not going to ask you who is going to win but i am going to ask you if there is likely to be a high turnout which i think is what the kremlin are wanting. yeah that's right and as jonah was saying in that report turn out given the it's a full conclusion turnouts really important because it's about the perception of the gypsum a-c. and that's really important to them given the length of time that putin has been in

power for let's let's explain this some of his take his truck and his a political insight so with with the common sense newspaper here in moscow in twenty twelve as you were telling me a while ago who single sixty two percent so now sixty two point something right so i don't think we sixty three tell it was lower than that then this time why would not be a problem for the for the kremlin while it's an open secret that president putin is going to be reelected as president but not just matter a lot for simple reason that if you look at the russian election it is more appropriate to call it a referendum on president clinton's policy in two thousand and twelve he got the round sixty three percent assault so if today we see less numbers that can raise questions on the part of. grammarians critics that probably he's losing his credibility that he's. probably rooted in that he's spoiled dixie is getting less

and less and maybe after all this time people aboard a being told who to vote fool absolutely absolutely on the other hand if tomorrow we wake up and see would be good numbers then putin will say that look guys i have nor do you and people still believe in me as a as a leader and also they crossed my politics so they would know in the last six years you the crowd of opposition was not able to raise a lead to be able to challenge my politics so this is the key issue so let's assume it's about legitimacy in a sense isn't it and then a obviously on the assumption that we know who the president's going to be on monday more. what's the trajectory what's the direction in sums of foreign policy do you think that they're going to pursue for the next six years it is quite dangerous and that's probably. it was the first time

a presidential campaign was overshadowed by the standoff with the west specifically scree probably has added more attention to the presidential campaign some believe that probably some people would question president putin's ability to stay and to race to the external threat. there's a perception that probably that also enabled president putin to consolidate his power base and we will see even begin numbers or his supporters coming to the polling station in that sense this was a standoff with the west is quite useful for him you got about twenty to ten fifteen seconds on to this question this is supposed to be his last term as president does he change the constitution do you think to try to stand as president for life in this country i don't think that he needs to change the constitution because so far we don't see any leader who can openly challenge him so it will be up to president putin without changing the constitution to decide how much does he

want to stay in power ok thank you so you can be with us later on the polls close in one hour from now we're going to exit polls fred also that will give us a sense of the the turn to see that we were talking about the importance of that let's you know thought to speaking to them not to say life for us and most. well in ukraine the national guard and police have been deployed to prevent russian citizens from casting their votes in the presidential elections guns were stationed outside russian diplomatic missions to block voters french or an election is being held on the fourth anniversary of russia and that same crimea from ukraine well the challenge has more from service to hold the biggest city in crimea. for the kremlin for letting me putin it is the central achievement of his last term in office to have brought crimea back russian orthorexic it's a source of immense national pride for many russians and so therefore he plays very

well for vladimir putin so yes there is this supposed coincidence that the election is being held on exactly the same day as crimea was brought back to russia four years ago voters here are being given this little medal and sebastopol when they when they have done their deed in the in the in the voting booth and it says the on the back with russia forever and it's got on the front a little memorial basically for the sixty the march two thousand and fourteen that's the date of the referendum four years ago and tonight we're going to get a big concert on red square and that concert is called russia sevastopol crimea so it kind of shows really exactly how these two events are being linked to the presidential election the crimean referendum the annexation of crimea four years ago people here particularly in sevastopol where i am at the moment are by and large ethnically russian and very much supportive of the president's policies and

most of the people we've spoken to everyone we've spoken to here today has said that they have only voted for one man guess who it is. kurdish fighters in syria's northwestern african region have vowed to fight home after the main town was taken by forces and their allies declared victory in a free and raising the turkish flag in the town and tearing down a statue linked to kurdish culture the kurdish administration says it will now use guerilla tactics to become quote a constant longing for the turkish forces operation to clear the region of y p g fighters was launched back in january and considers the white b.g. a terrorist organization linked to speak. and syrian president bashar al assad

has visited army positions in eastern guta where his forces now control almost eighty percent of the territory assad met with soldiers who had been taking part in the effort to retake the damascus suburb the un is said to be negotiating a possible cease fire but they may rebel group that phyla. the rebels say they're in discussions about getting aid to civilians and evacuating people with medical cases asama binge of aid has the latest on the situation in eastern. this is still happening in the besieged pockets of rebel held eastern. he strikes and shelling have continued on duma 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 onslaught from. 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 garages no longer 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 but 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 border 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 and. we lived in horrible conditions we did not have food water or. syria's military has released videos of tanks and soldiers rolling into the streets of towns across eastern border in addition to russian air cover government forces are backed by iranian troops hezbollah fighters and shia militias from iraq and afghanistan they say they have almost won but they're taking over another area decimated by syria seventy a war. some of the jarvey the al-jazeera. still to come this half hour britain accuses moscow of stockpiling then there of agent is the former spy and his daughter dismissing russian suggestions it came from a lab and twelve days after they were riots broke out sure one can think for lanka's president lifts the nationwide state of emergency.

welcome back to look at the weather around the levant and western parts of asia we've got a weather front which will be moving across the eastern areas bringing some rain indeed a higher elevations some snow but as we move into tuesday that will tend to clear way further towards the east but you see some snow up over the mountains but for a couple we'll look at temperatures of sixteen degrees or fine and sunny around the caspian sea air on the eastern side of the mediterranean to the weather is now looking decide the spring like temperatures of twenty three there for beirut in lebanon here in the arabian peninsula we've been spring light for a very long time away through the winter months we've got fine conditions on the western side of the potential over thirty eight in mecca and temperatures here in doha still close to thirty degrees expected much change as we head on through into

tuesday so let's head down into southern parts of africa where we've got a tropical cycle working its way down the eastern side of madagascar giving some very heavy rain here that will continue to cause problems in the next few days otherwise heavy showers across the northern parts of zambia and away in towards angola prison come southwards into namibia and through botswana weather conditions looking dry and find twenty seven that when talk as we get into south africa should be a fine day in cape town with a mix of twenty degrees so existence i want to show is further east because of your downpour in johannesburg.

right. welcome back reminder of the top stories here on al-jazeera observers are reporting violations at polling stations across russia where a lot of a putin is expected to secure another term in the presidential election polls close in less than an hour kurdish fighters in syria's northwestern african region have vowed to fight on using guerrilla tactics to take his forces took control of the main town and syria's president bashar al assad has visited soldiers in the enclave

of eastern ghouta where his forces now control almost eighty percent of the territory. russia's ambassador to the e.u. has suggested that the nerve agent used to poison a former spy could have originated in the u.k. the british government has dismissed the claims saying the poison used on the script hall and his daughter came from russia britain accuses moscow of being behind the attack a challenge it denies russia and britain have expelled twenty three of each of us diplomats over the row with both sides considering retaliatory measures foreign secretary boris johnson says international experts will conduct further analysis on the poison. help us to understand how the stock piles of novacek gone missing and how some of it could have turned up on the streets of wilcher in this way or else i'm afraid we will be forced as

a problem to sit in the house of commons to draw the conclusion as we did in the case of alexander litvinenko the trail of culpability leads inexorably to the kremlin republican senators are warning us president donald trump not to fire special counsel robert mueller saying he must be allowed to investigate alleged russian meddling in the twenty sixteen presidential election trump has renewed his attacks on both the f.b.i. since firing the bureau's former deputy director and or make a vote on friday the game is reported to have kept a detailed notes about his interactions with the president and handed them over to them allow inquiry well in a series of tweets over the weekend trump accuse the f.b.i. leadership of lies corruption and leaking information in one of his latest he tweeted why does some of the team have thirteen hardened democrats some big crooked hillary supporters and they were republicans another day recently added does anyone

think this is fair and yet there is no collusion tom argument has more on this from washington d.c. . the president's tweets expressing growing hostility towards the motor investigation comes amid mounting speculation that he might go as so far as to fire muller and his team his own lawyer his personal lawyer had and asked as much just the day before although he said it was only his personal opinion but the reaction on capitol hill among all democrats and most republicans many republicans at least who've spoken out has been very negative why are they going to such extreme lengths to undermine this investigation which is being carried out in a very responsible way of notice there haven't been many if any leaks from the mall or investigation nonpolitical they're trying to get to the bottom of a very complicated set of facts and anybody that says there's nothing to it while

they've already had three or four guilty pleas and fifteen or twenty indictments sen lindsey graham who has been a supporter of the president said that if he did fire moller it would cause it would basically be his downfall that this would mean he'd be impeached because he said this is a law and order country and the president would be undermining those principles meanwhile andrew mccabe the fired acting f.b.i. director who said that he could corroborate fired f.b.i. director jim commies account of his contacts with the president has gotten a lot more criticism saying that his his firing appeared to be justified because it was done so by a non political career investigating team and they found that he indeed had lacked candor in his in in his contacts with investigators and had made an

authorized contacts to the media. saying in the us where three of the deadliest mass shootings in the country's history have happened in the past six months alone when as president suggestions for tackling gun crimes in schools has been on teaches and school stuff all hundred has visited one school in florida which has been quietly doing so for you. this might be the most heavily armed public school in america in the rural town of sidney ohio would be attackers are warned each entrance to every school scattered throughout this school or several safes opened with a fingerprint it put a glock one thousand handgun in reach of a team of teachers and staff trained to take out the shooter i don't necessarily like having guns in school either mental health backpacks background checks assault rifles gun control laws all of those things i don't necessarily a disagree with but at the same time all of those things combined are not going to

stop an active shooter five years before president trump said this if you had a teacher with who was adept at firearms they could very well end the attack very quickly educators like this former soldier were volunteering to train for classroom combat back when we first started this. i second guessed whether this was the correct thing to do and sometimes i still do but. if if we save one once one student or we say a whole building where the students and i think it's worth it i think it's. i don't it's it's just sad that we have to do that now after the massacre at connecticut sandy hook elementary school in two thousand and twelve sheriff john lindh heart decided that if anyone starts shooting here there would be a small army to fire back its case in america i cannot wait on the state i cannot wait on the federal government. i can't wait on psychologists to figure out why one

person hurts another person you have to protect yourselves if i could wave a wand and make it all go away i would prefer a no guns period but that's not going to happen in the states each school in sydney also has an armed deputy and each classroom is numbered on the outside so first responders can pinpoint a gunman the locations of the weapons and the identities of the first responders are secret so that if a gunman came to this school he wouldn't know who might be armed because it's all caught on camera the first responders can see him many teachers say they're already overburdened without adding security to their duties they're there to teach so what they would rather have than guns is to have training on how to identify mental health problems but here in sydney some parents of reluctantly come around like it's not the world i think any of us will live in but i think it's the reality of where we're at and. you know we take all kinds of measures to protect banks and

our money and museums and why would we do the same thing for our kids as she can schools across the us return to focusing on the so-called three r.'s reading writing and arithmetic here in sydney they've added a fourth responder john hendren zero sydney ohio. an israeli has been stabbed and wounded in occupied east jerusalem the suspected attacker who was shot dead by security forces was a turkish tourist tensions have been escalated in jerusalem since u.s. president donald trump recognized the city as israel's capital of the in the last year. sri lanka's president has lifted a nationwide state of emergency which was imposed to stop counting muslim violence the order came into effect twelve days ago after anti muslim riots which killed two people and damaged hundreds of muslim owned properties and mosques much of the violence was carried out by sinhalese buddhists and was concentrated in the central

county district here of the forces have been deployed to help rebuild damaged homes and businesses but in its methods more from the city of just in northern sri lanka . now when intercommunal violence first broke out two weeks ago the police and the government were criticised for not doing enough to stop the violence that was directed mainly of muslim owned 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 to 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 the message is for the 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. violence racial incitement being spread by its platform. in the world water forum kicks off in brazil this weekend as addressing a looming a global water crisis as well as climate change factors like overpopulation and migration into urban centers as are making things worse this is certainly the case the south africa's cape town where day zero is fast approaching that is the day when the city may be forced to turn off all of its taps explains. 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 is really very difficult given for some of us have beautiful gardens everything's dying we just did not wash our cars so it's just a mission 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 sources say the city will reach 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 a wash my dishes i don't i don't want that way i just keep it for tomato and i use the same what i did this was. the city's taps are fed by reservoirs this is one of the largest. 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 school on the back foot and so this is a wake up call in the city like cape time needs these kind of loud thump wakeup calls to say it's time to actually diversify that water and now you can reprivatize which is what city of cape town is doing. water 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 don't forget to check out our web site for much more video news and just clicking on al-jazeera dot com. the top stories now on al-jazeera polls in russia's presidential election will close shortly with a lot of a person widely expected to secure another term in office the opposition has been urging people not to take part in the votes but russian the election commission says the turnout is higher than previous years this is well when would see him stay

in power twenty twenty four. and russia's opposition leader alexina valmy who's barred from running says there's been dozens of violations in polling stations. thousands of people went to vote and out of curiosity i went on twitter to check on the count just a few theorizing about violations behaving as if nothing is happening people who are observing you lections keep writing about things other violations and they're complaining about it and the people who are remaining silent who don't care about this they are can it's just that kind of election i guess. kurdish family says in syria's north west and a friendly have vowed to fight on after the main town was taken by turkish forces and their allies the kurdish administration says it will now use guerilla tactics to become quote a constant nightmare for the turkish forces and has been trying to clear the region of why p.g. fighters considers

a terrorist organization since january. and syria's president bashar al assad has visited positions in the singles where his forces now control almost eighty percent of the territory soldiers who've taken part in the effort to retake the area un he said to be negotiating a possible ceasefire with the main rebel group. russia's ambassador to the e.u. has suggested that the nerve agent used to poison a former spy could have originated in the u.k. the british government has dismissed the claim saying the poison used on surrogate script his daughter came from russia britain accuses moscow of being behind the attack a charge. republican side that has a warning u.s. president donald trump not to fire special counsel robert saying he must be allowed to investigate alleged russian meddling in the twenty sixth presidential election trump has renewed his twitter attacks on both the f.b.i. and melissa it's firing the bureau's former deputy director and friday. reported to

have kept detailed notes about his interactions with the president. there is that the top stories inside story is coming up next grow a. lot of opinions dominated russian politics for eighteen years now he's sessoms a be elected president for another six at a time when relations with the us a compared to the cold war and moscow is accused of poisoning a spy in britain what do russian voters expect from them this is inside story.