in the tradition. of the. russian president vladimir putin celebrates an election victory that was never in any real downsides. no i'm fully back to go this is al jazeera live from my headquarters in doha also

ahead he says it's captured the kurdish out syrian town of a free syrian government troops may games in rebel held eastern gota. donald trump bring use his attack on the special council investigating russian election meddling as republicans won the us president not to sakharov but malema rusts. he wants to create his own project in the middle east very much like hitler. saudi arabia's crown prince had soured on iran's supreme leader in his first interview on u.s. television. that amir put in has celebrated his victory in russia's presidential election with thousands of supporters in moscow has won seventy six percent of the vote with almost all ballots counted put in was always expected to win but what was in question was how many people would vote in his favor is nearest competitor was communist party candidate prevailed jordanian who is on almost twelve percent soon

after the first exit poll split in joint crowns in moscow's red square the election was held on the fourth anniversary of the annexation of crimea from ukraine at a news conference the president later rejected british allegations that moscow was involved in the poisoning of a former russian spy and his daughter in the u.k. calling them nonsense lawrence lee reports now on putin's landslide victory. by sema the coolest election such as the status of blood in your putin in russia as he was in reality little more than a coronation discipline you could lead you says we're going to emain it's very important to maintain this unity to attract those who could have voted for overcome today's we have to stand together shoulder to shoulder we have to think about unity not about differences we should think about the future of our people about the future of our country we are destined for success. it was never a contest to single out the overwhelming percentage of votes cast and more than six out of ten russians voted for the kremlin it went more or less to plan of course

russians knew perfectly well that when the television told them that they had to go out to vote because it was a city do you see what they really meant was you have to go and vote because we have to get putin back in the kremlin that meant this wasn't really a lecture about who was going to win but it was about but how much. several instances of fraud were caught on camera harmless looking old ladies voting twice while stuffing reams of paper since a book says not enough to alter the outcome but four alexina valmy banned from standing in the election evidence of a corrupt vote. thousands of people went to vote and out of curiosity i went on twitter to check on the candidates to see if they are writing about violations they are behaving as if nothing is happening people who are observing these elections keep writing about the things and other violations and they're complaining about it and the people who are remaining silent don't care about this they are candidates

it's just that kind of election i guess. barely even took part in the campaign and was entirely absent from the t.v. debates but during the election videos surfaced on the internet like this one which gave a glimpse of how the kremlin wants people to think. the film depicts a man who tells his wife he can't be bothered to vote something which putin himself had warned against the man that has a nightmare in which black africans suddenly appear in the armed forces to his horror there's a homosexual in the kitchen the message is as clear as day this is what you'll get if you don't have putin in charge and of course it's coupled with a promise from the president spend more and more on the military what he. put in would very much like to normalize ties with the west but his personality means he can't show weakness he can't be seen to be giving up yet he understands very well that with international isolation his regime is open to risks and dangers his fourth term begins with a flat out diplomatic crisis with the west's events which are uncertain and fast

moving but political change in russia continues to move as fast as the ice on the moscow river largely al-jazeera in most. well as you heard earlier the vote was held on the fourth anniversary of the annexation of crimea from ukraine moscow decided the vote would also be held in crimea leading to increased tensions with kiev chalons reports from crimea largest city. as the home of russia's black sea fleet sevastopol has always felt like a russian city even in the years before crimea was annexed when this territory was leased off ukraine so the polling stations here bustled with cadets naval officers military policemen and civilians most seemingly happy for crimea to be voting in its first russian presidential election and most seemingly happy to cost their ballot for one man. yes this is that of course we voted for the president of the

russian federation for number one vladimir putin. if he didn't take civil stop all in the whole of crimea under his arm it would have ended up in the wrong hands if he didn't do what he did who knows who would have been in charge of this fleet now watches or thirty's want to connect this presidential election as much as possible with another vote that happens four years ago and so everyone in the cast their ballots in this polling station today and around sebastopol gets a medal and this medal has the dates of the referendum sixteenth of march two thousand and fourteen that referendum of course in which the annexation of crimea was formalized and then on the back we have the motto with russia forever very consciously election day here has been made a celebration of being russian it's a tactic that's likely to play well for the kremlin both in terms of crimean turnout and results but it's the an experience has been a central if i'm declared campaign platform for putin nationally to in kremlin eyes

it's the biggest achievement of his last presidential term and for many russians it's a source of huge national pride to god it seems just by seeing. so on sunday evening shortly after the polls closed big celebrations were held in red square named russia sevastopol crimea. how does iran crimea. as we mentioned the russian president has dismissed allegations by the u.k. that moscow was behind the chemical attack on a former double agent as nonsense britain has expelled twenty three russian diplomats in protest of the poisoning of. his daughter in southern england two weeks ago russia has retaliated with similar measures but insists it did not possess a nerve agent to use in the attack. i learned about this tragedy about scripts how i learned about it from the media i think it's quite obvious that if it is a chemical weapon a people would die immediately it doesn't have any chemical weapons which destroyed

all its chemical weapons under international observation some of our international partners promised to do so but they haven't done before we're open to cooperation with the investigation. help us to understand how the stockpiles 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 the promises said in the house of commons to draw the conclusion as we did in the case of alexander litvinenko that the trail of culpability leads inexorably to the kremlin. in other world news kurdish fighters in syria's northwestern african region have vowed to fight on after the main town was taken by kurdish forces and their allies that he launched its operation to clear the enclave of kurdish y p g fighters in january those fighters say. attack takes against a take me anderson's reports from turkey's southern border with syria. they

reached a friend at sunrise columns of free syrian army fighters turkish special forces have been active on the ground ahead of them kurdish why p.g. fighters have withdrawn in large numbers there was limited resistance on what the rebel fighters backed and directed by turkey with ground forces and their strikes prepared to declare a victory here. but when i met you know probably after we entered our free move liberated all the center buildings we will declare a victory statement on the terror we are telling the civilians to come back to our friends it's safe now. within hours celebrations in the city sent. by the syrians and the turks. believe this is

a gift from the turkish armed forces to the turkish people and our glorious martyrs on this day a reference there to the victory of turkish forces against the western allied forces one hundred three years ago in deliberately in the first world war the turkish president was at the commemorations and made this announcement. most of the terrorist have already fled with their tails between their legs our special forces and members of the free syrian army a cleaning the remains in the traps i left behind in the center of affray al flags of trust and stability away even in sort of rags of terrorist and so on the fifth. the eighth day of operation olive branch turkey's first objective is realized right here where he has said some civilians have chosen to stay instead of joining tens of thousands of others into syrian regime areas to the south. that's reporter

the kurdish why p.g. now in terms to avoid direct confrontation with turkish forces instead engaging in guerrilla types of action the turkish have proved with force their intention to push back the white p.g. away from its border and it doesn't and they'll be moving further eastwards this is likely to be one battle of several andrew simmons are jazeera. while this is a situation in syria right now turkey and the free syrian army have captured large swathes of the african region but kurdish forces remain in control of most of the northern territory that's east of the euphrates edley province in the northwest remains the largest rebel stronghold in the south syrian government forces backed by russian airpower have divided the rebel enclave of eastern gotye into three cutting off fighters key supply lines or the syrian government has released video said to show president bashar assad visiting army positions in eastern go to where his forces now control almost eighty percent of the territory state media say assad

met soldiers who'd been part of the effort to retake the area the un is said to be negotiating a possible ceasefire with the main rebel group there. on the rebels say they are in discussions about getting aid to civilians any evacuating people in need of urgent medical care osama bin job it has the latest on the situation in eastern gotama. this is still happening in the besieged pockets of rebel held eastern ghouta here strikes and shelling have continued on duma one of the largest and most populated parts of the entries from inside 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. worship we hold the united nations and the security council directly responsible for this 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 were mud meant 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 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 entered these buildings until recently eastern there 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 have food water or water. syria's military has released videos of tanks and soldiers rolling into the streets of towns across eastern huta 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's seventy a war with some of a job with al jazeera making a stand for it is a senior policy analyst at the bipartisan policy center on middle east politics he says the u.s. chose to stay out of the conflicts between its allies occurs and turkish forces. the united states has had what i guess you could call a consistent but incoherent approach to dealing with the syrian kurds this whole time they've made it very clear that they're working with the syrian kurds east of the euphrates river in an mom bitch where they're directly fighting isis but at the

same time that the situation often in the kurdish resistance to the turkish attack there is not something the united states is going to get involved with so at the point where russia opened in russia open office airspace to turkish military strikes and at the point where the y.p. g declined an agreement with the assad regime to let the assad regime take over offering to prevent a turkish attack for better or worse the y.p. g. was on its own if they decided to evacuate often because they felt they didn't have the strength or the public support to defend it that certainly would have negative consequences for the moving forward on the other hand if they decided to spare the city destruction possible destruction in a turkish military assault that could be part of a larger strategy which you know through a successful guerrilla campaign against turkish forces could ultimately get them some limited measure of autonomy. and the us republican senate has a warning present donald trump not to fire special counsel robert muller they say

he must be allowed to investigate alleged russian meddling in the twenty sixteen presidential election as he's of tweets over the weekend trump accuse the f.b.i. leadership of lies corruption and leaking information has more from washington if twitter is any indication u.s. president donald trump is growing increasingly worried about the investigation into ties between his campaign and russia sending off a series of angry tweets including this one where he did something you normally doesn't do he mentions robert mueller by name tweeting why does the miller team have thirteen hardened democrats some big cricket hillary supporters and zero republicans another demaris unlimited does anyone think this is fair and yet there is no collusion there are a couple of problems with this tweet first of all muller is a republican so is the man in charge of him rosenstein who trump appointed and the f.b.i. director christopher a also a republican trump also tweeted there was no crime but three people who were part

of his campaign to rather high up have pled guilty to committing crimes more than twenty people and companies have been indicted so far on saturday trump's personal lawyer john dowd called for a shutdown of miller's investigation at first saying he was speaking for the president but later backtracking leading to criticism from democrats and republicans this would undoubtedly result in a constitutional crisis and i think democrats republicans need to speak out about this right now giving the time the resources the independence to do its job and when you are innocent if the allegations collusion with the russians and there is no evidence of that and you're innocent of that act like it trump can't actually fire moamar but he could try to fire the people in charge of him asking their replacements to kill the probe that would likely lead to huge protests and pressure on congress to name a special prosecutor giving him vastly more power that couldn't be stopped no

matter what the president wants political al-jazeera washington. still ahead here on al-jazeera six months on from mexico's deadly earthquake concerns a mounting over how politicians are treating those affected. hello there it's still rather unsettled across many parts of the middle east at the moment we've still got one weather system after another that's marching its way towards the east here's the first one on our map making its way through parts of iran through afghanistan on up towards kazakstan and there's a bit of a break for the next one that's making its way in through parts of turkey as that one edges its way eastwards it's going to be kicking up a fair amount of dust making things rather gray there on monday but i don't think there's going to be a great deal more in the way of wet weather left to it and for the western parts of

turkey this still going to be more in the way of strong winds a few showers perhaps that those mostly clear as we head through the day on tuesday a bit further towards the south and here in doha it's been quite dusty recently the wind still feeding down from the northwest still picking up a little bit of dust at times twenty nine degrees maximum temperature as we head through the next couple of days for the south for instance the law of the winds not really an issue here and all temperatures making it up to around thirty now for some madagascar we've had a so i claim with this over the past few days it has caused a fair amount of flooding fair amount of damage and that's now gladly working away towards the southeast as it does so it's still dragging plenty of showers behind it so still quite a few over the northern parts of madagascar over the next few days but there's more showers towards the west and some of them are looking pretty lively as you head across towards angola. in syria thousands of disappeared without a trace. forcibly taken from the family.

the most terrible thing to syria used to be. this has been the invisible weapon of the syrian dictatorship beat up for what is sometimes a call to compete brother to god to continue to be she told. the disappeared of syria but this time on al-jazeera. welcome back our top stories on al-jazeera vladimir putin has celebrated his landslide victory in russia's presidential election thanking thousands of his supporters in moscow put in one seventy six percent of the vote with almost all

ballots counted some observers have reported widespread violations including stuffing of ballot boxes kurdish fighters in syria's north west african region have to fight on using get real attack takes after his forces took control of the main town they launch its opera turkey launch its operation to clear the enclave of kurdish forces in january and the republican senators are warning us present donald trump not to fire special counsel robert muller they say he must be allowed to investigate alleged russian meddling in the twenty sixteen presidential election and a series of tweets over the weekend trump accuse the f.b.i. leadership of lies corruption and leaking information. other news now and two people have been injured in an explosion in the u.s. state of texas it's believed a package that's native was opened in the city of austin police are trying to find out if it's connected to three possum bombings in the city earlier this month which killed two people and injured several others people in the surrounding area have

been told to stay indoors overnight. want everyone within a half mile radius of this intersection of dollars and drive the republic of texas back here in travis country to stay inside your homes until we have had a chance to do this neighborhood safe and that will not be at a minimum until daylight want to put out the message that we've been putting out and that is not only do not touch any packages one anything that looks like a package you know you can go here to this time saudi arabia's crown prince says head out of iran accusing it of wanting to expand its power in the middle east had been simon made the comments during his first u.s. t.v. interview ahead of a trip to washington this week in jordan has more. for thirty minutes on sunday the u.s. news program sixty minutes profiled the saudi crown prince mohamed insall among his meeting this week with president donald trump and with climate actual officials in

new york for americans who don't pay much attention to foreign affairs the impression of the thirty two year old man slated to be king one day may well be a positive one he's trying to turn saudi arabia's oil based economy into one that's more diversified he favors religious and social reforms and he wants women to have more rights but if you had i mean we have extremists who forbid mixing between the two sexes in are unable to differentiate between a man and a woman alone together and their being together in a workplace but many of those ideas contradict the way of life during the time of the prophet and the caliphs the presenter asked m.b.'s about saudi arabia's poor human rights record and about his country's air war against hope these in yemen a war that has caused a humanitarian crisis but m.d.s. was most forthcoming about the existential threat he sees from iran's ayatollah ali common it he wants to create his own project in the middle east very much like

hitler who wanted to expand at the time many countries around the world and in europe did not realize how dangerous hitler was until what happened happened that night that i don't want to see the same events happening in the middle east. not mentioned during the segment the saudi led economic and political blockade against now in its tenth month the possibility of diplomatic relations with israel or the war in syria analysts say the interview was revealing in one significant way i think that his instinct to blame everything on iran from domestic problems in saudi arabia to the region was quite striking and to rewrite history that somehow the problems in saudi arabia only started in one thousand nine hundred nine erases the fact that his relative king faisal was assassinated in one thousand nine hundred five for bringing television to the kingdom and allowing girls to school go to school this is not a problem that started with iran this is a problem inside saudi arabia inside the ruling family in saudi arabia that mohamed

bin some on is really trying to erase and it comes out pretty clear in this interview the chrome prince wants saudi arabia to be the most powerful country in the middle east and he wants to make sure the u.s. is in his country's corner all the more reason then to make an appeal to the court of u.s. public opinion. al-jazeera washington. on is the executive director of the arab center in washington he says the interview was an attempt by the saudi crown prince to win over the american public. it's. cool if you want to call it in the sense that the crown prince as a normal ambitious young thirty two year old who has great dreams for his nation and was seeking to change if you will the kingdom in terms of its internal and external policies however when you carefully listen to him i think you see all

kinds of mis understandings and probably exaggerations with regards whether it's yemen or iran or his own concept of transparency openness human rights dealing with radicalism and extreme museum in the country so in a and a way i think he opened if you will the window to his personality and we learned actually a lot from this interview with regards to how we perceive the world and how we perceive themselves and how we perceive this country and israeli security guard has died in hospital after being stabbed in occupied east jerusalem the suspected attacker a twenty eight year old palestinian man was shot dead by security forces it comes as concern grows over a potential surgeon on race says the u.s. prepares to move its embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem and israeli sim zimbabwe sorry zimbabwe's first presidential and parliamentary election center of

a new gabi was removed from office where we had in july pres president emerson one god was said he hopes a vote will be violence free and transparent he became president last november after a defacto military coup help and mugabe's nearly four decade long grip on power. thousands of protesters have rallied again in brazil to denounce the killing of a politician who was an outspoken critic of police violence demonstrators gathered at the slum in rio de janeiro where city council mariella franco grew up she was shot dead along with her drive on wednesday in what investigators are treating as a targeted assassination. is now six months since an earthquake shocked mexico city leaving hundreds dead in thousands without shelter since then politicians have received criticism for how they've treated survivors and over the reconstruction process john heilemann report. it's not easy getting ready for work in the morning when you live in

a tent that's how it's been for six months for patti since her home was damaged in last september's earth quake she has her few possessions with her. i haven't really slept in six months we take turns who's on watch who isn't we look for a change of clothes the gate we use ropes there's people who try to get in one hundred full of camps like patti's adulthood around the camp to thousands of others were damaged tiles is living with relatives or paying rent they can ill afford elsewhere while they wait for the more than three hundred fifty million dollar reconstruction budget kid much of it hasn't done yet and that's partly because the city committee set up to administer the phones led by local makers was plagued by irregularities for experts only a boy's replanted resigned in protest among them. although in this moment i can say that the money has been managed with the desirable transparency. that's a worry especially with elections coming up c.s.t.

the net i'm not saying if the use of this money isn't rigorously made transparent it's possible that it's going to end up being diverted many know and others hope the city's finance secretary freshly assigned to clear up the mess will stop that from happening everything would be to fine it would be up on the internet platform for all the things we would be able to feed the wild west on with geim the budget. for the reconstruction of it was supposed to go from the start the city government has tried to create more checks and balances than elsewhere in the country to stop funds going astray but starting almost a new will mean more delays officials admit that they've been improvising and you can still really see that there are some temporary centers like this one offering loans but in general information on how to get help has been little publicized and often inaccurate or confused. civil organization so even the census of the damage

caused by the earthquake still isn't complete its will lead to a situation in which people still don't know exactly what comes next. your home and misconceived. hundreds of people have been forced to flee their homes in the australian state of victoria as bush fires raged across four hundred thousand square kilometers a dozen probably as have been destroyed already with almost forty towns under threat eight hundred people have so far been evacuated officials believe the blazes were sponsored by lightning strikes. and fully battle with the headlines on al-jazeera vladimir putin has celebrated his landslide victory in russia's presidential election thanking thousands of his supporters in moscow putin won seventy six percent of the vote with almost all

ballots counted some observers have reported widespread violations including the suffering of ballot boxes but it's not your wish to deliver us to your good wishes . it's very important to maintain this unity to attract those who could have voted to overcome we have to stand together shoulder to shoulder we have to think about unity not about differences we should think about the future of our people about the future of our country we are destined for success. kurdish fighters in syria's north western african region have vowed to fight on using given tactics after turkish forces took control of the main town turkey launch its operation to clear the enclave of kurdish forces in january in the u.s. republican senators are warning president donald trump not to fire special counsel robert mueller they say he must be allowed to investigate alleged russian meddling in the twenty six thousand presidential election in a series of tweets over the weekend trump accuse the f.b.i. leadership of lies corruption and leaking information. two people have been injured

in an explosion in the u.s. state of texas it's believed a package detonated when it was opened in the city of austin police are trying to find out if it's connected to three possibly in the city earlier this month which killed two people and injured many others people in the surrounding area have been told to stay indoors overnight saudi arabia's crown prince has hit out at iran accusing it of wanting to expand its middle east power mom had been salman made the comments during a us t.v. interview ahead of a trip to washington this week. thousands of protesters of ronnie to again in brazil to denounce the killing of a politician who was an outspoken critic of police violence franco was shot dead along with a drive on wednesday in what investigators are treating as a targeted assassination and zimbabwe's first presidential and parliamentary election since robert mugabe was removed from office will be held in july present an assignment to god was says he hopes of all it will be violence free and

transparent those are the headlines on al-jazeera coming up next here it's one of one east. this is really an attack on itself is a lot of misunderstanding of what free speech is supposed to be about the context it hugely important setting the stage for a serious debate up front at this time on al-jazeera. china because of the big sporting superpower. but football that's always been there it can be skewed. people only qualified for the greek cup one zero zero zero and lost and we see. despite their current no.