i'm hard go a journalist with the state media's he packed his bags he was separated from his a train wife and two daughters seventeen years ago she was forced to flee if the being sacked from her government job in ethiopia because of honest knowledge that he just got a dog and i will believe this is not a dream when i lived in asmara i had never imagined the possibility of peace between ethiopia and eritrea during my lifetime the weight and lack of communication with my family was painful i felt like i had an incurable disease as model becomes the one hundred fifty of us the notion for if you have been ellen's would have also announced the cause of quiet twenty percent of the little known at it for. the road linking the two countries as well four hundred of waited before vehicles allowed to fly again. at a train has agreed to grant access to its ports a boon for ethiopia which lost its main due to the sea with the outbreak of the wall twenty years ago if we start to connecting our populations we have big

market. by some token a chance with the push and sunni. hope that the opening of the port relaunching to penalized was not good for the strings in the twenty first deals have been a threat. to new ties with its much larger neighbor with a population of more than one hundred million people also raises the prospect of revival for a trail ailing economy many are now hoping the tricky exercise of democracy to the disputed border will go quickly and smoothly as the process to normalize relations mohammed at all just. you. it watching the al-jazeera news hour live from london still to come on the program google is find a record five billion dollars by the e.u. for breaking competition was leaving it all to chance to germantown using a lottery to decide who gets a final resting place at the local cemetery. and in sports we're going to hear from

the female golfer preparing to make history by competing on the men's tour this week. but first the syrian activists say a rebel held town in the southern province of the ra has come under heavy bombardment by government forces there have been dozens of air strikes and heavy shelling on the rebel held city of najaf the city's only hospital has been bombed with reports of dozens of casualties now is the largest urban center in southern syria still controlled by rebel fighters well the fighting has forced hundreds of civilians to flee west towards the israeli occupied golan heights many displaced syrians are still gathered along the border in makeshift camps after the israeli army turned them away stephanie decker is there for us at least six airstrikes have just come in and this is all part of the syrian government's campaign to get this

area back from the rebels and you can also see just how close it is we can hear the plane in the sky just how close it is to the tents were those syrian internally displaced gives you a sense of just how terrified these people are the border is closed an israeli authorities have made it very clear they won't be letting anyone it. now we've been witnessing an intensive air strike campaign throughout the day our team is counted at least one hundred air strikes they started a little further afield and then they started hitting right in front of us also quite close to the areas where you see those tents those tents or are housing syrian internally displaced people who have fled the war these are people who are now trapped between closed borders and between the syrian government. also there's no real aid there for them no organized aid efforts yes the israeli army has been giving out some supplies in some tents but there's also

a real fear of what happens when the syrian government takes over their areas they have been advancing very forth these people are still in rebel territory they've been living under the opposition for around four years so they are terrified of what will happen to them if there is any sort of retaliation from the syrian government forces well meanwhile residents in two besieged towns in syria's province are being evacuated after a deal was struck between opposition fighters and pro-government forces thousands are being bussed out. in the south in the northwest the towns have been under siege by opposition fighters for more than four years those leaving include pro regime forces and their families they're being taken to areas and the government controlled. how massa says protesters sending burning kites into israel have a right to continue to mass agree to a cease fire on saturday but kites and balloons are still floating across from gaza

the israelis say millions of dollars worth of crops have been destroyed and further attacks will not be tolerated from stratford reports. over the border fence towards israel. these ready government says they've set fire to many had tears of land destroying millions of dollars worth of crops this protester insisted we hide his identity he's a member of a group calling itself the sons of the winery it's named after the man who helped hamas acquire drone technology and was assassinated into musea in two thousand and sixteen. we will not stop launching the balloons into kites until israel lift the siege the ball is in israel's court we don't decide whether there is a war or not we are not afraid we have suffered in a war against us every day since israel started the blockade twelve years ago.

israel responded to the kite and balloon flying protests over the weekend by targeting dozens of hamas positions the attacks were seen as the worst escalation of violence between hamas and israel since their war four years ago the sons of saudi describe themselves as a loose organization with around a hundred members now i must say is that the youth of gaza have every right to protest in a way that it describes as nonviolent until israel looks the siege. a hamas spokesman told us the protests will continue despite israeli media reports of a large military operation being planned to stop the. first these cuts and balloons are a peaceful form of protest they used by protesters including young people they have the right to use all kinds of peaceful resistance along the border to demand the

lifting of israel's siege. at least one thousand five hundred civilians including five hundred children who killed in gaza during the two thousand and fourteen war. protesters like this man who's actually supported by hamas and all the factions in gaza say they won't stop despite israel's military threats. al-jazeera gaza. at least nineteen people have drowned after a boat carrying migrants sank off the coast in of northern cyprus turkish cypriot officials say the boat was carrying one hundred sixty people overall twenty six of whom remain missing the coast guard and helicopters are currently looking in the area where the boat has believed to have sunk a total of one hundred five people have been rescued in the airlifted to hospital in turkey. authorities in italy have been removing temporary housing from a rome at camp in rome on the orders of the mayor the containers were provided by

the city ten years ago is a temporary solution italy's far right interior minister met there salvini has said he wants to carry out a census of the roma community with a view to expelling anyone who is not italian google says it will appeal against the record five billion dollars fine handed down by the european union the e.u. says the tech giant used its android operating system to cement the dominance of its search engine sunny giggle reports. a three year investigation and direct quote five billion dollars fine a steep penalty for google accused by the european union of abusing its power as they call it an entire sector in the phone market who has engaged in illegal practices to cement its term and market position internet search. an effective end to this contact within ninety days or face a penalty payment at the heart of the issue is android the tech giants operating

system for mobile phones used to more than eighty percent of the world's smartphones it is essential to google's future revenues. but the european commission found google have blocked competition by forcing phone makers to pre-install services such as search engine and map software as a condition of using its operation system it also paid phone manufacturers incentives if they installed google search without rival services the case would seem to prove the point that there's no such thing as a free lunch when tech giants come bearing gifts and google is finding out to its cost it's having to concede this is already the case in countries such as china and russia the french government has welcomed the decision to stop it from squeezing out any rivals. google will have to change their practices in terms of licensing of

the virus and road software applications that in turn would have a considerable impact on their commercial policy. google has said it will appeal against the decision it may only be a fraction of its revenue but the real challenge will be if the e.u. forces it to change its future behavior. paris. alison stewart allen is the c.e.o. of international marketing partners an international business consulting firm and she joins me live in the studio thank you so much effort being here so five billion a lot of money certainly for the parent company of google i think it's exactly two weeks as you know two weeks earning so the damage is obviously not financial how big it that how big will the damage be to lose reputation well i think this is the second major fine that they've had in the last sort of eighteen months and even though for google it's not a big number you know five billion dollars for them is probably you know not significant two weeks as you said worth of revenue but it's more damaging

reputational a because you're now making people doubt the ethics of how google operates and if you actually look at the decision passed down today behind this fine it appears that google or the view is that google paid inducements to mobile phone network operators to mobile phone manufacturers to actually preload their android system and to minimize the chance that you as a consumer or user would ever use a rival system so in a way the problem is that we are locked into the google ecosystem or that's the view of the commissioner who lobbied to find today and ultimately it's about choice so the consumer is now more skeptical partly thanks to the facebook cambridge analytical story about how people are using data affecting their choice and

generally a perception of manipulation what do you think the e.u. is now going to want to google to do further down the line well i think a couple of things firstly they're going to have to offer choice to the consumer now can you choose your operating system on a on a mobile phone is that technology even available for the consumer to choose. certainly the you know users can choose their search engine and i wouldn't be at all surprised if we're now going to be asked as microsoft did with p. in the p.c. realm on a on a mobile now we're going to probably be asked can we use or would you like to use another search engine would you like to use another mail account would you like to have a different streaming or t.v. and radio and. you know. google play so i think it's about opening up the options for the user in

a very proactive way rather than saying well you is the user if you are so upset or annoyed you'll have to search it out on your own this is really hinges on trust and then takes and you brought up cambridge analytic and its links to facebook but i suppose i mean you disagree with me if you will that perhaps people see facebook and google in different ways because when you're on facebook you upload your pictures everything about yourself your favorite music you chat with your friends whereas on google you're thinking well it's just a search engine it doesn't matter as much what do you think well i think there's more to it because if you look at the google ecosystem it's bigger than just. a search engine it is a email application it is the mechanism by which you might get your music in your or your video it's you tube as well so it's actually you know a much broader set of utilities and functionalities than just facebook which is yes

it's about communication and sharing but google has many more features if you like certainly than facebook does so i think it's much more all encompassing yeah i think we always forget just how big a part they play in our lives and all of these companies out since you alan c.e.o. of international marketing partners thank you so much thank you. was that with us here on the news hour still to come the study that so charted the influence of off shore social media users on the elections on the african continent plus. jonah hold on board a train to nowhere with allegations of political corruption issues should be you from sometimes on free media and civil society hold monks a big joke they've been talking to me. and it's a double soup for welshman thomas on stage eleven of the tour de france details coming up in sport.

welcome back let's look at the weather across the levant and western parts of asia is a fine picture in a pretty hot picture from many forty degrees in tashkent not far short of that in tehran baghdad forty four degrees but again southern parts of iraq could be pushing the fifty mark we've got temperatures there in excess of thirty all the way around the eastern side of the mediterranean we are losing the share so across the caucasus still wanted to in evidence but generous slightly improved situation fairly brisk winds picking up as well downs through iraq could be some dust around moving down into the arabian peninsula certainly with the low humidity with that wind blowing down through the gulf the temperatures are now on the rise generally so forty five forty six degrees on the cards here forward on the other side the potential temperatures just below forty's recent days and not too hot there for mecca and medina so let's move across into southern portions of africa we've got

fairly brisk winds coming in towards the coast of south africa there so durban temperature twenty one degrees it should be fine for cape town for the most part patchy cloud around namibia but generally fine conditions when told there are twenty degrees celsius and respecting fine conditions to prevail across much of zambia and zimbabwe although a major sea want to show is pushing into the east coast of madagascar. in the wrong waste inefficiencies and a growing population i've learned to do when dealing water since. you've been determined to attract water from any source possible this is what you see as a result now the country's future it's. attitude to change and innovative solutions are being from. people in power in best gigs iran's water crisis on

al-jazeera. when people need to be heard. but he's been there a few jomo still his lawyer it's not unknown sure and the story needs to be told we do stories that have impact on society i testified in the court of law to make sure that the bad guys up behind al jazeera has teams on the ground to bring new documentaries and live news on air and on top. of them back here's a reminder of the top stories on al-jazeera twelve teenagers and their coach who

were rescued from a cave in thailand have been recounting their ordeal at their first public appearance the boys paid tribute to the diver who died while trying to rescue the u.s. president donald trump as they get contradicted his intelligence community just a day after saying he has full faith in it he told reporters at the white house that russia no longer poses a cyber security threat. and the syrian government has launched air strikes on that were held since as it continues its offensive on the southwest province of their ah the city's own. hospital has been. the war in syria has taken its toll on the economies of neighboring countries especially lebanon and jordan the reopening of a key border crossing between syria and jordan could help revive businesses but progress is being stalled because of the visions among lebanese politicians from the bekaa valley reports. business owners in lebanon have been hit hard by the

closure of the only overland trade route. exports which used to pass through jordan to reach countries have been badly disrupted by the war in neighboring syria. just like thousands of other truck drivers unemployed they're hoping that change with the reopening of the. between syria and jordan. reach a point where we have to sell our lands even the gold we had to survive we had to pay to the banks we are hoping the road will open so we can compensate for. the syrian army regain control of. it's been shut by the jordanian government since rebels seized control on the syrian side of the border in two thousand and fifteen . between one thousand one hundred ten trucks headed to gulf countries on a daily basis each truck carried at least thirty tons of. had to resort to

exporting. billions of dollars have been lost especially on agricultural exports which primarily rely on land routes. lebanese products were less competitive markets because of the increased cost of shipping. or air. after the road closure it would take up to a month or more for vegetables and fruits to reach their destination and the goods were no longer. the reopening of like many here call a vital artery is expected to revive a stagnant economy but farmers and other exporters fear the reopening could be delayed because of a political dispute over the divisive issue of future relations between lebanon and syria lebanese politicians of the syrian government have been pushing for normalizing relations with the syrian government. relations with the

government of president bashar assad but it hasn't been dealing with in an official capacity since the syrian conflict began the livelihoods of tens of thousands of lebanese depend on the future of the. lebanese government leaders may have to take the road to damascus and resume direct contact with president bashar assad's government before the lifeline for lebanon's export industry is restored. now elections in a number of african countries are subject to considerable social media influence from outside that's the conclusion of a study of twitter use in the continent the researchers behind how africa tweets looked at twitter traffic around elections in nine states that voted between june two thousand and seventeen and april two thousand and eighteen they found more than half of key influencers tweeting all the elections came from outside the country's voting someone from other african countries notably south africa but fifty four

percent of the most influential external voices were from outside africa itself the u.s. and britain leading the way followed by france spain and the u.a.e. whose influence was strongest in egypt while the how africa tweet study was released by portland communications and robert what concern is there partner for a joins us live in the city thank you so much for being with us here on al-jazeera so first of all that sort of summed it up a little bit but tell us a little bit about what surprised you the most while you were putting together the study think yes this is a fourth study on how twitter is being used in africa and previously we've looked at volumes of tweets languages cities except for but this time we decided to look at an area the not been interrogated before which was elections so we looked at ten elections taking place in in one country in africa and the really three key findings that stood out from the report the first is the degree to which external voices a shaping the debate on twitter in africa around elections and as you said at the top the it was particularly interesting the voices from outside the continent were

particularly prevalent that the second key finding was that politicians seem to be less influential in twitter debates around african elections the average across the elections that we studied was just under ten percent and there are some outliers there for example in rwanda or about a third of the influential voices were politicians but it was lower overall than we expected and then the third key finding which was really interesting to us was the prevalence of balls we saw boats. in other words twitter accounts exhibiting machinelike behavior prevalent across all of the elections rising up to in fact twenty five percent in kenya ok and obviously i mean votes for example we see them on all accounts and in the rest of the world as well but i think the figure that is quite astounding is the fifty four percent of the most influential external voices were actually outside of africa itself which i mean i'm sure a lot of people will comment on the u.s. election as well not being in the u.s. but this is quite a staggering figure how why do you think this is

a do you think it just depends from country to country i think it does depend very much from country to country and there are a multitude of factors it is the countries are also influential zigzag avionics during different countries have different relationships with poles of the world so for example in the case of liberia we saw a very very strong link back to be influential voices in the u.s. so this is partly about where the diaspora from african nations have emigrated to it's partly about the relationships of those countries maintain around trade but also probably partly about the media environment in the countries themselves. yeah because one fan is non-domestic news outlets and journalists accounted for one in five of the handles feeling discussion so basically maybe sort of big international news organizations the interesting point about international news organizations is that they seem to counterbalance some of the more worrying trends let's have a bot so while bots were prevalent it was actually the case that news organizations were about five or six times more influential in shaping debates on twitter and

african elections do you think that people are aware of this within africa itself well they're more aware of it today and that we've launched our report yes i do think they are because there have been several other studies looking at the issue of boats and of fake news and in africa and as i say it seems that african electorates are referring back to trusted media sources so they're calling out the bots they you know even they know what's taking place but i hope through our study we've managed to shed a bit more light on exactly what's taken place is a complicated space and it's very interesting especially to see which outside countries influence the particular elections for the moment over what concern the who is the author of that report how africa tweets thank you. police and medical sources in iraq say at least eleven people have now died in protests in the south of the country about the poor state of public services the rest began in basra last week and has now spread to several other cities one of the main reasons for the

anger is the frequent power blackouts is imran khan reports now from baghdad. protests now into their second week have spurred the government into looking for a solution as summer temperatures soar electricity supply has become the erratic a problem made worse by iran cutting off supplies because of one health billion dollars in unpaid bills it says that sparked protests by rocky's opec second largest oil exporter is appealing for help from the world's number one producer a high level iraqi delegation visited saudi arabia on wednesday iraqis hope iran's regional rival can supply electricity to them via the regional grid analysts suggest that saudi arabia will be keen to help out as it's long been concerned about iran's close relations with baghdad. i believe that such a visit by the iraqi side to saudi arabia is a very important one because saudi arabia has expressed keenness and readiness to

supply iraq and not only with electricity but to help in other several sectors such as housing projects and transport on the level of spreading its political influence on iraq because saudi arabia has implemented a rather new approach the success of saudi arabia on the economic level will definitely ensure saudi arabia's political success in iraq. iran will be watching what is negotiated with saudi arabia closely iraq is racing to find a short term deal that can bring economic and energy relief to the southern district and by doing so it hopes that it can quell the protest movement before it turns into a nationwide movement that could topple the government. government leaders in iraq are under an enormous amount of pressure. decades of war corruption and infrastructure neglect means a long term multibillion effort is needed to find a long term solution imran khan al-jazeera the baghdad. who the rebels in yemen say

they have attacked an oil refinery in the saudi capital using a drone the drone targeted the state run around cove refinery in riyadh the iranian aligned rebels say the drone attack marks the start of a new stage in the turning aggression the oil company said it had contained a small fire caused by what it called an operational incident. in germany bavarian state police have begun patrols of the border with austria until now only federal police had been carrying out the checks the state police will be looking for people trying to enter illegally but won't be able to turn anyone back instead anyone court will be handed over to the federal authorities well hungary's prime minister viktor orban is in israel for meetings with his counterpart benjamin netanyahu some see his visit as controversial because of accusations of anti semitism against him back home or by his still fighting off allegations of corruption and nepotism he's

accused of helping his friends benefit from largely you funded projects join a whole visited one of those projects outside budapest. in the village where victor all bond was born there's a smart new football stadium it's well known that he's a big football fan and it's just a stone's throw from the prime minister's weekend home the stadium is the first stop on a vintage train ride that also takes in an arboretum and a pleasant ice cream shop the train line and the stadium were built say anticorruption activists using public money with construction contracts awarded to well connected businessmen part of an elite that's grown rich through its proximity to power the beneficiaries of contractors who are actually carried out these days for all those who are people of course he said or by the government. on the day we visit a local tour group arrives to board what's been dubbed the train to nowhere. from

here you get a pretty good idea of how a lot of money was spent on not very much if anybody did do well out of this project i'm pretty sure it was in the hunger area public. it's estimated that over eighty percent of public investment in hungary comes from the european union's so-called cushioning from its intended to help poorer members catch up with hungary increasingly in conflict with the e.u. over corruption and migration policies brussels plans to cut those funds by a quarter in its next budget is the government apparently not much we've seen that part of the blackmailing horizon for the past couple of years you know that to have a budget the european budget you have to have the costs of all member states. and that's not going to become census which is very likely to happen if the criteria they've set is going to remain and then that is not good to be

a budget so confident is mr albany in fact that he's become exporting his influence . let's take you straight to the white house now that's not to be sanders the white house spokes person for the news briefing room to make sure that right russia is unable to meddle in our elections as they have done in the past as if we have stated. it's going on. since there is currently not an election. specifically but i certainly believe. that we are taking steps to make sure they can't do it again unlike previous administrations this president is actually taking bold action and reform to make sure it doesn't happen again but he does believe that they would target certainly u.s. elections again when the president and the d.n.i. . the red lights are on we all. know there's a just and that's why we're taking steps to ensure that these things don't happen

again we wouldn't actually spend as much time and effort as we are if we didn't believe that they were still looking at us from the beginning of his administration president trump has actually taken action to defend our election system for meddling in interference i want to read through a few of the things that we're doing in may of two thousand and seventeen president trump signed an executive order to strengthen and review the cyber security of our nation and its critical infrastructure the department of homeland security has taken the lead in working with all fifty states local governments and private companies to improve election security d.h.s.s. increase coordination among all election partners thirty four states fifty two county and local governments and five election companies receive cyber security scans regularly from d h s d h s plans to provide on site risk and vulnerability assessments to all states that requested so far eighteen states have requested this assessment a new. well a program was launched to increase rapid response capabilities on election day and in twenty seventeen on site cyber security support was provided in march of twenty

eighteen congress provided the election assistance commission with three hundred eighty million dollars in funding for election assistance grants to states these are steps that we've taken to prevent it from happening these are steps that we've taken because we see that there's a threat there cecelia clarifying what you just said dan coats said point blank the threat is still ongoing from russia does this white house believe that currently this threat is still ongoing certainly like i just said we believe that the threat still exist which is why we are taking steps to prevent it again you wouldn't go through that lengthy process if you were. the president to clarify these comments from the president but what does the president stand by all of the other public comments on the trip including using constant interview criticizing teresa mayes and the bratz divisions in the comments that russia and others it that russia controlled germany over that line and that other comments in that press conference monday were indeed.