to this area it is the last area in southwestern syria that is still under opposition control which is why it is significant also just briefly this is the area where that jet was downed yesterday so it is all very significant of fighting incredibly close to the border with these radio. and with regard to the specific activity allegedly carried out by an isolator group it seems that it was multiple. carried out in this area attacking civilians as well as pro-government is attacking in one instance a vegetable market question in the morning yes this is what we understand from syrian state television swayed is around one hundred kilometers from where we are it's been under government government control for a very long time it's majority drew so this is a rare attack martín that doesn't happen there very often and from those reports one suicide bomber detonated himself in

a market very early in the morning but the figures we're getting now from syrian state t.v. is fifty dead and a lot of injuries those numbers are increasing so again having said it's rare but it does highlight the challenges when it comes to the security situation on the ground yes the syrian government and this is an area they've held for a long time but the syrian government is taking a lot of land but there are security concerns of any sort of retaliatory measures by any of the groups that still remain close by all right stephanie deca live in the occupied golan heights thank you. we're going to lot more to come on this al-jazeera news hour including the rescue efforts in greece after wildfires killed dozens of people and damaged property will be live from one of the worst hit areas . donald trump raises tyrus again as regional economic blocs try to find ways to reduce trade barriers. and in sports a surprise deal a spanish giants barcelona make a move for brazilian strike amount or

a bad coming up with. the search state media in laos are reporting that at least nineteen people died when a dam collapsed on monday more than three thousand people are still trapped by flooding and they are waiting to be rescued and one of the south korean companies building the site in at a pace you say cracks were spotted in one of the supporting dams the night before it collapsed it says the government was notified and ordered an evacuation but many living nearby did not have enough time to escape why in haiti has more from bangkok in neighboring thailand. slowly but surely a picture is emerging of how serious this incident is with the government in laos drip feeding information through state media the latest they are saying is that at

least nineteen people have been killed with around one hundred still missing and thousands of people in the area waiting to be rescued there are people sitting on rooftops still people clinging to trees surrounded by those muddy floodwaters that we're cascading downstream from the dam site on sunday night reaching some five kilometers downstream we also know that this may soon turn into an international search and rescue operation there is a thai group of search and rescue personnel on the thai lao border waiting for the green light from the lao government to go in and assist with this operation which is really only just starting to get on the way the south koreans also saying they want to send a team because south korean companies are involved in the construction of this dam sighs well the dam was due to begin operations later this year five years after construction began and it's all part of the government's plan to become the largest

energy exporter in the region calling itself the battery of asia now lauer's landlocked and operates thirty nine. power plants in the mekong river region officials are planning to build fifty more with that number set to double in the coming years the rush to develop has been blamed for a number of dam bursts in recent years devastating farmland in nearby villages environmentalist have warned of irreparable damage to downstream areas. we can now speak to tom for therapy who is in focus and in southern england he's talking to us via skype he is a journalist and filmmaker who's been reporting on the environmental issues surrounding dam building in southeast asia thank you very much indeed for talking to us so presumably you're not particularly surprised by the the breaking down of this dam and the subsequent damage and devastation that's ensued. not

surprised at all because the problem is that don't construction and design is going in hate we go out proper concentration with people who will be most of the decisive people who've been devastated when it is their own business and it's not who calls. on one year ago that was the most important thing for us and i wrote i'm just wondering about all the international regulations with regard to the construction of these kinds of edifices that perhaps have been ignored or perhaps have not been implemented as seriously as they might. there doesn't seem to be a very clear international regulation as such that the so-called on free code of all hydroplane of business. where they recommend certain

types of resilience built into infrastructure in the care you saw earthquake though it's. got these are not compulsory and it is our government to oversee the standards and susi. international support in the case of the large government which has very low technical capability to oversee the sings they should be seeking support from the met congo commission from un united nations environmental program and an independent group are experts and part of the problem seems to be the fact that where these dams are belt are densely populated quite often with people villages and population centers dependent upon what is quite fertile land. absolutely.

and wherever these dams are being built the the the the first question is whether the dems should be built at all because the majority of the population in these areas who will be most affected will get the least benefit if the dam is still got money from that and we. know that they will sell the units and succeed to the client which actually has a surplus of atrocity right now so thailand is having an energy review and we've got other down projects coming about to start or long as well to finish next year very large down in the south. and i have already published criticisms of this that there is a failure to investigate the risk of quite in the sob story area which is.

much further and further from the outcome from this particular down disaster but it's right on the neck on river rise. if there was an earthquake or a degree earthquake which earthquake experts say is possible in this region since between seven and eight they could do very serious damage and we have no information from that gun company about what kind of earthquake resilience is to be built into the next. right tom full of her up thank you very much indeed you raise some very interesting points and perhaps we can follow up on one thank you very much indeed taking the time to talk to us here at out to sara thank you. now we're going to greece because rescuers there fear they may be finding more bodies after wildfires swept through coastal areas close to the capital athens at least seventy nine people have been killed so far the government declared a state of emergency with many five still burning our correspondent is in the

seaside resort of mathy where twenty six people were found dead. with ferocious intense and see the flames tore through homes and livelihoods. and the wildfires quickly turned deadly. locked in a final embrace dozens of bodies discovered in the popular seaside village of marty east of athens families had huddled together for safety but found no escape. early this morning we discovered three other victims further away this place where unfortunately there are twenty six people men women and importunately children and . we found cars with keys left in the ignition the doors open and first aid supplies left in the seats picture emerges of people abandoning their cars and trying to escape on foot. within hours large parts of marty had been destroyed

survivors described running for the sea to escape the choking smoke. military and coast guard vessels along with dozens of private boats join the effort to rescue more than seven hundred people from the beaches some survivors were discovered at sea. here in the resort town of marty nearly every block nearly every street there are signs of devastation like this charred cars lined the streets the fire was so intense here it's even melted the metal on some of these vehicles and some locals who have returned to inspect what's left of their properties in every fourth or fifth house here seems to have always been completely destroyed but where do you begin thinking about the building owners emergency crews supported by the military go from house to house and as coast guards inspect the sea the fear is the death toll could rise to see many eleventh he is the mini me or africa today greece is mourning and in memory of those who perished we are declaring three

days of national mourning however we should not let that overwhelm us because this is a time to fight to be unified and courageous your bun up all early in the hot dry weather fires burn on the other side of athens to there was panic because greeks looked for their neighbors. this is a coastal town an hour's drive west of the capital fire crews try to limit the destruction but it was out of their control. an appeal for international help has resulted in additional resources being dispatched from spain and cyprus to deal with the worst wildfires in more than a decade in two thousand and seven more than eighty people were killed as fires raged across the country for days. this year a dry winter as again cause tinderbox conditions with one hundred kilometer an hour winds fanning the flames for greece in peak tourist season the fires are

a danger to its frangela colony only adding to the toll of a tragic summer. and go live now to get the very latest there in marty and what is the situation now the grim task of trying to find all these people that are still unaccounted for. first royal over the course of the morning here in muncie we've seen emergency crews going from house to house identifying some of the people that are listed as missing the authorities haven't given any clear number on exactly how many people are still unaccounted for or though it's thought to be in triple figures the official death toll now stands at seventy nine when we last checked yesterday evening close to two hundred people were hospitalized many of them children some in real critical condition. the

authorities now really are making sure that they are doing their best as they possibly can to to make sure that those missing are located as quickly as possible they've sent out a a warning to locals who may be coming back to these towns that perhaps it's not the best thing for them to do that while this operation is underway but here in marty this is the the sea front where so many people fled on monday evening it's a very strange juxtaposition seeing the crystalline waters of the aegean sea fringe by roughly a couple of kilometers of complete devastation and a bit further down this coastline is where the twenty six were found at the top of that cliff they tried to reach the sea to avoid the flames but were given the impossible task of jumping into the rocks or succumbing to the flames this is just a small section of the devastation here in muncie was a beach bar completely and utterly destroyed we've seen people coming back here picking through what's left of their properties over nearly every single block

nearly every single street here has multiple houses the completely destroyed but as i mentioned in my report there wage you begin starting to even think about putting your life back together after something like this. and i mean wildfires do occur almost every year don't they in in various parts of the country are there any. any sort of theories as to what is called this this year's wildfires have gotten so out of hand and that have led to so much loss of life and devastation prime minister alexis tsipras did raise some concerns about the way in which these fires sprang up the first fifty kilometers west of athens the others thirty kilometers east of athens sprang up roughly similar taney asli of each other. the prime minister suggested the arson could have been involved a u.s.

unmanned drone is being employed to fly over the real entire region looking for anything suspicious but you're right in saying that greece is no stranger to wildfires like this the worst was back in the last major one was back in two thousand and seven more than eighty people were killed then but let's not forget that the specter of a stereotype is very much in the background of everybody's lives here in greece and there are some real worries that the emergency services have been overstretched in their ability to make sure that there were fire breaks in place to avoid the fire spreading as quickly as it did those questions no doubt will come and many of those questions will of course be aimed at the government here thank you very much indeed barker our correspondent who's there. just east of the greek capital athens now to japan where at least eighty people have been killed there in japan's record breaking heat wave tens of thousands of people have been sent to hospital in many cities across the country the temperature having reached forty degrees celsius

forecasters say it'll remain hot for the next few weeks. well richard will let us know if the japanese are going to have any relief in the next couple of minutes but also coming up here on the news hour a welcoming message laced with threats donald trump's warning to mexico's leftist president elect. and in schools a solid performance for germany from top seed dominic am peter has the latest from the tournament in hamburg. and it's. the weather sponsored by qatar airways. well very quickly i'm going to try and join up the weather we've got all around the northern hemisphere at the moment there's a little bit of

a respite in the heat wave across japan but only for a few days it is coming back we've also got extreme heat of course across scandinavia with wildfires to some signs the heat is just edging away from parts of finland archangel is going to see record temps of think in the next forty eight hours but when you look at the biggest of the bigger picture what we should have is a jet stream a river of winds ten kilometers up in the atmosphere basic just keeping things stirred up in the northern hemisphere but at the moment it's not a river is nothing more than a stream just a trickling babbling brook but the interesting thing about the jet stream is where these sort of crests are that's where we get high pressure areas that's where we tend to get heat wave areas by same token we get these areas these areas of low pressure where we get troughs in the jet stream as a pattern which is repeated around the globe so if you want bad weather go to these sources not great there at the moment go to north america and we've got the same sort of thing we've got this high pressure across the eastern seaboard we've got high pressure across westerners heat wave warnings been issued there unsettled

weather across parts of north america and the pattern repeats all the way across into the pacific and all the way to go back to the heat wave in japan. the weather catarrh airways. the world's primary curtained producing nation. is at the forefront of the war on drugs we're talking about serious organized crime as a country where reaching a critical point while some have made fortunes many others have suffered at the hands of this multibillion dollar industry growth of this business will go on forever change almost global policies do who are the winners and losers of this illicit trade snow of the andes on al-jazeera an insider's perspective just six months ago we were at the brink of the real donald trump i think he makes comments that he probably shouldn't make from the former. national security director tom was

in a class all by himself and for the thirty years i've known donald he creates his own reality maybe he goes head to head with j.d. coolidge there has been no evidence that shows collusion if that's not collusion if that's not working with russian what is on al-jazeera. to take a look at the top stories here it out today there has been a suicide attack there a crowded polling station just outside the pakistani city of question that's the capital of baluchistan province all the thirty people including children were killed millions of people are voting in

a tightly contested general election. and suicide bombers have targeted a government held city in southern syria at least fifty people are feared dead in alsa weta the city is near to a pocket of territory that is held by isis. local media in laos. reporting that at least nineteen people have died after a dam collapse on monday and evacuation was ordered after the government was notified of cracks in one of the sporting downs of many living nearby didn't have enough time to escape. all right we're going to go back now to our top story and that of course of the general election taking place in pakistan we can talk to share as predator who is in islamabad is the director of abdul wali university dan thank you for talking to us i'm just wondering as to what the overall impact could be of this attack on question where we think more than thirty people have died the death toll certainly rising whether this is likely to have a a big impact on the way people's enthusiasm for voting.

well it's a horrific incident it's a tragedy one of the see the spread of which have been happening here and one would expect with the incident like this. in the early hours of the pulley it could impact it could have a negative influence impact on the voters coming to the polling stations across the board but what we have seen and what we have of the living here in pakistan the people are despite this very serious very big incident we are more than thirty people have died people are still coming to polling stations to call bill there are long queues all across pakistan and the. question is that this time the turnout could be higher than the previous elections so what we see that it

hasn't deterred people the water from coming to the polling stations and we still have about three more hours to go far in the polling time and what about these controversial suggestions that seem to be gaining gaining ground certainly on social media and that is that the army is playing a rather proactive role should we say in manipulating not only the voting process but of course the electoral landscape as well i mean how far do you consider the military to be involved in pakistani politics today. military obviously did i. deny any involvement in political engineering manipulation but the evidence suggests that wise and i'm seeing evidence of. election candidates coming public going public saying that they received calls from

the military the human rights commission of pakistan. different where you serve politicians. such as someone of the level of the. party leaders of the other political party this. the outside forces establishment in an establishment in pakistan in terms of the military so i won't spread and this is probably for the first time in pakistan it. has been alleged. but what if even. in. a potential date the times when the it was was against in the. people out. and it will change. i think. sure as sure as i'm sorry i have to jump in there unfortunately the line is letting

us down now and it's become rather distorted but she has put archer in islamabad thank you very much indeed i think we got the first part of our conversation a very clearly indian thank you very much. that the un envoy for the middle east peace process has warned of increasingly frequent and dangerous confrontations between israel and syria nicholai malott and off made the comments during a un security council meeting in new york at diplomatic editor james space reports . it's a time of fresh tension in the middle east the u.n. special coordinator briefing by video link from jerusalem warned of troubling developments on two fronts as we need today tensions between syria and israel continued to rise by last saturday we were minutes away from another devastating confrontation between israel and hamas in gaza. even before the meeting started the israeli ambassador came to brief reporters on the downing of the syrian jet which

he claimed to infiltrate israeli airspace he dodged my question though about a deal which president trump has said he's done with president putin concerning israeli security the world really doesn't know what the deal is can you explain more for us i don't know about the ordeal you know a friend and i can tell you one thing we will not allow the iranians to be in their base and that our borders in the golan heights this is our policy and by means that are now with very clear about if with him it is to put in when he meets mr trump wherever he will meeting with or the same we will not allow the iranians to be at their bases next week while i do have an agreement. we have a policy we don't have an agreement inside the council meeting the israeli ambassador went on to blame the escalation of violence in gaza on hamas while his palestinian counterpart said it was the result of israeli on going occupation and aggression that sweden has the presidency of the council this month it sam bacile

his assessment was sobering there are you know questions to be put whether there are real preparations for peace in the region we have constant bandaids on the wounds that are there but no real long term solutions everyone is waiting for a credible peace plan we haven't seen that yet the us has for eighteen months said it's coming up with that he's plan but there were no fresh details from ambassador nikki haley she instead used her speech to attack countries of the arab world talk is cheap no group of countries is more generous with their words than the palestinians arab neighbors and other member states but all of the words spoken here in new york do not feed clothe or educate a single palestinian child. it's not just on buster haley's hectoring own that has ruffled feathers members of the security council frustrated that they've been given

no details of the u.s. administration's middle east peace plan or of a secret deal that's already been done between the us russia and israel over syria james zero at the united nations right let's have a look at trade now because u.s. president donald trump has called terrorists the greatest he was praising levis is already imposed on imports are still and alimony and european commission president john claude he's due in washington d.c. to meet president trump in the coming hours and ahead of that meeting president trump has called for both the u.s. and the e.u. to drop all tyrants barriers and subsidies meanwhile a world away in south africa chinese president xi jinping he's meeting leaders from the brics group of nations is expected to push for their support in his fight against france trade terrorists may mali mexico the incoming president andres

manuel lopez obrador says he's received a letter from president tran warning him to speed up negotiations to rework the free trade agreement known as nafta and all this comes as leaders in latin america pledge to work celebrate the process of free trade in the region john home and has more now from puerto byetta in mexico. it was the first time that latin america's two top trading blocs met a presidential level between the moken sued in the pacific alliance hold more than eighty percent of the region's g.d.p. population or. this m.b.m. also moved to today the president sent the world a clear signal that we're pushing towards regional integration and free trade. they drawing closer together just as the united states is putting up barriers. in particular the pacific alliance made up of mexico chile peru and colombia are

hoping that by acting is the antithesis of u.s. protectionism more global trade will swing their way and give almost no we're looking to accelerate the process of wiping out border taxes and barriers to create a free trade zone getting some traction canada and australia among others are in the process of becoming associate members and more than fifty countries sent of service to this summit but there are a couple of important people missing the incoming presidents of colombia and mexico and there's manuel lopez obrador in particular the mexican president elect seems to be concentrating on not the trade deal with the united states and canada more than the pacific alliance. that's no surprise eighty percent of mexico's exports to sold in the states but lopez obrador did send his team to the talks but the leaders here agreed measures to help small a medium sized firms trade within the block provide more educational grants and these the flow of goods and people it was all business but on the sidelines

regional politics crept in the crisis is in venezuela or nicaragua were raised in bilateral discussions the chill am foreign minister gave us his country's take. and he got i was one of. a situation nicaragua is a tragedy for the nicaraguan people and together with other countries in the region we called on the authorities to control the violent stop the repression and control them paramilitary groups repressing the protesters. but these were off the thoughts in a summit where the main players were focused on the goal free trade within the pacific alliance by twenty thirty. one home and. put the. well we've been speaking to eric who's the vice president of the council of the americas and a former white house special envoy for the americas he says lopez obrador isn't technically in a position to follow through on trump's advice. well i think it's definitely a two sided message the first side is welcome to the presidency of beck's ago we

look forward to working with you across a range of issues responding to a letter that the president elect of mexico sent to president trump but contained in the letter is the basis of some complications down the road particularly on the trade agenda and president trump essentially gave a warning to the president elect in mexico if you don't come to an agreement quickly on nafta we the united states are going to have to change our approach that's awkward because the president elect of mexico isn't even read it until december first so it's all model he doesn't have any control over the pace of negotiations right now anyway so we're going to have to have to see how this plays out don't forget the united states has their own midterm elections in early november when the united states will be electing a new house of representatives in the senate and for political purposes of the president feels the end in u.s. participation and then after would benefit him politically before those elections that's certainly a scenario and we have to remember again the president mexico want to be

inaugurated until december first so this train may have already left the station by the time he's even in the presidential palace in mexico and president tom's form of personal lawyer has released an audiotape to us media in which they seem to be discussing a potential payment for a former playboy model michael cohen recorded what appears to be a conversation with trump in twenty six e a few months before the presidential election and this was weeks off topic lloyd's paid former playboy model karen ducal one hundred fifty thousand dollars for his story about alleged affair with trump and then never printed it. so as to come here in the al-jazeera news out in sports the time his president weighs in the message of quitting the german football team details coming up next.