bone hunter on al-jazeera. votes are being counted in zimbabwe's first poll without formal leader robert mugabe but the opposition is already crying foul. either i'm certain this is al jazeera line from london also coming our u.s. president donald trump says he's willing to meet iranian president hassan rouhani at any time and without preconditions india publishes a list that effectively strips four million people of citizenship in the northern states of. and firefighters battle against massive wildfires that have killed six

people and destroyed hundreds of homes and the u.s. state of california. we begin in zimbabwe where polls have closed the votes are being counted in the first election without longtime leader robert mugabe however that didn't stop the ninety four year old from voting in the capital harare or endorsing the opposition candidate nelson chamisa jimmie's has already cry foul accusing the election commission of impeding the vote in areas is a main challenger to current president and the same man gaga he served for decades under mugabe with polls suggesting a tight race. a chief observer of the year election mission broke says his team will be assessing the impact of long voting delays in open areas we have to see

that in the election of station itself which was in all the cases. so far we could check it until now we have got compared to notes with other gay sions have not an overview but we have two hundred forty people on the ground to visit to between seven and nine hundred. polling stations but we have to see that in some cases i have seen it personally where people have a two to six hours because of bad. organization and to be have to find out whether this is the capability in certain police stations of the people who target of the local people or just has a certain pattern because we've seen specially in neighborhoods that such things happened and hopefully that was only. in consistencies in such neighborhoods and not. the mechanism and overall in the country. well michael webb

has more from a lupine a district in western zimbabwe. this polling station has now closed as have others all across the country after twelve hours of voting now the counting has begun to clear plastic ballot boxes are emptied out and first the ballots are counted in the polling stations before that data is forwarded to the provincial tallying centers opposition say they deployed extra agents to observe this process carefully they've complained of a lack of transparency in the process of some it and irregularities but the electoral commission deny that anything on toward is going on meanwhile the chief european union observer said in some parts of the country the voting was very smooth in other parts of the country totally disorganized he said his teams have witnessed queues of young people waiting for up to six hours leaving in frustration when they were told they were in the wrong queue he said he also heard reports of people being passed from one district to another to vote in polling stations where

they're not meant to possibly an electoral now practice but he said he didn't know to what extent these things that happened and if they were widespread or significant or not that's something that will come out when the e.u. write their reports on this election in the days ahead meanwhile it's going to take a few days before we get the results we won't come out till saturday for the longest so zimbabweans now are waiting for them to find out who will be announced as the winner of this presidential election. for more on this we're joined by zimbabwean journalist georgina godwin thanks very much for coming in to our just how crucial do you think it is that this is seen as a fair election not too much vote rigging obviously reasons already saying he's questioning it both in terms of the domestic sort of reaction but also in terms of the foreign reaction to mystically people absolutely need to feel that it's legitimate unfortunately that's not ever going to happen it's definitely been

a problematic election we know of lots and lots of cases where we can prove that in fact it has been rigged whether by incompetence or or deliberately certainly it's not entirely free and internationally again it's the sad thing of well it's if it's good enough we can sign it off which i think is hugely. unfortunately it's true there's no blood on the streets yet and we hope that that will continue and if that's the case the international community can say you know what it was fine it wasn't perfect but it was ok and this is a legitimate government that in mind do you think the chances of good foreign investment because there seems to be quite a lot of companies who are very interested in coming into zimbabwe to think that will give them enough confidence to say ok this is this is safe enough you know i think they're going to hang back a little bit because there's been all these promises and some of the gaga has been fabulous talking about zimbabwe is open for business do you believe them i don't

know do they and that will always be the the problem ditto with the m.d.c. who are unproven and governing alone of course they've been part of a government of national unity before so i think people will one but i mean possibly i'm hearing that some business people are saying well that the best possible outcome then might be a government of national unity where you have at least the experience of zanu p.f. you have the drive of them d c and together perhaps that will have a. friendly effects very different characters very different persuasions i guess could they marry together in that respect i think without robert mugabe possibly they could i think that was one of the big problems with the with the new the last time that it happened i think this time with everybody really desperately wanting to make it work it might actually be the case but we don't know if we're going to go there i mean i think it's highly unlikely that any one candidate will get more than fifty one percent in which case who will go to a runoff to september

a lot's been made of the youth a lot's been made of how that was the youth that really helped the end of mcgarvey how do you think they're going to affect the poll big youthful demographic has as you say and they are mostly other thing for nelson chamisa but i think that there are other things to take into account i mean you look at the rallies and there's a lot of quite breathless reporting coming out of zimbabwe all fantastic everybody's out there they're all those in the terms they are but there are also other things to consider so for instance in the rural areas zimbabwe is very much a command agricultural economy so so people in the rural areas are getting their seed in their third lies or from the government the government is then buying back their projects these are people who feel that they they need that government and they they want to stick i imagine to the people that they know so that's a problem also a lot of the business people including a lot of the the white business people who would formerly have been m.d.c. voters i think are finding some kind of stability and some kind of confidence in

what he has been saying and i think we might be surprised at the votes that he gets to talk to you thank you so much for your garden. u.s. president donald trump says he's willing to meet iranian president hassan rouhani at any time and without preconditions drawn made the remarks during a press conference with the italian prime minister ges if he can't say in washington d.c. well alan fischer john joins me live from the white house so what is he saying about this potential meeting with the iranian president. well it is a surprise that he would be quite happy and willing to meet with president rouhani he was responding to a question that was asked by a journalist some people will say this is classic donald trump he's been under pressure over the last couple of days to talk about poll money for his former campaign manager who goes on trial in virginia on tuesday or to talk about the militant vesta geisha into lead russia collusion and suddenly he is given the

american media this born to pursue which is a possible meeting with rouhani you've got to remember though we've been here before remember when donald trump described him as little rocket man how he very believe criticize north korea how he threatened them with fire and fury which became the title of a best selling book by someone who lifted the lid on the donald trump white house and that actually happened he has been talking about vladimir putin and how he would like to have a summit with him and just a few weeks ago in helsinki that happened as well there are voices in this white house senior voices we're talking about the national security advisor john bolton were talking about the sexual state might pompeo who have been highly critical of the iranian government who have called for it should move all have talked about popular uprisings in that country but if they are told by donald trump i want this to happen then there is a real possibility that this could happen so it was

a surprise announcement by donald trump but the fact that he's talking about doing this talking about iran's nuclear program with no preconditions then that is really something people should sit up and take notice of because remember the united states is essentially in breach of that agreement when they pulled out of it in me this year they said they did it because donald trump has been critical of the the iran nuclear deal for a very long time says the watch deal ever made and even though there was no evidence that iran was in breach of the agreement that have been reached with the united states international partners donald trump pulled the united states out so this is a big development. and you can imagine somebody waking up president rouhani middle of the night there and saying guess what donald trump's just said how much of a surprise is done this before with the iranians and suggested they should have a meeting and indeed a way to earth would broker it. well general i saw a cartoon just a few days ago when donald trump who was talking about president rouhani and twitter saying if you ever threaten the united states again we will bring historic

consequences to your door and the cartoon had the iranian leaders standing around going or good you were getting a summit because he does tend to inflame the situation and then come things down who would broker this well in the case of the the summit with north korea south korea played a big part in the obviously had links with pyongyang so therefore could do the necessary walk that was needed to lay the groundwork before the americans could come in who would do it for the united states well obviously there's a problem with my pompei or john bolton being the initial contact there simply because of their contacts and what they've said in the past but the french could be the key here remember emanuel mccraw was at the white house earlier this year it was a state visit one of the reasons he came here was to try and argue donald trump not to pull out of the iran deal to stay inside and what the international community to perhaps improve it the french have links with tehran if historic links with terror

and they have reasonable relations as far as any country does have with the government in tehran so they may well be a key player in this and just laying the groundwork but again i'll see while there are people in this white house we'll see it's not a good idea of donald trump wants this to happen there's a good chance it will happen one interesting thing to watch will be the reaction to this donald barack obama back in two thousand and eight said yeah i'd be willing to meet with the iranian leader if it would help bring stability to the region would improve the situation around the world and he was pilloried by democrats and republicans but particularly by right wing pundits the same right wing pundits who do everything they can to support donald trump so be interesting to see the contrast as i suspect we will see the contrast and the reaction to barack obama saying not and donald trump saying this and pressing to say we're any reaction as well that alan fischer of that of the very latest from the white house. around four million residents of a northern indian states are at risk of losing their citizenship the government has

published a register of citizens and to be included people must prove they came to india by the twenty fourth of march nine hundred seventy one two days before bangladesh declared independence which led to hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing to india many of them settling set officials there are telling the newly dubbed foreigners they won't be deported but security has been stepped up to prevent any violence against them paul chadwick john reports india has tightened security across the northern state of which borders bangladesh thousands of bengali speaking muslims are worried about being sent to detention centers or deported. they sent me to jail without even listening to me. the state's new registry wants to identify people who entered india after the bangladesh pakistan war in one nine hundred seventy one. the names of four million people from the state's thirty two million

residents are missing from the new draft of a citizens' registry is regarded as very high cigar it is rare it is very surprising it is unbelievable because there is noise muslim are all are you legal infiltrators in our prime minister nuri and remote his government has pledged through move what it calls foreigners from us some state officials say people can appeal to have their names on the list how could you claim every person whose name has not been included in the draft citizens' list will have many opportunities to object to make a claim on those whose names appeared on the revised registry are overjoyed and relieved at ten and felt really good saying that the names of my family members have been included in the national registry of citizens those whose names are not on the registry continue to worry that they fear if the uncertainty continues they might face deportation or risk becoming stateless culture dirge on al-jazeera.

we've plenty more cells are coming colluding hundreds of hikers make their way often and then they see a mountain where they've been trapped by an earthquake and protecting maritime borders as the war in yemen spreads to the same. hello the heat heat wave in fact took a step backwards from the northwest of europe as this cloud came through representing still the same system a cold front if you like but that's recovering the temps going to rise elsewhere as well we've already got a forecast attorney for another twenty nine in paris did much at all and even in sweden we got twenty and stockholm we've had some decent rain here is help to not back so far is but the next heat wave is coming from somewhere else have a look at the for cross madrid thirty six degrees on tuesday i'll take you

a day ahead thirty nine degrees it will be well into the forty's in the southwest of spain and portugal madi even hit record levels as for the next heat wave is developing there is just about reflected across the short hop it read back twenty five years up to twenty eight in the forecast center wednesday otherwise north africa is much is expected to be the showers just to the south south of the sahara are showing up now in chad fairly regularly we've had some in khartoum but these dark green blob suggest decent convection big thunderstorms less surprisingly you'll find them also in nigeria and further west to act tauriel africa towards west africa and as far north as you can go more or less avoid reach mauritania. where were you when this idea. that when they're on line it's undoubtedly.

call of poverty inequality in our society today or if you join us on sat criminal justice system is dysfunctional right now this is a dialogue what does it feel like to go back for the first time everyone has a voice and allow refugees to be the speakers for change join the global conversation on our. welcome back remind all of the top stories say on al-jazeera polls have closed in zimbabwe's election the first since robert mugabe was ousted as president is expected to be a close race between opposition candidate nelson chamisa and the incumbent.

u.s. president says he he's willing to meet iranian president hassan rouhani at any time and without preconditions he made the comments during a press conference with the taliban prime minister just become today in washington d.c. and some four million undocumented muslims in the northern indian state of assam are risk of losing their citizenship after being laughed off a new government register. six people have died and seven are still unaccounted for as wildfires continue to sweep across the u.s. state of california officials say they've managed to contain about seventeen percent of the car fire in northern california the largest and deadliest of ninety fires currently burning it's challenged an area the size of detroit forcing more than thirty eight thousand people to flee their homes gabriel is on the joins us now live from chester county california it looks extraordinary gave just tell us

what are you seeing. well what we're seeing is absolutely a moonscape charred territory here charred neighborhoods that have completely burned down take a look at this we're just outside the city of reading about fifteen minutes or so outside that city in shasta county this was as you mentioned the hardest hit area of these fires and you can see this behind me is a home that was up on this hill right off the highway here there is nothing left at all just a skeleton of what used to be the home a car you know fires do these kind of things they burn a lot of stuff but this fire has been particularly deadly because it's been so unpredictable it's also burned a very very hot and it's moved at a very rapid pace because of very unusually strong winds and high temperatures over forty two degrees celsius and some to point so you put all of that together and

you've got an absolutely devastating situation that's exactly what they're dealing with here in northern california and it's even though the flames are out at this stable hood that we're in you might be able to tell the haze you see over my shoulder there that is not fog that smoke that smoke that's still hanging over this area because there are so many fires burning and the sun can't even penetrate the smoke so it's as dark sort of gray that we have all day it's mid day here on the west coast to the united states so the good news is that most people were able to get out with their lives and evacuated only six people at this fire died but i can tell you this is a tragedy that's not so much about all the property that's destroyed but the human lives of people that are displaced now that are trying to eventually get back into their homes and sift through whatever is left and gave as i mentioned there's something like ninety five burning across the state will can you tell us about them

are they on the concho is that progress being still. yeah the ninety number is california but it's also the western united states and that's a very accurate number but it stretches beyond the california border this is not only a crisis an emergency in the state of california but it's really all of the western united states just in the state of california there are seventeen major fires major being defined by the state fire association that is trying to put these out yeah there are fires burning everywhere in california central california has a big fire that shut down yosemite national park that's a park that hasn't shut down because of fires since nineteen ninety it's a park that has four million visitors a year we're also seeing a fire about an hour and a half south of where we're at that just blew up over the weekend it's nearly doubled in size that's the mendocino fires they're calling it listen in summary

what we've got going on here is basically three things very hot temperatures very dry conditions a lot of people pointing to climate change and then you also have these high winds here as well it's a really unusual phenomenon that we're seeing here and a lot of people saying that this is probably going to be the worst fire season not only in in california but the worst fire season in all of the western united states in decades a dreadful situation gave really thought to that life was in california. syrian state t.v. is reporting government forces are attacking i still on two fronts in the basin region close to the southern border with jordan they're pressing ahead with the continuing offensive despite threats from eisel to kill civilian residents on wednesday icicle dozens of people and abducted around eighteen more in attacks in some way the province group is now a street to a few pockets of territory in the far south west. when it comes as another round of

diplomatic talks to find a solution to syria's seven year civil war begins in the russian city of sochi representatives from russia turkey and iran are attending this summit to discuss deescalation zones and formation of a syrian constitutional committee i'll also discuss pressing humanitarian problems such as the right of return for syrian refugees earlier this month syrian rebels said they would boycott the talks but there are reports some factions for change their minds are sending delegations other abdullah i mean has the latest from sochi . certainly the government delegation and to some extent russia are coming into the storks in a position of strength thanks to the territorial gains made over the past twelve months and recently for example retaking control of the borders of jordan and israel now un envoy to find them is to or is also attending these talks

what could be expected well it's very difficult to said this stage but we do know that they're going to talk about the constitution whether it is amending the one that was passed in two thousand and twelve or rewriting an entire constitution now the message coming from russia is obviously that the war is nearly over even though there is still the battle for libya looming and the situation in the north east of the country which is currently under control of the kurdish forces is a huge concern for now we are told that russia told turkey that that concern should not undermine the talks here in sochi for russia it is very important to make to un pass this message and make it clear that now you can start talking about the next phase in syria what happens in the post-war period even though there is

a large chunk of the opposition to one that has been going to the u.n. led talks that is absent here in sochi and some are raising concerns about how can you really have a. as a settlement of this conflict without their presence here. hundreds of hikers indonesia are making their way down a mountain where they've been trapped since sunday's earthquake the tremors caused landslides on the mountain which then blocked all the escape routes the magnitude six point four earthquake killed sixteen people and destroyed more than a thousand homes on the tourist island of long walk from their stats and reports. tons of rocks and mud started falling and cracks appeared in mountain trails and the magnitude six point four earthquake struck some climbers prayed for their lives this is mobile phone footage filmed by a group of climbers who experienced the powerful earthquake of more than two thousand meters while climbing there in johnny volcano in indonesia as mountain

johnny is a popular tourist destination for more than one thousand three hundred people were on the hiking trail of the active full kaino when the earthquake happened most of them foreign tourists with their guides and porters among them a group of two hundred thirty nine people from thailand rescue workers and soldiers are dropping supplies to climbers who have been called off because of landslides hundreds have already been evacuated one indonesian man died when he was hit by falling rocks president joe credo has visited the area yankee jenny as for him johnny the search and rescue agency a disaster mitigation agency and the military are working together hopefully it will be over soon but and. that's how mark nearly fifteen hundred houses have been destroyed and more than five thousand people on the island of lombok are now staying in temporary shelters the government has promised financial support for

those who have lost their homes that i got gotten on my street that i will the people who are still in trauma most of them dare go home that opted to stay in the temporary shelters because the earthquakes. or the strength of the quake has weakened the. machine the earthquake was strongly felt because it was very shallow and the epicenter was on the land they have been more than two hundred seventy aftershocks for now many people here say they are too afraid to go back to their homes step fasten al-jazeera lombok. mali's government says attacks by gunmen or of a violent disrupted around a fifth of polling stations during sunday's presidential election in the northern city of fighters fired mortar rounds at one polling station counting is underway with results jus in about a week mohammed yvel has more from the capital bamako. and here. counting ballots by lamplight through the night the voting process went smoothly in

the maalik up to the sunday a great relief for of oddities after weeks of security concerns results from twenty three thousand polling stations across the country are now in but it will take days to count them all it may be friday before an early official result could be announced president seeking a second five year term he congratulated himself and the people of mali for the relatively calm democratic process moving them to be doing some real pleasure for me to perform the citizen act and it's a start a victory for the people of mali who have voted calmly and serenely this vote will have demonstrated our democratic maturity and our status as a great people that optimistic view is being eco the across the political spectrum in focus your money with ali has to hold a million people have to go so that the country can through the game have a more credible government you can we have spent five years in different than you

know five years later mali is seen as a country adrift with problems of corruption and government which has led us where we are today and we have to turn to page one hundred twenty nine that is what i hope we came here for peace we came here for mali that's what many voters here tell us and there is a consensus among them that for any democracy to be meaningful it has to bring stability and security to the nation. but election day did not pass in total peace ballot boxes were reportedly confiscated in the area of timbuktu there was a mortar attack on a u.n. base in the northern town of i could hug with one shell landing in the polling station. groups affiliated to al qaeda in the islamic magreb have repeatedly warned they would disrupt the election opponents of president. blame him for the failure to defeat armed groups and ethnic violence his main rival so while the sisi has

gained tremendous support from those who say they are unhappy with the stats quote opinion polls have shown the two in a tight race close enough but on the election might be on the horizon hundred five zero. we have plenty more to read and watch on our web site click on al jazeera dot com. let's give you another look now at the top stories on al-jazeera u.s. president donald trump says he's willing to meet iranian president hassan rouhani at any time and without preconditions made the surprisingly marks during a press conference with italian prime minister just every country and washington d.c. it comes just a week after he warned staff run not to threaten the u.s. or risk suffering consequences like few suffered in history before so i believe in meeting i would certainly meet with the rent if they wanted to meet i don't know

that they're ready yet to have a hard time right now but i ended the year until it was a ridiculous deal i do believe that they will probably end up wanting to meet and i'm ready to meet religion they want to in a preconditions no they want to meet only any time they want any time they were good for the country good for them good for us and good for the world. polls have closed and votes are being counted in zimbabwe's first ever elections without longtime leader robert mugabe on the ballots mcgarvie says he's supporting the opposition candidate nelson chamisa not his successor former ally and. the election is seen as vital for zimbabwe's international credibility millions of undocumented muslims in the northern indian state of sound are at risk of losing their citizenship the government says citizens must prove they came to india by the twenty fourth of march nine hundred seventy one which rules out the mass exodus of refugees who fled to india and bangladesh declared independence two days later six

people have died and seven are still unaccounted for as wildfires continue to sweep across the u.s. state of california officials say they've managed to contain about seventeen percent of the car fire in northern california the largest and deadliest of ninety fires burning. another round of diplomatic talks to find a solution to a serious seven year civil war is underway in the russian city of sochi representatives from russia turkey and iran will attend the summit to discuss the issue of deescalation the formation of the syrian constitutional committee those are the headlines first stay with us here on al-jazeera coming up next it's a strange.

ok and emily could be your in the story today is going out over eighty four and all your big talk about the potential impact a brand new oil industry could have on the country. or companies have identified massive offshore reserves in guyana one of the south america's poorest nations new estimates from last week report that more than four billion barrels of oil could be extracted from the region known as the star broke block where exxon mobil expects to start pumping crude from twenty twenty the

country is poised to.