seen during his five year tenure two former presidents a prosecutor general and a number of opposition politicians have been jailed in alleged unfair trials with most potential rivals out of the picture you mean has only one opponent here's mohammed sala he has a coalition of four opposition parties whose leaders are either in jail or they're in exile on the eve of the vote his campaign office was raided by the police but no evidence of electoral fraud was uncovered the opposition leader says this election is the last chance to restore democracy in the maldives but stay with that we're going to talk now to mohamed nasheed formally president of the republic of the maldives he joins us from colombo mohammed nasheed thanks for joining us what happens if mr mean goes through this process and actually consolidates his grip on power. well we don't think that president i mean he's going to go through this process i do not think

that he's going to win this evening voting is very. but we are getting overwhelming numbers we have an exit poll now and we are doing over sixty so this is very good and even if president ya mean reads it it will be enough for us to. get a very handsome majority i think that i believe that we are going to get through tonight . if president i mean the vote our my advice and our request to the international community is not to accept the results instantly to have a look at it to see what's been announced and to see also what's been announced at the polling booths these can be very two different results so we believe that we will have the number. and this is done intentionally we also believe so that voting

can go into the night and then perhaps there will be disruptions in the evening but we are braced for doubt most of the ballots most of the votes have been cost in a number of other islands other than mali voting is slow in my live but in bigger our other bigger island such as are doing up in the north and tina do. people have cost. i just want to interrupt you there to get to my next point i mean certainly joint colleges because we'll be able to get into breaking down the statistics when we know what the results are going to put it to you however there is another election going on here another fight it's between china and india somebody very close to you coined the phrase debt trap diplomacy. the amount of money that the chinese poor ring into your country how can that be broken for the good of the

voters those two hundred sixty five thousand people who are eligible to cost a ballot today. well it's exactly that he's dead. a cold war brewing in the indian ocean between india and china and china has lent to the moment a very heavy and we are in a dead china house without firing a single shot grabbed more land than the east india company had done at the height of the colonial. in the mold they are going on sixteen. and in fact we do not know how many items they already have there is no transparency no but nobody's aware of what president ya mean is doing a review be in a ditch when we take the government. point that reviews

have to again assess what was in fact spent in the moment very often these projects amount increases to the extent that the business plan fails when the business plan fails even though knowledge amounts of money have been brought up so good in garden teams for large amounts of money have been given to the chinese exam bank we do not think all that money has actually come into the country so even not be able to pay back the debt because the asset is not actually debt. then they would ask for equity rich equate the reduced land and when we do. we lose sovereignty. this is a very serious issue the elections in the mold the illness knowing just so for them to build on one particular point in the indian ocean what is your central message to the electorate given that people like yourselves i mean you clearly have

political aspirations which may come into play in the future given that people like you said. to the same continent what's your message to voters. on sunday then time is over and i will not be saying anything to the voters now what's your message to mr she'd the four. other words to me i am mr initiate and i don't think i should be giving a message to the people at the moment. do you still have those political aspirations yourself and if you do how will you carry through on them. but hopefully we will win tonight and i will also go back home yes i have not decided to leave politics i will be in politics but i also do have

a very strong interest in climate change and what is happening around the world i also do have a lot of interest in promoting democracy and building political parties and safeguarding human rights so there is a lot of work that can be done. also needs to strengthen its independent institutions its democracy. it has to make democracy sustainable and it can democracy can be sustainable in the moments and very often what happens in the maldives does happen in the middle east elsewhere so very very often maldives is seen. as a libertarian case for what can happen elsewhere in the middle east so i have a lot of want to do. would continue its part on democracy and we would hope and even it tonight on the other hand. of course is another whole

set of other scenarios can play in tonight president ya mean might decide to go and destruct the pool's he might go and decide to announce military rule or emergency rule we have not or. we believe that these are actual real fear that this can happen these are things that prison jamming has done in the past so it's a little bit early to decide that things are all blah but as it is now things are going our way ok we have to leave it there mohamed nasheed thank you very much. geoffrey salim what he'd is the deputy permanent representative in geneva for the republic of the maltese he joins us from london geoffrey selene what he'd human rights watch is talking about muzzling the media misusing the electoral commission playing fast and loose with the essence of democracy there are no e.u. monitors in the country the judiciary has been detained in the past there was

a state of emergency introduced in february how is that not corruption. thank you peter it's my pleasure to be here today actually just voter here in london. now turn to your questions when we start off with election commission the election commission is an independent institution a horizontal accountability created by the constitution and mandated to be independent it is hosting the election today it is managing the election today the same way that it has for the last parliamentary elections the last presidential elections in the maldives is following the same procedures the same methodology and each of those elections have been declared really unfair by the international community this election two will be free and fair now there's a host of issues that you discussed just now. and there's a host of accusations that was made by your former guest the former president

machine and what we saw from those descriptions was an incredibly sensational threat rick that has no basis in the reality on the ground he talks about exit polls and we don't have exit polls in the maldives we don't have any independent polls in the maldives we know for a fact that there's been a massive amount of support for the government as well and the fact that he's coming out now and saying that oh if we win it's a free and fair election but if the government wins then it must be corruption this is a fallacy sir it is not something that is based in reality because if you look at the reality on the ground you have ballots being cast in an open transparent manner where the delegates for both of the candidates are trying. to tell you to judge choose how is that possibly. open and transparent what is open and transparent about muzzling the media. firstly the there is no instance where the media has been muzzled because even if you go and look at the media today in the maldives you see

them declaring things that are in complete contravention to even reality complete contravention to any pretense for fair and balanced coverage that's one side now you asked about the supreme court judges a specific incident that happened in the fed on february first of this year where we had literally millions of dollars being prey i mean being paid to these two judges in order to have a very biased verdict where in that wording they actually use the power of the constitution on to themselves that is not how democracy works democracy works where there is three branches of state in the maldives there's a jittery an executive in a legislature and keeping these branches independent is of paramount importance democracy what we have today are ballots ballots where people are going to be able to cast is the power is the fundamental part of our democracy administered by and by the election commission that is an independent situation again created by our constitution if your country were your country and the current president do indeed practice what the preach why you introduce

a state of emergency at the beginning of the year why detain members of the judiciary why among those who want more you could start with me could you human rights watch when we were talking about muzzling the media if everything is ok why do those things in the first place. human rights watch never spoke to the government and never came to the maldives they never sent anyone to actually look at the situation on the ground now again you come back to the very first issue where the supreme court did use serve the power of the digital watchdog on to themselves there is a good an independent body an independent situation created to monitor the judiciary and they completely stripped power away from this institution so what was the president to do when you have millions of dollars being paid to these two individuals the police were investigating it but as the police even got warrants from the lower courts this judge these two judges went and specifically stopped those court orders from being issued and then they ordered the courts and the

police to hand over all files with regard to this massive corruption case how is that an independent judiciary if we do we don't have extensive. playing out into the numbers the numbers do not in theory mr you mean cannot win in theory if the people vote against him you said the will vote against him if he loses i don't want to come up with those numbers well that's people who've looked only belong to the democratic drill down into the numbers you understand perfectly well my central point i'm sorry no polling there is no polling in here sleeves is not a feeling that the independence of children or results in the city that has polling if he loses. them if the president loses if the president loses on november seventeenth it brought him saw the moment it brought him so it will be will be nominated as the next president of the multi-verse you know we have a period of time they'll be

a transition created they'll be members of the over the opposition working to get hand in hand with members of the government in order to create a transition team in an effective transition between discarding the next if the president loses the president is not going to move he has created so much infrastructure projects that so much for the people the more they've brought them out of power. already more so than any other president in the history of our nation . and you have people who are committed and dedicated to this president as well and of course the only way that the opposition can fight this is by using that sensationalist rhetoric that you heard that does not have a basis in reality but you only way that they can galvanize people to come to their support we have to draw our conversation to a close jeff recently mohit thank you so much for joining us from london thank you . britain's main opposition labor party is pushing for a general election as brics it talks hit

a stalemates jeremy corbyn news sending out the views of labor party members of the annual party conference in the city of liverpool e.u. leaders rejected prime minister to resign ms brooks it planned at a summit in salzburg three days ago she says talks have reached an impasse with just six months to go before the show jeweled day of bricks it let's go live now to our correspondent paul brennan who's in the city of liverpool when that labor party conference is taking place so they want an election is that a u. turn on the part of labor or is that a measure paul of the way they think they might have mrs may on the run. i think it's a really important evolution of the labor party position in all of this jeremy corbyn and his main leadership team of the party have been rather ambiguous in the past about calls for example for a second referendum on the issue and in particular on the deal that mrs may the prime minister comes back with after the negotiations have concluded with brussels

but. jeremy corbyn as remains very steadfastly of the opinion that he has a chance of government here and he doesn't want to sacrifice that to go and prioritise a second referendum he says you can hear a clip in a second i just want to talk you through before we play first of all he realizes that he believes that he has the government on the ropes and that they should the party should press home the advantage but if you listen to the second half of the clip you can see that his heart he seems to remain a euro skeptic and he is hinting that the current relationship with the e.u. and the status quo is not satisfactory from his point of view let's have a listen. this government doesn't seem very strong it is looking into directions at the same time the one hand a trade deal with the usa and the other hand some kind of relationship with europe and we could well be looking towards a general election and you know what we're ready for our preference would be for a general election and we can and negotiate our future relationships with europe but let's see what comes out accomplish it. if the reason me is at this point of

impasse paul does that mean that the actual formal negotiations have stalled so the process of bricks it is kind of frozen in and speak with her wanting to go back to what they agreed at checkers. one of the difficulties that everybody trying to look into the crystal ball and work out what the next stages are given the state of the negotiations with brussels is what happens next and the importance of parliament's role in all of this is parliament going to be asked to vote on a no deal and if so what what power would that have what effect would a parliamentary vote have in those kind of circumstances here in liverpool the labor party the labor party the opposition party is trying to work out what its stance should be and as i say there's a dire level for the labor party membership that have signed up to be members. ahead of the last general election last year were predominantly young pro european

but the heartland of labor supports in the north of england in particular remains working class largely euro skeptic and so trying to balance those two sides of labor support does the labor membership represent the labor support we went out into the center in liverpool of the people's march demanding a second referendum very strongly but we walked just a short distance away into church street one of the main shopping areas here in liverpool and in an unscientific survey we stopped five people four of them said now let's just get on with practice paul thanks very much. time for the weather has kept that's why we have some flooding to talk about some very very good images coming out of parts of tunisia i want to show you first of all before we get there this area of clouds that you see just to the north right here in the mediterranean watch what happens as we put that into motion it pushes through tunisia over tunis you know sort of spans a little bit but in that cloud we saw incredible amounts of rain i want to show you what they saw here and now will two hundred six millimeter. the rain now that is

just about twice what they would see in a normal year across parts of tunisia now this is what two hundred six millimeters looks like on the ground in the area we saw four deaths not just now but also across parts of other cities in tunisia as well but roads were cut off railways were cut off of course we saw a lot of problems with flooding as well now the rain has stopped in this area and we are seeing a lot of the floodwater beginning to recede things look much better there on the map we are seeing some showers just here towards the south now another big feature is what's happening here across europe we are looking at one particular system making its way across the u.k. that is bring some very heavy rains there but this storm right there is going to be bring some very severe weather this evening and into tomorrow across central parts of europe with that we expect to see damaging winds and also the possibility of tornadoes and once they goes through temperatures across central europe are on a nosedive. kevin thanks very much

a lot more ground still to come for you here on the news hour including the woman accusing the u.s. supreme court nominee of sexual assaults agrees to testify before the senate. in france comes down to the start of the right to come but all the public enthusiastic about gold's biggest team tournament's until it's about question in the sport in about twenty minutes. i have dedicated almost my entire professional life to the invention and fight against corruption and whatever we need champions we need also to shine the light on those shampoos and this award bridges that gap that existed in this.

nominate your own version of your own child the light on what they do and do it not shine a light on your hero with your nomination for the international base or ward two thousand and eighteen for more information go to isa war dot com. hello again you're with the al-jazeera news hour live from doha these are your headlines so far today iran's revolutionary guard is vowing to respond forcefully for the attack on

a military parade that killed at least twenty five people the president hassan rouhani has accused the u.s. and some gulf countries of creating instability by supporting ethnic groups in iran he says the u.s. will regret its aggressiveness. urgings been extended into the evening in the moldings presidential election an extra three hours has been added after long queues outside polling centers many opponents of the current president are in exile and the european union wouldn't send observers because of concerns one of the story the u.k.'s main opposition labor party is pushing for a general election as bracks that talks hit a stalemate germy corben is sounding out the views of labor party members at the annual conference in liverpool a new leaders rejected the prime minister to resign may's bracks it plans at a summit in salzburg three days ago. protesters in southern yemen say the saudi emirate he led coalition has become an occupying force demonstrators marched in the government held city of aden hundreds have been killed in the air strike since the coalition intervened to back yemen's government in its war with hoofy rebels three

years ago and u.a.e. backed groups have been accused of committing human rights abuses and a network of secret prisons. u.n.c. military in chief says yemen is approaching a tipping point with famine a major threat three quarters of yemenis that's twenty two million people are in need of some kind of humanitarian assistance or protection simmons has more now from a camp for yemeni refugees in neighboring chad. we're hearing that in recent months the number of deaths of children in how joe province alone amounts to twenty and so the position of aid agencies is getting incredibly difficult accessing these remote villages where people are literally starving and also accessing areas that are blocked off because of the fighting it is an impossible situation for the aid agencies and they admit that they are not winning the battle against hunger how

different it could be if people could reach the camps like this across the water from yemen in small boats is just an hour's ride but that's controlled by smugglers so the situation isn't just desperate for those in yemen as a whole it's also desperate here because some of these people want to go home they don't want to be here in the first place they want to go home the chances of that are pretty remote. they're hungry like millions of fellow yemenis they've left behind these men have just arrived in old book huddled together in some shade having being smuggled out of yemen for two hundred dollars each. it was a it's a war we don't want to be part of says this man explaining that he and the others fear they'd be conscripted to join who theory rebel forces. this is where they'll end up with families who may have refuge but little else this man has fresh

drinking water but can't afford to buy food so his family has to get by soley on emergency aid learn and get lots all are less but there was a lot we don't receive anything but enough to survive from the un we don't have industry she needed for our children the elderly even us it's a grim existence here in the sweltering heat of such a dry arid an infertile place. the natural focus of aid agencies is across the water in yemen where by the day the situation for the people is getting more critical. in a remote yemeni village they continue to pick leaves from trees is their only means of survival these two brothers know that cooking and eating the leaves will lead to sickness but it provides for maybe a day for their extended family and it's a choice between malnutrition or eating lovely it's.

you know not enough of the children are suffering from constant diarrhea drowsiness and fever we don't know how and where we can treat them we get no help no one says there is no relief organization in our area when we go asking for help we get nothing. some of the children and babies from the village of. the province have ended up here in this medical clinic. you can see what aid agencies warn is a crisis for the young weak and hungry it's growing bigger. there yeah the war in the famine has caused a spike in the number of those who eat the vine leaves which is leading to an increase of malnutrition cases the vine leaves a highly acidic substance that reduces absorption in the intestines and the stomach is a very dangerous condition. less than a week ago when i was there are reported on the clinics work this little girl's a fish shoaib ahmed was waiting for treatment she has since died the

medical staff are fighting against one of the consequences of. the losses are higher now than ever before. andrew symonds al-jazeera in june and. representatives of two dozen oil production countries are in algeria today for meeting of opec they're trying to devise a plan for managing prices as u.s. sanctions on iran come into force the price of crude oil has increased by forty percent in the past year since the deal between members and their allies to push up prices by cutting supply but that price increase has irritated the u.s. president on more crump on thursday on twitter he said the opec monopoly must get prices down now his administration wants opec nations to boost production to help avert a spike in prices when the iranian supply is taken off the market sanctions most analysts see trump's treat as an effort to put pressure on saudi arabia opec's foremost member but if saudi arabia tries to increase supply to assuage mr trump

it's likely to face stiff opposition that's leading to fears about the stability of opec supply cut agreement remember selami is an international oil economist and author of over a barrel he joins us from london creates talks here again there's all this mean that the price of crude oil is going up or down. the price is projected to go up because the fundamentals of the global oil market are a positive meaning that the global economy will be growing at three point nine per cent this year and next year compared with three point four last year and the global demand for oil is increasing this year by a one point five million barrels a day over the last year and finally china's thirst for oil is growing very fast china will be importing more than ten million

barrels a day this year that's why i am projecting that the price of oil is heading up and could end up much higher than eighty dollars before the end of the ok the fundamentals may be good to go but within the opec scenario you've got that relationship between opec the other member states and what mr trump is saying if we triangulate those three things does that necessarily take us to the price going up . well mr crow can ask up it or to put pressure on saudi arabia to increase production but that will not work because opec is producing very surely at capacity and saudi arabia has already added what it can add me in namely three hundred to four hundred thousand barrels of oil and

a day and russia has already added between two hundred thirty three hundred thousand barrels a day they come up more and other opec the members cannot increase their production iran cannot increase its production beyond three point seven five million barrels ones where less production is. declining nigeria's production is declining maybe these can add up to one hundred thousand barrels a day but no more and visit v in around sanctions on iran i can assure you as an expert that you are sanctions on iran are going to fairly miserably and that iran will love lose is single barrel of oil from its oil exports because their market created it is dictated that fact why will the sanctions against iran feel miserably not least because the iranian president

hassan rouhani is as we speak on a plane going to new york for the u.n. general assembly chaired by the u.s. president donald trump. i was tell you why they would feel their out of five market facts which dictate their dissensions will feed first the overwhelming majority of nations of the word as i guess the sanctions on iran because the sanctions are unfair and iran has not the broken the terms and spirit of the nuclear agreement agreed with the united states and five other nations the second thing which is a major factor is the introduction of their pet through one which allows iran to buy their petro dollar out of and the sanctions third china which is suffering from intrusive pat ifs by the united states with dual cam by the end die out of

iranian oil exports of two point five million but it's a day and pay for them by bet through on the fourth reality is that russia and china will ensure the failure of the sanctions and finally ninety five per cent of iranian oil exports go to four grooves over nations one china thirty five per cent second india thirty three percent third of european union twenty per cent and then. seven per cent that's a total of ninety five per cent very meaning five percent go to japan and to south korea which they have already asked for a way of that and there will get it because of their economy quit member sent to me in london thank you. the stage is now set in the u.s.

for a showdown between a supreme court nominee and the woman who's accused him of sexual assault both are expected to fire before a senate judiciary committee on thursday christine blasi ford says brett kavanaugh assaulted her at a party in one thousand nine hundred two when they were high school students he denies the allegations the trumpet ministration is continuing to offer strong support for mr cavanaugh. civil rights groups in the u.s. are calling for the removal of police from schools they usually room the school hallways but a new study shows a growing number of attacks the children they are supposed to protect is highly jocasta. these are not the images you would expect from school you know remember a police officer responsible for keeping students safe has put one in a choke hold the reason the boy's friends say was because he turned an orange at a wall when you're in the hallways isn't atmosphere of tension and slight worry and fear the incident in philadelphia in two thousand and sixteen sparked

student protests and demands to remove police from the city's public schools the school district spends thirty million dollars a year on police deploying about three hundred fifty officers across some two hundred campuses the philadelphia student union says that creates a militant environment if feel like oh i have to put on this may i have to make sure. you know. i'm not acting out of care they're doing anything that's considered to be you know bad i guess in philadelphia's public school district eighty five percent of students are of color and black students are three and a half times more likely to be arrested or refer to police officers than white students advocates point of that as a sign of the existence of a school to prison pipeline where minorities are criminalized at a young age and then continue to.