let's elect george direct the actions of benny batam bowen your money initially plan for december thirtieth are now a program for march twenty nine thousand it will be subject to a specific calender. electoral commission said the three areas would have delayed parliamentary polls and provincial elections in march that means that we can see excluded from the presidential poll that's meant to happen on sunday the electoral commission said the reason was conflicts and then a bowler outbreak all three areas a key opposition strongholds. this is one of the reasons why hundreds of civilians have been killed in a series of massacres around the town of benny in the last four years it's not clear who is behind them the government blames a rebel group called the a.t.f. . or outbreak started in august and spread to the area around benny more than three hundred people have died. campaign rallies were allowed to take place there.

and it's opposition candidates martin freely through the biggest crowds i think this is the people that need change in this country most because the. war's war was a war of choice it is a must feeling seized the kid. was convince a lot in this country that was want to change. there are about one point two million voters in the regions that will be excluded many of them support fire leave . congress catholic church which has played a key role in campaigning for democracy also question the decision to do this is. with think this is a dangerous decision and also we don't see a clear motivation for it why did they not decide this during the campaign when people were more exposed why only now i think there is a hidden agenda behind it. the elections being repeatedly postponed opposition they millions of followers now question its credibility to even if it happens it's

result may not be accepted malcolm webb al-jazeera kinshasa in the democratic republic of congo. alex vines is head of the africa program at chatham house he says it will be difficult for the opposition to react to the delay because it's so divided while the timing is terrible i mean we're just going to few days before the elections this election has been constant perspire and as many of you viewers know since twenty sixteen and the two locations in the east of the country bear me a brew tembo the authorities say have because of ebola and then be in the west because of violence but the problem is going to be that these are now perspired to march their opposition strongholds and we don't know how they're going to tally these votes with the final result especially since at the moment the plan is to announce a president a new president in the democratic republic of congo on the eighteenth of january

two thousand and ninety one of the opposition leaders is saying he'll probably still go ahead and contest the elections several of us are saying that they're thinking about what to do and a number of others are saying that they'll pull out i mean there are twenty one candidates for the presidency in the democratic republic of congo so getting a unified platform is going to be pretty difficult if the couple of favorite favorite candidates so many out of the twenty one have no chance at all. not support think that the former interior minister mr dari who is the mr can be so the incumbent choice may well still win but the opposition has a strong following one of the problems though the opposition is is split is divided attempts to get a unified platform have failed unless is this gives the incumbent see the incumbent party the biggest opportunity. one of saddam's ruling parties is calling for an investigation into the killing of protesters during

a week of anti-government demonstrations members of the popular congress party say seventeen people were killed after security forces used live ammunition at the protests but rights group amnesty international says at least thirty seven protesters died some sudanese doctors have now started striking while medical students have joined protests calling for government change morgan has the latest from khartoum. what we've seen so far is that people are not satisfied with just marching up to the streets demanding that the president resign and that his he and his twenty nine year rule we're seeing people doing basically they were seeing people protesting in different ways. of today for example doctors issued a statement saying that they are on strike they're not going to go to work they don't want to work for a government that basically they see is oppressing them and is not giving them any benefits especially konami benefits now they were able to mobilize medical students also to go out and strike against the against the government they've also called on

people of other professions not just in the state but around the country to join them on a nationwide strike it's not clear yet if people would actually follow through on that one but people are saying that they're not going to be satisfied with just walking out to the streets demanding that the government resign and that president bashir step down and his rule they're going to try to find every single way they can to try to pass on their message to the government that they're not happy and that they want to see a new regime in place of the current regime president bashir is that he is not going to step down he's he basically said that the those people protesting are traitors and are being infiltrated by foreign agents so he has appeared to have dismissed those people who are protesting on the streets despite the huge number yesterday we've seen thousands of people protesting there saying that they were done with the government but obviously president bashir by saying that he is he thinks that there are foreign agents and that they are traitors he has completely dismissed their protest and now so there is a standstill between the protesters on one side saying that they want the government to go away and that they want to see a new government new faces new cabinets new reforms and new policies and president

bashir saying he's not going to back down is going to try to to get to provide new economic reforms and new policies but then people said that we've been there before we've heard that before we don't want that anymore we want to new government that would give us new ideas so right now sudan is at a standstill between the protesters and the government it's not clear how this will play out over the coming days with both sides seeming to be very determined to get what they want. boss is a leading figure in sudan's ruling national congress party he says protesters calling for the president's resignation have to follow the legal process put out of course. they're really limited demands by the opposition for bashir to step down for the regime to be. al bashir is now the head of a national reconciliation government that has included tens and tens of partisan small parties and these parties he was with the show you should has been voted by

the sudanese people in twenty days and the ones who want to stay down have to go through the right way which is elections in twenty twenty in april twentieth twenty to be having elections and everyone has the right to be nominated and we will accept that. plenty more ahead on the al jazeera news hour including an unprecedented plunge on monday a historic gain wednesday we try to make sense of this week's volatile financial markets face to face two former presidents both ousted from power meet in a courtroom in sport ronaldo time to the rescue for italian league leaders your ventus peter will be here with that story. but first indonesian authorities are urging people to stay away from coastal areas

where saturday's tsunami killed at least four hundred thirty people the volcano that triggered the disaster continues to rumble raising fears of more ways to come rob mcbride reports from some bowl of village on java's west coasts. after being inundated from the sea now flooded along much of the. coastline devastated by saturdays an army to wrench will rain poured more misery on already awful conditions. like their neighbors hitting activities family sort through the possessions from their flooded home he knows they won't likely dry out until the other side of the rainy season which is weeks away. everything's wet it's all broken there's nothing left. he has no choice but to move back into his house on this exposed coast but this is my home i have no other pleas to go but if i had

money i would buy somewhere safer to live off. the rain is also threatening to cut off the main coastal road upon which the recovery operation depends parts of this road were damaged by the tsunami and the rain has flooded other parts of it it's still possible but there's a big effort on now to make sure it stays that way. the route is also increasingly important for the tons of aid that is arriving poor visibility makes it difficult for experts to predict what the i'm not crocodile volcano will do next. further eruptions could cause another wave a tsunami warning remains in force and false alarms quickly spread on social media have caused panic and people to seek safety on higher ground. proof of the fear that the volcano still rumbling in the murk beyond the horizon is able to evoke robert pride al-jazeera north west java indonesia all two former egyptian president

who were both deposed have appeared in the same courts hosni mubarak has testified in the retrial of egypt's first democratically elected leader mohamed morsy over a jailbreak during the revolution that toppled mubarak seven years ago john a whole has more. egypt's revolution may seem like a long time ago but its consequences are still unfolding. and man who wanted the whole routine the information i'm requested to provide here is related to the trial and what happened before it such information was delivered to me because i was the president and supreme leader of the military forces in a car oh courtroom an extraordinary scene two former presidents adversaries in the events of early two thousand and eleven now appearing on opposite sides of the law the long time ruler hosni mubarak many called him a military dictator was deposed by the revolutionaries he gave evidence against

egypt's first democratically elected leader mohammed morsi morsi who faced a death sentence until it was revoked is being retried on other charges along with fellow muslim brotherhood defendants they're accused of conspiring with foreign groups including hamas and hezbollah to orchestrate a violent jailbreak in the early days of the revolution but it was some say a third president the current leader abdel fattah el-sisi attempting a show of strength here to wield more power you see that he's telling the former president mubarak you must come to court and so we're seeing this power play that sisi signaling to both mubarak and his people that i'm consolidating power and myself i am the eternal power in this state and the level of repression today's unprecedented and the economic situation is even worse the attacks on journalism and freedom of speech and press and civil society egypt is quickly becoming

governor and sisi is afraid of a counter revolution in two thousand and sixteen egypt's highest appeal court overturned a life sentence handed down to president mohamed morsi ordering a retrial last year mubarak's own conviction on charges of negley. jinsa know if this was overturned and he was released but it is president down c.c. who now faces the possible poor in the public anger the stagnating economy and the repressive. eighty years egypt appears to have come. to know how does iraq. where u.s. markets are still volatile after a major run of losses in the week before christmas on wednesday the dow jones posted its biggest single day gain rising eleven hundred points that's almost five percent the partial rebound followed a pre-christian us losing streak fueled by slower global growth and political uncertainty in washington that strong retail sales and surging tech and energy

stocks helped to boost markets on wednesday robert scott is a senior international economist at the economic policy institute is joining us via skype from part of the act that's in maryland so when we spoke to days ago robert scott you said that markets are hard to predict would you have predicted the rally that we saw today actually i'm not particularly surprised what we're experiencing right now is a period of extreme what we call volatility or highs and lows the market seems so you know you know from very low one day to bounce back the next i think what's more important is you keep our eyes on the trend. overall the market still is down several thousand points from just at levels of just a month ago and to the year both the dow and the s. and p. five hundred are up about seven and a half points seven half percent rather so that's a substantial loss of value over the course of

a year but can we were displaying what is behind this major and wrestling with all its ability that you speak of barton what's behind the volatility. well i think there's great uncertainty you know there are there's growing fear that they're going to be recession and certainly you know we have lots of problems in washington we have the government shutdown you have a president who doesn't seem particularly well prepared and sell for him in his ministration he doesn't have the personnel on hand to deal with a crisis if one has a so i think there's great uncertainty about the ability of this government to weather the next crisis where the investor is reassured somewhat by a white house official statement that the federal reserve chairman job was one hundred percent safe because we saw trump kind of verbal e attacking him over the past so week with the rumors of him possibly sacking him or trying to sack him at least i think that was certainly helpful no question there

was a concern that the president might go after the chairman of the federal reserve although there are real questions about whether he had the authority to do that also even rumors that the treasury secretary's job could be in danger but given that they can seize that that exists throughout the highest levels of government you know his cabinet level jobs the chief of staff and so on as it is now vacant i think that. that it would have been very unwise to move more officials a look ahead for us for our twenty one thousand were just a few days away from the new year is this rally what we saw on wednesday a little too little too late to hold off a downturn in the next year what are we looking at. i think the bigger question is is one of the directions with the fundamentals we know the government spending is going to shrink in two thousand and nineteen the trade deficit is already rising

and you know i.m.f. is projected as projected over the next two or three years the u.s. deficit trade deficit could more than nearly double what it is nearly double the next tuesday years and that those two factors together are going to greatly curtail growth in the united states would be enough to push you sent a recession economists seem to think that's increasingly likely to happen all right robert scott we thank you for speaking to us from the u.s. still ahead on the news hour. a day in the life of closer look at what the u.s. president does with this. human microchip we report on the benefits and the risks of the technology that could replace access cards in sport a nervous wait for l.a. lakers fans. it's a problem. hello

again as we end the week here cross north america we're looking at a big storm here coming out of the rockies and really intensifying as we go towards the end of the week here those clouds right there so thursday we're going to be having plenty of snow to the north plenty of rain down here towards the south we've begun had some severe weather along this frontal boundary as it makes its way across the gulf coast but up towards the north anywhere from minneapolis over here towards tronto it is going to be a snowy day chicago the snow is going to turn to rain but we do think you are going to be seeing some delays there as we go towards friday that front starts to extend across the eastern seaboard down here towards the south and atlanta washington the york boston all seeing some problems at the airports there well across the caribbean not looking too bad for most locations specially out here towards the east dry for many areas there where we are picking up some rain is going to be over here across parts of the yucatan that is going to continue from thursday getting

a little bit better we think by the time i get to friday but over here towards vanna a nice day for you winds coming out of the southeast where the temps are there of about twenty nine degrees and then very quickly across south america still very heavy rain across parts of brazil particularly down here towards the south ridge you know it is going to be a rainy day for you at twenty eight degrees and partly cloudy for since young at about thirty four. banks not to mention lines to some friends because behind something millions of tax plans because the taxpayers never go away is a new one bone every single day and ninety it is an urgent national necessity that it be officially requested the accusation of the support mechanism we created together because i happen to live in creeks somehow i'm a sinner i'm a bad person. that's machine on al-jazeera.

al-jazeera is very effective we just tell the reality as it is i'm talking hard work on the back they call it modern namely we call for indonesia every day not only breaking news story and money is a very fascinating country but very difficult to understand from the outside and because i've been living here for sixty years i know very well what's going on and i go out of fear and power for the whole country and even go. against the opportunity for a journalist to be real generally. hello again the top stories on the al-jazeera news our president donald trump has used an unannounced visit to u.s. troops in iraq to defend his decision to withdraw forces from neighboring syria

trumps face criticism for not visiting american soldiers abroad he insisted he has no plans to pull troops from iraq voting in sunday's presidential election in the democratic republic of congo has been postponed and three opposition strongholds until march the election commission says a delay the vote in benny and you may be over fears of violence and ebola. two former egyptian president have appeared in the same courtroom in cairo hosni mubarak was testifying against jailed leader mohamed morsy the charges against morsi relate to prison breaks at the height of the twenty eleven revolution that toppled mubarak. well since coming to office almost two years ago donald trump has turned presidential convention on its head that extends to his schedule which has been less hectic than many would expect our white house correspondent kelly how to takes a closer look at what the us president does with his day. given his background as

a businessman with no prior time in elected office donald trump's presidency has been dramatically different from his predecessors. that includes his public schedule it often appears a little light it's an accusation trump denies in less than two years my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country. still trump's daily schedule has been under the microscope for months on most days his first meeting usually a daily intelligence briefing doesn't begin until eleven am it follows three hours of what the white house refers to as executive time it's what many others like presidential historian martha kumar call tweeting he tweets and he tells people what's what's on his mind and then he does early in the morning and then he can see some of those themes resonate on television the white house has defended this

unscheduled work time saying the president uses this time to make phone calls and his former doctor reports he sleeps very little that's probably one of the reasons why he's been successful are now because you know me personally i need a lot more sleep than he's just one of the people i think that just does not require a lot of sleep indeed a study of trump's tweets shows he seems active at all hours of the day with no sign of a slackening pace who are says trump is among the most engaged when it comes to taking questions from reporters enough put down the mike describe the end of november trumpeted gaged in question and answer sessions with reporters three hundred and seven times that's in contrast to seventy times by president obama at the same point in his presidency and two hundred thirty four times for president bush kumar says even though trump's public schedule is blank it doesn't mean it's a blank schedule trump also spend some of his work day in the white house residence

instead of the west wing oval office so he can consult with his personal lawyers as the justice department probes into possible collusion between trump's presidential campaign and russia there is an office up there yeah and so it's not as if he's not working he is simply doing what he wants to do it without a lot of prying eyes seclusion as a private businessman is understandable but as a politician a public servant to. promised to reinvent u.s. politics and shine a light on washington so-called swap donald trump's then public schedule is far from transparent kimberly health at al-jazeera the white house let's bring in bill schneider he's a political analyst and professor of public policy at george mason university he's joining us from los angeles thanks for speaking to us bill so trump did take time away from his public schedule as it's being described to go to iraq he made this unannounced visits to american troops there first give me your overview on what you

make of this visit well it was unannounced but it wasn't expected he's been hinting for some time that he intends to visit the troops and so our reporters thought something like this might be happening around the holidays which is when previous presidents have often visited the troops what's unusual about this president is he's never been that much in gauged in the commitment of troops overseas his foreign policy has been defined as american first he's withdrawing troops from syria and from afghanistan on the theory that the job is done he claims we have defeated isis and he was never a strong enthusiastic of the iraq war but he's gone to iraq he is the commander in chief that's the president's job and i'm sure the military is pleased that he's there and glad to see him so does he now quiet some of his critics who have said that well he hasn't been to visit any of the troops anywhere and this is a very long overdue. it is overdue but but other presidents have taken some

time. he is interested mostly in governing for his base and they are very satisfied with this president he has been fighting for immigration fighting for the border wall using the military to help provide border security a lot of military people wonder if that should be their function it seems like it's something very political he has never been a strong supporter of the war in iraq there's different interpretations of where they even supported the war or not but it's not one of his commitments remember he didn't make the commitment to afghanistan he did make that commitment to iraq or to syria so he feels very little personal investments in those commitments but what he's done is he's also left a a partial government shutdown back home he's also been getting a lot of heat for a series of policy decisions you mentioned his assistant to pull troops out of syria so how much of this visit is him trying to deflect away from those problems.

well he's doing something and that's important because there's a government shutdown a partial government shutdown right now which president comp trump said a few weeks ago he would take responsibility for the interesting thing about this is it hasn't provoked anything like a crisis in the united states i think the president assumed that americans would be outraged they'd be clamoring to reopen the government and they'd be pressuring congress to act but there's no evidence really that that's happening the president insists that border security is an impending national crisis that drugs and criminals and terrorists are pouring over the border but most americans don't see that as a crisis either the way the american system of government works is for a problem to be dealt with by the u.s. government it has to become a crisis border security the shutdown they are both problems but they have not reached the dimensions really of an urgent national crisis so let me just get your

reaction finally on the report that was filed by a reporter kimberly hawk at not sure if you are hearing it but here is part of what was in that reports she was saying that on most days his first meeting usually a daily intelligence briefing doesn't begin until eleven am and then it's follows three hours of what the white house refers to as quote executive time what do you make of his thing public schedule. well he didn't even give a public schedule while the government has been shutting down he spends a lot of time watching television he likes one particular network that has a lot of conservatives and that supports his policies he spends a lot of time tweeting which puzzles a lot of people because they don't think it's very presidential it's often very vituperative and sometimes nasty but he has his own way of doing business he's not deeply engaged in public policy he's not what american slang is called a public policy wonk someone who's deeply engaged in the details of public policy

and how the government works he's known to insist on memoranda and briefings that are no more than one page long he reads them then he throws them away he doesn't really have a lot of depth on public policy issues but he has a strong sense of his own priorities what he wants to accomplish and that he is strongly committed to bill schneider we thank you for speaking to us from los angeles pleasure now u.s. border protection has ordered medical checks for every child in custody after a second child died while in its care eight year old philip gomez alone zoë died on christmas day hours after being discharged from hospital he was diagnosed with a cold and fever for the pan his father had been in u.s. border control custody since entering the country a week earlier and the seven year old girl died earlier this month also after being detained. the un is warning at least two million the more venezuelans are likely to flee their country next year neighboring peru says two thousand people are crossing

its border every day it's already hosting the second largest number of venezuelan refugees after columbia but as marianna sanchez reports from lima new arrivals are facing stricter immigration controls. me when i find nothing i mean is going to buy you has been selling coffee on the streets of lima since she arrived from venice willing november the thirty two year old is qualified in food quality control but she's afraid she'll get in trouble for trying to work in an industry she knows well she missed the october deadline to apply for a work permit by just a few weeks i'm afraid we came here to work legally and to be in the country legally i don't want to do anything against the law to do so so-called foreign police along with immigration officials are conducting inspections across the capital to ensure venus williams half the required permits to work out of the muzzle by the immigration chief. said the briefly detained some than

a swell and for security reasons. sadly some people have committed crimes and that makes us sad because it affects the way peruvians and it also makes peruvians afraid. of the immigration office and many are rushing to apply for work permits before yet another deadline december thirty first they do says it won't issue any more after that and we're trying i haven't waited at the last minute but it's been very difficult because i still don't have a certificate from interpol immigration authorities say they've increased the number of personnel and office hours to help these men as well and get their paperwork done fast but they also say eighty five thousand have missed their appointments and twenty thousand have not picked up their approved permits. six hundred thirty five thousand. swindon's no living according to official estimates.

says she feels lucky that she crossed the border in time to work legally and. i pride in august they gave me to a point where you just know i don't know what will happen to those who get here after the situation in venezuela is a tragedy and officials say those who enter doctor to work can only apply for asylum no but i mean. this doesn't guarantee a job you get that we've got it but that meant i applied for asylum they gave me a paper that allowed me to work but no one is accepting it as valid. on average two thousand in a swim into bed every day but again officials say they will not issue work permits after december but for now they will keep the border open to those fleeing the deepening economic and political crisis back home again i just see the. activists and anti whaling countries have condemned japan's decision to resume commercial hunts next year the japanese government is pulling out of the international whaling commission which it says is dominated by conservationists but

as a bar reports japan will also end controversal whaling expeditions near antarctica . this is what japan says it will restart next july the commercial hunting and killing of whales in japanese territorial waters the chief cabinet secretary explained why. japan's basic policy of promoting sustainable use of aquatic living resources based on scientific evidence has not changed and under that policy we have decided to resume commercial whaling the government says the hunters will end their controversial annual expeditions to the southern ocean and antarctica provoking confrontation such as these with conservation groups. greenpeace quickly reacted by urging the japanese government to reconsider its ban reversal. and the marine conservation group c. shepard which has fought many battles with japanese hunting fleets says japan's

decision to abandon whaling around antarctica is a victory though their campaign will continue elsewhere. among other reactions the australian government says it is extremely disappointed and they are not alone by leaving the international whaling commission the i.w.c. japan is walking away from the international body that isn't great international to be responsible for the management and conservation of. leaving that means that japan is walking away from international no rivera concerned that they're beginning and you era of pirate whaling commercial whaling was banned by the international whaling commission in one nine hundred eighty six because of the hunting of some species on the verge of extinction pro whaling nations expect that the ban to be temporary until an agreement could be reached on sustainable catch quotas instead it became

a generally accepted permanent ban for the past thirty two years many japanese argue that eating whale meat is part of their culture while two hundred thousand tonnes of one.