with that they say they must exercise their rights with the rest of the country so some burned sections of an ebola transit center where those suspected of having the disease are held for. me demba we're tired voters and brainy and what temple gave this government the last election they've been killed by rebels and kept quiet they brought us a bowler and we did not say anything now we can't keep quiet any will. force us to but that was the government not concerned about the situation in beni we were told to go is here we accepted this but today they told us we could not vote because of ebola even though they themselves said the sickness was the creasing benny and with a hammer in the east and the western town of you may be a stronghold of one of the country's main presidential candidates. and have about one point two million voters he's quite. in a country where the winner takes it all on the fast round every vote counts and is

calling for a nationwide general strike. friday. and . the same. three hours to go before. we. finish. everywhere. we have seen. the. county. police believe we are in the fire. as all this was happening the government gave the european union's ambassador to congo forty eight hours to leave the country mainly because of sanctions the e.u. recently renewed on fourteen individuals including a man of the ruling party's presidential candidate and president joseph kabila choice for the top job of the interior minister between december twenty sixth in march twenty seventh and scores of people were killed mostly by security forces

during street protests since. these sanctions violate international law undermine the fundamental rights of those concerned and have been condemned by regional authorities for the sake of our historical partnership i've pleaded with the e.u. to lift the sanctions at the very least suspend them until after the general election. some say the electoral commission and the government are working together to reach the election in favor. they say they will not accept an outcome where he's declared winner it's hard to tell if this call for a general strike will bring any change the country's main opposition leaders seem divided with some saying they will go to the election regardless of the announcement by the electoral commission what is clear is that many people we've talked to believe that this election is already tainted catherine al-jazeera.

joins us live now from kinshasa malcolm so what's the response been to this call for a general strike. in the city of beni right now it's been heated two shops are closed businesses are closed on the one hand this means for the opposition that they can avoid the risk of being accused of provoking violence which could risk them being disqualified from the election or attract condemnation from the international community on the other hand it's possible that this might put more pressure on the population themselves there who are struggling day to day meal to meal to get by rather than actually putting a lot of pressure on the electoral commission which is here in the capital kinshasa meanwhile in the eastern city of goma there have been protests police have broken them up with tear gas and all this is because of the exclusion of three opposition strongholds from sunday's presidential poll by the electoral commission electoral

commission that according to opinion polls the majority of congolese don't trust and these recent moves are only going to increase particularly among opposition supporters the skepticism about the electoral commission is independent we interviewed president joseph kabila and one of the things that i asked him about was this widespread perception that the electoral commission isn't neutral let's hear what he had to say. the issue or issues about electoral commission be biased. to me is just nonsense the most important thing we should all understand and retain is that it is an independent electoral commission that more than two years ago the international community offered financial support to the democratic republic of congo to conduct this election but that support was rejected and then later all of these problems and challenges were cited so we've always tried to elections in this country an issue of sovereignty the sovereign

nation of the congo plans to organize its elections and i've always stated that the congo and the congolese state we are not biggest we decided to organize our own elections like any other nation in the world and i don't see why anybody should take issue with that but you talked about sovereignty but i think that the sovereignty that many congolese people feel they don't have in particular the thousands of people who've taken to the streets and the dozens who were killed in the hundreds who were detained in the process of these protests calling for elections i think they would dispute that they have sovereignty and they say sovereignty that they've been demanding. and the electoral process is always a sensitive issue and i was just stating that even if football game between you have pensions that rides so during an electoral process you have tension and

the most important thing is to have the necessary police force that's where equipped in order to give that a twenty given point in time we did not have that capacity but we've been building that capacity so if this election takes place as planned if you step aside as you say you will what's next or what are you why are you so pessimistic you think about if. it's no longer about it it's been repeatedly postponed already waiting to see if it really will and will it really happen and not been repeatedly postponed the problem is that these are congolese elections these are congolese elections and that's what everybody has to understand and there are. issues that have arisen whilst in the way we've been able to do them as

a nation we don't want anybody to judge us and that apart from the congress. just a short while ago really commission and here in the capital kinshasa one thousand six hundred polling stations he uses about twenty percent of the capital polling station be used in voters will be directed at the polling stations instead they said that the reason for this is the warehouse fire a couple of weeks ago in which the electoral commission says some of the voting machines were burned now the capital has about fifteen percent of the. so the capital has the greatest concentration of voted in the country from the most densely populated areas we do expect to see long queues here on voting day and removing twenty percent of the polling stations is only going to make those queues

longer quite possibly it will mean some people can't vote in the capital is also an opposition stronghold both for martin for you lou one of the key opposition candidates who opinion polls now put in the lead also for felix the security the other key opposition candidate who also has a lot of support here so it's very likely the opposition are going to object again to these changes to the plan for the election they're going to be the hard hit against their stronghold here in the capital waiting to find out the scene as we know what their reaction is we will bring it. in kinshasa malcolm thank you police in sadam have detained opposition leaders and activists before more expected protests they began of a rising bread and fuel prices and i've grown into demands that president omar bashir resigned he's promised reforms and is blaming what he calls traitors and foreign interference for the unrest rights groups say dozens of protesters have been killed. joins us live now from khartoum but these protests have been taking

place now for more than a week how is the government been responding to the. well there and one of the government's response is obviously as you've said to try to improve the economy they've promised citizens who've been protesting as well as people who've been complaining about the high prices and the inflation they said that they were going to try to introduce reforms that they're going to try to improve their economic policies so that they can get more foreign income more hard currency to try to reduce the price in the market but people obviously have been protesting in the streets for more than eight days now the government has been responding using tear gas live ammunition and yesterday the minister of information said that at least one thousand people have been killed and over four hundred injured but amnesty international on monday said noted that the death toll is as as high as thirty seven and it could be possibly more but they don't have exact figures of people who have been detained and who died in detention the government is saying that amnesty is trying to basically sell seeds of of just this content and more unrest in the

country have accused. people protesting of being infiltrators so they said that they're going to try to improve the economy but at the same time between responding using what some governments or some foreign governments say is brutal force with the protesters by using tear gas and live in the missions here but we know that more protests are expected on the streets today what sort of turnout some support today lucky to get. well for starters this protest let's remember when it started it did not have any political backing but over the past few days we've seen opposition groups several opposition groups coming out and saying that they are giving their support and lending their support to those people protesting there saying that those protesters have legitimate reasons to try to get better a better economic better living conditions and to demand that the government step down so over the last few days we've seen some opposition groups coming out voicing their support to to to the to the protesters and to the protests or to their demands that the government step down to zero in the past few days we've seen the protests getting more political backings more civil society backings and there are

concerns that because of the backings that they're getting over the past few days that this unrest will continue this protests will continue as you've said some of the people have been arrested some opposition figures have been arrested before this started before today's planned protest and it's not clear if the government would allow the protesters to go we've seen on tuesday how they responded they've basically had police and military around and around town which is basically what's happening today again there are concerns that more live ammunition to be used more tear gas and that the death toll would rise here thank you so much here and now where boko haram fighters of a military bases in their fight for control around lake chad intense fighting in the fishing town of bugger forced nigerian army soldiers to retreat large quantities of weapons were stolen boko haram has increased attacks on military outposts recently. some caliber of. the fight is subset around by getting around for a number of hours some are talking about more than twenty four hours and battle is

ongoing in that area the army can only confirm that yes there's been some fighting that it has not lost control of this town of buy gas which is a fishing community but some residents who have fled the town are saying that book why don't fight is why deep inside the town one particular. resident was saying that they even lead morning prayers this morning and by guitar and by the military is not giving too much details only controlling that one person was killed and that they have on a search and rescue in such an area indication that probably some of their soldiers have been dispersed bible koran so right now it's still. not clear what exactly is happening in baghdad and we were told by a military source that operations in that area is ongoing but by the way by town is a scene of one of the worst boy quite a massacres in nigeria for five days in generally two thousand and fifteen boko haram fighters although around that same military base

a multinational joint task force which is operated by soldiers from cameroon nigeria nizkor and binny republic and child as well were fighting boko haram and took over arms and ammunition from that area and massacred more than one thousand civilians gunmen in the kenya fast out of ambushed and killed ten policemen their convoy was attacked near the border with mali the areas been repeatedly attacked mostly by fighters linked to al qaida over the last three years. police boats on patrol in the major turn forced the exclusion zone around a volcano which is threatening to erupt again as zones been widened an alert level raised for the krakatoa volcano another major eruption could cause a second tsunami a five meter high wave flooded coastal communities on saturday killing at least four hundred twenty six people bribe reports now from pentagon in banten province. with the increase in the alert level a ministerial visit to the tsunami affected area coming to one of the observation

post set up to see exactly what cracker tower is up to some fifty kilometers off shore they have been talking to geologists and volcanologists here who have used an opportunity a break in the weather early friday to get a visual fix on a crack at how what they have been seeing is a shift of further rock and lava down the sides of the volcano disappearing into the sea and clouds of steam this is of concern because of course it was a shift of the side of the volcano that caused the tsunami last saturday the vulcanologist have also been reporting plumes of gas and two hundred to six hundred meters in the air but there have been even bigger plumes in the previous few days. and. before depicted india was only around the world killing or but since yesterday ash has been falling on the land we did options up to twenty five hundred meters

high. when the tsunami happened many people simply sought refuge in their local mosque especially those that are uphill and away from the coast and the number are still providing a shelter this friday nearly a week on from the tsunami all of the mosques along this part of the coastline of java are busier than usual and. i want to pray for the people who passed away and for those still living i want to pray for everyone this is on the log yeah i'm praying we don't have another tsunami so everyone can go back to making a living because we all make a living from the coastal area most people here believe in the science and heed the warnings of the experts but when it comes to the possibility of a future more devastating tsunami people of faith also believe that their destiny lies in the hands of a greater entity. a rescue boat carrying more than three hundred people as docked in spain after being refused entry by several other european countries the open

arms charity vessel to rescue the migrants and refugees off the coast of libya week ago it's the first time since august that spain has allowed a rescue ship to duck mountain rescuers in the french alps describing the discovery of a teenage avalanche survivor as miraculous twelve year old was found alive after being buried under an avalanche for forty minutes he was skiing off piste a lot planned and he was set to way and dragged at least a hundred meters he was eventually found by a sniffer dog and taken to hospital for a check up in a few moments we'll have all the weather the ever ten but still ahead here on al-jazeera a desperate search for miners trapped underground for nearly two weeks in northeast india. and sport roger federer lands first big prize of the new tennis season faras here with that story a bit later more on that stay with us. beneath

pink skies by the taj mahal. or is the sun sets in the city of angels. we have a tropical depression now making its way across the philippines you can see that huge massive cloud sakti following a very similar path to high yeah which caused devastation across the country five years ago thankfully this is nowhere near as intense but it is going to make its way further west was across a very similar area lots of heavy rain on the storm ninety two millimeters of rain in the past twenty four hours the many places could see around one hundred fifty millimeters self-rising and one or two spots maybe seeing as much as three hundred millimeters of rain so that will certainly cause some problems it'll dive its way out since of the open waters between borneo and vietnam lots of clouds showing up here at the moment as you can see not so much clout in places say just around java

and around some coast sea search and recovery operation should have no problems as we go on through the next couple days because it does look lossy tried to counter it around thirty three degrees celsius on sas they send the temperature as we go on into sunday and by sunday she can see we're going to see that wetter weather coming out of the philippines still quite a legacy of showers across much of the country so we're not out of the woods just yet and we continue to drive this way further south which westwards next week. the weather sponsored by qatar and always. thanks love to make loans to some friends because behind the suffering millions of taxpayers because those taxpayers never go away is a new one born every single day and 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 greece somehow i'm a sinner i'm

a bad person. that's machine on al-jazeera. when the news breaks in the story it's when people need to be heard and the story needs to be told. with exclusive interviews and in-depth reports. al-jazeera has teens on the ground to bring you more award winning documentaries. and live nice on air and online.

welcome back a quick reminder the top stories here on al-jazeera the syrian army says it seized the strategic city of miami beach after a request from syrian kurds why b.g. fears turkish attacks following the u.s. decision to withdraw troops from the area russia has welcomed the main. opposition areas in the democratic republic of congo have observed a general strike after being excluded from sunday's presidential election in the wild electoral commission has cut the number of voting machines in the capital kinshasa. and boko haram fighters in nigeria have attacked two military bases in their fight for control around lake chad large amounts of weapons but also stole the. saudi arabia as a new foreign minister or the former top diplomat the larger bear stripped of his post in a major cabinet reshuffle ordered by king solomon the shake up comes as the international backlash continues over the murder of the saudi journalist. by agents of the kingdom charleville its reports. a former advisor to the late

king abdullah a former ambassador to you know. should states and now former foreign minister it was only the second saadi to be appointed foreign minister outside the royal family u.b.s. has been demoted to minister of state for foreign affairs it comes after nearly three months of questions and denials about the killing of journalist. in the saudi consulate in istanbul saudi arabia has faced international backlash including from the u.s. congress who said crown prince mohammed bin son man was responsible for murder during a regional summit earlier this month you beard denied the crown prince's involvement and see this with regards to issuing an arrest warrant we don't extradite our citizens i believe turkey's constitution prohibits the extradition of turkish citizens to be a was appointed foreign minister by king solomon in twenty fifteen a month after saudi arabia went to war in yemen is strikes were launched with the

aim of quickly crippling hooty fighters backed by iran and stage the war has dragged on for almost four years killing at least sixty thousand yemenis he's also overseen turmoil within the g.c.c. including a saudi lead in land and sea blockade of customer for the past eighteen months or moves that have stalled controversy around the kingdom something his successor last if no one here it's by having brought him last soft who was an old to school he's a veteran he served as a minister of finance for twenty years from one nine hundred ninety six and two thousand and sixteen so now he's having come as a foreign minister in order to give that the message that now we are back to the farm policy alas earth is the former finance minister he was one of many wealthy and powerful saudis arrested and imprisoned and riyadh's ritz carlton hotel last year the crown prince championed to the arrests as

a necessary crackdown on corruption. the yemen war and the g.c.c. blockades three of the main ongoing diplomatic crises facing the kingdom and its new foreign minister ibrahim al asiri chalo fellas al-jazeera. but ryan has reopened its embassy in syria so has the united arab emirates and the first direct flight in eight years from syria's capital to tunisia has landed and a further sign of regional relations being restored after eight years of war gymnasiums waving syrian flags greeted a hundred fifty tourists from damascus. a former president of madagascar and raja lina is back in the top job after winning the election with more than fifty five percent of the vote roger leno was up against another former president marc ravalomanana was already announced what he called massive fraud he wants an investigation into the december nineteenth vote the constitutional court has nine days to declare

a final result bangladesh's general election campaign has ended with more violence and arrests the opposition bangladesh nationalist party says nineteen activists have been arrested ahead of sunday's vote and police say a supporter of the ruling awami league was killed. to india now rescuers are racing to find fifteen miners trapped underground for over two weeks in an illegal coal mine government leaders are being criticised for their slow response to the emergency in the northeastern state of megara a culture dish of reports. these rescue workers know the chance of finding the trapped miners alive is slim but they continue their search the teenage miners went into the legal coal mine in the north east indian state of magali on december thirteenth but got trapped soon after when the mines tunnel was flooded by a nearby river they've been without food or drinking water ever since the war that it is not going. to be to play football and if it isn't to fling what fun but not

fast enough prime minister narendra modi's government is being criticized for not sending in the right equipment on time he was at a nearby state on christmas day and didn't mention the incident or the trapped miners divers at the scene say they aren't equipped to go down more than thirty meters and the miners are some ninety meters underground the best of what the living there will be even if you start a little bit still we're doing all day and yet we don't the pavement is that the water live in the fish we don't and don't. digging in abandoned mines has been banned for more than four years now but many break the law risking their lives by going down into so-called rat holes miners can earn up to twelve dollars a day which is a higher pay rate than most jobs in india a similar incident six years ago killed more than two dozen miners their bodies were never recovered and it is fear dissimilar fate awaits those trapped inside this call the area paul should urge on al-jazeera the partial shutdown of the u.s.

government is likely to continue into the new year to both houses of congress adjourned without agreeing a way forward a vote on the impossible back to next week donald trump says the shutdown will continue until democrats meet his demands for five billion dollars in next year's budget to build the war on the border with mexico one opinion polls suggest more americans blame the president for the shutdown rather than democrats. around two hundred people seeking asylum in the u.s. spent part of christmas day in a car park in texas after being sent there by immigration and customs enforcement officials in el paso hundreds more were sent to other locations including bus shelters as gable elizondo reports now from the past so they were left to fend for themselves in the cold. by the will cast and yet it came to the u.s. from guatemala like so many others seeking a better life for his son philippe there now just trying to get warm at

a shelter after a couple nights at a border patrol detention center at the end of the only later on they will free they put his in a cell it was very cold like an ice box it made his cough we went to another cell it was the same while we were there they didn't give us much food there wasn't much attention and they said it was our fault we brought kids with us but it was out of necessity to find a better life in the united states. when finally released it got worse earlier this week immigration and customs enforcement officials unexpectedly released hundreds of migrants from detention facilities but instead of taking them to shelters they were dropped off in downtown el paso without any notice and nowhere for them to go most like and well were from central american countries they were families young and old who would cross the border at bennett detention cells for anywhere from three to eight days it was left to volunteers from local nonprofits to rush to the

scene to try to help the desperate migrants and asylum seekers many of them were hungry they were thirsty some of them were sick they were sick children were dropped off and they were confused and so what they did it was done on purpose it was done willfully advocates worry that immigration and custom officials are dumping migrants and asylum seekers out on the streets in order to relieve overcrowding in detention facilities particularly after two guatemalan children eight year old boy and a seven year old girl died this month while in border patrol custody veronica escobar recently elected to the u.s. house of representatives says it's a crisis started by what she calls a cruel immigration policy by president donald trump one she hopes to change to children that we know of have died in american custody that should never happen

again we need to know why it happened how it happened we need to know the conditions that other individuals are having to live through we need to know the foundation of this policy who called for it and we need to change it back at the community center where mad well is at falling tears are trying their best to help knowing more migrants will need it hoping no boar are left on the streets to fend for themselves. i'll just say it el paso texas now the latest crackdown on crime in rio de janeiro is being declared a success amanda's disputed by some brazilians and live in the slums they say the military operation fails to address the root causes of the problem. reports. for nearly one here soldiers carrying machine guns have been raiding some of brazil's most dangerous favelas the military was called in when gang violence became unbearable the government says the plan to curb insecurity worked.

this ceremony marked its completion the state operation in rio de janeiro officially ends on december thirty first the general in charge says the mission was accomplished no meeting to storm to news we are here to mark the end of the federal intervention in public security in rio de janeiro this new an extraordinary measure took ten months of work and reached all its objectives by reducing the crime rate. since the military's arrival car thefts and street assaults have declined in targeted cities statistics show an eighteen percent drop in homicides compared with two thousand and seventeen but behind this progress critics say there's a hidden reality some brazilians say killings by security forces increased while underlying problems behind crime like unemployment and inequality work nor. has there been a thought that much political defeat you suppress of politics will never change on the contrary people will continue to be afraid and will be repressed this

intervention is more political than effective so i think nothing's changed. thank when it was launched in february it marked the first federal operation in a state since brazil return to democracy in the one nine hundred eighty s. top government officials welcomed it but it was criticized by some human rights groups. now some fear speaking out publicly on the crackdown. now. if i share my opinion about it it will bring me serious problems so maybe it's better not to talk about this. brazil's new far right president will be sworn in on new year's day brazilians will be hoping for a new chapter there will bring security to a nation torm by crime. al-jazeera. diesel powered vehicles could soon be banned and some of germany's biggest cities the e.u. is threatening to find the german government for breaching pollution levels and is

being demanded by environmental campaigners telling bob reports from berlin because of flu michael runs a small plumbing company in believing that relies on quick deliveries to customers his employees use small diesel vans to get around he says he'd like to use green of vehicles but right now that's not feasible. it is all and. for a small firm like ours we can't afford to keep replacing our vehicles we bought our fleet of six vans years ago trusting in diesel and we're stuck with them. this street in central berlin is one of the city's busiest and not surprisingly emissions levels around here are above the legal limits now they've already brought in a thirty kilometer and i was the limit to try to do something about the problem but still very soon diesel vehicles would be fine for me sara. the so-called diesel gate scandal focused attention on just how polluting diesel vehicles can be after german manufacturers including faults fog and dime are admitted cheating emissions

tests the government's promise to make the automakers pay for retrofitting in other words installing hardware to reduce emissions since february german cities have also had the right to hold a diesel vehicles to reduce air pollution should cause bringing in a total body january and at least fifteen heavily polluted cities across germany could soon have similar restrictions but the german government says in other places it needn't come to that the european union's accepted limits of nitrogen dioxide or n o two emissions is forty micrograms per cubic meter but under the proposed changes places where the level exceeds the output doesn't go above fifty micrograms would be exempt from diesel bans what also cities do is they modernize the buses and transport system at the moment quite intensively you can improve but going by bike you can also say we have an area in our town where we will no have very little have no traffic at all that's not enough nearly.