as being demanded by environmental campaigners i mean bob reports from berlin mikail blue marco runs a small plumbing company in volume 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 being limited to try to do something about the problem but still very soon diesel vehicles from this area. the so-called diesel gate scandal focused attention on just how polluting diesel vehicles can be after german manufacturers including faults fagen and dimer 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 gas bring in a total ban in 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 that but 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 and 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 nearly enough for campaigners who are

currently suing dozens of municipalities over their failure to act they say the government's plan based on localised exemptions will leave drivers confused and do nothing to improve their quality they have now more than thirty thousand premature deaths in germany alone and alone due to the high and that's the concentrate. we have several hundred new cases i ask my diseases and other diseases each year so it's high time to act. for small businesses like mikhail's there might be exemptions on what type of vehicles are banned. but whether changing the law will do anything to make city centers healthier it's far from clear that al-jazeera believe. and the russians. have combined the digital with the divine. projection of the virgin mary much to the delight of residents and tourists.

up to the christian christmas. break. to make the. opening.

welcome back now a boy in bolivia who was born without his left hand is transforming the lives of others like him what some might see as a disability the chemical challenge for sixteen year old the amount of his cholera our correspondent daniel schlyter has been to meet him and his remarkable use of

three d. printed by a mix. leonardo is something of a hero in these parts not quite spider-man but he's helping youngsters with similar problems to his own to feel closer to their superheroes. like him the seven year old girl was born missing a hand it was all he wanted to christmas his parents through leonardo found him one but not just any hand he gets a spider-man prosthetic. no longer a mistake is now the envy of his friends. you know there was a victim of amniotic band syndrome which affects babies still in the womb but supportive parents he's tried to never see it as a disability there's another game but if you're the man a lot of people who have lost a hand often hide it cover it up they don't want to show it what i do is take off the prosthetic and say look i'm not ashamed i'm proud of who i am it's sad not to have

a hand but it's sad and not to accept it you must accept how you are. he developed an interest in robotics at a young age two years ago aged just fourteen he made his own replacement hand using a three d. printer. he says made more than sixty fingers hands on alms charging less than one hundred dollars to cover materials such as this biodegradable plastic artificial limbs in bolivia one of the poorest countries in the region can cost between two to three thousand dollars. what i always say is well three d. printed takes twenty four hours to finish can change the life of a person forever. still only sixteen his reputation growing in bolivia and beyond you know i don't plan to study biomedicine one day used by all nix to control his left hand directly from his brain. jago says he's going to use his new hand to play games he couldn't play before. that no one else will have one of

these he'll be able to do so many things with it i'm extremely grateful to many across bolivia beneficiaries of laon are those dream he simply wanted a hand so he made one using his initiative on what was available. santa cruz believe. or example the sport now his for daring thank you so much the l.a. lakers were without le bron james for the first time this season and his absence was felt they lost the sacramento kings on thursday james who is out after picking up a growing injury during their christmas game with the golden state warriors things were looking good for the visiting lakers for the first three and a half quarters and they were leading in the fourth when the kings rallied from fifteen points down to beat the lakers by just a point one hundred and seventeen to one hundred and sixteen sacramento winning their third consecutive home game it was las fourth loss in six games.

over in milwaukee the bucs beat the visiting new york knicks gianni and tito scored thirty one points and fourteen rebounds while chris middleton added twenty five more to leave the box to one hundred and twelve to ninety six when it's their six win and seven games. and tomorrow and will play two home league games behind closed doors as a punishment for some of their fans racially abusing a rival player napoli's color do was targeted by interest supporters during a serious match. napoli manager carlo enchiladas says he made three appeals for the game at enters san siro stadium to be stopped but the referee ignored his requests french more in senegal defender was eventually sent off in the game that napoli lost the mayor.

has apologised to calling the buz a shameful act against a respected athletes. arsenal manager unite emery says premier league leaders liverpool are in the best form of the season liverpool are six points clear at the top of the table and are the only unbeaten team in the league they play arsenal at anfield on saturday. then these proneness the last yeah. maybe the best moment now but for us you should all. be a big challenge. good first. this is how the table looks at the halfway point in the season defending champions man city are third after losing three of their last four league games city next take on southampton tottenham are into second after five consecutive league wins. we are there because we have to believe because we are going working so hard and of course

because the quality if not this is going to be the position that we have today but it's still. got a question mark. we see people doing the whole season to be consistent if it comes for this season and then. on top of that. we can fight for the things ahead of russia's anti doping agency has asked president vladimir putin for help in avoiding another ban asha's doping body could be suspended again because the world anti-doping agency inspection team is still waiting to receive key information a ban was lifted in september on the condition that laboratory data was handed over by the end of the here washer is in need to rebuild its reputation after evidence emerged of state sponsored doping and twenty fifteen. did you do your research over the course of three months we haven't been able to provide the data on the samples which have been kept at the moscow laboratory and which are also owned by

the international olympic committee and their international sports federation continuous speculations are made based on the moscow anti-doping agency data and it hurts our sport russert should be more interest than anyone else in sorting out it's past. the end of the season break is over for the world's best tennis players as they build up to the first grand slam of twenty nine team the australian open starts on january the fourteenth defending men's champion roger federer has already landed in australia is on the promotional trail ahead of the hopman cup team events federer is aiming for a third straight title in melbourne while number one novak djokovic is in action in abu dabi return to the top of the rankings with the title when when multan and the us open. i'm hoping i can. transfer the success that i've had in the last six months of the thousand agencies in the beginning of two thousand one thousand seasonal you see. i've had. lots of success in the world

tennis championships before in my in my career have played here several times and it's a great way to jump jump start the season rafa nadal is also due to play in abu dhabi injury forced the world number two to end his twenty eight hundred season early and he underwent ankle surgery in november but the spaniard is confident he will be one hundred percent fit in time for the australian open they can get off my boat. a while without having the terms with or. you know. things as low as and. to protect the boy. yeah cite the. bottle for the. and serina williams made a losing return to action her first competitive match since her defeat in september's u.s. open final against now me saka she was beaten in three sets by her sister venus in

abu dhabi's serina chance to equal margaret court tally of twenty four grand slam singles titles at next month's australian open. now one of the closest ever finishes to the sydney hope our yacht race has seen while don't celeb and take victory edging defending champion. the lead changed multiple times in the final hours of the two day race with four boats in the mix for the lead as they approached australia's southern tip as the sun came up over hobart eventual winners moved into a dominant position crossing the finish line at eight am local time it's a relief for the crew after a twenty seventeen controversy which saw them cross the finish first but get hit with a time penalty denying them the title by looked. disappointed . with the people of want to. go.

ahead with the result is an amazing. country. and. for the next you don't swim in it and also enjoy and that's all your sport for now i'll be back with more later but for now it's back to far out thank you very much indeed lots of me down jordan for the news hour so how raman will be up next with more of the day's state you've done so much for the. her. the democratic republic of congo is finally heading to the polls off the road to yet the lady who will be announced the winner of this already controversial

presidential election join us for special coverage of the aussies election on al-jazeera. they want to fall to three billion pounds worth of weaponry that was six billion pounds in commission. from there's no hope of ending war because there's always a small cobbles people for really really good business. in essence we in the united states have privatized the ultimate public function more shadow on al-jazeera. we understand the differences. and the similarities of cultures across the world so no matter how you take it al-jazeera will bring you the news and current events that matter to al-jazeera. short films of hope and inspiration.

a series of short personal stories that highlight the human triumph against the odds. al-jazeera selects. syria's military says it's entered the city of man beach after a call for help from kurds fearing a turkish offensive. remarks in a woman you're watching al-jazeera lives my headquarters here in doha coming up in

the next half hour. the issues about the electoral commission being biased. to me is just nonsense a president on the defensive as tensions rise two days out from elections in the democratic republic of congo. also boko haram fighters are trying to military bases in nigeria and escape with large quantities of weapons. and we'll tell you why doctors in zimbabwe are still on strike one month on. welcome to the program the syrian army says it entered the strategic city of man beach after a request from syrian kurds for protection the i.p.g. fears turkish attacks following the u.s. decision to withdraw troops from the area russia has welcomed the move but syrian opposition sources have told our jazeera there's no sign of government forces in the city the syrian army made the announcement on state television although it

hasn't yet broadcast and images of its forces in b h. based on the full commitment of the army and the armed forces to assume national responsibility for the imposition of the state sovereignty over every inch of the territories of the syrian arab republic and in response to the appeal of the people in. the general command of the army and the armed forces announces the entry of units of the syrian arab army to be and raising the flag of the syrian arab republic they armed forces guarantee the full security of all syrians and others who are present in the region or mohamad as our correspondent in neighboring type in turkey on the border with syria who are trying to take what's going on conflicting reports really about the location or control of the syrian army.

what are you hearing about sort of those movements and who really is in control of the city at the moment. yes indeed this is disputed with presidents. and. they have seen any state forces. or any. the government. countryside and i ventured into the city of course the city an observatory for human rights. to the city and of. this. country all started with went by the kurdish forces that they had the government come on the residents of the city in the face of. this

planned by the. from. a terrorist organization and allied to the k.k. the turkish and the. so. all the. what it. has been getting in the face of this offensive and how the. it all looks like this was done in an ocean with the government in damascus. painstaking decision. to make a choice between the lesser of two evils. yes indeed it was the. it was a very desperate. last. take

bringing in the government forces into the fray because they've seen what's happened in the free. city before that and how they want more to march to. saying that. on going in to take all of the city from them many people say they have no option but taking the option of inviting the government forces whether these. have been planned by the turkish forces to take. is still unknown but everything will depend on consultations to be held in school between russian officials on the one side and also a delegation a high level delegation from turkey that's led by the foreign minister and defense minister and also includes the head of intelligence we're going to discuss only mum

big but also the future of the entire east and syria for the moment thanks very much. for strategic studies. will be watching closely to see how to the latest developments in syria. major elephant in their own today is how iran will will it take advantage of such always that all will all will be at their debt to the man from day one i think that americans and their russian daunte garage on syria yes they have diverging interests but they have converging interests as well while today the prime concern for the american strategy is to confront iran this is their number one objective as it was stated from

a from the arrival of the administration and now the question is will this withdrawal will benefit iran or it's in the preparation was other regional powers in order to at least we can iran if not to say dr iran out of syria and the democratic republic of congo a general strike is being held in opposition or is excluded from sunday's presidential election workers who walked out in the northeastern city of beni the police have fired tear gas a protest as in goma the shortage of voting machines in the capital kinshasa is concerning election organizers of course but malcolm web is in can chance and sent us this update. in the eastern city of beni right now it's been it's been heated two shops are closed businesses are closed and 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 of 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 the police and are detained opposition leaders and activists before more expected protests began over rising bread and fuel prices and home grown into demands that president bashir resign he's promised reforms that is blaming what he calls traitors and foreign interference for the unrest rights groups say dozens of

protesters have been killed here morgan joins me now from the sudanese capital khartoum these protests well been going on for more than a week now and the government response has been controversial. yes so let's remember that the process when it started it was over they call them a bed over a couple of days after it started people have been protesting they've been saying things like we want to topple the government they've been calling for near again the government said that it is going to try to improve the economy they're going to try to introduce new policies but they've also been criticized for using what some foreign governments said brutal forest while we were at the protest on tuesday we've seen police firing tear gas and live ammunition some people have been injured during those protests amnesty international says thirty seven has been killed as of monday but the government yesterday called for a presser and they said only mine thousand people have been killed and over four hundred have been entered so the government has been responding they're trying to play good cop bad cop at the same time they promise to reform the economy they

promise that they're going to try to introduce new policies but with the protesters they've been using force things like tear gas and live ammunition to stop them from protesting what more do we learn. whether these protests will continue and whether the protests will either game support or as the days go on we're seeing pictures of within the last week or of lots of people on the streets. well when it started obviously it started with the people frustrated because there was no bread there were they said they were frustrated because of the rising inflation and the fact that things were getting expensive and they can afford a living but after that some political parties some opposition parties and some civil society groups came out and backed the protesters they said they believe the protesters have a midget to met reasons to be marching out in the streets and let's not forget that they were not only marching some of them called for strikes doctors in the state of the dairy for example health strikes and yesterday some journalists also called for a national strike because they felt like the police were being too brutal with them

because they stopped them from filming at some point so basically the protests seem to be picking up picking up momentum because opposition parties some opposition parties and some civil societies are trying to bag the protesters and their demands to topple the government and that seems to be a problem problem former president omar and here who says that he is not going to step down so right now sudan is a process for all its people protesting and the president saying he is not going to back down well we'll leave it there for the of course fall over this with you from khartoum. the african continent because of nigeria boko haram fighters have a turn to military bases in the fight for control around lake chad the intense fighting in the fishing town of bugger falls to nigeria and all the soldiers to retreat large quantities of weapons were stolen but herat has increased attacks on military posts recently over the dress has more. suffices to set 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 but 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 led morning prayers this morning and by get time by the military is not giving so much details on the 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 by blackwater um 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 book quite a massacres in nigeria for five days in general really two thousand it.