two people are killed in clashes in bangladesh as people vote in a general election. polling is underway in the democratic republic of congo and fears of violence there. i'm sami's a down this is a live from also coming up president claims big progress in efforts to scale down the trade war with china after a call with president xi jinping. russia and turkey agreed to step up cooperation in syria u.s.

forces to leave. two people have been killed in election related violence in bangladesh the incident occurred in the southeastern city of chittagong just three hours into voting in the country's general election opposition monitors i've also been barred from entering several polling booths prime minister sheikh hasina is expected to win a fourth term she's been criticized for clamping down on her opponents security is tight ass for a campaign marked by weeks of violence and the arrests of opposition supporters charles stratford joins us now live from. think near a polling station charlie how servo to be shaping up there. well certainly the atmosphere here can be described as calm but there are worrying

reports coming from people that we have spoken to at this particular polling station interestingly one of these opposition polling agents that you describe there in the intro we spoke to a man here who said that he has a polling agent had his i.d. he's necessary papers and a photograph taken by what he describes as people affiliated to the ruling policy away from him him and so it's seen other of these opposition polling agents and they have been refused access into the polling station now these polling agents. of being represented by all political parties are supposed to be inside the polling stations witnessing the voting process and then importantly also being there once the votes start to be counted so a worrying development there certainly in the context of the kind of tension and violence that we've seen in the build up to this election also interestingly one man came up to us who didn't want to go on camera and said that he turned up the

collar. went into the polling station and discovered that his vote had already been cast for him these allegations being made by the opposition all votes violence in the run up to the selection more than ten thousand five hundred people arrested so the opposition side. the government here saying that these are huge exaggerations they saying that a lot. ok to that and they're also keen to point out that so they say six of their supporters at least have been killed in an election or pre-election violence in the run up to this poll and then as you reported we are now hearing of the least two people killed in election day violence in chittagong the second biggest city in this country we're also hearing similar reports from our sources that we cannot verify in various other locations of potential the vote rigging going on indeed

a couple of people saying that what they actually witnessed or have strong evidence that some of these vote boxes had been filled overnight as i say it's very difficult to verify these claims. generally the government is touting its economic achievements are people listening. robin you know it's fair to say that the government the ruling party has achieved a lot certainly canonically it's a macro economic plans being lauded by people like organizations like the world bank we've seen the steady. at least six percent economic growth in recent years the government very proud of its outing huge infrastructure projects that they've been at the center of including for example the building of a nuclear power plant there are economic zones that are being set up around the country the government is also being lauded by the international community for the way that it handled was described this last year was the biggest refugee crisis in

the world those seven hundred thousand plus your refugees forced to flee we and our crackdown in myanmar in two thousand and seven seeing the government praise for the way it's been handling that you speak to the opposition though and they say that these macroeconomic plans are having very little impact on everyday people people on the streets they say that a lot of this economic progress has come from remittances those are that's money that is sent home by the millions of bangladeshis working outside of the country they also say that a lot of these figures come from the success that bangladesh has had in its garment manufacturing industry that so contributes billions of dollars to the economy here . but as i say the government have been very keen to tout their successes but critics are saying this vote is a choice between potentially greater expansion more progress in konami certainly those macroeconomic plans on one side or potentially greater political freedom on

the other the question remains is there whether the kind of intimidation and violence that we've seen in the run up to this election is going to keep people away from the polls today all right thanks for that. have begun casting their ballots in the democratic republic of congo for a long delayed presidential election choosing a successor as of president joseph kabila stepping down after seventeen years in power the elections were delayed by two years the run up has been plagued by violence and saturday opposition candidates refused to sign the pact aimed at diffusing tension between political parties that's raising more fears of on rest we have two correspondents in the capital kinshasa covering the election will go to malcolm where been a bit but first to catherine sawyer who's at the polling station so how is the mood where you are catherine well i mean we walk up to

a very. barren raining quite heavily and. the drainage system is not good the roads are flooded this will prevent may prevent a lot of people from coming out look polls have just opened and a very few. very few voters that said i'm in an area called gone there this is one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the city i thought everything is nice and clean meant proper think acuity check all through to hear president joseph kabila will be voting in this in this polling station he doesn't leave too far away from here but the reality is that just a fraction of the two million or twelve me don't residents of concerta can actually afford to leave in a neighborhood like this and mandelson diary ruling party candidate is going to be voting here there are twenty one presidential candidates on that ballot paper but

the race mainly is between three men. posters of politicians line almost every street in kinshasa there are twenty one presidential candidates on the ballot paper but three stand out. a man is a ruling party's candidate and outgoing president joseph kabila pastoral choice his critics say he's not suitable because he's under european union sanctions and is not popular but he supporters aggy he's best placed for the post. is different positions. the congress. the interest of the country interest of the people and. interests. this is. has been described as the accidental candidate who is little known outside and is nominated.

to prominent and popular politicians. and. who are excluded from the election are backing him i want to give. and i have to have. we have to leave because. every year we create at least five point one million jobs. is the leader of the largest opposition party. he's. inexperienced and only riding on the popularity of his late father the founder of the party. i have more political experience than some of my opponents i joined politics twenty five years ago and i started from the bottom i was chosen to lead the party grassroots and succeeded to where i am i am my father's son but also my own man. the

candidates are promising much the same deal. and corrupts provide the basics jobs education health care but an economic strategy to talk to some of those pledges are not realistic and maybe hard to implement we need to plan ahead this country we need to. at least we know that we'll be accumulating we don't need to flush out the results we don't need to. give it a color we need to transform the country the election process has been counted and many people are not confident the paul will be credible but those we talked to say they will vote anyway they have been waiting for two years for the opportunity. kabila has been speaking what did he have to say to people yes he did address the nation on saturday evening and basically he talked about all

the challenges that the country is facing and he specifically mentioned these areas in the east where the election has been postponed to march he talked about. what he thinks is a terrorist them in any there is a rebel group there called that where have killed hundreds of people in recent years and the government is then able to contain that group so he mentioned that he talked about. also in benny and the temple the temple is another of those areas where the election has been postponed and more than three hundred people have died because of a born a boy like he said that the health workers there are struggling to deal with that disease he also mentioned the ethnic clashes in you maybe another of the towns where the election was postponed and there because of all these challenges the election can't be all that impossible to have elections there and he said they're going to have their day in march but people here a lot of people i've talked to i think they do not trust the president they do not

trust electoral commission they do not trust the electoral process and they do not feel that we can lection is going to be off there or credible. classroom saying so much for bringing us the perspective from where you are in kinshasa let's cross over now to malcolm webb he joins us live from another polling station. what's it like where you are right now. when a polling station in a school in a commune ruled. this area is not wealthy it's still a very heavy rain people have arrived to start voting no one in a can almost no one can afford a car these people never arrive the soaking wet. to get in and people have waited a long time for this election it was meant to happen in twenty six scenes from president joseph kabila finished his second and final constitutional mandate been

repeatedly delayed people since before then have been protesting demonstrating calling for him to step down and calling for elections to take place protests were often met with violence from the police he broke them up with live gunfire and. we spoke with the family of one of the prominent activists who was killed earlier this year let's take a look at that story now. malcolm some areas won't be voting today as we've been mentioning over the last few days take us through the sort of impact that might have on the election results. to the three areas that won't be voting today that. many in december the election there will be postponed until march that means it will be excluded from the presidential poll and they'll only vote in provincial and parliamentary elections narrow opposition strongholds in particular strongholds of the opposition candidate

martensite really the actions of the government the electoral commission which suggests they see him as the greatest threat to opinion polls that given the clear and substantial lead over all the other candidates now he the press yesterday and he said that apart from the one point two million voters in those areas he said because of the failure of the electoral commission to prepare in other parts of the country needs that about five million people wouldn't be voting not out of an electorate of forty million people that he said already question the credibility of this election and of the intentions of the electoral commission to try and hold a pre and fair hold and our opinion polls that say about half of congolese people wouldn't accept announcements of the ruling party victory and also about our respondents in opinion polls say they would process if the ruling party is announced as the victor

a lot of people would see if rama zani shadow read the ruling party the time that it is announced the winner that it would simply be in their eyes the continuation of this could be his rule and a lot of people here say they want change waiting to see what's going to happen calling today of course what's going to happen when the results of this highly controversial election are announced or american what beth thanks for that. still ahead i'll just say our first the war now the flood severe weather brings more misery for thousands of refugees in northern syria. and the two year old boy at the center of a u.s. travel ban raul is laid to rest. they want to forty three billion pounds worth of weapons that was six billion

pounds in commission. there's no probs and a more because there's always a small kabul vehicle for really really good business. in essence we in the united states have privatized the ultimate public function more shadow on al-jazeera. in the next episode of science in a golden age i'll be exploring the contributions made by scholars during the medieval islamic period in the field of astronomy. copernicus is this day to these medieval the stormers from the golden age. that streams in many ways with the computers of the day you could use it to find the time you could navigate science in a golden age with german.