with ninety eight seats there is anger and fear among the opposition and its supporters that has seen it who was already served three terms says the vote was free fair. the election commission says that it will investigate allegations of voter fraud but the main opposition alliance that has rejected this election and is demanding that another one be held says that the election commission has been corrupted by the ruling party and there is mounting evidence of voter full. mohamad. is a member of the bangladesh nationalist party he says his party polling station observers were arrested or prevented from entering by ruling party supporters. we have lost all faith in the election commission we don't believe they will stick to their words. this photograph shows one of three c.c.t.v. cameras that we found taped over at a polling station in dhaka coffee come on as

a journalist he says he was attacked by a group of men after he tried to film them attacking a man outside a polling station he can not verify whether his attackers were pro-government or opposition supporters they don't want their money she wanted this attack has scared me but i have to work it in talk of what these basics i depend on journalism from my family prime minister has seen and says she has faith in the election commission . this election commission has every right to investigate if they feel they need to yes they can do it they've done in the past two. election commission says it will investigate allegations of voter fraud but has announced already that it believes the election was free and fair chance drop at al-jazeera the. u.s. democratic senator elizabeth warren has taken an important step towards entering the twenty twenty presidential race. she's forming an exploratory committee to

raise money before formally launching a presidential bid for and has been one of president the assist critics she's released a video promising to protect the middle class against the excesses of wall street a theme that's likely to feature prominently in her campaign america's middle class is under attack how do we get here billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie and they enlisted politicians to. swines the crippled unions so no one could stop with the way to turn the loose dismantle the for the usual rules meant to keep us safe after the great depression and cut their own taxes so they paid less than their secretaries and janitors it's time to write the rules for the no one after wall street i asked our economy in two thousand and eight i left the classroom to go to washington and come from the broken system head on. matthews is a professor of political science at cypress college he joins us live now from los angeles

peter tell us a little more about elizabeth warren she's positioning herself as a champion of the middle class katie yes indeed and she is a first term senator she's elected the few years ago she would professor of law at harvard before that and positioned herself as a champion of the middle class and working people and very attractive counted in many ways but some numbers are interesting if you look at the approval rating of her with the wider electorate is thirty percent approval thirty seven percent disapproval with bernie sanders and joe biden is a bit higher than biden has sounded both have about a fifty over fifty percent approval and about thirty percent disapproval so it's quite interesting the three top leading candidates and how they shape up in the polls but she's a very remarkable woman has got a bright future i think in many ways i mean as you say it is looking to be quite a crowd a democratic field with both bernie sanders and joe biden expected to run alongside her well against her essentially what are her chances.

in the primary election here is an interesting thing as you know is that in a presidential elections very different a solitary election you have to have a nationwide organization and for that bernie sanders has a repeat bernie has a nationwide organization he ran last time very effective campaign and the last half of the primary season last time in twenty sixteen bernie won the primaries over hillary clinton the last half of them so he's got a lot of momentum from that and the organizational people that he has in the states the fifty states elizabeth warren as the start of the beginning to organize their campaign across the united states it is a state by state campaign as you know the electoral college vote only counting and for that you have to win at the ground level each state is different and organizations locally help a lot for that bernie would be would be stronger and i would say that joe biden is strong because as vice president he has a nationwide name recognition organization ready to go as well so be very interesting and see if elizabeth can overcome those two strong candidates or not what kind of reaction have you been seeing for the democrats do you feel as you say

elizabeth warren is not that well known character across across the country does she have a substantially substantially large enough support base. she does i think to in order to get her at least a start you know and she does have a base because she's been well known to be a champion of people against big banks and she ran on those issues in massachusetts and since then she's been speaking clearly about that being on the senate banking committee so she does have some visibility probably the third most of as a bill person after sanders and biden other than that there's a whole field of people behind her a bit o'rorke there's camilla harris there's so many people behind with only five percent of the supporter or being not known not well but people were going to be getting to be known and we'll have to see what those counties with smaller amount of support can do to chip away because it'll be a crowded field and the candidates for the single largest number of votes in most primaries will win either the proportional delegates in most states and some states will take it all as well so it just takes

a lot of organization she does have some name recognition but not as well as strong on the organizational part across the country without wait wait and see how that works out to be very exciting i think for democrats a lot of enthusiasm apart democrats by the way. thanks. plenty more still ahead on this new including. the malays in. the crisis of the european dream israel the french president calls for unity after a year crises. ahead outrage from rights groups rein up hollands and activists five. tweets. and in force for oid mayweather ends twenty eighteen in style peter will be here with that story in sports. in the democratic republic of congo are several candidates are claiming they're in the lead in sunday's presidential election counting continues after the ballot

which was hampered by delays complaints of vote rigging and violence the internet's also been caught in an apparent effort to stop speculation about the results. as i speak to you more than a third of the ballots have been counted nationally and the trends are on questionable they put a coalition candidate martin for you lou madidi far in the lead. there as malcolm webb is following events in the capital kinshasa and has the latest. position candidate martin lewis said he's confident of victory he said the information that his teams gathered since polling suggests that he's in truth clear when opinion polls held before the election gave him a substantial lead over all of the other candidates and he said that if a ruling party victory is announced he won't accept it meanwhile a spokesman for the ruling party's candidate mahmassani shuddery said in his count that it had won most of the provinces outside of the council that odds with what

the opinion polls showed but also odds with what was expected following the very large crowds that opposition rallies did to or in some of the provinces during the campaigns majority of congolese an opinion poll say they don't trust the electoral commission and they don't trust the courts to resolve the dispute internet services throughout the country have been turned off of course one of the key pieces of information that people want to be exchanging right now particularly those in opposition of results from polling stations that they're trying to gather the counting process also has some lack of clarity and controversy around that it's not entirely clear if the paper ballots printed by the voting machines one for each voter will be used as the main source of data collection or if an electronic signal transferred directly from those machines to the electoral commission will be used instead the paper count is of course much more transparent and easier for observers

and opposition party representatives to monitor the electronic system opposition say it's a paper vulnerable to manipulation opinion poll say that about half of respondents wouldn't accept rulings even if we announced that about half of respondents would take to the streets if that's the case. the european union has called for the release of a prominent rights activist who has a prison sentence for speaking out against saudi arabia has been upheld by bahrain's top court and on the same day a court in the united arab emirates of how the sentence against an activist anderson reports ahmed month sewer in the united arab emirates and to be a raja in bahrain will now be spending years in prison for criticizing their government's policies on social media was a prominent opposition figure during behind's protest movement during the arab spring he's been in and out of prison for this activism and his tweets on monday

the supreme court upheld a five year jail term for a tweet deemed offensive to the state wars bring hatred destruction and horrors he tweeted as the saudi led coalition began bombing yemen in twenty fifteen the bahraini court agreed he disseminated what he calls false news in a time of war and defended the foreign country rights groups say the timing of the verdict is important. so will there and. i mean the reason why they chose to have it during the holidays in the west where they are expecting the minimal. attention or devoted. as a piece advocate state that he won he wants to remain silent. decided to bomb the children in yemen he stated that war will only bring misery i would never bring solutions for those that we may be aided. by the present amnesty

international calls the verdict shameful one that exposes behinds justice system as a complete farce it along with a coalition of human rights groups had also campaigned for the u.a.e. to release the activist ahmed monsoor but an appeals court in abu dhabi upheld a ten year jail sentence on monday months or two had spent time in prison in twenty eleven and accused of insulting the rulers by calling for democratic elections in the united arab emirates this time he was charged with publishing what the government considers false information on social media as well as calling for another activist to be released these latest rulings highlight the dangers and difficulties activists space in the gulf region and or schapelle al-jazeera. chancellor angela merkel says germany will keep pushing for global solutions to challenges like climate change and migration in twenty nineteen she spent a significant part of her annual new year's address highlighting the importance of

international cooperation she also referenced her party's political losses this year as dominic cain reports from berlin as she contemplates a fifteenth calendar year in office who is in ponderous mood in her address to fellow german citizens she reflects on the year that was twenty eight c. a year which was some might say politically bruising perhaps even soaring for party suffered electorally in several states where she herself found herself in a situation where her government might have been toppled in a rout with people with a party that was once a staunch ally the christian social union has also made reference to the fact that democracy is something that needs to be worked on but in germany people should try to come together the tolerance should be the watchword for twenty nineteen also a reference to the future generations she says the politicians of today really are

guardians as it were for the future she talked about the generation to follow in some senses that's clear for her party. lady who is than the new christian democrat leader well she's already more popular than engler merkel so the question for twenty nineteen will be how long does want to stay in the building behind me the federal chancellery perhaps we'll get an answer to that question in twenty nineteen almost one hundred fifty thousand security officers have been deployed across france for a new year celebrations there which began a short while ago antigovernment protests were expected on the day that follows a t.v. address by president emmanuel macron outlining his vision for the country and twenty nineteen the. one of the malays in our world in the crisis of the european dream is real but it doesn't mean we should despair it's a huge challenge we must face and all of this is connected with the malays we feel

in our country but we have a role to play and a vision to propose that is the direction i've been trying to move our country in since the first day i took office and which i intend to continue to pursue putting people first this needs to terminations and consistency bennett stepha's in paris with more on what president had to say clearly what he's had to say has been affected by the yellow vest protests in the last couple of months that started in november and clearly in a lot of what he was saying was addressing those concerns and he said that he wants twenty nine hundred to be. more decisive here when france will move forward he said in many of the things that they promised to do in terms of improving education improving health and he talked about wanting to address the issue of long term unemployed and try and help people who are without jobs but he also listed a series of wishes that he had for france next year interesting is first of all was

a wish for truth particular point he was making about the prevalence of fake news and he was saying that you know we have to pay taxes for the things that we want in this country we cannot live we can't have all the things we want that we don't pay for them we have to we have to be realistic and we have to address those issues he said and he said day also how to wish for dignity and he spoke particularly this again was i think an address to the people who the yellow best of protesters they are the majority of whom are people who having difficulty making ends meet the working classes the lower middle classes who just can't make ends meet every month with the small paychecks they have and he recognized that he said i want more dignity for those mothers looking after their children to the farmers or working the lines so an appeal really ira real direct appeal i think to those people who've been protesting on the streets already early this year offered various concessions to them a couple of weeks ago tax cuts and improvements in the increase in the minimum wage but this was another reaching out to those people i think. still ahead on al

jazeera dozens missing after a gas explosion tears through an apartment building in russia. thousands of asylum seekers on mexico's border with the u.s. face a new year. and a rock star welcome to reno williams match of the new season to find out how she fed in sport with peta. hello there we've got some fairly heavy rain over parts of north america at the moment you can see it on the satellite picture this area of cloud is snaking its way northward that could give us some severe storms as well as it sweeps its way eastwards eventually it will move away as we head through the day and choose day still giving some heavy snow there for the eastern parts of canada but the wetter

weather for the south has left the coast very maro behind it though new york they're up at fifteen degrees that's fifty nine in fahrenheit which should be around six at this time of year which is forty three doesn't change there was we head into wednesday the temperatures really drop off so maximum this time just for towards the west finally settle for most of us here seattle day getting to around seven degrees have a san francisco will be hovering at around twelve a bit further towards the south and there's plenty of sunshine for many of us here just a couple of showers that are brought in on the winds there along that coastline but elsewhere looks mostly fine and dry there's wetter weather a bit further towards the south for some of us across brazil the showers are looking rather lively at the moment stretching all the way down towards rio and then for the south this area of rain over parts of argentina is looking particularly wet as we had three cheese day and into wednesday so very heavy downpours here the temperatures still making it to twenty seven there.

the. cultural history of some scribe layer upon layer of times the race of the. reinvent. through the transformative power of public unlike. traditional forms of community building project the. group.

welcome back. a reminder about top stories this hour. president i'm al bashir has ordered an investigation into nationwide protests that began nearly two weeks ago it comes as security forces again use tear gas. to disperse crowds in the capital dozens of protesters were arrested. in yemen being accused of siphoning figured aid the u.n. agency threatened to suspend shipments on grain and corruption and the associated

press documents suggesting the russians have been seized by. coalition. forces. us democratic senator elizabeth warren has taken a major step towards joining the twenty twenty presidential race after announcing that she is forming an a and exploratory committee the move will allow her to raise money and find stuff before forming launching a presidential bid. at least four people have been killed in a gas explosion in russia as many as forty others are feared trapped under the rubble of the apartment building that partially collapsed following the blast president vladimir pierson traveled to the central city of that nature goes to visit the injured catherine stansell has. the blast occurred in an apartment block in the early hours of the morning when most people were still asleep it tore a hole through a large swathes of the nine story apartment building in a city and russia's ural mountains spoke those loose we were all asleep then i woke

up with a feeling about how i was falling down i thought i was dreaming then i realized i was outside the wall was gone my mother and my son will by screaming. many who survived were trapped in their homes and hutch be rescued those in nearby sections of the building were also evacuated due to the severe structural damage dozens of people are still unaccounted for and with temperatures hovering around minus twenty degrees celsius rescuers are racing to find anyone who might still be alive russian president vladimir putin arrived within hours of the collapse he met with local authorities at the accident site and then visited the hospital where the injured were taken but it's good to go because it is the eve of the new year unfortunately a tragedy has taken place i would like to express my condolences to the families of the victims and to assure those affected that we will do everything to help and support them. a temporary shelter has been such open

a school for those forced from their homes incidents like this are not uncommon in russia due to aging infrastructure and poor safety measures emergencies ministry says they're investigating this incident catherine stansell al jazeera kuwait says it will only reopen its embassy in syria if the arab league resumes diplomatic relations with the assad government the announcement comes after kuwait's deputy foreign minister was named in an article in the lebanese newspaper which listed financial supporters of the syrian government he's denied the accusation calling it an insult both the u.a.e. and bahrain reopened to their embassies in damascus last week while u.s. president donald trump is under growing pressure to slow down the withdrawal of u.s. troops from syria since he announced a pullout on twitter in december military leaders allies and the u.s. congress was surprised by the decision which prompted the resignation of defense secretary jim mattis now there are signs the president may be listening she had to

tansey reports. donald trump's tweet announcing his intention to withdraw the u.s. is two thousand or so troops from north eastern syria appeared to be an explicit rejection of the policy advocated by establishment washington both democrat and republican mission creep to use syria to project regional influence against iran and russia the defeat of isis was the only reason the us was deployed in syria he said at the time but even if the intention was clear the order was a break one president from sad. and gave the time that sounded very quickly but there's always a question about you know they want to leave think that a wider question of how day withdraw what they do with the weapons. how they can you know not leave a security vacuum we don't quite know the time to have all the order has been given but this may take a few weeks or a few months execute. and there was a suspicion even them that as has been the case in the past when presidents attempt

to curtail the u.s. is wars abroad about vague timeline would give washington's hawks the opportunity to fort trump's stated goal on sunday u.s. some to lindsey graham announced his intention to convince the u.s. president over a white house lunch to at least slow the withdrawal and after the meeting he said he'd succeeded the goal has always been the same. syria make sure isis never comes back our partners are taken care of in iran and i think that's possible it's going to take a lot longer than everybody thought but hopefully we'll get there. tweets do not mention iran continuing to emphasize that u.s. troops are in syria to combat the islamic states if anybody but donald trump did what i did and syria which was an isis load of mass when i became president he said they would be a national hero isis is mostly gone with slowly sending our troops back home to be with their families while at the same time fighting isis remnants so this is the

key question what is the goal of the u.s. presence in syria because clearly if it is to remain a key strategic player in the immediate region the syrian occupation could be indefinite despite the latest reports of a four month timeline she had heard him say al-jazeera washington. libya has been in conflict for much of the past four years and despite several international attempts to bring peace between its two rival governments that have visions and violence continue but as luck would otherwise he had reports from tripoli there are signs of cooperation police officers from libya's two rival governments met for the first time in the eastern city of money. after four years of political impasse officers working under the u. and back to tripoli government set with others affiliated with the tobruk based parliament the interior ministry in the capital tripoli says the move is to unify security measures and maintain only be until tori's the officers discussed ways to

link their security databases and coordinate international comprehensive investigative system. the meeting comes after the recent spate of attacks that targeted state facilities in tripoli behind national election commission in may. the national oil corporation in september and the foreign ministry in december. several people were killed and others wounded the three buildings were severely damaged analysts believe the meeting game is their right to stir up to bring the two sides together whether. this decision was made after pressure from the international community on the local stakeholders of the libyan crisis the pressure from the un security council to unify libya's institutions was also sustained by the paris and palermo beatings that many people are hopeful the officers meeting

could bring change since their rivals met face to face inside libya with no mediators however observers say it won't be effective alist some armed groups are contained and their arms confiscated but this move is similar to efforts by egyptian army generals to unite raver libyan military institutions for the last two years cairo has hosted meetings between military officers from the tripoli government and those who support the war lord khalifa haftar but libya's armed forces are still divided have those forces control the east of libya and baghdad government controls the west but would have to his recent deployment of fighters to take control of certain areas in the south and central regions many down with the warring sides will find peace. tripoli britain is stepping up its patrols of the english channel and made a recent surge in the number of migrants making the crossing from france twelve

people including a child where the latest arrivals they were detained on a beach in kent on the english christ. i want to send a very strong signal to people who do think about making this journey is that we will do every thing we can to make sure it is not a success in the sense that i don't want people to think that if they leave a safe country like france that they can get to britain and then just get to stay that's why i'm working out ways with the french to increase the number of returns that we can make to also send a very strong message that we will do all that we can not just to protect human life because of course that's the right and responsible thing to do at all times but also to protect our borders and now to mexico where some two thousand central american asylum seekers are still waiting until one are in the hope of making it across the border to the united states from forced family separations to a partial government shutdown the immigration debate has defined president donald trump's agenda in twenty eighteen out of the manual repeller has more from tijuana

. this is an average day. one of the one is busiest migrant shelters there's a clothing drive a medical tent and free haircuts for anyone and i was in a group of them with what they've seen we have a population of one thousand four hundred people so this is changes every day as many people are leaving some of their immigration status in mexico or have jobs and have moved to other works consistencies others continue to look towards finding alternative ways of crossing the border there are also some who have requested assistance in returning to their home countries voluntarily. most of the people here are from us and and are seeking asylum in the united states many of been assigned a number and are waiting for their turn to speak with authorities at the border. it's good to stay calm and white and think about our options. and he

and his family have been in for more than a month now after travelling across mexico with thousands of other central american migrants he says the u.s. won't let him in he plans to stay in mexico see. if there is an opportunity to enter the united states i will enter and i will look for work because the truth is my family needs the money to make a better life for ourselves we really are we made but if we can attend to that's ok too i will move to ana is an excellent place to live. two thousand and eighteen has come to an end and many people here say they weren't expecting to be waiting this long at the border they want to is hosting somewhere around five thousand central american migrants that began arriving in november the mexican government along with u.n. agencies and local donors have set up tent communities all around the city but many people here tell us they're tired of waiting and have chosen to cross over to the united states illegally. also from hundreds sell cigarettes at the shelter he says

he plans to join dozens of others in the coming days and jump the border fence. i don't have a number of didn't ask for. i've been waiting a long time what i want is to cross let it be god's will my dream is to find work and provide for my family. crossing into the u.s. illegally carries its own risks a few days ago when migrant drowned trying to swim around the border wall his body was found the next day by authorities in california for those who choose to stay in the new year only promises more uncertainties and no guarantees that their long wait will end in the united states monopoly deewana. well in many parts of the wild it's already twenty nineteen with spectacular file back displays and major cities saying in the new year. the first major display was a new zealand's largest city of oakland where the three hundred twenty eight we

said told sky is how it was this up in front of thousands of new year revellers and these are the scenes in the north korean capital pyongyang their leader kim jong un is expected to give his annual address on new year's day outlining his priorities for the nation in twenty nineteen. still ahead. highlights from the n.b.a. .