isn't ashraf ghani it was a two fold mission for sess what is happening on the ground although the peace talks are being going on with the taliban they are still fighting and still carrying out missions and also to reassure the government i think that they have not been sidelined on these peace negotiations will number that the u.s. taliban talks excluded the afghan government this is something that the taliban have always insisted that they would never talk directly to the afghan government in fact they don't call them a government they call them and administration that is a stumbling block so mr shanahan was at pains to say that the afghan government should be part of the negotiations he also said that the overall peace solution lies in the hands of the afghan people but he also said there were no instructions to withdraw any of the american forces this fourteen thousand on the ground at the moment the taliban was releasing information that seven thousand were going to be released by april the u.s. says that's not the case they will not be revealed but the afghan government is still concerned about the speed at which things are moving when you consider

they've had eighteen years of conflict all the complications that has ensued because of that they're worried that the speed is going too fast and that they will not get a just peace mystical the special envoy for the u.s. who's been leading the u.s. negotiating team with the taliban has been optimistic in his forecast he says he hopes there's going to be a peace deal by july at the time of the afghan presidential elections so there is some concern about what's happening and also who is representing the taliban do they speak for everybody there's concern that they may not represent all the factions that all the factions may not sign up to this peace deal and that includes people like i still i saw are in place in eastern afghanistan they're growing in strength and there are fears that if the ice all fighters are pushed out of syria they may end up in afghanistan. in the wild and rugged areas of eastern afghanistan life is difficult at the best of times now it has become the. main battleground

against i saw a fight that i saw is not losing these militia know the capability of the men they're fighting commander zeitoun knows better than most he was and i saw fighter this is video of him when he was with the armed group he joined for idealistic reasons he says he left when he witnessed the brutality. i saw was very cruel to everyone they killed people slaughtered them they used bombs they did whatever they could i had to leave here survive three assassination attempts the last a few days ago when a magnet bomb was attached to his car in a crowded marketplace killing one of his men and badly injuring him the people here are scarred and scared by eisel the group launches regular attacks from mountain hideouts and bloodshed is a constant fear two goals nine sons were killed by eisel one was hacked to death with an axe. i don't have power to take my revenge

otherwise i would have hammered him all over his body from head to toe i would keep him for a week and then let him die slowly because that is what he deserves. with the afghan army overstretched in the fight against the taliban militias are the first line of defense in one the hard province where some good there's an alert they are tough to not far from here if we leave this area they will come back to destroy this place again but we will fight again until we die then they are back use these militias have only basic arms and equipment they say is insufficient to really fight i still they need more and us air power alone is not enough to destroy eisel bases or prevent their operations that needs to happen on the ground the network of tunnels and i saw hideouts in the tora bora mountains are easy to defend and almost impossible to attack from the ground commander zeitoun points out the spot where the americans dropped their biggest non-nuclear bomb containing ten thousand kilos of explosives to try and destroy eisel positions the militias say it made no

difference. if the u.s. paid the amount they spent on this mother of all bombs we could have finished deisel. local commanders say that eisel here has men from chechnya turkey and pakistan in its ranks but communities fear that if i saw he's pushed out of syria it will rebase to afghanistan that. is it and this was the foreign fighters a very cruel and don't have sympathy for anyone the local i saw have at least some feeling for afghans but foreign isolator cruel or their hearts are made of stone on the battlefield i still may be contained for now but it's taking ground in the propaganda war last week afghan security services arrested a cleric and a professor who are alleged to be eisel spies western diplomats report that afghan universities have become fertile ground for eisel recruitment one car university in jalalabad was closed for a time last year so recruiters and sympathizers could be cleared out. of this.

but there's not people who are using illicit deal for political lethal to give the guard and no one can bring that ideas to work again the interest of the country in the remote militia outpost facing eisel positions the hope is they get western support and weapons before they have to encounter the battle hardened men who will lose syria but not a cause tony berkeley al-jazeera eastern afghanistan. thank you more ahead on this news hour into looting we'll look at the challenges facing nigeria as a country prepares for general elections on saturday blasts getting angrier and louder protests for a fourth day against haiti's president and in sports new concerns for horse racing in britain as more cases of equine influenza are detected peta will be here with the details.

iran's president says his country will continue to expand its ballistic missile program has done rouhani made the comments during his address to mock the fortieth anniversary of the islamic revolution in a holder reports from tehran the it's an audible rally held since one nine hundred seventy nine iranians converge on our freedom square in central to one to celebrate independence from us dominance this public is marking this year's anniversary engaged in the latest standoff with the united states and the message remains the same one of defiance. it was made by the man who had pushed for engagement with the west iranian president hassan rouhani sealed the two thousand and fifty nuclear deal with world powers which the u.s. withdrew from a few months ago and imposed sanctions mug the united states and israel they impose sanctions on us putting pressure on our nation a massive turnout means the enemy won't attain their goals so we will continue

treading the path we chose forty years ago today in order to make different types of missiles we are not getting permission from anyone and we will not ask anyone for permission to build them our military power will continue. the revolutionary guards have made it clear that iran is not ready to bow or compromise they have been showing off their military might display. to reinforce iran's defenses the west sees it differently pressuring iran to curb its missile development program the iranian leadership says that is not negotiable the years of sanctions and hardships we were able to handle it able to pass this crisis says the event is a chance for those in power to show that they can mobilize supporters to show that the revolution's ideals remain and able to project strength but there is no doubt iran's leaders are facing both external and internal pressures the trumpet ministration is squeezing iran to change its behavior in the region and stop

supporting proxies in syria yemen lebanon and iraq iranian leaders say the current us administration is the most hostile that the islamic republic has faced in four decades iran's supreme leader says this is. part of the official discourse until the united states changes what he calls its evil ways. any time soon. says it's the pressure trump calls the radical regime in iran. some american official. as predicted that the islamic republic would collapse before its fortieth birthday they were wrong but many iranians who are facing what were honey has described as the worst economic situation since one nine hundred seventy nine on the anniversary at least their voices are drowned out by those of the ruling elites core supporters. we are here to prove to the vorta even support our leader i look

on my name no matter how hard the situation and the backers of the clerical establishment are promising loyalty to the system and resilience in the face of their enemies jennifer they're. wrong. and he has this report from that. here in motion the iranians have braved a cold windy day to attend one of the most hotly anticipated events of the calendar year it was on this day forty years ago that the beginnings of change the upheaval that ayatollah ruhollah khomeini had envisioned for iran had taken hold and towns and cities across the country began to shift into the hands control of those towns and cities began to shift into the hands of khomeini supporters while the event is to mark a serious historical moment victory day is a public holiday in iran and here in much of the rally is a family affair and has the feeling of a fairground complete with balloons live performances and carnival games you could

only find in iran here is it is in cities across the country the act of remembering the events of forty years ago is about more than just an excavation of history it's an annual opportunity to live in fortune actualize your slummy ideals answering question sentiments of that time connecting the past to the present as a way to live force the shoshu and political status quo in iran today we met one woman who said she loved the supreme leader ayatollah khomeini more than her own husband who was standing right next to her at the time perhaps a testament to the supreme leader's charisma but more likely an example of how people in this part of the country subscribe wholeheartedly to the idea of an unquestionable supreme islamic leader overseeing the affairs of the whole country people here revere a common a as a kind of sajjan of a family of revolutionary elites often downplaying the significance of iran's

elected political leaders and if anyone has any doubt about the level of support for a slow mix system of government here in iran they need only look for decades after the revolution at public shows of support like this in iran. only jewish heart. for i desire he is a professor of international relations at tehran university he says president rouhani has taken a more militaristic approach should diplomacy as a result of u.s. president trump's decision to break the nuclear agreement i think when he came into office about six years ago his main goal in foreign policy was to improve relations with the west what trump did to him has caused him to speak in terms that you heard today expanding iran's missile program and threatening united states back given the fact that u.s. has certain to attack iran so i think you see a shift not only in rouhani but people around him people the very few foreign

minister here and others and the whole generation of iranians that thought that maybe reducing tensions in the divest was something that could happen during their lifetime and i don't think they believe that anymore the europeans have done little things not not anything serious the terminology too little too late i think applies to europe and. rouhani is administration thought that europe would actually be able to offset some of the negative effects of u.s. withdrawal from the nuclear agreement and europe hasn't done that much so when we say that the rest lost an opportunity to improve relations with iran could europe in that and i don't see anything serious coming up in the next few months so if europe continues to activate they do i don't think you see any improvements there.

france is insisting on dialogue to solve the ongoing gulf crisis between qatar and four arab countries french and qatari foreign ministers discuss the issue here in doha along with other regional crisis including libya yemen and palestine the two countries have agreed on dialogue for a strategic partnership on defense economy and counterterrorism. the u.a.e. bahrain and egypt cut ties with qatar in june twenty seventeen claiming it supports terrorism a charge which denies. the today african union summit has wrapped up in ethiopia is capital egypt's president abdel fattah el-sisi has taken over as chairman of the group from wonders paul kagame in this year's focus was on refugees and internally displaced people malcolm webb has this update from this other. as the summit draws to a close we are expecting a statement relating to the theme of the summit which is refugees and displaced people of which there are more than twenty million in africa but that statement

won't include anything binding probably something like a declaration of intent who also expecting more details on a plan for the african union we have the u.n. to promote what they've called reconciliation talks in libya ahead of elections that are meant to happen there later this year also some more details on the steps that have been taken forward in the african union's plan to try and fund it so it does depend on funding from countries outside of the consulate at the moment and the unions trying to make itself self-sufficient. africa's most populous nation will be voting in presidential and parliamentary elections on saturday by jarius president mahmoud abbas is running for reelection nine election commission office has been burnt down but he hasn't dampened the fervor ahead of the big day a major it's reports from my degree in northeast nigeria where oppressions are underway. nigeria's president. in

a final push for votes ahead of the country's presidential election it's been a long tough campaign season. his main challenger is businessman and former vice president. who votes to deny him a second term. as a complaint to a close attention shifts to the election commission which has come under close scrutiny and attacks. will we go to the left party accuses us of pandering to the opposition party will we go to the right do position party accuses us of plunder into the weeds like up with this of the of the of the of the ruling party but as a commission we have swung to do what is right to look at the justice of the case and also to make sure that our primary cause remains the nigerian people and the voting public. voting machines have been delivered across the country ballot papers will follow. last minute tests are underway the election commission has

registered one to one political party some one to three of these of wine for the postal president election officials say they are ready despite the logistical challenges now waters on the other hand face some difficulties of well they have to go through a list of ninety one political parties on the ballot to choose their candidate. some three hundred thousand policemen will provide security during the vote along with thousands of other security personnel. the army is also ready to help but it's warning it's all just to stick clear of politics. rules of engagement. of conduct. no provisions the biggest task goes to the voters more than eighty four million people are registered their job is to elect the president one hundred nine senators

and three hundred sixty members of house of representatives two weeks later voters will be asked to come out again to choose governors and members of state but. other degrees i just need a way to greet northeast nigeria. so i had on this sound jazeera news hour filling a gap why north macedonia is becoming popular with greeks would need dental treatment thus flying into extinction scientists warn insects could vanish within the next one hundred years why that's catastrophic for the wilds and the champions league returns on tuesday rejuvenating manchester united will pay p.s.g. pete i'll have that story coming up in sports to stay with us.

hello the useful winter rains are falling now in iran the whole system is quite a big one spreads out through afghanistan turns back towards the caspian it's not the first it's maybe the most active of the last couple of weeks so more rain is to come on tuesday snow depending on your height above sea level so a good part of afghanistan two minutes i will see it as snow and sleet slowly east was nothing too was the western tibetan plateau leaving sunshine behind for a couple of days and that's true all the way back to the levantine coast in fact the eastern med isn't quite as stormy as it has been recently now the effect further south is this is the tail end of it swings through the gulf states in the next few hours and we go to show mild following which is golf and dusty but certainly a bit colder feeling twenty two is max in there hard nineteen in riyadh generally speaking fairly sunny of fine weather and that breeze continues to blow through following the clouds and rain briefly across a man come wednesday now you can almost imagine that joining up to the the whole of africa which is where the active weather is and that line then continues just in

the top of your screen dancer process zambia towards i go to clean wet recently and go to the showers also on the eastern side of south africa cape town's enjoying twenty three degrees a moment in the sunshine. the two thousand mile trip across europe seems impossible. as the balkans route begins to close for refugees it has become a race against time for one syrian from a. it's a perilous journey from greece to germany but there's no turning back to the ravages of war left at home. sky and ground a witness documentary on al-jazeera. right out of the last script examining the headline which has been with the fractious issue of palestine and israel and the us

news and setting the discussions what makes them different as far as you're concerned sharing personal stories with a global audience nobody feels safe explore an abundance of world class programming designed to inform motivate and inspire. the world is watching on al-jazeera. watching the news on al-jazeera with me fully back to bo a reminder our top stories venezuela's president has troops and says they are ready to fight the u.s. and other enemies meanwhile opposition leader one voice says brazil has agreed to

store tons of aid at the center at a center near the border iran's president has found rouhani it's vowing to continue the expansion of his country's ballistic missile program he addressed tens of thousands in tehran on the fortieth anniversary of the islamic revolution and the acting u.s. defense secretary has made a surprise visit to afghanistan matter. shanahan says government involvement in peace talks with the taliban is crucial to ending the nearly eighteen year war the taliban regards the government as illegitimate. where our top story and venezuela's economic hardship is felt most acutely by the vulnerable the very young and the very old a lot america at its embassy in yemen has been to a care home for the elderly to see just how hard my friends become. this is hill of hope western business way in old age home where destitute or abandoned senior citizens are meant to live out their last years with dignity. but

as always in times of acute economic hardship it's the youngest and the oldest who suffer most in the absence of full time staff seventy nine year old. keeps the gate locked and helps those who can't walk because he still can. we help each other out amongst ourselves most everyone he suffers from hypertension but there's no medicine here. until you could walk and see when he came here three years ago now he's blind from untreated cataracts can't walk and is tormented by a hernia. last night i was in terrible pain. i cry from the pain. i am very.

sometimes there is nothing to eat we have no help from the government there is no one to help us. the home is a foundation that runs on donations but they've dried up so there are no nurses or doctors and very very little food. the cook says it wasn't always that way. they used to throw away the food once there was abandoned. until the crisis came the crisis began six years ago she says most of the donors have left the country hyperinflation has led to widespread poverty and scarcity of almost everything. it's time for dinner and so until you have a c.e.o. who's confined to a wheelchair helps guide for the beneath this who's blind to the dining room and this is the dinner for the i will it also grandfathers as they're called it's corn flour boiled in water because we're told it's been more than

a year since they received any donations of milk and this will be the last thing they're going to eat until tomorrow. the cook and the cleaner will be leaving soon and they'll be left alone to put themselves to bed no later than six so they won't feel so hungry until breakfast. they are resigned they say to being forgotten in a country with so many other desperately needs. you see in human are just. in this way that. the number of people who have died after drinking contaminated alcohol in northern india has risen to ninety nine three separate incidents of poisoning have prompted a crackdown on so-called bootleggers who make and sell the toxic brew police suspected contained methanol deaths from illegally made alcohol are common in india because the poor can't afford licensed brands. thailand's election commission has ruled the king's oldest sister cannot run for prime minister in next month's elections it says royal family members should be above politics in on cement of

prince's open rocks as the thai rock party's candidate on friday stunned the nation it later with her candidacy after the king described it as unconstitutional and in appropriates. activists say seventeen australians are detained in china as part of the crackdown on the muslim week or minority by the australian government says it's not aware of any arrests during visits to relatives around a million wiggers are held in so-called reeducation camps to stamp out what chinese leaders call extremist tendencies turkey is calling for the closure of what he calls concentration camps which are a great cause of shame for humanity in their words under thomas has more from city . there are about three thousand chinese people of the weaker ethnicity here in australia and i spoken to a representative of that community on monday and she's told me that while she's very reluctant to go public with her concerns she feels she's getting nowhere

behind closed doors with the australian government she's concerned about seventeen we get chinese people living in australia either on spouse visas or as permanent residents here in australia those are people who've returned to china for short holidays and then disappeared initially that had their passports confiscated and then they've just gone off the radar people in their families here just do not know what has happened to them and they say they've been asking a starting government to find out what's happened to them whether even they're alive or dead for some months and they're just not getting on says the lady i've spoken to says that if these were australian citizens rather than permanent residents then she thinks a lot more would be done she says she's spoken to people in the u.s. state department who say that if they were u.s. residents the u.s. state department would have done a lot more to find out what was going on but she doesn't think enough is being done by camera to find out what has happened to these people

a fourth successive day of anti-corruption protests have been held in haiti demonstrators are demanding the resignation of the president priyanka go to has the details. protesters in haiti's capital port au prince are not giving out for the fourth successive day they marched in the hundreds torching cars outside government offices. and demanding the pressure to juvenile maurice to resign but that there was a juvenile really going to burn the country down if he does not step down. protests to say the government is corrupt and is ignoring the hardships the twice my earthquakes hurricanes and a cholera epidemic haiti realize it employs for vital commodities such as oil rice and wheat the rate of inflation has risen fifty. one percent over the past two years while the value of the currency the coward has fallen against the dollar people in one of the world's poorest countries simply can't afford what they need.

we are tired of these killers down with juvenile we're tired of these drug dealers and all of the people in power. a report by haiti's auditors last week accuse several former government ministers and officials of embezzling development venezuela or the possibly of india's protest to say the government isn't doing enough to mess to get a company headed by marie said the time after two years in power he's resisting demands to step down instead he's calling for national unity. we went to elections are part of the population voted i am president i am ready to speak to all my brothers and sisters over the difficulties the country is facing to my brothers and sisters in the opposition the doors open so as to reach a solution his critics say those are just empty promises this is why. the government makes the budget just for them this is not how you provide change the government took their money and spent it on themselves on people who don't

deserve it. he is the poorest country in the western hemisphere protest to say their corrupt leaders must face justice until then they will not stay silent priyanka gupta out syria. the u.s. could be facing another government shutdown after talks told ahead of the friday deadline negotiations on border security funding collapsed after republicans and democrats failed to agree on the immigrant detention policy present donald trump agreed last month to end a thirty five day partial government shutdown with a three week spending deal he wants five billion dollars for his border wall but democrats are refusing to approve it. now for three decades north macedonia and greece have fought over. name greece's neighbor would use but today the two countries are discovering that a close economic relationship could be the basis for a future friendship johnson reports from scorpio. he has travelled

two hundred sixty kilometers from her hometown in central greece to fix her teeth over the border in north macedonia she can no longer afford greek dentists who charge two to three times the prices here and the bus that brought her is free operated by the clinic. they have i'm very satisfied the surgery is amazing much better than what we have in greece they do x. rays and cat scans on a one rate increase they send you left and right and infrastructure is not the same order in fact every client is greek victims of the economic crisis that has claimed a third of their living standards many come here to shop by cheaper petrol for their cars according to one study greek consumers spend half a billion dollars a year in north macedonia their business at this clinic alone provides work for a staff of fifty after taking a quick thinking is separating the this clinic started ten years ago with the idea that it would serve as patients from greece we started small with four people and

we see more than thirty five thousand patients during that time some worry about this capital flight hundreds of greek companies have fled a corporate tax rate of twenty nine percent in favor of north macedonia's ten percent tax and they employ north macedonians for an average of four hundred fifty dollars a month two thirds of the greek minimum wage greek companies own the largest supermarket chain here the largest network of petrol stations and sole refinery and one of the largest high street banks greece was consistently the top foreign investor in northwest since the fall of communism and even after it fell to third place during its prolonged economic crisis it still manages to sink more than half a billion dollars a year into this economy accounting for ten percent of foreign investment there are currently some four hundred. greek companies here representing investments of two billion dollars this vision was impossible two decades ago when greece imposed a trade embargo on this country the economic and political war over the country's

name is now over leaving only cultural issues to be settled the first time in in the euro up. this kind of problem which requires a war sounds what we know we managed to do it on the table even not to start a war that may be because people remember the last war and they go to is himself a freak the son of communists forced to flee behind the iron curtain into what was then yugoslavia after they lost the greek civil war in one nine hundred forty nine the improvement of relations with greece is encouraging both macedonians like him to apply for dual citizenship and become european union subjects ahead of the rest of the country for some that even more the national autonomy is the ultimate price jumps are open less al-jazeera. forest fires in new zealand are expected to burn for several weeks but no longer threaten homes many of the two and

a half thousand people who were forced to move to safety in the south island have been allowed to return farming equipment is sought spock's the blaze near the city of nelson dry and windy weather fueled the flames. now the world's on the road to extinction and could vanish within one hundred years that's the finding of the first global review of decades of research into insect populations scientists say the findings are frightening and a catastrophic threat to our ecosystems mariana hunt has more. they're beautiful sometimes bothersome but without in six scientists say life on earth is under three it a global review of studies in two and six population shows they're declining eight times.