instead is concentrating its efforts in a stronghold in the southeast of the country and it supports the opposition candidates in the west i believe kurdish votes in big cities like istanbul on corruption is near have the potential to be a game changer however it would still follow what the popular trend is. the people's alliance waged a severe campaign by accusing candidates of having links to the people kurdish by through group which truth can its western allies consider a terrorist organization prisons are johns are quiet is facing perhaps the greatest challenge in seventeen years the economy the continuing recession threatens the support base especially in big cities like a stumble and sunday's local elections will reveal the president standing among fifty seven million turks eligible to vote. also sarah stumble well the weather is next but still ahead on al-jazeera. was emerging from

the gloom of venezuela's opposition leader rallies supporters amid anger at calabar counts. and the housing crisis in the fastest growing economy in southeast asia we look at those left behind. the ear. hello again and welcome back we're crossing eight states we're seeing a weather system pushing through we're seeing some colder air up to the north and some warmer air down here towards the south and the north that means temperatures that are going to be in the single digits so we are looking at those springtime temptress but they feel more like winter time with minneapolis only a high fuel for chicago at four in kansas city at nine but down here towards the south we're still seeing a lot of warmer air for atlanta it's going to be a cloudy day at eighteen but as a system pushes through so does some of that colder air come into play so for

atlanta your temperatures do drop to about fourteen in dallas is going to be a cool day if you are as well with a temperature there of fourteen degrees where across parts of the caribbean we are seeing some clouds and some rain this is been the trend for much of the islands out here towards the east we are picking up some rain as well over here towards mexico mexico city could be seeing some showers down here across much of central america though looking quite nice over the next few days we may pick up a rain shower or two down here across panama but for managua it is going to be a nice day a warm day at thirty five degrees and then here across parts of argentina looking quite nice most of the rain is going to be out here towards the western parts of argentina but for one is out as we're looking at a better day when the temps are there of about twenty six degrees. oh in terms of the cost we look at what's holding in the museum for becoming a two trillion dollar economy as the world's biggest democracy gets ready to vote

who's financing politics it india mexico's government is axing social programs for the country's poorest it's only one. dollar zero zero. hello again i'm the star a reminder of the news this hour three people have been killed and at least two hundred forty palestinians injured during saturday's protests at the gaza israel defends and a fourth man died from injuries sustained on friday israeli forces fired tear gas

and live ammunition as tens of thousands gathered to mark the festive anniversary week protests. algeria's army chief has repeated his call to remove president. from office a day earlier minions took to the streets nationwide demanding political change. the number of cholera cases in mozambique cyclon hit city of beirut has risen to two hundred seventy one cycling to die hit more than two weeks ago damage to water and sanitation infrastructure has raised fears about containing a potential epidemic. well security forces in venezuela have fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators in the capital caracas opposition protesters have been voicing their anger over the continued energy blackouts aggravating economic problems al-jazeera has asunder. reports was after another. opposition supporters across took to the streets once again demanding an

end to their hardship the leader of the opposition in the city. asked people to turn their anger into action. protests every time there's a blackout to step up pressure on the government. that will look a little bit until they can make fun of people. enough. was my. response to the opposition in defense they say. they want other countries to invade us well we will not allow it we will not allow it because we are patient and we will continue to be patient who will tell the president president you're not alone people who defend you for that reason we're with your

president nicolas maduro. small groups of protesters blocking roads were confronted by the police tear gas to disperse the rallies came after another week of nationwide. leaving millions without electricity and running water businesses and schools have been closed for most of the week the economic crisis has been compounded by american sanctions. sector pushing the country even closer to total economic collapse many among the opposition hope that the worsening conditions president. situation in the country has already become. of despair and we don't know what to do. the struggle for control of venezuela has reached a stalemate president maduro backed by russia in the country's armed forces remains

in power while my dog continues to claim he's the country's legitimate leader. so far denied the existence of a humanitarian crisis but on friday he tacitly acknowledged that authorizing the red cross to undertake a massive emergency relief campaign many hope it will bring a level of respect to the millions who struggle to survive while the fight for political control of the country carries on i understand that. now the u.s. president's decision to allow offshore oil drilling in the arctic ocean has been overruled a district court judge called donald trump's reversal of an environmental protection policy from the obama era unlawful and invalid this means the drilling ban and much of the arctic ocean will come back into effect the ruling is the result of a lawsuit brought by a coalition of environmental groups following trump's executive order has more from washington d.c. . federal judge sharon gleason says president donald trump exceeded his

constitutional authority when he issued an executive order back in april of two thousand and seventeen that essentially stripped away all protections against explore ation and oil drilling from above five hundred thousand square kilometers of waters all in the arctic and north atlantic oceans trump has tried repeatedly to roll back environmental protections that were made during the in obama administration but he has been unsuccessful in large part because environmentalists as in this case keep taking the administration to court and they keep winning the judge in this case said that once a president applies the designation of a national monument or a protected area under laws that date in some cases back well over one hundred years no future president can reverse those decisions by themselves it has to be

done by an act of congress not simply by an executive order as the president did in this case so the affected areas which are principally off the coast of alaska which will now be protected at least for several years as this case works its way through the court system our home to a number of endangered species including bowhead whales and polar bears. slovakia has elected a liberal lawyer as its next president and an exception to the recent european trend of gains by rightwing populists. zuzana capital about one fifty eight percent of the vote the forty five year old environmental activist will be slovakia's next female sorry first female president she campaigned to end it's about his mainstream politics has been tarnished by the murder of an investigative

journalist a year ago. remember. i accept this result with great humbleness and sense of great responsibility i think all of you for being here with me and i promise you that i will be with you let's look for things that connect us let's place to work for a better slovakia's above all the fights fought for personal gains let's invite other people in pursuit of ideas and values that connected us through these elections. and ukrainians are gearing up for the polls on sunday where they'll choose a president from the field of thirty nine candidates one candidate stands out of college to me is the landscape a charismatic comedian who's never held political office he is ahead in the opinion polls trailing him our current president petro poroshenko and former prime minister yulia timoshenko who are neck and neck in the race to make it to a runoff jonah hill has more from. this is the unexpected front runner in the race to become ukraine's next president mills alinsky is an actor and

comedian his campaign appearances are stand up comedy act what he lacks in actual policy or political experience he makes up for with his on screen persona in a popular television series he's a teacher blows the whistle on corruption suddenly finding himself yes president of ukraine that's. great. he's famous for one thing young people see him as an anti establishment outsider figure which they like. i like was a personality but it seems even he isn't sure if you can be president or not we don't know either we just want to believe that he's a better option the previous presidents with businessmen politicians and lawyers maybe a comedian can make a difference for ukraine many feel the political zelinsky could hardly do worse

than the current president petro poroshenko he came to power after russia's annexation of crimea vowing to end the war in the east and sweep away corruption. the billionaire confectionery king here immortalized in bullet casings and his own sweet and chocolate wrappers has bowed to pressure from the international monetary fund raising utility prices that hurt the poor and he's in a circle he's implicated in allegedly corrupt weapons purchases if you see corruption i think we should talk about this that's why the reason all of these. painting this is a conversation with president bush and first of all and if he will be elected for the second time i hope will. make him to sink evolved what kind of place in the history of once to get. also in the running after two decades in politics and three years in prison is former prime minister yulia

timoshenko many of her supporters at a final rally in central kiev were bussed in from the countryside drawn by a pledge to harvard consumer gas prices the focus of this election is the economy with few promises being made about the war that's the toxic question for all the candidates no one has answered and no one has. no one wants to take responsibility for five years of war after a people's rebellion against russian influence and corruption and ukraine is a country that seems stuck unsure now which way to turn jonah. now the philippines is forecast to become the fastest growing economy in southeast asia but tens of millions of filipinos are at risk of being left behind an acute shortage of affordable housing as one of the biggest barriers to inclusive growth going to ports from manila. married rowsley paso has been living here with her husband and four children this small room serves as the kitchen living room dining

area and bathroom at night they all sleep in this less than ten square meter bedroom upstairs because of how this really small and we can barely stretch legs here it's hot and prompting but that's better than nothing according to the philippine government almost six million homes need to be built for impoverished filipinos and that backlog is expected to reach almost eight million by twenty twenty two which means thousands of homes need to be built every day in order to meet that demand but that's not happening because government says it hasn't enough money we are producing less than the need for housing since this is also an. example when there are these of course we fall short of the target. because the priorities and education on have with the basic sectors.

every year this lack of housing is made worse by thousands of families being displaced by typhoons and earthquakes and the decades long conflict in many places like the mindanao region displaces thousands more. experts say the poor are most likely to be homeless and that's worse and by a growing population more than twenty two million filipinos are now living in extreme poverty the government says it's taking action we hope the. government. local government units. in the country as most of the unemployed to have no proof of ownership the government has classified them as illegal settlers people like there is. mary rose's mother

she moved here in one thousand nine hundred eighty three after her husband died and raised her children on her own more than thirty five years later she is still classed as an illegal settler. what you would like is to be relocated affordable housing food we can finally own a home so we can pay for it. there are many shanties like this one in the capital manila people live in small areas without adequate sanitation yet filipinos continue to come here looking for jobs and many like there is say living without a permanent home makes them feel they're lost and drifting. manila now there's new hope for the survival of an endangered monster peel that's only found in a stray and state the tasmanian devils faced extinction because of a transmissible form of cancer but scientists say the animals have developed an

immune response that's helping them fight back roderigo how met is an ecologist and research fellow at the university of tasmania he says the disease hasn't been eradicated but the animals have found a way to live with it. this is very good news indeed means a lot because we have documented an increasing number of animals that have now can can survive now despite having shimmers for a long period of time and as a result that gives them the opportunity to breed and put another generation into the population and more importantly we have seen an increasing number of animals that have managed to cure themselves from this cancer which is absolutely fascinating years these are animals that develop immersed and then somehow the new system reacts and those tumors regress and disappear so we hope that this is a heritable response that will be passed on to future generations and that allows it just made in double to co-exist with these transmissible cancer what we hope to see is that these behaviors that are associated with reduced aggressivity will be

selected because that would allow animals not to get infected anything goes on the only males that are surviving in the population those genes might also be passage of future generations so we're hoping that these adaptations to at mystical times are indeed just many and they're all will come not only from the minute immune perspective but from many other areas that are hopefully will allow them to fight back this disease we don't think that this will mean that there is this will be eradicated or that will disappear from just many or that we think that will mean that there's many devils one go to extinction and somehow they will learn to live with cancer which is absolutely astonishing that considering the mortality of cancer and well it. hello i missed out with the headlines on al-jazeera three people have been killed and at least two hundred forty palestinians injured during protests at the gaza

israel fence a fourth man died from injuries sustained on friday israeli forces five tear gas and live ammunition as tens of thousands gathered to mark the fest at the vestry of wiki protests. algeria's army chief has repeated his call to apply article one hundred two of the constitution to remove president. from office a day earlier millions took to the streets nationwide demanding political change. the position taken by the algerian military has always been within the legitimacy of the constitution and has always held the interest of the algerian people above all it is always seen that the lucian to the crisis can't be anything other than the implementation of article one of the constitution the number of cholera cases in mozambique cites own hit city of beara has risen to two hundred seventy one the country is dealing with the aftermath of site turn it die but shipped more than two weeks ago damage to water and sanitation infrastructure has raised fears about

containing a potential epidemic security forces in venezuela have fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators in the capital caracas opposition protesters have been voicing their anger at continuing energy blackouts that are aggravating economic problems there's also been a rival rally by supporters of president nicolas maduro who blames the power outages on what he called terrorist attacks on a hydroelectric dam the u.s. president's decision to allow offshore oil drilling in the arctic ocean has been overruled a district court judge called donald trump's reversal of an environmental protection policy from the obama era unlawful and invalid this means the drilling ban and much of the arctic ocean will come back into effect slovakia has elected a liberal in the way as its next president is on a couple to over one fifty eight percent of the voters the forty five year old environmental activist will be the first female president she campaigned to end

corruption well those are the headlines join me for more news here after counting the cost. isn't the problem for your candidate that he may not have a health question mark over it but he does have a corruption question mark over him join me many are some up from him i guess from around the world take the hot seat and we debate the week's top stories and think issues here on our visit. hello i'm adrian finnegan this is counting the cost on al-jazeera your weekly look at the world of business and economics this week indonesia's on the road to becoming one of the world's biggest economies we find out what's holding it back and how that could damage the president's hopes for reelection. also this week as the world's biggest democracy gets ready to vote who's financing political parties there. and mexico's leftist president swept to power on

a promise to help the country's poorest but now he's axing social programs we'll look at why. indonesia's economy isn't growing as fast as the president promised when he was elected five years ago joko widodo is spending huge sums to try to get reelected for a second term he's giving regional governments billions in giving handouts to the country's poorest while indonesia's well on its way to becoming a two trillion dollar economy in the next five years a population of more than two hundred fifty million people strong across more than seventeen thousand islands is being held back by among other things poor infrastructure. economic growth on the main island of java expanded at five point seven percent last year bali than nusa tenggara grew at just two point seven percent unemployment in jakarta is running at around five point three percent but it's more than eight percent in the neighboring state of west java the world bank

estimates that indonesia has an infrastructure gap of one point five trillion dollars compared to other emerging markets president joko widodo is halfway through a ten year three hundred twenty seven billion dollar program to construct new airports highways and ports congestion in the capital jakarta costs the country billions in lost revenue al-jazeera florence louis reports now on how the city's newly opened mass rapid transport system is proving to be highly popular. jakarta's long awaited mass rapid train system is finally here was and it's proving a hit more than ten million people work and live in the indonesian capital and the m r t goes a long way in easing the city's notorious traffic congestion. this is a massive in the nation finally has a name marty just like other country that has been having it for years it is also i

am very proud mom and i usually take an old bus to office but no i'm provided with these very comfortable public transportation i hope people who take karsh to office will use this facility. there's only one line at the moment running from south jakarta to the city center covering a distance of sixteen kilometers the plan is to expand this to eventually cover one hundred twelve kilometers with more than sixty stations by twenty twenty five since coming to power in two thousand and fourteen president joe kudo's administration has prioritized infrastructure development like this one as one of the ways to unlock the country's economic potential other projects include the construction of ports roads power plants and oil refineries since the country is moving from the commodity base to the manufacturing base to producing more high. products it needs quite complete the. system exporting goods from any genre or just

sending them around the country is expensive logistics costs make up around twenty four percent of g.d.p. much higher than the regional average but the infrastructure projects also come at a price they're estimated to cost four hundred billion dollars over five years adding to government debt levels but the government says that the debt is manageable by law we are allowed to go to sixty percent but remember percent. g.d.p. number all the loan that we got to be a look at the productive projects or they can be from the project. so i don't see that much problem but the economic growth that was supposed to happen on the back of infrastructure development hasn't yet materialized g.d.p. growth has hovered around five percent in the last five years while that can be considered a pretty solid number for some countries it's below the government's target of

seven per cent and it's not enough for indonesia's development needs and ambition. condiments generally agree indonesia has to keep spending and not just on building roads railways and other facilities but we also need the soft infrastructure what i mean about this stuff in faceted is for instance capital human capital development which i think. one of the top buy at the of the government education in health care for instance has been given bigger allocations in the state budget physical infrastructure but jakarta's newly opened m.r.i. is only part of what indonesia needs to boost its economy. joining us now from london. is emerging markets columnist at capital economics good to have you with us gareth. but forecast seven percent growth at the time of his election the economy has been delivering what around five percent that's not too bad when you look

around but what's holding the economy back. i think there's a number of factors that certainly commodity prices haven't helped they've been quite subdued for most of gerry's term i think also more fundamentally it's just been a failure to revitalize the manufacturing sector which when he set out five years ago was one of his key aims now there's a number of reasons why he's failed to do that he has admitted he's done some kind of useful tinkering around the edges so he's made it more easy for foreign manufacturers to set up in east push ahead with some improvements to the infrastructure but the one thing that he's really failed to do is to press ahead and make any progress with them with labor market reform so in indonesia it's incredibly expensive to hire and fire workers and what that means is that people are reluctant to share that set up manufacturing facilities in indonesia when they could do so much more cheaply in neighboring say vietnam for example and i think that's been the key reason why growth is to fail to come really anywhere near the

government's target so what needs to be done what does he need to do i mean people are arguing that the kind of infrastructure investment that we're seeing it into these here at the moment isn't creating the right kind of work and i think he's made some reasonable progress in infrastructure spending so over the past five years he's increased an annual average about twenty percent which is pretty decent and given the constraints of the fiscal position and so on it's unlikely he could have done much more but i think as i mentioned the key thing that he really needs to do is press ahead with these labor market reforms and i think without that then that indonesia is really going to struggle to attract the kind of manufacturing sector that it needs to really kind of raise growth above the five percent that we've got with that we seem to be stuck at the moment now this is something that we were talking about growth on last week's program china became indonesia's second biggest source of foreign direct investment in twenty seventeen jakarta says it expects chinese inflows will only continue to swell should jakarta be concerned

about failing to keep up with repayments to china. i think it's a very difficult position that it's a problem facing not just indonesia but other countries in asia as well it's that china has clearly got a lot of money to spend as part of its belt and wrote in shit if given the infrastructure deficit that indonesia has at the moment there's a clear role for chinese investment to pay i think the concern that indonesia has but also places such as pakistan and malaysia where there's been quite a big push back on chinese investment recently is that that these investments come with so that you hear stories about interest rates and double digits in his stories that china wants to control the us even after it's been built and i think that's the reason why indonesia is going to tread very carefully with this over the next few years and why you're already seeing some pushback at the election over the prospect of a big increase in chinese investment growth like many developing nations you look at the statistics and wonder what on earth the problem is but i mean you have this

massive what sixty percent informal economy what he's done to be done to make that more inclusive. i think the key point that i've mentioned is that if you look at the most successful asian economies since the second world war countries such as taiwan hong kong korea what they all had in common was a very competitive export orientated manufacturing sector now this is something that the indonesians really struggle to create and generate and i think if it's if it's going to meet its potential and raise growth to the seven percent or so that you kerry's been targeting it really needs to do something about that now he has made some useful progress on infrastructure so there are improvements in place there but i think until you see the big changes in the labor market also land reform is another area that hasn't really to show until you see changes that and i think indonesia is really going to struggle for it so whoever wins the election

what should the main priorities be as they take office and looking ahead to the next five years i think if you look at the economic proposals of both candidates neither of them really have the economic policies if you look at pro bono of of all he's got a very kind of population nationalist agenda he wants to cut taxes which may provide a short boost the economy but would also raise borrowing and probably borrowing costs as well he's also been very circumspect about chinese investment and also very nationalistic about kind of promoting a more a more self-sufficient economy and i think investors are very wary of a prayer when but he's still a long way behind in the opinion polls that doesn't know very likely on john kerry i think you get more of the same so you get kind of tinkering around the edges you get some further improvements to the business environment you probably get more spending on infrastructure but he doesn't look as if he's going to be this kind of second transformative figure he's not going to push ahead with these big changes to infrastructure i mean changes to the labor market the indonesian needs now

a lot of the put the problem with that within the nature of the problem with the policy mindset is if you think back kind of twenty years or so where indonesia was hit very. hard by the asian financial crisis and all that is pretty is a deep distrust of foreign markets and also open markets and so they're likely to be very cautious in their approach to policy making really good to talk to you guys with many thanks indeed for being with us ok thank you now around one in five of the philippines one hundred six million people live in extreme poverty getting by on less than two dollars a day many including children were long hours a street vendors or laborers to make enough to feed themselves hunger occurs most in the agriculture and fishing sectors where seventy percent of workers a pool of zeros jungle and dog and meet some of those struggling to earn a living in the capital manila when war broke out in malawi in the southern philippines almost two years ago. and her children fled the violence they made

their way here to downtown manila since then her eldest son up to her man has been providing for the family but life in manila is also violence and like many others they are harassed because they are homeless and they're classified as illegal vendors later it is hard when you see them how do we inspire what is even more difficult is when the children are sick but what can i do. experts say iran to have a filipina children go to bed hungry and the young are most at risk of money meant more than twenty percent of them are under with the philippines ranks ninth in the world among countries with the highest number of children with stunted growth. how occurs the most in agriculture and fishing sectors where more than seventy percent of workers are impoverished displacements brought about by natural disasters and

continuing on conflict contributes to communities food insecurity the autonomy's region in muslim mindanao has one of the highest tendency for under way children and it may be attributed to the history of conflict in the region. aid groups have been feeding children in many public schools for years and the government is promised to expand that program nationwide and include kindergartens and elementary schools. it hopes to eradicate hunger and reduced on to the growth in children by twenty thirty on their it's sustainable development goal it's not being highlighted because. this is very abstract we only notice one nutrition if the child is skin and bones sometimes we call it be hidden hunger even we call it like. starvation of the soul because when we talk about that it doesn't only.