area but she says this in response to the threats posed by tehran thousands of american troops are still base of course in iraq. he said. it's like. running for a bit of. evidence. that. it's. hard. to say. she had his hands he has more from washington d.c. . michael pears spent about four hours on the ground in iraq speaking to various officials including the prime minister on the way there he spoke to reporters he was asked so why the sudden trip to iraq canceling a trip to germany to talk to buckle on perry gave three reasons first of all he did put it in the context of the increasing escalation of rhetoric from washington

against iran and he said that he wanted to and reassure the iraqi leadership that the u.s. stood ready to continue to ensure that iraq was a sovereign independent nation which led to a question from a reporter on board a plane well do you have some intelligence that iran is trying to make iraq less of a sovereign nation of the trying to overthrow the iraqi government to which compare replied narrative and he didn't want to imply that this is all just in keeping with the national security strategy of a drop of ministration and laid out at the beginning of the presidency and it's those sorts of comments of the leading to the great you know skepticism we're seeing in washington a surprising amount of skepticism for washington about whether there really is a threat from iran or whether this is this is escalatory rhetoric from those within the administration who just want conflict with iran there is quite a debate go under way now in in washington about that. an explosion close a major syfy shrine in the eastern pakistani city of lahore has killed at least

eight people finds of the victims are police offices several others injured and the explosion took place the data darva one of the largest shrines in citation come on hyder has this updates from islamabad. gold. creepers because it's in the back albany people come out. but because it is ramadan. about forty five acres about forty five years a large body people are located and still go followed. by people at the gate the builder board coming from the middle hartford in that level one of the larger cause. an emergency has been declared and it is what the bill that that gold may be. my polls and i will send for south africa's parliamentary and provincial

elections relating african national congress is facing its toughest electoral test since it moved to par twenty five years ago the governments of president still ramaphosa has been playing spy political scandals and that means the a.n.c. could lose grinds to opposition parties welcome web joins us now from one polling station in janice bagga malcolm what's happening where you are. well the polling station that is in the township of alexandra can see some of the neighborhood down here housing here is small it's those that don't houses live in shacks made of iron sheets high unemployment it's not a wealthy area it's a polling station here inside a school political parties are allowed to set up a desk outside the polling station so they can monitor their supporters and members in the area see if they voted so this one's for the ruling african national congress they've been in power ever since one thousand nine hundred four and it was

created by the party was credited with ending white minority rule and then another party here the economic freedom fighters is an opposition party founded six years ago it was a breakaway from the a.n.c. they have risen very rapidly change the course of south african politics by using their handful of parliamentary seats to disrupt proceedings hoping to get a bigger vote share this time let's come into the polling station you can see people lining up here to vote people came early they were here people here at least an hour before the polling station was meant to open in the open about thirty minutes late now there was quite some enthusiasm for voting in south africa and that's because the right to do so was so hard to win the struggle for democracy the struggle against white minority rule went on for generations and it was only in one thousand nine hundred twenty five years ago that people won that right to vote but at the same time over successive elections we've seen the voter turnout steadily

decreasing people are getting disenfranchised with politics and politicians the n.c.s. vote share has gone down but turnout is gone down as well. we can take a look at the people who've come here lined up here to vote. some of the key reasons why the popularity of the end. declined because of perceived poor delivery of public services and it's in this constituency in alexandria that we've seen successive rounds of protests protesters clashing with police this is since the early two thousand. chips throughout south africa and another key reason is corruption scandals the a.n.c. has been blighted in a series of corruption scandals specially under the rule of the previous president jacob zuma although still ram opposer who took over just over a year ago it's generally perceived to be

a change of direction but all of these things have affected the vote over many generations are many elections and opinion polls suggest that this time they are going to keep their majority but it's expected that with the keep it with a smaller margin than ever before people are waiting to see how many of those lost votes will be picked up by opposition such as the democratic alliance or the economic freedom fighters or how much will be lost to. turnout turnout which has been decreasing in only about three quarters of eligible voters registered to vote in this election and of course not all of those three quarters of eligible voters will actually come to polling stations today but we'll be finding out of course what kind of turnout we're getting and of course. how much of the vote and see. the d.a. and the other smaller parties are going to come away with. reporting for us live

from johannesburg thanks very much indeed more from. here on al-jazeera we'll have the latest on the crackdown on the opposition in venezuela. leverage against. abductions killings and announce. questions we don't know what happened solve we can't just healed faultlines investigates why native american women are vanishing in disproportionate numbers in the us the search. for missing and murdered indigenous women. on al-jazeera are still searching the streets yet still work is. once welcomed now fear. dividing a nation. al-jazeera explores germany's long term economic strategy of pursuing

immigrants from the arab world which we now i feel more judgment on syria he believes it all much money does a richer get those people to put the things that has been bought one german and i'm not the new germans on our just zero. zero world goes on an incredible journey to first hand accounts and the extraordinary archive footage to the cities of palestine as they were before nine hundred forty eight and the impact the creation of israel had on the. witness the vibrant commercial and cultural values of that and i fire up close and the heritage that many of today's palestinians have never known lost cities of palestine on al-jazeera. the climate is changing and time is running out to have seen elephant like.

in the new series earth rise meet some of the people driving the struggle to save the environment. telling us that we have just twelve warriors to make i pressed on any changes to transform every part of our economy and our society draws coming soon on and just. you watching all to see a quick reminder of the top stories this hour an explosion close to a major sufficiently certain pakistani city of lahore has killed at least eight people fine for the victims are police officers. and they remain president hassan

rouhani has told world powers that it will stop implementing some commitments under the twenty fifty nuclear deal and a lesser to ambassadors of the u.k. france germany china and russia granny said iran was still committed to the deal despite the u.s. withdrawal last year. but let's stay with this we're joined from tehran by mohammad marandi he's a professor at tehran university thank you so much for speaking to us here on al-jazeera. we've been hearing these developments in iran withdrawing from some commitments under this nuclear deal does this kill the iranian nuclear deal is it dead. i don't think the iranians consider it to be dead although for practical purposes it has been dead for quite a while even under obama the united states refrained from really implementing the deal but under trump. the americans become very extremist and

ultimately they have ripped up the agreement of the europeans despite promises and nice words but they have been effectively abiding by the dictates of trump so the iranians are saying that we cannot continue like this we've been waiting for a year since the americans have exited the dream and. we have been waiting to see what the europeans will do and now that we see they're doing nothing nothing we have to take some steps remember the iranians have made major sacrifices in signing up to the nuclear deal there were years of negotiations and iran agreed to halt many elements of its nuclear program many people were opposed to this from the beginning and there never has been any evidence at all to show that iran's nuclear program has been anything but peaceful in the past but despite all that the iranians made these commitments to korea to create a better international atmosphere to create the lesson tension in the region and to

show the international community as well as so many people in iran that it's not the iran that seeking problems now i think the this one year wait what reinforce that the iranians continue to remain in this nuclear deal despite the fact that the other side is not abiding by the side of the bargain and i think now the government has decided enough is enough and that they will start decreasing iran's commitments for the time being within the framework of the nuclear deal to put pressure on the europeans to start implementing their side of the bargain but which is said the europeans hands are there perhaps ties as well by the u.s. position if the if the year if the europeans kids act they would say. well i think you run ins disagree i think. most here believe that if the europeans

the russians the chinese decided that they would stand up to american bullying then things would change the europeans are not prepared to protect their citizens they're not prepared to protect their companies they're not prepared to protect their banks if if if and if the europeans cannot do anything then they shouldn't have been sitting at the negotiating table in the first place so either they are irrelevant to the nuclear deal and they are irrelevant to international negotiations and they should forfeit their vote and allow the americans to decide on everyone's behalf or they should stand up and make a decision and show that they are relevant in today's world otherwise if they can either way the only thing that is acceptable to the iranians is the implementation of the nuclear deal then the europeans and the americans cannot expect iran to continue implementing

a deal where they have made sacrifices in that deal the iranians have made commitments they've shut down elements or slowdown other elements of their peaceful nuclear program they cannot expect to iran to continue doing this and the other side continue symposia siege imposed trying to impose starvation punishment in her upon ordinary iranians the iranians and the iranians know that this deal is not can not be renegotiated because if the iranians appease the americans they will only go further and demand further concessions down the road so appeasement is out of the question the americans have to go back to the nuclear deal and that's the only way forward so iran is taking this stand now too as a wake up call to the europeans to wake up and to and to start acting and to so if this puts the ball back in the europeans court as it were in the european. they're not able to act then surely there's still roof fail and surely this is exactly what the americans and the donald trump administration have been aiming for so does it

run the risk playing into america's hands well this is a wake up call the the ball has always been in the europeans court it's been there for a very long time now but the iranians are trying to make the europeans recognize how serious the situation is if in the next couple of months the europeans don't take serious steps in the right direction then he run will be forced to go further keep in mind that the americans are already imposing an embargo on iran they are trying to prevent iran from importing medicine import from importing goods they're trying to wreck the iranian economy to make ordinary iranians suffer this is the this is the way americans do things since that's what they are doing in yemen starving the people in yemen that's what they're doing in venezuela trying to starve the people in yemen the iranians know that if they just sit down and let the

americans get their way the americans will keep on adding the pressure so this cannot continue there the europeans abide by their commitment or ultimately the deal fails and then the iranians will be forced to take further steps to show that the americans to show the americans that they cannot do anything that they want in this region ok i'm sorry to cut you off mr marandi but we are out of time thank you so much mohammad marandi joining us there live from tehran thank you. tens of thousands of people are fleeing syria's last rebel held province amid a widening government offensive backed by russian air par the u.n. is calling for an urgent deescalation and northwestern syria where strikes have killed at least twenty civilians the rebels are promising to fight back to reports from beirut's. it's a worsening humanitarian situation in northwest syria there are reports of up to one hundred fifty thousand people on the move heading north towards the border with

turkey escaping what has been described as the fiercest bombardment in months. and only brought what we can we have nothing. syrian and russian planes are continuing to target villages across southern adlib and northern hama it's been more than a week now dozens of civilians have been killed the united nations is calling for an urgent deescalation and a recommitment to the cease fire especially after schools and health facilities were targeted the u.n. is closely monitoring the situation. there are contingency plans in place. in terms of supply. but at the same time we are also. looking. into the operation. in the region syrian government troops have for the first time pushed into rebel territory taking some ground in northwest but it's only the

beginning of what is expected to be a difficult and costly battle. against political blackmail under military pressure and yet time by the russians to enter our pure and they were right that land will be met with fire the next battleground be fateful hour and you'll be surprised what. along with al qaeda linked groups are the dominant force in this area. they have refused to abide by the ceasefire agreed by turkey and russia last september russia and syria say the military campaign is against those so-called radical groups but those fighters are embedded among the civilian population russia has accused turkey of not fulfilling its commitment to clear a demilitarized zone from the so-called radical groups and open highways that link cities held by the government but turkish officials argue a war with. other armed groups would only endanger the lives of civilians and has

been trying to push for a negotiated solution. now the syrian army and its allies are trying to forcibly dislodge them at least from the hammock countryside and a few kilometers into an area that was supposed to be a buffer zone the army hasn't announced the scope of its operations but there is no indication it involves recapturing the entire province especially since turkey continues to have a military presence there and still maintains a strong alliance with russia than of. beirut. venezuela's supreme court has ordered the prosecution over seven politicians who supported last week's call for an uprising opposition leader.