curity council including germany and the european union under the agreement or old severely limited its nuclear enrichment activities and allowed far more intrusive inspections and before in exchange the other parties agreed to lift nuclear related sanctions on iran but that did not include separate u.s. sanctions that were not related to the nuclear program and even before president trump pulled out of the deal last year iran has long complained that washington did not do enough to ease its banking restrictions early jamila is the middle east and north africa program the european council on foreign relations joins me now from london good to have you with us how close to dead is this deal now. well we're certainly more on the brings of that collapse then we have the other being we've now had a year since the u.s. withdrew from the agreement and officials inside iran have repeatedly sent warnings

that the conditions that they have been placed into you know increasingly being cornered by the united states on the economic front is unsustainable and i this in ounce made today is an indication from iran that is really moving from this strategic patience motto that it's had with not just the europeans here but also the chinese and the russians to deliver on the nuclear agreement to a calculation of strategic action and this is likely to be the first phase of several if the other main part is the deal or indeed the united states doesn't provide some sort of an economic pressure valve for iran to be able to maintain this agreement going forward they did as you know nearly twelve months to the europeans to perhaps think about how to deal with this they talked about the c.p.a. the single european payment area an alternative way of avoiding the payment scenarios that the global banking system faces and you might say us all spaces but the really hard thinking and quick action required now by these european capitals

or maybe we might get an inkling of that from surrogate lavrov in a few minutes time. well indeed i mean there's been a lot of time to think about what we could do in europe to their credit the europeans have taken this unprecedented move to establish the special purpose vehicle for trade with iran they registered and launched it in january but we're now months from since since that event took place and we're not even close to a single transaction yet taking place under that mechanism and so i think iran understands the difficult position that europe is in both politically and also given its economic dependence on the u.s. markets to really take swift action but really now iran is saying enough is enough and particularly with the with the withdrawal of u.s. waivers on iran's ability to sell oil has been a real keystone here for iran to say look we're not a paper tiger we will take action and we have

a road map on this the other side deliver something soon is the space thing at this moment in time for the europeans to be renegotiate you know talking to the u.s. even if it's behind closed doors because obviously the europeans or the or in quite a dilemma they are being threatened heavily by washington d.c. . i think there is certainly space but this needs to come up very high levels high political levels. compare as in the u.k. today the u.k. senior officials should be making this point that through the us actions on this nuclear deal they have really put the complete deal on the brink of collapse now this may well be what certain elements within the u.s. administration have intended but certainly this is not to the benefit of the europeans and there needs to be some very high level engagement with the trumpet ministration to see if there can be some easing particularly of these waivers that

have been revoked but also on the issue of civil nuclear cooperation with iran which the u.s. through recent measures has tried to really restrict what you think the american administration is really trying to do because if we look at what's been going on we've seen no sanctions being in place to oil where he was being removed military hardware being moved into the gulf in strategic locations this seems to be some sort of methodology behind it all. i think it's really difficult to get a clearer picture of what the strategy is inside washington at the moment but we're seeing different strands whether that's from those who want a war with iran like john bolton who's repeatedly gone on the record to say this before his time in the administration to those who really want to put iran on the verge of economic collapse but i think the lowest common denominator we're finding is that they really want to weaken the iranian state and the first way that they're trying to do this is through political and economic isolation of the ron now over

the last few days we've seen a real escalation at least in the rhetoric from washington that sounds like it's preparing for some sort of a military confrontation with iran but the iranians have said this is part of the u.s. psychological warfare to try and shock iran or shock the region and that they are not going to be tricked into some sort of a military confrontation with the united states and iran and president rouhani and other officials have repeatedly said to the trumpet mr ation if you're serious about negotiating and we've never been to negotiating table the u.s. just needs to prove some good faith by reentering this deal either under this administration official one on iran is ready for a diplomatic way forward how do you and the law is the arrival of more into iraq and also as we've seen on this program a quote that he gave on

a false one but basically he was concerned about a potential military attack such coming from the iranians lots of so you've been rattling that but no sort of hard proof. so i think the united states even if you look back at the basra process protests last summer. speaking about these concerns that iranian linked group inside iraq could target u.s. assets and potentially personnel operating in iraq so that the setting up the signals for some time we've not seen any escalation yet from either side inside iraq that there's two ways to see this trip one is to really send a clear message of push back to iran. and iraq officials or it could be a more diplomatic outreach to actually prevent miscommunications in this fog of you

know cold war that we're seeing between iran and the united states and baghdad could actually be a helpful channel of communication to make sure that neither side miscalculates inadvertently particularly inside iraq territory to see what happens for the moment and the jeremiah thank you so much for joining us from london. still ahead here on the al-jazeera news sudan's military council says it will call for elections if the political stalemate with the opposition isn't resolved in six months we'll also have details of a bombing the pakistani city of the hole that's killed eight people. has got their claws into the seventy six is still in the n.b.a. playoffs will have to be coming up. let's take you to south asia now to pakistan where a christian woman who spent eight years on death row in

a blasphemy case has left the country. lawyers says that she's now in canada six months ago she was acquitted by pakistan's supreme court the verdict led to protests and part of the country bibi was originally convicted in twenty ten of being accused of insulting the prophet mohammed during a fight with her neighbors. a faction of the pakistani taliban has claimed responsibility for a bomb blast at a popular shrine in the city of lahore at least eight people including five police officers have been killed in one of pakistan's oldest shrines victoria gate be as the latest. forensic scientists focused their attention on a police band damaged in the blast it was parked outside a popular sci fi shrine in the city of lahore offices responsible for guarding the entrance the women were inside the game. most of the wounded have been moved to mt hospital according to our initial reports there are seventeen to twenty two wounded and rescue workers ongoing seven to ten people are in critical condition but we can

say with a bit dead or alive. a faction of the pakistani taliban has claimed responsibility and they say it marks a new wave of what they call religious fanaticism i personally think it's extremely what is but i also believe that this faction of the d.p. is not operating in full full talking good and fun because there have been some devious attempts in the past have been foiled by the security agencies the data darbar shrine which dates back to the eleventh century has been targeted before a suicide attack nine years ago killed more than forty people in pakistan's government improve security across the country after an attack on a school in push our that killed more than one hundred fifty people mostly children that was five years ago but this attack shows that armed groups can still cause chaos in one of pakistan's largest cities victoria gayton be algis there so the

military council says it could hold elections in six months if an agreement can be reached with the opposition but differences remain over the length of the interim period and who lead the country during that time will have a morgan joins me live now from the sudanese capital khartoum and here there was supposed to be this meeting between sort of civil society groups and the military we were supposed to get some sort of outcome what are you hearing so far. well at the moment so the military council is meeting other political parties besides the opposition coalition and other civil society groups to try to find out what their views are regarding the transitional period of course since president bashir was ousted on the eleventh of april the military council and other political parties and the opposition coalition are yet to come up with how that transition period should look like there's been a lot of disagreement some parties have opted for one year the military council had said that it wanted two years while the opposition coalition had said it wanted four years now yesterday the military council responded to the opposition

coalition's proposal of how the transitional government should be and they said that they tentatively agree with the structure but they basically criticized that document heavily and said that the legal terms that have been used for do it in that constitution the constitutional constitutional document does not clarify how that period should be run it doesn't sort out the main issues and it doesn't specify who will be running which institution and how that institution would look like so a lot of things to be resolved not just between the the military council and the other political parties and civil society groups but the opposition coalition as well and it seems like the transitional government is not going to be formed anytime soon so well we'll come back to us through the day as we get more news for the moment thank you. now let's stay on the african continent because national elections are underway in south africa just moments ago presidents around the poser of the governing african national congress or the a.n.c. cast his vote and his party is expected to win but by a smaller margin after being hit by

a series of corruption scandals in recent years opposition leaders such as we see a main main from the democratic alliance party and julius malema from the economic freedom fighters have also cast their votes. on. this. is just this. that. they are doing it and you do. your big. you. surround poser speaking there well let's take a look at south africa's three main parties the governing african national congress is led by presidents are on pows and he's a former trade unionist turned businessman he promised to crack down on corruption and improve the stagnant economy the opposition democratic alliance party has its

first black leader musi the main. polls suggest that it may be losing ground amongst its wealthier support base so enter the economic freedom fighters led by julius malema now they won six percent of the vote in twenty fourteen and it's the third largest party in parliament its policies include nationalizing mines and taking land without compensation to give back to the poor for me to miller is following the election forests in the cape town of course cape town on the eastern cape for me to opposition strongholds and given the complaints against the ruling a.n.c. is life any better the people there. well sale i suppose it depends on who you speak to here in the western cape at the moment we enquire leecher one of the biggest townships in this province in fact across south africa and people here are living in conditions that they see

a very difficult there are roads that are on target there are many people here who don't have electricity and running water and as you mentioned this is a stronghold of the opposition the democratic alliance many in the western cape many in cape town specifically would say that the da is doing a good job and the da prides itself on this but in areas like a leech that's not what you hear from people here they say they feel marginalized and none of the governance that the da has been celebrated for has trickled down to people here essentially this is really about people being unhappy unhappy rather about governance whether it's the ruling party or the opposition depending on where you are and it's not making people open affecting people on the ground where they say services haven't been delivered adequately and of course there have been some protests apparently in the western cape who's protesting and have the effect of the

voting. the protests we've seen in the western cape in some areas across south africa we've seen the rubble. put in streets we've also seen roads blocked oh with the rocks fairly hasn't actually affected voting it hasn't affected the polling stations where large numbers of people have come out to vote it's also raining quite heavily in in the cape town doesn't stop people from coming out now the protest very many of these people say is really about service delivery again that hasn't been an adequate delivery of homes they blame both the national and provincial governments for this they also say that this is really about their needs not being met and while they say this is a good day to address some of those issues that when protests leading up to election day as well it hasn't affected voting and people are still coming out well for the moment for me to believe it of course follow you on the election throughout

the day thank you. south asia where the taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack in afghanistan's capital one of several blasts happened close to the attorney general's office in downtown kabul also reports of gunfire on one knee is a producer with the al-jazeera bureau in kabul we spoke to an earlier on the phone we cannot have come out of the at the moment but the minister from here is the current program that special forces arrived at the scene and in terms of who operation right now they are controlled by a. hundred and fifty employees of the organization it's a rock related by special forces on the other hand. the responsibility and bases there at the counter counterpart international organization is there for there to. well in a moment we'll have the weather with rob but still ahead here on the al-jazeera news we're in gaza city to assess the impact of the worst escalation in cross

border attacks since twenty fourteen. also the u.s. house of representatives threatened sanctions against the attorney general but there's no sign hill turn over the documents democrats want to see. the hometown hero lift simply into the n.h.l. conference finals will have that story inspired. hello again you get some surprising weather in australia it's a big constantly with us on a big surprise but this is a thing here you wouldn't think represented very much but it's coming in from the bite and it is autumn so if you happen to have been in the time of during the north of victoria they're not little line represented this hold onto your hats this is

time lapse come in quickly but that was instant day dark this is not nighttime as a sand storm dropped. the sunshine and that was the result of that little frontal system the nasty it was some rain would be it kept moving across victoria new south wales and to be honest this is the most active weather in australia the moment the whole of the rest of the continent effectively just enjoying the right word the sunshine now there is another frontal system on its way through the bite and if you're lucky us a few lucky will bring some proper rain to parts of south australia emphatically new south wales where despite quite a bit of rain the last few months still suffering from drought and you saw if you can pick up sand like graph clearly it is still drought ridden but that's a hopeful look picture then down in adelaide and down the coast of victoria not to bring rain for the north there is another area that could do it some rain but probably won't get it the far north tropical just off shore. weather sponsored by qatar is. the subject of more than half

a dozen investigations. of dog stone from malaysia's sovereign wealth one o one piece to investigate how the nation's coffers grew up on al-jazeera. russia has jeopardized the united states security interests we know what you are doing and you will not succeed perceptions from the outside looking. at the picture from the inside. i think russia's foreign policy is too soft going to be the most russian goals have be achieved not peace and. russia coming soon. to be every week a new cycle brings a series of breaking stories joined the listening post as we turn the cameras on the media and focus on how they report on the stories that matter the most on

al-jazeera. welcome back you're watching al-jazeera news hour with me said holroyd with a reminder of our top stories iran says it's stopping its sale of enrich uranium and step up production if world powers don't follow the terms of the twenty fifteen you clear agreement. also the leading candidates in south africa's national elections have cast their votes the governing african national congress is likely to win but the party is expected to get fewer votes than past elections but at least eight people are being killed in a blast outside a popular shrine in the pakistani city of lahore police say the death toll could

rise to as like seven or eight some of the injured are in critical condition. now let's return to our top story that surrounds some of the remaining countries in the twenty fifteen nuclear agreement have reacted to these announcement russia's foreign minister sergei lavrov says he wants iran to explain why it shifted position and says the situation is unacceptable blaming it on what he calls irresponsible behavior from the u.s. china's foreign ministry says all parties of the agreement are responsible to make sure the twenty fifteen deal is fully implemented france's warning that more sanctions could be reimposed if on iran if it fails to keep its commitment to the deal and the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu accused of resuming its bid to build nuclear weapons he says such efforts will not be allowed

. or staying with israel let's cross over to west jerusalem our correspondent harry for searches for us live we expected this sort of statement from the israeli prime minister and it's what we've heard before. very much service goes very much in concert with what benjamin netanyahu has been arguing for many years now about iran's intentions and on the iran nuclear deal it was pretty shorts in this statement it came during the course of his observance of the national day of memorial here in israel when israel pays tribute to its dead soldiers in conflicts past and so he said at the at his comments the amount hurtful symmetry that he had heard on the way there that iran intended to restart its nuclear program saying that iran would not that israel would not let iran get nuclear weapons and it would continue to fight its enemies of course benjamin

netanyahu was very much part of the drive against the iran nuclear deal speaking in the u.s. congress during the obama administration twenty fifteen against it in a very controversial move at the time and since the presidency of donald trump the two of very much been aligned on their view netanyahu making a big speech around this time last year in early may last year in which he said that israel had raided and revealed a secret nuclear archive of iran's former nuclear program which he said that iran had lied about just a few days later donald trump pulled the united states out of the deal so the the comments today very much going in line with what netanyahu has been saying for many years on this issue and indeed in terms of those comments her you know what the israeli prime minister had said for several years i mean he has also threatened military action against iran if they had developed nuclear weaponry that still

a long way off but that doesn't rule out a premeditated attack against iran's nuclear facilities that's potentially still on the cards if if netanyahu has his own way. well it's always potentially been on the cards and indeed the israel under to get pretty close to deciding to make a strike against iran several years ago and pulled back so. it makes no secret of the fact that that israel retains that potential and indeed continues to fight iranian interests inside syria in recent months israel has been a lot clearer about its targeting of israeli interests and israeli military and military activity inside syria so so yes if he continues to hold that card and says that he will play it if necessary what he argues about the iran deal

the j.c. v.o.a. is that iran was lying about it that it would give iran the potential to go back to highly enriched uranium activities again in the future after a certain specified period of course his critics point out that under the terms of that iran deal the international community took as read that there was some kind of nuclear program underway and the whole point of it was to try to to stop it and to allow only for a limited civilian nuclear program to take place and that by america's actions and by the support of the of israel of those actions it has jeopardized the best way to try to reign in any such ambitions the sorts of ambitions that israel says iran has and that now the situation becomes a lot less predictable and potentially more dangerous there for the moment we'll leave it harry thank you very force of the west to islam. heading to europe now

where the international court of justice is hearing qatar's case against the united arab emirates for violating human rights that qatar is government says the u.a.e. targeted its citizens based on their national origin when it expelled all qatari zen stop them from entering the u.a.e. after the twenty seventeen blockade qatar says rights of marriage medical care education property ownership and employment have all been restricted. rights group powers registered more than one thousand one hundred complaints over the last two years and the u.a.e. claims that qatar is hampering its efforts to improve the situation a charge that qatar denies stephanie decker is at the hague joins me now live and stephanie a very specific case that's being heard at the hague all revolving around human rights. that's right and what you have going on at the

moment is almost a side bar to cut this case in the sense that you have the united arab emirates trying to put their own what's called provisional measures saying that qatar as you mentioned there was hampering their efforts to try and execute what the court had ordered last year which is for the return of qatari citizen students and families to be reunited all stems down to really when it comes to a website so hail to the u.a.e. a set up for a visa or access they're saying qatar is blocking it cutters saying well they're concerned about malware because that is how this entire blockade started with a hack of the qatar national news agency so this is where we're at the bigger picture is this culture has brought it here to the to the highest world court when it comes to issues between states because politics is become personal they're saying its citizens are discriminated against because of exactly expelling them from the countries only the u.a.e. is part of this because only the u.a.e. and qatar a part of this convention against the elimination of discrimination so this is

where at tomorrow you'll have closing arguments from both sides and then the court is going to go away and see whether they will agree to the point that the u.a.e. is making it's a lot of back and forth he said she said the bigger picture is there is still no final ruling from this court but again if you look at the situation it also doesn't look like the blockade is going to end anytime soon i tried to speak to the delegation yesterday and they wouldn't even talk to us because one of the issues is on the table is they want al-jazeera to be shut down or certainly reined in so the divisions remain as far as ever and i think at the moment certainly no indication that that blockade is going to be lifted any time soon before the moment stephanie thank you so if you talk about in the hague. now a ceasefire between israel and palestinian groups in gaza appears to be holding on its third day the truce came into effect on monday after a surge in violence so at least twenty five palestinians on four israelis killed

over the weekend the has the latest from the gaza strip. you can hear the blaring of car horns in said air strikes in sirens you can see gazans are here in the markets children are back in school businesses are open life has resumed in gaza on day two of the ceasefire but if you're a relative of one of the twenty five palestinians who were killed or living in one of the one housing units destroyed life is anything but normal in assist people who have lost everything the government is offering households one thousand dollars in emergency funding qatar has pledged four hundred million dollars to gaza and all of us pay. the be able to see that have shown all the time. that they would be able to fleece all these this election there will be rebuilding their lives and we will stand by them we are quoting the international community to

stand by that be able to because this is one of the apartment buildings destroyed in an israeli airstrike you can see girls pajamas. backpack bureau pillows she strewn throughout the rubble this was the deadliest cycle of violence between hamas and israel since the gaza war in two thousand and fourteen and there's a feeling that this call him as it's referred to is only temporary we spoke to a political analyst here and he feels that israel is biding its time and will respond with greater force later bear in mind that in twenty fourteen five israelis died during this latest cycle of violence that number was for this week israelis are focusing on celebrating memorial and then their national day next week tel aviv is hosting the euro vision music competition and so for now here in

gaza people are focusing on celebrating the beginning of the muslim month of ramadan a very much happy for the temporary pause or however temporary pause this may be in violence ever mindful of the fact that it could be only a matter of time until the seas fire collapses. the british government has confirmed it will take part in the european elections on may the twenty third prime minister to raise the money he was hoping for a compromise on the books that deal would allow her to call off the u.k. participation the vote now the government had been holding more talks with the main opposition labor party on tuesday but the two sides couldn't reach an agreement. the president of the european commission john called you because he made a mistake staying silent during the ukase of bricks it's referendum in twenty sixteen. mistakenly thought was to listen too carefully to the

british government can move because the then prime minister asked me not to interfere not to intervene in digging into it for a loop of being it was a mistake not to intervene not to interfere because rian would have been the only ones to destroy the lice which were circulated there won't i was wrong to be silent at an important moment while staying in europe talks aimed at restoring northern islands power sharing government have received in belfast it follows an admission by a distant republican faction that it killed journalists are making in london derry on monday and it raised fears of return to sectarian violence as nadine barber reports. a smile from the woman who was first minister of northern ireland until the power sharing arrangement fell apart after the first day of tentative talks involving the five major parties arlene foster said her d u p was taking part with

a good heart i hope everybody is coming to this process not just the democratic unionist party i hope everybody's coming to this process for their willingness to look forward instead of looking backwards because i think if we look forward then we have a chance to build something again here for the people of northern ireland that's what i want to see happening and i hope that's what up the other parties want to see happening as well the stormont assembly arose from the good friday agreement which ended the violence in northern ireland but the assembly has been suspended since january twenty seventh teen the trigger was a scandal over a green energy project when foster refused to step down the late martin mcguinness then deputy first minister quit his post and power sharing ended now his shouldn't fame party the largest nationalist party says a return to devolved government is long overdue we are here today to do the business. obviously the current stalemate is now six september and it's not sustainable there are outstanding issues that need to be resolved we believe they

can be resolved but other issues of course in the way of a breakthrough in fein wants a law to protect the irish language and marriage equality for the community something the assembly actually voted for in twenty fifteen for the d u p those are red lines they're not prepared to cross and fayne can veto legislation on such sensitive issues still some observers see signs shifting public opinion could lead to compromise in the current talks clearly people have stated that the lack of action in relation to the politicians and we could see that by the way supplied selections for the middle ground for the first time in northern ireland. we always think that our politics is right great annoying but if say you straight to the arabian and russian foreign ministers are speaking let's just listen in to what they have to say in the light of news coming out to turn. or have a regular contact form and on the political level including the top level last year

the presidents of two countries they met four times and now on the agenda and there is the preparation of the next time for that meeting in a format that russia iran has headed by john. in russia. we have in past interplanetary exchanges connections between the regions of the two countries and and are developing the contacts.