he just looked at the time. and. started raining to the ground for details coverage of the test walk to the car one of those places to go stop in the day that's the problem around the last few days in the water it's one more thing down it's on the welcome in the record barely begun. hello again the top stories on al jazeera iran says it's stopping its sale of heavy water and could step up its uranium enrichment program that's if world powers don't follow the terms of the twenty fifty nuclear agreement president hassan rouhani

made the announcement on the first anniversary of the u.s. withdrawal from the iran nuclear deal. sudan's military council says it could hold elections in six months if an agreement reached with the opposition differences remain over the length of the interim period and who will lead the country during a time. voters in south africa are casting their ballots in national elections the ruling african national congress or a.n.c. is expected to win but by a smaller margin it's been hit by a series of corruption scandals in recent years by accusations that it's failed to provide basic services the opposition leader from the democratic alliance party cast his votes as polls opened in the township off so well so let's bring in malcolm webb is joining us from johannesburg to talk us through the polling malcolm and where you are. in the township of alexandra

just down the road from a polling station is another one just up the road. but this township has been one of the hot spots for protests ever since the early two thousand but it was a series of protests just in the last month or so leading up to the election residents here been complaining for years about poor housing poor delivery of public services low employment and over successive elections here in south africa the first a turnout has been increasing also the ruling a.n.c. . has been steadily decreasing the turnout has been going down one election after the next the people in this township won't be going to the polling station today and with me is one of them thomas. who's not voting today you told me that your parents were involved in the struggle for democracy but you don't want to vote now . because ever since my parents voted for our well we were still kids and they voted for us for the freedom. and we go ahead

and off it everything changed and things are still the same like around me you see this is still the same people are voting for nothing i think. because there's no any changes so what's the point of. any party whatsoever in the last twenty five years of democracy do you think. the government has delivered. not really because i don't know it's benefiting just for them you know like people from exile from exile and. just like a long time ago but they're still getting paid because maybe they from exile or some such big deal because they the people in. something you know but they don't shake the things around them as well you know their children and all that we don't have anymore activities like practical activities you know it may be practical for

science. for sports or something you know what about the opposition politicians because many of them are promising change why don't you want to vote for one of the opposition parties everything is a lot of confusion because everyone just wants to be on top. i think maybe voting now is more like all the parts. competing for something you know who's good who's not revealing secrets and all that we're not interested in those things you know interested in changes like if they change this place and. the complex over something those difference then people will be able maybe to parent. you know. even if somebody is still something for me how you going to get the person because it's right in the shakes you never know and you never. do you want the government to do. like. there that

changes you know more activities and they must change. because people keep on coming to alec's oh they get the land somewhere and build. but that doesn't change so i needed. to change then maybe and the crime will be this sort of thing thank you very much thomas let. his abstaining from voting today along with many millions of south africans. all right malcolm webb thank you the taliban has claimed responsibility for an attack in afghanistan's capital at least nine people were injured by explosions that hit close to the attorney general's office in downtown kabul taliban says its target was the counterpart international aid organization. is a producer with al jazeera in kabul we spoke to him on the phone earlier. could not have come out of the casualties up at the moment but he looks different here

different probably that special forces arrived at the scene in charge of the operation right now they are also told that. hundred and fifty employees of the organization it was related by special forces on the other hand. the responsibility for attacks and bases that counter counterpart international organization is if they're treated with a. fan as well the supreme court has ordered the prosecution of seven politicians who supported last week's call for an uprising by opposition leader one point zero on tuesday fido addressed the opposition controlled national assembly six days after failing to persuade the military to change sides and turn on president nicolas maduro military police stopped journalists from entering the assembly. the u.s. is lifting sanctions on a former one as well and chief of intelligence in return for breaking ranks with president maduro there is about reports from caracas. her attention is

everywhere in venice will have a stays and parliament is not an exception. that opposition lawmakers were harassed by government supporters when they entered the building on tuesday so no we don't have a mosque we are doing our best in a country that is in a crisis with a government that wants to offer ridiculous things while we are fighting just so people don't starve to death richard blanco is one of the seven lawmakers who were stripped of immunity and accused of treason and rebellion the government says that he and six others were part of an attempted coup to overthrow mother would one week ago but over the years was a lot of supporters agree you know the golden era this is not a dictatorship this country is run by the people who do not accept an imposition from the north we are sovereign we are free from the empire if they want to help us they should free the money we have in accounts abroad if they do that then we could

buy the medicine we need. opposition leader why those immunity was removed last month but he has not been detained yet this is the first the meeting here at the national assembly says we are pricing a one week ago one way who has acknowledged that he has failed to convince the military to rise up against my will and now the opposition is evaluating what to do next the military placed a crucial role in venezuela and in spite of remorse of plots and divisions their leadership has remained loyal to. the united states who is actively seeking a change in government in venezuela imposed sanctions and dozens of venezuelan officials in the past two years. the u.s. vice president mike pence and then still sanctions are not permanent in an attempt to lou. members of the military to rebel against. the united states of america will consider sanctions relief for all those who step forward stand up for the

constitution and support the rule of law like gen man well christopher figure the former chief of the venezuelan intelligence service who just last week broke ranks with the madeira zeman rallied to the support of the venezuelan constitution and the national assembly. most analysts say the only way out of the crisis through negotiations good at getting less and the opposition and the us believe that the sanctions can replace negotiations and that is a mistake the chances that material leaves office without a rebellion from the military is almost nonexistent. for now the political and economic crisis have no end in sight caught in the middle a million savannah's will have to struggle every day to survive. it is have all.

the way down the headlines on al-jazeera iran says it's stopping its sale of heavy water and could step up your reign in richmond if world powers don't follow the trends of the twenty fifty nuclear agreement president hassan rouhani said the united kingdom france germany china and russia had sixty days to implement their promises to protect iran's oil and banking sectors from u.s. sanctions we're gonna spoke on the anniversary of the us withdrawing from the deal so it sounds military council says it could hold elections in six months if an agreement can't be reached so the opposition differences remain over the length of the interim period and who will leave the country during a time. a pakistani christian woman who spent eight years on death row in a blasphemy case has left the country. lawyers say she's headed for canada six months after her acquittal by pakistan's supreme court the verdict led to protests

in parts of the country bibi was originally convicted in two thousand and ten after being accused of insulting the prophet muhammad during a fight with her neighbors. voters in south africa are casting their ballots in national elections and the ruling african national congress or a n c is expected to win by a smaller margin than previously thought it's been hit by a series of corruption scandals in recent years by accusations that it's failed to provide basic services. as well the supreme court has ordered the prosecution of seven politicians who supported last week's call for an uprising by opposition leader. on tuesday the address the opposition controlled national assembly six days after failing to persuade the military to change sides and turn on president nicolas maduro military police stopped journalists from entering the assembly those are the latest headlines on al-jazeera we'll have more news coming up for you right after inside story that's next stay with us.

humans opposing nature risk a major report warns one million species face the threat of extinction from deforestation to overfishing and development the consequences will be diet but can this trend be reversed or at least this isn't a story. hello and welcome to the program i'm wrong on life on earth is in decline with more

species threatened with extinction than at any other time in history and we blame that's part of the findings of a un agency responsible for assessing the state of our planet almost five hundred experts work together over three years destruction of natural habitats the felling of trees climate change pollution and plunder of the land and sea are all singled out as major drivers of the decline around a million plant and animal species face extinction many within decades if we don't act. the report authors believe the decline can be slowed and in some cases even stopped but it will need a global commitment to make that change. i joining me now are guests on skype from hamburg christophe taste a campaign out for greenpeace germany and an ecology chemistry scientists in gainesville florida brought chef as assistant professor at the department of wildlife ecology and conservation at the university of florida and also on skype in

arizona john wayne's professor at the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at the university of arizona i welcome you all i'd like to start with you brett schaeffer's in gainesville florida a million species that's an extra ordinary number the u.n. says that it's going to need a global commitment to try and either reverse that or at the very least try and slow it down it's a global commitment we haven't had so far is it too late i think that's a really important question to ask. yeah one million species is a large number it's not insurmountable we have. existing agreements in place so we have. this biodiversity ecosystem servants panel is there to monitor the state of nature but we have sustainable development goals we

have a variety of un agreements already in place that if taken seriously could could make a difference and take the step in the right direction i think that's crucial is now let's bring in john wayne's head those agreements need to be taken seriously but it doesn't seem to me that they are being taken seriously is that true do you think. it would be nice if everyone was on work for the parents clamor the court one of the most important things there is is emphasizing protecting tropical rain forests because that sort of kind of one stop shopping for biodiversity if you can preserve those forests you'll preserve thousands upon thousands of species maybe fifty sixty seventy percent species on the planet and simultaneously reduce the effects of global warming here and there are great big sink for carbon now suck it out of the atmosphere if if they can be preserved if they can be preserved crystal taze and

the hamburg greenpeace obviously a very important organization since i can remember clearly since the sixty's and see a greenpeace of formed you have been talking about the environment however it's not just about organizations like yours they needs to be a real international organizational change to try and do something about this but what i'm saying is america pull out of the paris codes we have the u.k. pulling out of the or at least trying to pull out the those organizations like the e.u. like the united nations that are crucial to get all of the countries together seems to be getting weaker and weaker is that a problem do you think. that is a massive problem that we are currently facing we are we are seeing inadequate implementation of the paris climate reman now we are seeing this p.p.s. report of of the devastated state of nature. clearer than any report ever before and it must be a wake up call so first next year the nature protection summit

in china at the conference off the. invention so if we are very strong and find india for nature as well and then really also implements the climate if we humans and the few from needs to gather and not at the expense of each other and this requires me to meet steps in the right direction of governments and most of all that we are not gets you we will do our very very best that this report release of us as a strong wake up call and it's not. in all getting lost and shelfs a strong wake up call. i mean nobody seems to be waking up everybody pays lip service and says you know we do need to do something about climate change and then nobody really does anything about climate change. yeah no i think that's right i mean the

the bottom line is that we're we're saying these issues because we have a growth base economy and this is an economy that. requires mining natural resource extraction. etc and agriculture development and these have direct negative consequences for nature and and so you know this is a quality of life issue and that in this an issue of of of doing and having this quality of life in a in a sustainable way and there haven't really been sufficient checks and balances in the past trying to do this in a responsible way forward i think we have the information now the science is there to guide us moving forward to make the right decisions and to make sure that we minimize the impacts on the environment while we do kind of the necessary

extractions to support the economy john waynes i've heard an argument i want to put it to you make adepts it changes with the environment that it's and and all of this talk of climate change and all of this talk of a million species perhaps being extinct surely we're treating nature with kid gloves it's a lot tougher than we give it credit full well it's if you sort of say nature in general it sort of nature will survive but we could still nature could still survive but we could still lose millions uses and seriously damage our quality of life and if there's abundant evidence that that things are not adapting quickly enough so some work that i've done some arrives and we're going on research. suggests that if you look across one thousand people thousands b.c.'s or nine hundred seventy six species that they're rain has been monitored over time there's

already been. extension about forty seven percent of so already racine's species starting to go extinct locally just in limited amount of climate change that we've had so far so it seems like species are not adapt and that i'm going to ask a question here of christophe christophe. yes you are concerned about what's going on right now yes you want international organizations to step up to do more to for there to be stronger legislation however we all in a global economy the requires almost infinite growth with a planet with finite resources there is has to be a business element to this as well you can't simply say you know we need to stop this from happening you need to be realistic and say yes business takes place that's bad for the planet but that's our planet that's our system. but it's true that we really need to do business we have we need economies so. provide our existence but nobody forces us to. take.

lives every week or drive our car every day and we still can cite ourselves what we consume and how much and nobody globally in our political economic system faustus of us saw an ever growing. economy at the expense off of nature we already consume in two planets and we only have one and this is the very reason why if if if if we continue this we will lose this one million users and probably even more in the long run but we haven't lost the species yet and if we change our activity and stop this false growth on a on a on a global scale and instead rewards economic activities that protect ecosystems and use them most immediately and if we punish.

activities that use choice or oceans our forests or peanuts and grasslands and remove subsidies that create subsidies struction we can do it nobody forces us to continue with this is chuck difficult and it's we see today we can change and we can change i see you noting in agreement that john wins in tucson however we can change it but this requires not just a lifestyle change it requires a whole new way of thinking for most people on the planet we're talking they will eight billion people on the planet now as like a work i think that well you can think one way you can think about it is that. almost everything we do. she would stick level wanting to choose to buy or to burst ride of her city loss but you can also think about that for everything we can do we begin tweet what we do know in a way that will that will lessen those impacts right so one of the most obvious

things that we think about is what we eat so beef and lamb and go to a particularly bad to the environment plant based diet is particularly good for the environment. the ways that we try and get around all of those things we can explain changes. shorter hot showers things like that there's just a whole list of things that we can do. that will make things better and i think krista makes a great point is that we can we can sort of. the choices that we make as consumers we can we can reward those companies that are environmentally friendly and punish those that aren't so so i think that everybody. can sort of take part in this and contribute. if as in gainesville me taking a whole shiela you can't legislate for that that you can't make laws for that

so what i really want to get is the kind of there's the two solutions that seemingly you guys are talking about there's the micro solution a lifestyle change the we can all do or that has to be a macro solution to a governmental international level but there's another solution is that nationally there's a scientific solution to all of this the science community should be able to present not just the bad news but some solutions as well. yeah i think that's right you know the we we are becoming with every decade better at rest storing kind of degraded landscapes engineering landscapes to help. you know deal with these issues our agriculture is becoming more efficient you know i mean so there's kind of technology that can be kind of researched and developed.