yes the lease a putting out a communique paying tribute to the two french soldiers special forces soldiers who died during this hostage rescue operation the defense ministry also put out a statement saying that of course is saluted their courage and their service and their families have been involved well this hostage rescue operation took place in bikini a fast so thursday to friday night at some point during the night of thursday to friday four hostages were rescued one south korean an american and two french citizens now we don't know much about the american south korean people for the time being but we do know a bit more about the french citizens because they went missing last week on may the first they had been holidaying in been in south of bikini. and they had left their hotel on their way to a wildlife park with their tour guides they didn't come back the law was raised and

later sadly their talk i was found he had been shot dead and now the vehicle that been traveling in a four wheel drive was also found across the border from been in picking a fight so it was burned now we know of course is that now they've been rescued and freed and liberated we've heard a little bit from some of their relatives back here in france who of course are celebrating the fact that they are free despite the sad news of the death of these two soldiers and we know that they will be returning to france sometime this weekend what do we know if any think about those that were holding them hostage and about sort of the methodology about freeing them. yes we know very little about the actual operation to free these hostages this news really just coming through what we do know though is the french media reporting that at least four kidnappers were killed during the raid we also know that the french special forces that took part in this operation were supported by u.s.

forces that is something in the defense ministry statement the french defense minister thanked the u.s. for the participation of those u.s. soldiers but there will be questions over the next you know days and weeks are still why these two soldiers were killed we don't know anything about the circumstances because these two french soldiers were highly trained highly skilled and you'd imagine that these french special forces were quick to with the best arms and weapons that they could have so did something go wrong with a overwhelmed by the armed group whoever had captured these hostages we don't know we hope to find out but it is of course an extremely sad day for their families and do for the moment the taj thank you. know the deputy head of the revolutionary guard in the room the leaders would be talking to the u.s. off to urge them to call them up their economy is a mess ever since they took away the iran deal the average leisure that's the

highest number ever heard. they're having riots every weekend and during the week even and what they should be doing is calling me up sitting down we can make a deal a fair deal we just don't want to have nuclear weapons not too much to ask and we want to help put them back into great shape they're a bad chip right now i look forward to where we could actually help iran we're looking to her to run i want them to be strong and great and have a great economy. b. fifty two bombers have landed a major u.s. base in qatar and the aircraft carrier abraham lincoln is leading a battle strike group of washington heading for the gulf well iran is dismissing for its of military action by the us and deny accusations of destabilizing the middle east the americans continue to tighten the squeeze on the iranian economy after pulling out of the twenty fifty nuclear deal last year the latest sanctions targeting reining in metal exports second only to oil government relevant revenue

has more. within the last twenty four hours a fleet of american warships has gone through the sways canal into the red sea and is getting closer and closer to iranian waters to iranian sure the sea but iran's armed forces has been relatively reserved in any sort of show of force or talk of force in response to what is a clear american move against iranian security iranian borders even the supreme leader himself while it's on the only company has been silent on all matters with regard to the united states since president hussen ramana made a statement made an announcement that iran would begin to lessen its cooperation with the twenty fifty nuclear deal but the supreme leader's thoughts on the matter his feelings on the issues are likely to be made known here at the weekly friday prayer sermon the government has also called for an anti american demonstration of

protest to follow the prayers this week it's all fairly standard but it comes as the chances of an open conflict between the united states and iran are higher than they've been in recent memory any time in the past many weeks and months and it's not just american military hardware moving closer and closer towards iran that has people worried iranians are worried that the rhetoric by hawks in washington and people that are part of the white house of u.s. president donald trump senior members of his government who have been making very hawkish comments towards iran iranian people are worried that the prospect of a war with america is a real possibility now more than ever now iranian leaders have tried to assure their people that they're doing everything they can to avoid a conflict to move towards a direct war with the united states but in a speech earlier this month supreme leader ayatollah khamenei did tell his people

that the united states has a past record of the stable. in the region and despite their best efforts to iranian people should be prepared for a cause that should get prepared for a potential war. more ahead here on the al-jazeera news hour including south africa's ruling a.n.c. loses some support but retains its lead will be live in pretoria with the latest general election results also a new hospital in garza offers hope to dozens of palestinians who've lost limbs during the march of return protests in the portland trail blazers come back from the brings to force the deciding game seven in the n.b.a. playoffs joe will have sports news later. the ruling african national congress is set to be announced the winner of wednesday's general election but with nearly all of the votes counted the a.n.c.

has the lowest share of votes since the end of apartheid twenty five years ago the main opposition democratic alliance won most of a quarter almost a quarter of the vote official results are expected on saturday joins us now from pretoria at the vote count and of course they had plenty of time to sort of start the counting they did that yesterday and i was sort of getting an idea of the trends really and how much of a lead the a.n.c. have. the votes are being counted we're getting the results on these screens here the big screens at the sides showing results for the provincial elections because voters got to vote for provincial governments at the same time as voting for the national government bridge or ones i start with those so great change really the still so far has every has a government in every province with the exception of the western cape where the democratic alliance seem to be well in the lead for the provincial government that's no change from the last election in the center in the center panel we have

the results for the national election. as he said the n c's still in the lead but with a small a vote share than it's ever had before he has a desk over here as do all of the other political parties no agents watching those votes coming in to the n c got that smaller margin than ever before it lost a lot of supporters in recent years because of a series of corruption scandals and also paul delivery of public services the democratic alliance that's the largest opposition party no great change from last time there were about twenty one percent of the vote so nothing significant there and then the economic freedom fighters are sitting just here wearing red they're relatively new party they were founded about six years ago when its leaders former a.n.c. politicians were pushed out of the a.n.c. they want about six percent of the vote in the last election and they used those seats in parliament to disrupt proceedings and criticize heavily the ruling a.n.c. for its corruption poor service delivery and other issues they've promised more

radical changes to redistribute south africa's wealth which is very an equally distributed the world bank says it's the most on equal country in the world on this side agents from the electoral commission are processing some of that data and bringing it in just in the last few minutes the percentage of votes counted has just gone over ninety percent and of course as more and more of those votes are counted we're getting closer and closer to what will be the final result thanks bulk of course. that voters are verified and declared thank you protest leaders in sudar are threatening civil disobedience as they grow increasingly frustrated with the military's delays in hunting over power protests began last year touched off by the rising cost of bread and fuel they soon as close to two nationwide demonstrations demanding long time president omar al bashir stepped down but the rules for thirty years was overthrown by the military on april the eleventh a military council took power promising to hand over legislation to

a civilian government a sit in outside army headquarters in. has now continued for more than a month the demonstrators a vow to stay until a civilian government is installed workable morgan's following events force we were expecting large demonstrations today just because a sense of what you see and hear whether people will come out onto the streets and protest. well so the temperature here is over forty five degrees celsius and it's the holy month of ramadan people are fasting but that hasn't stopped them from continuing with the setting here in front of the army headquarters they're saying that they came here with a single purpose to have the military council hand over power to an independent civilian transitional government and the key word here is independent they don't want that transitional government to be chaired by a military member or military personnel and they want to make sure that civilians are in charge they think that this is the reason why they've come from various states around the country this is the reason why they've been here in front of the army headquarters for the second month and they're saying that this is the reason

why they started their revolution in december last year so there really is a sense of anger or frustration and we've already heard from the opposition coalition threatening to escalate the situation if the military council does not hand over power they're already threatening to also call of negotiations with the military council and announce their own civilian government if the military council does not show any interest in handing over power and they've called for civil disobedience from civilians and protesters alike so obviously this that this period of wanting to see a transitional government is still very much in place people are saying they will continue to protest until they see the demands of a transitional government fulfilled. thank you of course follow friends with you in khartoum through the day thanks. let's head over to the middle east now it's the first friday during the holy month of ramadan as have a mention tune palestinians are also preparing for the weekly protests the gaza israel border the palestinian ministry says three hundred four people have been killed since the launch of the protest began and it's actually going to is live for

us the gaza israel border what's going on where you are right now. so if you take a look behind me you can see the crowd is still quite thin but bear in mind that it's early here this is the first friday protest since the cease fire the latest cease fire took effect monday morning it's the first friday protest since ramadan began hamas was urging people to return to the border to protest calls were issued via mosque loudspeakers and egyptian my mediator is going to be observing things hamas has warned if things escalate here today they will fire rockets into israel since the march of return protests began last year as you mentioned almost three hundred people have been killed more than seventeen thousand have been injured. jaime's food you is what you might call

a wounded veteran of the march of return protests in gaza. on a friday last august he was shot in the left leg and came one of the growing number of protest amputees. i'm not disabled being disabled is a state of mind i believe if my mind is disabled i'm disabled but if i lose a part of my body i'm not disabled and i'm at the. food you is one of twenty people who will soon be fitted for a state of the art prosthetic leg at the newly opened how mad hospital for rehabilitation and artificial limbs there are already forty people on the waiting list the executive director of the hospital says there are six thousand eight hundred amputees living in gaza since the march of return protests began last year one hundred thirty six people mostly young men have lost their limbs.

patients can now get free treatment at the qatari funded hospital it's the first public rehabilitation facility in the gaza strip. the aim is to provide more advanced prosthetics and treatment programs that are currently available but given the land sea and air blockade it posed by israel and egypt since two thousand and seven there are many obstacles to overcome the. sometimes also ability to to go into other guys the three because of for some but it's a cut on some security issues that's why it'll take time for the one hundred bed hospital to be fully operational. but is hoping by the one year anniversary of his amputation he'll have a second leg again. well. my life will change after i get

a prosthetic leg and i can walk up and down the stairs to my fourth floor apartment drive a car ride a motorcycle and go outside without crutches. losing his leg hasn't deterred food from attending the protests each friday he goes he says all palestinians must make sacrifices in their fight for a return to the land they once called home and for a life better than the one they have now under siege. there are signs that israel is abiding by its commitments agreed upon in this ceasefire today qatar fuel came in headed to the gaza power station and the zone in the mediterranean sea where fishermen can catch seafood was expanded hamas is calling on palestinians to return on wednesday for protests in the afternoon in an

attempt to keep the pressure on israel to ease conditions here well for the moment natasha thank you natasha going to gaza israel. time for the weather is over to now so looking good evening strayer the that's right yeah even australia has had some pretty rough weather recently that southeastern corner get all melbourne had the classic four seasons in one day rain snow hail wind just about everything but sunshine actually really and you can see that massive cloud that's been swirling aware cross that southeastern corner rattling its way through we need the rain is just not so bad it's not all bad news but some really really deep and active weather system this one this area of low pressure shop cold front and as that pushed its way through we saw over fifty millimeters of rain in well in the past a victorious is melbourne this is south bank in melbourne western tip in downing sees the rainfall bouncing up about ankle high really nasty day things quieting down now though so we can see that wetter weather just easing its way pulling out

across the tasman dry weather coming in behind still quite blustery though as we go through sense today go into sunday and things will calm down a normal service will be resumed looking pretty much dry everywhere across australia for the second half of the weekend so it's not all bad now things are improving we hop across the ditch into new zealand that runs on its way in here we go with the cloud and rain moving across the tasman sea easing into south island as we go on through sunday pretty wet day very windy day that will eventually make its way right across the north island to see. exhibited well still ahead here on the news are new concerns as north korea conducts its latest short range missile tests . did spall rather a little sends out a warning to his rivals that the madrid open as he paid for his first trophy of the season baseball state ellsworth joe coming up later.

the latest news as it breaks global. communities here and forty are very frustrated because the lack of post storm services with detailed coverage this lack knowledge of the know people flocked to this to make ransom notes and just want a better life from around the world and amnesty has been offered to those who rebel against the government. except those involved in human rights abuses a war crimes. subzero temperatures stream altitudes. this is where the hard part because of the extraordinary journey from polish to tajikistan braved ordinary joint. to high up there's no oxygen. just to experience life simple pleasures. risking

it all. on al-jazeera. welcome back to the al-jazeera news are with me said robin a reminder of our top stories the trade war between the u.s. and china is escalating as president trump threatens to impose additional tariffs on nearly all chinese imports in a series of tweets trump says there's no rush to reach a trade deal with beijing negotiators headed to a second day of talks. ship which was due to load weapons in france has sailed without its cargo human rights protesters say the shipment contravened an international arms treaty of recent online investigative site published

a leaked french military intelligence that showed weapon sold to the sound of these were being fired against civilians in the war in yemen. goober's just made its debut on the new york stock exchange after being valued at eighty two billion dollars. i. b. its price for the initial public offering or the i.p.o. was set at forty five dollars a share it is expected to be one of the largest stock market listings a share right hailing app is hugely popular around the world but is not made a profit since its foundation in two thousand and nine worth more than we can join kristen salumi who's in new york for us i mean a lot of anticipation really leading up to this i.p.o. why so much excitement over a company that has yet to make a profit. well so the name has become

synonymous with ride handling the technology company is a pioneer that has changed the transportation landscape around the world in more than seven hundred cities it's now in sixty three countries so and really it's not unusual for a company to company to be losing money when it goes public for the first time they do this after all to raise money from investors to put back into the company but the amount that they're losing has raised some eyebrows there valuing the company at eighty two billion dollars but they've already lost more than a billion dollars this year they say that's because it's expensive what they're doing they need to incentivize drivers and riders and so on and they're doing things that have never been done before this is the company's explanation for why it may take them as much as ten years to become profitable they're not only dealing with these ride howling apps they're moving into driverless cars they're investing heavily in that technology they're moving it to scooters and also a food delivery service so says be patient right healing is right hayling is here

to stay and they're counting on investors wanting to get in on that and believing that will continue to lead the way in this field and we've talked about incentivizing drivers it was all reported earlier in the week from rob ruggles over a drivers were protesting about the way that the working conditions the they're also the proportion of the money they actually get it there's a great deal of anger around it certainly from those that you might say the coal face those actually do the job at seoul's. absolutely there's been a lot of attention on the plight of drivers for the week leading up to this i.p.o. the drivers say their pay is shrinking as the founder of the company travis callan ic and other company executives stand to get rich off of this public offering they want to be treated more like full time workers as opposed to independent

contractors the way they are now but that would cost the company a lot more money and the company would have to pay them certain benefits and over time any of these things could hurt the road to profitability for and you know we've seen that weighing on the company leading up to this initial public offering that and last year they were talking about being valued at one hundred twenty billion dollars lift had its i.p.o. last month lift being their number one competitor it didn't go as well as about company expected so has really scaled back expectations there valuing themselves at eighty two billion dollars this year at this point but even at that amount this is likely to be one of the biggest tech i.p.o.'s of all time just behind facebook and alley bob by the chinese retailer so lots of things that could get in the way of hoover's profitability moving forward but investors seem to want to get in on

this new technology and the company that's seen as leading the way for the moment christine thank you. now japan is accusing north korea of violating un resolutions with its latest missile test the second weapons test for the week north korean state media showed at least one missile being launched on thursday the u.s. says multiple ballistic rockets also fired tension has risen following the failed denuclearization summit between the american and north korean leaders south korean president moon jane says the weapons tests are north korea's way of sending a message to washington d.c. . trouble honey north korea seem to be considerably discontented it could not reach a deal at this second north korea u.s. summit in hanoi north korea fired missiles that do not directly threaten the united states japan or south korea so they appear to be careful not to break down the dialogue but they express their opinion at the same time. rob

a bride has more from seoul. senior south korean defense officials have been briefing lawmakers in the national assembly on thursday's weapons test and it coincides with the release by north korean state run media of images of what it calls a strike drill are various weapons being used by a number of different units overseen by leader kim jong un now south korea's military says that in addition to what's assumed to be the two short range missiles being fired in one direction and also being fired but this time in a westward direction towards the sea on that side of the korean peninsula were a number of multiple rocket launchers and also self-propelled guns so a serious show of force by north koreans military and it comes just five days after a similar weapons test which was carried out on saturday on north korea's east coast are now coming together this is taken as

a very serious provocation but south korea seeming to do all they can not to be provoked almost downplaying the significance and the seriousness of these latest developments and it comes big on who is the u.s. special representative on north korean affairs is here in south korea talking to his counterparts about what comes next and about ways of moving forward one possibility is humanitarian assistance agreeing to send food aid to the north so while we have these increasing military tensions there is also the possibility of further conciliatory gestures with the whole future of negotiations very much hanging in the balance. the family of a close as well as opposition leader is increasing the safety after his arrest by intelligence agents. is vice president of the opposition controlled national assembly. so. he's going to every

public office he got access to try to locate her father ever got a somewhat i know the vice president of the opposition controlled national assembly . and. we don't know where he is he was kidnapped by this government and taken illegally he's innocent they talk about treason he has been defending democracy in venezuela because the national assembly is the only democratic institution left in venezuela. somebody i know was taken on wednesday night he did not want to leave his vehicle so intelligence officers used a told truck to take him at this point nobody really knows where it ever got some but i know he's being held his lawyers that he's being detained in this prison it's known as. it's where political opponents and students for example that participated in protest are being detained for one rights groups say that prisoners here are tortured and abused by. the government controlled constituent assembly voted to

strip of immunity to several opposition lawmakers somebody is one of them to arteries had to seek refuge at the italian embassy and another one is hiding at the argentine embassy. the government is accusing them of treason and rebellion but has provided no proof here. but it's not just lawmakers the government is going after this is a video from april thirtieth and involved members of the volley varian national guard that the government believes sided with the opposition leader attempted insurrection. can be seen in the video he doesn't know where his son niece. i don't even know what he was doing there i was told he was detained i know there is an investigation going on but i don't know where they have him or where he is. why you don't is demanding the government releases those detained he says the government is the one who is not respecting the

rule of law in venezuela. the government wants to talk about a coup but the real coup is here that has mantling of the rule of law with the constant attacks against me only on the german body and burns weyler the national assembly. why there is a crisis and a clash of the people results that will empower their lives. human rights groups say that with the current situation in the country it is difficult any of those detained will stand a fair trial i mean one of the. we know there are reports of planned or stein detention centers they are not in regular prisons and prosecutors are not demanding that those in prison see a judge within forty eight hours of being detained people are being abandoned with nowhere to turn. in general say there are almost eight hundred political prisoners in venezuela today prisoners whose future is uncertain so long as the institutions are controlled by the government they said will.

facebook c.e.o. is meeting french president in paris the tech giant and france are hoping to find better ways to curb online extremism and hate speech france wants to take a leading role in technology regulation well our balcony is a digital rights activist who joins me now via skype from cork in the republic of ireland good to have you with us live on al-jazeera really interesting an important meeting between mark zuckerberg of the french president i mean they want to seem to clear up how to control and police hate speech and fake news on social media and. media giants you might say like facebook to pay their taxes. which is a good thing i mean i don't think anyone can argue that these companies must be paying their taxes in fact given their talks effects on human rights and on democracy we should probably be taxing them at a much higher rate we should probably be taxing them like we tax big tobacco so

let's start thinking about that let's start thinking about taxing big data big tech like big tobacco and beyond that though i think we have to ask ourselves what is it we really want do we want better censorship do we want these organizations to become better filters of our reality do we want our governments involved in that or do we perhaps want to start looking at alternatives where that people would have control where the people would have ownership of both their own data and would have freedom of speech because that's what i would favor more than government. intervention in censorship but we've seen it in certainly the huffs past twelve months has been quite resistant to sort of a peer attend various committees and hearings whether it be in the u.s. or even the u.k. he's resistant to change and certainly criticism when questioned about how he's going to control all police facebook it's all very controversial it's all very

debatable but what's going to change in this meeting between him and mackerel at this moment in time because also as the new zealand prime minister wants to come in on this conversation as well doesn't see the mosque attack in the country. well i'm not sure much is going to change i think it is a an open question whether these corporations these multi-billion dollar sometimes almost trillion dollar corporations are more powerful or whether our democratically elected governments are more powerful we should be doing everything in our power to regulate them as much as possible to break them up to tax them higher to try and pass regulation towards data minimization so that we cut off the thing that feeds them what can we do these are our government strong enough to do things does someone like matt braun who you know said he wants to run trance like

a startup does he even want to actually regulate them or does he maybe after he leaves like obama said after he left the presidency said maybe i'll become a venture capitalist maybe that's what i'll do you know neo liberals love this business model liberals love silicon valley so are they are they even the right people to be regulating them or i don't know what i do know is we can build ethical alternatives to these platforms i mean imagine if these platforms were owned and controlled by everyday people if we each one of us had our own place on the internet for example that we don't think controlled we were in control of our data we decided what we could say and what we couldn't say within the confines of the law if you then incited to hate to a trip to buy land then the police would come right that's just the law but instead of having these c.e.o. kings in charge of both what we can say and what we see and all of our private information we could build technology so that we are in control of all of this why aren't we considering this why.