fear. and so from a lot from what you're saying that shipment as you say it's based on a contract and a commercial relationship and it is likely to be delivered perhaps by some other route how embarrassing is this for president macron. what you know for the moment i mean the official statement the french official statements say that ok we assume this counteracts and we assumed that he bring him in we. know to deliver armaments to be used for killing civilians on the. loose so the regime said that ok there is no there is a guarantee that those armaments the new news for for the for that purpose so there the official states mount and the also you know there is

a heavy in the link. in the french investigation when this to you too it is and then i definitely want to ask the and i definitely want to ask you about that but just to get to the point about the way in which weapons are being years we know that the united nations has described the situation in yemen as the world's worst humanitarian catastrophe we also know that there have been unlawful and indiscriminate as strikes carried out by the coalition in yemen now is the position that the french government is taking tenable. well for the moment yes i mean what what's what happened today we strike i mean there will stray ssion. report should impact their communication so maybe what could happen is just to postpone the delivery

waiting for. waiting for let's busy. less attention to do that but for the moment. surely we make in the concierge and 2 to consent. delivering oh thank you for sharing your thoughts with us and you to charlie security analyst and former french diplomat joining us from the french capital paris or have more news from london for you a bit later on in the news hour now we return to folly and our marion thank you very much for that vote counting is about to end in south africa and the ruling african national congress party looks headed for its lowest ever share of votes said speak to mark and webb who is at the official results center in the capital pretoria style marcum how is it looking for the a.n.c. . results been appearing on

the screen here as the account in more than 96 percent of the votes cast of now being counted in the a.n.c. has about 57 percent of the vote it is a safe majority but as you said a lower majority than it's ever had before when that count gets to 100 percent is still going to be quite some hours before we have an official announcement of the result that all the political parties have desks really are on this side of the building a and c. the opposition democratic alliance have about a 5th of the vote that in the last election the economic freedom fighters here in red. it's gone up from about 6 percent to about 10 percent according to to the results so far one of the things that's going to hold up that official announcement is a number of the smaller opposition can parties filed a complaint about double voting they say they've recorded incidences of people voting 2 times a lot more. those parties in the electoral commission agreed to carry out an audit

of the results after the counts finished before the official result is announced on this side of the room where we have to fish oils from the electoral commission to be processing some of that data one of the interesting things we've learned from them is about the turnout about 65 percent of registered voters actually voted in those polls on wednesday. and that number doesn't reflect a quarter of eligible voters who chose not to register to vote since looks like the lowest turnout we've ever had in an election in south africa since the end of apartheid since democracy began in 1904 and malcolm how are people reacting to these results are they surprised at the loss of support for the a.n.c. . this is not a major surprise i mean this is what is pretty much exactly what opinion polls had shown before the election the a.n.c. has popularity steadily declined over successive elections and the series of

corruption scandals in particular on the former president jacob zuma since president ram opposer took over from him just over a year ago and these are its results would suggest that the a.n.c. hasn't managed to regain a lot of its popularity but it has halted its decline. year or 2 ago just in popularity was at an all time low they have just about managed to keep their majority. in pretoria thank you very much for that update. plenty more ahead on the al-jazeera news hour including 5 weeks of protests outside sudan's army headquarters a protest leaders at threatening civil disobedience also ahead a new hospital offers hope to palestinians who have lost their limbs in the israeli crackdown in gaza and a day to forget behind the wheel the action from practice at the spanish crown for . the

at the united states has imposed sanctions on 2 shipping companies involved in trade with venezuela the u.s. treasury department says the restrictions are in direct response to the arrest of an opposition member the vice president of venezuela as national assembly edguy zambrano has been put in a military prison on charges of treason among others the court says he is suspected of supporting an alleged coup attempt by opposition leader one to oust president nicolas maduro last month that speak to traceable who is in caracas for us harris said 1st what do we know about these 2 ships targeted by u.s. sanctions. well what we do know right now is that the united states announced another executed order the main objective is still in a way to target security forces here in the country and intelligence forces and it's also aiming against 2 venezuelan companies and 2 ships that are supposedly and

charge of sending oil to cuba let's not forget that venezuela has been provided for the past 20 years economic assistance through. to cuba and what it's also saying is that venezuela continues to provide the type of assistance then more sanctions could be right now instead it bizarre not the 1st sanctions that the united states has announced against the government of the model we know that there is that sanctions involving those in the us administration sanctions against venezuela state oil company the united states has also seat seems to go which is the seat subsidiary humbugging india united states and the reason. the others who are the venezuelan government has of course the government of the opposition here and the united states are becoming increasingly frustrated they have not been able to get the leadership here of the venezuelan military to rise up against the government of nicolas levels on what we have the analysts many of the analysts we have spoken to

are saying that it might not work yes the objective is to choke the administration to choke members of the military of course them in a way to rebel against my will but when you look at countries like cuba like north korea among others a sanctions have been work and in the end they end up hurting the venezuelan population that right now are suffering very very much because of the economic crisis this country is in right now jury so we seem to be in a stalemate now in this crisis what are the chances of dialogue between the government and the opposition at this stage. stale meant is a perfect word right now. because what we're seeing is an opposition that is not clear if they don't have it it's not clear yet what they're going to do next one white always calling for more demonstrations this saturday but when you talk to people on the streets people are becoming many of those who are against the government of course are increasingly frustrated though in a way it was early in january this year he promised that change was going to happen

that stem the opposition has failed in achieving the change that promised in the 1st place we know that the government is saying that they're willing to negotiate but they never really made any type of concessions the opposition is saying that they do not want to negotiate right now they're saying that the last negotiations they were involved in which is back in 2017 the government used them in order to gain some time they used it to win time and then later on call for presidential elections that the opposition says were completely fraudulent so there are several countries around the world so russia you why mexico who have been trying to find some type of a ground open up some type of a dialogue because most of the people we talk to most analysts say that the only way to get out of the current crisis is through negotiations that eliminating either the opposition or the chevy small government the government in itself won't work because it will end up in more violence and that's why there are many many

countries around the world that it's not including of course the united states and other countries in latin america that are saying that the only way out of the current situation is a negotiation thank you for that theresa bori porting line from venezuela's capital caracas at least 70 refugees in migrants have drowned to their boat capsized off the coast of tunisia the boat sank near the coast so spot south of the capital tunis after sailing from libya this was one of the deadliest shipwrecks this year of people trying to reach europe to escape war in poverty back home at least 164 people are known to have died while making the perilous journey since the start of the year. in algeria tens of thousands of people have returned to the streets for yet another day of protest against what they call the ruling elite they want key figures connected to oust of president abdelaziz bouteflika to cede power presidential elections are expected in july but protesters are unrelenting in their demands for a complete regime change pressure from demonstrators and the military force

a president to step down last month and has led to multiple arrests in sudan meanwhile protesters are defying 45 degree heat to continue their 5 week long sit in at army headquarters in khartoum protest leaders are threatening a civil disobedience campaign as they grow increasingly frustrated with the military's delays in handing over power military rulers are promising elections in 6 months if an agreement can't be reached with the opposition he morgan has the latest from the protests in khartoum. here in front of the army headquarters protesters are saying that they will continue with their sit in until their demands are fulfilled now the temperature is $45.00 degrees celcius is the holy month of ramadan and many of the people here are fasting but they're saying that that is not going to stop them from demanding that the military council hand over power to an independent civilian transitional government there saying that they know they are the only pressure card that the opposition coalition which they go seating with the

military council has to try to force that military council to hand over power so they're saying that no matter how high the temperature is and no matter what i will be here if the military council is not installed then they are not going to move many of them have come from different states around the country and they've been here this is the 2nd month that they've been protesting in front of the army headquarters and the protests obviously started in december last year and now people are saying that if the military council does not show any sign of wanting to hand over power to civilian government then they will escalate and turn it into civil disobedience and strikes from work so they're going to try to force them into account in every way they can the big opposition coalition led by the sudanese professional association which has been spearheading calls for protests say that more people should be arriving today and in the coming days to join the sit in to join the people here in the demand to have the military council hand over power to an independent transitional government and people are saying that if that government is not formed if it is not independent if the military is in charge then they will not move from this place in front of the army headquarters and how to.

the u.s. president donald trump says new sanctions on iran were already train carriage dialogue on a potential new nuclear deal iran's leaders continue to reject that idea and insist there be no talks between the 2 sides. report from tehran. friday sermon and a chance for people to catch up on the latest developments in what has been a busy week for iran more u.s. sanctions a growing diplomatic divide with europe and an announcement by president hassan rouhani. to start scaling back iran's cooperation with a 2015 nuclear deal the cleric speaking for iran's supreme leader said president rouhani should not have waited so long to do it as again at the moment we support and appreciate the appropriate. action and we are sure it will be successful united nations international community and european union to face a big test as iranians took to the streets to protest against u.s. aggression a fleet of american warships that across the swiss canal

a day earlier sailed closer to iranian waters protesters say the so-called pressure campaign by the united states is going too far this is my 1st time taking 14 sites more cheating actually. just because. because of what the president trying to did going to fix the end america's not patient enough if they could achieve something militarily they won't go for economic psychological and mediocre fear but if america could do something it would have done it by now or is impossible we've been to protests like these before it's all fairly standard people walk out of the prayer hall about a city block to the next square and chant death slogans to iran's enemies along the way at the end they burn a few american flags but right now iranians have a few more reasons to be angry are a few more reasons to be a little more worried some are audience find there's no better way to express their

anger towards the united states than setting a flag on fire was just it's become a ritual that seems mostly for the benefit of the cameras. nearly 2 years of what they see a psychological and economic abuse by the trumpet ministration has made iranians more angry than afraid. speech no dialogue with trump because no because trump is not good. while u.s. president donald trump continues to tell his own people that sanctions are designed to get. iranian leaders to start a dialogue with him that he does not want to hurt any iranian experience of trump's time in office suggests otherwise zain the old his era. a lot more ahead on the news hour including after all the hype a rough ride for over on its 1st day as a. company and the portland trail blazers comeback from the brain to force a deciding game 7 in the n.b.a.

playoffs heat i'll be here with all the sports they do stay with us well back after the break. we've still got one or 2 showers around the middle east maybe northern parts of the middle east some cloud here pushing out of iraq easing over towards iran. across the caucuses georgia armenia azerbaijan could see some wet weather then pushing across towards the caspian sea south of that is generally dry just not just a little bit of cloud there just around that the eastern side of iran pushing over towards afghanistan for sunday to catch wanted to share was it was couple so in parts of the caspian little chain of storms you can see just run up towards the black sea is out of the med fine and dry $24.00 celsius for beirut with plenty of sunshine is the plenty of sunshine across the arabian peninsula but somewhat the

cloud there into central parts of saudi arabia might just squeeze out one of 2 spots of right 38 in doha 40 back to around 36 on sunday i think by sunday that when starting to pick out so the possibility little bit will lift that dust and sand by and large pretty much dry for the most part dry for the most part too across southern africa we have got one of 2 showers just pushing up towards the northeast of mozambique southern areas of tanzania the heaviest rain will be into tanzania and the designs to the south of that is fine and dry. on counting the cost from union leader to business magnate can still run a post a turnaround a troubled south african economy as india's economy turns out a new breed of tech savvy overborne now as we find out why the benefits of growth not reaching everyone counting the cost of energy.

amidst destruction and despair a group of friends resist. rescuing books from the rubble they build a refuge for freedom and democracy. a secret library of hope from which they endeavor to rewrite their story and that of their country. to witness. bombs on al-jazeera.

on the back you're watching the news hour on al-jazeera with me fully back to book a reminder of our top stories chinese negotiators have left the 2nd round of trade talks with the u.s. soon after they arrive there's been increasing tensions between the world's 2 biggest economies after president donald trump more than doubled the towers on $200000000000.00 worth of chinese imports beijing says it will respond with countermeasures saudi ship which was due to load weapons in france has sailed without its cargo human. the shipment contravened an international arms treaty france is one of saudi arabia's leading suppliers and south africa's ruling party is expected to be officially announced the winner of wednesday's general election but with nearly all the votes counted and see has the no a share of votes since the end of apartheid 25 years ago the main opposition democratic alliance one almost a quarter of the force. now the ride overs stock market flow test

tumbled to a disappointing start. over made his debut on the new york stock exchange at $42.00 for a share below its list splice of $45.00 the ride hailing app is hugely popular around the world but has never made a profit since its founding in 2009 let's get the latest from christine salome who is at the new york stock exchange for us it's been a rough ride so far christine for over on the stock market our stock exchange rather there was a lot of excitement over a company that has yet to be profitable. yet to be fair had its initial public offering on a really tough day the markets overall stocks across the board have been down today because of concerns about those tariffs imposed by the united states and china there is some concern that global growth will slow and it's been

a down week overall for stocks although there has been some recovery today for most stocks not so which continues to trade below that $45.00 a share price that it announced for its initial public offering the company is facing concerns about its business model given that it continues to post losses more than a $1000000000.00 in lost already this year last you last year its revenue exceeded 11000000000 dollars but it still managed to lose 3000000000 dollars and in the last week we've seen protests all around the world by drivers who are disgruntled with their working conditions and that's really raised some questions about how and when the company will become profitable investors have also seen what happened to lift which is closest competitor it went public for the 1st time in march and its stock

has fallen 20 percent since then so very difficult conditions a very cautious investors. leading into this day where we're seeing are not doing as well as expected yeah this is as you say who would drivers have held protests around the world in the lead up to this public offering what impact is that likely to have and what the future looks like for overdrive is you know the. continuous. well look it over continues to have strong growth in its revenue rose 42 percent last year it's now in $63.00 countries all around the world more than 700 cities this is a brand new industry and while drivers want changes that would mean more money for them the company has been pushing back against that they're investing in driverless cars about technology is still a ways away they're investing in food delivery service and scooters and so on they

say improving conditions for drivers is not going to work for them so that's all adding to the doubts surrounding but you know the company says this is a new thing we're doing here it might take us 10 years to get profitable but we're going to get there and they're counting on the fact that investors want in on ride handling which seems like a technology that's here to stay in and they're hoping that we were going to be the one to make it profitable eventually and analysts are saying it's really too soon to ring the bell for just because things went not exactly according to plan today they point to amazon certainly has been pointing to amazon as a company that started off not being probably profitable when it went public but now look at amazon today it dominates online retail and is hugely profitable and that's stocks are way up thank you for that christian salumi night for us at the new york stock exchange. $200.00 countries have reached a deal that aims to manage plastic waste better the agreement targets plastic

pollution by limiting exports to countries that are unable to dispose of it and here's why it matters environmentalist say only 9 percent of plastic waste sent from industrialized countries to emerging economies is actually recycled the biggest offender is the united states who is not in the treaty last year the u.s. shipped $429.00 containers of plastic waste per day to asian countries the u.n. says germany and japan are also. exported more than 1000000000 kilograms of plastic waste last year and much of that ends up in the sea there's already an estimated $100000000.00 tons in the world's oceans with $8000000.00 more added every year well that's now speak to rolf piet who's the executive secretary of the basil rotterdam and stockholm conventions at the united nations environment program he was part of that 2 week meeting in geneva joins us now from skype from there thank you so much for being with us 1st about what's been agreed today in geneva to

minimize plastic waste around the world and what progress has been made or think you are or there's been a group here is actually quite historic in moment that are a little situations because when you know we submit the proposal to our men the convention analysts who will set up a partnership or on plastic toys and that was in september last year then and i think with the amount of interest books from governments and also from civil society and consumers to really deal with the problem of plastics which as you know was causing a lot of environmental issues around the world with birds ingesting plastics with animals in the recent research that we've seen that plastics is not found in our forwards that is entering into our bodies i think countries where really this week committed for all to move full gear you know the the little decisions the decisions for for them to fly address the issue of plastics more than me at the

country level also at the global level because as you can see the issue of plastics is not only one country but what the other countries of the world indeed this agreement would understand sevenzo dumping of plastics into poor countries just how big of an issue is that and what penalties would countries who do this face now. well the what the president which i decided today should set up a system what we call the informed consent and that system will offer countries who actually try and keep trial all the ways that the export and that will start the cycle so you know a sense will not fall for portugal where that we see is going with accepting them how much is being used and also what are the needs of those will those countries of the that we need to recycling waste is pretty plastic so that it doesn't end up in the lead fields or the false alarms then it ends up in the into the open ocean some countries as he said this is a global problem but some countries have been taking steps individually kenya for instance has taken steps to ban classical together and what impact is that having

and you hopeful that more countries will follow suit. yes in fact a lot of countries enough in your role plan elsewhere now taken. measures by the plastics but these only focused on single use plastics i mean the use of plastic sleeve everywhere if you look around your whole from your workplace there were useful plastics is is everywhere and so we need to deal with local meet the short single use less that's what all the other plastics that we we finally have realized then that some of there are very complex because the you know the structure is the zine to fulfill us at the course and as a result of that but is this evening actually agreed on this one month this isn't pool who also start looking at the front that's a flat sticks and to combine with nationally ship use to really. see that we manage the plastics in a system that literally you know soundly so that those for our 6 month end up in the ocean thank you so much ross playing for speaking to us and congratulations on

achieving this state of this agreement thank you are off by is from the united nations environment program joining us there from geneva thank you for your time thank you. 2 french soldiers have been killed during a hostage rescue operation in booking a fossil as cross back tomorrow in london for more on that. yes that's right the french government has paid tribute to the soldiers who were killed during the nighttime raid cedric and to cello were among a group of soldiers deployed to rescue 2 missing french tourists one american and a south korean were also rescued during the operation as has the latest now from paris. well the french defense minister and the chief of france's milicz military said that this was an extremely complex and risky operation and it actually began we call made the 1st wendy's 2 french tourists went missing in banning that being on holiday they were on their way to

a wildlife they didn't return and at that point the alarm was raised that school guides and was later found shot dead well it seems that the french military began tracking these hostages right there and they managed to find them being held by a group of kidnappers in picking a faster north of painting and it seems that over the past few days they will watching them what it's in for a moment where they could move in and release and that moment almost thursday night they were worried at that point that $34.00 sieges would be transferred to another home trip across the border in mali and at that point it might be too difficult to try and retrieve them some 20 special french forces moved into an incumbent in beni on thursday night in the dark and we are told it was a very difficult i risk operation of 4 hostages were in the end freed those 2 french tourists along with an american and a south korean but in the process these 2 french soldiers sadly lost their lives

they were killed by some of the kidnappers we're told now in terms of who is behind this kidnapping in the 1st place we don't know the french defense minister saying only that 2 armed groups are operational in this area one affiliated to islamic state the other 2. they suspect that the kidnappers may have been linked to one of them well the hostages return for all its own at the weekend so their families they will be extremely relieved they all apparently in good condition but it will be a much sadder moments of the beginning of next week when the bodies of those 2 french soldiers those 2 special 4 soldiers returned for a ceremony attended by the french president. well and alice stories are following for the country president emanuel macron has also been holding talks with the facebook c.e.o. mark zuckerberg in paris and threats of sweeping new regulations a report commissioned by the french government concluded it should have more access to the tech giants algorithms it also wants to audit the company's policy against

hate speech facebook has been heavily criticized to failing to quit he will move footage of the christ church mosque attacks this year are all balkan is a digital rights activists he says tech giants should face higher taxes given there are talks of defects on human rights and on democracy we should probably be taxing them at a much higher rate we should probably be taxing the mike we tax big to back 0 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 the 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. we'll have more news from london coming out for you very shortly now back to folly i am thank you very much for that israeli forces have killed a palestinian protester during we keep protesting in gaza the demonstrations began in march last year with palestinians demanding the right to return to their ancestral land since then hundreds have been killed and thousands maimed in israeli in the israeli crackdown and is not a good name reports on the gaza strip the ones who've lost limbs have new hope. hamas is warning if things escalate here on the border they will respond by firing rockets and egyptian mediator is here observing things since the march return protests began last year more than 270 people have been killed more than 17000

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 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 20 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 40 people on the waiting list the executive director of the hospital says there are 6800 amputees living in gaza since the march of return protests.