that despite 99 year old prince philip perry's grandfather recovering in hospital after heart surgery there are no plans to delay airing the interview behind palace walls the royals are bracing for impact the barker al-jazeera london. time for a quick check of the headlines here on al-jazeera saudi arabia has confirmed another attack on its energy facilities by who the rebels in yemen the government says a ballistic missile was fired at all facilities and ron earlier a drone hit rust on a report of the world's biggest oil shipping ports riyadh says there was minimal damage in both attacks but who the rebels say was much bigger. for joe when we say all the artillery and drone divisions were able to conduct a wide offensive in the depths of saudi arabia with 14 drones and 8 police take

misdialed we targeted around co in ras outmaneuver a port and other military facilities into mom more military sites were targeted in a serious design and the strike was precise in accra tauriel guinea the government says at least 15 people have died in a series of accidental explosions more than 400 of them injured in the blast at a military base in batter city the president here door obiang says the explosions were caused by mishandling of dynamite people are being urged to donate blood and hospitals in the area are now overwhelmed both sides of claim victory in the ivory coast parliamentary election despite polls showing a win for the ruling party the victory would strengthen president alassane ouattara his position he won a 3rd term in the van but in an election marred by violence. the u.k. prime minister is demanding the permanent release of a british iranian woman who was jailed in tehran on spying charges cigar iraq lives 5 year sentence has ended she spent the final year under house arrest and her ankle

tag has now been removed but a lawyer says she's been summoned to court next week on another charge. the u.s. secular state has written to afghanistan's president outlining the biden ministrations strategy to end the conflict. and he blinken called for a 90 day were duction in violence and has asked turkey and the u.n. to host talks he says no decision has yet been made on u.s. troop withdrawal. photos in switzerland have now only approved a ban on face coverings in public the proposal was approved by just over 51 percent of those who voted in sunday's referendum the measure did not mention islam specifically but it's known locally as the burqa ban the ban once put in place will have exceptions including for protection from coronavirus those are the headlines the news continues here on al-jazeera after inside story stage and that's what i thought.

with elections lead to stability and ivory coast voters there choose a new parliament to follow for filing a presidential election so will this western african country overcome. this is inside story. hello again welcome to the program today with me pizza topping our months of political turmoil verses of cost the ballots to choose legislatures in ivory coast the poll is seen as a test of the nation's debility

a presidential election last november did lead to violence at least 85 people were killed hundreds were wounded president allison watson has opponents have disputed his bid for a 3rd now 2 of them have teamed up in a coalition to prevent him from expanding his power only conan baby and long fielded parliamentary candidates on a joint list the 2 former presidents of boycotted the presidential elections opening the way for ouattara to win by a landslide that address reports now from rome. the election is seen as a key test for president ouattara and the governing arctic to the party after december contentious presidential elections the opposition stayed away from that vote now their participation in the legislative election is seen as a strategy of move to remain politically relevant until the next presidential elections in 5 years while the opposition sounds a bit about the outcome of the legislative elections there are people in this country who feel that it was

a big mistake. from the presidential elections in the 1st place now their own party wants to win at least 148 seats in parliament enough for walking majority opposition. from happening insisting that granting the r.h. absolute majority in parliament is dangerous for the country and that ivory coast could slide to a one party state which could be dangerous for its democracy. or in fact story. well worse or is election victory in 2010 led to a civil war that killed 3000 people lower on back bo was forcibly removed at the time and handed over to the international criminal court he faced charges of war crimes he was acquitted however in 2019 a constitutional amendment following a referendum in 2016 allowed ouattara to seek a 3rd term in october the opposition considered his bid unconstitutional and violent protests broke out after that now the 79 year old leader whose government for more than

a decade won with 94 percent of the vote but his opponents who boycotted the vote did not accept the result the opposition agreed to take part in this month's parliamentary poll after water as government made gestures of conciliation they included the conditional release of several detained opposition leaders. ok there we are here we go let's bring in our guests today on inside story in a crowd we have festus coffee or been regional coordinator for research and. pass a team building at the west african network for peace building in uppsala we have yes but b.n. assen senior researcher at the nordic africa institute we have david general senior research a consultant at the institute for security studies and formerly a member of the u.n. group of experts on court d'ivoire welcome to you all festus coming to you 1st will do we think mr ouattara is hand be stronger politically at the end of this process

or not and thank you very much. i think best player to do differently than we spent. 3 elections i.c.e. tara. i mean in perhaps the. international and certainly though maybe there are gaps between. this also includes a bit. too in the. mainstream source i think that he was so. power by doing so. and i i don't see that. perhaps maybe there will be some. means in terms of the number of seats that he may have in international and.

in pretoria how much real balance could we see once we know what the results are completely fully because it seems to me as far as the people of ivory coast are concerned democracy and the desire for democracy is alive and well but you need an opposition if to get that achievement of balance in the political system. it's a little bit of the norm to your. 'd 'd listeners that balance is very important particularly in the force the phrase actually is actually celtic the national election contest because it was where what i see in 2 completely deleted the sea life the day had been somebody and i'm just talking about it. that's the theory which is what he's argued for his love and peace for the last beast has

broken apart your daughter's decision by what i thought stand in for that said the tam now little body knows it that lee what inspired this. are not on the political landscape but let me remind you of these before good deed of the 10 what. we see that there are probably cannot rally and be at the i which is that there were left for a moment. for me to see the democratic path of course it was led by the president are equal not be where i was at the get 5 percent of the political landscape in our period of change and evolve. it is not clear if the presidency which remain one of its hunger for this party in cause it was will keep that momentum i believe they want to be solicited with us with another big party which is a. board at the. door screen vote who would be

a fair law to be able to prepare for 2020 seats and they are not spared the brunt by warwick timing because it was also caused by ny the answer is yes an awful lot of it he's get support ok who have not been involved active wars for the past 10 years so people would guess where and see what are those then a little log produces the result in the argument of whoever is good let me. just just knock that point forward if we can you're talking about the next shuttle the elections which i happen to jews happen in 2025 or 26 as you correctly say yes but . how much genuine support does whatever i have at the moment and more to the point why does he have it i think that's what part of what these legislative elections will actually give us a hint are you sort of one side as popularity and you just missy following their

very controversial presidential elections last year and i think that we if we look back to the last time that these 3 major players in our in politics confronted each other so back but what their own beauty is which was in 2010 presidential elections they did share their vote almost equally among them so it will be very interesting to see i would speculate that there probably will see a similar distribution of our support at least and the question is of course how it will be expressed in the polls but i think that whatever has strengthened his. 3rd term sort of legitimacy just by the fact that the opposition is standing in the elections now as in contrast to the point cut of the presidential elections last year festus inaccurate do we have a kind of a counter-intuitive disconnect here between the democratic political process and what people are voting on so clearly the opposition and the independent candidates

they've got to show point number one that they are relevant but none of those opposition candidates are talking about the central britain butter issues the core political issues that people always vote on every candidate seems to me is talking about every other candidate and it's like a political beauty contest more than people voting on what's important to them. yes i think it's also because of what has happened in resent past i mean following the boycott of the presidential elections last year i think this is a time for the opposition parties to like you rightly pointed out to test their popularity within the population and if you look at the events following before the parliamentary elections you see the intense of the post characters that normally create tensions and or that well quite down as compared to

. previous elections and i see this election as small less towards the reconciliation process that is ongoing within the country and. if you take the f.b.i. the bible fashion for example i see their participation in this election for example to prepare the ground for but was. written so in intent that would jump our days that peace and that would jeopardize the conditions for bibles retain and we're not immune to the. benefits so more or less is being jet towards the stability of the country the peace processes in the country and like you said not about the bread and butter issues that people. always look

ill have to buy the of course i mean people are also. not happy with the state or school and if you look at some of the conversation with some of the population a lot of people want change you know because of the kind of social commitment challenges that confront them every day. bad it seems to me that this particular parliamentary election is more or less an issue of how the pilots cab persistence in. every cause for ok.e. sasuke all actions yes we're coming back to you that idea of the politicians accepting what they're being told because again and again and again the voters that we've been reporting with here on al-jazeera saying the same thing we're voting for peace do the politicians really genuinely in a trustworthy sense i.e.

can they be trusted do they get that because elections in ivory coast they've they've been a ritual they've gone through the motions they've gone through the process has had a ritualistic element to it but people haven't really trusted some of the elections that they've had particularly of course after independence 1960 going up when the economy started dipping in the very very early 1980 s. people started doubting elections at that point when the economy started going downhill so do all the politicians realise there is a genuine need for change it. i think that's a really crucial issue i would say that 1st of all that al assad was or still has he has something left to prove in terms of his ability to reconcile the country following a conflict that ended in after after a very messy election in 2010. i would say that that 1st of all i agree that over in politics has been very sensitive around these 3 main characters

back. for decades now and they have not really set put the country's stability 1st they have used their supporters to mobilize in any way necessary to sort of made never receives are heard which is highly problematic so i think that's something that's really left very as a very open question i would say and i've heard the same thing from people i've met include people who are with the past 5 years is that people want stability people want to be able to rely on. a company tickle scene and a political debate closer to the real issues rather than just a popularity contest as you put it so i think that is we did a big question and what's arrest ill has something to prove there he may even even be remembered as the leader who was able to take an approach step towards reconciliation or the leader who kept going to the flames are sort of the.

animosity between the different parts. target in pretoria mr ouattara is facing a strong combined challenge his 2 main challenges have got together plus there are independent candidates as well canet coalition stay coalesced if they do well in the election well i was saying that some of the words we see in you as a very interesting development for. of were on bubble and. this year if it is the very core of who gets together to challenge us and what and the susteren from the conditioning we produce a lesson to praise which is for the different you have a deal with the market as this one process you know in the court you was a war they tend to do is are to team up and we'll make sure it's you have

a 255 seats in the parliament to press i always try to coretta look like us whatever was missing the democratization process but could you were political history as a show in that iran has made and broken heart into what is at stake for parties involved we've seen many times f.b.i. and pretty c.e.o.'s. coalesce in the creating of well listen to gates is on point and enough of their willpower of the rich what they want to do regard really become a view limited in that area like this and that that will become problematic so it's good for them to be together now it's good for them to send a message that they want the rest of it to the critic traditional of course the war reprocessed peace and reconciliation the cellular message will be our supporters but what will happen once they reach the parliament is some is certainly going to be sort of in france and where you work is

a mini experience is that with that yes but in uppsala that i. the a of getting your message across to the voters you've already touched on this but just just to nail it down for us here is mr watts are missing a step missing a beat if you will in as much as his aides are talking up his social and economic policies he's not why is he taking this weird decision almost to not talk about policies but he's going along to rallies he's being seen as somebody who wants to carry on being a major political force. i think it's very symptomatic of this so-called popularity contest that is are already in politics i think that especially since both barack or n.b.a. are back in the game now we are back to to an atmosphere where it is as a direct confrontation between these 3 dinosaurs of or in politics which gives leaves very little room for actually talking about issues and they agree that it's

particularly sort of paradoxical when it comes to the sitting president especially given his very positive record on at least on on macro economic growth since 2011 and you could see why it's been one of the fastest growing economies worldwide in the last 567 years so it's very strange that he's not more concerned with bringing out his own its achievements but i think it is a symptom of this. personal contest between these 3 elderly gentleman and i think the only way the only real way out of that kind of a. people person sense of politics is for peace the gentleman to leave over the political scene to another to a new generation which is something we want to flag before he decided to run for the. festus urban in accra other politicians aware that there is the basics here are still wide open and everything is to play for the country despite

coronavirus despite troubles over the past year over the election at the end of last year has avoided recession there are not risk averse investors waiting to get into the country literally and there's something of a building spree going on in the main cities there is inward investment already money is already being spent the people know that the politicians don't seem to be aware of it yes. i think i think when it comes to the konami issues or stability economic issues within the country. like the progress i mean we mentioned i think what is doing well in terms of if you compared to most of the post conflict countries we did in the region. i don't want this as take at the moment is the.

national who has a national reconciliation process that will bring all the political actors to consolidates the relative peace and also the economy that have been made over the past years and that this way if you look at this particular election you see the issues total more towards issues of stability and making sure that. as no go down like what happened 2011 or so i think the issues of peace and reconciliation has more than. taking most of the political campaign this time around and also in terms of the. the venomous within the opposition. elements and ordeyne so the issue of stability and the issue of consolidating

the. peace in the i think has been the most important issue in this election and also for mr ouattara himself if you look at the boycott of the election that also happened to his they did to myself so anything that has been done to get a position quite is involved in this election to also more or less clinton the legitimacy that is happy has. quote of the ok job it comes to 1st 2nd in pretoria just pick up for me if you can't have it on the point that yes but i was raising david you've already mentioned the next elections there's a show in $25.00 or $26.00 if these 3 elderly gentleman that yes that was talking about do badly might this be the beginning of a 4 or 5 year political process of a shakedown if you will in as much as they've got to then move off the political

stage in ivory coast and allow the younger generation to come in behind them to run the country in a different way with perhaps fresh ideas ideas that aren't rooted in colonialism ideas that aren't rooted in oh we've been independent now since 1960 the economy started tanking in the eighty's but we can turn it around people who genuinely look forward instead of looking backwards. you know there could be and so if you for one sir and that's where you just want to do one element or 1st us are directly as plain or yes could be war record prices or economy. chipman then we see of the poor currently component in the country but here lies the challenge how. it's been distributed across the board to meet the needs of the need of a citizens i think we hear a lot of that in the presence of we cared

a lot about it during the during the quarter since election and probably that will remain one of the key issues that will confront the political actors how to come up to your questions in trade these elections and the years to. create of popularity for the release of political elites in our in the war i do not see what are more 78 years old running for 2 more 2 more terms in the office or big deal or world war so this is i would say the very last day for them to remain significant in the political scene and if there is still that i may be better for there's no age limit to their constitutional requirements to become president there may still be very much influential so what they're going to do what they what's going to be on the agenda is to prepare the younger generation to tell of our own

we lined up with the war of words as agree as you said and agree to their removal from the yoke of color really small and look at the structural elements that need for quality of work to remain in this time of the economy ok still for country that it's been to be ok the passing of very very briefly last point to be honest and upsala can this country ever really return to the good old days because there was a point 1st 20 years when it was ivory coast it had one of the highest g.d.p.'s in all of africa across the continent bar none. i think there's plenty of potential i think that what president wants or has done extremely well is the u.s. yes started to go. to to implement reforms in the in the cocoa sector which is the driving force of your own economy still he's talked about diversifying which is also key so i think there are some real

interesting economic achievements there and it's not surprising given that watson is a former i.m.f. economist and i think what has been lacking is sort of a translation of that macroeconomic. sort of achievement to the read the lives of ordinary people there's still massive there unemployment inequality and cetera so i think there's plenty of potential and of course not just around the cocoa sector. could be wiser to further our country but it's also a country with extensive change connections both within the continent and internationally so i think all the all the ingredients are there it's just about translating that into. it even if that meant that can actually be felt by the people and not just in macroeconomic numbers gentleman a very important story thank you so much to all 3 of you for breaking it down for us here on inside story thank you to our guests they were 1st as coffee organ yes but be honest and there are many and thank you to you too for your company you can

see the show again any time with a website out of your dot com and for more discussion go to our facebook page that's facebook dot com forward slash raging inside story you can also talk to us via twitter at a.j. inside story from the difficulty and the team here in doha thanks for watching we will see you very soon for the moment of. they captured the hearts of towns around the world they just for bulldoze but unlike most of those they full of hard. time put themselves in the minds of

something more important than the beautiful game footballing legendary can saddam introduces fivefold of players who bucked the trend and stood up for what they believed in that's their way. and huge season of football rivals coming soon on al-jazeera. too often on the streets of india. are victims but a new force is that plain. female police officers are come back to sexual assault and domestic abuse. but changing society is a challenge and so is life behind the badge for india's need to call. on disease. on counting the cost of a rising seems to millions but where's the money to go defense a big investor is hand out billions to startups about women and ethnic minorities are missing out plus rich americans are moving to florida to avoid.

counting the costs on al-jazeera a lot of the stories that we cover a highly complex so it's very important that we make them as on the standard well as we care as al-jazeera correspondents will be strong to do. darren jordan in doha with the top stories in al-jazeera saudi arabia has confirmed another attack on its energy facilities by hooty rebels in yemen the government says a ballistic missile was fired at all facilities in iran earlier a drone hit rust in the report one of the world's largest oil shipping ports riyadh says there was minimal damage in both attacks but who the rebels say it was much bigger. for joe when was the artillery and drone divisions were able to conduct a wide defensive in the depths of saudi arabia.