Arms embargo on iran has expired after 13 years it was lifted as part of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers the us withdrew from the pact in 2018 its voiced strong opposition to any easing of sanctions also jabar is in town with more this lifting of the sanctions is seen as more of a political win for iran its something president Hassan Rouhani it said just in the past few days that its a very important step for the year a new nation for them to have something specific intangible as a result of the Nuclear Agreement of 2015 now just to give you an idea of how much money iran spends on its defense of program it between 2016 in 2013 it was around 45 percent of its g. D. P. That was between 18. 00 and 22000000000. 00 thats not likely to change. Good lens are heading to the polls in a tense election for follows months of unrest and theyll be 5000000 eligible voters are choosing between 12 candidates including incumbent president alpha conde and his longtime rival solo delhi and diallo voters are heading back to the polls in the south declared republic of Northern Cyprus for the president ial runoff people are now facing a choice between the president who favors reunification with the south and the Prime Minister backed by turkey cyprus has been divided since the 1970 s. A car bomb has killed at least 12 people in central afghanistan dozens were injured in the city of call in the capital of the province separately 8 Afghan Security officials were killed in a Taliban Attack in conducive province china has begun inoculating people in the city of joshing with an experimental covert 19 vaccine trial vaccine by sin of ag biotech is being given to people in high risk jobs like doctors and nurses its talk to al jazeera now. What was described as the Worlds Largest long down the largest exodus since the creation of the end appended and a year and 9247. 00. Experts believe india is still at the stage of infection but the lockdown has already created a crisis and driven the Unemployment Rate up for 6 to 23 percent and its also highlighted an equality religious tensions and a Health Care System that isnt equipped to deal with a pandemic the following weeks will tell of the peace and Mass Movement of people will also accelerate the spread of the corona virus from indias cities to its rural hot. Water is all. To see. The seychelles an island on capella go in the indian ocean at the eastern age of the somali sea for maybe its paradise on earth the islands what i mean habits are throughout most of recorded history and known by arab sailors and other maggots and centuries ago the 1st records date back to the early 15 hundreds details when portuguese explorer Vasco Da Gama crossed from india to east africa with these all modern expeditions and settlements by britain and france followed and after years of war we often pill ago was surrendered to the british in 18 tame. But selfgovernment was granted in 1975 when britain announced its intention to give a degree of independence to the colony james mansion who had served as chief minister of the crown colony and then as Prime Minister founded the Democratic Party but another movement the Seychelles People of united party led by france albert remmae advocated food independence. And that came in 1976 a Coalition Government was schooled mansion became the countrys 1st president and remained. The Prime Minister but just a year later mansion was overthrown in a coup detat led by rene. With a mention in exile the people of united party became the peoples progressive front and remained the only party in the country until 9091 when once again allowed a multiparty system. They had been other military coup attempts but the party ran a founded still governs the seychelles to this day following 27 years of government james michel came to power in 2004 and the party changed its name to the Peoples Party michel resigned 12 years later power was transferred to his Vice President danny fall becoming the 4th president of the seychelles with a president ial election due to take place later in october aims to keep these party now known as the United Seychelles Party in power but the opposition seems stronger than ever before challenging president ford way of all of them color one from the democratic sissela coalition. And alan said on from the one Seychelles Party but with the political establishment that has been in power since 1977 what does danny 4 have to offer the more than 90000 people of the seychelles the president of the republic of seychelles to any fool talks to al jazeera. Danny for president of seashells thank you very much for part involved as you are thank you mr ghanem for having me that where is a population of about 95000 this is a very small nation the koran a pandemic could have been a real disaster what measures your government have taken to prevent such disaster from taking place. Now the 1st thing that i need on the 14th of march of this year was to really draw a line between my responsibilities and that of the Public Health. Team and we put in place. The necessary. Measures. To to ensure that we protect the lives of our citizens and i have not been defeated in the work of the medical team. I always saw or the portfolio of minister for health and i have. Made it my responsibility to give them all the necessary support and as president of the republic. Got in touch weeks my peers in the region and within other parts of the world saw so as to talk on and find ways of trying to exchange experiences that we have and by doing so we we got International Assistance from from china from india from the African Union from the United States of america from france and from that europe union on together. Over the last 30. 6 shell have made it quite a big shift from an agriculture basic on a me to a tourism based economy where tourism is contributing greatly to the economy in light of the unprecedented chrono pandemic how bad the economy was impacted and in your estimation is this going to influence the elections in any way you know it has taken 6 years 50 years for us to to reach to the level of Economic Development and in particular in the tourism sector. This year would have been one of the best years for my country in economic terms. Last year for the 1st time we had. A surplus off 45000000. 00 mess dollars and during the system so we have done extremely well and the coronavirus just keeps us like a tsunami it has badly affected tourism activities and on the 7th of april my government presented a revised budget and in this revised budget we had 2 things. To do it one was to protect jobs and the other priority was to protect lives and as i speak i can see that we have managed to to meet these objectives. Through the National Budget we provided Financial Assistance to. Many. Economy and it is and by doing by doing saw 16000. Workers continue to receive this on the receipt as a direct support to the workers in my country you dont think that it might have it might influence or impact the elections or the results of the elections but basically what the what what what is happening on the ground is that the general population in my country be sure satisfaction to the decision that i have taken as president these are indecisive. Action on the part of of the president. Because the 1st case of korra virus was reported on the 14th of of much and on the 20th of much i addressed this issue of people whereby i said what we would need to be doing and on the 7th offer of a print we presented every vice budget so as i speak today the general population they are satisfied in the various schemes and projects in terms of Financial Assistance that we have we have done so i dont see. Ne ne really that the actions we are will be a negative contributor to the results in this forthcoming general elections so we can say that you dont feel im lucky to be in office when this pandemic took place when what i can say the last 6 months has been the 1st 6 months of my presidency and let me be clear here. The seat of the presidency is not only is it is the most difficult is it but i have always said to my people the people of seashells and i want to set that internationally my concept as a president has always been one of the service of my nation and as i speak today i remain the same person that is there to serve the people of c. Shots dont you think its. Up to the koran the koran a pandemic its hard time now for seashell to reconsider. Be been heavily dependent on tourism and that it should be looking forward to diaper supine the source of revenue to the economy it took us 50 years. To be what we are today and to have the the Infrastructural Development where tourism is concerned and. The sister of people who have invested heavily have borrowed to the financial Banking System and as us president aspire responsibility to ensure that we have we dont have a financial crisis that will affect the Banking System so its not a question not thought of that precipitation to have results in the next year or 2 its a question of how do you protect the investments that weve done into reason why its also looking at other areas as we open up i was just about ask the president about the blue company its a concept that we we came up with and we have we are now considered as if by an ear in this area could you explain to us what do you mean by our new economy we take. Yes we take the benefit of our essent which is almost 1300000 square kilometers and we say that this is the new untapped opportunity for our country so we look at what we have in the ocean how do we protect the ocean and what sort of resources we have in the ocean so it is an opportunity an opportunity for an International Investors to have to come to 6 shots and to look at you know video of structures so that we can tap into the potential of of the ocean this is the concept we heard of a blue economy we heard the there are good the prospects for natural gas. And oil offshore oil in the economic excludes of drones of of seashell how far is this from the problems. No almost 35 years we created a company with the necessary experts and its been working so the Research Continuous but however we focus our attention on on on Fisheries Development on how we Cultural Development on that you philip and of the i. C. T. And of course the development of tourism this election the cup and a coming election seems to be a fiercely contested race your challenger mr ron callahan lost the last election by the prince of on the 193. 00 votes in case of losing elections are both of you willing to concede defeat cause seizures it is a democracy and i believe in the rule of law and as president i up all the supreme law of the land which is a constitution and. I am confident that i would win the election but in case the people of seditious decide otherwise ill be the 1st one to do it to tell the people of say shows look here i accept the results this is a democracy and life needs to continue and 2016 elections the last election opened up the political space. However the truth and Reconciliation Commission established there after. Hasnt done much that could be mentioned here in terms of investigating the the massive violations of human rights during the reign of former president arbitron a was this commissions set up only for for the sake of formality or as a make believe kind of thing. No on the 16th of october when i became president in addressing my the people of 6 shots i said that i stood for National Reconciliation and Unity National unity and i have been speaking about National Unity for the last 4 years so on the 6 in october this year i will be serving my country for 4 years and the apps that we have today which creates a National Commission looking at issues of the past was arrived out through discussions and there has been bipartisan agreement but the president of the republic assented to the act so we have all to shirley and nationally endorsed this structure so the commission is independent the president has nothing to do with the commission the president does not interfere in the commission we have done our level best to government to give the commission the necessary resources so that they can do their work independently and this is what the commission is now doing mr president could you explain this paradox that seashell achieve the highest per capita g. D. P. And the whole of africa where as poverty still prevails is it because of what the opposition describes as an. Unchecked corruption is this the other side of the seashell paradox the truth is that it has taken us more than 40 years. To arrive to these International Indicators and as you have rightly pointed out to base it shows is a high income country and the only high income country in africa and this is due to the hard working people of success the issue of the issue of causes poverty came out in a report that looked. At salaries at income and it looked at the statistics of the year 20 the teen and since i became president we are looking at multidimensionally property looking at occasion we can at tell looking at habitat and in the next 2 weeks or 3 i believe that our bureau of statistics will come out we need a new report and this has been one of my Top Priorities and sit shows in addressing the issues of multidimensional poverty and i can simply say that my administration has done a lot to reduce the number of citizens number of citizens that fall within the poverty bracket in terms of corruption the corruption index at International Level we are number 27 in the world we are number one in africa my stance is being very clear. 0 tolerance to corruption since 1977 the country has introduced a universal social pension free of your cation Free Health Care a lot of a lot of services but that many other countries unfortunately resigned from but on the other hand the countries seen some some of the highest incarceration rates in the world how do you explain such paradox now we respond country saw when you look at the capita the size of your country and the number of inmates and one of the issues here has been wait with the drug situation and one thing that i changed rapidly when i became president is i decided to treat victims of the drug scotch. As a result of. Addiction and i said this is a Public Health issue and we you know we relaxed some of the existing laws and now we have a special program for the meat i dont. That is it helped medication to to help. Young people who suffer from this addiction in light of the opposition accusations of janet gerrymandering the elections even before it took place how do you think this election is going to be midwife it safely. Not i trust the new york electoral Election Commission. There has been accusations in the past we have worked together with the opposition and our parliament we now have a newly appointed Election Commission the Election Commission is independent we have tossed new laws in support of their work i i cannot tell you and i dont think this is correct that there has been any. Tricks on on the part of the party that i belong to and as i say as president i do not interfere in institutions that we have created we allow institutions to carry out their mandate and in this election the Electoral Commission will continue to do its work but as i said its a new commission it has received all the support from all parties consent and i trust the work of the Electoral Commission into southern a 16 the ruling party won the president ial election and lost the majority in the Parliament Suppose the same scenario happened again. Hows it going to play out is there going to be a coup happened between the 2 parties the parliamentary and the president ial or are we going to see a rough wrestling match my platform to the people of seizures is a new platform i am presenting as part of my money festo a government of National Unity. And for the 1st time i had departed from the. From the traditional protocol out where the running mate is a cut bearer meaning the person belongs to the party in power the person that i have chosen as my running mate is not a card bearer of any political party. Mr president considering u. S. Domestic and international Harsh Criticism you country still opens his strength territories as a base for us drone attacks in many cases inflicting casualties among innocent civilians does this represent an insurance policy to the National Security of seashell or do you think of it a risk or an insurance policy or your National Security now the truth is that before i became president of the 6th of october the u. S. Drones here were used as in support for the piracy as you know in 2008 out in 99 we had a problem and this was the scope of pirates it in the indian ocean so that was the help provided by the United States of america and since the 16th of october there hasnt been any. Support in this regard in terms of the usage of drones by the u. S. Government and as i speak today we have good and friendly relations which of governments around the world been a small nation given do you sometimes feel pressured called not politically just for the me in fact that its a small country others can see as our small countries. But as it shows we have an equal voice we are a member of the United Nations we are member of the African Union we are a member of the Indian Ocean Commission we are a member of of sonic we have equal voice in the International Arena and we are respected by other countries and our Foreign Policy has been a very clear one besides the geographical proximity be you feel african or beautiful asian considering the implants the sino indian and florence on the island. Narcisse shows is a member of the African Union. We belong to the african continent but on the 27th of august this year my country celebrated its 250th anniversary since the 1st it habitants came decision us so this is how we see ourselves we consider ourselves to be sedition what the social why our society represents a mosaic. Of multi ethnic the think that the sign of indian competition over influencing seashell might compromise that have won us much like now we do everything for us from our own situation we are friendly nation we have open our doors to other nations some came almost 200 years ago. Another is literal but the order form. The society that we have today and our policy has never been to marginalize any groups you know society and this is the money that we have and i believe its the type of society that other countries must and should end it well mr president thank you very much for talking paul dillon. Thank you. Of defiance it really touched my heart deeply when she started to see. d aljazeera world remembers a palestinian singer who reached audiences beyond the middle east born into a creative family and thats right she sang out a powerful and Emotional Message the possible story of. The voice of palestine on aljazeera. d held for over 3 years in an egyptian prison cell denied their right to a fair trial no charges have been brought against aljazeera correspondent youre saying this crime journalist. To demand more and boy solidarity with all detained journalists sign the petition. Saying. A face can tell a story without uttering a single word. And knowing god can guide us. A simple touch. In for us. The unconventionality of life witnessed through the lens of the human eye. Is what inspires us. Witness documentaries on aljazeera. Holding the powerful to account as we examine the u. S. Is wrong in the world on aljazeera. Global community we are out because obviously thats not how the whole cruise is the worst possible of looks like the part of the debate in egypt you can jump into the conversation right away when no topic is off the table youre not afraid of anyone taking power we just call it what. The rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer its not kill the story the system its just to look at the system and. This street on out is there. d armenia and azerbaijan accuse each other of violating the latest seize 5 to stop fighting over a disputed region. Im sam is a band this is our just 0 live from doha also coming up iran welcomes the end of a u. N. Arms embargo into her on calling it a win for regional peace. People in thailand defied threats by police to shut down a violent protest against the government