And welcome to the aljazeera news hour live from our headquarters in doha with me and as a problem coming up in the next sixty minutes. At least fifty people are killed a syrian and russian jets bombed the rebel held areas and syria. Yemens her data port receives its first aid supplies and waiting for the easing of a saw the lead blockade. And. Continue in pakistan as the government agreed not to use force against demonstrators. And voting ends in on douras in a president ial election thats widely expected to keep president hernandez and powell. At least fifty people have been killed in just twenty four hours and government and russian air strikes in syria twenty three People Killed in the Government Air strike in the rebel held damascus suburb of eastern go to the area has been under government siege for four years and three hundred and fifty thousand people there are in desperate need of aid. And thirty seven people were killed in russian air strikes on a gathering of displaced people in their hours or province a Monitoring Group says fifteen children were among the victims. Has just returned from syria to ghazi and tip just across the border in turkey. Despite a cease fire agreement between iran turkey and russia the violence in syria does not seem to be coming to an end the airstrikes in the hooter district of damascus targeted three different residential areas according to activists on the ground the number of casualties is on the rise theyre saying that they are not able to provide help to all of the victims because they have very limited supplies inside. And a number of hospitals have also been targeted in the last few months they say that because of this siege and b. F. Our government has not been allowing any medical aid or medical supplies to come in and theyre not able to treat patients as they would in a normal situation this is not the only place where strikes have taken place there also russian strikes which have been a door in between the resort and this is an area where isis fighters have fled to but its not just isis fighters who have fled into these areas its also civilians according to activists on the ground most of the People Killed near the door have been civilians so its another day of violence that weve seen in syria activists and in college telling us from the ground that in the last ten days or so more than one hundred people have been killed in just this Eastern District which is besieged by Syrian Forces and they say they dont see the violence coming to an end any time soon. While i saw has been defeated and all of syrias been sentence fighting continues and many other areas are still present in pockets but only holds parts of the strategically unimportant eastern countryside central and western syria largely under government control much of the north is held by u. S. Backed kurdish groups which is a concern for neighboring turkey its backing rebel groups in the area around the town of al bomb which are prevented kurdish control of all the key border crossings opposition groups including the Free Syrian Army and shall have parts of the province in the west that are to the south. And a number of enclaves in central syria including in the capital damascus as the war appears to be winding down each faction is trying to consolidate control of its territories to allow it to stay a claim and any future government well lets get more on this now were joined by Andrew TablerSyrian Affairs analyst and senior fellow at the Washington Institute for near east policy and hes joining us via skype from washington d. C. Always good to have you with us on aljazeera so why are we seeing easton go to hit even though its listed as a deescalation zone where military activity is prohibited under that agreement between iran turkey and russia. Question so this is happening the conflict oftentimes when we go to towards negotiations seemingly sealed agreements are not c. Old. Its also hard to predict the activities of the regime the interesting thing is the russian involvement and theyre one of the sponsors so we have to wait and see but its not a good sign and its a bit of deja vu. Process it is as you Say Something that happens before negotiations the syrians there was usually an uptick of violence by the soviet government on the opposition and it never bodes well for talks have got the next round of the geneva due to start soon. Thats right its just designed i think to run down the capital of the. Negotiating councils or to speak of the opposition and run down them or now but it doesnt make getting an agreement any easier and you also mentioned you know weve seen the russian strikes and they had interesting because weve had statements from the russian government along with the u. S. Government these joint statements for weeks now saying that theres not a military solution to the war and syria and yet were seeing these strikes so its very difficult to to take those statements seriously i mean what are russia doing here well the russians and iranians in the regime are using military force to shape the diplomatic process and thats. You know a very good tactic in terms of getting results in many many hours theyre willing to escalate or able to do so the problem for the United States and so i said there are unwilling to escalate and thats the reason why russia and the regime are doing this and im afraid you know there was wasnt there some hope that these deescalation zones the joint russia taking iran negotiations well having you know at least some success at reducing the violence but if we see that agreement violated at the oppositions expense then what success can these. Negotiations have for any other than a mold and then the Syrian Government well or or it dresses up military victory as a diplomatic victory parallel processes in sochi and i asked him and so on and a lot of fear that thats whats happening and lets wait and see how that comes out the russians. Need to track and there are a must have to thank you very much for your time on this that and you to have a joining us live from washington d. C. Thank you my pleasure. Lets move on to other news now saudi arabia has begun to lift its blockade on yemen after three weeks medical supplies were flying and the first ship carrying food has now been loaded with yemen facing a famine and u. N. Aid workers say much more is needed and quickly peter sharp reports. The saudis have promised to lift the blockade of the yemen port of her died four days ago but it was only on sunday that the first desperately needed Food Supplies were unloaded. Now the ship has reached the port of her they entered carrying flour and relief materials weighing five thousand five hundred tons this is not enough for the many people needs but we hope this is a good sign to open the port of her data and lift the siege of many provinces. Unicef says a child dies every ten minutes from preventable diseases that would equate to more than five hundred children dead in those last four days alone. Five thousand tons of flowers unloaded on saturday but its just a trickle too little and far far too late for the most vulnerable today it is fair to say that yemen is one of the worst places on earth to be a child more than eleven million. Yemeni children are to be in acute need of humanitarian assistance thats almost every single yemeni boy and girl unicef says the war in yemen is sadly a war on children close to five thousand children have been killed or seriously injured in the last two and a half years and it welcomes the opening of the airport at santa it allowed us to send in a first humanitarian convoy one point nine million doses of vaccines vaccines that are urgently needed to vaccinate six hundred thousand children across yemen since the Saudi Led Coalition began fighting the who tees in two thousand and fifteen the countrys basic infrastructure no longer exists. The blockade began on november sixth after hooty rebels fired a Ballistic Missile into saudi arabia the saudi military said the pull ok was imposed to stop weapons being smuggled into yemen but the un is warning that commercial imports of food and fuel must also resume the World Food Program says continuing to choke off those supplies could have a disastrous effect on fourteen Million People living in the remote regions of northern yemen completely unable to cope for themselves peter shop al jazeera. Now saudi arabias crown prince has told a forty one Nation Alliance of muslim nations that terrorists cannot be allowed to tarnish the name of Islam Mohammad omar was speaking at the first meeting of the Islamic Military Counterterrorism Alliance and riyadh. There is no doubt todays meeting is of great significance simply for the reason that over the past he is terrorism has been wreaking havoc in our respective countries in the absence of concerted coordination between our countries this is becoming history with the establishment of this coalition more than forty islamic countries have dovetailed efforts in combating terrorism with it militarily financially or in terms of political and intelligence cooperation. And the crown prince also offered his condolences to egypt with three hundred five people were killed on friday off to find his target in a mosque in northern sinai mass graves have been made for some of the victims which included twenty seven children and egypts president Abdel Fattah Elsisi has promised the use of brutal force against those responsible and theres been a vigil in gaza for the victims of the egypt attack malcolm webb was there. Hundreds of people have gathered here. Killed in the attack in egypt since friday. Fire at a mosque in the town of and all recent killing more than two hundred had already said about one hundred kilometers from here many palestinians live in the halls of egypt so some people here knew some of those who were killed this morning events organized by some of gazas political factions but it has some political significance this is a message of sort of going to the muslims would be born after the. Meeting with was a board or. Its a buddhist and. Date it is brokering reconciliation sold to. Political parties and. Thats the name factions this is meant to lead to hand over of power here on friday from hamas to the Palestinian Authority of ministration and its opponents of these developments for. You to arrive in gaza tomorrow right these are reasons why i promise not to belittle facts and i want to show solidarity with egypt at the moment but many people in gaza on outing have rather been several repeated that failed attempts at reconciliation before what are they waiting to see what will happen in the coming days if this reconciliation will actually produce something. We have plenty more ahead on the news including voting cuban style candidates on the campaign plus. Whats being denied this is not just our Language School its also respect for all right thats the mind of a language we need gaelic speakers trying to save their native tongue and of even a francaise the country celebrates its first davis cup tennis title and sixteen do you as joe will have the full details coming up. On during the voting in a president ial election thats widely expected to keep the current leader in power for a controversial second term. Though adam and this leaves the center right National Party hes been praised for reducing the high murder rate and raising Economic Growth but critics say hes tightening has a grip on policy through a compliant Supreme Court that overturned a constitutional ban on a one term limits lets get more on this now with our correspondents money on a sanchez shes joining us from the capital of the polls close in money on how they looking. Thats right a little bit cold close an hour ago and only the people who have been in mine at the bully things wont happen you know allowed to continue voting so. Many areas where people are still voting at this time now there have been a break you know an observation here no doubt from previous elections that ive covered here usually. You know like an. Hour. One hour. Holding it down for one hour but this time. The fight did not. Time and that has called for. For the political opposition Political Parties they have complained to try to do it all theres been some scuffles in some of the. Polling stations with people injured slightly and one person. Thats why do not have for freedom any media to give out any extra holes into two hours after closing time so we know about an hour from now there will be a first exit polls. The First Official president our results will be the about two hours from now however the most important a result of tonight well see in about four hours from now when the. Electoral tribunal will have the First Official results with about sixty percent of the polls however having said there will not be a final result tonight. Thats what you will pass away still most of the vote comes from a remote area here and that could be on tuesday ok so no polls yet we are expecting the president amanda says to be reelected and do we expect the results to be contested. Well the political opposition parties have been saying for a few days now that they expect things after the election will be raised or have to break and they said they will not accept official results so they have monitors to every single polling station and they say that they will wait until they see the final results so they can compare that with their own results and see if they can call this election prosperity for money and i thank you very much for that thats the money on the. Sanchez who is monitoring the Election Results come in for in on the thank you. Has held its first elections one year after the death of fidel castro the new National Assembly is expected to pick a successor for eighty six year old raul castro who says hell step down in february after serving two five year terms a latin america editor and explains what it means for the communist country after six decades of castro rule. This is cuban style democracy from seven am people voted in the only election in which ordinary citizens have direct participation several this enthusiastically explains that unlike in other countries Municipal Council candidates are not allowed to campaign. Their biographies and qualities are posted everywhere so you can read about them and make your choice. The choice begins in town halls where each neighborhood proposes someone to represent them cubans are electing twelve and a half thousand delegates out of more than twenty seven thousand candidates but not a single one of them belongs to the opposition even though this year for the first time an unprecedented number of dissidents attempted to run but without success. Medium labor a long time opponent says its impossible not. Dont have to be a member of the communist party to run but if the party doesnt approve it you cant be a candidate in this system nothing is as it seems its a system designed to perpetuate a one Party Socialist state or as they say here the revolution. And it will be put to the test in february when in directly elected National Assembly chooses the successor to president raul castro marking the end of the sixty year castro era. Well known musician process opposes the election process. No system is perfect but in other countries you have the right to vote for a political project and next time say no this doesnt work i want to bid on another project or modify it in cuba you cant. Three years ago that process was temporarily blacklisted after this performance but hes saying that he wanted to choose his president by direct vote. Its widely presume that this man first Vice President begins with a place where all gastro but as character says points out its not up to him. I have no way of knowing since we dont choose or decide thats why people feel that those at the top decide for you. The decision that is supposed to begin here at the municipal level with those who disagree can only protest by casting a black vote you see in human ill just see down. To pakistan now where thousands of workers of a Political Party are calling for more demonstrations as blasphemy protests continue to escalate pakistans and the government and the military have agreed not to use force to disperse the protesters the decision came after Prime Minister shahid khan abassi held emergency talks with the army chief the demonstrators have been on the streets since the eighth of november when a man who treat both an electoral laws was changed a lot in the oath proclaiming muhammad to be the last prophet of islam was changed and that something the protestors say amounts to blasphemy the change was for free with the draw the protesters are demanding the law minister and other cabinet ministers resign while the demonstrators have been blocking a key highway connecting the capital islamabad with the city of our pending kemal harbor is among the thousands of people stranded on the roads he reports from on the highway between lahore and islam a bad. After a botched done by the Security Forces there disperse the crowds holding a major intersection in rawalpindi fairly late on saturday the Pakistani Military chief. To come back to islamabad for a meeting with the countrys Prime Minister kaukauna bochy here the Prime Minister there were not an option that the people love the military and therefore the military could not be used against the people that it could only be the last option