i care about the u.s. engagement with the rest of the world we're really good in taking you into a place you might not visit otherwise it feels that you were there. riot police crackdown on protesters in thailand's capital as the government invokes emergency powers to quell months of protests. by money this is al jazeera life and also coming out. to u.s. citizens are set free in exchange for hundreds of her he finds as the head of a bigger prisoner swap in efforts to end the conflict in yemen. help the margin seemed france new restrictions in england and europe grapples with

a 2nd wave of the pandemic. anger grows in cyprus against corruption often al-jazeera investigation forces the government to dump a controversial passport scheme. we begin in thailand with breaking news where a crackdown has begun against anti government demonstrations riot police has started rounding up protesters shortly after the government announced an emergency decree over ongoing protests it comes as thousands of protesters rallied in the capital bangkok calling for their prime minister's resignation demonstrators are also demanding reforms to the country's powerful let's go straight to a correspondent on the phone from bangkok scott it is still very early in the hours

of thursday morning where you are with the government clearly desperate to nip those protests in the bog what's happening. yes exactly what did happen is emergency decree was asked about 2 hours ago 4 am local time and this was to disperse. the protesters remarks from democracy monument yesterday wednesday down to around the government house the seat of government where hundreds had stayed overnight and so at 4 am local the decree was passed so then the police could go in and remove them as this decree banned groups over 5 people so they're able to go in for the most part it has been peaceful but again this is you know another step in this process and anti-government protests that we have seen over the last several months this is the 4th large scale protests that we've seen since july thousands gathered at democracy monument here in central bangkok that marched on to those

thousands marched on to government house area they broke through police barricades they bunkered in if you will for most of the night until this emergency decree came through again for the most part it seems as though things have gone peacefully we do know that 2 of the main student protest leaders leaders of this movement that again is a couple of months old they have been arrested as well obviously this is going to be something that the protesters are going to have to deal with how they move forward but again this is kind of been the increase in the activities of the protest the tactics of the protests again now going through breaking through police barricades but as we're hearing now most of those who spent the night around government house are now being taken away and removed. let me pick you up on that i mean we're looking at live pictures of bangkok huge police presence there clearly prepared for anything you mentioned those 2 student leaders that have been arrested is that likely to dampen the enthusiasm of protesters which we've seen in full

force over the last couple of weeks. i think it will definitely prompt. q we think 9 they execute their tactic if you will because there's a big yawn used a bunch of different ways to come out and stage their protests and protest silent protest at schools with young students there have been large scale protests where they have joined forces with that with the so-called red shirts who are. a populist protest movement a democracy government movement that has been going on for quite some time. their tactics have been buried if you will this probably will prompt them to to rethink how they've been doing things how things went yesterday but then when you look at that on the larger scale of things what they were able to do and what the attention was drawn to what they were doing on wednesday and thursday is that they got attention to this global attention to what they see as unjust government and just

the balance of the economy here in thailand it's been going on for years and years now that's why the web by these young people so i think yes they might have to rethink their tactics but i think their goal of raising awareness of this of sending a message to the government was achieved when baby early morning thursday obviously that was altered in some of the top leadership in the record but one thing and i think it's pretty safe to say at this stage is that the goal of keeping things peaceful. has been has been attended that so far and you know with the kind of the that the dregs of them being removed from around government house that mostly things have been peaceful and that was one of the things top issues they had going right through the last several months scott tell us a bit more about this decree that has been announced by the government because i was that reading a tweet by anonymous human rights lawyer saying it would be an ego for place to discuss a demonstration with ask a court warrants what are the details can they just go about and do this. well i

think what it is is that if you want to look at it from a legal perspective i'm not sure that the best. forum for this for this attorney to be there technically this wasn't an officially approved gathering even at that technically it would have been illegal and technically when they when the police set up these barricades breaking through those would have been illegal and also going around government house i'm not sure how that don't exactly but particularly in this time i'm sure that there are laws and restrictions allowing people to do what they did last night that being said but obviously when you have an emergency decree overnight when you have then probably thousands of protesters literally at the gates of government house yes i mean that's obviously the government wielding their sword pretty heavily but i think when you look at it from a legal perspective a globally legal perspective yet this is something that they definitely give us but when you look at the books here in thailand we've got a government that that's primarily run by the military or ex-military so you know

they do things they they bob and weave. whatever they really want whatever their whims are but i think when you look at it on the face of things this is the 1st time and again this is the 4th large scale protests we've seen this but 1st time that the military government has had to change laws clear protesters or try to prevent them from doing more that we haven't seen you know that we've seen since july it's going to talk to you to highlight that for us live on the phone from bangkok no doubt we'll be speaking to you throughout the night. move on yemen's who thieves have released 2 u.s. citizens in exchange for 250 who the fight is the freed rebels have arrived in yemen's capital some via oman the white house announced that humanitarian workers and businessmen michael godard have been released the remains of a 3rd american have also been returned. let's take a look at how we got here and the efforts to try and end the 5 year old conflict in

yemen u.n. brokered peace talks began in stockholm back in 2018 the 2 sides signed a deal to swap about 15000 detainees but the progress has been very slow close to 1100 of them are expected to be exchanged on thursday who these will reportedly release close to 400 people including 15 saudis the coalition forces would free around 700 hoofy fight is well in unilateral moves last year the who these freed 290 prisoners in saudi arabia released 128 the war in yemen has killed more than 100000 people and millions are suffering from food and medical shortages let's get more on this we can speak to bill curry he is senior research or at the atlantic council for studies he's also a former u.s. deputy chief chief of mission in yemen many thanks for joining us on al jazeera

firstly let's talk about these american hostages what more do we know about them believe one is an aid worker one is a businessman and there's also with the remains of a 3rd hostage being sent back. yes. these are isn't or should have never been this should have been done before they at the time the who he is claiming that they were a spy is but there is no evidence whatsoever that these people were working with any u.s. intelligence agency. at any rate i think that timing now and as i say this could have happened earlier. is that for donald trump administration this is a good time to bring back americans from overseas it's. one more thing he can boast about just before the u.s.

elections. from the point of view this is also a good thing because there was a move in washington to classify them as if they were disorganization well obviously if there were still classified. the u.s. government's hands would be. on the principle that they don't deal with terrorists so this may have told. some of the hawks who are calling war classifying the who these as terrorists and is it a good sign that it won't start peace talks. i don't think so right now this is a separate indias between the u.s. and the host these mediated by your home and mainly. and this involves many of their home teachers who are strong don't mind for medical treatment but then we're not allowed to come back to yemen by the saudi government

so the simpler deal between the who these the how the government then saudi arabia for the major prisoner exchange reportedly $15000.00 in total that's on a separate track and of course is that the whole peace process and then the war is on earth. so i'm afraid we cannot jump from this good to humanitarian move to a general resolution of the yemen conflict i think we're a ways from that what can you tell us about the humanitarian situation in yemen at the moment i know there been even more concerns about the situation because of the onset of private. obviously culprit came on top of friend already miserable situation the yemeni population has been

devastated by the modern war by color of by poverty the inhumane around yemen with us backing by the way has really hurt everybody in yemen and there has been. new british. humanitarian aid to yemen the u.s. also provides humanitarian aid but i'm afraid all this is a waste of time and waste of lives if you don't 1st stop the war and martin griffin says been working hard on the prisoner exchange when he should really be focusing on trying to end the war. if you don't end the war more and more yemenis will die and the economy is is flat out there is no economy so it is urgent that quam diplomatic

efforts be focused on ending the war and honestly it is not the difficult it just seems that the. are not there the regional will is not there to end it and the u.s. says not focus much diplomacy on the issue now get your thoughts now bill curry senior satch at the atlanta council to study. europe is battling to contain its 2nd wave of corona virus with many countries seeing infections their highest levels in months of solid germany the daily number of new cases is now at a 6 month high tom flagler merkel has announced tougher measures on gatherings and mosque wearing the united kingdom has hit nearly 20000 new corona virus infections in a day that's its 2nd highest number of cases so far they've introduced

a new 3 tail lockdown system which has come into force throughout england to curb the worsening outbreak. to france which is declaring a public health state of emergency and implementing night curfew for paris and 8 other cities hospital admissions are at their highest levels since june and begins our coverage with this report from paris. french president emanuel macro sit faulds was in the grip of a 2nd wave of coronavirus he urged people to be more responsible and announced a nighttime curfew for paris an 8 hour the city's the could last until december. if we stick to this curfew for 6 weeks if we take collective responsibility for reducing our contacts we think that we'll be able to progress of the reopen at that stage. if you move the curfew adds to a raft of restrictions already in place in the country's big cities where cases of

new infections are rising rapidly in the past couple of weeks queues outside the board trees like this one in the city have been getting longer and more paris health officials say it's a one in 5 tests is coming back positive soon after moving to paris in september these british students fell sick with coronavirus they began having symptoms of attending university events and welcome parties it was stationed distance while wearing masks but it sometimes that doesn't stop if you're in a crowded place and stop going to electricity very tired in between needy half the students in a year were infected for some recovery has been slow i mean i was covered before but i just want to get it again before. there are a lot more like conscious of it micro hopes the curfew will help ease pressure on hospitals in paris intensive care beds capacity. the problem says this epidemiology

just is that the government is taking the wrong approach relying on restrictive measures rather than whites protesting the solution would be to assign to test message the population and that can be done both using p.c. artists with group dusting where you put in one tube those samples from 20 or 30 people and also with the un to tourists so that's what's being done in the countries where the virus has been contained for some the new restrictions will deal yet another blow to an already ailing economy for others they'll be welcomed as a sign that after months of urging people to live with the virus the president is hardening his tone natasha bottler al jazeera paris iran's coronavirus death toll has hit a record high for the 3rd time this week 2 out and 79 people died and 4800 people

tested positive in schools the government to announce a travel ban to and from 5 big cities that are worst hit by the virus including the capital tehran russia has approved a 2nd vaccine to treat covert 19 then we've actually seen was cleared for use despite not having completed large scale trials russia became the 1st country to officially approve a vaccine in august so far neither treatment is in general circulation more than 13000 cases were recorded across the country on tuesday forcing moscow to close schools ringback in favor of online classes. and in the u.s. 36 states and now reporting a rising number of new coronavirus cases in the northeast of the country hospital beds are also filling with new virus patients around 50000 new cases have been reported each day for the past few days since the beginning of the pandemic the

virus has infected more than 7800000 people in the u.s. killing over 200000 and putting millions out of work. still ahead on al-jazeera and. thousands flee to safety families the fullest from their homes after days of intense fighting in afghanistan and the. conflict in the going to count about escalates despite a russian brokered cease fire deal. we've got much cooler red diving across north america at the moment we've seen a little bit of snow just around the canadian rockies this weather system is going to continue making its way further north woods and ace was easing across the plains

through the primaries and then sinking down so temperatures in calgary and we're going to pay 345 celsius if you're lucky that cold air already being felt in minneapolis all tucked in behind this band of rain this cold front which will continue to slide its way further southeast was just taking the edge of those temperatures 15 cells is that rain gathers for d.c. and that cold air digging rights really is going to fill noticeably fresher as we go on through the next few days and what the weather still there up across the western side of kind of the towards the b.c. just one celsius in calgary that basin snow will last of course still very hot in the lamb fry 37 celsius here then as we go into the 2nd half of the week meanwhile across the caribbean it's a case of sunshine and showers as they should be i think the majority of the showers gathering across central america nicaragua costa rica same thing big downpours on jurist quite a model also seeing some lobbyist's as plenty of sunshine across the islands some

wet weather too particularly wet there for the leeward islands. but. none of my eyes of defiance it really touched my heart deeply when she started seeing you all there on. al-jazeera world remembers a palestinian singer who reached to audiences beyond middle east room into a creative family in nazareth she sang out a powerful and emotional message the possible story every man know the voice of palestine on al-jazeera. the of. the world.

you're watching al-jazeera mind of our top stories this hour riot police in thailand or rounding up protesters shortly after the government announced an emergency decree over ongoing protests to student protest leaders have been arrested demonstrators according for the prime minister's resignation and films of monaco. yemen's who things have released 2 u.s. citizens in exchange for 250 here the fight is the swap is the 1st of several prisoner exchanges that expected in the coming days between the saudi led coalition and the east. europe is battling to contain a 2nd wave of coronavirus germany's imposing tougher measures on gatherings and mosque wearing france has introduced a nightly curfew and in the u.k. a new 3 tier system is in force. tens of thousands of

afghans have been forced to escape days of heavy fighting between government troops and taliban fighters aid agencies say hospitals are becoming overwhelmed by the wounded from the battles which began in southern afghanistan on saturday or the fighting in helmand province assented around the regional capital lashkar gah u.s. air forces have supported afghan security forces there on the ground a major taliban offensive coincides with talks being held in castle to end america's longest war the fighting could complicate donald trump's plans to have american soldiers home by christmas. rewards affiliate contra fori is in the capital kabul she says health service is a stretch in the area where the fighting as a main trauma hospital in provincial capital. has been operating at full capacity cannot treat anymore people and the m.s.f. supported another m.s.f.

supported hospital in the area has been serving as an overflow facility with over 20 people have been admitted there in the past 24 hours and among them are even pregnant women and children in terms of the displaced according to the u.n. and local sources $35000.00 people have been forced to flee their homes a lot of them with nothing but their clothes we've seen pictures of them trying to load as much as they can and some model bikes and try to escape the fighting now are you in assessment teams are on the air in the try to assess the situation and it's extremely difficult to get information and a lot of the infrastructure of the telephone lines have been damaged so it's hard to assess what exactly what the exact needs are. fighting continues to escalate between armenia and azerbaijan these areas say they have destroyed missile launches inside armenia that were targeting their cities the armenian government confirms military positions were hit but denies its forces have been firing into as

a by john the fighting over nagorno-karabakh continues despite a cease fire agreed last week bernard smith reports from goddess in our media they'll be a memorial like this in perhaps every one of the homes of the more than $530.00 armenian men killed since fighting restarted on september the 27th. was a 19 year old conscript sent to the front lines just as fighting with azerbaijan started . saumur as he did when we last talked on the phone on the evening of september 26th and he said everything's all right after that we heard nothing on the 27th i wanted to go volunteer where my son was serving but i wasn't allowed then on the 30th i got a call and was told everything is finished all the young men ingeborg school yearbook a doing their compulsory military service now like almost every young man in armenia and nagorno-karabakh to my niece up to now i think he will call he will

come back i don't know i can't imagine he's not with us anymore i mean as prime minister says there's been some retreats from frontline positions and the situation is what he described as quite difficult for his country. i spy in misery right now the number of our carrollton is a very high no more. victims armenia's adversary azerbaijan now has the open and full support of turkey. president. says 26 years of diplomacy have failed to resolve the conflict and it's time for armenia to return land it took in the 1991 to 4. 3 members of minsk the united states russia and france are still putting this off with their stalling tactics just give them the occupied lands. russia has rejected requests from for turkey's involvement in future negotiations on the golan care about.

the father of jeff plays a popular mourns their dead soldiers their son was killed on the 1st day of fighting. most of the people especially those from places close to the contact line suffer like this they've all suffered from the armenian separatists it's not only us like hundreds of thousands of his there is this family was 1st displaced from armenian territories in earlier conflicts you have no no the fighting shouldn't stop there are so many members inconsolable like me so much blood of our soldiers if we take our lands back i'll say i didn't lose my son on both sides of this conflict the pressure on leaders not to give way is intense. john on wednesday accusations the armenians are trying to attack oil and gas pipelines the armenians areas are trying to seize nagorno-karabakh and above this angry rhetoric russia is appealing to both sides to

observe the humanitarian ceasefire but it seems no one's paying attention bernard smith al-jazeera chorus armine. president is facing pressure to step down but he has dismissed schools to resign so dim by jim because of says he's needed for stability and would only consider resigning after a rerun of the disputed parliamentary election meanwhile supporters of the new prime minister defied a ban on fridays in the capital and demonstrated against the president. ok let's go back to a developing story that we've been bringing you the crackdown on protestors in thailand we're getting reports now that protest is who had been camped outside the prime minister's office have now been cleared let's go to our reporter scott who joins us on the phone now from buying call this comes to an emergency decree by the

government announced just in the last few hours to crack to crack down on these protests what's happening there. well right now i'm actually standing right outside government house and this is where those thousands of protesters ended their march on when they started democracy monument about a kilometer and a half from the key development from government house and as promised they march their way here overnight 100 stayed and that 4 am local time the decree was passed where any gathering over 5 people was illegal so that's when they started to remove there were in the you know the riot police here and there were going to remove the protesters but protest leaders on stages makeshift stages here in and around the compound i should say around the compound of government house told the protesters to leave peacefully so there was no direct confrontation there were riot police with riot gear i'm looking right now as a water cannon truck but none of that was used that's because the protest leaders hold the protesters to leave peacefully and that's what happened but we do know

that the 2 of the most high profile protest leaders have been arrested we also know that dozens of other protesters have been arrested from what happened overnight presumably based on that emergency decree that was passed at 4 am. the event being making it illegal for gatherings more than 5 people so right now i'm looking around the area there's a lot of traffic quite clear evidence that a lot of people were here overnight right now it has been cleared actually even the main avenue that runs next to government house where a great deal of the protesters were you can tell by the there's a lot of trash around baghdad just open that avenue within the last few minutes so right now the area in front of government house has been cleared protest leadership before they're arrested said you know we will continue with with peaceful protest but right now obviously this protest has come to an end but again when you look at it from the protesters perspective they did what they promised and that was to

march to government house and they stayed overnight 2 of the most high profile leaders are now in jail. scott many thanks for that no doubt will be speaking to you again in the next hour or so. protests are continuing in cyprus against government corruption they follow an al-jazeera investigation of senior politicians who were willing to sell separate passports to convicted criminals the scheme was run as financial investment in exchange for citizenship the government has now abolished the program. this is out as there are these are the top stories riot police in thailand are detaining protesters shortly after the govern announced an emergency decree to protest leaders have been arrested demonstrators according to the prime minister's resignation and reforms.