also being redesigned to incorporate regulation it's a very developed city so i always say if we want to turn a city upside down is kind of impossible and will be very costly we also need to create open space. area how we encourage people to stay active the good advice pandemic has been the catalyst for change globally a hands free future living at arm's length is increasingly becoming the new series clark al-jazeera hong kong. this is all to see with these are the top stories votes are being counted in venezuela they're picking a new congress which is controlled by opposition parties but they boycotted the election saying it was a fraud a latin america and human explains what's at stake for venezuela's opposition parties they never really had any power that of the national assembly which is

a congress so that our viewers have to have very clear they were unable to pass laws whatever they did was not recognized by the government or by the supreme court which is in the hands of government loyalists or by any other institution so it was really very nominal but it did allow the opposition to name. an interim president as the leader of the only. that was recognized. democratically elected for all this time and now that is going to be lost. most of california is going into lockdown as it shatters records for the number of new coronavirus cases there are fears that intensive care units could run out of beds this as u.s. health officials say the distribution of a vaccine could begin soon if it gets approved this week. the u.k.'s preparing to roll out the 1st doses of the corona virus vaccine and tuesday initial batches have been distributed to hospitals selected to administer the vaccine priorities going

to be given to those over the age of 80 frontline workers care home residents and stuff 2 thirds of kuwaiti m.p.'s lost their seats in parliamentary elections opposition candidates made substantial gains it's a change for the gulf country which is dealing with a large economic deficit comes just 2 months after the new m.e.u. took to the throne more than 300 people have been arrested in the bell the russian capital and yet another weekend of protests against the president demonstrators are demanding an end to alexander lukashenko 26 year rule it's the 18th week of rallies after all this disputed election result when a 6th term in office. on those the headlines these continues here on al-jazeera front by. pakistan's k a c $100.00 has said more than 36 percent we bring you the stories and developments

that are rapidly changing the world living water is going dispensable to economic activity but industrial uses worse than this fresh water counting the cost on al-jazeera. this week up front tens of thousands protested across france against a new law that would restrict sharing images of the police. our civil liberties under threat that is our debate but 1st after decades of violence a major breakthrough between afghanistan's government and the taliban the 2 sides have reached a deal to begin talks could peace finally be possible just hours before the news broke i spoke to one of the government's only women negotiators. and afghan political veteran and nominee for the nobel peace prize who some say could one day become the country's 1st female president.

kofi thank you so much for joining me on outfront there have been 2 attempts on your life the most recent by unknown shooters but the 1st by the taliban and your daughter witnessed both of those attacks u.s. envoy says this latest attack was meant to be rail the talks how much faith do you have that the taliban will uphold their word in any sort of agreement that his reach. you are right it's very very early to say that you know the taliban have actually changed views and perception towards some of the realities of afghanistan in particular 2 worlds 2 wars women and especially vocal woman but in the meantime i know that the taliban are not and fortunately the only

group that contribute to violence there are isis in afghanistan are other groups military extremist groups. in talking with taliban what we're trying to do is at least many is the level of risk that afghanistan have is facing not only in terms of the number of people that they are losing lives but the opportunities that are being taken away from that country afghanistan is naturally on traditionally a very rich country billions of dollars on the ground we could be a potential economical hub between. how the central asia but due to the war that has not been used so. yes personal sacrifices is part of this process we have to really put ourselves into a situation to feel. every victim of this war we have we have victims of war in the negotiation table and i said you rightly have saved i have

been personally attacked twice in the last one injured. but there are others who actually lost members of families due to the war or in the war i have lost members of family but let's think about thousands and millions of those people back home who they know we are the other are victims of war and in order to put a dignified end to this bloodshed we would like to with a willingness to talk with taliban i hope taliban will take our willingness for. talks in a good well. put some sense charity and you know. in to ending this war you talked about the fact that the taliban is not the only group responsible for the violence in afghanistan obviously that is correct is another part of the problem that even if you do get an agreement with the taliban the threat from groups like i saw remains it was just last month that i saw claimed

responsibility for that attack at kabul university that killed more than $1000.00 people so even if you deal with the taliban there are still other groups that have to be dealt with. as i said before we. certainly tol'able not the major kind of. extreme military extremist groups which have committed you know fighting not only in the villages but those when the big cities and kind of the attention of the government and our institutions are now shifted towards. fighting with taliban and so if we agree on agreeing that. that we could have enormously. political differences but let's live under one. umbrella or at least in the same country and didn't i think that will empower our institutions to be able to deal with other vulnerabilities in this case isis. or other military extremist groups that operate

in the region let's talk about the u.s. of course the u.s. invaded afghanistan back in 2001. public is losing patience with fighting wars abroad president trump also appears to be bent on bringing troops home at any cost he has been willing to make concessions to the taliban and there are reports that the u.s. has been pressuring your government to do the same do you think the u.s. is really invested in a peace agreement or is it more the trump just wants to get out and cut the u.s. losses. the idea was agreement would have been if the negotiations between united states taliban and taliban with the delegation from republic of iran is what are some of the public of one a son would have started at the same time which was almost 2 years back that would gave the delegation of republic a better position for bargaining but in the meantime we hope that there is no rush

in terms of withdrawing troops under the circumstances that withdrawal is an issue but on the basis of the condition reality in afghanistan this is something that has been also stated in the us taliban agreement that the withdrawal will be based on the conditions on the ground but. in reality we know that there will be a major reduction up to 15 january our hope is that the new administration will clarify more in terms of you know how are they going to deal with the situation of their troops in afghanistan because the presence of the troops actually singles out or gave a single message which afghanistan which is an important geographical location and could be potentially a risk for the world if things go wrong as it did in 2001 well not once again be abandoned in a way that it's once again a challenge for the world the security challenge so therefore we we hope that things will move on or shape itself in

a situation where the neighboring countries the regional countries or those who are having an eye on the situation to reshape their politics will not use this ability but he said at the time that if u.s. troops withdraw your government will simply collapse. i hope that they will draw will be responsible and not in a way that it collapsed resulting collapse of the institutions because we know from 1902 when the soviet. troops withdraw from afghanistan in 1902 a collapse of this situation occurred so we know that many countries are willing to watch the situation and see how they can actually influence so we know that the immediate withdrawal without any tangible progress in terms of peace and agreeing on a political settlement well certain certainly did tell you that situation in

a way that will benefit only military extremist groups groups not people of afghanistan you talked a bit about the the resources of your country and the location i want to talk a little bit more about that because isn't a problem that even in a perfect world that the united states withdraws all troops and pieces are stored in afghanistan that might open the door why for russia china and iran and given the location and abundance of natural resources for your country are you worried that your country is simply in a vulnerable spot to have foreign influence and therefore instability to look a sure enough of coniston time and again has been used the throughout the late history of afghanistan against afghanistan unfortunately we would like to keep a good relationship a bilateral. relationship of economic exchange of resources exchange of you know using up understand connectivity capacities but in the meantime we understand that

if there is no defined relationship between afghanistan and its neighbor in the region its neighbors in the region. afghanistan could become a proxy battlefield and therefore i think it's important that we continue to restore peace. strengthen our institutions and then keep our ties with the rest of the world. for decades you have been a champion of women's rights risking your own life to improve the lives of afghan women and strengthen your country's democracy as well something that i earned you a nomination for the nobel peace prize but when you look back at all the ways that the taliban has oppressed women often times violently did you ever imagine that you would end up at the same table as the negotiating your country's future. 20 years back certainly not certainly not because i lived all my life in afghanistan including during taliban. and during the civil war and i know i have seen people.

losing lives in front of my eyes i have seen how you know women were treated beaten up whipped in front of my eyes i have seen and experienced that life of brutality so to come to the situation where now we are equal rights holder citizens setting across the table talking about the same country and the same interests the with very diverse and different views i think it's a step forward and it's a great achievement and the major part of that achievement the credit actually goes to that is the leon's and strength of the women of afghanistan because the life for women of afghanistan regardless of where they work which position they hold or they are at home is not an easy life and even to being the negotiation table was not

easy to be part of the negotiation is another level of women rights expressing their woman power strength because you really have to have shoulder to face some of those challenges so it isn't a very challenging life but the only hope or the only time we get a positive vibe to continue to extremely challenging job we have is the fact that we think of the moments where we could sit in a car in afghanistan. drive across afghanistan enjoy the beauty without the fear of you know being shot as i was during august or being you know affair of being whipped or head but for your gender or even for our male part. of the society that is the hope that actually. she keeps us moving something that we were deprived were deprived of see the beauty of of seeing the beauty of her country know her speculation over the years that she might become the 1st female

president of your country you did run back in 2014 do you think the children again one day all i always hope that afghanistan in order to demonstrative a different major of what it has in reality in there for layers of the society ace to be hopefully one day led by a woman because you know if you look at that around in our neighboring countries you have you know woman leaders in pakistan you bangladesh india all do india is a different experience for example but in the muslim countries you heard women in the leadership position now i know it is a very extremely difficult path to get there i know my challenges but in the meantime during the time i have been in politics along with my other fellow. sisters we have really tried to demonstrate passion honesty commitment

under no circumstances that has changed actually no difficulty or no challenge has actually shifted our focus in terms of loving country and our people and trying to deliver and i hope and that is actually understood and appreciated by people back home now in the a male dominated political system of afghanistan it will be very difficult to get to that level but that is the ultimate goal. thank you so much for joining me on outfront. thank you. more than 100000 people demonstrated in france this past weekend to protest a security bill but among other things banned sharing images that make police officers identifiable protesters and activists say the law would infringe upon civil liberties and worry it's just the latest move by president crawl into a more authoritarian leadership style according to human rights watch the bill

could quote seriously limit the ability of the media and ordinary citizens to document law enforcement abuses critics worry that would mean police for not being held accountable for acts of brutality such as the beating of a black music producer videos of that beating went viral last week across government now says it's reviewing the legislation the questions still remain about the intent and potential impact of such laws joining me to discuss this are along with skewer a member of parliament and spokesperson for president calderon's ruling party law republican marsh and silkwood drew the president of amnesty international and france thank you both for joining me in the arena the secy all want to start with you organization has said that france is not the free speech champion it says it is and that the french government's rhetoric on free speech is shamelessly hypocritical even before the government tried to push out this law thousands of people have already had already been convicted for contempt of public officials basically this vaguely worded offensive to silence or at least dampen dissent

somewhat the french government has also moved to dissolve an ngo that works on anti-racism issues something amnesty has expressed concern about both in terms of this particular organization and just the chilling effect this could have on other in geos. this type of stuff you hear about in dictatorships how worried are you about what we're seeing in france. well i think it's a bad sign that we are using this kind of language about friends in the either but as you know our constant reference being international we have to have the same recommendations and the same positions about france just like about any other country so of course who have expressed there is here is concerns about this global security bill but at the same time we're making recommendations to make sure that i'll call upon the government to be more respectful of france's commitments to respect human rights will be her and so i have to confess we have

a kind of frustration at the moment because for quite some time now we have sent warnings alerts and also recommendations we have been the additions but apparently we haven't been heard because we still consider that some fundamental freedoms such as freedom of expression freedom to inform but also freedom from civilians because in that field there are also a few issues about you knew the right to privacy so that's why we think there is a wider and wider gap between what the president emanuel mcconnell says and declares and the actual policy which is implemented or some bills that are proposed by the majority in france we have to make sure that policies are in conformity with france's commitment to respect international law related to human rights so are allowing for their concerns that cecile and organization have your government there

has said that this law is necessary to protect police officers from threats and attacks but i'm sure you cannot deny there are people in france that are concerned about being on the receiving end of police violence or police brutality and they fear this law would essentially provide cover for police officers who abuse their positions of power in just this past week or law the nation was shocked by footage of the police officers brutal. beating a black music producer michelle is a claire the officers have been charged with assault they are under investigation that is true but only because this video went viral if this law you've been pushing or in effect there would have been no video for people to see the what if the no accountability isn't that true no of. those girls images would have been available that would have been shot that would have been on there and that would have been leading to what happened which is not only those officers have been suspended and on destination and 2 of them apparently in jail there has been some

understanding about the law we're trying to vote and therefore we've decided to go back on the drawing board on that phone but what we're trying to prevent is police officers being threatened being named and shamed giving the address so that they may be the victim of personal francis themselves because then it's being put in the public on the story from that but in no way well we planning to prevent anyone from filming putting those images on air of any actions including the ones from the police i understand that there's been some is understanding we haven't been clear in the way we presented that optical about you know and therefore we've taken it back and we're going to do it again in dot com to bowers in transit and we've seen it you know on the side of the what that must be demonstration and from time that that's not in the study i misunderstood what he's understood the fact that i don't

know mitt prevent the liberty of informing and this is the reason why we took it on down 3 issues one from there are worries and the international arms race some of them about to leave but you to inform and this we need to raise sure a. policy of violence that's been seen including against me should declare and you've seen it and we need to address like any police force in the world. i have to be you ripped irreproachable com to get away with what we saw last week but 3 there's also been very violent demonstrators not very many of them but that are not difference trading or freedom of speech or have been demonstrating for anything either of those or are not rocking the believe i have a cecile interact with you cecile go ahead i would like to jump in if possible because i think there is a kind of general drift which is particularly alarming is this tendency to rely much more on suspicion and interpretation of a potential intention rather than facts so for example about the associations when

we said something about that it was not particularly to defend this or that organization it was much more in the general principle to remind the government that to dissolve an association is a very serious issue it means he has to it has to be based on facts and not on suspicion that in the name of security sometimes freedom fundamental freedoms aspect and because it becomes a kind of priority if you like security to the detriment of other liberties so we think that every government including the french government when they prepare a law 1st of all they should have in mind their own commitments to respect principles such as legality which means that the law should be written properly it was certainly not the case it is not the case with article 24 but i repeat also to 22 about the use of drones there is still no legal frame about civilians it is

particularly alarming and the case of associations it is the same we can understand that if there is a real incitement to hate to act to new in a criminal way of course which would be punished it would be a good reason for a dissolution but we shouldn't drift away from human rights ok in the name of security that's the main. are hoons every time so and yet still this woman i want to put this to it will only talk about incentivizing violence or protecting police from violent french groups or along there are laws in place that do that aren't there exactly yeah and it's just that there is a gap that has been seen and identified by by by legal especially on what happens on social networks those lows that you alluded to were drafted until 2 years ago and therefore we felt that what they got but i'll give cecile one

point donna was by the region we're going to rewrite it because there was an ambiguity in what you just said the intent was not well qualified but on the association i can tell you there's been a lot of questions around some n.g.o.s that are not n.g.o.s that are actually pretty good i'm going to finish and then i'm preaching. discourses speeches and action that are not consistent with the french loz with the french values with the french constitution of actually it's very hard to close them i can tell you there's been a lot of work to prove that point and again a judge is going to be able to assess that egos n.g.o.s questioning the decision which i believe they haven't done yet but i don't want to you know your view is do you feel about its friends drifting to you mentioned it. measures because suddenly all these measures have been voted by an elected parliament i'm one of

them there is a constitutional court in from thoughts completely independent and that's going to look at this those and reassure the people on the fact that there are constitutional ok and we have decided again i'm giving this you know that point that optical to be redrafted because we want to protect the police officer but we strengthen a dominant anneli but you to inform to be impeded so they are they want to ask you that about something that rwanda's mentioned the government has said that they are reviewing the law and the prime minister announcer is going to be an end appendant commission to look into it that there's that does that satisfy you at all well not really i think the whole process is told from the beginning it was quite strange to have a bill presented by members of parliament but then at the last minute articles that were the most dangerous for freedom of speech and i repeat for them to the right of privacy as well introduced and nobody can be naive it was by the government

obviously and some articles like this should be really debated in depth and it was an accelerated procedure you know just a few days in the national assembly to discuss such serious issues i think that france really deserves better and i'm afraid that again this question of. freedom. for journalists is a kind of smokescreen because number one it is also for citizens not only for journalists but there should be a right to film disseminate the images and documents potential violations of human rights by police officers amidst international has you lot of these videos in a lot of different kinds of research to write reports and to try to ask for accountability because to me the main threats on the police today is certainly not social networks it is the feeling that there is an impunity when some policeman you know a really terrible attitude either

a racist or or an excessive use of force for example and this sense of impunity is also destroying what is absolutely essential in all of war i mean trust between the population and the police that would be the final word thank you both for the discussion rollout of the secular it's a silken trio thank you very much thank you that is our self for now i'll be back next.

so me al jazeera london broke constanza to special guests in conversation people think that racism is having tussle vitriol towards black people and there's no understanding of what systemic racism is unprompted uninterrupted success comes with a physician if you're not upsetting people you're not saying anything f. 100 meets any oh. there is not a family in britain i believe that has not been touched by empire studio b. unscripted on al-jazeera 2023 year of lock downs and social distancing he can't reach across the screen and give someone a hug alleyway explores one of the global pandemics biggest side effects loneliness everyone who lives alone has been forced to be searching for the 1st time they're highlighting its effects on physical and mental health and discovering unique ways of coping controlling being alone together episode 2 of all have a lockdown on al-jazeera. holding the powerful to

account as we examine the u.s. its role in the world on all just 0. warning the world. a warning that covered 19 in the u.s. will get the wars california is going into an all the locked on to try to stop the spread of the virus. i wrote about this and this is all just here on live from doha also coming up a venezuelans vote for the new congress in an election that the opposition has boycotted calling it a fraud seeking to avoid a no deal break city e.u. and british negotiators try to reach a trade agreement and prevent a chaotic parting at the end of the year.