why. people in power investigates west and. space on al-jazeera. hundreds of boys abducted in nigeria are freed almost a week after they were taken from a school. watching al-jazeera life from a headquarters in doha also coming up the u.s. moves closer to approving a 2nd coronavirus vaccine more than 17000000 cases have been reported. u.s. president elect joe biden nominates hollande to be the country's 1st native american cabinet secretary. 5 years after hands raised unanimously for peace talks

in syria we look at the stalled diplomacy and bloodshed that's followed. hello thanks for joining us more than 300 school boys have been released a week after they were kidnapped in northwestern nigeria the governor of a state where it happened says they'll be back with their families after being checked over by doctors the boys were taken when gunmen thought to be linked to boko stormed a school last friday let's get an update from al jazeera. live just outside the government house of state so events moving pretty quickly over the last few hours bring us up to speed with what's been happening. well we hear that the children now in kids in the territory we expect them to arrive here shortly in

5 days to a senior police officer for a state where the. journey origin aged and inform me that they have left since 5 o'clock this morning 5 o'clock local time that's around 4 g.m.t. so we expect them to be at a particular come to give the governor was made as it was mentioned yesterday from there they'll be looked after by a team of doctors and nurses and we expect also that the president of nigeria who's been vacationing in cats in a state since the day the incident happened will also visit them before you fly back to the end of his vacation and really more do we know about the negotiations that allegedly took place that led to their release because we know that the president himself says he has a policy of not negotiating with armed groups. exactly and it's not only the president it's also the government of course in a state where the children were taken there said they're not negotiating with

abducted is that because that will encourage more abductions in the future however what we know is that there has been some contact between government and the kidnappers or the abductors of these boys discussions has been has been go have been going on for quite some time now for days i think probably for 4 or 5 days now initially when it all started there was a fire fight between the nigerian security forces and the kidnappers until when the government intervened on the spot to allow a negotiation to happen and that was when the process of negotiations or the process of contact as they prefer to call it started so that has been what's been going on but a lot of people will tell you that there must be some give and take although the security forces or the government officials telling us it's because of the pressure mounted by the security forces on the abductors of the children and that was why

they hunted the children quickly within less than one week because according to them they pin them down in a particular forest in some sort of state after they were taken from state into the bushes and onto mountains and valleys in some forested where they were you didn't deep inside the forest all right reporting from katsina thank you. germany has had a record number of corona virus infections just 2 days after imposing tighter restrictions it recorded more than 30000 cases in 24 hours for the 1st time since the start of the outbreak it's also claimed more than $800.00 deaths pushing the toll to nearly $25000.00 the government says it's stepping up its efforts with vaccinations set to begin immediately after christmas. now a panel of experts advising the u.s. food and drug administration has recommended the emergency use of a 2nd coronavirus vaccine the committee indorse the moderna vaccine one week after

backing the pfizer bio and tech currently being administered across the u.s. more than 17000000 cases have been reported there 310000 people have died our white house correspondent kimberly halkett has more. once the f.d.a. gives the seal of approval it will go to the c.d.c. they're in charge of distribution and once the c.d.c. director signs off it is really just a matter of time before people can start to get this 2nd vaccine in the united states already last week of course pfizer approved and now being injected into millions of americans what we know with regard to the vaccine is that there are 15000000 doses ready to be administered so that would cover about 25000000 people given there are 2 jabs that are involved with the coronavirus vaccine so we know that these will be going to the front line health care workers also the elderly and those that have compromised immune systems but this couldn't come at

a better time given the fact that the records are being broken with regard to not only the number of infections but also the number of deaths and hospitalizations due to covert 19 this is from the thanksgiving holiday where many americans traveled even when public health officials said don't and the fear is there's going to be yet another wave with the christmas holiday and the new year's holiday is just around the corner so there's a lot of concern about this at the same time there also is feeling some encouragement about the vaccine still some are wary of the science that's why we know a number of high profile politicians will be getting this on camera to encourage people vice president mike pence the top republican in the senate mitch mcconnell and the top democrat in the house of representatives nancy pelosi all say they will be getting the vaccine as soon as they can to encourage others to do the same. the united states is set to have its 1st native american cabinet secretary president

tonight joe biden has nominated that hollande to be interior secretary it would put hollande in charge of a powerful department that's wielded influence over native american affairs for generations she have a chance she has more from joe biden's home town of wilmington delaware. she will be the 1st native american cabinet secretary and not just any cabinet department the department of the interior the battles between indigenous indigenous tribes here and the development here isn't just about oil and gas all of that's and natural resources it has been quite clear in recent years if the public in syria which has within it the bureau of indian affairs which has been responsible for the destruction of native america over the last couple of 100 couple of 100 years now the idea of a native american woman in charge of that the public at least nominally is symbolically is astonishing and the fact that she would be in charge of

a big swathe of the north american continent in charge of the public lands the natural resources the wildlife the water this is this is enormous now that's not to say that joe biden hasn't also nominated various people in his cabinet who are very close to the oil and gas industry and you know. there will be there will be battles ahead but at least now there is real substantial diversity in the cabinet nominations from joe biden and only about bernie sanders just on wednesday the key progressive senator said he hadn't seen one progressive nomination yet from joe biden now there is one all day long shunned public attention but on thursday members of one of america's richest families were thrust into the spotlight captain david sackler were grilled over their role and out of the family business in the opioid crisis ravaging the u.s. heidi jocasta reports. i'm not sure that i'm aware of any family in america

that's more evil than yours some members of congress didn't mince words toward david and kathy sackler cousins and former board members of purdue pharma the company whose oxycontin pill helped to fuel the opioid epidemic that's claimed the lives of nearly half a 1000000 americans the 2 sappers declined to take responsibility for their family's role in the crisis there is nothing that i can or in that i would have done differently based on what i believe them understood than i believe i conducted myself. how quickly and i believe the full record will demonstrate i still feel absolutely terrible last month produced pharma pled guilty to 3 felonies including paying doctors to overprescribe oxycontin and defrauding investigators the sackler family walked away without criminal charges but agreed to

give up ownership of the company and pay $225000000.00 in civil penalties that's only 2 percent of the sackler is net worth meanwhile pharma is now pursuing bankruptcy protections that could shield it from paying out billions to victims. to say well it appears to me as a family i mean it's going to use the bankruptcy process to get out of their ass and to continue to be one of the wealthiest families armor while the federal case against the sackler family and purdue pharma is settled nearly every us state has filed its own lawsuit and the house oversight committee continues its investigation with bipartisan support. families of young people who died of overdoses shared their stories the damage and the pain in grief and life long and purdue pharma and the sackler to be held accountable for what they've done to our family and

countless other families company documents show the sackless push to drive up oxycontin sales while knowing of the drug's potential for abuse that in the eyes of the victims' families make the sac lawyers drug dealers they say who got away with murder. castro al-jazeera washington a supercycle and has hit fiji killing at least 2 people one of them a 3 month old baby to wrench the reins in hurricane force winds are preventing a droops to reach in the worst affected areas the pacific island nation assessment so far. has the story and scores of houses blocked roads and flattened crops the government declared a state of emergency before the category 5 storm moves and telling the entire population to seek shelter. we'll get a check on the weather up next and then argentinians express their frustration as their economy continues to suffer from the financial the facts of the pandemic. but

this is a pretty little. softener investigation blaming russian agents for poisoning me. hello we've got so wet windy but mild weather pushing into western parts of europe at the moment behind this band of cloud this weather front that's going to continue driving its way eastwards quite tightly packed ice so some brisk showers just rattling through quater weather where we do have high pressure but it is going to be cold temperatures struggling to get around 4 or 5 celsius to many some snow there just around the baltic states pushing into that western side of iraq it comes out wet some windy but mild air which will fade in across the british isles heavy rain coming into western france and also into western parts of spain portugal i

will the next couple days i will sweep through making its way to madrid temperatures no higher than around 9 celsius here on sas day but at 12 there in london should be about 8 degrees as a city these moderate that's about the only consolation i can offer somewhat of whether the. good parts of france down towards the south as well central areas generally try and find it down into the eastern side of the mediterranean generally fine and dry it's a dry weather stretches across the north east of africa but we have got some showers it's a northern parts of morocco some showers too to northern areas of algeria must see some wet weather once again just clinging on to the guinea coast possibility of showers all the way over to sierra leone. frank assessments you've got cold. it's on the ground in the canaries what is the situation there's only one doctor and one nurse for $2200.00 people informed

opinions how big this foreign policy figure in the early stages of a bi ministration he comes into office with a huge amount of foreign policy experience in-depth analysis of the day global headlines how will a place like it live get a back seat when there's no money and all the rest of rich countries are fighting for an inside story on al-jazeera. hello again the top stories on al-jazeera this hour more than 300 school boys have been released a week after they were kidnapped by an armed group in northwestern nigeria the governor of katsina state where it happened says they'll be back with their families after being checked over by doctors germany has had

a record number of corona virus infections just 2 days after imposing tighter restrictions recorded more than 30000 cases in 24 hours for the 1st time since the start of the outbreak it's also counted more than $800.00 deaths the u.s. is set to have its 1st native american cabinet secretary president elect joe biden has nominated to be interior secretary it would put hollande in charge of a powerful department that's wielded influence over native american affairs for generations. software giant microsoft has confirmed it's a target of a hacking operation that's being described as the worst and u.s. history more than 40 organizations have been targeted including the u.s. government's energy defense state and homeland security departments the attack which is still ongoing is suspected to be linked to russia it was uncovered last week but investigators believe it's been going on for months. it's been 5 years

since the u.n. security council adopted a resolution meant to pave the way political solution in syria european diplomats have told al-jazeera there are growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress and they believe the assad government is deliberately stalling and hopes of a change in washington's syria policy our diplomatic editor james bays has more. 2015 was arguably the year that changed the course of the war in syria russia got involved militarily bombs from its jets changing the for choose of the assad regime . earlier in the war according to international inspectors the regime of used chemical weapons on number of occasions a red line had been crossed but the u.s. leader president obama did not act in response to a growing crisis the international community came together unanimously around the u.n. security council resolution that's been quoted by world leaders ever since with the

united nations resolution 2254 times the security council resolution 2254 resolution 20 to $54.00 did on a resolution of understand on the demeanor rid of. it was supposed to deliver a cease fire and peace talks in reality though december 25th is when russia took the upper hand diplomatically with the rest of the world taking a back seat. with both turkey and iran russia organized the new peace process in a stand and sochi it didn't lead to peace areas declared safe zones were retaken by a sad helped by russian bombardment break to un envoy has continued to work diligently trying to pursue talks but the latest effort setting up a committee to draw up a new constitution for syria could become bogged down many suspect this was russia

and the sides plan all along. it is increasingly apparent that the assad regime has durang the committee's work to buy time as it prepares to carry out his sham presidential election in 2021 and washing hands of the u.n. so it's a good political process let's be honest of the merely a decade of conflict the political process has not delivered for the syrian people and they continue to suffer deeply oh inside an old side syria only a political solution can embrace suffering historians a lot is judged russia's diplomacy over this period is both cynical and masterful they've used their power in syria and their veto power in the security council to change the course of the war for the assad government they now could be less concerned about the international dynamics of the situation but they must be deeply worried about things inside syria the economy is now rock bottom their own

supporters are increasingly unhappy they may have almost won the war but they risk losing the peace before it even starts james bouquets al-jazeera at the united nations. u.s. president donald trump says he's optimistic the long running rift in the gulf will soon be over after speaking by phone with saudi arabia's king sandman the 3 year old blockade on qatar by saudi arabia and 3 other countries was one of several regional issues discussed during the call on thursday the saudis the u.a.e. but her egypt imposed the land air and sea blockade on cats are in 2017. latin american economies have taken a battering recording their worst drop in growth for more than a century the pandemic is the main cause daniel the reports from argentina one of the worst hit countries in the region. the economies of latin america and the

caribbean have been hit particularly hard by the covered 900 pandemic so any grain of good news is welcome when grim new statistics are announced. so i know that our figures are negative all negative it doesn't mean that we are much better off than we were in july but the drops are a little lower than full cost. those statistics still translate into tens of thousands of businesses closing growing unemployment poverty and homelessness. but it's bad in latin america it's even worse in argentina the economy here is shrinking by 10 percent in the 3rd quarter of 2020 workers and social organizations have already taken to the streets on thursday alone we covered 2 demonstrations within walking distance of the elders here office. what we'd like is health to be a priority especially in this pandemic here and this in a country where 50 percent of children are poor and need public hospitals it would

be an increase to make the health system work along with the pay so hitting an all time low against the u.s. dollar it's inflation that bites into workers' wages argentina has one of the worst rates in the world more than 30 percent this year forecast to be even higher next year you know more of the we've been saying on all our marches when the workers lose through inflation it's not because that money is disappearing it's because someone is profiting with what should be ours and the rest of the workers. president alberto for landis took office just weeks before the pandemic arrived he said from the start to put the nation's health before the economy. but with the russians the 5 vaccine due to arrive next week the economy hasn't gone away. protests like its noisy and colorful her regular feature of everyday life in the market with the cover of night sleep on the continent but. there will be likely to

make 3. out of. the question is always where the money's going to come from argentina is one of the world's leading grain produces but the industry has been paralyzed of the strike by workers demanding a wage increase enters its 2nd week. part of a growing demand from workers across argentina and the rest of latin america they don't want to emerge from the pandemic worse off than they went into it. on their al-jazeera one of cyrus millions of palestinians living in israeli occupied areas may have to wait months to receive a coronavirus vaccination israel will begin its inoculation campaign next week israeli settlers living in the occupied west bank will receive it but the territories 2 and a half 1000000 palestinians won't and they'll have to wait until the world health organization delivers doses to the palestinian authority sweden has admitted there much questioned approach to corona virus has failed the country has reported almost

350000 infections and deaths are approaching 8000 the government resisted the lockdowns and restrictions imposed by sweden's neighbors. really have to put simply i think that we have filed many people have died and that is horrible that is something we can all sympathize with that we haven't been out to help them and it is very sad terribly sad it's the swedish people who suffered enormously under difficult circumstances it's frightening to talk about his. french president cause says he plans to keep running the country remotely after testing positive for covert 19 the diagnosis forced other here opinion leaders to self isolate natasha butler reports from paris the french president looked tired but relaxed as he hosted a video called friends with several charities the meeting came only hours after the

release a palace announced that emanuel macro had tested positive for the convict 19 the 42 year old leader plans to keep working during his 7 days of isolation but he will not. he will honor his appointment but with even more caution than is usual really sorry for the president since the start of the pandemic in public micro was a face mask and takes precautions but at times he has failed to social distance. he's attended a number of offense in the past week including an e.u. summit he also met several european leaders in paris including portugal's prime minister and tony acosta and spanish premier petra sanchez who are now self isolating in france the prime minister and michael's wife bridges are in quarantine several members of the government and president's policy up being tested it is clear that the message from the elite is that it is just as usual unless michael's condition deteriorates he will remain in charge throughout his isolation there is

that this doesn't change anything and. it's not a big deal that's what there is a disease trying to say but they're not saying what are the symptoms that the president has had we know that he was tested after showing symptoms and and we don't know where those symptoms are the french government has lifted some lockdown restrictions but reimposed a nighttime curfew as the country continues to battle the pandemic michael's diagnosis is a sobering reminder that anyone can be infected. al-jazeera paris the. the u.k. government imposing tougher restrictions in parts of england but it's still going ahead with plans to ease the rules over christmas as paul brennan reports from london. the government here in the u.k. is wrestling with exactly the same kind of die lemmas that governments across europe are wrestling with and that is how to bring down the infection rates of this virus how to protect the national health care systems and also how to prevent the

economic impact from being too great while at the same time trying to give the general public the opportunity to celebrate christmas which is a popular and much cherished festival in the european calendar and elsewhere i'm here in parliament square it's the last sitting day of parliament on thursday and one of the last acts inside that building behind me was the health sector mats hancock saying that many more areas are going to go into tier 3 restrictions that's the highest level of restrictions it means hospitality venues will have to close apart from take away only households will not be able to mix and all of this will start on saturday london itself was already under tier 3 and i can tell you for example there's a restaurant popular restaurant on the corner of parliament square over there which often as it will always has the pungent smell of fish and chips coming out of it not today as of earlier this week it's had to close under the new restrictions but the situation is that on wednesday of next week

a new set of eased restrictions comes into place for christmas 5 days where up to 3 households can mix and many epidemiologists and many critics of the government are wondering how they can reconcile these 2 things tighter restrictions from saturday to wednesday easing of restrictions from wednesday for the following 5 days and the expectation then there could be an even bigger spike come january. parliament has its own worries as well they may also have to come back and sit in between christmas and new year because of the need potentially to ratify it. but here in london and across the u.k. there is a great fear the come january coronavirus will come back with a vengeance. whatever putin's says he's happy to take russia's corona virus vaccine as he spoke up his government's efforts in dealing with the pandemic it was marquesa thrown at the russian president during his yearly televised media event he

also laughed off suggestions that he ordered the poisoning of kremlin critic alexei navalny sunday gago reports and. the annual presidential press conference with a marked difference it is always american events lasting close to 2 hours with relatively few surprises from his home in the suburbs of moscow president vladimir putin fielded questions from all over the country his daughter and current issues foremost the pandemic and whether he'd been given a russian vaccine sputnik v. which is yet to meet international approval standards. to look at the vaccine as they go into civilian circulation are currently provided for citizens in a certain age range and vaccines have not yet reach people like me but i'm a fairly law abiding person i listen to the recommendations of our specialists so i haven't had the shot yet but i will absolutely do it as soon as it becomes possible there were also questions over the attempted assassination of his opponent alex

inevitably while refusing to use novell in these name putting dismissed allegations that he had been poisoned with a nerve agent and that orders to do so came straight from the top. if someone had wanted to poison him they would have finished him off his wife addressed me and i gave the command right away to let him go to germany for treatment when it came to talking about the incoming u.s. president joe biden he acknowledged his hopes of a reset in u.s. russia relations in donald trump he had a counterpart to empathize with his played nationalist strongman sentiments yet 4 years on after donald trump's victory putin once again denied that russian hackers had ever meddled in the 2016 u.s. elections. russian hotas didn't help the current us president to get elected and didn't meddle in the internal affairs of this great country this is speculation and

an excuse to spoil relations between russia and the united states it is an excuse to dispute the election of the current president of the united states that was actually caused by internal political issues also promised serious investment in the pro moscow control donbass region of eastern ukraine and expensive tasca usually funded by oil and gas sales but low prices have in recent years constrained moscow's ability to make money that way so new diagonal al-jazeera. hello again the headlines on al-jazeera more than 300 schoolboys have been released after they were kidnapped in northwestern nigeria the governor of katsina state where it happened says they'll be back with their families after being checked over by doctors the boys were taken when gunmen thought to be linked to boko hard stormed the school al-jazeera zahir the jury's.