start with some of the on the ground realities of backing the news coverage was the lay of the land challenging assumptions and the official night belittling post on out is the right. exhausted and shaken but relieved hundreds of boys abducted in nigeria our freedom most a week after they were taken from a school. you're watching al-jazeera life from a headquarters and. also coming up the u.s. moves closer to approving a 2nd karuna virus vaccine more than 17000000 cases have been reported. u.s. president elect joe biden nominates deb holland 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 that's followed. hello we begin with breaking news from northern nigeria that's where more than 300 kidnapped school boys have arrived in katsina city where they'll be reunited with their families they'll 1st be checked over by doctors the boys were taken a week ago by gunmen thought to be linked to boca who raided a school. live on the ground for us from katsina where the boys have just arrived about a half hour or so ago ahmed what are you hearing about their conditions their state of mind and what happens next. shocking diary these warriors all of them walked barefoot some of them limping you can see

they are virtually exhausted traumatise following the events of the past 7 days i've lost some of them can now breathe. easily. but freedom right now will be meeting the governor of the state i mean a bill of my salary has been coordinating efforts all these days along with 6. the agent says and before their arrival we saw we noticed significant movement of nigerian security forces that include the military police units special forces and quite a military organization is courting these boys from far away from forested why they were taken and as they approach here we saw helicopters flying overhead courting them to ensure that they reach their destination safely what we understand right now is that after meeting with the governor of kids in the state they will be moved to a camp while they will undergo medical tests and evaluation and we also hear that the

president of nigeria has been vacationing in kids in a state since the last 6 or 7 days will maybe probably drive into this place and see them or meet them on his way out of cats and back to a bridge at the end of his vacation so that's the situation right now but these kids are really really exhausted you can see here you can see confusion you can see trauma a lot of them. virtually limping towards the governor's office because to some of the feeds all of them i watched all of them walk past me and none of them had a pair of shoes on. then what more can you tell us about the actual negotiations that led to their release. one of the government here is denying that any exchange in terms of money or prisoners has been med in exchange for these boys what this saying is that yes in the initial days they were exchange

of fire between the nigerian security forces and of course the kidnappers of these children when they camped out somewhere in the forest between them for a stage since then the government toned down its rhetoric and also sort of the security forces to seize fire so that there would be no collateral damage since then they've been into media as between the 2 sides trying to negotiate a peaceful end to this conflict this crisis eventually yesterday when we were interviewing the governor of cuts in the state he broke the news to al jazeera saying that we have good information we have good news that finally our wait is over i want to go see issues or i will contact and in to mediate all mediation has paid off the kids coming back home then he gave me a total number of 340 students and i did 4 more later making a total of 344 students and those were the students that you saw. beside

me and walked into some of them virtually limped into the council chambers of the governor's house in here in cuts in a state so you know a lot of questions obviously have now been raised about security in the area so this must put a lot of pressure on the government taking into account that this is not the 1st time schoolchildren have been killed now it's. exactly there in this a lot of questions unsaid apart from that there are questions about how the process of relieving old releasing these children came about a lot of people was asking questions what transpired how much how how how how much effort has been done how much effort was not done to ensure an early conclusion to this crisis and looked of course being honest why did it take so long and then it

evokes the memory of 2014 when 272 gozo 270 goes what taken from a 2nd to school in chibok 112 of them still unaccounted for then the secure the government in nigeria did not take immediate action to deal with the matter until when it was too late by then the book or on fight is who took those girls moved them into different locations and it was hard for the security services and for security forces to identify and rescue those goes eventually more than $100.00 of them have returned to their homes and what more than $100.00 are still unaccounted for not so for the schoolboy's early intervention and of course what helped extensively was that the security forces were able to pin them down to a particular location before they crossed the border in tunisia or any neighboring country to make much it's difficult for the security forces and the government of

nigeria but definitely like you said a lot of questions are being asked as to what happened how much security can be provided to schools in nigeria as pushy boarding schools and how much security forces can afford because right now the security forces. understaffed and overstretched because there are so many fires burning across nigeria and they have to deal with these people ask you why would government with all the resources i did disposal employee most security services or security forces to deal with the situation these are some of the questions being asked by. ok we'll let you go for now thank you very much for that coverage appreciate it ahmad reporting from katsina in nigeria where now we have seen pictures of the more than 300 school boys arriving could see in a state they were kidnapped just about a week ago or so germany's announced another record number of coronavirus infections just 2 days after imposing tighter restrictions there were more than

30000 cases in 24 hours that the high is. it's also counted more than $800.00 deaths pushing the toll to nearly $25000.00 and the government is hoping that vaccinations will begin after christmas for the 3rd day in a row south korea has announced more than a 1000 new infections most of them are in seoul and its surrounding regions the government says it's trying to make sure there are enough hospital beds a panel of experts advising the u.s. food and drug administration has recommended the emergency use of a 2nd coronavirus vaccine the committee endorsed moderna one week after backing the pfizer bio and vaccine that's being administered across the u.s. our white house correspondent kelly how get reports from washington d.c. . it looks like we have a favorable vote the macdermid vaccine on track for emergency use authorize ation following the f.d.a. advisory panels overwhelming indorsement in

a 20 to 0 vote the advisers agree the benefits of a dearness vaccine are greater than its risks the. great. in. here that we need once emergency use is granted and the centers for disease control signs off more than 50000000 doses for health care workers and care home residents will be distributed to churches vaccine follows last week's pfizer approval it comes as covert infections and deaths continue to spike due to the november thanksgiving holiday there are fears those numbers will climb further with the christmas and new year holidays just days away. millions of americans still fear the vaccines were developed too quickly and are unsafe that's why u.s. vice president mike pence and his wife will get vaccinated on camera on friday to

boost public confidence. the challenge to contain the virus will be daunting for america's next president joe biden it's hard to stay or go take back our democracy but as he prepares to take on this challenge other headlines linger we have great confidence on our side biden and his wife dr jill biden appeared on the late show with stephen colbert to defend their son hunter he confirmed 2 last week prosecutors are investigating his tax affairs but the president elect says he's not worried i'm not concerned about any accusation has been made against him it's used to get to me i think it's kind of foul play but look it is what it is he's a grown man the accusation his son profited from his time as vice president is a headline joe biden can't seem to shake as he prepares to take the oval office and

confront the global pandemic kimberley health kit al-jazeera washington. in the united states it's set to have its 1st native american cabinet secretary president elect joe biden has nominated hollande to be interior secretary it would put hollande in charge of a powerful department that's real good 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 in 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 just still ongoing is suspected to be linked to russia it was uncovered last week but investigators believe it's been going on for months. a supercycle fiji killing at least 2 people one of them a 3 month old baby the category 5 storm struck the pacific island nation on

thursday night causing widespread destruction when he reports from auckland new zealand. this is just the beginning of the south pacific storm season and cycle and yes it was a destructive starts the category 5 storm came ashore with winds gusts of up to 345 kilometers an hour houses and other buildings were destroyed and crops flattened and we will continue to assess the scale of damage in the coming days but we're looking at hundreds of millions of dollars in damages still it could have been much worse as a change of direction meant the capital suva avoided a direct hit as it was more than 93000 people were in the storm's path and more than 23000 went to evacuation centers fijian used to cycle but they're happening more often and becoming more dangerous and the prime minister blames climate change the world is getting warmer these storms i did struggle. everyone of us.

is going to. deadbeats to dismiss. this storm season could be particularly painful for fijian whose economy which is reliant on foreign tourists has been badly affected by the corona virus pandemic wayne hay al jazeera oatlands well to check on the weather up thanks them that argentinians expressed frustration about an economy suffering from the financial effects of the pandemic and a backhanded apology from the u.s. company blamed for a fuelling the deadly opioid crisis. however we've got more very heavy rain in the forecast for the philippines lots of clouds showing up here we may well have a developing tropical storm just pushing in as well actually you can see this

circulation just easing its way out into the south china seas legacy of showers coming into the more than half of the philippines to lose on turning particularly wet as we go on through sas stan that wetter weather will just not just way over towards vietnam as we go through sunday but more heavy rain into lose on stays more showers there across malaysia some heavy showers too into a good part of in the nation is down into australia where we'll see some nasty weather as we go on through the next hour say that western side of the top 10 have a developing system here and that may well become a tropical low as we go through the coming days you see that circulation just brewing up for saturday so some big rain coming through his sinking a little further south with as we go on through sunday showers there into southern parts of w.a. pushing across south australia still looking pretty wet over its was that eastern side of the country with some showers into the northeast of new south wales a little further east where we have got

a tropical cyclone yasi now moving away from fiji in the process of weakening but a legacy of showers following on behind. the covies 19 pandemic is threatening one of singapore's most beloved tradition it's famous straight story the bad days when i went east investigate it focused to innovate to survive on al-jazeera. if you want to help save the world. here's a. sneeze into your own. other

than the top stories on al-jazeera this hour more than 300 school boys kidnapped last week in northwestern nigeria have arrived in pits in the city where they'll be reunited with their families 1st be checked over by doctors the boys were taken a week ago by government thought to be linked to boko. germany has hit a record number of current virus infections just 2 days after imposing tighter restrictions it had more than $30000.00 cases in 24 hours for the 1st time since the start of the outbreak and more than 800. united states asserts in its 1st native american cabinet secretary president elect joe biden has nominated hollande to be interior secretary it will put hollande in charge of a powerful department that's real good influence over native american affairs for generations. the interim prime minister narendra modi is broadcasting in addressing

. addressing farmers who are angered by new agricultural laws so weeks of negotiations have failed to reach a compromise farmers have been intensifying their protests blocking highways and camping on the outskirts of new delhi they say the changes will leave them vulnerable to big corporations the government argues that deregulation is badly needed let's get more from elizabeth piron and she's joining us from new delhi so the prime minister still addressing farmers right now elizabeth what has he been saying. so promised in that in that i'm already said that everybody has been demanding reforms in the agricultural sector for decades that previous governments who are now in opposition opposition parties have been trying to pass these very haven't been able to he said that they have now stopping the protests that they jealous of him because he was able to pass. which they

weren't and he asked opposition parties to stop misleading farmers now that's not going to go down well with farmers all farmers don't want to be seen as being used by any political parties we've been covering these protests for the last 3 weeks and they are very much a grass grassroots movement and the protests a very much people led and it looks like they're only set to continue we have tens of thousands of farmers if not more continuing to block 3 major highways into the indian capital region in protest against these farm boards they even had good news this week from the supreme court which was here in petitions asking for the immediate removal from these highways and the supreme court said farmers have a right to protest that they're just not allowed to damage the lives of damage public property and also asked the solicitor general to form a committee with farm union leaders and government representatives to try and end

this 3 weeks now standoff because the government hasn't been able to get farmers aren't open to that because they had many rounds of talks with the government they have rejected the government's proposed amendments and they say that nothing short of a repeal of these laws will do because they said that those were created without any consultation with farmers that they were pushed through parliament and inherently in favor of large corporations so we're very much expecting these protests to just continue so it sounds like things will just remain at a standstill then elizabeth what do the farmers then a want to hear from the prime minister. so pharma say that they are not going to settle for anything less than a complete repeal of the 3 laws which were passed by the government in september like i said they've had a number of talks with government leaders and they've even had the government

proposed 7 amendments to these laws but pharma say that the amendments don't address the main concerns of the laws and one of the biggest one is that farmers have had a minimum price for they produce for decades now and they fear that these laws will see the end of those minimum prices india's agriculture sector has been and crisis for decades for a number of reasons including the debt that many indian farmers and they fear that these laws will drive them further into debt and so that is why they want assurances of a minimum prize assurances that they're saying the government isn't giving them and that's why they're saying they're not going to stop protesting until they hear the prime minister and the government saying that these laws are going to be repealed and another bit of good news for indian farmers from the supreme court this week was a supreme court suggested it was a suggestion that the government should not in fact carry through with these

farmers all right elizabeth thank you very much thank you for that update from new delhi. well it's been 5 years since the u.n. security council adopted a resolution meant to pave the way for a political solution in syria european diplomats believe the assad government a stalling on purpose hoping for a change in the u.s. syria policy our diplomatic editor james bays reports. 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 stana and such it didn't lead to peace areas declared safe zones were retaken by a sad helped by russian bombardment break 2 u.n. envoy is continue 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 to rank the committee's work to time as it prepares to carry out his sham presidential election in 2021 and washingtonians of the year in the summer take the 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 judge russia's diplomacy over this period as 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. latin american economies have been suffering through their worst drop in growth for more than a century the finances of countries like argentina were already in bad shape in the pandemic head trauma reports from one osiris. 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 in which dusty for 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 forecast. those statistics still translate into tens of

thousands of businesses closing growing unemployment poverty and homelessness. but it is bad in latin america it's even worse in argentina the economy here shrinking by 10 percent in the 3rd quarter of 2020 workers and social organizations have already taken to the streets on thursday alone recovered to demonstrations within walking distance of the al-jazeera office. what we'd like is health to be a priority especially in this pandemic year and this in a country where 50 percent of children are poor and need public hospitals that would be an increase to make the health system work. along with the peso hitting an all time low against the us dollar it's inflation that bites into workers' wages and c.n.n. has one of the worst rates in the walls more than 30 percent this year forecast to be even higher next year you know maybe more you know in the past 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 than this took office just weeks before the pandemic arrived he said from the start to put the nation's health before the economy with the russian sputnik 5 vaccine due to arrive next week the economy hasn't gone away. protests like this noisy and colorful ermac in the feature of everyday life and i didn't say it up with the cover of night sleep on the continent but it's a fairly odd fairly lucky to make 3 in fly out into the thing. 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 as a 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 an. al-jazeera one of cyrus they've long shunned public attention but on thursday members of one of america's richest families were thrust into the spotlight kathy and david sackler request turned over their role in the opioid crisis heidegger cassar reports i'm not sure that i'm aware of any family in america. it's more evil in your words 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 find that i would have done

differently based on what i believed them understood then. i believe i conducted myself. after qually 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 in america 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 lifelong 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 drugs potential for abuse that in the eyes of the victims' families make the sackless drug dealers they say who got away with murder. castro al-jazeera washington russia has had its ban from major sporting events reduced to 2 years after an appeal hearing the world anti-doping

agency wada gave them a 4 year penalty last year it believes data handed over by russia during a doping investigation was tampered with and even with the punishment being hogged russia still won't be officially represented at next year's tokyo olympics or qatar is 2022 football world cup. hello again the headlines on al-jazeera more than 300 school boys kidnapped last week in northwestern nigeria have arrived and could see in a city where they'll be reunited with their families they'll 1st be checked over by doctors the boys were taken a week ago by gunmen thought to be linked to boko hot who raided a school 03 says in katsina. these boys all of them walked in bear fruit some of them limping you can see they are virtually exhausted and trauma.