al-jazeera. and. hundreds are arrested as protests across russia call for the release of jailed opposition leader alexei novell name. a live from doha also coming up brazil's neighbors restrict travel to the country over concerns about the spread of a new coronavirus variant. donald trump has reportedly parted ways with his key

defense lawyer 8 days before his impeachment trial begins. and go into the swedish film festival offering one lucky movie the chance to watch all 60 films on their own on a remote island. hundreds of protesters are being arrested in russia as they demonstrate in defiance of police order demanding the release of jailed opposition politician alexy and even live shots that you can see out of moscow police detaining schools of people this is the 2nd week of protests come despite warnings from the interior ministry which says these demonstrations are illegal and of only himself was arrested 2 weeks ago when he arrived from germany where he'd been recovering from a poisoning and he blames that on the kremlin and that's an attack that it let's go

straight now to alexandra gold watch she's in moscow now alexandra overseeing these protests is being pretty swiftly arrested there in moscow. these demonstrations a jew to start what is the situation as you can tell from where you are. well indeed almost to the moment people come out of the metro station they get arrested. we are now a kilometer away from the original point of gathering which was in front of the main headquarters of the russian federal security service so long that there are way this matter station behind me is open for people to come in and the protests or the gathering of the people barely kicked off when police showed up and started 1st of all pushing them from this area but also at the same time detaining them now the last numbers when it comes for russia such a whole russia more than 500 people but the death number is for sure bigger because

in the last 5 minutes we saw 10 to 15 people being carried off by the police to the paddy rennes it seems that it's under this crackdown on the protests is much stronger and strict in moscow than it has been in other parts of russia because all day of course russia spans 11 time zones all day been seeing crowds of people coming out into the cities across the country. yes indeed there was a much more police and there is much more police then last week also you know other towns and cities of russia but what we see here in moscow is really unprecedented 1st of all the whole center of the very center of moscow is completely sealed off this is the center of russian power and that's where the kremlin is the presidential administration parliament the headquarters of. there is

a restricted area for pedestrians the metro stations in the center are completely closed all the trains don't stop their buses are being rerouted so there are huge numbers of police there trying to prevent people not only to protest where they were originally planning to protest but apparently to protest on any other sport to this was the reserve spot that some half an hour ago was 3 internet announced as a new gathering point but people barely managed to start coming here when the police showed up in armored personnel vehicles and started to detain and arresting these sure that they are going to try to do their utmost to police and all possible measures to prevent a huge crowds gathering so this security response you say it's unprecedented to what extent of these demonstrations rattled putin rattled the kremlin. well in official responses the kremlin was saying that compared to the support to

putin the numbers we saw some 40000 the last day in moscow alone are not thing but if we take into account to what lengths they are ready to go to prevent something like that happening for sure speaks there today are these things are taken seriously into account they really don't want a lot of people protesting not only in support of demanding his release but most a lot of people are here to protest and the regime in russia and for sure if we look into the measures that they're really taking if we look into how many people got arrested on the different charges including violating. a disease control then we see that there there is one can say that there is certain fear in the higher echelons of power of russia. alexandra thank you for the moment we will leave you

there in moscow where police are swiftly. arresting any demonstrators who starting to come out onto the streets those demonstrations against the arrests of alexina valmy were due to start in moscow this hour. reacting swiftly and surely against anyone who looks like they are coming out onto the streets will be keeping a close eye on events in russia and coming back to alexandra. in the morning. now members of a world health organization team have visited the markets in the chinese city of new hand as they investigate the origins of the pandemic a live animal market distributed food to the entire city and is thought to be where the virus was 1st detected the team has visited 2 hospitals that were at the center of the outbreak i will also visit

a covert 19 museum dedicated to the early history of the pandemic before drafting a report. brazil's neighbors are imposing new restrictions on travel to and from latin america's largest country is concerned about a new coronavirus variant spreads across the region that seen rollouts for lives of facials warn there is still a long way to go before the end of the pandemic there are reports thank you rare piece of good news amongst the coronavirus misery bolivia's 1st like the nation a nurse in the country's hearted eastern city of santa cruz. i feel good very excited and also a bit nervous appositive she's in the front line doctors want to medic is dying every day the virus has killed 10000 bolivians the government has ordered 15000000 more doses of the russian spot nick and the oxford astra zeneca vaccines. but

we have a plan to combat the corona virus in the 2nd wave a plan to have stages such as tests test and more tests a plan that has a 2nd element to provision of vaccines that are becoming a reality for our health workers there's a similar story in colombia where the president announced the national vaccination program is to begin in 3 weeks only in 4 of my last column b. and i would like to inform colombians that at this moment acquisitions are completely closed in order to guarantee the vaccination for the target population that we set out in the national vaccination plan the new lockdown has been imposed in the capital or borders remain closed trapping these migrants mostly from haiti but also cuber in africa their ultimate destination is united states lab and this young request they have made is to be allowed entry into panama that is not possible because there is a presidential order to close the borders as a precautionary measure but in addition panama has all of its borders closed.

gailen has closed its long border with brazil barbados has announced a lockdown while canada has closed air traffic from the caribbean and mexico until april in mexico the president went before the cameras to say he's for covering from the virus and to announce the purchase of maxine's. i still have covert but the doctors told me to time have passed the critical phase i'm now presenting myself to you so that there are no rumors or misunderstandings i am well although i still have to rest he was speaking of mexico became the country in the world with the 3rd highest number of coronavirus deaths while the 155000 behind need the us to brazil a situation made worse by oxygen shortages in the capital despite that foreign tourists taking advantage of mexico's more relaxed travel restrictions continue to flock to the beaches the corona virus. some of us are family ready had it.

it's not that big a deal and the governments are making it worse than it actually is however for many elsewhere in latin america it can get much worse the vaccination programs provide hope but on the horizon it's still a long way off. when osiris. portugal says it's running out of intensive care beds as it struggles with the world's highest coronavirus death toll per capita health ministry data shows there are only 7 intensive care beds left on the mainland out of 850 some critically ill patients are being sent to portuguese islands including the dera portugal has also recorded the highest number of new cases per capita in the past week. south africa's tourism sector has been hit hard by restrictive lock down it's a vital industry for the economy particularly in cape town as across the city is struggling to stay open robin adams spoke to some of these business owners.

term has always been a dream destination for travellers around the list of must see interactions is endless. december and january a peak periods with tourism in the cape but visitor numbers are down by as much as 90 percent strict lock down begin lation to include night time curfews and a ban on alcohol also beaches are off limits to all of those snaps posted to social media nowadays include some interesting visit to the police law enforcement and the national army who put all the shoreline i economy have gone down prices have gone up and people are suffering at the moment they are having difficulty surviving lots of business is over adding to close down if they're not already closed down the dungan of family originally from bulgaria has been struggling to make ends meet i mean survived lockdown despite the reduced client numbers has been daniels to

a company which he started in 2007 as not it's always very hard i used to hear 1000 vehicles and now i have only one i don't have income from march of last year. just down in long street the heartbeat of guy turns into payment seem to offer and too late signs even he would. get out to the streets no one can no one can find a job takes 3 of us he. can get maybe one maybe 100 on an ordinary day it would be difficult to find a parking spot a chemist by beachfront but then cut down hasn't had one of those an ordinary day in nearly a year business is on the faint step of suffering on that side of the main job it would be lined with informal traders selling their way is mainly african but only a handful of them remain notorious even the base they're close they've been. just

maybe you can get different results for survival it's very difficult because of lockdown so what's the way forward how will we cover these are questions we put to the local government who look at the industry as all it's really important sic to focus on a contributes round about one comma $2000000000.00 u.s. dollars to the city's economy and it creates around about $300000.00 direct and indirect jobs so for us a priority is to make sure that we stabilize to do it as a landscape by making as much relief available to our to as a and hospitality industry and that could be for example the reclassification of your property if you've got a tourism business property back to a very substantial category and that could really reduce right spalls we've also implemented these are the missions for people printing or building from the going to support it so that we can just you know give people that financial relief at this point in time while many of cut their losses and closed up shop people like

daniel i mean. jack and the estimated 75000 of his was jobs like risk in the midst who have no choice but to live out the storm. gov adams al jazeera. so the heads have on al-jazeera losing patience find out why people in sudan are protesting and demanding economic change. unsurprisingly showers are widespread philippines malays unions an easier to is the rainy season particularly down south but the heaviest have been temporary disappeared or are they gone further east there folksy and west papua of some parts of borneo there are daily showers in sumatra likely to be in kuala lumpur and

singapore but nothing extraordinary because most of the action is size of the equator and either side of a straight you've got a trough colo circulating just south of broome that's rain and a tropical cycle and with winds approaching hurricane force as a went across the sea level now this is the ald to the east where we have footage and there's extensive flooding here but there's probably wind damage over the main opponent anyway forecast wise monday into tuesday because of open water it should avoid talking back to australia lots of rain in the west here there will be flooding it's a seasonal thing is just a bit enhanced this year terms as a combined diver senseful levels though disappointing i think for summer in for example melbourne the still plenty shout the victoria maybe a city and you south wales and that trough line moves out through sydney for a thunder day during choose to do you see it is looking pretty near longer heat wave or pretty fine weather.

at 16 cush who is living her dream of being a journalist but her father has his own dream for her to follow tradition and be married as her investigations bring a face to face with the ill fate of some of india's young women her father search for suitable husband continues can both their dreams come true almost one overcome the other. deadline and part of the viewfinder asia series on al-jazeera.

again you're watching al-jazeera his return to our top story this hour protests in the heart these are pictures from moscow just a few moments ago overwhelming as saying the news and arresting claim testers as soon as they came out onto the streets the protesters demanding the release of jailed on position politician alexy down the let's go straight to our correspondent alexandra gold for she is also in moscow and police are wasting no time in stopping these protests from getting under way there in moscow. yes yes indeed i mean people barely managed to start to gathering but when police rushes in and starts to taining one after the other the latest figure when it comes to the whole of russia are still some 520 people but that for sure is not to do number actual number of detained people because as i say it is happening very

swiftly now there were people that started gathering here this is a kilometer away from the originals point of gathering and police in no time started clearing this space and i don't know if you can hear this background noise but this is a police informing citizens that they should go away from here because of the coronavirus sundowning that they should keep their distance where mosques are so the police is trying not to present this as a protest gathering but i rather as a health hazard gathering of people that we know that there is another group of protesters that is trying further away also together and they are now blocked by the police so police is doing everything in their power not to allow the huge masses gathering to disperse them in couple of groups and then to detain. one by one do we know what the protesters plans i mean they must have expected this to some degree do you think they will keep trying to come out throughout the day.

yes indeed they will they are trying to reorganize themselves as they go because where they wanted together the very center of moscow completely sealed off no matter of stopping there are no buses buses are recruited from that area. there is huge numbers of the police and police is also reacting to these attempts of the opposition and of demonstrators to find different sports to gather and then their plan originally was to have a protest walk a debt plan is still apparently on but a house that will happen is quite to not clear because as i said police is doing their utmost not to allow this to happen in moscow for sure not to have that big gathering that we had last saturday yes i was going to say is very different scenes to last us there when we did see thousands of people managed to

get out onto the streets. yes there was but if this was a it was a different sport police was not that prepared let's say as they are this weekend so when a huge mass of people are mounted and they were also in the science streets they managed to break through the police cordon and then to have a protest this resulted of course in or were 1500 arrests last saturday and then after that also people got detained and arrested. because of violating the . disease control rules for gathering for what is called illegal rally since he doesn't have a permit of police so that was what happened saturday sunday today it's a different situation because of the masses of the police of how they closed off

the very center and all the streets leading to it and now the opposition has to reorganize themselves basically as they go and they're trying to inform their supporters a different a social platforms but that is also questionable how long that can last because there is always a moment there is always a possibility that the internet will be simply shut down and certainly keeping an eye on scenes there in moscow we will be doing so alexandra thanks very much for this up days. former u.s. president donald trump has parted ways with his lead impeachments lawyers little more than a week before his trial that's according to u.s. media sentences i've already been sworn in those jurors trump is accused of inciting the siege at the capitol building earlier this month his aides say they plan to argue the trial is unconstitutional because he is no longer in office early

indications so limited republican support for conviction fly wilcox of the professor of government to georgetown university in cattle he says trump chances of acquittal a high enough that he doesn't need a strong defense. what i'm hearing is that trump wants to make the case at the impeachment trial that the election was stolen and has 2 problems with that 1st of all it clearly was not stolen that's been adjudicated dozens of times and there's never any evidence for it but secondly the argument is problematic because it seems to imply well what i did was justified because of the stolen election and that's simply not the right kind of defense in a trial like this he's obviously done this but he doesn't need a very strong case because it takes 2 thirds of the senate to convict 2 thirds of the senate who are present so as long as he doesn't really screw it up he's going to be acquitted his best defense is the argument he's been making the last week

that he might go start a patriot party that threat is enough to keep many of the republican senators in line however he's also threatening to show up himself to defend himself that would be quite a circus but i think it would also be it's what what happened here was really really bad and so if you don't hold a trial it sort of implies that it wasn't serious enough to actually go forward with the trial on the other hand if you put it a 2nd time then that doesn't really help either the republicans don't want to go on record with the vote but some of them said let's not have a trial right when faced with the actual evidence with a video of the invasion actually go to convict israel's army has killed a palestinian here it says attempted to attack zones as the occupied west bank security camera footage shows a man pulling an object from his pocket and running toward someone says and abbas

stop he was then shot stabbed the army says he had 3 knife connected to a stake it happened an area south of bethlehem which has 2008 a phantom menace and outposts. so don's the terrorising economy has sparked protests in its capital and all the states the crisis has already led to the overthrow of one government in 2019 but after nearly 18 months under a new administration there's no sign of relief. reports from costs. this has become a way of expressing anger at the economic conditions in sudan's capital heartsome protesters blocked the city's main roads to pressure the government to improve living conditions the presence of basic commodities like bread fuel and electricity have gone up in recent months. there's no economy there's no fuel no bread no cooking gas the country's in crisis things were bad before but now they are much worse in other parts of the capital and the country the anger at the economy has

been more vocal sudan's transitional government has been facing an economic turmoil since coming to power in. its blamed it on 20 years of u.s. sanctions that were lifted in $10.00 to $17.00 and the policies of the previous government under vent president obama. he was overthrown by his military after weeks of anti-government protests that were also sparked by hikes in prices of basic commodities the current administration has promised to improve the economy but after 18 months protesters say the situation has not improved much. things are still the same there is no change when bashir was in power the dollar was worth 50 now it's $300.00 we don't know what to do anymore we used to protest for justice and accountability now they've distracted us from that with demands for bread fuel and cooking gas. the government says the scarcity of commodities and the rise in market prices are caused by shortages of hard currency because of limited

international trade and exports while the official rate is $55.00 sudanese pounds to the us dollar most of it comes from outside the official system or the parallel market the difference between the 2 has been climbing steeply the government has helped to donor conferences with the aim of improving the economy it's also negotiated with the us government to be taken off its list of states sponsoring terrorism and open its markets for international trade and investment in exchange sudan had to agree to recognize israel one of the few arab countries to do so last year but the economic problems run deeper so than owes more than $60000000000.00 to the world bank which has made it difficult for it to get more loans to ease its economic crisis and says the government subsidizes medicine and. it needs hard currency so the demand for cash with the parallel market being the only option has brought down the value of its local currency increasing the rate of inflation and frustration for many here the administration says it's found solutions to some of

these challenges. the report we have is that there is no skews to the reliance for fuel medicine and brewed to get daily updates to know what's the root cause for scarcity no one in the government is blowing to what the people suffer we've spoken to the banks responsible for importing goods and they will increase the amount of fuel tank is imported as well as wheat and medicine to ease the situation back on the streets those barricading the main roads say they hope the government listens to them and understand that even if the commodities are available it won't mean much because they simply can't afford to buy them people morgan al-jazeera. thousands of displaced people in syria's province have been left homeless by flooding rain storms that began almost 2 weeks ago an already critical humanitarian crisis the northwestern region is the last rebel stronghold where fighting is cause widespread displacement aid groups say they don't have adequate access to help people affected by the floods. kevin 19 has forced the perspiring mental

cancellation of many film festivals around the world as some are insisting the show will go on a film festival in sweden held one contest to give one person the chance to see all 60 films on their own from a remote location pull race reports from the island where the winner is about to embark on a movie marathon. the show is struggling on at film festivals around the world still with plenty of films it's the festival part that's somewhat lacking. here at the gotham bank film festival they've managed to avoid going totally online while giving the pandemic itself a starring role. the festival has chosen one person out of 12000 applicants to spend a week on the island of how the where alone in the cab to get straight between the north sea and the baltic with nothing but films to keep them company it's a different experience to watch the films under those circumstances when you're all by yourself in your home feels different to what the scene where for example there

is a big party going on or where people are very touchy with charter and we want to take it further and take it to extreme the winning applicant is emergency nurse lisa who's been on the front lines of sweden's battle with covert 19 i'm looking forward just to be able to reflect a bit about what happened this year and not be anxious of infecting other people i've been meeting a lot of covert patients so idea of not infecting people is really appealing. and ross will be able to watch these 60 festival premiers in headquarters on the island or in a screening room in how to whereas lighthouse have video diary will go online during his stay. before because of the festival is social distancing and how the panda because change the world and our relationship with film a week on this island of watching movies is an attempt to at least us break the surface of the sense of isolation felt by millions during the lockdowns of the past

year cinemas journey away from theaters and into the home began a long time ago going to the movies in the company of strangers make it more appealing again once the pandemic finally ends. al jazeera come there where sweden . this is. our top stories more than 500 protesters have been arrested across russia as they demonstrate and of files of police order this is the scene right now in moscow demonstrators are trying to demand the release of jailed opposition politician alexy novell named. alexander god. she describes the swift police crackdown almost to the moment people come out of the matter on station they get.