people who see every t. as something to invest the profit of the 1 dollar up to the last drop on al-jazeera play an important role checking it with. ringback me i'm a security forces crackdown on anti coup protest as in mandalay at least 2 people are killed by live fire. for get this is our 0 alive from though also coming out u.s. president joe biden declares a major disaster in storm hit texas as people there continue to struggle without water or electricity or. soldiers of fortune a u.n.

report reveals how donald trump's ally erik prince broken arms embargo in libya in support of the wall khalifa haftar. and the taliban closes in on afghanistan 2nd largest city kandahar putting the peace process and tens of thousands of lives at risk. we begin in myanmar had a serious escalation of violence against protesters security forces have killed 2 people in the 2nd largest city of mandalay the european union has condemned the violence and called a meeting to discuss a response tony chang reports. shots ring out as protesters in mandalay flee from the police and water cannon tear gas and sling shots also used to disperse the crowd casualties taken from the scene by ambulance

as the security services attempt to break strikes that are shut down shipyards on the or what the river in the capital naypyidaw marches commemorated the death of a 20 year old student shot in the head during a demonstration last week determination amongst those present that they would continue to march against the military coup despite the danger until a civilian government is restored i know there are possibilities of many more people dying and we ourselves can even know whether we will die or not but we need to fight until the end regardless of our lives in order to succeed and that is only after we get rid of this military dictatorship downtown young gone through the largest crowds despite a police cordon around the soon go to the crowds just move down the road chanting for the release of aung san suu kyi she remains under military detention and there's a campaign of civil disobedience starts to impact transport and banking systems across myanmar some feel they have nothing to lose 6 i was young people have

their dreams 29000 was a year of development and 2020 there was coronavirus and we were all thinking about the future but everything is gone now everything we were hoping for is going to be destroyed that's why more people are joining the protests than in the past in kitchen stays in the far north the tense standoff between protesters and police this is one of the areas where the military has struggled for years to suppress ethnic unrest but now there's news men most diverse ethnic groups have signed a nationwide ceasefire to unite in opposition to military rule tony chang al jazeera. u.s. president joe biden has declared a major disaster in texas or. a rare winter storm this week power is slowly returning but millions of people still don't have access to clean drinking water biden's declaration allows more federal money for immediate and long term recovery efforts a presidential visit to the safe is planned for the coming days john hendren has

been following developments from chicago. frigid texas is trading power problems for water woes this past week has been an enormous challenge maybe unlike any challenge that you've ever dealt with before has been far too burdensome for the lives of all those affected. we're working around the clock and we will continue to work around the clock to address to meet your needs and challenges after days of rare freezing temperatures blanketed the 2nd largest state in the u.s. power stations are all back on line that after unusually high demand led to rolling blackouts transmission lines taken down by ice still have left nearly 200000 without power but now texans face a new crisis 7000000 people a quarter of the state or being asked to boil their water if they have it at all

because the cold weather has left broken pipes and taken water treatment plants offline san antonio faces fire and ice as frozen fire hydrants forced firefighters to truckee and water flowing crews battling flames at an apartment complex haven't been able to get a workout we clowned. you know you think that we have in there it's got grocery store shelves are largely bare leaving residents lined up in their cars for food and water president joe biden says he's declaring the entire state the disaster zone and he hopes to visit the lone star state next week here in chicago where at the northern end of the weather system that struck texas about 1500 kilometers north of dallas but you cobblers used to weather like this it's water and power transmission systems are hardened for the routine cold weather that strikes every winter texas hasn't seen a storm system like this in 35 years and it's clear its system simply weren't up to

the task. there is hope sustained temperatures above freezing beginning saturday john hendren al-jazeera chicago one from mike hanna is in washington. well it means that there's a significant amount of federal resources that will be apportioned to that particular disaster and the president had signed a disaster declaration earlier in the week however this is declared a major disaster situation that means there's no financial cap on the amount of federal funding and resources that will be apportioned to the people in texas what it means essentially is that the federal government will provide things ranging from loans to rebuild businesses to help individual homeowners restore their property so it's a wide ranging situation but it has to be looked at in the wider context as well because president biden made as part of his campaign the slogan back he's been

talking about a 2 trillion dollar national infrastructure plan now this is something that he wants to put into effect this is something that he's already been talking to members of congress about. his vice president of industrial both in supplier company in arlington texas the provides critical parts for electrical poles he says the severe weather caught the state by surprise. i think overall the state of texas just doesn't have the regulations in place for the. insulation needed for this type of temperature and this type of weather again this is unprecedented weather we don't typically have this in texas and we don't have our plants and our wind turbines insulated to handle this obviously those things function well properly in northern united states and in canada and in cold climates

but it's just not something that's regulated in texas you know in addition to the energy we have a lot of transportation issues as well there's no shipping there's no receiving stores have run out of product to sell i mean there's no bread or meat or things in the grocery store it really feels like a 3rd world country and i think that the government will step in and then increase their regulations and increase burden is in the future. the afghan taliban is intensifying an offensive in the southern province of kandahar the group's now reached the outskirts of its main city putting tens of thousands of afghan lives at risk the u.s. is calling for an immediate end to the violence a resumption of talks between the taliban and afghan government trio contravariant reports now from kabul here in rural kandahar the war has barely stopped since it started nearly 20 years ago. but now it's coming closer to the main city

afghanistan 2nd largest after the capital kabul heavy fighting between government forces and the taliban is now only 8 kilometers away from kandahar city. was mines in 1st the roads while the taliban destroys others some politicians warn it security continues to deteriorate it could be a matter of time before the government loses control as i see the last movements of taliban where the are focusing a lot on come to her. as i know they are inviting their fighters from a different part of afghanistan to kandahar and it will be difficult after months for afghan government to continue war the main hospital is full of those who have been wounded with one coming after the other every day thousands are displaced from their homes because of the heavy fighting and look for refuge in flimsy tent cities

jungle wonder that such we lived our homes in a situation with some men just escaped from the fighting in the families the women and children left behind after the fighting stopped for a little while the men came back in risk you take kids and families all the belongings will live behind. according to government officials at least 20000 families have been displaced in kandahar province since november most of them are farmers they left their fields and cannot go back the situation is no better inside kandahar city people say there is no business because of the increasing violence and targeted killings to look a little like the be the central government supports the security forces i don't think that the tally burgle go forward in. kandahar is the birthplace of the taliban and it's politically significant for the group it's also a strategic province and a geo political gateway to kabul and the broader region a spokesman at the ministry of defense told al-jazeera that

a few months back the afghan security forces stopped a major taliban plot to attack kandahar he says that if the armed group is planning another similar offensive the afghan army is fully prepared to fight back a piece that for now seems to remain out over everyone's reach for your country for al-jazeera kabul michael semple is a professor of queen's university belfast who was also a deputy special representative to afghanistan he thinks that if the taliban continues fighting it will lose all the political gains that it's in the past year . i think the u.s. has put the ball in the taliban's court they've said that if if the violence were to stop or goad or go down we would be on our way out on the basis of a recent performance by the taliban i don't think anybody expects them to reduce the violence enough for troops to the in the next 2 months the taliban or rattling

their own sabers and saying that if the tallow if the u.s. does not withdraw in 2 months they intend to intensify a military campaign which they have sustained they say they will fight i don't think it would be the end of the agreement of course on force fighting people will die but there is a huge amount to all of pressure on all parties to this conflict to bring it to an end and i think that if they if it comes up be clear that only by resisting a cease fire insisting on sustaining their violence against the afghan government they the taleban have obliged the the u.s. to stay i think they'll find themselves isolated and i think they'll find themselves under pressure to farms to find some kind of a solution in other words the agreement of the agreement does not die but i can imagine that there might be a period in which there is no that there are no no negotiations and the taliban finds itself more and more isolated and they lose some of the political gains and

respectability that they've enjoyed over the past year. the weather next here on al-jazeera than the last june a warrior dies in the amazon marking the end of a people we hear how the pandemic is a celebration in the history of indigenous disappearance plus. i'm just the washington in deposit with severe flooding has forced hundreds from their homes. how i will after a recent spell of wintry weather drifting in across northern parts of the middle east think starting to quieten down still a fair amount of clashing up on the satellites and that cloud just drifting rain sleet and snow through iran into afghanistan some wintry weather coming into the high ground around 14 celsius for that line of sharri rayman she's getting pulled

apart now so if you spots of rain still there into saudi arabia chance of a shower or 2 into cottage but nothing too much to speak of further north to see a few wintry flurries around more than parts of iran once again they live and looking fine and dry over the next day or 2 by rachel around 17 s a little more like it see temperatures here cause out around 23 degrees as we go on through monday and south of that it should be fine and dry across the u.a.e. into amman into yemen the low want to choose showers just around the southern end of the red sea it's also want to see. the whole of africa doesn't last a fine and shreyas further south where we have some cause for concern we have a secular struggle tropical cycle making its way across southern parts of the most channel frankly pulling out into the open waters to things quieting down behind as we go through the next watch us with heavy rain angola.

frank assessments the well there's an update. brink of a catastrophic model failure is that a fair assessment you can be a catastrophic failure to twice valuable backseat informed opinions should we be buying bit coy ultimately it will be sovereigns and governments who are buying this that is the direction this is all headed in-depth analysis of the day's global headlines inside story on out 0. 0. 0. dollar again this is al jazeera that's roger of the made news this hour security

forces in the amman shot dead to protest as they were killed as anti crew protests continue across the country the e.u. is condemning the violence and is called a meeting to discuss its response. u.s. president joe biden has declared a major disaster in texas after a rare winter storm this week power is slowly returning to millions of people still don't have access to clean drinking. of the afghan taliban is intensifying an offensive in the southern province of kandahar group has now reached the outskirts of its main city putting tens of thousands of civilian lives at risk. russian opposition politician alexina mali has suffered 2 legal setbacks his 3 year prison sentence has been upheld but shortened by 6 weeks he was found guilty last month of violating parole while he was in germany recovering after being poisoned but in a separate case he's been found guilty of slander and fined. today's

verdict was expected for us we consider it unlawful nothing is changed all the arguments made in the court in the 1st instance they got rejected thin and they got rejected now the only thing is that the court didn't take into account a month and a half of house arrest they did that now that i was there has seen parts of a confidential u.n. report which finds donald trump's ally and private security contract to erik prince violated an arms embargo on libya the report to the security council reveals how prince sent foreign mercenaries and weapons to warlord khalifa haftar in 2019 when he was fighting against the internationally recognized government in tripoli kristen salumi reports from washington. erik prince is best known as the founder of blackwater security a private contractor whose employees were implicated in the killing of 17 iraqi civilians in 2007 he's also a prominent supporter of former president donald trump and brother to former

education secretary betsy divide us. but it's his role in a malicious assault on the internationally recognized government of libya in 2019 that's now a question al-jazeera has seen excerpts of a 121 page report submitted to the u.n. security council and 1st reported by the new york times alleging prince help supply a trove of weapons including attack helicopters to the military's commander khalifa haftar are in violation of a u.n. arms embargo on libya. it also alleges he deployed a force of foreign mercenaries to help attack was condemned by u.s. secretary of state mike pompei oh this won't be resolved through force of arms it's just a no way that's going to take place we there's a u.n. process we've been part of that and a half stars been part of that we urge them to have started stand down move back to

the negotiating table so that we can get a political resolution libya the day after pompei are made that statement president trump made a phone call to huffed are raising eyebrows in the ire of some members of congress an official readout of the call said that the president quote recognized field-marshal hafter significant role in fighting terrorism and securing libya's oil resources and the 2 discussed a shared vision for libya's transition to a stable democratic political system what many saw as a contradiction of official u.s. policy the u.n. report raises a question not only of whether or not a close associate of the president violated an international arms embargo but also of whether or not the president himself was complicit in defying a stated u.s. policy kristen salumi al-jazeera washington one hour from al-jazeera is meant to train a who's in the libyan city of misrata and says that ordinary libyans are hopeful

that the american administration will now be on their site. it isn't really clear how much of this specific operation was completed by blackwater but there have been reports that date back to 2017 which suggests that blackwater was coordinating with have to when he was cementing his power base in eastern libya the reports suggest that blackwater supplied unpiloted air tractor attack planes which bombed neighborhoods in eastern libya which helps solidify his power there before he began making his move towards the west in 2011 the u.s. played an integral part that support rebel forces to topple moammar gadhafi through nato through nato airstrikes later on the u.s. helped forces loyal to the government of national corps civically here in misrata

to fight against eisele when they took a foothold in the city of sirte so the u.s. has always been seen as a a beacon of hope and democracy and to help that helped libyans in their fight to a democratic state and they were they felt a bit betrayed and disappointed when president trump made that phone call with. now that president joe biden has been elected president that hope is sort of been reignited sort of been sparked believing that the u.s. may now once again come come and help libyans in their fight for democratic and civilian state so the feeling the feeling here among libyans is that one of hope that the the americans will come back and help libyans fight for their civilian state which they you know they they expressed that they won in 2011. thailand's prime minister the channel 9 members of his cabinet as of survived a no confidence vote they were accused of mismanaging the economy poor handling of

the pandemic human rights abuses and corruption it's the 2nd no confidence vote the private's government has faced since taking office in 2019 meanwhile pro-democracy groups rallied outside the type parliament that demanding the prime minister's resignation and reforms to the monarchy thousands of police officers are on high alert and demonstrations are part of the youth that movement that emerged last year authorities have recently been increasing the number of arrests for critics of the royal family a ferry loaded with passengers and vehicles. capsized in a port in indonesia's west come on town. local officials say they're still checking to make sure passengers have been rescued but the no reports the casualties high waves have been blamed for the accident. staying with a dream has been severe flooding in the capital jakarta and some parts homes were submerged by up to 2 metres suburbs to the east have been worst affected with city

officials say that all the falzon people were forced to seek shelter deserves just a washington is one of the worst affected areas in jakarta. she counter is the world's fastest sinking city every monsoon season is a reminder of the worsening crisis of large parts of the city once again submerged and you can't as east thousands of people were moved to safety as floodwaters reached up to 1.8 meters high in some areas. rescue is in police works together to help people escape. and she said that the water in my home is still chest high all my belongings got flooded i try to put them somewhere higher but then last night the water also went higher the indonesian capital is home to about $10000000.00 people and thousands are now without power many here are so accustomed to this recurring disaster that used to wait it out on balconies and roofs flooding is an

annual event here in jakarta heard something that this community east of carter is well accustomed to but this year many communities which have never experienced severe flooding before are doing so for the 1st time and scientists age a card is local governments must act faster to save this sinking city. in the relatively affluent area of command people told al-jazeera they have never experienced such severe flooding jakarta's governor on the spot weighed in and says local authorities are working swiftly to assist everyone to send home without a main in top priority is to make sure the people are safe we don't want to see any casualties and we've prepared evacuation centers for people who are affected by the torrential rain. but this crisis is about more than just rain experts have criticised the governor for failing to act and for blaming the rain when there are other factors contributing to the floods were the normalisation projects have been

delayed and scaled back despite experts saying they would help ease the annual flooding. and excessive groundwater extraction and the destruction of adequate green spaces in the city is sinking at an even faster rate. carter has an obligation to fix its drainage and complete. projects this is to increase the function and capacity of the rivers to contain the rainfall without causing floods. forced from their homes without their toys it's not the 1st time these children have played in floodwaters and it likely won't be the last as thousands of indonesians are forced to leave their homes and belongings once again many are asking what it would take for the authorities to act jessica washington al-jazeera jakarta russian scientists have confirmed the world's 1st case of transmission of a highly contagious strain of bird flu to humans 7 workers were infected jury an

outbreak of the h 5 n 8 bird flu strain on a poultry farm in southern russia in december but scientists believe that the virus is not transmitted from person to person the government has alerted the alerted the world health organization italian coast guard has launched a rescue operation after a boat carrying at least 50 refugees capsized off the coast of lampedusa emergency crews rushed to bring people to safety shortly after it happened near the island's southern coast dozens have been rescued so far but the coast guard says that 5 to 10 people are missing a helicopter has been deployed to help find survivors. new zealand has started its covert 19 vaccination campaign with front line workers at the front of the queue a small group of health workers were accurate on friday and auckland ahead of the wider rollout about 12000 border and quarantine staff will be vaccinated in the

coming weeks the government expects its nationwide rollout to take a full year. argentina's health minister has resigned after reports that his friend was able to skip the line for a covert 19 vaccine the government only has only just started to inoculate people over the age of 70 prioritizing health care workers before that. the last male member of the once thriving indigenous community of brazil's amazon has died of covert 19 it spells the end of the german people as a distinct ethnic group that has done elsewhere in the report stuff of water sollars it's just the latest of a long history of loss for indigenous peoples. the last shelter the last few the warriors. 86 year old are more in a row car has died from the cockpit 19 virus at a hospital in northwestern brazil his passing marks the end of a people the humor indigenous community which once numbered around 15000. is

survived by his 3 daughters but they've had to marry into another community because there were no male partners left in their own but are or. why are they for all of us for the indigenous people for those who fought to defend the rights of indigenous communities the loss of a whole people cannot be measured it's a huge loss for all the indigenous people of brazil. with several 1000000 indigenous inhabitants of what is now the brazilian amazon when the 1st european settlers arrived here more than 500 years ago the disappearance of the uma is just the latest tragedy in a catalogue of disease deforestation land theft the massacres the law for that no more here many indigenous people are dying in brazil many many because we have what we call a government genocide of ethno side and we hold them responsible for these deaths a report out this week says the covered $1000.00 pandemic has only made the

situation worse that many governments including brazil's a using the crisis is not unity to disregard social environmental safeguards to further erode the rights of indigenous people the extent of. courage means to enter into. ron very very large is going to turn each productive agricultural around. the report says many governments have criminal i think it's in this human rights defenders and facilitated the threat and use of violence against the i'm now program 19 even more so to the point were you did you through your reggie this is a case of crimes against humanity. and. some of the regional authorities in brazil have made efforts to reach and vaccinate people in remote difficult to access communities but critics say they've been hampered by

a government that has never taken the pandemic seriously and this is started that shows little regard for its original inhabitants. the less action is taken as you will not be the last indigenous community to disappear. or. to 0 what osiris. that is could tell you with us hello adrian from going to here in doha the headlines on al-jazeera security forces in myanmar have shot dead 2 protesters they were killed as empty protests continue to cross the country he was condemning the violence has called a meeting to discuss its response study chang reports from bangkok. for this protest in the central men mass city of mandalay. had been dispersed by the author.