2 people dead in mandalay as me and my security forces used live fire to break up protests against the military which have now been going for 2 weeks. hello i'm maryam namazie and london you're watching al-jazeera also coming up on the program a russian opposition leader alexina loses an appeal against his jail sentence and

is fined for slander in a world war 2 veteran. a major disaster is a cloud in texas after winter storms cause days of blackouts followed by bust pipes and no clean drinking water. and heavy monsoon rains leave large areas are underwater in jakarta the world's fastest sinking city. welcome to the program man maurice seen a dramatic escalation of violence against protesters demanding an end to military rule 2 weeks off to street demonstrations 1st began following the coup the security forces have now killed 2 people and the 2nd largest city of mandalay they fired live ammunition into the crowds as well as take ass water cannon and rubber bullets elsewhere thousands of people were out on the streets of yangon calling for the release of unsung suchi and of a civilian leaders france has just joined the european union in condemning the

bloodshed a few foreign ministers are due to discuss how to respond to events in myanmar as a meeting on monday al-jazeera tony chang has our report now from neighboring thailand. shots ring out as protesters in mandalay flee from the police and water cannon to 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 have shut down shipyards on the or was the river in the capital marches commemorated the death of a 20 year olds. student shot in the head during a demonstration last week determination amongst those present they will continue to march against the military coup despite the danger until a civilian government is restored no no 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 remains on the military detention there is a campaign of civil disobedience starts to impact transport and banking systems across myanmar some feel they have nothing to lose 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 to use to suppress ethnic unrest but now there's news man must diversity groups have signed

a nationwide cease fire to unite in opposition to military rule tony chang al jazeera. i spoke to tom andrews a former u.s. congressman who's the un special rapporteur on human rights and i asked whether he thought the military could become even more fertile and their response to these protests. this military is capable of just about anything we've seen them massacre protesters in the past in street street they've killed monks in saffron robes protesting and of course we've seen what they're capable of doing to with the ethnic minorities including the ethnic minority so this is a very dangerous situation and i think the nightmare is made even more frightening by the fact that they are now deploying these army troops these these deployments sort of in this case the 33rd light infantry division this was the very division

that is accused of and was actually involved we know in massacres against the ruling ethnic minority tremendous atrocities so now these hardened soldiers are being deployed from the coastal areas and from the the areas like rakhine state in the north into these urban areas and to confront these these protestors who are peaceful protesters there's no question about that. russian opposition to alexina valley has suffered a double eagle the comment lost an appeal against his jail sentence for breaching his probation while recovering in jamming from a poisoning he was also fined for defaming a wild war 2 veteran or a challenge as mine. alexei novelli knows this drill well he's been in the defendant's cage of a russian courtroom so many times before he knows judges almost never overturn

a conviction you know the chances of that are even smaller for the kremlin's most high profile critic. so novelli listen to the expected rejection of his appeal and gave a customarily sarcastic reply they reduced my sentence by 1.5 months great he said is the verdict clear ask the judge. yes yes thank you part of the bounty taking off time already spent under house arrest of ali sentences now 2 years and 8 months he gave a final statement captured only on audiotape criticizing the or thora tease. me. they say what's this we can fiddle with the system in any way we want so how can you stand against as i'm not the only one who sees it but the ordinary people who watch this can see it too they have bad feelings about it because they can imagine what happens if they make this justice system outside his lawyer echoed in

a valley cynical view of the country's courts. today's verdict was expected for us we consider it unlawful nothing has changed all the arguments were made in the court the 1st time they got rejected then they got rejected now alexina valley returned to russia last month and was immediately detained he'd been recovering in germany since being poisoned on a trip to siberia last august it was an attack which nearly killed him he says russia's f.s.b. security service was responsible and the e.u. has sanctioned several members of president putin's inner circle. prosecutors say by being out of the country so long if romy violated the terms of an earlier suspended sentence. we risk you use the use of after being released from the clinic on september 23rd 2020 during 2 months till november 2020 alexina valmy has not notified the probation department about his place of stay he has not turned up to

the registration either past the court was still not done with no valmy after his appeal rejection there was another conviction and 11 and a half $1000.00 fine for supposedly different human the world war 2 veteran and one of the rallies online videos all this legal attention for him on the kremlin professes complete disinterest in a man whose political future they insist is not. really telling us how to 0 in all the developments from moscow police have reportedly arrested 8 people who are trying to lay flowers at the bridge where former person critic was killed almost 6 years ago they were detained a day after a memorial at the site was taken down themself was shot dead on the bridge close to the kremlin by 5 chechen gunmen who were later convicted the identity of the person who hired them is not officially known. now u.s. president joe biden has declared a proof declared a major disaster for the state of texas power is slowly returning in

a state that millions of people don't have access to clean drinking water after a rat went to storm this week declaration opens up a broader federal funding for immediate and long term recovery efforts by might visit the state in the coming days where at least 47 people have died. well algiers kristen's louis is live for us now from washington to tell us what this federal disaster declaration enables people to do. well it allows more federal funding to flow to the state of texas earlier in the week president joe biden declared a state of emergency for texas and some other states in the south that were bearing the brunt of this winter storm and that allowed the federal emergency management agency to bring in food water power generators and so on this disaster declaration allows more aid in terms of grants to individuals and businesses it

allows them to make repairs with those grants or get temporary housing and shelter . it also allows for low cost loans for property damage is that wouldn't be covered by insurance and all of that in addition to all of that the president is looking for other resources he says to try to help the people of texas this is such a huge event for the state he's looking to the department of defense and department of urban development to see what all other resources could be brought to bear on this of course all of this none of this really gets to the underlying conditions that lead to the power grid going down that lead to the blackouts and that's the fact that the infrastructure there just isn't prepared for cold weather like this. right it's in desperate need of. investment so what is the state then planning to

do to try and tackle these underlying issues. so what's interesting about texas is that the power system there is completely independent of the national grid it's a state run system it's overseen by the electric reliability council things weren't so reliable this time around they have no mandate no requirement to winterize their systems governor abbott wants to change that he's calling for more regulations we can also expect congress and the state legislature in texas to hold hearings to look at what went wrong here and way and given that now some 70 people have died due to the weather there that's a pretty high number you expect some deaths perhaps from car accidents and things like that but a dozen people at least have died of hypothermia just because they didn't have

enough heat so there's a lot of questions being asked about what went wrong there are also issues with supplies being given out in that situation food and water being delivered and at this stage more than 14000000 people still have problems with their water all right thanks very much christian salumi in washington now a large pieces of plane debris have rained down over several suburbs in the u.s. state of colorado local media of treated pitches of the metal parts in the front yard of homes and parks in the city of denver the plane was bound for honolulu before it made an emergency landing at denver's apples after experiencing engine trouble there are no immediate reports of injuries but some houses have been damaged the f.a.a. said it and the national transport safety board will obviously investigate the incident. with al jazeera live from london still ahead on the program having fi same cannot pushes afghanistan to the brink despite months of talks between the

government and the taliban. permanent now argentina loses its health minister a coronavirus vaccination scandal. or whether the slouchy fought a dry crust southeastern parts of australia that we've had some bad and a bad a cloud and right just easing 3 victoria into new south wales still looking a little just just just off the coast of new south wales has some west of weather there into sydney up towards on diet towards the gold coast the dry there for brisbane really wet weather is further north into northern areas of queensland's possibility some localized flooding whether they're around the cape york peninsula right across into the top and those showers should become

a little lighter as we go on through monday but they are still there nevertheless meanwhile the shower was tending to retreat away from new south wales are there still a chance of wanted to show was there in sydney temperatures at around 20 celsius a cool 21 left for melbourne with the wind still coming in from the south westerly direction on the other side of the rain bad into new zealand it's lost a fight in troy we'll see temperatures taken up to 26 and crushed doing very nicely had a very nice city into japan over the next couple of days some won't here is well we'll see temperatures going to 21 celsius in tokyo that will be stretching across the korean peninsula to northern parts of china quite as warm here as you go on through monday but it will be warm a still photo with a high of 20. to tack. sim india. leave many scars most of which cannot be seen.

they also create a bond. born of her seared ordeal and stronger than the many obstacles their survivors will now face. black roses and red dresses parts of the viewfinder asia series on al-jazeera. the in. the. back look at main stories this hour security forces in myanmar of shot dead 2 protesters they were killed in the city of mandalay as anti coup demonstrations continue across the country in terms of international reaction the e.u. and france have condemned. russian opposition leader alexina valley has lost an

appeal against his jail sentence the kremlin critic lost the appeal for breaching his probation while recovering in germany from poisoning he was also fined for defaming a world war 2 veteran. and the us president joe biden has approved a major disaster declaration for the state of texas some 5 days after it was hit by rest no storms hundreds of thousands of people there are still without power and millions now have no clean drinking water. well large areas of the indonesian capital jakarta are under water after heavy overnight rain suburbs to the east have suffered the greatest damage with more than $1300.00 people evacuated to shelters even neighborhoods that don't usually experience flooding of been affected jessica washings reports now from one of the worst hit areas. you can hear 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 work together to help people escape. and see 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 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 colorado 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 swayed and says local authorities are working swiftly to assist everyone but she said it was a main and 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 were affected by the torrential rain. but this crisis is about more than just a 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 ground water 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 completely for globalization project 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 flood waters 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 out to sea or jakarta. will more news from indonesia where a ferry loaded with passengers and vehicles is capsized in the west imports of pontianak. have been no reports of any casualties but port officials said they were checking to make sure all the passengers have been rescued high waves are being blamed for the accident. the prime minister of thailand proud of channel 9 members of his cabinet have survived

a confidence vote they were accused of mismanaging the economy for handling of the covert 1000 pandemic human rights abuses and corruption this is the 2nd confidence vote the previous government has faced since taking office in 2019 type pro-democracy groups have been rallying outside the parliament demanding his resignation and reforms to the monarchy. when argentina's new health minister caught of his salty has been sworn into office she is taking over from him as gonzalez garci who resigned following reports that at least 10 people skip to the queue for covert vaccines among them was a journalist who said he'd been vaccinated after speaking directly with the minister the country's only just started inoculating people over the age of 70 earlier this month per his health and foreign ministers also resigned after it emerged that hundreds of officials had been vaccinated before health workers so donna sharma isn't one desires and joins us now a political scandals a nothing new in latin america but what's been the reaction in argentina and peru.

well i think right across the. indignation outrage incredulity as you say there are have been many scandals here before but this really is literally a matter of life and death so while you had politicians in both peru in argentina urging people to be patient urging people to take measures to try to help fight the corporate 19 pandemic you see they've been seeing their own politicians and other wealthy privileged people jumping the queue getting the vaccine before anybody else in the case of peru a former former president ministers were being given the vaccine even before the vaccination program had been rolled out in the country they were taking part in clinical trials of one of the chinese vaccines that came to light 487 people that we know of those vaccines ahead of time still being investigated here in argentina

i think it was the casual way in which the journalist you mentioned. was being interviewed on national radio and just casually slipped into the conversation that it called his old friend. gonzales garcia the health minister and he managed to get him a vaccine and we've had other senior people here a senator congressman the head of the truck driver's union here who also had his whole family vaccinated so i think it is that is that aloofness the arrogance of this some of these politicians and business people which is really upset populations in both countries where we've seen the figures of people dying from corporate 19 very very high 45000 people in peru 51000 people here in argentina really yes it's a huge scandal perhaps bigger and more deeply felt than the previous political scandals we've had in both countries yeah it's one of the worst hit regions in the world isn't it staggering figures there from both countries so what are the

governments in peru than argentina then doing to we build public trust in their 1000 campaigns. it is a real challenge i mean the minister we've just seen sworn in the sortie she was the vice minister you saw a very dour faced president alberto from and is a really very keen to distance himself from the scandal and just get as many vaccinations in as possible in a country of 45000000 they had the 1st vaccines arrived the russian sputnik in december and it's great fanfare but still only 250000 or so people have been vaccinated as you mentioned some of the elderly in one osiris province being vaccinated that program started in the last couple of days peruvian acceleration program has only just started we've had medical staff doctors and nurses dying from the virus the survivors protesting about the conditions they've had to work in severe oxygen shortages and peru is that it's 6 ice repeat that it's 6 for health

minister since this crisis began 11 months ago in peru so they try to instill public confidence in both governments is a real challenge but again both presidents francisco the gusty improve and alberto for and is here with a big task on their hands i think is the vaccinations getting them getting them into the country and then getting them out to the people as fast as they can and as affectively as they can will help to instill confidence in their programs all right thank you from one is ours daniel sharma thanks daniel now health workers in bolivia have gone on strike they say the action will not affect covert patients they're demanding the government repeal a new health emergency law which bans strikes during the pandemic and allows foreign staff to be hired livia's health union is saying the law is unconstitutional and restricts the right to protest. so news from afghanistan where 5 people have been killed in 3 explosions in the capital kabul police say

improvised explosive devices were used no one is claimed to be behind the attacks but at least 70 people have lost their lives in similar incidents in the past month targeting high profile figures like politicians judges and journalists and then more violence as well across the country despite a month long peace process between the government and taliban leaders with intense fighting in the southern kandahar province now which in the outskirts of its main city but seeing tens of thousands of lives at risk the neo-cons are furry has more 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. of.

mines in 1st the roads while the taliban destroys others some politicians warn if security continues to deteriorate it could be a matter of time before the government loses control or 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 before afghan go into to continue war the main hospital is full of those who've 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 that jungle when you get there are such we lived our homes in a situation with some men just escaped from the fighting in the families the women and children who lived behind after the fighting stopped for

a little while the men came back in risk youth the 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 who left their field 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 cheerlead look at the let it be used 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 as spokesman of the ministry of defense told all jazeera but a few months back the afghan security forces stopped a major taliban plot to attack khandahar 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 . kabul well to developments in iraq now where several web security officials are saying that several rockets have hit a military air base injuring at least one iraqi contractor no claims of responsibility for the attack on a base in balad north of the iraqi capital baghdad but hours earlier iraqi security forces raided an icicle hideout in the plains of time near reportedly killing 5 fighters and 2 iraqi soldiers. now the head of the united nations nuclear watchdog has arrived in iran on the eve of a deadline to iran set for u.s. sanctions to be lifted rafał grossi will meet iranian officials to ensure the agency can continue nuclear inspections under the 2015 nuclear agreement in december iran's parliament approved

a bill that would suspend some inspections if the u.s. has not lifted sanctions re-imposed by former president donald trump the bill is due to come into effect on choose day on friday president joe biden what he called careful diplomacy with iran now to spain where protesters have clashed with police in a 5th night of demonstrations against the jailing of the republic high so earlier this week protestors and rights groups say hazels 9 month sentence highlights the suppression of free speech in the country the rapper is in prison on charges of glorifying terrorism and insulting the monarchy in his tweets and song lyrics and he said again used tear gas to disperse the protesters who used at stores and smashed windows on tuesday a woman in barcelona lost an eye after being hit by a rubber bullet fired by police at least 60 people have now been arrested in the city of the past 5 days. now getting hopelessly lost in the freezing cold might not be many people's idea of fun but it hasn't stopped these

people hundreds of them actually from flocking to the annual snow maze in the canadian town of senegal on the cover 19 pandemic has forced the organizers to go big in a record breaking way to keep social distancing between visitors to expand its size by 90 percent this year is amazing maze took 6 weeks to build and at 73 meters square it's only the biggest in the world. main story this hour meehan marcin a dramatic escalation of violence against people protesting the detention of the country's civilian leaders 2 weeks after demonstrations 1st began against the military coup security forces of kill 2 people in the 2nd largest city of mandalay they fired live ammunition into the crowds as well as to gas water count.