the contradictions. are marc lamont hill and it's hard to get up from play here without. understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the world is another matter where you will be using current affairs that matter to you. the delivery that marks the beginning of the largest vaccination operation in history ghana is the 1st to benefit from the un's kovacs program. and our entire lives his own to 0 live from london also coming up. a message of defiance continues to sound from the streets of 1000000 mark as the military pointed foreign minister flies to thailand for crisis talks. the un human

rights chief accuses treelike of systematically ignoring rights abuses during the civil war a claim the government calls unjustified. and a landmark ruling in germany where former assyrian secret police officer has been sentenced to prison. or nearly a year after the corona virus outbreak was declared a pandemic the race to vaccinate the world's poorest people against code 19 is finally accelerating the world health organization says its kovacs program is the largest vaccination operation in history as part of the program the 1st 600000 astra zeneca doses of been delivered to ghana so a highroad reports. yeah and that seems to ensure that people from less wealthy countries are protected against covert 19 is being hailed as

a historic moment. the rival of $600000.00 from india marks the beginning of a massive campaign that will see more than $2000000000.00 doses delivered to several developing countries across different continents this covert program is about equity and certainly darity if you follow the vaccination going on around the planet so far it's only citizens from the let the say the better off countries that have benefited from this and from today we're bringing equity gone the plants inoculate around 20 percent of its population in the 1st phase of its campaign but is still not enough and the government says it's working on securing more doses. almost $2500000.00 people worldwide have died from corona virus so far rich countries have been able to buy far more vaccines and poorer ones and while kovacs has managed to raise $6000000000.00 in needs at least another 2000000000 to meet its target the 2021 this is only financed now so we can reach in 1002

countries the most vulnerable population the older citizens the health workers people with school mobility you know but we need much more taxes and financing so we can vaccinate everybody just like if you walk in the rich world countries receive the lifesaving vaccines next we'll include some of the poorest countries in the world including haiti democratic republic of congo and afghanistan where the kovacs program will cover 20 percent of its $38000000.00 population the global race for doses has met the high income countries can more easily do deals with vaccine manufacturers than low income ones so the world health organization and unit or urging those companies to prioritise contracts with kovacs and ensure fair distribution worldwide so far 200 term 1000000 doses of vaccine have been are globally. but however of those just 2 countries and 80

percent are in just 10 countries more than 200 countries are you 2 items that a single dose. after a year of disruptions due to the pandemic there's hope that this is the beginning of the parts recovery for those nice defects in it and those that some nice vulnerable set of height of jazz it up earlier i spoke to tom friedman a former director of the u.s. centers for disease control and prevention and you know advises governments on health campaigns he says the vaccine rollout is exciting but says more needs to be done to get the vaccine to underrepresented groups was very encouraging what we're seeing is a riot here of vaccine approaches that all seem to work well and i think we can get bound up too much and there's a 70 or 80 or 90 percent what we're seeing so far in the data is very effective control of serious illness and death now the big unknown is the variants and

whether any vaccine escape variants will become common and problematic but right now i would say the moment it's your turn for a vaccine get one get the 1st one you can but at the same time we do have to address equity act with it within countries where we're seeing much lower vaccination rates for example in black and hispanic populations in the united states and equity globally as your piece just showed and part of that means funding kovacs but part of it probably also means scaling up global manufacturing figuring out ways perhaps with m.r. in a technology to fund technology platforms in low and middle income countries that will be regional public goods this is a fundamental concept that is very important not just for the pandemic but for future health threats as well. chile has now vaccinated more people than all the countries in africa combined at the countries now 5th in the world per capita for

vaccinations who $3000000.00 chileans have received them the government hopes to have the entire country know collated by gene. military appointed foreign minister is in thailand for talks following this month's coup it's part of regional efforts to resolve the crisis which began when the army seized power on the 1st of february protesters continue to demand the release of elected leader aung san suu kyi scott hardly has more from bangkok. anti coupe protesters gathered in front of the indonesian embassy in yangon calling for regional involvement as tensions grow across me and mark. this as the military appointed foreign minister visited bangkok for crisis talks meeting his thai and indonesian counterparts as well as thailand's prime minister pay a general job that's all part of stepped up efforts by the regional group of

nations called aussie on to find a way out of the crisis following the february 1st coup and i'm not going to be as a man must assist in i'd like to urge the own countries not to recognise the queue government if they do recognise that the dignity of asean will be eroded ossie and is reported to be planning to send officials to monitor a new being more election promised by the general but the protesters are urging arceo to recognize the november polling that put their deposed leaders including on santucci in office. one group earlier organized a protest at the bangkok indonesian embassy calling an aussie on to get more involved we asked. to decide between the military 100 wish oppressed people right now. people were just trying to protest as they can to. lead. we will

be. again this is not the 1st time that has reached out to thailand since the coup about a week after the takeover myanmar's military leader min on length sent a letter to the thai prime minister asking for help on the democratic process and. a former military chief also rose to power overthrowing a democratically elected government in 2014 he stayed in office after 2001000. years to engage with the crisis al-jazeera bangkok. joe biden is expected to speak to saudi arabia's king solomon soon before the publication of a u.s. government report on the murder of journalist. it would be biden's 1st conversation as president with a saudi leader the classified intelligence report is why do you believed to implicate the king's son crown prince mohammed bin simon in his show g.'s killing

the trumpet ministration refused to release it and speak to mike hanna in washington d.c. so we know the call is going to go ahead we have a new clear ideas on when that might be stalled and occasionally about the exact timeline although within the last few minutes president biden has confirmed that he read that confidential cia report not surprising given the fact that he is planning to make that phone call to the saudi king in the near future also no indication when that report is going to be released though all indications are that it will be after that phone call president biden makes to the saudi king and to reiterate it will be to the king very clear that the crown prince mohammed bin solomon will not be on the call as part of a recent statement from the biden white house about a resetting of the relationships with saudi arabia confirmed by the press secretary now the president is taking

a fresh approach to how he engages with foreign leaders around the world and different from the prior administration and that means he will not hold back and he will speak out when there are concerns he has about human rights abuses about. the lack of freedom of speech or the lack of freedom of media and expression or any concerns he has at the same time we have a long relationship with saudi arabia they are being attacked in the region and that is certainly an area where we continue to work with them on but i expect we'll have more to say when we get post the release of that report. now that classified report is expected to confirm that the crown prince was involved in the murder of washington post journalist jamal khashoggi this was a conclusion reached as well in a report by a u.n. investigator back in 2019 and i can i thank you very much. still to come. outside a lebanese court has families fear anti-government activists could be executed for

terrorism. and across the u.s. vaccinations anticipate based in huge sports stadiums one city's bucking the trend proving isn't always better. how the weather remains very unsettled across northern parts of australia with plenty of tropical downpours are rolling through the top end and up towards the cape york peninsula some showers some meaningful rain coming into central parts of queensland pushing over towards the gold coast and shot shows through here and that shows up with them wet weather that we have into the northeast of new south wales some lively storms just offshore big swells there just a round the coastal fringes of new south wales largely dry though for victoria

temperatures in melbourne around $23.00 degrees not too bad in a similar temperature that for adelaide further west it's far and dry impersonal those numbers around 32 degrees for perth with that sunshine we hop over the ditch into new zealand we have got temperatures in christchurch well down a race in valleys around 900000 is not too bad over the next couple of days but they sweater weather will just push towards new zealand as we go on through the next day or 2 so make the most of the increase in temperature is just getting up to around $23.00 degrees lossie father dry some fair weather cloud and we have got thickening clouds spinning out of central parts of china at the moment and that's going to produce some very heavy rain into those central areas goes very very wet there for shanghai by friday. the corona virus has affected every corner of the world. people in power look back

to the early days of the pandemic and examines whether errors in delays at the world health organization may have made the global spread of the virus inevitable. i say it's no. human teeth in the interest. chronicle of a pandemic people in power on al-jazeera. amount of the top stories here lounges here garners become the 1st country to receive coronavirus vaccines through the international kovacs scheme the astra zeneca doses arrived in the capital accra on wednesday and chile is streaking ahead

of other latin american countries vaccinating on 3000000 people this month. meanwhile as military appointed foreign minister is in thailand for talks following this month's coup it's part of regional efforts to resolve the crisis jesters in myanmar continue to demand the release of elected leader aung san suu cheney. and joe biden is expected to speak to saudi arabia's king solomon soon before the publication of a u.s. government report on the murder of journalist. a classified intelligence report is widely believed to implicate the king's son. the fight for justice has failed in sri lanka 12 years after the end of a brutal civil war that's according to the un's human rights chief has released a report accusing the government of ignoring victims and failing to hold perpetrators accountable sri lanka's government has hit back denying allegations it discriminates against minorities but it's misreport. nearly 12 years after the end

of sri lanka's civil war the pain is still whole for those who sons and daughters of husbands disappeared. this was a protest earlier this month they want answers accountability and justice but aren't getting any because the united nations human rights council says the highest levels of sri lanka's government is in denial about past crimes the space personal side and the pan the media which have grown significantly is now rapidly shrinking the independence on the free the human rights commission of. the national police commission and other key warnings as mean diddly eroded by the recent the apprentice constitutional amendment the. president got a buyer rajapaksa was defense secretary at the end of the civil war is brother mahinda was president 100000 people were killed in the 26 year long war between tamil separatists and the government both sides are accused of crimes including

murder and torture. and now the u.n. says minority groups are facing more discrimination this protest in february was a rare combined march of muslims and tumbles with a long list of complaints including trying to get education in the tunnel language and oppressive police surveillance of muslim lanka's government rejects all the allegations made in the report including claims he uses divisive rhetoric. constitutional guarantees as i mentioned before fundamental rights of all the citizens and anyone can can must under the fundamental right. and nor for 3 long. in the last few years as well as today. we have all our programs economic social law and the many official programs all are equally enjoyed and implemented from the

not to the scout leader not the raja's son was taken away by the military at the end of the war she's no idea what happened to him but he's convinced he's still alive and the story is the same for thousands of other farmers in the border that the on the in the upper leg what we see now is that they're trying to make is fed up and stop the protests so we can trust them we will have to go to the international community to get our children back as we have realized that there is no point going to the government here the un's high commissioner for human rights has urged member states to consider prosecuting alleged crimes in sri lanka to try and get answers for the thousands of people like leila bernard smith al-jazeera. a greek oil tanker companies deny accusations it's responsible for a major oil spill that spewed tons of tar cross israel's coast as well as southern lebanon and edges of a min of a helen say the vessel is now in spain and quote without deficiencies as israel's

public broadcaster reported the tanker was the suspected source the country's nature and parks or thora he says it's one of its worst ecological disasters on record $55.00 tons of tar have been cleaned up so far and the united nations has new ariz about a long abandoned fuel tanker off the coast of yemen that risks a monumental oil spill and about to get into james space has more. the un is increasingly concerned about the state of the tanker which it's estimated has $1100000.00 barrels of oil on board they were told in november they could carry out an assessment mission but since then there's been delay after delay the spokesperson for the u.n. secretary general says it's as though the goalposts are constantly shifting we've been talking about this right the 2 years now by the grace of god there has not been a major leak the more we wait the the chances of

a major leak or increasing where you know the time is not on anyone's side and it's not about us it's about the devastating environmental impact that it would have on the region meanwhile al-jazeera has obtained the draft for a new u.n. security council resolution renewing the sanctions related to yemen due to be voted on at the end of this week and again there's criticism of the who thiis this time for that ongoing offensive on the city of mt open. security has been stepped up outside a minute she caught in beirut where $32.00 anti-government activists a standing trial accused of terrorism is the 1st time the charge has been leveled against a protester an offense that carries the death sentence 21 a report from favorite. it's been nearly a month since an alley saw her son she waits for news outside the military tribunals where ali is among dozens of men facing trial on terrorism charges her

3rd birthday alert those charges can carry the death penalty and are seen as an escalation in the ongoing conflict between the state and the people. in need i mean it should be a bit heavy they're accusing our sons of being terrorists they are the terrorists they stole the people's money they are responsible for the explosion of that they report our children are nationalists not them the defendants are alleged to have thrown molotov cocktails at security forces and burned down a melissa polity building during protests in the northern city of tripoli last month the demonstrations were held to demand the government compensation during a strict coronavirus lockdown that worse than living conditions for the poor. one protester was shot in the back during the unrest his family and activists want to know why no charges have been brought against those responsible for killing him with the least amount they really special going to tell you about who was monitored

was killed by these men they know who fired the shot and they're not telling us lawyers have criticised the use of a military court to try the defendants and say they have been obstructed from seeing them they also say the young men were interrogated without lawyers being present and described the charges as unlawful arbitrary and a form of oppression this escalation has 3 reasons for us 1st is to put the stigma on the protestors mainly in tripoli that they are terrorists 2nd is to put the fear factor to the protesters not to hit the streets again as good as like to put the pressure on the investigation judge not 3 of the detainees human rights groups say terrorism charges should be used for serious political crimes and not acts of public disorder. repression is increased in the 11 on some said nation why. the protest movement began more than a year ago security forces have been accused of using excessive and unlawful force against the demonstrators. lengthy pretrial the tensions

prosecutions with limited rights to appeal interrogations without the presence of a lawyer and beatings have all been documented warnings that free speech and assembly are at risk are not new for many the dwindling numbers of those who continue to speak out is a testament of that reality set up for their else's leader beirut was here when it led our coverage of last year's devastating blast in beirut which killed more than 200 people there is reporting of the explosion has won an award from the royal television society in the u.k. for best breaking news coverage it would ceremony was held virtually but the r.t.s. has tweeted the result calling it a journalistic tour de force. protests erupted across new share after opposition leader man declared he narrowly won the presidential election but he's have clashed with this man supporters in the capital niamey

a provisional results have announced former interior minister mohammad bazooms the winner with more than 55 percent of the vote and natural officials say was man one about 44 percent which he's dismissed as fraud. a german court has handed out the world's 1st prosecution for state sponsored torture by the syrian government a former intelligence officer was sentenced to 4 and a half years in jail the crimes against humanity verdict gives hope to thousands of syrians in germany who say they were tortured by president bashar assad's government doesn't it cane reports from berlin. 10 years ago a yacht guard was working for the syrian intelligence services now he's starting a lengthy prison sentence in germany the prosecution saying that in 2011 he knowingly brought dozens of protesters to a notorious jail outside damascus to be tortured his defense lawyer said he feared

being punished himself if he refused to carry out his orders the court in corpulence rejected that convicting him and jailing him for 4 and a half years this is this estimate this is the 1st step the road to justice is long and one of the goals is to break bashar al assad and his inner circle before court this is a relief but it's also not the end it's only the beginning. this is the 1st trial of alleged atrocities carried out by the forces of president bashar assad as such lawyers for the victims in this case hope it will set a precedent. this is what's important is we have a verdict the crimes by the assad government embassy could prisons crimes against humanity this is the 1st verdict worldwide. a view that seems to be shared by many in government in berlin another element that distinguishes this case is that the german justice system has prosecuted convicted and punished a known german who's victims were not german for crimes that were committed outside

germany. in doing so prosecutors have invoked the principle of universal jurisdiction for such serious crimes for. trials outside syria are a glimmer of hope but also a clear signal to victims that we and the international community recognize it's an issue which not only concerns germany but many of our partners to signal to victims is that justice will be done they yet are guarded stood trial alongside another former member of the assad forces both men had left syria and come to germany as refugees the 2nd man. was a senior intelligence officer in 2011 he's accused of multiple murder rape torture and other serious offenses he denies the charges and his case continues dominic came al-jazeera pearl in venezuela as expelling the european union's ambassador

after the block impose sanctions on 19 officials even as right and foreign minister has handed is about to pay the rosa a notice declaring her persona non-grata telling her she has 72 hours to leave the country you know to be out so says he was left no option calling the decision to impose sanctions aggressive and disrespectful of international law and one came in 1000 vaccine that's actually been tested in the real world as they won by pfizer biotech and it's been found to be very effective data from israel's of breakneck vaccination drive suggests it's 92 percent effective at preventing serious disease altitude shots and 62 percent effective after just one it has a 72 percent efficacy rate at preventing deaths 2 to 3 weeks after receiving the 1st shot scientists looked at inoculations covering nearly 600000 people in israel the country has vaccinated any half its population. a novel approach to

promoting the coronavirus vaccine is proving successful in one u.s. city rather than using large sports stadiums of thirty's in philadelphia which as in smaller community centers gabriel is under looks at what's led to the unusual approach. earlier this month levi's stadium in san francisco home to the 49 er's professional football team was opened and people weren't celebrating touchdowns right in real life but instead cofa 1900 vaccinations health officials transformed the stadium into a giant vaccination site and expect to be able to administer up to 15000 shots a day for more than can be done daily at a hospital pharmacy or community center so far 7 n.f.l. stadiums have been opened as mass spec's nation sites all over the country with more next month the n.f.l. has told president joe biden all $32.00 stadiums are available but notably one city

has taken a different approach this is lincoln financial field home to the philadelphia eagles football team it's a huge distillery inside seats for more than 67000 people and over 170 different private suites and outside more than 22000 parking spots in theory this is the perfect place for a mass vaccination site however the city of philadelphia has said no thanks in january philadelphia teamed up with a start up company run by a college student with no medical qualifications to administer vaccines at a mass vaccination site it was plagued by accusations of mismanagement and fraud and shut down 3 weeks after it opened back to stanford when you look at these trials so we're down a vaccine what is it represent to you. live the. city

officials have since redoubled efforts to take vaccines to neighborhoods with people like dr a list stanford the founder of black doctors couvade 19 consortium. black people in philadelphia make up 44 percent of the population and over 50 percent of the covert deaths but in the early stages only made up 10 percent of those being vaccinated that's gone up considerably to over 20 percent we're not there yet at all and so that's why it needs to continue these vaccination efforts in these communities and we want to go to them there are so many places that are set up that are not easily accessible or that people perceive as barriers to get vaccinated and so we want to be the way we always were going to the people city officials say they might use the stadium in the future but will need a lot more doses of the vaccine to make it work if we were to set up one of the

states that look at financial field the only way we could do it only we could support it is to pull doses out of the community out of those pharmacies out of those community health centers and that's not something we're willing to do at this point for a city bucking the trend of mega vaccination sites saying bigger isn't necessarily better when getting the shots to those who need them the most keep rosendo. philadelphia. or one of the top stories on which is there nearly a year after the current a virus outbreak was declared a pandemic the race to vaccinate the world's poorest people against cuba 19 is finally accent rating gonna has become the 1st country to receive coronavirus vaccines through the international kovacs 600000 doses.