could soon be the people's president again a court throws out corruption charges against brazil's silva. is on to 0 lie from headquarters and. also coming up a decision that sets a trigger more trouble for a catalan separatist leaders including carlos. protesters

defying military rulers even as another top political figure this killed. a global shortage of microchips highlights how women are production is hurting high tech industries around the world. hello thanks for joining us brazil's former president louisa. is poised for a political comeback a supreme court judge has thrown out his conviction on corruption charges the decision restores his right to run for office in next year's presidential election monica begins our coverage with this report from rio de janeiro. the reason nasa. was leading the polls and $28.00 team the left wing political leader would have probably been elected brazil's president for the 3rd time had not been convicted on

corruption charges and banned from running now less back in the political scene as the country faces its worst moment in the kobe 1000 pandemic and he poses a serious threat to right wing president jalal so narrow in next year's elections well it's good news that comes at the right time because the political situation in the country is so dire to work in a cafe here i would not believe a politician who has already been arrested for corruption and i don't think lula is the right person to run our country. has always said that he was wrongly convicted and imprisoned he says the bribery money laundering in corruption charges were part of a scheme to strip him of his political rights after years of judicial battle a supreme court judge on monday a null licken fiction's against moola the decision has nothing to do with the lolas

innocence or guilt the supreme court judge argued that the former president had been tried in the southern city of course when he should have been tried in the capital brasilia. it may be a technicality one that could be shaped brazil's political and judicial landscape the fact is that lula can now run for the presidency and he still has the support of half of brazil's voters according to a recent poll. some of them took to the streets to celebrate and to protest against with the home president bows and arrows mishandling of the pandemic. reacted on twitter saying be an element of the charges proves he has always been right. accuse the supreme court judge of acting on behalf of the workers' party and. brazil's political divisions deepening in the midst of a deadly pandemic monica nike of al-jazeera rio de janeiro's.

set to make a statement in the coming hours but a lawyer who helped clear him is adamant he'll easily win reelection as president a short time ago we spoke with geoffrey robertson the founder and co head of delta street chambers here's what he said. this decision which sounds a bit technical or is in fact quite fundamental we simply try it in the wrong place in the place to run by he that i mean we were out to put him in prison and not in the proper course so that leak at the moment of course the government is appealing it but the judge respected being detained. and is in the news will pave the way. probably when he makes the select good because he has the. support of the heart. and

really the people who love him because of his worthless grazed in years ago when he dragged some 20000000 of them out of the direst property so he does have that great love and support and he's determined. statements today to do something immediately about the irish crisis. the european parliament to strip 3 catalan independence leaders affinity from prosecution it's a move that set to inflame once again the whole issue of separatism in spain it means the likes of former president carlos huge amount and 2 other politicians could be extradited to face charges he general is now in self-imposed exile in belgian trio are wanted for their role in organizing the 2017 independence referendum spain's government has welcomed the decision as a victory for the rule of law a let's remind you how we got here catalan all thorny is how the referendum on

secession and october 27th seen spain's government and the court said it was illegal catalonia as leaders the cleared an independent republic but no foreign power recognizes that that same day. dread revoke catalonians political autonomy and suspended its parliament's future all comment and the rest of the cabinet were all fired the trio fled the country and managed to avoid extradition while many others were jailed they later won seats in the european parliament giving them protection from prosecution protection which has today been revoked by the former catalan leader spoke sort lee after the e.u. parliament votes he says while the matter of extradition lies with the belgian judge the trio will also be fighting the parliament's the. it is a sad day for european parliament. who have lost our immunity but do appear in parliament has lost more than that and as

a result european democracy to. this is a clear case of political persecution and just read the reactions on the statesman's of crime in the spanish political leaders including the minister of foreign the 1st this morning in the center of forming a farce for a internal problem of a spain they say it is usually short precious. that there is a breakdown of powers. but it is that i've been by the high intensity political and parliamentary strategies and now european parliament has unfortunately fallen into the strategy. or we also spoke with chloroplast sati one of the catalan members of the european parliament his immunity has been lifted she says they all plan to contest any move to have them extradited to spain. these were believed

because actions and the fact that spain is 1st using us could be mean only is the proof that spain is in capable of managing well that they look at the. weeks that brought both tools of democracy we vote and a lot using their duty should be to prosecute our colleagues. enough class that i know that the national and united nations who would be a danger as we did we denounce these allonby that we that they in terms know well this. being is for you to go police announce they want a class more political prisoners and that way they are persecuting but that's not going 2 to solve the whole you go problem we've got a lot so. spain is proving that they are incapable of managing peace or you are going think we got along you know with them already goes and they they're. going to embrace persecution against these you know just the other groups

of that. so we knew that european girl said that we would be years before and we could be encouraged there joe trust found that . they would not be afraid. of us has been violated sort of the bad beginning and that's why we've. been utopian curt's man mars military leaders have recalled the country as u.n. ambassador after he publicly denounced the coup this comes as a 2nd official with cheese political party has died after being arrested overnight by man maher security forces zombie are plans cause of death isn't known and despite another night of violence demonstrators have again turned out across the country there and announcing their military coup and calling for the release of their elected leaders scott idler reports.

the campaign of intimidation reaches new levels in yangon hundreds of young protesters were trapped after they were surrounded by police and myanmar's military in the city's ascent chowed district threatening door to door searches they fired guns and use stun grenades as they patrolled warning that anyone hiding protesters would also be punished but. it lasted all night the protesters were finally able to leave in the early morning hours after the security forces pulled out in a rare and risky nighttime gathering protesters in yangon broke curfew went to the streets calling for the release of the others there were reports at least 2 dozen were arrested overnight unfazed by the heavy hand of the security forces across the country protesters came out and faced the continued crackdown just a few hours after the trapped protestors in yangon were finally able to leave. since the february 1st coup an advocacy group estimates 1800 people have been

detained several lawyers have stationed themselves in front of insane prison helping relatives of those arrested find out if they are inside and if they need a lawyer they say they are dedicated to serving those who have been detained free of charge but also getting information to the families. we are not afraid of people threatening us because we are doing this in accordance with the local and if they do this is illegal we are prepared to carry out until the end. in nearby malaysia a court has given rights groups amnesty international and asylum access the right to challenge the deportation of myanmar nationals a big step in the country because its laws often make it difficult to challenge immigration decisions in courts. 1086 citizens were sent back to me and mar on february 23rd it's unlikely they will return to malaysia but it will prevent more than 100 others from being deported the next hearing is in 2 weeks. while it's

clear myanmar security forces plan to continue their crackdown the protesters are also not backing down on the streets. coming out to continue putting pressure on the john to. al-jazeera. to ivory coast now or president's. party has been declared winner of saturday's parliamentary elections one. party has taken 138 of the 255. the opposition also claimed victory on sunday. spread fraud which the government's rejects. this update from. the last contentious. seat in just a few minutes ago. by the election officials and the seats for you. and the way so from indications now the governing party of president of us will

want to as more than half the seats in parliament in fact the projections that he the party has won 138 seats in parliament leaving the rest to the other political parties now this is the official statement so far all the official stance so far and we expect a formal statement from the election commission to tell us how they went about this so it's almost settled now. has been one of the last by their respective. christmas party was projected to do well because. the opposition to the presidential elections. has been called to make it to be about its performance in subsequent elections and this is what these people seem to know right across ivory coast. still ahead on al-jazeera a shot in the arm in the u.s. battle against coronaviruses vaccinated americans get the all clear to move more

freely. and balancing out more problems for the tokyo olympics as a test event is cancelled. hello the weather sloshy set fire for japan over the next couple of days you have got some wet weather just spinning out the chart as they see the same area of play out just seeding in across the region they still palls will become rather more unsettled but for the korean peninsula and for japan it's a weak reach of high pressure just a flabby area of high pressure here lightweight the so will be essentially fine and dry what shall we do have across northern parts getting squeezed out of the way there we go warm sunshine tokyo getting up to a very agreeable $966.00 in file in height 17 celsius there full so here's that western weather coming in across southern parts of china easing over towards yes

cosa cooling off a touch here out west of weather coming out across the east china sea but ahead of that it is generally dry over the next couple of days gerri try to across much of south asia so lots of pleasant sunshine more warm sunshine to see temperatures above the seasonal average at the moment we have got a few showers doubts was a fall south of tamil nadu into carolinas some showers there just coming into sri lanka over the next day i'll say further north we have got some wetter weather just around the foothills of the himalayas into bhutan and to nepal the fall north of pakistan and here we have a westerly disturbance coming in so we're looking at rain sleet and snow by friday . these things are sick and it's time for a different approach one that is going to challenge the way you think on asking the questions now as a new host of the next season of the show that's got no space for sound bites only

comedy so let's leave simplicity to the headlines join me as i take on the lies dismantle the misconceptions and debate the contradiction. marc lamont hill and it's time to get up front right here on al-jazeera. again the top stories on al-jazeera a brazilian supreme court has thrown out the criminal convictions of former president of the reason as to whom of the silver it allows the popular politician to run in next year's presidential election. the e.u. parliament to strip 3 catalan separatist politicians of their immunity from

prosecution catalonians former leader carlos pujol and 2 others are wanted by spain for organizing an independence referendum. president ellison wants or as ruling party has been declared winner of saturday's parliamentary elections in ivory coast the opposition also claimed victory on sunday and alleges widespread fraud which the government rejects. in the coming hours the u.s. house of representatives is expected to vote on a $1.00 trillion $1.10 relief package it was approved by the senate on saturday it includes $1400.00 checks to individuals earning less than $80000.00 a year or couples earning less than 160000 the bill is the biggest increase to federal health aid since the obama era affordable care act around $34000000000.00 in subsidies will go to expanding coverage and around $55000000000.00 will be allocated to increasing co with $1000.00 test ing the public health workforce and

vaccine distribution while $350000000000.00 will go to state and local governments struggling with huge tax revenue shortfalls our white house correspondent kimberly halkett is in washington d.c. and she reports president biden will use his address later this week to try to boost national mirelle. there are a number of things that could help american families that are struggling not only will there be those direct payments of $1400.00 but for a family that going to mount to thousands of dollars but you have to remember given the fact that we've been in this pandemic now a year that what this will allow people to do is catch up but it won't allow them to get ahead and so that's going to be the next task for congress once this is signed into law is looking at some of the things they weren't able to accomplish like raising the federal minimum wage to $15.00 an hour and an infrastructure package that would create jobs and so this is badly needed but certainly this is

going to help because a lot of these benefits that were in place run out on the 14th that's this week and so we expect that the u.s. president is eager to sign this we know that from his white house press secretary and we are expecting that there will be swift passage in congress there's going to be a tremendous sales pitch and there are a number of reasons why 1st of all the u.s. president wants to boost morale so he'll be making a primetime address on thursday evening here in the united states to sell this plan to talk about the sacrifices that americans have made so far and what can they can expect in the future but there's another reason that he's doing this he was not able to unite democrats and republicans on this bill in fact it's being passed on party lines so it doesn't tick the box for uniting the country but what it does do is give them the opportunity to sell this to the american people and that's what we're going to hear from the president as he speaks on thursday americans can get together indoors without wearing

a mask or social distancing if they're fully vaccinated new guidance from health officials also says they don't need to quarantine if they come into contact with someone who's positive from miami and gallagher explains what these guidelines mean for people living in the world's worst affected country. well these are essentially all quite long awaited guard law and. but let's give you a snapshot of what's going on in the u.s. at the moment something like 30000000 or so people have been vaccinated that's hovering between 9 and 10 percent of the population of course we need to get to about 40 percent before we get to that magic herd immunity so this is very specific advice for those that have been fully vaccinated in the words if i had both shots and waited the appropriate time so what we're talking about here are more elderly members of the population people who perhaps haven't seen their families for the last 12 months remember people who haven't been allowed to visit for instance long term care facilities so for these people this is a boon this is extremely welcome news because this will help their mental condition

they can reconnect with their families but there are some caveats if they are going to visit their families it has to be local only c.d.c. says their advice is not to travel also if they're out in public they still need to social distance and wear masks because the science behind these vaccines is not completely yet known it doesn't know if these people can still spread covered 19 despite the fact that they have been vaccinated but these guidelines have been a long time coming i think for those that have been isolated in the way for their families for such a long time this is extremely welcome news let's take a quick look at how effective the 3 main vaccines are the pfizer biotech jab is set to offer around 95 percent protection against cove in 1900 times after 2 doses and the moderna job is 94 point one percent effective while johnson and johnson says it's single dose job is 85 percent effective against severe infections dipped to

greater sunny's a clinical epidemiologist and senior lecturer at queen mary university of london she says there is uncertainty about how effective vaccines are at preventing viral transmission. we don't know the effectiveness of these vaccines in preventing infection or what transmission particularly in the elderly age groups even in the younger age groups these are likely to be between about 60 to 70 percent of the elderly they might be even dora so allowing people to sort of mix with others protective measures when he puts other people at risk if they pick up infection and passes on to others and this uncertainty is even higher with the large number of variants we have now circulating in different parts of the world many of which we know are associated with lower backs a defective ness particularly against symptomatic disease which will very likely translate to lower effectiveness in preventing infection and transmission particularly naughty to in those elderly people and even in younger people the effectiveness of preventing infection is thought to be 60 to 70 percent of quite far from the 100 percent i mean you know i understand the need to sort of allow

people to make because you've been investigations for a long time what we need to remember that people have been restrictions for a long time because we haven't managed to get on top of the pandemic and you've adopted several higher strategies in the face of uncertainty and i'm worried that we're doing that once again and what would be really bad would be if such a strachey led to another sort of increase in transmission or cases which lead people needing to be in destructions but even know the best attitude to adopt is a strategy with the least amount of uncertainty which countries like new zealand and australia taiwan vietnam have adopted where we bring cases down to extremely low levels so that there is no community transmission and then we open up to everyone not just people who are vaccinated and they don't need to worry about things like vaccine effectiveness new libyans because there isn't that transmission happening in the community and most of the population is not at risk. hospitals in the occupied west bank are having to turn patients away there's been so many people suffering from cope with that they've been unable to treat them all the reports

from. we're standing here in one of the governments of the hospitals with 900 patients and the hospital officials have been telling us that they're turning away tens of patients every day who need medical attention we're here in front of the emergency room and we're seeing patients waiting for their turn to get inside this hospital. staff told us that she is a priority when there's a vacancy they would need her immediately i know that they're doing their best given the circumstances. the doctor told us she has to sleep in the hospital but we can't keep waiting in the corridor my mother in law is tired she's 92 years old people's concerns were confirmed by the palestinian prime minister says that the hospitals are very full up here pretty even though the government has doubled the i.c.u.

the thought of the pandemic that this is the government with one of those or and or . thing and wearing masks but people have been this up a spied with the government they say that not only did this government not compensate people for the consecutive closures over the past year but also some of the few 1000 arrive in the occupied west bank have been given to their families which is raising a lot of concern from other people about the integrity of any future vaccine program so don's covert 1000 bucks a nation campaign has just begun 800000 doses of the astra zeneca shots arrived there just a few days ago they were provided under the u.n. led kovacs initiative making the 1st country in northern africa to receive vaccines . sudan has recorded over 30000 coronavirus cases and almost 2000 deaths. the u.a.e.

nuclear regulator has issued an operating license for a 2nd unit at the plants it's the 1st and only nuclear plant in the arab world you know one reached 100 percent power last year the facility was built as part of the u.s. efforts to diversify its energy mix once all 4 reactors come online they'll supply up to 25 percent of the country's electricity needs worker excuse me workers are pumping oil out of a chinese fishing boat that has run aground off the coast of militias. the vessel was carrying 130 tons of oil when it hit a coral reef near the capital port louis on sunday there was a small spill it 1st but the whole remained intact it should take 5 days to empty and towed the ship away it's the 2nd ship wreck and in less than a year now a global shortage of semiconductor chips is hurting high tech industries from the

makers of game console's to automobiles car plants are reporting production delays of up to 1000000 vehicles the problem has highlighted the dominance of 2 of the world's leading chip makers taiwan and south korea robert bryde reports from seoul . between them south korea and taiwan have a near monopoly on the world's production of processing and memory chips it's a dominance in a strategic commodity that's been developing over years but now making itself felt as the world becomes increasingly technology driven but from here on out it's going to broader considerately to egypt with everything modern fighter. it's not a semiconductor electric vehicle if you cars it's going to have a retreat it's getting old like other car makers this general motors plant outside seoul has been experiencing delays because of a global shortage of chips it's been

a wake up call for many world leaders but the investment of time and money needed to become a chip maker means south korea and taiwan will maintain their lead for years to come it's a global shortage that's been made worse by the pandemic when car factories ramped up production again late last year it coincided with a surge in demand for consumer goods also needing chips and a move towards online activities requiring greater data processing that needs yes ever more chips frank wang is the founder of one of taiwan's chip manufacturers whose business has grown as the island has come to dominate the sector this is a burning portal with one continual sub why a bell in the porch opinion of the state and other your country that one is so buying toys in the. process if we have a problem the war or have

a problem it's this indispensable that works well right now taiwan's chips are also indispensable to mainland china providing it with the so-called silicon shield against beijing's expansion in the region but also raising the stakes in the increasing comp. tition between china and the u.s. semiconductor is strong taiwan is strong but it's becoming so strong and so we need to be careful so is the better to keep it neutral because if semiconductor all silicon shield you know distress is being used as a weapon taiwan will get involved it will that was the conflict between us the and china and that is the dangerous there is to protect you if you don't you get it increased. greatly. thanks to dream washington heights trying hard to contradict your competition south korea isn't taiwan's production mastery of

a tiny component that makes any potential conflict in east asia a matter of global concern rob mcbride al jazeera so there are fresh reports out of japan that overseas spectators won't be allowed to attend the tokyo olympics to prevent the spread of coronavirus games organizers will meet officials from the international olympic committee this week the games are due to be held in just over 4 months time all this comes as the international gymnastics federation council's its all around world cup event scheduled for tokyo next month the competition would also have acted as a qualifier test event for the games. well again the headline.