balan's industry. intercepts dish on your. these all the nuclear weapons of the 21st century al-jazeera investigations. when all through the worst of it potentially and that's why we need to price ourselves for what will be a very difficult way mass evacuations of a natural disaster declared in several regions of australia after one of the worst floods in decades. hello i'm adrian for the good this is 000 life from joe also coming up. he's been arbitrary detained and now we see that the process itself is not transparent

kind of a protest against china's 2 nial of consular access as a secret trial for espionage begins against one of its diplomats. to power lifter coronavirus state of emergency ahead of tokyo olympics performance against complacency. in the past a promise by the brazilian president and our values to miffed pandemic restrictions . strenuous government has ordered emergency evacuations along its east coast after the worst flooding in decades waters are rising across parts of new south wales a natural disaster has been declared in some regions floodwater has also been spilling over the water gone but dam that provides much of the drinking water for sydney. unfortunately we're not through the worst of it potentially and that's why we need to price what will be a very difficult wake and then very difficult wakes and months in the recovery.

gauges in one of the hardest hit communities in new south wales and has been speaking to people affected by the flooding. well this is windsor a town just west of sydney where it's been raining for days and floodwaters continue to rise at this behind me is the main bridge through the township and as you can see it's under water there are buildings inundated and people have been told to evacuate and extraordinary scenes like this present right along the new south wales coast from port macquarie to newcastle where homes are being destroyed some being swept away down the river and many livestock being swept away as well it's of course causing distress to many people here in new south wales will speak to greg now who's in windsor what do you think about some of these scenes that we're witnessing in new south wales it's just a rendition of between the fall and the floods and. it's just affecting everybody

tens of thousands of people have been affected by this flood. have you been told to evacuate and many people in western sydney are leaving. but we've got a potential. coming up if they've got to cut the power in the water up there's only one bridge at the moment. and one in the future we won't know and. these things are quite terrifying in some areas they haven't same floods like this since the 1960 s. in some areas but run full is setting records here and floodwaters are rising the weather bureau has said that the worst could be yet to come so far and the military has been called in to help with some rescues many people have been rescued after being caught in flood waters and thousands of people are out of. because they can't go back home. china is holding a secret trial for

a former canadian diplomat he's been detained in the country for more than 2 years diplomats from canada the u.s. and around 20 other countries gathered outside the court in beijing to show solidarity for michael covering who's accused of espionage he was detained and 2018 soon after canada had arrested a senior while way executives china's held separate proceedings for another canadian facing similar charges michael speight trial ended on friday without a verdict despite. the international agreement that china has signed under the vienna convention that would allow. consular officers access to hearings for their citizens we are being denied that access we've requested access to michael writes hearing repeatedly repeatedly but that access tonight. as you know. michael has been

detained for more than 2 years now. he's been arbitrarily detained and now we see that the process itself is not transparent let's go live now to beijing i'll just have to train the u.s. that ok so this trial is going on behind closed doors what do we know about his. bulwer unfortunately not expecting a verdict for this trial today as was the case of michael spate of on friday and this has been a long drawn out legal process for both men they were detained in december 28th scene and they had to wait 18 months to be formally charged with espionage and to date both of them had been detained for more than $800.00 days with very limited contact with the outside world and as we just heard canada has been hugely critical about the way these cases have been handled saying there's no transparency in the case they've been given dubious access to chinese lawyers which is a really

a problem because the courts here in china are controlled by the communist party and 99 percent of all criminal cases are found guilty canada says they also have not been given access to the trials of both of these men today and also on friday now these cases have attracted a lot of international attention earlier today outside the court where michael carvin has been trialled about 20 or so actually more than 20 diplomats from various countries including the u.k. australia the us gathered to show their solidarity with michael coverage and u.s. president joe biden has also weighed in saying that he supports canada in their push to have these men released saying that men should not be used as political bartering chips now canada has been very critical this is affecting the bilateral relationship between canada and china and china has hit back saying that well they can't give access because this is a national security case and it's also been very critical of what the canadians

have been doing to try to have these 2 men released let's have a listen to what china's foreign ministry spokesperson said about this earlier today. civil action which an urge the canadian side to stop interfering in china's judicial soren and stop acting in ways inconsistent with its day to speak in conform to their vienna convention in the case canada acted as an accomplice which is very dishonorable. once again to release in allow her to go back to china safe and sound. hmong joe was detained in the 1st of december 2800 just 9 days before these 2 men were arrested here in china she was detained in canada at the request of the us us is accusing her of breaking iranian sanctions as her while she was working as a c.f.o. of chinese technology company while way but of course what's a vastly different in these 2 cases her case versus the men is that her case has had a high level of legal transparency and she's been allowed to wait out the process

at her and her bank of imagine with her family out serious katrina here reporting live from beijing katrina many thanks indeed karen calico is a senior lecturer in chinese studies university he joins us now live via skype from melbourne good to have you with us kevin of all the countries in the world easy going after canada embroiled in a diplomatic spat with china 2 of its citizens on trial secretly for spying what do you make of it all. well i think it's apparent that. canada china relations are not in a good place and there is a lot of questions i think about the international democratic communities relationship with the rising power of china. it would be fair to say this is to really done everything in its power not provoked.

it's too soft conciliatory approach in diplomatic relations. it's clear that there have been you know very few concrete results from that approach so the question that i think the world has to face today as we see these 2 essentially hostages from canada going on trial a few days apart from each other is that if canada can't have a good relationship with china you know who can so what are we to make of china's behavior what what what is it trying to to achieve what's the mindset here. yeah i think you know. tend to take a more aggressive approach to countries that it considers middle

powers countries like canada or australia. which it assumes that it can sort of. boss around and is quite surprised right when those middle powers don't simply a little bit. now you know the origin of the current tensions in canada china relations is really simply canada abiding by its extradition agreement with the united states in accordance with its legal system and the response that we've seen from china to this reality really has been hostage taking as stealing him to canadian citizens away from their lives away from their families and holding them in isolation for 2 years now canada is you know abiding by its extradition agreement with the united

states but as we saw in the introduction to this piece china is really violating its counselor agreements by 1st historically not allowing diplomats access to these hostages and now also not allowing diplomats access to this trial so this is really behavior that is just simply beyond comprehension and really beyond the scope of it except ability in international relations could start to kevin many thanks indeed for being with us kevin cargo there in melbourne security forces a man by are increasing the use of violence against and think to protest as across the country. this was the moment when police shot a man on a motorcycle in the northern city of mandalay he was later escorted away by

officers it's unclear how badly hurt he was or what's happened to him since the protests are continuing are crossed me on my daily 2 months after its civilian government was deposed in that military coup people have been turning out despite a rising death toll rights groups say that the only 250 people have been killed since the demonstrations began the leading opposition candidate in the democratic republic of congo has died the day after the presidential elections he briefs parfait us was due to be transferred to france for treatment for covert 19 up to being diagnosed on friday he was the main challenger a better leader than he saw soon gay so the loss was 61 right now votes are still being counted so soon guess who is widely expected to win extending his 36 years in power and nationwide internet blackout on sunday has added to concerns over transparency asia's top court has confirmed former interior minister mohamad bums

the winner of last month's presidential runoff assume 155 percent of the votes the results were fiercely contested by the opposition 2 people were killed during violence in the capital beyond may assumes inauguration next month will mark the country's 1st transfer of power from one democratically elected leader to another. gun would have killed at least $39.00 civilians in southwestern this year it happened in the military region the borders of mali and bakita $58.00 villages were killed. in the same region last week no one has yet claimed responsibility but a faction of i saw operates in the area. we're going to weather update next here on al-jazeera then 2 years for elections can israel and its political crisis or will its divisions mean another failed vote. a global shipping crisis and a pandemic is that containers being delayed around the world. it's

time for the perfect gentleman who went on sponsored point qatar airways there's a lot of snow falling in the balkans at the moment and the cloud still see if you tumbling in from the north which you know is always a cold direction given that we're in spring and that's not really what you want but the spring sun is strong so we will see once that's gone through that frontal system which is bringing this light snow still as far north as austria but concentrating down here once that's gone through the sun comes out and these single figure temperatures needs a day maxima will start to rise for example is the forecast for war so it's a slow climb but by the time we get to next friday we're up into the low teens now buried by being covered in a harsh winter covering this snow for quite

a long time so it's only thawing now there were these cold air has come further south it's been fairly stormy from the point of view of strong winds the burra coming off the croatian coast which is potentially damaging and this raid instead which is slowly drifting away towards turkey that's been happening further size but eventually even you will catch up sorry aver for example sees a cold start again rising to about 13 by next saturday it's slow motion admittedly but the winter is moving out of europe proper across the bosphorus and it's likely to affect this is not a pretty sight for tuesday for most of turkey. qatar airways. it's the political debate show that's challenged. the way you think i want to know where you to stand on cancer culture decrease the range of ideas that can be heard from international politics to the global pandemic and everything in between tech companies are the ones with all the power what do we do with the solution we get organized and what are world leaders or governments missing targets

in like 2040 or 20 we went. up front with me marc lamont hill on al-jazeera. and again this is. the main news waters are rising across parts of this story and state of new south wales a natural disaster has been declared in some regions off of the worst flooding in decades. china is holding a trial in secret for a canadian man accused of espionage michael coverage has been attention for more than 2 years canadian diplomats say they're being denied access to. the government

of killed at least 39 civilians in southwestern asia it happened in the area region which borders mali and the king of france so 58 people were killed in the same region last week. the day before the 4th israeli election in 2 years benjamin netanyahu is calling on his core supporters to help him secure a viable white wing coalition in parliament he's facing a much changed field of political opponents and an electorate battered by year of pandemic lockdowns but benefiting from a speedy vaccine rollout let's go live now to western. force that is there. anything going to change after this election. well that's certainly what the new who is trying to argue that he least sees in sight the israeli parliament the knesset has 120 seats so what netanyahu needs is a combination of parties to have a coalition of at least 61 seats and in

a rally on sunday night he said that according to his calculations it was 60 versus 60 so he was appealing to his the could supporters to get a real turn out the vote effort underway a lot of his campaign has been based on that vaccine rollout he has done a lot in the israeli voters ised to get the vaccines into israel as well as oversee the very fast distribution of those vaccines and there is more good news on that front coming through on monday morning that the our number in israel 40 days after the end of the last lock down continues to go down it's a point 62 cases of tumbling deaths a tumbling hospitalisations as well despite the fact that the economy is reopening the question is whether voters will reward netanyahu he faces an electorate that has also been as you say hit by the pandemic economically and have been seen some mistakes from the government during the handle of the earlier phases of the crisis

and he's up against a much more split field than last time when it was led by the then opposition leader benny gantz. in 3 consecutive elections benny gantz presented the strongest challenge benjamin netanyahu had faced in years. the former army chief head of the blue and white alliance helping deny netanyahu a viable coalition but failing to form one of his own his decision last year to split his alliance and break his central campaign promise by joining that in yangon government has seen his standing crumble i'm not really fast moving we entered the government despite netanyahu not for nixon yahud we into the government because there was a health economic and social crisis one of the biggest israel has ever seen and we are not sideways all of us the soldiers for this country now he's campaigning for perhaps half a dozen seats on the basis that they can block legislation allowing us to escape his corruption trial dancers collapse has left

a fragmented field of possible alternatives to netanyahu leading the pack is yeah peed dances form a partner in blue and white a former finance minister in an earlier netanyahu government and now the number one target of netanyahu his campaign that by now he didn't start this way but now is complete cynic and he says this is the tool of they've worked in the us. from the things he doesn't want us to talk about peter's try to downplay his own prime ministerial ambitions wary of netanyahu as attempts to cost the election is a 2 horse race in which pete becomes the scary left winger gideon rod of the israel democracy institute says a split field makes it more difficult for the prime minister that danielle would like us to choose between 2 good chocolates but you have to face many chocolates let's say and if you think about the voter as a consumer this is much more problematic for you and then yell in the unlikely

chocolate box of israeli politics natalee bennett would be found well to the right of the prime minister he rules out working with lockheed but leaves the door to joining netanyahu at least partially open not so good on sar share your own. the painful truth is that netanyahu prefers his own personal interests over the interests of the country his decision to leave the couldn't challenge him from the right at the head of his new hope party was the big news is the campaign began with his promised late surge in the polls has failed to happen. for all that's changed in terms of the lineup of challenges one thing has remained constant throughout this 2 year political crisis it really is all about benjamin netanyahu. so b. got behind that idea of a yes p.b. his nickname no b.b. election which is very broadly recognizes as being key to this long term political crisis there are of course some key policy differences as well and one thing which

has been almost entirely absent from the campaigning has been the question of the israel palestine conflict the palestinians more generally this after during the last election netanyahu was talking a lot about that in terms of potentially an exciting the occupied west bank but for that reason among others we've seen enough taliban it distance himself from any prospect of working with peed in an anti netanyahu coalition because as far as the israeli right is concerned lockheed who openly supports 2 states is someone who can't be touched on that issue and so we saw enough tony bennett go into a t.v. studio on sunday night with a piece of paper committing in writing not to serve under lockheed in such a coalition so that's been viewed by his other opponents on the right as a capitulation to netanyahu and a signal that he is going to end up lining up behind benjamin netanyahu as we say

he needs 61 seats of a combination of right wing parties to form a right wing coalition and his messaging is that he's very close i was 0 sorry for live in west jerusalem very many things. japan has lifted a state of emergency in tokyo as pressure mounts on the government to bring the pandemic under control ahead of the olympics under the measure imposed in january bars and restaurants have been closing at 8 pm on many other businesses switched to remote working but infections rising just 4 months ahead of the games experts are warning against complacency to the bar it is from sophia university in tokyo she says that many in japan believe it's too soon to ease restrictions i think that's the narrative that whizzing along the japanese public as well i mean this time last year the government was very slow to introduce any kind of emergency measures

because it was worried about the impact on the olympics and probably really not all the number of cases in tokyo surging last spring in a way that was unnecessary and given the examples of countries in europe and elsewhere that very much seems to japanese public that this is political and that's reflected in the approval ratings for a current administration i think most people think it's not the right time to hold the games although as laura brown spectate says how been banned from attending the games is still a concern the thousands of trainers that stuff are going to be coming to tokyo and that could increase infection rates as people sort of move around the city but also you know is it possible to make the benyus truly socially distant so people are very concerned about this of health implications of holding the games and i think not really is that putting quite a gumption our own atmosphere in taqiyya the pandemic combined with a shortage of shipping containers has led to a global transport crisis china is ramping up production of containers to meet

demand but as sarah clarke reports out from hong kong the delays are expected to continue for some time yet. it's one of the busiest and most efficient international container ports in the world connecting to more than $600.00 destinations worldwide last year hong kong handled around $18000000.00 containers but over recent months port activity has slowed but the shipping industry facing a shortage of containers in asia and that's triggered a surge in costs it's gone up considerably i mean it's almost go up for 4 times so maybe a container from asia to europe or to the states so people are going to have to get used to paying them the shortage of containers is not only triggered a rise in prices but also caused a heavy backlog in asia with some exporters struggling to get products to customers china is ramping up container production to meet the demand but it can see

a shift from services to goods during the pandemic continues to drive up production and exports from asia so the shortage is in asia because the problem is we are expat exporting more so it is in asia the pandemic has also impacted stopping numbers at ports and it's compounding the problem limited availability of truck drivers and dock workers manes it's taking longer to unload and pack the ships that's creating floating traffic jams at ports around the world this means the containers are being stay outside for longer periods of time. in fact we're finding that there's empty containers in l. stranded all over north america and europe australia in the middle of nowhere just waiting to be returned but there's not a truck or a chance to take it back to contain the shortage and the pandemic has caused major disruption to try it analysts say crisis shows no sign of easing just yes it's a global supply chain crisis sure we think it's going to last through to the 4th

quarter possibly through to the end of this year in some degree or another think it's going to improve. i think is going to be a fact of life for most of 2021 if that's the case the shipping industry will continue to pay premium rates with consumers bearing the brunt of the higher costs sarah clarke al-jazeera hong kong. brazil's president has renewed his attacks on restrictions imposed by state and municipal governments jiah balsa narrow has repeatedly pushed against lock down measures in favor of the economy despite a devastating 2nd wave of infections celebrating his birthday with supporters he told them that he'd fight for their freedom. if anyone thinks that one day i will give up our freedoms then their mistake and some torrents have taken away many of your freedoms you can count on our armed forces

for democracy for freedom i would do anything for my people but as well as president has announced 2 weeks of what he's calling radical quarantine including the cancellation of easter celebrations they correspond otoh had previously announced that there would be flexibility over the holiday period but festivities about been canceled after the detection of a coronavirus train that's being blamed for soaring infections in brazil. u.s. defense secretary lloyd austin says that there is systemic racism in the military in an interview with c.b.s. news austin said that racial bias exists at every level in the army the u.s. military ended segregation in its ranks 70 years ago yet alston says he's experienced racism even when he was a general it doesn't change as you climb the ladder. you still you still get that. there are always going to be people because of what you look like that will question your qualifications i would go someplace with my staff and

we were worried civilian clothes somebody would come out to meet the general and i wasn't the guy that they walked up to president joe biden says that he'll head to the u.s. border with mexico soon as it struggles to manage increasing numbers of undocumented migrants trying to cross biden has already reversed much of former president donald trump's hard line policies they need 20000 adults and more than 9000 unaccompanied children are estimated to cross the border last month that's a huge rise from january. our message is been straightforward simple and it's true the border is closed we are expelling families we are expelling single adults and we've made a decision that we will not expel young vulnerable children meanwhile mexico's measures to limit non-essential travel on its southern border with guatemala have come into effect high numbers of immigration agents have been deployed to turn back

undocumented people especially families. mexico is struggling to contain dozens of raging wildfires across the country one of the worst affected areas is the national park in seattle the santiago soldiers there have been working alongside firefighters to battle to help battle of the released 50 of them in 12 states across the country on sunday the hot dry weather has been blamed for an increase in wildfires. this is al jazeera a dream for begin with you here in doha the headlines and al-jazeera floodwaters are rising across parts of the australian state of new south wales a national disaster has been declared in some regions off of the worst flooding in decades declared gage has more now from windsor northwest of sydney. it's been raining for days and floodwaters continue to rise.