so no matter what you see al jazeera will bring you the news and current affairs that matter to you. al-jazeera. think. ethiopia's prime minister says eritrean soldiers have agreed to withdraw from the tikrit region after months of denying they were even there. hello there i missed the attain this is al jazeera life and also coming up across the wild new waves of coronavirus new waves of lockdowns. the latest attempts to free the mega ship blocking the suez canal sail as maritime traffic builds up

person ends of that waterway. and politicians from both parties travel to the u.s. border with mexico painting starkly different pictures of the challenges that. ethiopia says eritrea has agreed to withdraw its forces from the northern tier a region where they've been accused of killing raping and torturing civilians it was only this week that ethiopian prime minister finally admitted that eritrean forces are actually after months of denials eritrea and ethiopia for the border war from 1900 to 2000 although a final peace deal wasn't agreed until 2018 was later awarded the nobel peace prize for ending that conflict ethiopia's current government and eritrea have a common enemy in the to grain people's liberation front the t.p. l.f. was the leading force and if european politics for most 30 years until abbey became

prime minister catherine sort has. one of the clearest indications of the presence of the retreat and forces in tikrit i came from the town of bizet this was right before if you can prime minister ahmet addressed parliament on tuesday and had meted for the 1st time the troops from the neighboring country had crossed into border areas in the northwest of he argued the soldiers crossed into fuel because of concerns about attacks by forces of the t. gripe people's liberation front several rockets were fired into retract from tikrit when the conflict began last november you national security would they say the. the reason why they are there is because of a national security concern we also inform territorial government they are being accused of wrongdoing looting and other things the government strongly denounced these allegations and said it will take stronger measures on any of its soldiers

who are found guilty. prime minister bin al says they returned soldiers will leave this is after a meeting he held with president isiah software in the eritrea and capital asmara the detail and timeline of the withdrawal he's high of a still unclear if the eritrean troops withdrawal and that is only if they totally withdrawal which is a big if they're not that mean that it would be very difficult to egypt respectable military to completely crush this rebellion by the so-called secret defense forces so it's really not clear what the implications of what the military strategy here is from the federal government has they are also looking to pursue some sort of secession hostilities and there are more reports coming out of the region the un refugee agency unit c r cease to refugee camps that were hosting about 20000 every tran refugees but destroyed by an unknown people and the whereabouts of most of the refugees is a known been able to contact around 2000 they are also staying in the neighboring

towns in the care of their insurer some have also been down in the capital but when our teams were able to reach its absence you melba what they saw was a. large areas of the shelters level to the ground our offices are just holes also burned to the ground the forces integrity have been accused of abuses including killings torture rape and destruction of property they feel human rights commission and the united nations refugee agency have agreed to conduct a joint investigation into their leg ations of abuses committed by all sides catherine sawyer. parts of kenya will return to lockdown to find what the president is calling a devastating coronavirus death rays the country is experiencing a 3rd wave of the virus with nearly a quarter of tests coming back positive that's up from just 2 percent in january

people in the capital nairobi and 4 other counties have been told not to travel to other areas restaurants bars and most schools have been ordered to close and curfews there are being extended meanwhile german health officials are warning that its latest wave of the corona virus could be the west so far they're urging people to stay at home during the upcoming easter holiday to help slow the rapid rise they're seeing in infections there are fears they could be as many as 100000 new cases every day unless the spread is scabbed and brazil has now reported more than 3600 coronavirus deaths that's a new record for a single day hughes have been growing for intensive care beds as infections the most populous state has been badly hit and is now extending lockdown measures until april the 11th and argentina has now announced it will suspend flights from brazil chile and mexico to prevent the spread of new variants of coded 19 those measures

will come into effect on saturday the government says it's concerned about the rising number of infections in neighboring brazil which has recorded more than 12000000 cases argentina has reported nearly 2300000 infections so far has this update for us from what is aries. well there is a major concern in argentina about what's happening not only in brazil but also in countries like part of why for example where hospitals have collapsed some struggling to attend to those who are suffering from coronavirus also an increase in cases in europe why neighboring you are why among others and that's why president got a phone number is and his government announced that they're canceling flights from chile from mexico and from brazil back in december they had announced already cancellations of flights coming from the united kingdom because of fears of this new strain of coral now virus well now they're increasing the amount of countries that are banned from flying to argentina aside from canceling flights they're also imposing new restrictions on tourists arriving to argentina they're not only going

to need a test to get into the flight but another wants once they land and if that test is false they'll have to isolate in the hotel the government has also just announced that they're going to be increasing the amount of period that passes from one shot of a vaccine to the 2nd one and shortages of vaccines is a major concern not only in argentina but across the region is one exception because of the vaccines but countries like argentina parul why have been struggling in fact that american sewer summit precedential summit happened the friday it was scheduled to take place here in cite is but it was passed and moved online mostly because of the threat of coral no virus. now moving on and the latest attempt to refight the mega ship that's blocking egypt's suez canal has failed as for loud chorus for global trade it's been wedged across that crucial 7 right now for 3 days and non-con reports. confusion about the fate of the ever given

a team of salvage experts flew in from the netherlands to help the so far unsuccessful attempts to dislodge the vessel while egyptian officials seemed confident the su is canal would reopen soon the dutch expert said they wouldn't commit to a specific time frame saying it could take days or weeks it's a mammoth task the ship is 400 mi is long weighing 200000 tons and it's stuck in what's often described as the most important shipping lane in the world a maritime accident with global implications shipping analysts already predicting disruption and price hikes. the series can now i'm a feat of amazing engineering that the world has taken for granted for 150 years what has happened is very unusual i can't remember it happening before the ever given container ship became wedged across the so is canal on choose day when high winds blew it off course about 12 percent of global trade passes through the 193

kilometer long canal which connects the red sea with the mediterranean providing the shortest link between asia and europe the vessel carrying around $20000.00 containers is registered in panama and operated by taiwanese transport company evergreen marine it was sailing from china to the port city of rotterdam in the netherlands when it got stuck this image posted on a ship tracking website shows the buck log of many vessels stuck at the exit and entry points and in the middle. the vast majority of oil from the gulf is transported to europe through the canal global prices have risen as a result industry experts are warning of a flood of insurance claims covering the vast amounts of cargo being held up automotive parts and consumer goods containers may have to be offloaded in order to lessen the wait the su is canal authority says around $20000.00 ships pass through the canal last year and in egypt billions of dollars in total fee revenue the ever given is $1.00 of the largest container ships in the world but for every hour and

every day it remains stuck on a reef and stationary there are concerns about its financial fallout and the impact on global trade him on current. u.s. politicians sparring over the surge in migrants crossing the border with mexico including the arrival of unaccompanied children which has now reached near record levels in recent weeks both democrats and republicans have been visiting border facilities and texas democrats say the trumpet ministration left behind a broken system unable to deal with asylum seekers humanely but republicans blame president biden for encouraging migrants to even make the journey shabba tansey is a monitoring those visits for us from mccallum in texas. neither party ever seems to accept the fact that the reason why there is such instability in central america is in large part due to successive democrat and republican administrations who have destabilized central america through their foreign policy but yesterday we've had the republicans say that the over crowding out the border is because of

a by the administration gone they flung open from 2 to disease ridden migrants the coyote's were trafficking them whereas the democrats are saying no this is a system that was broken by trump and now they're here as the cavalry to fix the system and it's true yes donald trump did dismantle the system of asylum in the us at the southern border but it's also true that republican narrative the joe biden has retained the most draconian parts off that flouting of domestic and international humanitarian law when it comes to dealing with asylum joe biden is not allowing the vast majority of asylum seekers to get into the system he's not allowing them due process only unaccompanied children and now apparently reluctantly by the assertion is now allowing in families as mothers and fathers with children under the age of 7 but only because mexico is refusing to take those

those families well manual rapido is on the other side of. mexico he says the migrants camptown still hopeful to get into the u.s. one day we've been returning to this migrant camp at in check but i'll port of entry really just a few meters away from the us mexico border where there are somewhere between 80058500 migrants that have been camped out here some of them for over a month others new arrivals in the time that we've been here over the past few days we've seen a steady flow of people continuing to arrive in in fact this 1st line of tents that we have behind us here is. actually just popped up overnight and people here are abreast of the news a lot of the folks that we've been speaking to say that they did x. . really listened to that press conference yesterday where president biden made it very clear that the border is closed where he said that he expects mexico to share in the burden of taking care of migrant families that will be inevitably deported from the united states back to mexico but the overwhelming sentiment the common

theme that we hear from families whether it be central american families from countries like honduras and guatemala or families from southern mexico see it's like me truck gun and one haka and psychotic us fleeing violence linked to cartels there is hope they hope that by the grace of god by u.s. authorities border authorities will change their minds will open the borders give them opportunity to plead their asylum cases to u.s. officials. still ahead here on out as their anger and arrests as the u.s. state of georgia controversial new version. in bangladesh protests against an independent state visit by india's prime minister .

it's time for the perfect gentleman. sponsored point qatar airways how we got a little bit of everything going on across eastern parts of asia over the next couple of days it's fine it's right for japan at the moment it's looking rather wet though as we push across towards that eastern side of china this bank of cloud will continue to drive its way further east was through the low say turning pretty wet across the korean peninsula for saturday make the most of that settle whether the pleasant spring sunshine that we have in tokyo for example as we go on through saturday 19 celsius say because the cloud on the right will make its way through we'll see some very wet weather coming into q 2 into much of cons temperatures hang on to around 20 celsius but it's not going to be a pleasant 20 celsius quite in that brisk breeze coming through and that wet weather will spread to all parts by the end of the day for that lot of cloud and rain into the far south of china through taiwan one of 2 showers 2 coming into the philippines where weather will be across the southern areas of the philippines but

some heavy showers there into a good part of malaysia and the showers continuing to into a good part of indonesia we've seen some showers side line of showers actually drawing their way across southern parts of the bay of bengal easing across into sri lanka in the far south of india much of india is fine and dry and turning hot towards the northwest. sponsored paul qatar airways you are dealing with a very powerful people people in influential positions in government where we know there were elements within the police completely adman's that were getting scared that we were getting too close to some people higher up the line to get to. the tomato to something. that is essentially the perfect crime you have a diplomatic bag that caught the open ended qantas search al-jazeera investigates the poaches pipeline.

hello there i'm in the. let's remind you about top stories this hour ethiopia says eritrea has agreed to withdraw its forces from the northern tier a region where they've been accused of killing civilians ethiopian prime minister has finally admitted that eritrean forces in tikrit after months of denials. the latest attempt to refloat that mega ship rocking egypt's suez canal has failed as fallout grows for global trade it's been wedged across that crucial shipping route back for 3 days. u.s. politicians have been visiting border facilities in texas following the recordset of migrants arriving in recent weeks it comes

a day after president joe biden defended his handling of that influx at the southern border calling it a seasonal increase. our coalition of civil rights groups is suing the u.s. state of georgia after its republican governor signed sweeping new voting restrictions in total it comes as republicans and many other states are pushing for similar changes as former president trump continues to blame his electoral loss on voter fraud alan fisher has more from washington d.c. . from the white house condemnation. process if you don't leave any 0. 0 there is nothing but. darn. close. demonstrators gathered in the statehouse as the republican governors saying this weeping measures behind closed doors why is the governor trying to sign something in private one state legislature was arrested for banging on the do not

piling on. in the presidential election then sent 2 democratic senators to congress in a runoff election is democratic. is. america. to try to make it harder for people to vote. rather than making it easier. for people to vote here are some of the key measures in the new law there will be voter id number required for absentee voting that replaces the old signature checks there will be a limit on the number of drop boxes for early voters in each county so it will be less convenient the law makes it an offense to hand out food and drink to those waiting in line to vote and those lines get long but it does expand in past an early voting the man who signed the bill into law says this cuts the chances of electoral fraud georgia's will no doubt be soon overwhelmed with fancy t.v. ads mailers and radio spots attacking this commonsense election reform measure.

in fact left wing groups funded by the state billionaires are already doing that now they're using outrageous false read it to scare you into millions of dollars in their own pocket there was no bribe this is not about me being there this is a response to is the increase voter turnout black and brown voters in the state of georgia georgia's election process is already seen as one of the most efficient in the country so critics claim this is the solution to a problem that never existed one imagined by donald trump and his supporters it will put pressure on politicians in washington especially democrats to come up with a national baseline for voting rules and regulations and to do it soon alan fischer al-jazeera. let's now bring in jason nichols he is a democratic strategist and also a senior lecturer and african-american studies at the university of maryland he joins us now from there jason i want to start and george and will will broaden out

from where i was speaking in the last hour to an african-american woman at atlanta she is also the founder of black conservatives for truth and she pointed out that all of this expands early in person voting which would help representation of these new idea requirements would in effect minorities because so many people have i.d.'s what would you say to her. i'd say number one that that is a change that was made at the last minute they actually additionally in this bill tried to eliminate early voting on sundays which was a clear attack at african-americans it also bans giving food and water to people who are waiting in line we have statistics that say that 45 percent that black people on average stand in voting lines for an extra 45 minutes as compared to white voters so this is really a way to limit black votes we saw what happened in fulton county at that person's state so i think that they are not being truthful and not being honest the truth is

that this is a jim crow ask attack that we've seen in the george of old and they're trying to bring the george of old into the 21st century it's an embarrassment for that state we saw that there was no voter fraud in the 2020 there is no evidence of that and as a matter of fact everyone who is alleging that is being sued including so including some news organizations that reported on it so we see that this is a solution to a problem that did not exist this is all an attempt to limit black votes and its inner trust to our democracy jason you're using sound very similar to watch that that we had from the president by the jim crow in the 21st century do you think that you know it's like this could actually have the opposite effect a progressive backlash and so it's potentially getting more democrats out to vote it's and i want to try to turn this on its head. well i certainly hope even says

stating this in a very nonpartisan way i certainly hope that it does motivate more people to participate more people to vote more people to not allow someone to limit their rights and vote by making it inconvenient but this is certainly an attempt to make it inconvenient it shortens the period for runoff elections it gives state legislatures more power and state election boards which is just an attempt to throw out legal votes so one of the things that i think the democratic party needs to do is to start taking control of state houses they really need to focus on local elections not just the big statewide elections or the senate elections that and others like that the people that head to washington but in those local elections they're so important republicans run 20 or 30 are state houses and that's why you have 253 of these bills across the country so that's got to be

prioritized by the by the democratic party will be forward if they want to expand democracy instead of truncate i want to mention the state houses that other states are considering finagle as 43 states i believe do you think that would actually say overall changes like this across the country going forward. oh i definitely think that many states will move in this direction and we've seen it particularly in these battleground states states like arizona states like pennsylvania wisconsin those republican legislatures are hell bent on following the will of donald trump and you know not acknowledging the fact that he lost a legitimate election that there was no election for fraud so they're trying to do this in a way that i as as i said and as president biden has said it is reminiscent of the jim crow era by every means possible to keep people from voting particularly black and brown people but you know i think that this will go forward

in a lot of other states we just have to find a way over it when hurdles are put in the way of black people voting black people have found a way over those circles and that'll just have to continue jason nichols that democratic strategist and author and lecturer at university of maryland your thoughts here on out here thanks for being with us again jason thank you thank you i'm moving on and 2 trains have collided in central asia killing at least 2 people injuring at least 165 others the l a o authority says someone trickett the imagines he breaks on one of those trains and the other one crashed into it from behind the president is promising to punish those responsible. more than $1000.00 train accidents annually in egypt and that is according to the government's statistical authority cap mass. i have a hard time believing that that's all the product of incompetence on the part of lower level employees where we have as an infrastructure problem we have

a government problem. myanmar's military is putting on a show of strength as it continues to put down demonstrations against its rule right now a parade is underway in the capital naypyidaw to market forces day this event commemorates the army's resistance to japanese occupation and wild war to the military there has warned protest as they'll be shot in the head if they interrupted this annual event. and that's the 1st acknowledgment of a shoot to kill or divide the army another 3 people were killed in and protests on friday rights groups say they've now confirmed the deaths of $320.00 protesters since the military seized power 2 months ago but that the true number is likely to be much higher. now the u.s. says it will provide $30000000.00 of a bowl of assistance to democratic republic of congo and guinea that pledge came at a virtual summit on the disease this continuing threat in west africa african

leaders have also been urged to follow through on their promise to contribute to a pool of 2000000 health care workers to deal with future health emergencies since february at least 9 people have died from a boat in guinea and 6 and democratic republic of congo where georges alfred kids who is the world health organizations representative to guinea he says the w.h.o. and african union members showed real unity at the somers. i think their. discussion on the freight of. dead meat came out pretty strong commitments from my member states talks with temperature will be actually turned you know and also in order for coordination at global regional and country level and investment in universal health coverage and have security. as means to secure who.

coming yes. the lessons learned from 2014 to 20 cities in an epidemic way reflected on and a lot of experiences were shared by member states she any. uganda 3 and she had early on and this was a reach discussion under the auspices of the african union and. the u.s. department of. health and sorting office so it was. something it was looking at governance quite the nation performance of 'd kindness and the response of country regional and global but also you know. that has been anger in bangladesh sparked by a visit by india's prime minister has no end or modi attended the country's 50th

independence celebrations protests against his visit turned violent at least 4 people died and dozens more were injured hundreds have reports now from dhaka. prime minister sheikh hasina welcome india's leader with warmth and praise gloating nor in their motive for supporting bangladesh especially through the global pandemic. so the government of india has always been beside us during good and bad times this time india has handed over 109 ambulances to the people up and the dish i extend my heartiest thanks to prime minister narendra modi his government and the people of india. but violence flared among opponents of modi's visit some clashes turned deadly as police fired on protesters. still narendra modi was keen to honor his country's role in bangladesh's emergence as a new nation 50 years ago following a brutal fight for independence from pakistan are heard. today in bangladesh the

blood of those who fought for their liberation in the blood of injured soldiers are flown together this abroad for such a relationship that will not break down under any type of pressure and will not fall prey to any kind of diplomacy. i know these hated figures for some groups in bangladesh their point to what they see as his anti muslim policies in india and the influence he holds over bangladeshi politics probably all agression and the current ruling party is still able to hang on to power because of the aggressive policy and support given by india this is clear to the people now and to protect their own interests they've nakedly attacked the interests of the citizens to dish out to the least those who are currently in power are involved with modi to cling on to their seat which is why the ruling party now needs modi support to stay in power. they commie has stabilized and boomed in recent years under prime minister has seen. but activists say as those fortunes have grown human rights have

deteriorated this is very. unlike dish today we are supposed to celebrate golden to be the only nation on this day. every tact just park exercising their freedom of expression and just that and i feel i'm just another little more that the prime minister of india bangladesh as leaders have criticised demonstrators for overshadowing an important independence milestone involving an ally they see an increasingly important time which. iran is al jazeera and these are the headlines if european says eritrea has agreed to withdraw its forces from the northern tier a region where they've been accused of killing raping and torturing civilians and resigning this week that ethiopian prime minister met.