i want to see. anger and arrests as the u.s. state of georgia signs controversial new version rules into law. hello there i'm just on the attack and this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up politicians from both parties travel to the u.s. border with mexico painting starkly different pictures of the challenges that. across the world new waves of the coronavirus threat new waves of lockdowns. and ethiopia's prime minister says eritrean soldiers have agreed to withdraw from the tikrit region after months of denying they were even that.

now a coalition of civil rights groups is suing the u.s. state of georgia after its republican governor signed sweeping new version restrictions in total republicans and many other states are also pushing for similar changes as former president trump continues to blame his election loss on versa for alan fisher has more now from washington d.c. . from the white house condemnation. brought to you don't leave me here oh. no there's nothing but. darn. close. demonstrators gathered in the state house as the republican governor saying this weeping measures behind closed doors why is the governor trying to sign something in private once the. legislator was arrested for banging on the door.

georgia voted for joe biden in the presidential election then sent 2 democratic senators to congress in a runoff election is panti democratic. is on 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 and 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 common sense election reform measure. in fact left wing groups funded by the state billionaires are already doing that now they're using outrageous false rhetoric to scare you into millions of dollars in their own pocket there was no bribe this is not about the only thing this is a response to is the increase voter turn our. motors 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 of much and by don't trump and his supporters it will put pressure on politicians in washington especially democrats to come up with a national baseline for wanting rules and regulations and to do it soon alan fischer al-jazeera. to jason nicholas he's a democratic strategist and he explains why the spill has repeatedly been described

as men in a sense of the jim crow era and the late 19th century when racial segregation was accepted by white people mischa least 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 esque attack that we've seen in the george of old and they're trying to bring the ga of old 'd into the 21st century it's an embarrassment for that state we saw that there was no voter fraud in the 2020 election there is no evidence of

that and as a matter of fact everyone who is alleging that is big suit including so it 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 when i also expect to carry and walk as a republican strategist and also the founder of bakken 7 of us for truth she says the democrats are just nit picking at this bell to try to fit their narrative. this is a very very good deal has and many of the items that the democrats said that the bill would not have this bill is now a law the president governor signed into law yesterday. we have no absentee ballot voting so i mean no excuse absentee ballot voting so you don't have to have an excuse to vote we still have a drop boxes we have sunday voting to at you know send

a voting saturday voting this is a very good deal the reason that the democrats are complaining is because it works towards their narrative of a republican voter suppression again you know against black and brown people but it's just not true if you're going to be aligned you can bring your own water you can bring your own food. nobody we've never had a situation where people are bringing water and food we've had long lines before this is just nit picking to be against that i don't think that the electoral system is broken there are some items that have some items that need to be taken care of and that's what this bill does it's strength then election integrity so that people would have faith in the process of voting because when you have faith in voting we have faith in the process you're more likely to come out to vote now we have to actually know sunday voting drawbacks is before the pandemic we never had drop

boxes so how can you be suppressed from something that you never had while u.s. politicians are also sparring over the sides and migrants crossing the border with mexico including the arrival of unaccompanied children but has now reached near record levels in recent weeks but democrats and republicans have been visiting facilities and but i mean each other for the crisis chambre towns are reports now from macallan and texas. friday dueling congressional delegation has attempted to frame the us is latest border crisis light across the river we heard coyotes human smugglers saying we're coming republicans have been using social media to bolster their narrative of a free for all being taken advantage of by traffickers and undocumented migrants we have an upside down border policy in america what do i mean we have open borders on the southern border there's no doubt by the way the people come in and were released immediately almost without testing at all open borders no testing

for kovan but in fact president biden has retained the most draconian of donald trump's migration policies for asylum seekers in violation of domestic and international humanitarian law only unaccompanied children and in the last month parents with children under 7 are being allowed to claim asylum migrant rights groups say this is the reason why families faced with the uncertainty of homelessness in dangerous mexican border towns are choosing to send their teenage children across the border unaccompanied in the hope that at least they will find safety when asylum seekers are released those not sent to government run refugee facilities are sent to border cities like macallan texas the refugees release here have to rely on a local catholic charity which gives them a covert test in that tent over there and then helps reunite them with their family members in the u.s. the democratic party congressional delegation said the fault lay with donald trump

we need to be clear about something. president biden inherited situation where the previous administration had sought to dismantle the infrastructure for processing asylum seekers and settling asylum seekers in the united states the reality is more complex unfortunately us here on the border have to bear witness to . multiple administrations making the decision that it's more important to militarize the border. drones and more money for fear calls and the border wall instead of actually finding humane ways to welcome people to the united states president biden has vowed to act swiftly to resolve the overcrowding of the border there at his press conference on thursday he suggested his main strategy was pressuring mexico to take in more asylum seekers but migrant rights groups say the short term solution is to flood the border with resources to process refugees to

meet the u.s. is not legal humanitarian obligations and give all migrants due process shihab rattansi mccallum texas. on the other side of that border into mexico he says the migrants camped out there are still hopeful to get into the u.s. one day we've been returning to this migrant camp at it 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 actually listen 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 to 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 states like me truck gun and one haka and psychotic as 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. the military is putting on a show of strength as its crackdown on and to crew protests continues. and parade has just been underway in the capital not the daughter market forces day that event commemorates the army's resistance to japanese occupation in world war 2

the military has won protesters they'll be shot on the head if they interrupt the event. now parts of kenya will return to lockdown to fight what the president is calling a devastation coronavirus death rays the country is experiencing a 3rd wave now 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 also been ordered to close and curfews are being extended meanwhile german health officials are warning that its latest wave of the corona virus could be the worst so far there are people to stay at home during the upcoming easter holiday to help slow the rapid rise in infections their off it is there could be as many as $100000.00 new cases every day unless the spread is. she's like no other just is

a very. clear signals that this we have could become significantly worse than the 1st 2 waves we must prepare for the number of cases rising strongly and that more people get seriously ill again that hospitals will get overburdened and that's a lot of people will die we are just at the beginning of this development and if we don't mess of the conscious to immediately the consequences will be grave while dr christoph spect is a medical expert and a journalist he says the mismanagement of the vaccine rollout across europe has allowed infections to surge that. what is surprising is the modification rate in germany we have changed the test regimen in the coupler in the last couple of weeks so we are now looking more in this dark for you the estimated number of not reported on unreported cases in the last week or last week so maybe it's a matter of the notification number so the other thing is that we had an

immunization campaign in the last the 2 or 3 months and we managed to human eyes the elderly 80 years and older and this worked quite well but we didn't manage to immunize the the younger ones and this is probably because why we see those rising numbers now we are not in the lead anymore and that is probably too true to our mismanagement in. ordering the immunization yes you know the e.u. it was the one who did it and i think from the time on when we decided that let let the e.u. handle this it was clear that we will not be in in the lead if you compare it to the u.k. or israel or you see what the what the differences are and i'm glad merkel so lost this very comfortable position which she had in the beginning of the pandemic that's true so there we lost trust in it brazil has now

reported more than 3600 coronavirus death that's a new record for a single day cheers have been growing for intensive care beds as infections sads the most populous states has been badly hit and has now extending lockdown measures until april 11th. meanwhile in rio de janeiro you can see that protesters rallied as the country's 2nd biggest city began a 10 day lockdown non-essential shops and businesses will be closed but demonstrate just say they need to walk despite a financial aid package announced this week and argentina has now announced it will suspend flights from brazil chile and mexico to prevent the spread of new variants of curve of 19 these measures will come into effect on saturday the government says it's concerned about the rising number of infections and neighboring brazil particularly which has recorded more than 12000000 cases that has reported nearly

2300000 infections so fall well still ahead here on those they're stuck in the suez the latest attempts to free a mega ship fails as container traffic builds up. and hit by covered 19 why many artists on the island of bali say they're struggling to get by. with. qatar airways. we got a little bit of everything going on across eastern parts of asia over the next couple of days it's fine in try 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 cells you 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 honshu 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 to 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 sess a 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 talked to al-jazeera we are going to tell me what the government you represent is now illegitimate and we listen we do not sell the fence material to any country or your conflict in yemen we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter on al-jazeera understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the pond so no matter how you take it we'll bring you the news and current affairs that matter to you. hello value watching al-jazeera let's remind you of our top stories this hour civil

rights groups are suing the u.s. state of georgia after the republican governor there signed sweeping new version restrictions into law one state representative was even arrested amid protests against. u.s. politicians have been visiting border facilities in texas following the record surge of migrants arriving there in recent weeks it comes a day after president joe biden defended his handling of that influx of the southern border calling it a seasonal increase. german health officials are warning that its latest wave of the corona virus could be the west so far there are fears there could be as many as 100000 new cases every day unless the spread described. all right now we have some breaking news coming out of egypt where we're getting reports that a 10 story residential building has collapsed in the capital cairo these are the latest pictures to come in to us and as you can see it is the middle of the night there it's yet unclear just how many people were in that building when it came down

or how many might still be trapped we'll be bringing you more on that as we cast. off staying in egypt where 2 trains have collided killing at least 32 people and injuring at least 165 others the railway authority says someone triggered the emergency brakes 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 train accidents and you were in egypt and that is according to the government's statistical authority. i have a hard time believing that that's the product of incompetence on the part of the rebel and or what we have is an infrastructure problem we are government problem. and also in egypt the japanese owner of a negative that's currently blocking the suez canal says crews will attempt to refloat it again during high tide on saturday but experts are holding out little

hope with some warning that it could take weeks iran caught 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 of 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 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 backlog 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 oil 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 toll fee revenue the ever given is $1.00 of the largest container ships in the world but for every hour and every day it remain stuck on a reef and stationary there are concerns about its financial fallout and the impact on global trade him on carbon. moving on now and 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 all in fact after months of denials now eritrea and ethiopia for a border war from 1900 to 2000 although a final peace deal wasn't great 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.v. l.f.

was the leading force an ethiopian politics for almost 30 years until i became prime minister catherine so it now has. one of the clearest indications of the presence of very trained forces in tikrit i came from the town of bizet this was right before if you open prime minister ahmed addressed parliament on tuesday and admitted for the 1st time the troops from the neighboring country had crossed into border areas in the northwest of guy he argued the soldiers crossed into theall because of concerns about attacks by forces of the t. gripe people's liberation front several rockets were fired into retract from t. gray when the conflict began last november your national security good days the. the reason why they are there is because of a national security concern we also informed 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 a bin now says they returned soldiers will leave this is after a meeting he held with the president. in the eritrean 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 socal to great defense forces so it's really not clear what the implications of what the military strategy here is from the government and 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 ceased to refugee camps that were hosting about $20000.00 every trend refugees were destroyed by an unknown people and there were about of most of the refugees is

a known been able to contact around 2000 there are also staying in the neighboring towns in the cavern shiro some have also been down in the capital addis but when our teams were able to reach its absence you melber what they saw was a. large areas of the shelters level to the ground or offices or 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. france bears overwhelming responsibility for their a london genocide but it was not complicit in the events of 1994 that's the main finding of a commission set up by the french government and says the state was blind to

preparations for the slaughter of about $800000.00 mainly ethnic tootsies over 3 months france actively supported the hurter led government at the time the report says it could have done much more to prevent the killings. now for centuries the indonesian island of bali has been a hub of arts and culture with many galleries and museums displaying the work of traditional artists but the island has been hit hard by covert 19 and many galleries have stopped their doors some artists on bali there have found ways to keep selling their work even though many say they're struggling to get by jessica washington reports now from jakarta on the island of bali in the village of bantu on why i'm mad through has been making and selling masks for more than 50 years they're used for traditional dances and are often sold as souvenirs to us but with bali closed to foreign tourists because of the pandemic he struggled to find customers what it got why young. there are 300 or 4 families in this village

95 percent of us are masks craftsman because of covert all sales were canceled. some artists in the village have turned to other jobs but that's not an option for everyone so you know that when the good many of us about the suffering i'm overly i cannot do anything else i can't talk of course structured site i don't have the strength. since indonesia shut its borders he earns 30 dollars each month from sales. by another experienced artist works in his studio he could do it so key is one of the group of artists who created this style of painting. i met that guy that i paint to maintain balinese culture i want to show people with the supported by leave the island the harvesting paddy fields cultivating the land douse the docks flowing water this is barley his granddaughter set up an instagram

page to help sell his paintings online. although he's forced to sell at a cheaper price he says he's fortunate. that. these days many people are stop painting entirely because it's so hard to sell their work. gallery owners are also feeling the impact with almost no walk in customers at this wood carving showroom nothing has been sold in months yeah you hear the rock. but this is the darkest moment for the tourism industry there were incidents like the bali bombings and the volcanic eruption that impacted tourism but it's worse now. he's determined to stop his business from closing down like many galleries have. you noticed but he took we will never shut down even if there are no customers i want the world to know that we're fighting. even though he isn't

making any sales he still orders new sculptures from local artists to keep the industry alive while they all wait for better days just to washington al-jazeera jakarta. hello there this is al-jazeera i mean the headlines we're getting reports that a 10 story because eventually building has collapsed in cairo is the latest pictures to come in to us from egypt you can see it is the middle of the night there it is unclear just how many people were in that building when it came down or how many might still be trapped civil rights groups are so.