countries struggling to support them. charlotte bellis al jazeera. now how does one of the world's most powerful navies test its basis piece of equipment? the u. s. navy trawling its most advanced aircraft carrier. nearly 20 tons of expresses were designated near the u. s. s. gerald ford to check its battle ready. this of the navy says the test complied with environmental regulations and didn't interfere with marine life on top stories on how to 0 poles of closed any t o p in an election seen as a test for promised med 3 years after he came to power. he says the vote is the country's 1st attempt at free and fair elections, the taking place against the backdrop of rising tension and were delayed 10 months

by the current of our spending. money to do is in, i just have about the some pulling stations where bolting is still going on and will go on until the last several. there was long queues observed in the capital at the sub about several other cities across the country. people had started gathering some of these pulling sessions as early as 4 in the morning. these are very crucial elections to be and they see us the 1st step towards democratizing their country and they want the entire world to see it. just not a walk in progress around president elect says he backs talks to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, but he won't meet us. president joe biden abraham racy made the comments at his 1st news conference since winning the election on saturday. he said the wrong foreign policy would not be limited to the new to deal with thousands of people celebrating

in armenia capital off the prime minister shook off a military defeat to take an action victory. confession in called a snap general election was public angus too high. over p steel, he signed to end last year's war with john. his civil contract party took nearly 54 percent of the vote. lympics organizes in japan say they want up to $10000.00 domestic fans to be able to attend each event. but next months, tokyo games a to pounds top medical adviser said no spectators would be the safest option. printer lympics, already delayed by year on cost pro democracy newspaper. the apple daily could be forced to stop printing and go offline by wednesday, the company's assets have been frozen on hong kong. was controversial national security as the top choice to stay with a c o number 0 stream is up next for news. after that, i have enough me

ah, ah, i am from you. okay, to day on the stream, we are featuring 3 stories and one shot in ethiopia. well, elections be free and fat. how dangerous is the delta cove in 1? $900.00 variant. as part of the world start opening up a rapidly mutating covey very. it has doctors and scientists alarmed and the mysterious has that syndrome wouldn't be out of place. and a james bond film. it has the medical community puzzled, and it suffers to maintain a former c i. a agent joins us to tell us what he knows. there's a lot to get 3,

but we want you to be part of today's show. so you can post your comments and questions right here and i do to chat. we begin in ethiopia. what is being propagated by the government as a country 1st, a free and fair election is proving to be anything but resorting the repressive tactics to ensure a fixed electoral outcome. utopian federal and regional authorities have imprison thousands of opposition leaders, their supporters and decisions. many of whom have been subsequently tortured or killed. several of the main opposition parties are boycotting the elections, so as not to legitimize them. when those elections in ethiopia, mount the 1st electoral test for prime minister abbey ahmed, who came to power in 2018. but there's concern about how free and fair elections will be despite assurances from the prime minister, while millions of ethiopian have already voted, voted in take right or not. and voting has also been postponed in other regions due

to logistical issues and security challenges that was make sense of everything that's happening were joined by that. can i sell a lot of friendship? i know we can handle it that can i, as i saw some video of the prime minister earlier today, and we will ask him about all these elections, free and fair. this is what he said on camera. good. this year's election in many ways is much better than previous ones. what i want to say is all opposition political parties. what are they lose or when, who are competing in this election by trusting the people and government deserve to be honored. all forces who participate in this election by ignoring noise from outside deserve honor. the electoral board will determine the results. so we will see the result together. i don't that i so these elections worked out here as being the one of the most democrats elections. that if you would ever experience or to

date your take well, learn with regards to the job his fledgling democracy. i think the, the standards are the bar has been set pretty low. when you take into consideration that the past 5 elections held in the country were neither deemed free or fair by independent observers. however, this time around there is perhaps the most troubling aspect of it is the fact that there is a dearth of political representation in these elections from the top 10 opposition parties by a number of candidates. fielded, 8 of them are based in saba and how their support basis in december law. they have very little reach outside of the capital city. so the couple city which holds something like 5 percent of his york is 110 or 120000000 people is well represented . but entire regions of had their prominent representatives and political leaders

excluded systematically, rounded up jail to or, and basically for stuff of the polls. so while there are some, there still remains a lot to be desired with regards to well, his democratic process has said that the client is on youtube. so tad says, despite its shortcomings, this is by far the 1st free election, ethiopia ever had, at least from what my family and friends experienced and witnessed. so most of the elections of the current, this current round of elections, most of the voting it's have happened. most of it has happened by now. what are you seeing? what are you hearing this? this is the, the, the best so far that we've had some ethiopian society. well, as i said, the best does not necessarily mean adequate when you may highlight again that the countries, 5 previous elections were neither free and fair nor fair. so being the best of,

of elections that are, that are sub par, isn't necessarily something to be fettered, celebrated. we do need to take into account that something and just have just a little bit under 20 percent of the seats that were supposed to be contested. today will go uncontested, either because of the civil war and gray security situation in different parts of the country, or suspected voter irregularities in region such as the somali region and so voting, there will be some timber. i'm glad you mentioned that sacrifice because i'm wondering what impact that will have on the overall elections. once all of the results of being tally, have a listen to this comment and come right off the back of it. what is particular interest is the election will not be taking place in about one constituencies in the countries, but about 812500 foot 7. whether it is not to be taking place,

they think differently for the most peaceful, stable regions. there's somebody to region, so the question in front of us now is will the elections address the legitimacy problem face or the routing party? well, that's a good question. but for instance, to address or question directly. even though somebody region as peaceful as it might be, perhaps one of the most prominent parties that was slated to compete and provide the regional government with the stiffest challenge at the polls. the o. n ls itself has something like over a dozen of its members detained and currently incarcerated. so they've been unable to truly express and take part in their own you know, what are the democratic rights rights that are supposed to be enshrined in the constitution. so even if polls were to go on schedule,

it's unclear if they would have had any significant impact on what seems to be a projected regional government and ruling party victory their crisis. and i'm just looking at prime minister ahmed's twitter feed and he's, he mentioned voting. he took pictures of voting, but he's also in the last 12 hours or so post date, images of, of a new bred factory talking about infrastructure as well. this is, these are all the issues the to other issues that are not resonating internationally. but are they important within ethiopia? of course, for the international headlines they to grow, complet is making the news, but elsewhere around the country. what are the issues that people are concerned about when they're voting? what are you hearing? well at this point in time, you feel as facing numerous crisis above all the most dire of them is the the

ongoing civil war, which is now in its 7th month in the northern region to gray. and it led to thousands dying and something like 90 percent of the residents there needing emergency food assistance. however, the topic of to grey, the topic of the war there has been systemically excluded from not wendy. and the serious representation of the polls, but even from televised electoral debates that took place over the course of the past few months, the issue was brought up. and as i said, that's the most troubling aspect. because far too many of the more prominent parties are featuring up the elections. do not shy away greatly from the ruling party in terms of ideology. and thus, there isn't too much in terms of an attempt to really challenge the, the government and handle the security crisis that arise that alarm. thank you for being on the same day. we appreciate your insight now from you. if you get to

a global covey very, and that's on track to become the well to most dominant strain, his doctor donita back to a physician in india showing how concerns didn't have many for the 70 percent most transmissible. then the 2nd, the it causes a more severe disease with pile hospitalisation treats this can open the whole system of any country like a digital code. lee is affecting more children as compared to the previous periods . my biggest concern with this is that additionally, same thing we do is i think we need to do the same for every individual at the shop . so i think the cdc needs to revise its hello my policy are mostly related individuals as far as the gradient is concerned. now, joining us from today, we have daughter maria vanka cove. she is

a covered 19 technical lead at the w. h. o, a health emergency program, she is the right person to ask about a code 900 variance. i know that you've talked about this quite a bit and we're hearing about that quite a bit. this very and how would you describe it to the general public? what is going on? things 1st of all, for having me on the show. this delta variant is a dangerous variance. this could be virus and it's natural form. it's in its ancestral form. it's dangerous to begin with. and any variant that has mutations or a constellation of mutation that has increased christmas ability that has the possibility of causing increased rates of hospitalization. we don't yet have any indication of increased severity, but increased transmission means that more people can be infected quicker. and if you have systems that are overwhelmed to begin with and you have more cases that are coming that are needing a hospital bed, your health care system which is already overburdened, is going to be even further overburden. and that can lead to more death that can

lead to many more problems that society are facing. so this is a dangerous virus to begin with and i'm more transmissible. one makes our control measures that much more challenging. and that's what we're worried about. we're worried about 18 months into a panoramic. the world is exhausted. i'm exhausted, you're exhausting what it's like. we're running a marathon and a full sprint on uneven terrain through a very dark tunnel. and now we have these twists and turns, and it's something that we expect, because the more the virus circulates, the more has a chance to mutate. so this is convergent evolution. this is what is expected. but this makes our job all of us because every single one of us around the world has a role to play that much harder. but we can still do this. we can still in this if it's a delta, right? that means that where we're full variance that we know of all the others out there, maria, that we should be concerned about. you said that this is the natural way of,

of a virus so that it's going to be more we might even run out to greek. who knows? we will, we will probably run out of the greek alphabet. we will have more letters that will be there, but keep in mind, these are there for variance of concern. the alpha beta gamma delta delta vary in the one that's most concerning right now because it has even more, it's more transmissible than the alpha very that be 117. we have 6 or 7 variance for the interest that we are tracking at the global level. some of these variance of interest may become variance of concern, which means they have demonstrated increase the verity or trans miss ability. but some of them may fall off of our list, we may follow them for some time, and then they may turn out to be not as i hate to use the word concerning because they're also turning. but we have a global system in place. this is what we want people to know about out there is that as the virus changes, we're working with scientists all over the world. all. and i mean all over the world, not just in high income countries, but high low income countries to track these variance to improve genetic sequencing

. so that we have better eyes and ears about which mutations are out there. what is out there. and we have a system in place to assess these mutations. not all of them are important. some of them do not, you know, can for any thickness to the virus. and so that it, it transmits more easily and some are quite detrimental to the virus itself. and they die out. yeah, well, we have a global system in place to track them and then to inform our public health and social measures, our vaccines, our diagnostic and the good news is our public health and social measures work at individual level measures. our i p c, measures our diagnostics work. our vaccines work again, even the delta variance, but we do need the people to get the full dose. and if your vaccine that you are offer gives you 2 doses. get that 2nd dose. but we vac, and around the world, we do not have vaccines reaching those who are most in need. less than one percent of low income countries have had people vaccinated and that is just appalling. and

so we're working on that through our kovacs partners to be able to increase that, but we need to vaccinate those who are most at risk people of older age, people with underlying condition. and most importantly, our frontline workers, people who are out there that are carrying for sick individuals, putting themselves on the line. so there's a lot to do, but some real on youtube. one of the questions was, how do you avoid the coverage del delta variant? and is that even possible to avoid it? well, there's a lot that you can do to keep yourself protected to one. if you're offered a vaccine get vaccine when it's your turn. take your turn advocate for vaccine ac efficacy vaccine, excuse me, equity around the world, but know what your risk is. every day the virus is circulating at an uneven rate around the world. some countries have controlled cobit with public health and social measures, even without vaccination. so know what your risk is every day and take measures to lower your risk. avoid crowded spaces where

a mask and make sure it's over your nose and mouth. make sure had good filtration. make sure your hands are clean when you put it on and take it off. make sure you have good ventilation when you're indoors. it's as simple in some situations as opening a window to have good, clean air. come in and out. take the steps, but keep yourself safe. all of that works against the delta barion. we need to be conscious about what we do every day. and we, and our loved ones need to take steps to prevent us from getting infected, as well as if we are infected, to pass the virus to others. so it's surveillance, it's contact tracing, it's isolation, it's good, early clinical care. there's no reason why people need to be dying from cobra 19. we have tools right now that could prevent people who are infected from developing severe disease with good oxygen, medical grade oxygen with dex, and met the phone for people who are severe and critical for good clinical carry. good clinical care by trained, protected and respected health workers. and so there's

a lot that we do what we do for the regular, the industrial far as koby to virus. we need to do for the delta variance and we need to be really vigilant about what we do. it's not over unfortunately, dr. maria, i know you have a lot to do, really appreciate you taking time off from your for your regular job to talk to the world and to have a stream many. thank you very much. now can you imagine living with a brain injury that causes dizziness ringing in your ears and headaches, but no one believes you. more than a 130 people suffer from what has been called the valid syndrome. it was 1st detected 5 years ago by stop working the u. s. government in cuba based upon the evidence at hand. i think that we can conclusively state that those events that occurred and about 2016, represent an intentional and directed attack against a personnel over 2 questions remain. the 1st is what was the issue that was used to incur these effects and 2nd weather. this is now part of

a larger program directed not only against united states, governmental personnel, but perhaps against the united states population at large. and later, both of these questions, i think it becomes apparent that what is needed is and development program that seeks to mitigate these effects. develop sense of preparedness and prevent future attacks of this one hand to share his experience with us. mark polymer. a palace is a retired c i a officer mark. i'm just going to ask you very pass the question straight off. what are your injuries? tell us where your head? well, thanks for being here. i think it's really important that you know, i get a chance to tell my story. you know, my injuries right now are, are a headache that hasn't gone away for 3 plus years. pretty extraordinary chronic pain. but i've developed ever since that 1st terrible incident in moscow in december of 2017. but this is chronic pain that never goes away. you know, it's a quandary. it's also caused some mental health concerns for me. but boy,

it's been a long journey and it's just, you know, 247 a headache never left up. what happened to mark? so i woke up, 1st of all, i was actually with a routine business trip. i was a senior intelligence officer. i was going to visit our embassy in moscow, and i also had scheduled meetings with russian government officials. you know, even though you know, religions might not be great between the us and russia, just like in the cold war between us and the soviet union, we still talk to each other important that adversary open. but i woke up in the middle, the night early on in the trip with an incredible sense of vertigo. the room was spinning. i've been, i've been in iraq, afghanistan, i shot at my life. it's been at risk all over the world. this was by far the most terrifying experience in my life because i really had no control over what was happening to me today. you told your superiors that you were in pain. what did you think had happened? did you, did you think? ok, this is some kind of espionage that is happening to me. well, it's

a great question because you know that know, you know that my 1st inclination was maybe maybe i was, you know, i had some kind of food poisoning. something was really wrong and intense vertigo. was when you can't stand up and i felt like i was going to be the room was spinning . the problem that kept get, kept going on. and by the time i made it back to the state and then you know, into early 2018. no, i start developing more health health problems which were things like, you know, brain fog and i lost the ability to drive. i lost my long distance. so i did go to the medical staff because clearly something really bad happened. we just didn't know what it was and you know, my, i didn't think of what happened in my colleagues with banner back in. and so i was initially screened for that. but now the doctors the time did not believe i looked like them. so essentially they dismissed me and then became a flight for not just you, but several of your colleagues, other people impacted by, by whatever it was that was making you sick. this true backing brain injury for it

to be recognized that it wasn't, it was in your head, but it wasn't a mental illness. it was something genuinely going on. why did it take so long? so the huge question, because there's 2 things that happen when someone get injured. of course you want to find out what, what happened, what occurred. so in the us, government was certainly curious on what happened, but the bottom line is i and others were 2nd. so this was just kind of basic leadership is that when, when employees who, you know, you have responsibility for get ill, they have to get health care and, and for me it was almost a bit trail because when i was there for 26 years, i've done a lot of unusual things, but i always did so knowing that the leadership would have my back if i ever got jammed up, fiber was, was injured and they didn't. and so that you know, that was a really bitter pill this while. and so, you know, i really ask for health care for quite a long time. and then ultimately in october of 2020 i decided to go public, which is really an incredible moment for me. i mean,

i live in the shadows for so long, but i needed to get to a place called water read, national intrepid center of excellence, the world, one of the world leading tv programs i had at the agency per month to send me there . they refused. so i finally went public and it did put enough pressure on them to, to send me to water read where i went, i spent about a month between january february of this year and their traumatic brain injury program. and i need to say that you are the author of a new book, co clarity in crisis leadership lessons from a cia. i'm wondering if, if it's right now is a crisis situation for the c i a because what you're describing isn't it basically a weapon? sure. so i think that, you know, obviously this is high in the importance of what, you know, not only tells us maybe both u. s. government has to tackle because as you sent me in production, it's been over a 130 officials who have reported symptoms. and so this is, this is something insidious is going on and putting, putting people at risk,

their family risk overseas. and people are questioning whether they should they should really serve abroad because this is such, such a strange occurrence, which is what is going on. but there is some hope at the end, and i think it is a leadership story. i wrote my book or the cathartic experience to write a book on leadership, ironically because the leadership did not really well. but there's a, there's some, some positive things on the horizon. the new director bill barnes has taken a new tact. i think he is a great leader. this is part of my passion that what i talk about he is he is committed to helping me and others is committed to get into the bottom of this. and i think the new administration has turned the corner, but there is a way to go. and, and once again, i think, you know, for, i have had this incredible journey from tells us all through the shadows to almost help your advocate. now, you know, that's part of my reality now, and i can break that and you know, i really just want to see, you know, my colleagues who have been injured get better, you know, probably somewhere somewhere in the, well,

his watching this interview and bring delighted that you're not going to enjoy pain because whatever they did, it worked and it working. what's your message? oh boy, look. i see i spent a lot of times it's really tough places. i think there's a long list of enemies i had, you know, interestingly enough, and this is just kind of i think a lot of a lot of us feel, you know, we have our adversaries in the world. and so whether it was, you know, everything from outside out to the taliban, bella in the list goes on. i know i did a lot of work in the field. i actually, you know, while, while i do want to find out of course, who is responsible for that and know my inclination and i think others that the russian government is responsible. you know, i have, i have kind of a different view of this because ultimately i became more upset and more disillusion that my own government was not given me and others healthcare. and so i work in the national security field. i know we have enemies, but i didn't expect that you know, those that your levels of the various medical department that would actually deny

health care to those of us who really were injured. and so that was a moral injury that i think a lot of us suffer, i think credibly revealing mark, thank you so much. we right at the end of the program. we wish you the very, very best and, and on a recovery as well. hopefully, thanks for sharing your story with us here on the stream. so, thanks to everyone who joined us on youtube, do you have a story that you would like to see on the show? you can treat us at a stream that we just reminding who we had on because it was a fast moving show. his mom polymer a palace. you can find him on twitter right here on my laptop here is that calliah fella. you can find him right here on my laptop and i should have do i have talked to maria, i will send you out some details because i also have her on my laptop as well. thanks so much for watching this, jim. i will see you next time. ah

ah, ah ah ah, overflowing with passion, but desperately under resourced tribes, national football team has never qualified for the africa cup of nations. all the world cup al jazeera world asks, what will it take for the squad to find the success? will be forever sidelined,

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story. we are your voice. you knew your net back out here. play an important role. checking with. ringback your face in the news. hello. lauren taylor on the top stories on andrew 0. polls of closed in ethiopia, in an election seen as a test promise to be a 100. 3 years after he came to power. he says the vote is the country's 1st attempt to free and fair elections, but the taking place against the backdrop of rising tension. my mother is in, i just have a long, cute of the in the capital of the sub about several other cities across the country . people had started gathering some of these pulling sessions as early as 4 in the

morning. these are very crucial elections to be and they see.