we understand the differences, similarity of cultures across the world. no matter what will bring you the news and current affairs that matter to you in our dizzy era. ah . at least 25 dead as china's who none provinces hit by its worst storms in generations drowning commuter is in flooded subway tunnels. meanwhile wildfire is raging across the western united states. leave skies hazy as far east as new york. ah. hello barbara. are you watching? i'll just live some one that also coming up for drug companies agree to pay

$26000000000.00 to resolve thousands of claims over the us. or if you are a new president saying politics that of townsend, he has main opposition and 10 other policies. figures are arrested the jail politician from i'm trying to achieve park, he dies of hope in 1900 me and march where the virus is now running. last, i'm on the richardson in tokyo, a city preparing to host an olympic games like no other. ah. hello, thank you for joining us. we begin the program in central china. we're record breaking . flooding has killed at least 25 people and force the evacuation of 200000 more. in the latest of a series of extreme weather events around the world in a province. so it's heaviest framed, fall in generations. 12 of the dead drowned when

a subway line flooded in the city of john joe and his katrina. you reports from aging, more rain, for rainfall is forecast. the rescue team's work to do the night to help. so boy passengers get to safety in downtown john doe in the space of just 3 days. the capital of china is central, clint, and province received as much rain as it usually gets in the year. hundreds are trapped for hours, underground tunnels were flooded. this man says he was lucky to survive high by impact of the flood water was so powerful that i have to remove my shirts, backpack, and everything except my pain. we smashed the upper part of the glass window to let some aaron. otherwise it would have been suffocating said intervention rainfall. quote, john jo, 7, the residence of god. these pedestrians formed a human chain to avoid being swept away. more than 10000 emergency workers have

been deployed to help with rescue and clean up operations in the neighboring city of go needs. several people were killed and landslides, more than 200000, have been evacuated from their homes to safe areas. china's yellow river runs to hunted a province for the population of 100000000. authorities say a down in the historic city of william has been severely damaged and could burst at anytime. where the experts say these are the worst for the ship. the region in recorded history, president, she did pay, has described prevention efforts as extremely difficult. he's called on all local governments around the country to review the emergency response system to prevent similar tragedies. severe storms have also hit cities and in magnolia, in china's ne, to dance burst. there after a weekend of torrential rain environmental group say the extreme weather is caused by climate change. these kind of

a disaster going to becoming more and more frequent because of the change in climate. and we would see that this kind of disaster poses very sort of huge economic and social loss. the city of jungle remains on high alert. rain is expected to continue until friday. residents have been advised to remain indoors to stay dry and safe. katrina, you, i'll to 0. they jing germany's cabinet has approved the $417000000.00 package of immediate aid for victims of last week's deadly flooding. the government has vowed to quickly start rebuilding devastated areas which is expected to cost well into the billions finance minister. all of schoultz says more funds can be made available if needed. more than 170 people died and many more are still missing in what is germany's worst natural disaster. in decades, a poll for the build newspaper found that 2 thirds of germans think politicians

didn't do enough to protect them. more than 700000 hector's, a forest are burning in siberia. as wildfires continues rage across northeastern russia, a state of emergency has been declared in kalia near the border with finland, military helicopters or dropping water bombs while 2000 and the emergency workers find the fires on the ground. one and a half 1000000 hectares of land of already being destroyed in t l, which is the worst it region. officials say that this summer's weather is the driest in a 150 years and smoke for more than a p. wildfires in the western united states is now blanketing the east coast. is prompted a pollution alert in washington dc. one new york's air quality rank among the worst in the world on tuesday. the biggest places in the state of oregon have forced firefighters to retreat for the last 10 days,

practical have reports and in your mission, and this is the western united states and according to scientists. this is the result of climate change. wildfires have been a part of life in this part of the country, but scientists say not like this. not this early, not this intense, not this many fires. in oregon, the bootleg fires courts more than 1500 square kilometers of land. roughly the size of los angeles happening in the state that has already seen a share of weather challenges. in february we saw devastating ice storms over a half a 1000000 people lost power. last fall as you are well aware. we had unprecedented wildfires. we had over 4000 homes last and that fire and it is literally climate change playing out before eyes. the fires and oregon are so intense that

they are creating their own weather system. producing massive dry thunderstorm with lightning and strong wind that can start more fire. this is just one of the governors of fires burning throughout the american west. and there is a major shortage of firefighters. prison inmates are often used to flight fires, but hundreds have been released to prevent the spread of co good. and with this many fires burning and controlled, it is creating smoke that can be seen from satellite. it's drifting eastwards, producing hazardous air across the entire country that smoke is being transported by the wind lost in the atmosphere to places it normally doesn't end up. in most years, i'm making it all the way to the east coast of the us. many of these fires are started by accident, but it's a california couple has learned can have devastating consequences during a gender revealed car last year. prosecutor se, refugio and angela. you manners. you just smoke bomb starting the eldorado fire, the kill the firefighter. they've now been charged with manslaughter. this is the

american west new reality, uncontrolled fires hazardous air homes and lives already lost, and many more believed likely to come in the months ahead. patty colleen al jazeera washington ah, 4 major drug companies have agreed to pay $26000000000.00 to resolve thousands of claims of their role in the us opioid epidemic. the lawsuits were brought by state and local governments, which accused the companies of letting the pain killers reach addicts through illegal channels, distributors, ameris, force, bergan, cardinal health, and mckesson, along with the manufacturer. johnson and johnson will pay over a number of years. well, here's what one recovering opium daddy expand, reform advocate had to say about the agreement the monitor drugs i was using. i was

no longer able to work. so i turned to the life of selling drugs to support my wife . and i went to prison for a long time because of that. and the part this doesn't to me discourage from happening again because no one is going to present. but we were expecting the numbers to be hundreds of billions while it's going to gabrielle is on the live in new york. following that story, we're just hearing there that the expectation was sometimes hundreds of millions. what they actually have to pay now is $26000000000.00. what more do we actually know about the details of the settlement? while the settlement had been being negotiated for many months, if not years, quite frankly, between the attorney generals of many states in the united states and these drug companies and distributors. we knew that this week was probably going to be an announcement about this. and there really 5 key points to it. quite frankly,

bullet points, if you will. number one, the $26000000000.00. well, not everyone is satisfied with that amount of money. that is still, quite frankly, a lot that's $26000000000.00 with a b that these companies will have to be paying out over the course of many years going forward a lot of money. and that will be distributed to the different states that are party to this. aside from that, johnson and johnson has agreed to stop all together producing opioids for at least 10 years as part of this agreement. that's a pretty significant step there. and 3 other points. there's going to be an independent clearing house set up now that is going to monitor the distribution of or boards. and then also there'll be a prohibit, they'll be prohibited from shipping opioids to any suspicious places or persons. and then lastly, this will all be overseen by an independent monitor moving forward as well. so it's

a whole package if you will, as part of this agreement. but at the core of it is clearly this $26000000000.00. the attorney general's around the u. s. it individual states are saying is money that's going to go a long way for them to help addicts within their state. try to beat this addiction to be ards that has taken the lives of more than 500000 americans in the past 20 years and 93000 americans just last year alone. yeah, the numbers really are shocking. i mean, as you say, there is hope that these 20, this 26000000000 dollars will help in the fight. but is there any way of assessing whether it is actually going to be enough to end the us opioid epidemic? the short answer is no. nobody really thinks this is going to be enough to end it just because this agreement was reached while it is historic. in some ways does not mean that it's going to stop the addiction that millions of people in this country

have to open towards. what people say is this could be a good 1st step, and this could be well needed money in many states, for them to hire people, to help addicts, to help the public health care system. private health care system in various states, particularly opioid addiction, is hitting rural poor regions of the united states that can really use this money. but clearly it's not going to solve the epidemic overnight. but the idea is that this could be a 1st step. and as the money rolls out, as programs getting put into place, assuming they do this could be the 1st step of a multi year plan moving forward to try to bring that opioid overdose death down in the u. s. because they are clearly surging to record high numbers every year. gabriel is on though with the latest that from new york gave. thank you. members of townsend, he is main opposition party or demanding to know where their chairman is. after an

overnight police raid police officer is rounded up, freeman and boy and 10 other. it should be my party members or the on wednesday, the party says the arrests are proof that president some year sulu who her son is continuing the authoritarianism over predecessor john michael. fully who died back in march, catherine saw reports the police in northwest times and he is once a city looking for anyone trying to attend a meeting called by the opposition center my party that's despite the rest of 11 party members, including its leader freeman boy. the opposition has been calling for constitutional changes, such as the reduction of presidential powers and an independent electoral commission . but the constitution we are fighting for is not just for us, but for everybody. it is to foster unity and make sure few individuals do not make decisions to hurt the nation. the constitution will hold ladies to account when

they overstep their mandate. police say by holding public gathering, the politicians were breaking cobb in 1900 regulation. put in place by speaker, sorry about the topic, but we're just making sure people ahead of the laws of the country that invited many people turning their plan, meeting from a party meeting into a public one even though their plans before an indoor meeting. but party officials say this is an attempt by the government to scaffold their push for constitutional reform. semi as we will have times when you had the new president send me to lew hassan to cov, after the death of john michael fully in march. people are hopeful, she would move away from her predecessors, policies, they say rolled back them aquatic freedoms that country had gained. she has said, the main priority is growing the economy. the president's position is that the constitution will, the reforms will need to white lifting the bond on political rallies that's in

place and times and year. we'll also need to wait until she had time to in her words, open up the economy. that's something that's consistent with with our previous magazine. you said more or less the same things, but you need the time to fix up the economy before coming back to this constitutional question. this is a fast arrest. the key political leader since the president to power times on yet slowly shifting its handling of covet 19 from denial to putting some health port. all the place. authority said will not allow a flouting of the room to demo officials insist. the motive behind the rest of their leaders is to stifle their voice. cathy 0. so to come in this half hour gunmen in northwest, julia release a 100 kids. not any of them. mothers and their children and france rolls out a cove at passport tourist attractions cinemas and sporting events to encourage

more people to get vaccinated. ah, ah. hello ned says he, you, it's all about the heat said cross that british sheil. here's our temperatures on thursday, london, 27 degrees. we're still hanging onto whether alerts just for how high the heat is. now, in terms of that precipitation, we can find it toward eastern sections of ukraine toward the south east of russia on thursday. we've got a bit of cloud cover towards central areas of the continent, so that's going to keep your temperatures lower. we're temperatures are very high. we'll check in towards spain right now and look at this madrid $37.00 degrees. seville could potentially touch 40 degrees as we head toward thursday, keeping this theme of heat going toward turkey. we set a new high temperature ever recorded in the country, toward the se,

pretty close to the border of syria there with a high of 49 point one degrees. and here's her temperatures on thursday. we've got some rain across southern shores of the black sea is stem bull may catch a few spits of rain with the high of 29. the heats also a factor as we head toward morocco. look at some of these temperatures here as well . mara cash $45.00 degrees and also for algeria alger is getting up to a height of $37.00 across the gulf of guinea. we've got our usual pulses of rain stretching across into sierra the own on thursday. that's your forecast. the coveted beyond well taken without hesitation, so forth and died for carla finds out a lot of new babies, which i did not think it's neglected. babies to death. people in power investigate,

exposes and questions for the use and abuse of power around the globe on al jazeera. ah ah, a reminder now of the top stories on i'll just at least $25.00 people have died and to be are flooding in china central, who 9 province after the heaviest rainfall in generations. 4 major drug companies have agreed to pay $26000000000.00 for federal thousands of lawsuits over their role in the us opioid epidemic and pants. and he has made opposition. party is demanding information after it's chairman and 10 other party members were arrested

by police or me on felicia nigeria have secured the release of more than a 100 villagers were kidnapped. 6 weeks ago, most of them were women and their children. there were abducted last months in northwestern's. i'm far a state i me the address as more now from the capital of boucher. those released include 80 women. some of them nursing mothers and 20 children were taken from several villages in some for a state and kept in that forest. that board is done for nyja as well as cathy states. these are the state why that is active, been treat activity or group activities by and groups, and also a response from the military and police forces. now we've seen over the past few weeks how the security forces have stepped up operations or interdiction rates on banded hide out in that area, claiming tough, it's called direct. it's and killing several bandits in those areas. we've also

seen how the bandits responded. for example, a few days ago they killed at least a dozen police officers at a training camp in northwest nigeria that also shut down. and i did a military aircraft that conducted rate on their hide out a few days before. now, although the pilot is escaped, the bandits still continue to dominate sutton areas in the north, west of the countries will forward to saying that the ransom for the release of the over $120.00 could not victims. but there are also hundreds of others was still being held by these groups operating in the north, west and north central parts of nigeria. banditry activities has been on the rise for the last 3 years in nigeria, especially here in northern nigeria and central pops up. and then i didn't president under pressure as ordered the military to conduct area and also ground approaches to free victims of kidnappings. in all parts of nigeria, however, despite the approaches,

there are hundreds of people kept by these ballots in various camps in the forest of niger and other parts of central and northern parts of nigeria. among them, hundreds of students taken from better schools, universities, islamic schools and other small schools are boarding schools in north part. another part of and i get especially in the north west. why our schools have been forced to shut down because of increased activity by the government. me and marz medical infrastructure is edge edging towards collapse. unable to cope with the rising number of current of virus infections. any attempt to hold to the spread have been thrown into chaos since the military seized power. tony chang has worn out from bangkok and his report contains that some distressing images from the start. are the old issue, emergency medical responders enter a house in east doug? gone in yan, gone by the doorway. a middle aged man sits as if he just dozed off to sleep.

in a bedroom, an old man, his father lies unmoving on the bed. both men are dead, suspected victims of coven 19 as it spreads. uncheck a cross man ma. elsewhere, mamma's largest city. they've been cuing through the night to refill oxygen canisters most have to risk breaking. the military imposed curfew to get in line with a weight of at least 12 hours ahead of them. for some, it's too long. my sister has been suffering from coven 19 for 3 days. but while i was queueing to fill the oxygen tank this morning, my niece called me to come home as my sister died because she ran out of oxygen. now the pandemic is plain the life of a senior and the politician when a spokesman and legal advisor to uncensored cheese party, he was jailed by the military following the qu, off the contracting covered 19 in prison. he died in hospital on tuesday night,

even guessing help to those who needed his hard, natty, used to live in young, gone. now she's trying to raise funds for oxygen and aid to send back from neighboring thailand. from the report she's guessing from inside me on my the official death toll of several 100 people a day is a gross underestimate. the volunteers and the ambulance. people say that only in young gone alone. 6 to 800 people died every day since last week. so of course, the number that we see from the official channels of the government, the government is not very reliable across se asia nations and being overwhelmed by coven 19 as the delta variance sweeps across the region. but no, we're, the defense is weaker than in miasma. where those charge was fighting, the pandemic had been arrested by the military. no social distancing this young going crematorium for the living. or the dead bodies stacked,

waiting for the furnace relatives waiting to get to the front of the queue. ambulances empty of their patience and a smoke stack, bellowing black smoke. tony ching al jazeera cafes may be the hallmark of french culture, but soon they won't be open to everyone. anyone who wants to pop into a cinema or feared her now has to prove their virus or vaccination status 1st, with restaurants being added to the list. next month's current of iris cases surging again in france. but as natasha butler reports from paris, this is being seen as an attack on freedom. in going on a terrace is one of the life pleasures for many people in france pursued only those with a covert pause showing that they are fully vaccinated. will have a negative p, c r test will be able to enjoy the experience. so we'll have to check customers path is something this restaurant owner says is unfair. we consider that this is

not our job to check your id and your family. we understand that this is certainly something necessary that we are not fully men. the path which is now mandatory in cinema theaters and museums will be extended to large shopping centers and some transport. the french government hope it will reduce health risks and encourage people to get vaccinated, ga, not be in no doubt, our goal as always, to take measures that are proportional to the health situation to guarantee public freedoms while assuring the sanitary security of our citizens. the french president, the manual micro announced the new config path rules last week and since then, there has been a search and the number of people booking vaccination appointments. within days, nearly 4000000 people have signed up for that 1st job. i don't think we should have to offer that group until the vaccinated and the non vaccinated. i think it's up to

each person to do what they want to do. he on the bus and the pass made us to now as we have planned, waiting until august to get vaccinated and the path is dividing opinion. these protestors in paris on sunday said the government trying to force people to get books and aided by eroding they writes. most people should be given the freedom to choose whether or not they want to be vaccinated. so it's more democratic. some scientists say that france is in the 4th wave, fueled by the highly contagious delta co verin's. the government says that the pulse will be necessary for as long as the virus is the threat. though some regarded as anti democratic opinion polls suggest the 2 thirds of people in france support. it is a way of hopefully avoiding another lockdown. katasha butler, i'll just sarah paris. the host city of the 2032 olympics has been announced. it's been the

present will be the 3rd australian, if you to host the games after melbourne in 1956 in sidney in 2000. the international olympic committee gave the queensland city exclusive bidding rights of effort to reduce the cost of campaigns and minimize the risk of vote buying. well this says the tokyo olympics, of course, start this week in sweltering temperatures with heat stroke alerts issued for face straight de, several more athletes have tested positive for her own a virus. and as the japanese capital records its highest number of cases in 6 months, the city remains under a state of emergency and competitors face unparalleled restrictions on their movements. and richardson reports from tokyo. everyone heading to these olympics is taking a step into the unknown. the 1st hurdle for athletes and media, arriving in japan, making sure all the right paperwork is in place to pass strict covey 19 safety

protocols. well, we just made it through a fairly complex immigration process. it took around 4 hours and involve taking a covey test. i also had to take to coby test in the days, immediately prior to coming to japan. i'll be testing every day for the 1st 3 days and then at regular intervals after that, after the athletes will go through something very similar, but they will be tested every single day that they're at the lympics. some public health experts to consume the efforts being taken to keep these games safe don't go far enough. for example, the daily test fleet to taking is a rapid result, anti gen test. not the more reliable and accurate p c r test. i think the fundamental problem was a lack of open, transparent, and assigned to discussions about the conditions and the rich do your impacts could be held in a safe and secure manner. i think that is totally irresponsible. her own

a virus tasking ready derailed. the plans of many potential olympians. you can disrupt the 7th team. we're hoping to compete with the games for the 1st time. but after some of their plans tested positive dakota 19 at their phone, a qualifying event, they had to withdraw. and similar scenarios on already playing in japan. the preparation is very, very difficult for me athletes. and of course that experience is not blame. similar with the virus has impacted some countries in a devastating wind hubs. handshakes and high fines are open that the athletes village competitors have been told they could be kicked out of the games if they ignore regulations, aimed at preventing the spread of corona virus. the not all likely to concern by the restrictions that they focus on winning olympic gold. you can congregate in big groups in the dining, or you're going to span you a little bubble of 4 or 5 people the whole time and stay the room and all of that.

that's exactly how i've always treated on. but games like it hasn't been a big sociable experience for me, it's all about the competition. and so it's going to be pretty routine. that sense of isolation is set to continue into the fan, las empty stadiums that will surround and lympics like no other. andy richardson, al jazeera, tokyo, ah, and now the top stories on al jazeera, at least 25 people have died in severe flooding in china as a central who and province after the heaviest rainfall in generations rescue. teams worked through the night to help subway passengers get the 60 in downtown john joe, when a subway line flooded 200000 people have been evacuated in more range or.