for those who managed to cross the border, say it's not because they have improved back home. they say to continue to be targeted because if they have and many prophecies are being reported and all becomes taken refuge conditions here. last time the. ready the group virus pandemic gets worse instead of asia with the numbers of deaths and infection soaring across many countries. ah, i'm have them. i have seen and this is al jazeera life and also coming up central, china's worst floods in recent years, provoke anger and scrutiny. but the government's failure to prepare for the disaster. the rain,

how he's for millions of people after going to deals with the devastating flooding, which is what many cities and towns fresh presidency, minute macro, who's an urgent national security meeting us to reports. he may have been targeted by israeli spyware. sizes of people gathering the e. c o p, and capital to show their support for government truth slicing in secret. we begin in se asia with a highly contagious filter variance of the covered 19 strain is fueling infections across the region. and denisia is know the epicenter the pandemic. it's reported more than 1400 deaths and 35000 cases in just one day. the testing rates are low and the true figures could be much higher. the world health organization has urged the government to introduce

a strict to lock turn. let's get more from jessica washington who joins the fly from jakarta. jessica, why has the government resist states impulse or imposing suffer conditions given i bad, the situation is in the country. well, that's exactly right and the situation is growing worse every day we just received in the past few minutes. the updated numbers for today was 1449 death studies the highest daily just hold. ever since the pandemic began in indonesia and indonesia has now passed more than $3000000.00 cases in total. what we have seen on the positive side is that the government has been able to ramp up testing, and they were able to test 200000 individuals in one day, which is a market improvement. however, it's still way off the target of trying to test $400000.00 people each day. and you can imagine that in a country like indonesia,

there are people who would struggle when there is a strict lockdown and many are doing it tough, particularly across chicago. java and many parts of the country, but epidemiologist say that the government must strongly because the situation is continuing to watson intensive care unit in hospitals, but only in chicago, not only in java but across the country are stretched and we're seeing concerning signs of health care system across the country and more regional problems, including a west hop for with the, with the health care resources. certainly not what we have here in jakarta and the numbers that you mentioned earlier concerning as they sounded the fact that indonesia now is asia covert at the center. they don't represent the reality on the ground because of low testing rates. some local data agencies using data from cities from provincial governments, say that the actual jets told there's likely mean range of what the government's numbers suggest. okay, jessica washington then ally from jakarta. jessica,

thank you. in thailand to this, been another record day of new infections, more than 13600 people of tested positive in the past day. but there aren't in fact scenes a nation faxing institute to apologize. not buying enough jobs and it's nice promising to join the global callbacks vaccine sharing scheme. tony chang reports from bangkok. we saw a government ministry coming out over night saying that we're asking celebrities not to criticize the government on social media. he said that their voice is amplified on platforms like twitter and facebook, and they should be very aware of what the public, the information, the public is receiving impact the thai government when to introduced new anti cove . it measures a couple of weeks ago, i slipped in a bill a gave it new powers to limit or so called misinformation. in fact,

the wording is actually any information which might cause the public to panic regardless of were actually true or false. and we've seen them acting on that today overnight. a young tie wrapper, criticized the government on social media. today she's being called into the police, but i think it illustrates how sensitive the government is about it's covered response. there is a growing criticism here of the government of the vaccination problem program about about the number of infections we're seeing, which have risen very quickly in the last couple of months. we even saw a protest is back on the st. last. we can now at the moment, people are very concerned about going out in public, although than all being banned during the daytime, there is a strict curfew at night. most people are trying to stay at home as much as possible at this time last year. time i was doing remarkably well. daily infections were in double digits for the whole of 2020, the whole total number of code fatalities was just 61. while now we've blown,

well past those figures where we saw anti government protests on the street last year. i think the gun was rather saved by the fact that it had responded or was seen to respond very well to the pandemic this year. if those protest thought, again, i think the government is very nervous indeed. and so korea has reported a record 18 hundreds new covered 19 cases in one day. the more contagious delta, very into feeling the surge there. the latest numbers include $270.00 sailors. there were flown home from an anti piracy mission abroad, the 3rd season considering expanding restrictions in so and its neighboring regions from so he was for the flight. that crew has now had to be flown back at 2 south career out of 301 crew members. 270 won't have now tested positive. that's a staggering 90 percent. but even if you strip out that number, this is still

a very significant rise. we've been seeing for the best part of 2 weeks more than 1000 new cases per day as this 4th wave has really taken a hold here with some predictions that will soon be thing well over 2000 new cases . the day before the authorities get on top of it, we're already in the capital area around sol, the highest level of the social distance in restrictions. there are some indications that these same level of restrictions will have to be extended to other parts of south korea. and with some predictions that the authorities here have just underestimated the virulence of this delta variant. this slightly better use is that of course, because of the vaccinations have been rolled out aimed at the more vulnerable group such as the elderly at care homes, we are seeing significantly few deaths and also hospitalizations where i rammed a 3rd of the population is now had at least one job, but that has focused attention on the 2 thirds of the population who remain

unvaccinated. again, fueling an ongoing debate here in south korea about what we've seen as a relatively slow pace of the vaccination rollout in neighboring japan till killed the whole city overland picks like no other. you see the highest number of infections in 6 months, humor athletes that the limpid village of tested positive for corona virus, or among 12 cases linked to the gains announced on thursday, bringing the total to $87.00 took you itself had seen its highest number of cases in 6 months was that he remains under a state of emergency with competitors facing unprecedented restrictions on their movements. and he, richardson has been taking a look at why these olympics are still going ahead. athletes will have to get used to the sound of their own efforts in tokyo. these olympic have already cost the host nation, at least $15000000000.00. much of the money spent on venue that fans and now banned

from attending you to rise in cases of cobit $19.00. the cost, you know, being shouldered for the great part by the people and not really by the government . and so people are really getting sick of pyre, of having to make so much crude 5. so you really do have, you know, very well divided society. and maybe i honestly united opposition against the olympics. this is about as close to the sporting action as tokyo residents will get in a city where cove at 19 infection levels hitting heights. not seen since january, dan animal, united coma. he don't have it. i don't know what to say considering how much the virus is spread. athletes have been training so hard for this. i would feel sorry for them if it doesn't happen any longer. so i wouldn't who wanted to take the risk of watching it in the stadium. it's enough for me to see the games on tv. while last ticket revenue is sent to cost the hosts hundreds of millions of dollars. a

made for tv event does make financial sense for the international olympic committee . the i see makes approximately 75 percent of its income from selling broadcast rights to the games and around full $1000000000.00 could have been lost if the olympics had been cancelled and the legal, small print will tell you, it was always the see who had the final say, as to whether or not these olympics went ahead, organizes will be hoping the public mood shifts in their favor. once the games are up and running, we have like a very, a negative agenda across like different media outlets before the games. and as soon as the games are going to, how like that fair me like the mind, the one like it, congress tends to be like more positive and focus more on the stories that are taking place within the stadium. in support of the games can be found with the host now, banking on sporting dramas, rather than medical. rubbing the headlines in the days ahead and the richardson al

jazeera tokyo. well, the threat of infections is not the only problem. quoting the games just 24 hours before the opening ceremony. it's direct to the sac sensor organizers were made aware of a holocaust joke he made during a comedy show in 1998. ok. hey guys, you know, compared to korea, she was a member of the opening ceremony production team had in the past, due in his own performance said, lines said, walked a painful historic, that as such, the talk, your 2020 organizing committee today has dismissed him. i guess, giga, we just a day before the opening ceremony, i apologize deeply to all the people involved in this event and also japanese people. i would like to extend my sincere apology. still a heads on our to figure out, the pentagon sends the alarm after the talents recently gained enough galveston while us troops finalized their withdrawal. and find out what the google car

industry is growing appetite for you many and maybe harming communities in guinea. ah, ah, it's time for the journey to winter sponsored my cattle airways. hello there. we're watching 2 storm systems in east asia. the 1st one is tropical depression chem packer. the other is typhoon info. but before we get to those, let's move to central china to hand on province and look at the damage from those unprecedented floods. it was record rainfall fell in jung, joe city. we are expecting more rain over the coming days, particularly from typhoon in far as it moves north over taiwan. and it's, it's expecting to hit that south eastern coast of china in the coming days. shanghai like need to see some of those really strong winds and torrential rains. we could see flash floods and landslides, but not only here,

it's also likely to impact further south. we've also got a tropical depression, chem packer, and that's bringing a lot of wet and windy weather to wind down province into when she over the next few days when an island seen some of that wet and windy weather as well. but to the north of this, it is looking hot and dry for the korean peninsula, as well as northern areas of japan. for much of the wet weather we have to move over to india. we've monsoon rains, inundating not just that western coast, but also more central areas. and the north east is continuing to see those monsoon rains and winds. sponsored cut on airways when a french soldier was murdered in a so called terrorist attack. his mother retaliated with love. speaking out against intolerance and alienation,

she travels the world with the result of a grieving mother who loved her son, but adopted a generation latifah, witness documentary on al jazeera. ah, the me. this is al jazeera, quick reminder, all the top stories bizarre indonesia is. know the epicenter of the latest wave of corona virus and southeast asia, which reported more than $1400.00 deaths. 35 cases in just one day thailand and south korea goes reports. it will record number of new infections. the

highly contagious delta variance is driving the surge across the region. and the director of the opening ceremony, the talk lunatics has been fired. just the day before the start of the game. he was dismissed after organ items were made aware of a holocaust joke. he made a comedy show in the 1998 china has deployed its military to her non province. the central region is struggling with the worst flooding in recent memory . at least 33 people have not been killed. and 800000 are displaced. he's adrian brown. an image of normality turned upside down. like a giant scrap yard, abandoned cars block a tunnel in central ginger roads transformed into rapidly flowing rivers. where in some areas, boat is the only way to get around. the cities inhabitants are used to typhoons, but they're still coming to terms with the scale of this week's deluge. it was the

heaviest rainfall in 60 years. on tuesday, more than 200 millimeters fell in just one hour on stay tv, the images have been more uplifting. rescuers bringing young and old to safety. some of the estimated 800000 residents have been displaced. the emphasis is on the positive work being done, not on those who died. doubtful can are teams of rust in many places. we are carrying out towns like blasting and flood, diversion, flood, fighting and rescue, as well as mass evacuations. the underlying message, the party will protect you. on social media though, there's anger at why local weather forecasters fail to warn residents properly. the city lies in a flood prone area. the provincial government reportedly spent more than

$8000000000.00 building defenses that were supposed to prevent disasters like this happening. now, more extreme weather is selecting the area. a tie. food is bearing down on china as eastern coast and could make landfall this weekend. adrian brown, al jazeera hong kong, katrina years in since young and her non province with a look at the situation there. the rain, how millions of people are still struggling to deal with the devastating flooding, which is what many cities and towns stanfield. i'm showing a city on the north and a non problem. and to venture rain hit this region on wednesday, just off the passing the provincial capital of young joe, in the space of just 2 hours. 26 centimeters of rain was dumped in this area. now many houses in the rural areas in the northern outskirts of this region collapse as a result of the torrential rain and half a 1000000 people will lose relocated to state the areas. now we're just standing

the beginning of the highway, which leads to the main area of downtown john. this area is unable to rescue workers and teams have been moving to try to clear the area. and they're also getting food and people who've been stuck in the cause our authority say $3000000.00 people have been affected by the severe stones and it's close to $100000000.00 worth of economic losses. now as the clean up continues, questions are being raised. that's why people living in hun and we're not adequately warned about the severity of the storm before. but the government is choosing instead to focus on rescue. and it's sensory, any criticism of having a business aspect online and on social media. and has been more severe weather in other parts of china. a tornado rip through a village, the balding city in northern, a province killing at least 2 people. the top 3 houses and scattered debris closely of my roots. really f workers are trying to restore power to the area. the pentagon

is expressing alarm at the rapidly deteriorating security situation in afghanistan, and will senior u. s. general fence taliban no controls nearly half of the countries. $400.00 plus districts. it coincides with the continued polite of us troops fighting between africa and government forces and the taliban is intensifying at least 7 people were killed in the southern province of kandahar on wednesday. that happens during shelling between the military and television sizes. well, here's more on what general markham really had to say, a boat for telephone phones. i would tell you that as of today, more or less, i guess it's about $212213.00 in that range. 2 hundreds of the district centers are in taliban control. it's about half of the florida, 1900, that are out there. you've got 34 provincial capitols in afghanistan. none of them have been seized as of today by the taliban. although the taliban is putting

pressure on the outskirts of probably about half of them, 17 of them in fact. and what they're trying to do is isolate the major population centers that trying to do the same thing to cobble. and roughly speaking, the order of magnitude, a significant amount of territory has been seized over the course of 6, a 10 month sort of thing by the, by the taliban. so momentum appears to be strategic. momentum appears to be sort of with the tell him the afghan security forces. there are consolidating their forces or diplomatic added her james base isn't combo with more on general milly's comments. he's telling us what we already know, but it's still significant. it's significant because afghan officials have been concerned about the media narrative, the idea that the taliban are winning, and they believe that that is causing fear. among the populations, cues for passports and visas. people moving around the country is also affecting

the morale of the afghan security forces. well, it's not the media saying it this time. it is the most senior member of the u. s. military saying, yes, it's not a foregone conclusion. that the taliban are going to take control of the country, but it's certainly one of the possibilities. there's still the possibility of a negotiated settlement between the african government and the taliban, but rather bad scenarios. a return to wallets across the country's breakdown. and parts of the country's country, so very worrying picture presented from the highest levels in the pentagon. what you heard him talk about the mental taliban, that's clear the games they've made, the territory. they've taken the board posts they've recently taken, which is very difficult for landlocked country. we've seen a lot of fighting in the last few days. we think because of the ead religious holiday, one of the taliban going to do off the eat all they going to look at some of those district centers. some of those provincial capitals were 17. he mentioned with

a taliban around the edges. are they going to try and take those sort of provincial capitals, or at least some of them? francis presidents is called an urgent national security meeting to discuss the pegasus spyware scandal. it follows reports that a manual micro and central government ministers were targeted for phone hacking by an identified moroccan security service. morocco has denied those reports. natasha butler has more from paris. since these obligations emerge on tuesday, we have heard extensively from the least se from the french prime minister on cas tax. he will say, of course his allegations are something that cannot be tolerated. and the full investigations are being launched into these allegations to see whether or not they are verified. so it's in that context that the french president is holding this meeting with the cabinet to discuss, of course, these allegations,

the main one being that the french president actually had one of his mobile phone selected as a possible target by american intelligence services. a target that could be put on the survey and not, not only the french president phone, but also his former prime minister at watha leap and more than a 1000 ministers, a very serious allegations. indeed, as you can imagine, we can imagine that the french president is talking about these. he is talking about how to put in pap, stronger security as well. we know that a more moroccan authorities have denied these allegations they did. so 2 days ago they continued to do so, but it's not the 1st time that a french president has been put apparently on the survey. and they were allegations against the us a few years ago, putting a former us a former french presence on this events. officials in madagascar say they storm support to assassinate president andre russia. alina, according to the attorney general,

several foreign nationals and citizens have been arrested. no further details were given. last month, the military said it had prevented an attempt to kill top general richard revel. monona, who is the president's right hand man. thousands of people have rallied in the south, don't show their support for e. c o, p, and federal troops fighting in the northern region of t grey. see who's called on a few things to be re, to be unified against federal way. you can review some child soldiers. it comes with the conflicts of widens include fighters from neighboring and horror, and afar regions to growing groups, claim phases of people have been killed in the conflict. kathy, so reports from that is of the people say coming very early in the morning. we started hearing them from all will tell us the wrong fi, say t a. m, and thousands of them showed up. and the speakers really was castigating the grand defense for to saying that they've been using children as soldiers and shields.

they also accused the international community, including the international media of bias smith in the coverage in favor of the 2 grand leadership. now, if you can, national army has already withdrawn from t drive, but it has been accused by numerous human rights organizations and has been accused alongside retrench. soldiers were deployed to that region as well as forces from the neighboring. i'm higher region accused of human rights abuses, atrocities committed into gray in the last a few months south. thousands of people have been killed. many have been displaced . the un, i said up to 400000 people, us suffering a simon like condition 1800000 on the brink off. i mean, and it was really, i still struggling to get to a majority of the people because the infrastructure has been destroyed in some parts. and i mean, in the past,

fighting is going on. so the situation is still very di, ended william davison is the senior ethiopia analyst with the international crisis group. he thinks ethiopian government troops on the back food in st. the tiguan region. by the end of june, we saw an almost complete federal withdrawal from the areas where the federal government still has a presence inside to gray in the west of the region where i'm hora region has taken over. busy chunks of what used to be administered by, by to great government, but generally off the battlefield, not a failure to achieve the federal objectives. it's a great, they have completely withdrawn and now we are seeing a new phase in the war. and a new federal strategy has been a huge amount of international pressure concern about the trajectory of this conflict which looked unwinnable. busy because of the,

mainly because of the grand support for the leadership that there is and some support in the rest of ethiopia, that is what the government is trying to rally. but ultimately, there was a problem in terms of the gap between the reality of the situation and to great, where the federal government has failed to achieve its objectives. and the perception that it is trying to create amongst the public that it has achieved its objectives. and that it is still in control. and really that is a dangerous gap because without acknowledging the reality that can be very hard to prime minister government to address the situation. the global demand for l. u minium is expected to rise in the coming years. the metal is used to make everything from cars to cutlery, but a report for human rights watch says large scale mining projects and several countries are harming local communities and the environments. kenny is the world's largest producer of bulk sites. the vol. material needed to make alley

a minimum report says excavations or destroying one there, nicholas hunt crew points. this is what is left of bulky in guineas, maritime region. gone. are the mahogany trees is the rare species of chimpanzees and the patty fields. the industrial extraction of bulk nike or for aluminum, has turned a whence green oasis into a lunar landscape. void of life. water is poisoned by industrial chemicals. this destruction in pollution in one of the world's poorest countries, is to extract aluminum to manufacture where the automobile industry called clean green powered electric cars for rich nation. as a result, thousands of villagers in book had been forcibly displaced from their home among them. well, how many summa, a rice farmer, now living in the city, in what feels like a prison cell, he says, congress, you know, there is nothing left but dust to eat. we have lost everything. we sometimes go 2

or 3 days without food since the chinese took our land. our life is misery. human rights watch says that the displacement of people constitutes a violation of human rights. they hold car manufacturing companies responsible thing. they have failed to address the abuse with their aluminum suppliers. mining has taken farmland destroyed, feel cut off water sources and coated houses and fields in dust. as guineas, mining industry, expand. the government's capacity to oversee the industry must keep pace. guinea has the largest reserve of boxes in the world. much of it is untapped. it could be a formidable source of revenue for a country where most live on less than $2.00 a day. critics of the government to cues politicians of turning a blind eye to the environmental damage in exchange of kick back. some people that's within the, let's be clear. we'll pull country. we are withered money companies are not

complain with the social and environmental regulations, but it isn't so easy for us to shut down this industry for the violations. to me, last week, the european commission voted to band the sale of vehicles that run on gasoline or diesel. by the year 2035 electric car sales are already on the rise. so is the demand for bulk site in trying to solve an environmental problem. it seems automobile in mining companies are universally harming the environment, altering this precious landscape. nicholas hawk al jazeera. ah, this is al jazeera and these are the headlines. indonesia is know the epicenter of the latest wave of corona virus, in se, asia, it's reported more than 1400 deaths and 35 size we cases and just one day he was just.