some of the region best loved dishes ah, favoring the hop on pow did we understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the wow. so no matter how you take it will bring you the news and current affairs that matter to you. i thought of taliban sweep through large pod, so gamma stan and catches it's 9 provincial capital on emergency told her try to end the fight. ah, i'm sam is a damn. this is out just here alive from the hall. so coming up. china is condemned for sentencing a canadian businessman to 11 years in prison. this is fine. we'll have the latest

from beijing in a set back for the president. 2 brazil's congress votes against then the electronic voting ahead of next year's election. and the roar of the motorcycle drowns out, says of covey that the biggest bike rally in the us. ah, it's just gone 7, g n, t. and it's de tooth paste talks here. and how between the afghan government and toddy, bon, emergency diplomatic efforts and cancer come as the group continues to make dramatic battlefield advances, enough can stand the taliban as tightened its grip and now controls 65 percent of the country. according to the e. u. in the past week, it's taken 9 provincial capitals, the latest being partly homely and 5 in the north and foreign city in the south.

the un says more than 240000 people have been internally displaced since the time the bond offensive began and main tens of. busy thousands flight the neighborhoods . as the tale bond advanced. families have been piling into the country's capital. cobble living in parks and streets with no resources. go now live to dogma. rob mcbride, it joins us from cobble. so rob, how significant is the latest capture of provincial capitals? but the taliban seems to be making these gains almost daily. sometimes even alley as we progress. i mean the latest to provincial capitals are relatively small, poly comrey and fight about, but they are a strategically, geographically quite important, especially poly comrey. this is a small provincial capital but it brings the taliban presence much closer to cobble itself. and it also means that in this way, the northern afghanistan,

it's really on the mazata sharif, which is a very big, very important government, strong called as just about the last government stronghold in the north. now this, the city is very well defended. all of the fighting is being kept outside of the city, but it has made many people in bizarre sherry quite uneasy. just seeing the rapid games the taliban be making it. in fact, we're getting reports that the airport there are crowds of people and have been crowd of people tried to get on the several flights a day that the coming out to missouri. she reached out at getting people who want to get out of the city. so it is concerning for the afghanistan. we're also seeing a slight gains in other parts of the country. of course in the south that the country around helmand and kandahar that fighting is ongoing, but also in another southern province guys. now we are seeing it uptake in fighting, which you can bring at the present a close to, to cobble so they all have

a psychological value to the taliban. they can say, look, we're bringing the fight closer to cobble. and to that effect, they are making a lot of a missile attack that happened overnight on the form. and they tell us at base at background, which is only 40 kilometers from cobble. but again, it points up this information claim and counter claim. in this ongoing conflict, the taliban says it was multiple rocket launches, heavy casualties. we spoke to the commander african commander, that base. he said it was wrong. one rocket that fell short of the boundary in the field. so the engine close it a couple ultimately. what does this mean right now for government forces? well, the government's got to hope that at some point a certain resistance level will be reached that its remaining urban lots of the urban centers will present far greater resistance. and to that effect, that's rep god. he's a president to take

a trip to mazata sharif himself to try to bolster confidence, both to morale, to meet with lead is there and military commanders, and that's the government's hope that there are these up and especially of incentives that are far better defended that have population that really wants to see have nothing to do with the taliban and have a taliban flag flying over them. by the other counterpoint to that, of course, is that the taliban will be hoping that all the bits gains, although they have been in largely rural areas, thus far, has built up a med mental that various ethnic groups, the warlords, will see that may be that as they claim they are in the ascendancy and to join them and that this my mouth momentum ultimately will allow them to be able to challenge the very big cities, the very big urban centers. right, thanks so much, rob mcbride, they're now cotton. china has sentenced the canadian man to 11 years in prison

after finding him guilty of spying. the court says michael, spot 4 will be deported, but it's not clear when he was detained alongside another canadian in 2018. the cases are seen by author as bay genes. retribution for the arrest of tom chinese tech, executive mang one joe. both canada and the united states have been quick to condemn spavoni sentencing. prime minister just introduced china's conviction and sentencing of michael barber is absolutely unacceptable and unjust. he went on to say the vote. it comes off to 2 and a half years of arbitrary dimension, a lack of transparency and a trial that didn't meet the minimum standards required by international law. trudeau said the top priority remains securing spar and coverage. immediate release . the u. s. embassy in beijing is also condemned to sentences,

calling proceedings against the 2 canadians as an attempt to use human beings is bargaining leverage. katrina, you has this update from beijing. he has technically 10 days to appeal the sentence, but that appeal process is very long, very uncertain. and it's unlikely that he'll be able to overturn this guilty, but the verdict here in china, 99 percent of all criminal cases that face court are found guilty. now we're getting some more details from this verdict which was handed down from a court in dundalk city. which is on the chinese north korea border west, pavel lived and operated his travel and cultural exchange of business for many years. now it says that he was found guilty of providing state secrets and thus sentence to 11 years in prison. the confiscation of his personal property and deportation. now it didn't play when he would be deported. the canadian government says that this is most likely that he will be deported after serving his 11 years of sentence. but we do know that in the past,

china has deported foreigners before serving the entire prison sentences. so this could be potentially a bargaining chip for aging in the future. now this the comes and it's handed down at a time when chinese executive from kuala mung juan jose facing quote in canada. she's in the middle of the final push to avoid extradition to the us, but she faces charges of breaking sanctions on iran and possibly a lengthy prison sentence herself. now beijing denies that there is any link between these cases at all, but the timing is undeniable. wildfires have killed at least 42 people in algeria prime minister diamond, but the man said 25 soldiers died during a rescue operation in the mountains of j t z o z who the government says it believes austin is responsible but hasn't provided any details. residents have been using tree branches and hurting water

from plastic containers on the 5 smaller flames of ravaged foreign and at least 16 provinces. since monday, brazil's congress is voted against the returns of paper balance next year's presidential election. it's a major blow for president enjoyable scenario. he's in pushing to end electronic voting climbing. it's open to fraud, where he hasn't provided any evidence. not okay. give has this updates from rio de janeiro, president wilson, otto have been paging already the scenario for what will be next year's presidential election. polls show, he would be defeated by left wing, former president with him as a rule of silva. so he has been crying out that there will be fraud much ahead of the vote. both. so nato has always been a fan of former us president donald trump. he's pretty much following from play book by saying already making people doubt that the these elections. a will be fair,

so he's creating a lot of confusion. and in this confusion he then confronting, not only with congress, but also with judiciary power. he's been accusing the supreme electoral court of trying to interfere with, with how congress and voted today. and so he's putting one power against the other congress basically buried this attempt of trying to change the voting system. now will both now to change his speech after this said fact, most them, it's not likely he will. he has already been saying that that, as i said, that the judges from the electoral court have been trying to sway congressman. so he will always find something to justify what he thinks. still ahead on al jazeera . the best way i can help now is if i step aside,

new york's governor resigns and como faces a number of sexual harassment allegations. what i'm doing is edinburgh with a famous festival is a shadow. some say of its free pandemic self. but a testament to the endurance of the a hello, thank you for turning in. we could very well be dealing with some historic heat, said cross spain in the days to come cordova, the $43.00 on wednesday. but i want to show you the 3 day forecast. we could match or break our august all time temperature record in cordova, and then our overall high temperature ever recorded on saturday with a high of 47 degrees. we do have red weather alerts in play for the high

temperatures across southern areas of italy. and we are seen it hot up again across the bulkheads. you know, for turkey, we have rain falling where we really don't need it toward the black sea region more than a 100 millimeters. that's more than a months worth of rain in 24 hours and it is persisting on wednesday as this area tries to recover from devastating flooding now to northwest europe. and okay, if this may look worse than it is across the british chiles, we will have a spell of sunshine for london at $23.00 and still unsettled as we hit toward the baltic states and scandinavia on wednesday. before we end this weather reports, we're going to take you to africa and it's really those storms that were watching across the gulf of guinea, heavy pockets for southern sections of nigeria on wednesday. that's a snapshot of your weather forecast. see you soon. the

north korea isolated and heavily sanction yet earning billions around the globe, 0. 39 is involved in everything that makes money for korea. kerry different passwords, say contacts, and the money this year and it goes straight into the coffers of leadership. a to park. people empower investigation bureau, $39.00 cache for kim park, one on jesse era. oh, a welcome back here watching al jazeera time to recap our headlines. a chinese course,

a sentence, the canadian man to 11 years in prison after finding guilty of spying business. and michael sparkle was detained on site, another canadian in 2018. also a c se cases as politically most of a brazil congress is voted against the return to pay the balance of next presidential election. president j wilson has been pushing to it and electronic voting. explains its open fraud, but hasn't provided any evidence on. yvonne has taken another 3 provincial capitals in afghanistan that 9 in under a week, the latest party, homely and fight about in the north philosophy in the south. meanwhile, peace talks continuing for a 2nd day. somehow jim, jim is live for us from the hall with more on this how, how the battlefield developments impacting de 2 of talks there.

well sammy, at this hour it's just very much unclear what exactly is on the agenda for today. in fact, it's not yet certain if the talks will be held once again at this venue, which hosted the talks on the 1st day, which was yesterday, a lot of confusion as to what exactly is expected today at the end of last night, up for a long day of talk, some of the diplomats in attendance indicated that perhaps today there might be a meeting of the extended troika countries that's russia, the us, china and pakistan on the sideline of these international meetings regarding peace in afghanistan. now, the extended troika, that is a moscow initiated group that meets and consults on ways to try and support intra afghan piece talks. this is going to be very interesting to see if that actually happens because yesterday it was expected that russia was going to be one of the delegations present at this venue. and at the talks that happened, and in fact, russia did not show up, it was unclear why they didn't show up,

but it is expected that they will play a part today. whether or not that will actually help to try to get things back on track when it comes to this process. it's really unclear. the fact that these talks are happening at all right. now it's such a critical juncture really goes to show how much impetus there is from the international community to try to come up with some kind of joint solution to a very rapidly deteriorating situation in afghanistan. one of the things that some of the diplomats i spoke with yesterday are hopeful for is that perhaps if things are successful in this round of talks, which is expected to last 3 days, perhaps there could be the announcement of another session of intra afghan piece talks or dialogue, the last one of those meetings happen and in mid july and those talks have really just kind of stalled out. there hasn't been much momentum. now the fact is, the taller bond really has the wind that is, facts are taking over more and more territory and the diplomats i was speaking with yesterday. we were wondering if the taller bond was serious about coming here and

negotiating and listening to these on boys that are trying to get them to come up with some sort of a piece plan. so everything really very much an open question right now as to what exactly will happen today. we do know is this is the 2nd day and what is expected to be to be 3 days of talks and the diplomats, although they're not really speaking publicly about what's going on in the meetings, are trying desperately to come together, get some sort of a plan some sort of a formula for a peaceful solution to what is going on in afghanistan. sammy huh. jumped to me there from the talks in doha, brutal acts of sexual violence have been use systematically as a weapon of war into gray. that's the verdict of a new report by amnesty international. it says d, c o p, and an era trained soldiers of rape. hundreds of women and girls. some was subjected to sexual slavery and mutilation. others reported being gang raped in front of the family. i missed the secretary general says the severity of the crimes

could about crimes against humanity. threats, forces have demolished a block of apartments belonging to palestinian families in sil wine and occupied these jerusalem. it was home to at least 12 people. israeli authorities say it was built without a permit, several demolitions have taken place in the area in recent months. they've sparked protest against the resident se is the discriminatory enforcement of building regulations. mm. hundreds of people have been rallying in bangkok against a government handling of the current of virus outbreak. thailand is recording around $20000.00 view cases every day. it's the country's worst outbreak. so fall pressures, the mounting on the government after a slow vaccination broke out,

and the economic impacts, we've covered 90 restriction. please find water. cannon and gas, as well as rubber bullets to disperse crowds. got highlight, joins us now from bangkok, how the streets looking there now then scott me now they are clear. we're expecting there might be a bit of a gathering again this afternoon on wednesday. what we were just talking about happened on tuesday evening. this is interesting. this isn't an ongoing pro democracy movement that is now kind of morphed and regained momentum because a lot of people's dissatisfaction with the way the government here has been handling the cove it outbreak. that's partially because this nation really fair to pretty well for the most, for the majority of the pandemic. but then just a couple of months ago, the beginning of april there, there was a 3rd wave, the strongest wave here. and it, the numbers have just been going up relatively steadily since we really saw spike about a month, month and

a half ago. and as you said over 20000 cases today about 21000 more than 21000. and today i should say, there was a little bit of what could have appeared to be good news. the last 3 days it was about 900000 and it started to go down. but again, we saw hop right back up. and you know, it's, the criticism really revolves around the vaccine distribution program here in thailand, the transparency from the government and how they're going to tackle the cupboard 19 situation. that is what's really kind of fuel the flames given fuel to the flames of this protest movement. we're hearing today that japan is stepping up. they're going to donate more money to thailand, to help them disperse the vaccines. they do have here also from the united states, they're going to donate more pfizer vaccines. so although the vaccine program is slowly wrapping up again, it's really well behind where it should be at this stage. and we're seeing that by these numbers increasing. scott, if we talk about south korea as well, we've got koby cases rising there, but the fatality right dropping,

right. so what's the overall picture of bottom line? how worried our authorities? well, authorities are very worried. this is the 1st time today, wednesday we saw infection rate go above daily infection. we go above 2000 and so that's concerning in, in a month itself. but what they're worried about even more so is what's going to happen in the coming weeks. a lot of those cases they say about 50 percent, more than 50 percent of those new cases came from outside the metropolitan soul area. and that's concerned because most of the time the cases are in from that that very densely populated area. so they're seeing these numbers increase outside of that. the reason they're concerned about that it's summer holidays. there aren't any travel restrictions internally in south korea. so they're worried that those people who are becoming infected outside of so what were turned back to the metropolitan area. once the summer leads the summer vacations end, so that is a great concern for them right now because they're looking at kind of the demographics and the location of where these new cases are. so that's very

concerning to them, even if, as you said, the death rate is going down. but those case numbers are going up. ok, thanks so much. scott high la bikers gathering in the us state of south dakota for the annual sturgess motorcycle riley. the 10 day event kicked off on friday despite delta, very in cases surging across the country. last year is randy became a super spreader event. more ride is attending this year. health officials are increasingly concerned. paperless on the explains from south dakota with the sound of the world's largest baker party. it's called the sturges motorcycle rally, held every august for the past 81 years. these 3 women rode their motorcycle 2000 kilometers over 3 days to be here. the rally. what else you can ask for

this year and estimated 700000 bikers from all over the united states have descended on sturgess for 10 days of food, drinking rub, concert, lots of motorcycle riding on the nearby country highways. the event brings in roughly $800000000.00 to the local economy. biggest party ever got a lot of a lot of motorcycles, but not masks, social distancing temperature checks, or mandatory negative covert tests. none are required. last year, south dakota made the controversial decision to hold the rally in august and weeks later, a surgeon covered 19 cases was linked to the sturges rally. the good news is many of the events are held out. doors slowing the spread, but still help officials are worried. but in sturgess, the people we spoke to weren't bothered cable or car and you don't know if they're called because they're smoking or if they're coughing because it's got take care

and just kind of watching you where it may not work now right now, because you're going to die one way or another, you going to have our cycle, you get out of bed in the morning. they die because it just take the rob precautions. this often happens and it was just your, your, your time to go back to an agent and it is what it is. and i think i already had the delta 2 weeks ago, i spoke to the mayor of sturgess and he says that this rally was never in doubt. and that by the time they realized that delta barry was hitting hard here, it was simply too late to cancel. what to do was right, people, trauma event, stay home or sick or if you start to feel sick, you know, stay away for people. no, no regrets about holding and not at all. no. in this town. clearly the roar of the motorcycle engines drowning out any fears of the virus and the lives that could be lost because of it. gabriel sancho al jazeera sturgis south dakota,

new york governor andrew como. as resigned a week after an inquiry found he thank surely harass several women and vice. investigate to say he groped, kissed, or made suggestive comments to current and former government workers. kristen salome has moved from new york over, in a hastily arranged a dress after a combative defense of his behavior. a surprise announcement from new york's governor. i think that given the circumstances, the best way i can help now is if i step aside and let the government get back to governing. and therefore that's what i'll do. allegations against andrew cuomo 1st came in march from this woman, a former aid named lindsey boylen, who accused cuomo of making unwelcome advances. that led to more accusations from 11 women and toto. the governor has apologize, but to this day denied his signs of affection or harassment. in my mind,

i've never crossed the line with anyone. reaction has been swift, including from mariann wang, an attorney for 2 of commerce accusers. she said, my clients steal both vindicated and relieved that court will no longer be in a position of power over any one. a 5 month investigation concluded last week found he created a hostile working environment for women. governor cuomo, sexually arrest multiple women, many of whom were young women by engaging and unwanted groping kisses, hugging and by making inappropriate comments. a top aid stepped down amid accusations her team retaliated against at least one of his accusers and state lawmakers, including democrats, once seen as allies launched impeachment proceedings against him, adding to the already growing cause for chrome of resignation. are you now calling

on him to resign? yes, it's a dramatic fall from grace for a man who last year was being talked about as a possible presidential candidate. while as a response to covey was widely praised by democrats, the f. b. i is now investigating claims, homeless administration covered up the number of coven death in nursing homes. i don't see how formal, fully recovers politically from this. the report is long. it includes very damaging details. there is a potential criminal investigation on top of that. and your call is resignation goes into effect in 2 weeks time with the threat of criminal misdemeanor charges still hanging over his head. it will make his 2nd in command, kathy hoko, the 1st woman in history to serve as the state governor. kristen salumi al jazeera new york. now the world's largest art celebration, the edinburgh international festival returns this weekend. the scaled back program

follows its cancellation last year because of the pandemic. jonah, how reports? did everyone have a good panoramic? yeah, so make it difficult. isabelle far as one woman show ellipses is a journey through grief via stand up comedy. what happens when also chronic or excited that you kind of hydrogen? you don't? i don't remember for all i don't know musical like many of the acts at this. he has edinburgh festival behind it is a story of endurance. i didn't know who i was anymore. last year and exhilaration. amazing, honestly, absolutely amazing. and for me, so everything opened up again for like from it's from may and it's just completely changed how i feel like feel completely alive again. hello. hello. can i? like i want to show dormant for 18 months. there are signs of life in the ops. the

streets are filling up the stages on lit, again. the pandemic has left its mark, but the edinburgh festival is back on the car. been at this over 40 years. this game and the festival i think is the most important vessel in the world. and i think if you like anything, if you don't do it, things tend to wither and die. and i think that the festival had to happen in some form in order to create life and spirit, and actually make sure that there is some teacher for it. and i think would be a lot worse off if we'd done nothing this year than we them than by doing something . so achieving this and then looking towards recreating it properly for next year is kind of crucial. and rewards the world's biggest festival of the ox drawing crowds in the past. second only to the big games. 2 years ago, more than 3000000 people came here to see nearly 4000 acts crammed into every available performance space. and then it was cancelled returning. now some say

a shadow of its former self but it's rebirth cautious inevitably, still cove, it conscious there is a real sense of childish excitement. there's the audience and it's giving them a lovely taste the future. hopefully they'll not pay call anybody in my bank when they move and it's giving them an insight as to how to where entities to the future that the festival it's performers. companies, sponsors and supporters can now turn the show not always go on. and so it is jona whole al jazeera, edinburgh ah, let's take you through some of the headlines here now to sierra now taught a bond is continuing to advance across afghan stan drawing closer to the capital. it's taken.