american troops can only afford within the taliban. i believe that there will be a house for the taliban. inside story. parker. i frank assessment the div headlines . subscribe now. however you listen to podcast. ah, this is al jazeera. ah, it is 1300 hours gmc hello. i'm come all santa maria, welcome to the news. our on al jazeera, the world health organization is holding an emergency meeting about a new corona virus variant that signed to say could make vaccines less effective. also in the news from migrant crisis to a war on words war off words, france cancels talks with the u. k. of how to deal with those. trying to cross the english channel. target stands. government says it's swore to the coo,

just days before parliamentary elections. and foreign owned companies in democratic republic of congo, accused of exploiting and abusing minus and i'm far as well have all the day sports, including a confederation of african football member countries, has overwhelmingly voted to back plans for our world. come every 2 years. ah, blow from the most significant corona virus buried yet has been detected in southern africa and it is prompting countries to impose new travel restrictions to try to stop reaching their boards right now. but the world health organization meeting behind closed doors in geneva, they are trying to assess just how concerned we all really need to be. it is already cautioned governments though, against hastily imposing restrictions. countries can do

a lot already in terms of so lance and sequencing and work together with affected countries or globally come to work scientifically to fight this for i and, and to understand more about it so that we know how to go about. so at this point i'm again implementing travel measures is being cautioned against so far we've got the united kingdom, israel, bahrain, the philippines of all band travel to and from the following country, south africa, namibia and bobby botswana. so through and s one teeny, the european union is also considering a halting air travel from these countries. so it's moving fast. and south africa's government says it says, says the flight bands over the new variant seem, well rushed is what i say farming. the miller is in johannesburg, we'll talk to her about that shortly. gonna start though with john hall in london to take us through the situation there. it is interesting to you. k. moving very quickly. european countries seem set to follow suit and then the world health

organization says, be careful. don't go too quickly. what i think from the european perspective in the u. k. perspective, they can't act quickly enough. they were slow on jumping on previous variance at all costs. now they want to protect the vaccine program and anything that poses a threat to that is something that nobody is willing to take. any chances with the speed that they've acted on here is clearly a function of the degree of alarm that has been spread by this new variant. and not just in the u. k. and europe, you're seeing its effect now in global stop markets on the oil price, as countries around the world take note of the potential impact of this barrel on the pandemic as a whole, remember it was only 4 pm on thursday. the chief, the chief medical officers brought what they knew about the very to the government here within hours. the government here had introduced this travel band and as you say, other countries are following suit now from 4 am on sunday morning. travelers returning

from african countries will need to quarantine in government approved hotels. there's good news and there's bad news. of course, the good news is that they appear to have caught this early that they have, as i said, acted fast. there are not many known cases of this new variant. one in hong kong, some in israel. the hope will be not to stop it spread. you simply can't do that, but the hope will be to delay it spread and give scientists time to properly assess what sort of threat it poses so that countries can introduce the sorts of measures that they need to introduce to fight it. i guess it is understandable as he said, that these countries the, you can, your wants to move that quickly. the situation in europe is only getting worse on its own organically, without anything new being introduced. absolutely. there's a 55th wave sweeping across the countries. the european union, they've had to vaccine all along of course, some have not taken it up high degrees of vaccine hesitancy in the east and the

west countries are seeing immunity waiting. so they're very worried about that. some are already introducing new measures. austria has gone into full lockdown and of course now the prospect of a new varied that could make matters so much worse is a course alarming. and the w h o and vaccine manufacturers noting that it could be 2 weeks before they have definitive data on this variance. and that's well, you know, plenty of time for it to spread substantially. ok, thank you. jonah hall in london, covering developments in london and across europe. news of the travel band that we just heard about drove a number of people in south africa to rush the airport. try to get home. they are to be fair, frustrated. it's a big inconvenience. we had our flights booked for a week time, but we got the news from our daughter in the u. k. about 31 o'clock last night saying that you were going to introduce the read. this is sunday sun justified.

it's abrupt and it's not good for tories in for south africa. we understand that this is been bringing in a lot of tories into south africa and ever seen these regulations they passed last night. people are frantically trying to get back into the u. k. more with family to miller in johannesburg. deja vu isn't it for me that i had the beta very which started in south africa. wow. feel that years ago. doesn't it now they're starting again. i wonder if there's a rush not only for people to get out, but to get vaccinated as well. well, that is one of the issues of concern around this detection of a new variant. there's certainly a significant amount of vaccine hesitancy in this country. 41 percent of adults have received at least one shot, but only 35 percent have received 2 shots of any sort of vaccine. and that is an issue of concern, but also we have profess sciences experts there who say that this concept of her

immunity is never gonna happen. south africa is far behind the target of 70 percent of the population being backs unaided. and so the detection of this new variant is especially of concern, but also what sciences here want to point out is that so africa has been at the forefront of sequencing and surveillance of corona virus. and that it's not necessarily a case of this being a south african variant, but one that was identified here because of the expertise. now we look at the number of infections for people in neighboring botswana have been identified as having this new variant. but the government there has issued a statement saying that the virus was detected on for foreign nationals who had entered botswana on the 7th of november and a diplomatic mission. now this is part of the issue in terms of the concerns around borders and movement at white european countries might be doing in terms of trying

to restrict travel. thank you for those updates from johannesburg family to mila. let's have a closer look at this new variance in just a bit of back story. remember we started referring to variance by the geography for me to reference that, but then in may, the world health organization rename them will trying to avoid stigmatizing those countries. so now you know, we have alpha, beta, gamma delta, as you see on this chart from covariance dot all little confusingly, if we follow this greek alphabet naming system, then this new varying b 11529 will actually be called the new variance. and you and the w i chose, we heard has been meeting today to decide if this is a variant of interest or concern. but when visualizing varies, it is always important to remember. they keep changing, they evolve in scope and size. this is from next strain dot org, and this is a global picture of all the variance that we've seen over the course of the pandemic. let me just get rid of those sketches from earlier. so that's the course

of the pandemic. all of those green and blue ones, the ones that's all delta officially, 3 delta strength, easily the most prevalent and long lasting. and then as you come down further, we've got these ones here, which is gamma. you've got alpha, you've got beta, those bluey purple colored ones, which is mostly peak about this little red one right there. that is our new variance. so it looks pretty small. but if we switch to an africa focus, you see the new variant. again, that's a little bigger, it's growing some a saying potentially the worst so far. fine to say it has around 30 different mutations twice as many as the delta variant had got some expert opinion on this with haven't read through the chair of the w. h o regional immunization, technical advisory, for african, it's always a pleasure to have you with us, haven't. i think we should maybe start with the good news and for me to reference this before, the fact that this has been identified quickly, hasn't it? it's not so much a south african barrier, but it's been identified there with some pretty slick work. yes,

the genomics of south africa has been outstanding throughout this whole pandemic period. and that's why we've been able to identify when changes occur. and we also supporting from national surveillance program, many of the neighboring countries in gushing specimens. and so that we can also evaluate. so i do agree with what you said earlier. we must be quite careful. the fact that we are able to identify changes quickly is good news, good news for the world. but we must be careful that we don't then jumped the conclusion of well that equals it. it came from here. it came from there and it means that this or that you need to understand much more about this. i would also just say one other thing to scientist is that i think it's our responsibility to use cautious language. we're still understanding this. we are being very careful, there are many more mutations that seem to have a big leap from the kinds of variance that we've seen before the changes we've seen

before. but i think using, along with language, if you're a scientist, i think the world needs to keep calm. you science have proper response, but not create. okay, so i have to play devil's advocate here and say, but if you don't move quickly, you could find yourself in another position that we had with the delta strain. the i know people are sick of lockdown, they think of restrictions and the light, but is there not a greater risk of not reacting quickly the difference between using along with language and react and quickly rec and quickly is a public health consistency. and we now know what to do, and we have to do it. so that's because still got all the measures and face of mosque wearing distancing, ventilation, all of that is still here. but we are now going to be looking very urgently, whether we need to, once again increase our numbers are very, very low. so what we've seen and an increase in numbers up from a very low base. so certainly we are acting very quickly at the national level and

i think globally w h o and the world is right to, to look quickly. but then i think we need to be sensible. what is the evidence that we have about this bench? and what do we worry about? we wanted about be more transmissible, and we're worried about the potential that it might be more resistance to the action of that scene. we don't know much about it for things like the, the severity, that's what we're worried about at the moment. we need to respond to that worry. and so i took to support that, but i'm saying, let's keep, let's keep the measures. we do not want to mobile panic because to sound like that sort of jumping up. we need to learn about this. as we've done the movie on the very a lot more mutations doesn't necessarily mean lots and lots more bad things. we just don't know, some of these mutations have been seen before. we don't know what to do, right. and we also suggest these change, sorry, i haven't, you mentioned vaccine say, which is obviously important and why we talk about being double vaccinated and people talk about in boosters in the light. i assume that the good folks that

mcdonner and find their masters and all these places are constantly monitoring and developing de vaccines and changing them in line with what we learned because they just now use boosting up on a vaccine, which is quote unquote old. no, we've always known this, i mean, the vaccine development world has known this from the outset that the vaccines we have gone to the moment were developed to, to adjust the hamster and the original frame that we have. and so we've always know that we what we might well have to change back in. so we've been looking at things like what to do faxing backbones that would allow us to rapidly change if in the event that we sort of vary. and that was the vaccine action. so that's all being put in place 5 or 5. and for some of the technologies we've now got the ability to modify a vaccine quite quickly is, is it's already there and understood. what we would need to do is to identify more

about this, this very and so we would know if we need to modify vaccines in the future. well, what would we need to modify in them? and what would we need to targets in the variance to be alerts? not alarmed, i think is what i've learned from you today. i haven't raised always a pleasure. thank you so much for your time. thank you. we are almost 14 minutes past this news. he is what's coming up french, fishermen block colts and ferries, across the english channel. his anger grows over post sprigs of fishing, rice honduras will soon be choosing its next precedence. many say there was no point in voting and later on your sports noose. as the former australia test, captain tim payne says he'll miss the ashes series. we'll look at what's behind that a little bit lighter with far ah

will france has canceled a meeting with the u. k. aimed at tackling people smuggling in the english channel . it comes off to prime minister bars. johnson criticized the french authorities for their handling of the migrant crisis. both governments were expected to work together to prevent more refugees and migrants from dying while trying to cross the channel. these 27 people drowned, you'll remember off the northern french coast on wednesday. j discontinued as you other could. i spoke 2 days ago with prime minister bars johnson in a serious manner. but on my end, i seek to continue doing as i do with any country in any head of state. i am surprised by methods when they are not serious ones. i say you don't communicate from a leader to another on these matters via tweets and letters. you are making public, we are not whistleblowers. come on more with poll brennan, following the story from the british coastal town of dover. i and others politics involved in everything pole but 27 people died in the channel and many more probably will as well try to make that crossing and yet politic seems to be taking

over that indeed. and it from wednesday, when these 27 people drowned in that stretch of water over to my right hand, left hand side that had been caused for closer cooperation between britain and france. and frankly, they have fallen apart as a result of the fact that britain and france at the moment, frankly, just don't get on. and there is also question marks about the way the british have attempted to push their particular preferred solution. on the french, it was very early on wednesday evening, but at present macklin, boris johnson had a telephone conversation together. on thursday, the suggestion was being made by the british side. the joint patrols could be made with british police and army on the french beaches, supporting the french police and to stop the boats, putting out to sea that was mentioned in parliament by pretty patel. the british home secretary sauces in france were saying if i openly at the time that that's not

really gonna float for us, that really is not what we want to happen. and then boris johnson on thursday night, it's use a formal request in this letter, which is similar tenuously, she's on social media, but i formally request join patrols and frankly, prism micron has express is extreme exasperation with this. and this is not how we conduct international diplomacy. and as a result, britain has been excluded from a meeting which will still take place on sunday in calais. it will involve france, belgium, the netherlands, and the european commission. it will serve included britons, robert, now britain, if he excluded. so was the corporation. now i'm afraid that's not gonna happen. and how is the oldest playing out in the u. k. paul, i've been looking at british media and it's certainly been a top story pretty much everywhere you look because any issue to do with migration seems to be well sensitive. a lot of the time it is, and i think it's important. i mean, you're very right to bring out the context in all of this, you know,

the past 3 weeks for us. johnson, as prime minister has been battered domestically in the political sense from 3 weeks ago, where he rather ill advisedly attempted to help out a friend of his who had been found to accept that money for lobbying in parliament . then there was a issues over, you turns on a high speed rail, for example, and the way that the social care issue was going to be handled. so he has had, his question is judgment and his leadership questions. and the timing of this letter to president micron issued about 7 38 o'clock last night was just in time for the newspapers now home when i'm for you, this is that normally supportive, daily mail, pm's, flea, let's put you came boots. let us put boots on french beaches, boris ramps up pressure. now that would generally be regarded by boris johnson as a, a success story playing to his domestic audience. but it has spectacular backfired poll brennan are great reporting there from dover in the u. k. putting it all into

context for us this u. k. france spat, which has other layers as well. french fishermen are trying to block marine traffic in the town of cali, protesting against post briggs, it fishing arrangements. the u. k. is giving fuel licenses to french vessels after its departure from the european union. both countries have involved in a long running dispute over the right to fish in territorial waters. hope to return to that store a little bit later. we'll look at iran just for now where police are firing pellet guns and t a gas at people protesting against water shortages. this video was posted on launch has a number people injured in the city of it's for han protestors who are mostly farmers rely on water. of course to make a living. they have been demonstrating for weeks. aaron's been suffering from chronic drought though for more than 20 years. and while we're talking around the top nuclear negotiated air, says, talks in vienna will fail if sanctions are not lifted. ali bassetti is also asking

washington for guarantees that it won't leave any future agreement. and rounds, new government is due to hold its 1st talks with international powers over its nuclear program on monday. now in kurdistan today, security services said they foiled a coup attempt lays 15 people have been detained, including politicians and former officials trying or accused of trying to stage a violent protest against the results of parliamentary elections. i courtesans, president severe, jumped out of his expected to maintain his grip on power after sundays elections. critics accuse him of suppressing descent. same bas ravi is in bish check. he's been speaking to a politician running against the ruling party. blinded by a child who disease thus done, be cash, have struggled with depression at an early age. the pursuit of knowledge, he says, saved him and led him to a career as a lawyer once a member of the party, overthrown by curtis jones, president, southern japira. the acting m p is now running for parliament as an independent

read his campaign slogan. i see the truth a play on his disability suggests he has not lost his sense of humour and perhaps a jab at the current leadership. he may be blind, but even he is able to see the people's real problems. when you might plan in social media is just like tv. you can be recognizable, you can make appeals from social media, but you will not lead your waters to the billet boxes. that is why personal contact the moment when you're chatting with the potential voters, it betters the chances that this water will come and work for you in a system that has for years run on political favortism. thus done walking, the beat makes him a rare breed the election for a new parliament is only a few days away. but walking around the capital, bish catch you wouldn't be able to tell. this is the lowest level of public activity this country has ever seen before. a vote. now that may be down to

a nationwide case of what some experts are calling political fatigue. this is after all, the 4th round of poles this country is conducting in a year. political heat from opposing forces is also noticeably milder. descent has been muffled by obligations of corruption, opposition activists and leaders are out of the country or in prison. and front runners that are likely to fill parliamentary seats largely back the president. japira has not been as heavy handed as previous leaders, but has cracked down on political opponents, intimidated critics and pass laws to weaken press freedom things. he said he would not do the public promises that make him popular. his critics say, are a cover for the same corruption of past governments. many fear the elections will be followed by hostility. nice, we're going to get some news that i have no doubt that's going to happen. history shown us that such dictators as the current government, white for elections only to strengthen their vertical power. as soon as i have

enough support, as soon as they have the parliament in the courts in their hands, they will intensify. the fight against us. voter turn is going to be an important indicator of the health of democracy in correspond. and after years of ballads cast out of fear, under pressure or for payment turn out this time is expected to be extremely low. they in basra, the odyssey rubbish, keck. that's returned to the issue of french fishermen trying to block marine traffic in the french town of kelly under simmons is there for us. how's it played out today, andrew? well, in son malo in brittany. the action there wasn't really effective because of this stormy weather had meant that shipping it stayed in port anyway. but here in cali, a half a dozen fishing boats blockaded the port. no shipping came in and no shipping went out. it did cause disruption. it lost in about an hour and a half. there is going to be action as well. and the channel pool where 25 percent

of trade goes on exports from britain of the whole of europe. now that could be, that could actually cause a considerable disruption as well. this whole message being put forward by french fishermen is quite clear that this is the sort of disruption of the british could face if they don't issue more licenses. to french fishermen for fishing in u k. waters. that's the blunt warning and politically that is a similar warning. busy about britons or actions over the fishing rights for, for all of the fleets in france. andrews, can you just put this in a little wider context for us? i think i said this earlier without raking up everything that happened with briggs it. but now in a, how is this still an issue or fishing, still an issue, post exit. mm hm. it's because britain with breck,

it has a, wants us be seen as an island nation with fishing to a priority, and it wants more, really more territory. and it's got it because of brakes. it butts, and there are areas where, where france can legally fish. but the british are insisting they have to see their licenses and they have to have proof that the fishermen have been in the areas they're in right now. and they won't say gps data, for example, a french fisherman, not all of them have got gps data. and so there's a real feeling amongst friends fishermen that they're being discriminated against and they're losing their livelihoods. as a result, this may not have a massive part of the freight of the french economy, but it is symbolic. and the french politicians feel that that has to be a settlement on it, but they're really a long way apart in terms of coming to a settlement and a manual macro on the french president says they will stand firm there waiting for

negotiations to be completed. but they're not getting anywhere. and the threat is from the french that they will stop and they will cause lot of disruption for exports going through to france, which britain depends on particularly fresh food, not just the fish. and that could happen if britain doesn't show some concessions. that's the situation really. and it's quite critical. one of many issues in which france and britain are divided on. and there is really a well and lowest form of diplomacy going on. now, the biggest split between france and britain for many decades. thank you. andrew simmons at complimenting that reporting from nepal, brain a little bit earlier on you. kate france relations. now protest as of gathered in peruse capitol lima, in support of president pedro castillo. the opposition is trying to remove him from power, questioning his moral ability to govern due to corruption allegations. police in

the solomon islands have imposed an indefinite night time curfew in the capital. honey, are after days of violent protests, tear gas and warning. shots were fired on friday to disperse, the crowds, gathering their police from australia have now arrived to restore. come, sarah clark, as our report fires, burn and thick smoke billows across the solomon islands. capital. this is the aftermath of 2 days of white. let his ransacked local stools after a 36 hour curfew is lifted. we have just come passed through a lot of buildings and you know, a lot of our businesses that were bent down and behind me that that's the police response team. the out of the trying to control the situation here more than 100 police diplomats and defense personnel from australia had been deployed to honey ira at the request of the solomon islands, prime minister. but the new guinea is also sending a pace keeping taint in or to try and restore. com. we have australians who

a brightly going back to the solomon islands to support our pacific family to ensure that we can have stability in place. so that i can resolve issues internally . the flashpoint for these anti government protests was the chinatown districts demonstrate as targeted the chinese on businesses and government funded building women that we are gravely concerned with the attacks on chinese citizens and chinese funded enterprises and have asked the local government to take all mesh is necessary to protect the safety of chinese nationals and institutions. the group behind these demonstrations from the nation's most populous islands, them a later province that accused the prime minister of ignoring the needs of the region. they want him to send down a request. you repeat. this is about i think, pretty deep seated grievances on the part of many ordinary solomon islanders

about the way they see government behaving about the way that development occurs in solomon islands at the way the economy structured at corruption and perceptions of corruption and of of the way that the central government deals with the provinces protests is, are also angry at the central government's decision to cut ties with taiwan after 36 years and form and allegiance with china. that decision was made in 2019. that was, john is growing influence in the 14 nation pacific gardens. it continue to fuel discontent . sarah cloth out here before we take a break on the news, our check on the weather was kara, hello. they will have a look at africa in just a moment, but 1st to the middle east, an air quality remains

a problem across iran. finale 2 weeks, we've had high levels of pollution recorded into iran and the city remains cloaked in smog. but weather wise, it is settled and dryer. here we got a few showers popping off in the east, but across much of the region it's dry. it does get a little bit unsettled. thanks with shamar wind that's blowing down across the gulf states. we're going to see some dust kicked up hazy sunshine for guitar for the u. e. and as we go into sunday, that wind is going to intensify stretching down into a mon and yemen that was move across to north africa. the wind picks up across northern areas, we got a bit of the horrid dust to be found there in places like egypt and in libya. but for the wet weather we have to move over to morocco that thinks the low pressure across the mediterranean. that's bringing some storms and showers here, as well as coastal areas of algeria. now as we move to central africa, it's not as wet as it has been recently. we are seeing some heavier falls effect southern.