i wrote a book, the activist on the entrepreneur on all 0. it was supposed to be a refugee, but so of careers. brothers home was allegedly the scene of torture, rape plant, even murder one or one easter investigates for crimes on those set to be behind them on odyssey. ah, a new political era is said to begin and germany, parliament is versions where like ola sholtes as chancellor to replace angela michael. ah. hello there, i'm is darcy at hand. this is out of their life and also coming up. no break through and talks between the u. s. and russian presidents as moscow masses,

troops on ukraine's border. i caught in malaysia, upholds the corruption conviction of former prime minister, not to a browser, but says he can stay out of jail for now. and as trailer joins at the u. s. diplomatic boy cause of next year's winter olympics. and beijing, china says no because if they don't come ah, what 1st to breaking news from india where an air force helicopter has crashed in the south of the country? it was carrying 14 military officials, including the defense chief general bip in rot. while the air craft was flying from the sulu e f. i a f air base to wellington when it then came down in the neil garris district that's in tamil nadu for people are confirmed dead so far. 3 government officials

have been taken to hospital and bit and an investigation into the cause is underway will be bring you more on that as we get now. germany is federal. parliament is right now. voting to elect a new chancellor. social democrat, ala schultz is set to replace anglo merkel who's leaving office after 16 years. schoultz and his cabinet of 16 are expected to be sworn in in a few hours after this particular vote in parliament. the incoming coalition government has promised to step up efforts against climate change and the coven 19 pandemic. well, it's been a dominant cain. he joins us from berlin, where we, as we can see parliament is still voting dominic, as we've been saying, a really busy ceremonial morning for schultz can you talk us through what we've been seeing and also what's planned. first thing we saw this morning in parliament was a standing ovation for the outgoing chancellor, angular medical who's been in charge of the government of this country for 16 years . well, very soon now, she will no longer be in charge of the government because the constitution will

have been adhered to a positive vote to replace her as chancellor with olaf shots, leader of the social democrats in parliament. and therefore, now the man who is going to be charged with governing this country for the next 4 years, the votes will be taking place imminently. once he has achieved the number of votes, it's required, he then replaces angle america. he will then go on to the president's palace as it were, the schlossberg view, which is very close to parliament and receive the seals of office as it were, as will then his cabinet colleagues, those are the people from the other parties in this traffic light coalition, of red for the social democrats, yellow for the free democrats, also known as the liberals in german and the greens, of course, and those parties will, they, themselves, will be controlling important ministries. so the liberals will be in charge of the finance ministry, amongst other ministries. the greens will clearly will take control of the

environment, ministry, but also the foreign ministry. but all of that is still ahead of us over the course of the next few hours. but in the course of the next few minutes, mr. shots will be barring some very unforeseen consequences. he will be elected chancellor in parliament and then can start to implement all those policies that he is keen to start implementing and make as they were saying earlier, a number of individuals here taking ministerial offers as well for the very 1st time. so what sort of shifts should germans and potentially the rest of the wow be looking for the key plank of policy as it were, that mister schultz wants to see, brought in, implemented involves social justice. but particularly from his perspective, raising the minimum wage that was a very key part of his agenda, meaning that everybody in the lowest paid jobs in society will now get more money

in their pay packet. that's the 1st thing to say. then from the other parties, perspectives, the greens will, they clearly wanted to see a change, a much more radical agenda to fight to combat climate change. they have forced the hand of mr. shots, they have the environment ministry, they have the economy ministry, which is being, as it were, strengthened and given more portfolio over climate change. and they get foreign policy. they get the foreign ministry. but their leader is a lady who has no ministerial experience whatsoever. and alina bell, bach, 40 years old, and now charged with directing the foreign policy of europe's most important economy. and she's already made some waves of what she said about russia and about china. now she's in charge of diplomacy, which will be a change from what she has done in the course of the electoral campaign. but that still ahead of us for that for now. all eyes on parliament and that vote taking place. indeed at dominic pain there with all the latest forests from valen. thanks

so much, danny. well, let's not bring you more on that breaking news out of india where an air force helicopter has crashed with 14 officials on board that speak try correspond to elizabeth problem. she joins us now from new delhi is i know all the details are still emerging. what do we know what the stage? hello, natasha. well the only official confirmation. so 5 from the indian air force they tweeted saying that a helicopter carrying india chief of defense saw that general a bip and rollin met with an accident in canoe in the southern states of thumb. now too. and they said that they've ordered an investigation into the cause of the accident. it's believe that general wife and some of the staff will on board now general invalid is the 1st the 1st person to hold the position of chief of defense staff. he was the former army chief and he began this position in january

2020. it was created to ensure better cooperation and coordination between india forces that the army, the navy, and also the air force. and it is quite simply the most high ranking and important position in the indian armed forces. now this helicopter was traveling from the, from an actual space in st. louis to the defense service college in wellington. this is a very mountainous area and there are a lot of forth there. and the search and rescue operations are continuing around the size of the crash. we can see from the few pictures that there are off the of the record, that all of the aftermath rather, that the wreckage of the helicopter is on fire. the police officer nodded his tone, local media that at least 4 people have died. others has been taken to hospital and is former army chief, has told local media that identifying the bodies is proving difficult because of

the burns will stay on that story and bring you more as we get elizabeth problem, india correspondent by that. thank you so much. now moving on and the u. s. president has repeated his warning to russia's leader, invade ukraine and face severe sanctions. the virtual call between joe biden and vladimir putin on tuesday ended with no breakthrough. putin complained about nature, his attempts to develop what he called ukrainian territory. our white house correspondent can be health reports, with a massive build up of russian troops, new ukraine, shared border, and u. s. intelligence indicating an invasion of ukraine could happen early next year. u. s. president biden met virtually with russian president. vladimir poo. good to see you again. the pair spoke for 2 hours. potent denies. russian tends to invade ukraine, calling it fear mongering. but the u. s. president made clear today that if russia

did tough economic sanctions would follow. i will look in the i and tell you, as president biden looked, president putin in the i and told him today that things we did not do in 2014. we are prepared to do now. that reference is to the russian annexation of crimea from ukraine. that prompted us sanctions by then also told putin the u. s. was prepared to assessors militarily. we would provide additional defensive material to the ukrainians above and beyond that, which we are already provided. and we would fortify our nato allies on the eastern flank for its part. russia is seeking assurances from the west that ukraine will not become a member of the north atlantic treaty organization, something the ukrainians have pursued for years. the u. s. national security advisor reiterated ukraine can associate with whom ever it wants. when analyst believes joining nato is unrealistic,

it ought to be clearer to them. and we're not coming to the rescue. so you're gonna have to live next russia without a u. s. security guarantee. there were also questions about the controversial nord stream to pipeline which runs from germany to russia and whether it could be used as leverage and discussions over ukraine. the white house says it will pressure the german government to stop it. if russia invades the biden administration, will continue to work with it's european partners, promising a coordinated response, should russia ignore their warnings? president biden will also speak with ukraine's president lensky on thursday. kimberly, how can al jazeera the white house? malaysia's former prime minister, not jabrisa remains defiant, often appeals court upheld his guilty verdict in a corruption case. he wanted the judge to throw out his 12 year prison sentence and $15000000.00. fine. not even pleaded not guilty to dozens of charges tied to his

involvement in a multi $1000000000.00 state fund scheme. he was voted out of office back in 2018 after those corruption allegations. i am very, very disappointed with that because a drug focus on house nationally, chris. and as you know, during my tenure as prime minister, as just an example of the total assets of the country under my watch grew from $800000000.00 to $2.00 trillion, 2 trillion ringing. oh, therefore, i created a lot of wealth with a country hawthorne's larry has more now, from puerto jaya in malaysia, his lawyers have said they will be filing an appeal to the federal court. that's the highest court in the land and pending that appeal process. his lawyers have

also asked for and been granted a stay on the sentence. that means no jabrisa will not have to go to prison. he will not have to pay his fine immediately while the appeals process is being dealt with. and this is something that can take years now in practical terms, it also means that he will be free and out on bail just as he is. now. there are really 2 camps. i mean, there are many people who believe that no job is guilty. if you remember, it was the anger over corruption allegations surrounding one m d b, the state investment fund that caused no chips. party, the united malays national organization and its allies to lose a general election in 2018. and that was a historic defeat. it was the 1st time the coalition, known as bars on national, had lost a general election and was no longer in power. this was the 1st time since malaysia gain independence in 1957. and the court of appeals decision on wednesday will be event, vindication for many anti corruption activists and opposition. politicians who've

said that no job was corrupt when he was prime minister and also finance minister of this country. but equally not does have many supporters, especially amongst the grassroots, he has successfully rehabilitated his image through a very savvy use of social media. he portrays himself as a champion of the people, as opposed to the privately educated, wealthy elite that he is. we spoke to some of his supporters, dozens of whom were here earlier on wednesday, and they said they were disappointed by the court's decision. but they also said they remain hopeful because he has one channel of appeal left to him. while stella had here on al jazeera, the long road home, one of the world's oldest religious texts returns to iraq. he is after it was lucid and soul, the legally. ah hello, welcome to your world weather update. we're going to begin this one in australia

where more rain coming for floods stricken areas of the east. so that's eastern parts of new south wales into victoria. we're going to see heavy bursts of rain on thursday, and also the potential for some damaging whence talk temperature is now paint on the colors. the darker the red, the higher the temperature pur sat. 34. you could see your longest stretch of days about 31 degrees in december in 90 years, but look what happens on friday. temperatures come crashing down to $25.00 degrees . the heat breaks. now for new zealand capital region, we have seen 2 times the december monthly average in the span of 2 days. and there is more rain on the way for wellington, on thursday, with a hive 20 degrees. the ne monsoon particularly active, so that's given us a lot of rain for the east and central parts of the philippines on thursday. and same goes toward vietnam with that ne monsoon steering the rain into central and southern parts which have been city. this will plague you with a high of 30 degrees closed start to dissipate through

a huge swath of china. we're really seeing that cloud deck build though, toward the northeast we may see some showers in snow over higher ground. and that wet and windy weather that was plague in tokyo, pushes out toward the pacific. a sunny day and tokyo at 12, ah, in the country with an abundance of bristles. lauren won indonesia whom we move to grow and fraud with balance real economy, blue economy, and the digital economy. with the new job creation law, indonesia is progressively ensuring the policy reform to create quality jobs, investment. let people in the, the, his growth and progress. even. now, lou

ah ah, hello, they watching out 0. let's remind you of our top stories, the salad. at least 4 people have been killed and a helicopter crashing in india. the aircraft was carrying 40 and military officials, including the defense chief general in ra. it came down in the nil, get his district of the southern terminal. now do states. germany is getting a new chancellor. the federal parliament is verging to elect center, left a social democrat of shots. he'll be replacing anglo michael who is now leaving after 16 years. and the u. s. has warned russia of severe sanctions if it invades ukraine. president joe biden and baton rouge and held a to our virtual call that ended with no breakthrough. putin ones guarantees that ukraine wont join later. now the funeral of

a sri lankan man biesen to death and pakistan on friday is about to begin in his home country. a crowd attacked brianne to deal with donna before dragging him into the streets and setting him on fire staff at the factory wade. he'd worked at accused him of destroying a religious poster. pakistan's prime minister says more than a 100 people have now been arrested. well, let's speak to michelle fernandez. she is outside victims, home in tampa, in sri lanka, manella. i understand that mr. dia donna had a wife and 2 children. how is everyone doing that? her? that's right. no sir. the entire family is very much in a state of shock. i spoke to his wife, ah, who is? i still trying to take it all in the fact that her husband is no more and then he came to such a brutal end. i mean ho one cray is there just just be done. that all of

sort of the ammunition of the arm of the lord be used to bidding those perpetrators to book that those things happen so that this kind of brutality is not witnessed again. but for his broader family. it's a very close knit family. there were 6 siblings and all. incidentally, 3 of the 3 brothers are all walked in park, his son, and even his mom who is very much a broken lady, reached out when we came in here earlier. or she said she had brought up her 6 children. literally as a single mom, after her husband passed away for 31 long years. and she is heartbroken to see that her youngest son came to such a tragic end. so it's very much a family broker and trying to come to grips with this scale of violence that they've seen. and all they can hope for is that they find out exactly what went down last friday. and that those who wore behind it for whatever reasons that drove

them this cannot be justified, but for whatever that they are brought to book and punished. while manella was looking at some of the numbers as well, and it seems that dozens of people have been killed and attacks around blasphemy allegations and pakistan over the last few decades. has people there been held to account? is it likely, especially given the arrests that we're seeing now that that will happen in this case? i believe in terms of comparisons to previous incidents. the fact that this has taken a sort of an international awareness and flavor, given that it is obviously a foreign national that was involved. it's really made big headlines. and there is a hope that even if you look at some of the pleasures made by the pakistan leadership crime in the same ron con, seeing that he hopes that never in his life time will something similar happen.

again, those are a pretty, a sort of big words. and one would expect, particularly for the family here, that they are actually able to put their where to be her behind those words and give it sort of credence. because are given the fact that this has happened, similar things have happened before. no one wants to has, you know, see it happen ever again to any one, no matter where they're from. indeed, michelle fernandez, they're outside the families home in sri lanka. thank you so much, mina. well, staying in sri lanka and a salvage company has been contracted to remove a chemical ship that caught fire off the coast there. in may. the end, the express pearl tanker caused environmental damage after it's filled hundreds of tons of hazardous chemicals and plastic into the ocean. dead marine life, including turtles and whales washed up on the beach as their sri. lankan authorities said it was the nations at west marine disaster. now moving on and

china has his house with his trailer for its diplomatic boy course of next year's winter olympics. and beijing, the ministry of foreign affairs, as the move goes against the policy of political neutrality. but prime minister scott morrison says, athletes will be able to attend the games. there will be no government representation. la morrison's as china has failed to respond to several issues, including accusations of human rights abuses on china says australia's decision is against the olympic motto of togetherness to hm. you, your chin. jennifer, china is not invited. any australian governmental officials to the beijing one through alom hook. so whether they come or not, you know what it is. australian politicians, political posturing, and selfish games will not impact beijing success in hosting the winter olympics. or andrew woodward is a sports marketing consultant and was also the public relations manager for sidney's and 1992 olympics bed. he says other countries will probably follow

washington's lead. now it actually just sent a signal through diplomatic circles to the chinese government that you know, hey, we're not happy in australian sport and politics folklore. there's a phrase that sport and politics don't mix. and jo, a strengthens hated when sport and politics. so come together and sport is used for politics, but this will largely be seen as just something that politicians and bureaucrats do . and as long as they're athletes, good to go there. the public of australia will be comfortable with that is so look at it using limbs are going in the same direction as i understand it. and look, this is something that will spread around the rest of the world. there are multinational alliances and they will come into the 4. but what i don't think anyone wants to see happen is a, a boycott building picks from an athletic point of view. i think of how the world came together for the tokyo olympics earlier this year. and the joy that there are many, many people, certainly there are major human rights issues in china to address that on the whole

. let's keep the sport politics separate here. and let's not forget that sport has acted before to bring about change in various countries. we did have the protests on, you know, the party protest with the commonwealth nations banding, south africa from sport, and back in the sixties and seventies, most particularly cricket and rugby. and that had some effect in bringing about change in south africa. upside drivers are too big for that, but certainly it is sending a very strong signal to beijing with also the pandemic now and cove at 19 cases in south korea have surpassed 7000 in a single day. for the 1st time, prime minister kimball kim says he is concerned about the increasing number of critically ill patients. he says the on the con variant is contributing to the rise and infections. and now home treatment for patients is being considered to reduce

pressure on hospitals. well, dr. alice tan specializes and disease prevention at the ms. medi women's hospital is also a former associate professor at the some some medical center. she says, cases started climbing after south east measures in november listed many restrictions, including allowing visitations to long term care facilities such as complex hospitals and nursing homes. unfortunately, we did not take into account the amount of waning of community that had occurred, especially in people older than 60 years old. and so with measures lifted, there was an increase in community transmission which we expected. but unfortunately, there was also a huge spike in break infections, especially in people age 60 and above. and that's what caused a huge increase in the number of hospital admissions. and unfortunately, in november,

i saw the largest number of public related deaths in south korea since the onset of the pandemic. i think it's too early to say what the true virulence of the army con variance is throughout the whole spectrum of disease. although we do suspect that it is much more transmissible than the delta variant. and even in korea, we are seeing cases of breakthrough infection. our 1st 2 cases had been fully vaccinated with during the vaccine. and then they had got the chronic infection. i was traveling in africa and so the army, cranberry and is, is in the community already in korea. and my biggest concern is that if we see huge increases in cases that inevitably always leads to increase in hospitalizations. even if the disease is last severe

on our u. s. federal judge has blocked the last of president, jo biden's, coven, 19 vaccine mandates for businesses. the ruling says the move to force millions of federal contractors to get vaccinated exceeds government authority. this follows the blocking of compulsory vaccines for health care workers. just last week. i'll peruse prison. pedro castillo has survived a motion to impeach him. congress rejected a request to remove him for what's been described as moral incapacity. left his president who assumed office in july is accused of corruption by his political rival, pro and anti government protestors gathered outside congress during that impeachment vote. who has now had 5 presidents in the last 5 years. philippine journalist marissa is flying to norway to accept her nobel peace prize after a court approved her trip. the outspoken critic of president rodrigo to today is out on bail while appealing a 6 year prison sentence for libel. resar and russian journalist dmitri moreton

were awarded the nobel peace prize for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression. there is a part of me that is happening yes, but also angry. and hoping for better a better. in bellows plays flores, the plane of a journalist to land rate. look at what's happened in hong kong. i think this is just an indication of how hard it is to be a journalist that a button. how important it is, the a journalist now a japanese billionaire and as assistant, are the latest tourists heading to the international space station. you soccer my as our and you also get, i know we'll spend 12 days in orbit, where they also plan to hold a badminton tournament with astronauts. the japanese pair blasted off in a rush and sawyer's water from kazakhstan, realizing a childhood dream of space traveling. after 30 years,

one of the world's oldest surviving works in lecher has been returned to iraq. the small clay artifact, also known as the guild domestic dream tablet was stolen during the 1st gulf war. a ceremony was held on tuesday to hand the tablet back over to iraqi authorities. man at val reports. it's known as the good amish dream tablet, an artifact made of clay with an engraved fragment of the epic of gilgamesh, one of the world's oldest, no religious texts. it was stolen from an iraqi museum in 18, i to one and sent to the united states. now it's back along with the world's attention. in a rail ceremony, u. s embassy officials in baghdad handled the precious relic to iraqi authorities. lo, gilgamesh tablet is a clear tablet, dating back more than 3500 years ago. it has so marian engravings on it, while our embassy in washington received it from the holy bible museum. the text on this tablet is 1000 years older than homer's poems and tells the story of

a legendary hero named gilgamesh who is said to have ruled mesopotamia some 2000 years before the christian era. he was elevated in subsequent sumerian mythology as a god. in 1991 during the 1st gulf war, 9 of iraq's regional museums were looted up to 4000 items were stolen or destroyed, including some that were thousands of years old. like the good damage tablet. it was bought by a us based christian arts and crafts retailer in 2014 for display in his museum of biblical artifacts. it was later seized by the u. s. department of justice. according to the u. s. cultural agency unit score, it entered the u. s. in 2007 grotto authorities say they're happy to have it back. now, i've been lo, this tablet is laden with deep symbolism and to respects its own intrinsic value and then, and what it means to retrieve it with all the efforts that have been deployed by

the government in this regard. it's a message to all those who smuggled our artifacts and auctioned them. they should know that will end up retrieving what they had stolen. the rockies may appreciate the u. s. initiative to help return their last artifacts. but they also say america's invasion of iraq in 19912003, led to the biggest disasters for the nations ancient heritage. and estimated $15000.00 artifacts were looted from the baghdad museum and smuggled out of the country. iraqis, save us bears full responsibility for what happened and needs to do more to help them retrieve what they lost muhammad one or dizzier. ah, hello, this is al jazeera and these are the top stories. at least 4 people have been killed and a helicopter crashing india via craft was.