to have the infer brushed into street in search of migrants on al jazeera ah. ready ready ready ah, 3 eggs government pardons, former president pike hewn hey, who's been serving a 22 year sentence for corruption? ah, play you watching al jazeera life or my headquarters in doha. i'm fully battle also coming up. guilty of manslaughter. are you escort? convicts? see why police officer who's shot dead, a black man at a traffic stop in minnesota. i'm a crohn is come on real fast, but it will be over soon. the us and europe report record covered 19 infections,

but there seems to be more evidence. the only con variant is minder than other strains and a victory for workers at amazon. they can now form a union to fight for their rights. ah, south korea's government has broadened former president park you and hay who has been serving a 22 year prison sentence for corruption. the justice ministry says the movies aimed at overcoming national divisions. park was convicted in 2017 of colluding with a friend to receive billions of dollars from major companies, shows the country's 1st democratically elected leader to be thrown out of office. robert kelly is a professor of political science and diplomacy at pu son national university. he explained some of the reasons behind parks amnesty. she had both physical and mental health issues. since impeachment, i mean,

she's pretty clearly not going to have any kind of meaningful political role in korean life or she's allowed to go home is appear is going to happen. i think she's now in her seventy's and she's really struggled. she's been in prison. she just had surgery and her shoulder and right now with cove it in the rest of it, right. because because you know, she's older, she's just not really going to play any kind of meaningful role. she won't be a disruptive force or going to challenge or, and, or something like that. so i think this is something of a sort of humanitarian gesture. she still is broadly seen as sort of this corrupt figure is sort of probably never really belong in the office. didn't really understand the gravity didn't really understand very well. the gravity of the, of the off that she held. and i'm really disappointed that she's gone. there are some die hard and pulled out. i don't know, maybe 2025 percent of the population. i think that she was removed inappropriately . this is some kind of like north korean cou or something like that, or whatever that, that movie the current president sort of pushed out from you could take the presidency. well, that's a pretty small minority opinion again, there, some doctors, i think most of the country just think that she's just, or you know,

sort of corrupt figure who, who's, who's best to just be sort of pushed out of the way and, and, and kind of forgotten she's nearly as polarizing a summer. curious, previous presidents will stay in jail who are much more contested figures, but i my sense vishal just sort of be forgotten that she, yes, she goes in for a time and he was state of minnesota, a former police officer has been found guilty of manslaughter in the killing of a black man during a routine traffic stop. kimberley potter is shot 20 or dante right. last april. she now faces up to 15 years in prison. john hendrick reports for minneapolis. find the defendant guilty. fine. the defendant guilty again in minnesota, a white police officer is convicted of killing a black man. kim potter lowered her head as she was found guilty of 1st and 2nd degree manslaughter for fatally shooting 20 year old dante wright. as she was taken into custody with no chance of veil, her husband shouted his support as police ought to arrest right

on a warrant. after an april traffic stop, potter says he resisted arrest and she fired, which he thought was a taser. on the weapon she drew with her gun powder, expressed remorse and tear filled testimony. i remember yelling taser taser taser and nothing happens. lou, the shooting came as protestors, some of them violent filled the streets of minneapolis. during the trial of derek shaven, a white police officer ultimately convicted of killing another black man george flor protesters rushed to the scene of the right shooting. as the verdict came inside, the court house rights family celebrated outside the moment that we heard guilty

of manslaughter, one emotions every single emotion that you can imagine just running through your body at that moment. am i kind of let out a yelp, some residents to expressed relief? i'm really excited. it's a good day if a good christmas give florida be a little more me and put a family of the say right now that he got his just is i feel no more any at ease. like definitely when efforts have been, i was scared to even get apart. minnesota's attorney general seemed to feel vindicated. we have a degree of accountability for dante's death. accountability is not justice. duster of justice is restoration. justice would be restoring dante to life and making the right family whole again, justices beyond the reach that we have in this life for dante. but accountability is an important step, a critical necessary step on the road to justice for us all. that road he says, is

a long one. potter faces a maximum of 15 years sentence on the 1st degree charge and 10 on the 2nd. but guidelines call for substantially less than any case potter is likely to spend years in prison. as potter awaits sentencing on february 18th, outside the court house were looting and arson followed george floyd's death. in the summer of 2020, the streets were mostly quiet. john hendern al jazeera minneapolis the army corn variance continues to drive record surges of covered 19 infections across the world. in the past 24 hours, several countries including france, c, u. k, and italy all reported their highest case number since the side of the pandemic. new studies seems to add to suggestions that only chron is milder, and those infected are much less likely to end up in hospital. but scientists are

urging caution australia shortened the window of a booster cove in 19 shot to 4 months from the 2nd dose. on the chronister on holiday gatherings into disarray, the mayor of new york has carried scales back for cities famous new year's eve celebrations. only $15000.00 fully vaccinated people will be allowed to gather in time square. gable is under reports from new york on 42nd street in midtown manhattan. the lines had covey testing sites are long all day from morning until night. demand for tess, far outstripping supply. new york city is the u. s. epicenter for the army. kron variant case is exploding to nearly 20000 positive cases a day. more than 90 percent. being attributed to ami kron, it's driving everyone to get tested. when i was in line, we had people going abroad. we had people who had to be tested every week and a half. we had people like me who were exposed. we had people who didn't feel

wealth. officials so far have declined to impose any more locked downs, but are scrambling to ramp up new test sites. officials here are urging new yorkers not to panic, saying this isn't march 2020. when the city was put on lock down and morgues were filled with coven victims, the mayor on thursday said he would scale back the new year's eve celebration in times square from 60000 spectators 215000. but he's yet to cancel it altogether. i won't be really clear. will everyone give me a tough few weeks, but it will only be a few weeks. i'm a cron is come on real fast, but it will be over soon. i am adamant, and i've had this conversation with mayor like to adams. i know he feels the same way. we are not shutting down. we are not falling back. we're going to fight our way through this. but it's not just here in new york, less than a month after 1st arriving in the us. army kron. and now,

when identified in all 50 states in neighboring new jersey, more than 15000 new covered cases reported on thursday, nearly double. the state's pandemic record, the mayors of new jerseys to largest cities, newark and jersey city both tested positive in washington, d. c. a surge in new corona, virus cases colliding with a rush and holiday travel at the cities, main trained terminal. travelers are nervous. a lot of people at my work have just tested positive. i've still testing the negative, so definitely the past few days, in particular with the record highest and a lot more hesitant about travel america is right in the middle of another coven search. this one called army kron, which seemingly everyone rushing to find out if they have it. gabriel is on auto. how does either new york italy has also banned public celebrations for new year's

eve. the government says masks must now be worn down, doors and high quality masks will be required in summers cedars and on public transport. under the new rules, people who haven't been vaccinated will be barred from entering museums. exhibitions, in amusement parks. infections in spain have sought to record a new record with almost 73000 cases, reported on a thursday. people living in the catalonia region will be banned from leaving their homes between one and 6 am in the morning. that includes the city of barcelona. meanwhile, the madrid region is focusing on better testing, pledging to hand out 12000000 rapid tests over christmas. and let's get some more details now on the recent studies suggesting that the army con variant is milder than others, other strains. the you case health security agency says people with a very interest made it to be up to 70 percent less likely to be admitted to hospital. imperial college estimates people infected with only corner 40 percent

less likely to be in the hospital for a night or more compared to the delta variant. and very early data from the university of edinburgh indicates a 2 thirds reduction in the risk of hospitalization. on to see a new study from south africa where the stream wise identified, showed that people infected are 70 to 80 percent less likely to go to hospital. early i spoke to catherine bennett, who was chair in epidemiology at the institute for health transformation at deacon university. she says, ami, crohn's, rapid growth is a warning sign. the way this particular area is spreading makes is really important. good news. we have been hopeful from the early days watching the numbers come out of south africa who had the 1st, i guess real experience of this and good data reporting. we're now seeing it repeated in other settings as well. so with the rapid rising cases in places like a study we've, we've never had even up to 30000 active cases at

a time now where the 50000, so it's really taken off quickly. so the severity is really critical. we need to understand what is rapid rising cases. case numbers this we haven't seen before in many countries where we've really strive to keep the virus on in check what that now could mean the hospital. so you haven't yet seen the numbers in our hospitals. either this gives us a way of looking ahead to look at that planning to try and understand the relationship, the new relationship between case numbers and hospitalization, where we also have to be aware that the degree of infectious and simply spare it means that all the things that we've done in the past to work, keeping people a pass, keeping that physical distance. we know this vaccination also helps reduce the illness and so the high rates in some countries really will help even if people

haven't yet rolled out the business. but we know the business can make a difference to that transmission potential as well. and still ahead on al jazeera, we'll look at how cuba has managed to achieve one of the highest vaccination rates in the world. and fiction future, some predicts terrifying outcomes from facial recognition technology and artificial intelligence. ah ah, i look forward to brightest guys the weather sponsored my cattle airways. hey there. welcome to your world's weather report. we've got some rain for northern iraq. hello everyone. nice to see that's also impacting flood stricken areas of the country ribbon of cloud draped over the northern portions of saudi. i want to take you to saturday. now we'll focus on the golf because we've got this wind coming down from iraq. so for q weight, bahrain and cats are,

we'll see wind gusts here of about 50 kilometers per hour. and there's the potential some rain may sneak into spots and cats are on saturday. we'll keep tabs on that. off the pockets. sa, prepare for temperatures are about to go down. not so much on friday. le horse 19 degrees, but we take a peek at the next 3 days. just the high of 16 on monday. while below average please, temperatures are going up is, is stan bowl. i'll be at a bit breezy on friday that when coming through the boss for us at about 50 kilometers per hour, through the equitorial belts in central africa, we've got our storms, plenty of full storms come in and go in, especially around late victoria and for their toward the south, a batch of some pretty potent thunder storms in southern moves and be equal transfer to southern madagascar over the weekend. unsettled for that eastern portion of south africa. so some showers for durbin, but sits mostly cloudy day in cape town with a high of 23 degrees on friday. that sure weather report see again soon take care. oh, the weather sponsored by casara always doing the debates. 90 percent of the world's

refugees have come from of common impacted country. the climate emergency is putting more pressure on cities across the world and amplify your voice. it's not really the future rates now. this is not our responsibility. p. the lock can get assistance and believe it, we cannot lose hope. we know what to do and we have the tools to do. here. we must always pay for the stream on al jazeera. ah ah, you're watching al jazeera live from doha. reminder of our top story, south korea's government, his bond and former president park you and he was been serving

a 22 year prison sentence for corruption. she was the country's 1st democratically elected leader to be thrown out of office. a jury in the us has found former minnesota police officer kimberly's pato guilty of manslaughter, and the fatal shooting of a black man. potter killed 20 old dante right during easel, tain traffic. stop in april and the u. k. health agency has found the omi con variant is milder than the delta strain. early data suggests it's up to 70 percent less likely to cause hospital admissions boost protection drops after 10 weeks. a cuba has managed to achieve one of the highest vaccination rates in the well, despite a battle against in economic crisis, the government has develop its own vaccine and has administered at least one dose to most of the population. and august, in has more from the capital havana. cuba says as now vaccinated over 90 percent of its population with at least one dose of anti cove. it vaccine not,

not true. it means that of all the countries in the world with a population of over 1000000, only the united arab emirates now has a better record. now there is no way of independently verifying the state speakers . however, they do have the ring of truth. back in august that the peak of upon demick, the state said about 910000 people a day were coming down with it. right now the infection rate according to the state is less than $100.00 a day. so that's less than one percent of this summer's peak and living and reporting here in cuba over the summer on you, plenty of people that came down to code that are new people that died from type it right now, reality has been transformed. i don't know anyone with it when i asked friends, neighbors an interview is if they know anyone else is almost a net, invariably comes back, is no huber. the spring became the smallest country in the world to develop its own coven vaccines. on distribution for them has been relatively easy health care if dilapidated sometimes amounts of other important medicines is free at the points of use. and the country has the highest doctor to patient ratio of any country in the

world. so it's a roll out happened at a very, very quick clip with international tourist. finally, returning the communist party. i'm going to hope that international terrorism on the revenue associated with it will be able to drag cuba, drag this country out of what is a very, very deep economic crisis. in other world news, military tensions between russia and the nato alliance have featured prominently in president vladimir proteins and v a news conference. speaking to about $500.00 journalist in moscow, which in rejected the idea, russia should provide security guarantees to the west. he says, nato should be the one giving assurance says, because it's created the tensions poll brennan reports. it's a cold cold christmas in terms of russia. nato relations, as evidenced by these russian troops undertaking, firing exercises near the border with ukraine. and of all the topics covered in precedent, putin's annual news conference, it was the questions about ukraine and possible nato expansion, which saw him visibly bristling for by bordeaux guarantee it, i thought,

would we have made it explicitly clear that further later, movement eastward is unacceptable. what is unclear about ego, are we putting missiles next to the united states borders unique knows this, it is the united states to has come to us with their missiles the already on our doorstep. you may, yes. need your good address and their response to a question from a u. k. news channel, he highlighted the historical context of the grievance. certainly been i should, i do not know we're doing. we're no us to discuss the not one inch to the east is what we were told mit. mit is and what happened? we were duped. we were brazenly triggered the were 5 waves of nato expansion law. that's what we're talking about. you have to understand. it's not us who are threatening and that we didn't come to the borders of the us or the u. k. you came to us ukraine, gained its independence from the soviet union in 1991. and although its cultivated close ties with europe, some parts remained deeply connected to russia by history and language. in 2014,

when you're a, my dad protest ousted ukraine's pro russian president, russia swiftly annex the crime in peninsula and supported pro russian separatist groups in the eastern region of dumbass. but ukraine's express wish is membership of nato and the european union. and i'm patient reiterated this week by president lensky. my browsing them all. yet we want to unblock the don best piece process as soon as possible to return crimea to gain membership with the european union, the upcoming years. and to get a very clear and very specific timeframe from nato. and we want to get it in 2020 to the kremlin, has tabled security proposals, which would effectively block ukraine's nato ambitions. russia has also deployed tens of thousands of its troops near to the ukrainian order diplomats from the united states and russia will meet to discuss the proposals in january. nato is in an awkward position here. an attack against one nato member is considered an attack against all. so while defending ukraine's rights to freely apply for nato

membership, the alliance knows that granting membership could bring nato troops face to face with russian soldiers across a buffalo front. instead of these ukrainian soldiers practicing with us supplied javelin massage. it could be american troops firing them for real. and russian soldiers firing back pull brennan al jazeera and he's 30 people have died and dozens have been rescued after a fireball cart on a ferry in a river in southern bangladesh. local sources see the number of dead an injured may rise. as many passengers jumped into the river after the fire spread, it's unclear what caused to place at least 37 people have now died from fretting in malaysia nearly 70000. dar, displaced in a hung, said several times remained cut off. drawing 3 reports from carrack malicious central peninsula the water levels in this river in pa, hung state malaysia may have gone down. but the destruction caused by the floods is

evident. water overflowed onto highways, making some roads impossible for days. per hung is the worst hit state. with around 40000 people displaced. some towns are still cut off, accessible only by boat. but in some areas, flood waters have begun to receive. and people are starting to return to their homes, to count the cost of the damage to rebuild their lives. in america, of course i am disappointed with the government hasn't help if i'm relying on friends. what else can i do? water rose quickly and unexpectedly, leaving many with barely enough time to save themselves, much less salvage their belongings. the damage is extensive. vehicles have to be written off. furniture appliances thrown away. people here estimate ill take 2 weeks to pay their homes, and that task has been made more difficult because water and electricity supply

haven't been restored. non governmental organizations, charities, and volunteers have been turning up to distribute aid. a plantation near by has sent its workers and tractors to help with the clean up. you know what our fellow with us in for, from this yourselves. renewal to people here. they're like our brothers and sisters . that's why we had to help us. if we don't, who will? the relief centers are full? some say they're worried about the risk of contracting coven 19. but there's nowhere else to go. i not to jonah for months pregnant with her 2nd child. says she's grateful. they got out alive. a for the 8 nights on provided and i do want to roast a chest level. i was really scared because that never happened before i messaged my family to ask them to get help to me, but they said emergency rescue had been deployed to places. there were even more badly affected officials of warned that could be more flooding in the coming weeks

. with the monsoon season set to run through to february florence li al jazeera car up for home state malaysia. the saudi led coalition, fighting in yemen, says, said destroyed 9 locations where healthy rebels, we're storing, weapons, air strikes, took place across the capitol center with the forces, deny accusations. they hid weapons in a sports complex. the rebels have repeatedly launched drones and miss heil attacks into saudi arabia since the conflict began in 2015. if he appears, government says it's eliminated potential threats from to grey and rebels in the countries north. it's the turnaround of events after declaring a state of emergency last month, when rebels were gaining ground. if he'll be has been fighting to grey and rebels since november of last year. a t great people's liberation front has not responded . could douglas like to look that away tomorrow? the national unity campaign launched by prime minister abbey. our committee has completed its 1st phase and has successfully achieved its goals as the afar and am

horror regions were recaptured from the t gray front. also in the future threats that terrorists might post ethiopia and have been removed, the government forces will remain in their positions until further notice an amazon has reached a legal settlement that pays the way for its workers to freely organize unions. without retaliation, the agreement was finalized with the us national labor relations board on wednesday . it includes allowing employees to use break rooms and parking lots for unionizing activities, and amazon will notify all of its hundreds of thousands of warehouse workers of their rights. shannon list re olden is an attorney who specializes in labor issue. she says this is a huge win for workers in the us. it's a big deal. it's a big issue because not everyone realize it's just about us labor law, but you have the right to work collectively to join forces when your co workers to

try to improve conditions your workplace. whether or not you have a union that is protected activity under the n r, a national labor relations act. so this is very significant for amazon in particular because there been a number of attempts by amazon workers to form union recently. very well publicized that there was a union organizing drive in warehouse in alabama. there have been other attempts to drive it's very hard for workers to, to do that and overcome the forces of employers who don't want unions. so this is, this is the big victory because it will allow the workers to communicate with each other and take action to try to convince their coworkers that a union would be a good. it allows them to talk with one another about forming a union without fear that they're going to be retaliated against by the employer. employer can't do something like call the lease on them,

which is something that you see happen some times in these organizing dr. now with the week remaining in 2021, we're looking back at some of the biggest stories of the year and looking ahead at what might shape the use agenda in 2022. and they are concerned about the growing adoption of facial recognition technology. guffman sales for security, but others predict a terrifying future. rob reynolds explains in this dramatize ation of a potential dystopian future technology watchdog group. the future of life institute portrayed killer autonomous weapons. using facial recognition technology and artificial intelligence to commit crimes, attack military and civilian targets, and spread terror all without direct human involvement. if it's not science fiction technology experts say you can actually create a drown that you say, just go hunt this specific individual and kill them remotely. and i think it's an

extremely dangerous situation to be visual recognition technology or f r t doesn't require billions of dollars or dozens of super computers. we're talking about being able to do something with commodity hardware with freely available tools. that stuff has been around for, you know, a few years now. and there's no reason why that couldn't be used by folks, even, you know, who don't have deep technical expertise. the prospect of non state actors employing the technology is troubling. but countries are already using mass surveillance, f r t. in the u. s. police used f r t to identify specific black lives matter. protesters then scrutinize their social media accounts and check for outstanding warrants. other countries have massive networks of interconnected cameras. london is a city that comes to mind, it's one of the most, you know, it has one of the widest networks for surveillance. and they have

a processes in place to manage that. china uses f r t to curtail human rights. in china, there are specific ways in which they're trying to recognize the weaker minority so that they can again surveil and curtail their movements and harassed them and put them in concentration camps. and so i know there are also positive lights, saving applications of the technology, for example, in auto safety. most people may not realize, but many new automobiles. now, how camera that's built into the car that actually is observing the driver. and those sorts of technologies can be used then to help you know, recognize that somebody's doing drowsy or, you know, is to repair, to driving those sorts of things. like many technologies that have burge and in recent decades, f r t is largely unregulated in september,

a united nations report singled out a i enabled f r t as posing special threats to human rights. the un human rights chief michelle bunch. a lead called on member states to issue an immediate moratorium on artificial systems until researchers fully assess what she called the catastrophic risks they pose rob reynolds alger 0 ah, logan. i'm fully battle with the headlines on al jazeera south. korea's government has fought and former president pike hewn hey, who's been setting a 22 year prison sentence for corruption. shows the country's 1st democratically elected leader to be thrown out of office. a fairy in bangladesh has caught fire killing at least 30 people. dozens of others are in judge rescue. teams managed to save a number of passengers, but local sources say the death toll.