ah oh no jessia everything. ah no, ah! for the 2nd time this month, the u. s. and russian leaders talk by phone at a time of rising tensions between moscow and the west. ah. hello, why money inside this is out? is there a lie from? don't are also coming up. it's been 2 years since chinese officials fuss informed the world health organization of the new disease. we now call coven. i to falling a locked down and braving t gas,

thousands protests against the middle students who don. and we'll look back at how the ballot, bulk shaped events around the world during 2020 ah, the u. s. and russian presidents have spoken for the 2nd time this month in a bed to deescalate tensions over ukraine. the white house says the call between joe biden and vladimir putin last at 50 minutes. they held a virtual summit on december the 7th, and vowed to stay in contact and the issue. russia has repeatedly denied its planning to invade its neighbor, despite massing tens of thousands of troops along the border. john engineers live 1st in washington, d. c. john, give us the details of this conversation that took place between putin and biden.

well, it was a 50 minute talk. it was the 2nd one this month after a previous conversation on december 7th, and each side laid out their diplomatic positions ahead of lower level talks in europe. next month. that white house put out a statement in which jen, saki, the press, secretary said, president biden urged russia to deescalate tensions with ukraine. he made clear that the united states and its allies and partners will respond decisively of russia further invades ukraine. president biden also expressed support for diplomacy. she went on to say that the president reiterated that substantive progress in these dialogues can occur only in an environment of escalation or rather, de escalation, rather than escalation. we also got to read out on the russian side and assistant to president putin. uri you shock of said one conclusion. that was underscored is it. if the security negotiations are successful, it should naturally lead to a certain normalization of relations and perhaps an improvement in bilateral

relations war, which are at a low since the last u. s. administration. the conversation he said was entirely focused on the issues of security guarantees. us russia, bilaterals will happen in geneva. those are meetings between the us and russia. then there's a nato russia meeting in brussels. and then after that there's a meeting of european leaders and at russia in vienna that all happens between the 10th and 13th of january. and russia's position is this, they want a guarantee that is legally binding, that ukraine will never enter nato, and that us and nato weapons will never be positioned in ukraine. the u. s. says that that is a matter between ukraine and nato, and they can't make that decision. and bilateral talks with russia, the u. s. is also threatened economic sanctions. if those $100000.00 troops amassed on cranium border russian troops enter ukraine and invade further. the u. s. has

said that will result in economic sanctions further militarization further arming of ukraine and nato partners in that region. russia says that would be a rupture and relations between the 2 countries. so that's where they start with those diplomatic talks, which will occur on a lower level in europe next month. and he thinks that john hendrick left for us in washington, d. c. louis navarro as a fellow at the foreign policy research institute. he previously served as the last u. s. senate chief of staff to joe biden. he says the kremlin, under estimates at washington's response to its tactics in ukraine and ga this is a crisis of the kremlin making. and is it what is unclear in all of this is what constitutes in vladimir putin's mind. the security of russia and normalization that does not require

a treating its neighbors such as ukraine in georgia as satellites. implicit in all of this and in explicit in one of the demands of the kremlin, is that the ukraine and by extension, many other countries such as georgia, that might be interested in joining nato to be denied that. and the administration is made clear that that is not acceptable. sovereign nations are precisely that. i think that the right of the russians, by placing these troops on the border, sought to precipitate crisis, sought to force a back down by the administration and its liter our lives. and instead, what they have found is that now after 2 calls in the run up to this next set of discussions that the u. s. is organized western europe to agree to even stronger sanctions and have ever been in, in force before. and more importantly, perhaps,

that forward deployment into poland been to the baltic states as well as defensive military assistance for ukraine are all on the table. and these are precisely the sort of actions that russia doesn't want to see happen. and so i think that is why couldn't initiated this call e o s has condemned the killing of a lease for protest as by security forces and see down. there was shot in under man where thousands of people rallied against the recent military take over demonstrators in the capital cartoon approach, the presidential palace. they want the military to stay out of government affairs during a transition to free elections. ma'am at val has the latest from caught him earlier in the day. the impression was that to this day sir, protest was a, a less violent. and the numbers are for testers, less than during the, the, the previous occasions. but, you know, as the day progressed,

it became clear that because security forces prevented the protest as an on demand to reach cartoon to cross the bridges into thing, central cartoon or the mate. the major consultation took place in on doorman itself, particularly in their street, called shara albin at. thus, where our goals are processed as were killed, 4 of them, according to medical sources, and also sources from the side of the year. of the revolutionaries, the resistance committees, it, it's a major situation. they will not only those 4 that have been killed, but also an unknown number of people aged. and that, that the indication of the, the, the big size of this, or of this sir dangerous situation is expressed by, has been expressed by the doctors unions who called on their colleagues to go to the hospital in sharon, or buying the street of a, by an outdoor saw in the under man hospital to help her with the treatment of the

of those robin injured in the, in the, in the, in the confrontations, also even the state, the cartoon state ministry of health has issue there. me a similar as statement calling on doctors to go to those 3, those 2 hospitals to help with the year. the treatment of the wounded with friday months, 2 years since china informed the world's health organization of pneumonia type illness that since become known as coven 19 china remains one of the last countries following a covert 0 policy. the city of g. r is currently battling the biggest community outbreak. the country is seen this year. 155 cases were reported on thursday that seen 1000000 people have been under locked down for 8 days now. let's cross 1000 katrina, you ms. long for us in beijing. katrina, it has been 2 years since that 1st cove and case was officially reported out of

town. what would you say has changed and what is the situation now? how would you describe it? well, i guess was changes or 2 years ago, most of china, little in the world, had no idea that we were on the verge of the beginning of a pandemic. people living in the city of hon. the city where this pandemic originated were going about for the most part, the everyday lives. we did have some from the medical community nurses. this illness people reporting flu like symptoms. as you mentioned, it was reported to the w h or at the end of 2019. it's also been 2 years since a chinese doctor. dr. lee, when the young and optimal are just working at the hospital where the outbreak was 1st detected, sounded alarm bells on social media saying that there is more to this outbreak. and as a result, he was silenced and punished and eventually very tragically,

he died from the coroner virus himself. now what's changed is that in china, they have a very strict policy 0 tolerance approach to controlling this outbreak. controlling this virus officials here are severely punished for any lack of transparency or for attempting to conceal any cases. but what hasn't changed is that beijing still has a very strict grip or the any information over the narrative surrounding this outbreak. here in china, and as much as they can, internationally treat is on. we still have no exact idea as to how this pandemic started in the 1st place. and what can you tell us about? yeah, that's city of 14000000 people has been locked down now for over a week. well that is locked down and she is the most strict and severe lockdown that we've seen since a lockdown on the city war hon itself. last year, 13000000 people. this is not

a small city, it's quite a major city in the north west of china under severe lockdown that is not even allowed to leave the homes for exercise to collect any essential supplies. so the latest figures that we have reported on friday is that there are more than $1200.00 cases. and the latest figure on friday is $161.00. new cases were reported, but by global standards may sound like a very low number, but for china, it's a lot because for the last few months you've had single digits reported in terms of cases for most of this past year. now we have seen reports this year of many people living and she and having difficulty accessing food. now the essential items because they're not able to leave the house, it seems to be a logistical problem. the city has essentially for the more spot closed door transportation to get in and out of the city. it's very difficult. businesses have been forced to close. nobody seems to be over

a few businesses seem to be offering delivery services. now the government says that they will respond to this, they are working on fixing the problem, but many residents are frustrated and say that they're not working fast enough. and of course authorities in she and the rest of china are under enormous pressure to get this outbreak under control before the beginning of the beijing winter olympics, which begins in a few weeks at the beginning of february. thank you for that. katrina use for some basing amounts of the walls latest kind of wave is being blamed on the new on the chrome variance, but delta which emerged earlier in 2021 remains a significant challenge as well. come all stamps, maria explains you may have heard dr. ted ross, the head of the world health organization, talking about the twin threats of delta and omicron. but whether it's a twin threat to you and your particular part of the world. well, that depends. going to show you some maps festival from now world and day to the red map is showing army kron infections or at least way or micron is more prevalent,

pretty easy to see. and no surprise that down in south africa. that's where we 1st saw our micron, also, australia, india and russia. but i would draw your attention to europe, have a look the u. k. yes, we know there is a prevalence of omicron in the u. k, but the rest of europe is not as badly affected. it is dealing with delta change to the blue map. actually i'll change back and forth. have a look at the change across europe between the army kron and the delta maps. you can say there is a lot more delta to deal with in europe as there is a in south america and pots of southeast asia. now, just to give this a slightly different take of chosen 9 different countries here. and we're looking at their share of different infections. the red is omicron, the blue a delta infection. so starting at the top, south africa has got a rate of 96 percent on the crowd. now maybe that's a good thing. having more cases of the milder variance further down the list,

let's look at the united states, for example here, which is sort of got a 6040 splits between the 2. but i think what's interesting and i'm gonna try to draw a box around all of them. here are these european countries, italy, france, and germany with rights of 80 to 90 percent of delta. the more concerning variance, if i can put it that way of coping 19, and maybe that's why they are restrictions, are a little bit tighter in those sorts of countries. the question now is, is all micron, perhaps the lesser of 2 evils? fill ahead on algebra talks revive their own nuclear deal, which a critical moment will have the license from vienna dying to protect their land. environmental defenders in columbia appealed to the government for ah,

ah, look forward to burritos guys. with the sponsored play cut on airways. hello, thank you for joining in. here's your weather story for a show. good to see you. we've got another cold snap in northwestern india. this is impacting roger stuff. what's not pradesh and punjab we're temperatures will dip through about a degree or 2. and then after a dry stretch of more than 2 weeks, that rain's gonna dance back into town when they do so, some showers for tonight with the high 31 degrees are disrupting the weather pattern. there. after this se of asia, the ne monsoon pepin up in intensity, so solid bands of rain over malays via we had that extreme flooding and call them poor. we could see some repeat scenes of that rain fills in across sumatra and also that ne monsoon cut across central parts of the philippines. some driving rain for a sebu with a high of 27 degrees, other shot of cold air coming to the korean peninsula. so sol, just a high of minus 4 on friday and where we have those low temperatures in

precipitation, we're going to see snow and io my. it's going to pile up quickly, especially for western areas of honshu, 60 centimeters to be expected. ok back to those temperatures for sol. short lived cold snap here. so mine is 4 on friday by saturday. you pop up above freezing to a high of 2 degrees to start off. 2020, to enjoy season. oh, sponsored by casara. always a celebration. tradition. nice with al jazeera was gains read insights into the diverse culture. so mommy that had to pull in 2 different couples in booking a life together. to you wedding some money. on m 20,

lou ah ah, they're watching out as a reminder, our top stories this our, the u. s. in russian presidents have spoken for the 2nd time this month in a bit to deescalate tensions over ukraine. joe biden told vladimir putin, the u. s. would respond decisively if russia invaded ukraine. friday marks 2 years since china informed the w h. i often pneumonia type illness that became known as coven. 19. the city of sham is currently battling the biggest community outbreak. the country is seen as here. the u. s. is condemned, the killing of at least for protest is by security forces in sudan. michelle's on

demand with thousands of people rallied against the recent military take or a group of ringo. refugees who spend days at sea in a damaged bows. have been rescued by indonesian authorities. the boat was towed by a navy ship off the coast of arcade province, 120 people, mainly women and children disembarked in the port city of crew k, where they've been given temporary accommodation. they had been trying to reach malaysia our da 0 has been told that an agreement to revive iran's nuclear deal with well, powers is still far off. the 8th round of talks between diplomats commenced in vienna on monday. sources close to the negotiations. say there's deep disagreement surrounding to hands demand for us sanctions to be lifted immediately. they say the talks are going in a good direction, but they lack the momentum to achieve results within

a reasonable time frame. to also jibari has moved from vienna. there is definitely a sense of urgency. there is a sense that these round a round could possibly be the final round, but there is a feeling that all sides are not very serious about reaching some kind of an agreement or altogether coming to terms of the fact that this nuclear g o can no longer be revived. of course, there were events that took place on wednesday morning in the reigning capital on in iran space program. the defense ministry officials announce on wednesday morning that the iranians launched another satellite into space. this is the 1st time since april of 2020 the radians have done this and to talk more about what this means and put it into context of the talk here in vienna. i'm joined now by mohammed mirandi . mr. mandy, can you tell us 1st, specifically this launch into space? was it part of the ballistic missile program, or is it part of the space program? are they very separate or intertwined?

and also can you tell us why with the iranians decide to do this at this juncture? it's a part of the iran space program, and iran had a space program for quite a long time. it's spent satellites into orbit on a number of occasions. it's over 10 years since iran incentives for a satellite into space. i think it's pretty clear that the iranians are going to continue with business as usual, whether it's regards to its space program or even it's missile. ballistic missile technology. we saw iran's military maneuvers just carried out a few days ago. that was obviously a message the united states into this railways that any military conflict would lead to devastating consequences. in other words, those maneuvers were carried out to prevent war. but when the right is believed that when the united states is trying to prevent iran from importing even medicine, and when the europeans assist the united states in banning such import,

then iran has to become self sufficient. both sides have to work together and they can't, they have anything extra then before. thank you very much for your time mohammed randy. they're from the university of toronto and the point is making is that there is a lot of work ahead and that is the general consensus by all parties involved moving forward into the new year. they're going to have a lot of things to hammer out. and the europeans and the european union has hosting these talks have also said that there is a lot of hard decisions that are going to be, have to made in toronto, washington, but there is hope that they will be able to reach some kind of an agreement in the coming weeks ahead and the usa of colorado, hundreds of homes have been destroyed off to when driven and wildfire and gulf to cities near denver. as being described as a life threatening situation. and tens of thousands of people have been told to evacuate immediately. as always, hip and reports the strong winds and brought down power lines leading to several

grass fires in the area. environmental defenders the calling on the colombian government to protect them. human rights watch says more than a $150.00 were killed last year. as criminal groups try to get the hands on lucrative, natural resources. alexander ram, patsy reports from northern columbia. sou does in community leaders of the magdalena may the region in central columbia have secretly gathered in the so tell conference room. they're meeting with government officials to ask for protection. for some leaders have been killed for speaking out against criminal elements in their communities. others have received death threats. most people do and we've seen a fair increase in violence for at 2021 from residual rebel group to near paramilitary group that we politicians, business men, public officials, 3 faith clashes and targeting of lead isn't with killing of especially my area is where fracking project underway in oscar told us that he's been treated by

criminals. he claims are responsible for dumping toxic waste, cultural or protected areas near the city of butler and cabbage. me. the government has provided him with a daytime body guard, a flat jacket in a panic button. but he says the security measures there are no match for the armed groups who operate with impunity. which as a folder we escape the government institution. they should be recourse like the regional attorney, general inspector general number many often you have a way because they have been co opted by the criminal brilliancy human rights organizations say a 160 so called social and environmental leaders have been killed in columbia in 2021. hold. oh, the government and duke. he says it's doing all it can to protect him. well if what is up all liquor, but despite what the government's claims, critic say, it simply hasn't done enough. the corruption and violence in the countryside is

directly related to the 5 decades old civil war that officially ended in 2016, but still reverberates throughout the country. has to do more in terms of protecting communities that are more of the month. the group that are responsible for these 2 pointing fees are under the corporate, the court has been ignored. it has been forgotten by the columbia national ombudsman recognizes. there are difficulties in the implementation of a toro protection system. i think that we can't hide. there have been issues with the implementation of the 2016 pace deal with font that offered more protection. and append image is my things which are the protection of leaders, especially in remote areas, but this is the 1st government to introduce public policy design exclusively for social leaders. so we hope things will get better. but experts believe only

a profound transformation of the institutions task with protecting these communities could really make a change in the life of these leaders who are the last line of defense for their people and the environment. allison that i'm getting and jesse into barren kabir me above the flu outbreak in israel is killing thousands of wild cranes. and an email address for the disease could infect humans, a ministry of agriculture as the avian flu, h 5 and one was also detective in chicken, from the northern parts of the country and suspended the sale of mason eggs from effective forms as well as this is the deadliest one, life is also history. well as another year towards to an end, we take a look back at some of the most important elections of 2021 and how those plans, the new year will shape the news agenda. nicea newman reports in the world's

most powerful country, a sharp turn away from right wing populism, you know, duration of democrat joe biden. donald trump became the 1st outgoing president in modern u. s. history not to attend. but 2 weeks before the inauguration, many of trumps loyal supporters attacked the united states capital building in washington, following an unsuccessful bid by trump to overturn his defeat. today, we celebrate the dr. mother of kennedy. whatever cause the cause of democracy, the people, the world, the people has been heard and the war people has been here. for the 1st time, a bi racial woman camel harris was elected as the u. s. vice president are sharing in with many c as a milestone across the atlantic. the end of in europe, after 16 years of leading her country and europe,

german chancellor angle america decide that it was time to step down after general elections. she was replaced earlier this month by allah schultz, a social democrat. this coming year could see more changes in europe, incumbent french president in manuel in my conch is expected to face strong competition. in april. the leader of the right wing national rally party marine lipper has launched her 3rd bid for the presidency. she 2 faces stiff competition from afar. right? candidate air exam her who has been compared to donald trump in hungry rattling nationalist. victor orvin has held officers prime minister for the last 11 years, and in april he to face a strong electoral challenge. 2021 was marked by an alarming number of kuda taz and growing authoritarianism. there were coups in molly and guinea, a miller to take over in sudan and unsuccessful co attempt in niger and an arbitrary transfer of power in chad. in the new year,

kenya and angola will hold general elections and marley will see if the transitional authorities do in fact hold elections as promised. in the middle east, serious president bashar al assad obtain 95 percent of the vote in the reelection that was widely described as fraudulent. while in iran ultra hard liner, abraham racy was declared the winner in an election that saw the lowest turn out in iranian history. in latin america, 2021 was a turbulent year with nicaragua, leader, daniel ortega assuring his reelection last month after disqualifying and arresting the vast majority of his would be competitors ah, but a neighboring honduras, seal matter. castro, the wife of a former president who was ousted in 2009, was elected as the country's 1st woman president. a year ended with

a 35 year old former left wing student leader. gabrielle bought each elected in chile with the largest number of votes in history. there's no indication that the regions more authoritarian governments will be less so in the new year. but after a decade long swing to the right, the election of gabriel burridge in chile could signal the beginning of a new shift back to the left in the continent, starting with latin, america's largest country, brazil. the new year was it populous, conservative president, jade bull sonata, against his arch political foe. we see now, sir, lula da silva, brazil's left wing, former president, whose prison conviction for corruption was overturned in april and was now leading in the polls. but they were also compete against the man who sent lula to prison. former anti corruptions are, says, joe, mortal, columbia could also shift from the right to the left. in may. polls put former

bulletin mer, gustavo petro in the lead. south korea will hold presidential elections in the new year, but perhaps the most attention will be on the philippines where current press it draws legal dirty, could be replaced by ferdinand marcus, junior, the son of the country's former dictator. and that this daughter sada, who's running as his vice president, there's concern that the ticket aims to perpetuate their respective political dynasties to see and human al jazeera santiago. ah, this is out there. are these, your top stories, the u. s. and russian presidents are spoken for the 2nd time this month, and a bit to deescalate tensions over ukraine. j barton told vladimir putin, the u. s. would respond decisively if russia invaded ukraine. john hunter and reports jim.