and about to return to cruel punishments. for certain crimes, everybody will be safe, nobody's kid will be kidnapped again from rats. now together, they're feeling thy way forward into their new reality. ah. ready ah, ringing in 2022 with scaled down celebrations. fears about a rise of covered mountain infections overshadow festivities around the world. ah matheson, this is audra. 0 live from dough hub, also coming up. hundreds of homes destroyed in colorado as a wildfire sweeps through times north of denver. thousands of people of forced to flee. ah, the golden girl of comedy,

betty white passes away just weeks before her 100th birthday. and al jazeera looks back at 2021, and the stories that shapes the year ah and happy new year to those of you already welcomed 2022. it's just gone midnight in brazil with thousands of people as celebrating on rio de janeiro copper cabana beach. it's a party that almost didn't happen. the city's mayor announced will be canceled before reconsidering the festivities have been scaled back with smaller crowds than in previous years. and vaccination stations are being set up on the beach or europe and most of west africa have already wrong in the new year under the cloud of omicron, victoria gating, be reports on the scaled back celebrations elsewhere in the world. and how covered

has crashed the party again. ah, in capital cities around the world, new year's eve celebrations were more muted than they would be normally in london, official events were cancelled. so too, in berlin, where uneasy party at the brandenburg gate took place without a live audience. as a tv show, only madrid is one of the few cities in europe to celebrate new year's eve. but there the crowd was limited to less than half its usual size. thailand welcomed the new year with the fireworks display bangkok on the heavy cove 19 restrictions. oh, it was one of the few places in the country to host end of the year celebrations. after other events were cancelled due to the spread of amik ron my mother had taught today's kind of compensation for the past 2 years that i don't

get to celebrate. that's why i decided to bring the whole family here today. my kids are happy and we will come back again next year. so. oh, in hong kong fi works. little the victoria hobble waterfront. ah. and the music concept by the cities film on orchestra marked the beginning of 2022. ah, better me better home call, medical visitor, go. we hope everyone will be healthy and happy and we hope to find them in the older food where we all can open border and trouble in loose grid that will say fi works ah tie one to lighting up the night sky. ah alizae deleon, usina and had been one of the 1st to ring in the new year. it's neighbor, australia didn't hold that. tens of thousands of people gathered around sydney

hob, a bridge in a tribute say to the front line workers in the fight against k, the 19 but elsewhere there were bands on big gatherings in china away 2 years ago. corona virus 1st emerged, events were canceled with the nation on high alert, and the city of shan under looked down. since the 1st reported case, more than 5400000 people have died around the world. and with the omicron variant taking hold, many governments have re imposed restrictions to try to ease the strain on overwhelmed hospitals. even in those countries where gatherings are allowed, many people have chosen to stay at home. the one wish shed by people around the world. this new year is that 2022 is better than the last 2 years and sees an end to the pandemic victoria gates and be al jazeera. well don square new york's one of the most famous places in the world to bring in the new year. but the

pandemic has curtailed plans and the big apple autos global arizona reports, it's hurting local businesses, trying to bounce back on a recent day, a jasmine's caribbean restaurant. the staff were busy getting ready for what they hoped would be a bustling dinner crowd. the restaurant which opened a year ago is in the heart of times square and christmas and new years are usually one of the busiest times of the year. but with new york now the u. s. epicenter of the coven outbreak owner jasmine gerard says there is a problem for all business. i mean, we are suffering at this time right now. i mean, for me, thank the lord. i was able to open up in the pandemic and i had an opportunity to do so. but everyone is really struggling, and we definitely need people to come back to new york city. last month, the by did ministration, reopened us borders to vaccinated tourists for non essential travel. visitors have trickled back in to new york city, particularly times square,

but not nearly to the pre pandemic levels. according to local officials, about $270000.00 people walk through times square each day during the month of december. that's about $100000.00 less than before the pandemic. and about 25 percent of all the businesses in time square remain closed. many our restaurants look closely on the side streets and it's noticeably quieter. just on wednesday, more than 43000 people in new york city, tested positive for over 19. the numbers are rising so high, so fast that officials decided to scale back the famous new years. the ball drops. celebration here in time square from 70000 spectators to just 15000 and everyone will have to show proof of acclimation. and we're a mass. i think more cautious. i think that at this point, you know,

we're keeping an eye on the positivity rate, but it's not worrying us to a point where we're back at jasmine's. they've seen this movie before having struggled through last winter's covered wave. oh, able to survive at that time and then you know what a mouth spread. broadway opened, but now it's the sequel. and another covert surge taking it's toll on times square . and on its biggest night of the year. oh, gabriel's ando al jazeera new york. well, austria has tightened its entry, rosie, especially for visitors. some countries deemed to be high risk band or several new measures to prevent large gatherings during the festive season. those, as your body has more from vienna, cases have fallen sharply here in austria since november 22nd. that's when this country became the 1st in western europe to re impose a full lockdown for over

a month. before that point. their daily cases were over 15000 people are being infected and that this is a country of nearly 9000000. they've already lost over 13000 people to the corona virus. and over a 1000000 people have been, in fact, the chief medical officer and austria said that this is not a time to celebrate referring to new jersey celebrations. and that's why there's been a curfew and post, all the restaurants will be closing at 10 pm local time. so anybody who goes out for celebrations has to be out of those facilities by 10 pm. the officials are hoping that the can also improve the vaccination rates only 70 percent of last areas are fully vaccinated. this is a country that will be one of the 1st thing. western europe also in post vaccination mandates. as of february. first, it will be mandatory for people to be fully vaccinated to be able to go anywhere in this country. the officials have said that people who are not vaccinated they will

be facing fines of up to 3600 euros. and there will be a registry database that's a government that can check to see whether or not people are on it. there of course has been criticism in all of this freedom party. the far right party has been holding rallies and demonstrations during the lockdown on weekends. crowds of nearly $40000.00 have come out to protest. what they say is a frenchman's on their civil liberties. there are also very specific rules here and also when you want to go anywhere, even the source, a threshold math are required, not any kind of math is accepted. and there's also a very strict test and trace policy. you have to be tested every 48 hours to enter any sort. you have to show a negative p c r test. that is no older than 48 hours. so there is a continuous search of people being tested across the country. all of this is in the hopes that the country will be able to write out the next wave that is coming

with the on the kron variance of the corona virus. of asked moving wildfire. the talk through several times in the us state of colorado is largely burned itself out . almost a 1000 homes have been destroyed. heavy snows forecast and it's expected to help put out any remaining embers. as john 100 reports, tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee. tens of thousands of colorado pins are waiting for the smoke to clear to learn with. they've lost things look ok from up here, but there is a smoldering in there. yeah. so until you really get down there, it's almost impossible to know david mark, who lives in fire ravaged, boulder county knows 3 people who've lost their homes for home golf. and so 5060 feet high probably it was really i've never seen any like it. i mean just house after house fences just supplying through the air just caught on fire. authority say they believe as many as 500 homes have probably been destroyed as the

fire tor, through drought stricken neighborhoods. at least one 1st responder and several other people were injured, as winds of up to a 169 kilometers per hours, spread intense flames with terrifying speed, colorado governor, jared colors in boulder, county sheriff joe kelly toured the devastation from the air. this was a disaster in fast motion, all over the course of half a day. nearly all the damage, many families having minutes, minutes to get whatever they could, their, their patch, their kids into the car, and leave. last 24 hours have been devastating. polio says president, job wideman promised to free up federal funds with an expedited declaration of a major disaster. john henry and al jazeera, more than 500 homes, have been destroyed by a large fire in western peru. it swept through a settlement and showed booty on tuesday. thursday night for viruses and residence,

worked through the night to put it out. hundreds of people in the homeless left was only what they could carry. still ahead on al jazeera for sacrificing one to say the rest of some afghan families are forced to sell their daughters just to be able to eat. ah hello, here's your headlines for the americas. on the 1st day of 2020 to happy new year. everyone will begin in california. this is actually in the past too much rain to fast. los angeles, broken 85 year old daily rainfall record scooping up about 60 millimeters of flash lighting, not only outside, but inside at union station. it's energy raced across the rockies, and it's now going to sparked some severe storms further toward the east. we go, we'll pick up the story there, texas arkansas at tennessee right into kentucky. we could see some tornadoes here.

one of the main ingredients we've got high temperature is here, so that could flare up storms with very little notice. this is a cold trend. it's working across emitted land tickets. gonna drop temperatures eventually in dc. but look at this temperature divide. we've got minus 19 in minneapolis and plus 20 degrees in d. c. few flores, hanging around for vancouver. temperatures have come up also coming up across alberta, but still that deep cold across the canadian prairies and the northern plains of to central america, some showers costa rica and panama, and still in that zone from brazil. ya to rio de janeiro. we've got some orange alerts, we could scoop up to a 100 millimeters of rain and then south of all of this high heat. so by jablonka has got a height of 32 degrees on saturday. that's it, susan. ah ah, with one of the fastest growing nations in the world

news bonnie needed to oakland and develop it full international shipping company to become a middle east and trade and wanting skillfully enough 3 key areas of develop who filling up from it. so connecting the world, connecting the future while need. cato. castillo's gateway to whoa trade. lou ah, your 0 does either a reminder of our top stories this our ah, america's beginning,

their new year's celebrations. brazil. just welcome 2022. a few minutes ago festivities of scale down there and across the world as oma con cases. surge in some cities cancelling their traditional fireworks displays or banning large gatherings. 2 years after the coven 90 pandemic was declared. the situation continues to decline. many countries have been reporting a record in daily cases, fueled mainly by a more contagious fermions. a lot farther towards who several times in the usa to colorado's largely burned itself out. almost a 1000 homes were destroyed tens of thousands of people with forced to flee. so far there have been no reported dance now the new year brings whether it's the world's largest free trade agreement, which has come into force in the asia pacific region. the deals called the regional comprehensive economic partnership, r r. sap. and it was signed in 2020 and it was set to ease trade barriers between 15 nations. they are china, japan, south korea, australia and new zealand,

and 10 members of the association of southeast asian nations. the deal aims to slash 90 percent of tariffs between those countries. great in the region stood at $2.00 trillion dollars in 2019. the u. n. says our sub sued boost that figure by $42000000000.00 that makes it larger than any other trading block, including the united states, mexico, canada deal, and the european union landmarks. a senior research fellow at the center for china and globalization. it says the agreement will reduce costs for consumers. this is truly a historic trade agreement that is coming into effect and will have enormous ramifications for not just the people that are covered by it, but people around the world. one reason is that this is the largest marginally so the u. s. m ca or the us mexico canada trade area is,

was the largest r sip is a little bit bigger. but here's the really important point. us m c, a covers less than 10 percent of the world's population are set, covers about one 3rd. and many of these are still looking to achieve a more modern lifestyle that we might see in places like new york, like b, g, like london, etc. so this is going to create tremendous new opportunities for consumers to have greater choice, less expensive goods. it's also going to be an enormous economic driver for businesses in the area as well. because this agreement is not just big, but it also covers the key aspects of a self contained economic region. and that there are countries like korea and japan or industrial power houses as well as countries that are producing more agricultural ra inputs as well. so i think this will be transformational and it

won't be exclusionary as well. several states in india have regarded large spikes in covered 19 cases, some experts. and now, while it is the start of a 3rd wave, more than $16000.00 people tested positive on friday the most since october authorities and imposing new restrictions to prevent mass gatherings, nighttime curfews have imposed in all major cities argentina's feeling the impact of the new corona virus variant reporting a record 50000 daily cases. we were waited in long lines to be tested for the viruses centers and the capital one a service on new year's eve. argentina recently reduced the number of quarantine days from 10 to 5. whom with ya with yahoo general to have been hearing for a month and a half ago. that covenant and case exploding in little bit. did he expected not to happen here? and you thought it is should have foreseen all of this that people come to test altogether. the vacation period and the end of the us lebrans were coming or what that was, what again. okay, well we are here because we want to gather tonight with the family. we came from

the coast and we want to be sure we don't have covered mcdermott's, the director of global issues. it, amnesty international. he says, welfare nations have been depriving prodder ones of access to coven 19 vaccines despite promises to share them. this is the, the message that's been coming loud and clear from health experts from the world health organization for the past year. this is a global problem, and it needs a global solution. and unfortunately, instead we've seen wealthy states including the u. k. hold vaccines. we've seen these western vaccine makers with a couple of exceptions, primarily distribute doses, sell doses to these wealthy countries. it's an appalling, unjust, immoral situation whereby the countries where more than half the world's population live have received far, far,

far less than half the world's vaccines. the situation has been slowly improving, but it really is a question of too little, too late. the wealth health organization set a target of vaccination rate of 40 percent by the end of the year. and we know and near that, that outgoing for 70 percent by the middle of next year. and really, your wealthy countries have got to stop holding these vaccines, increase donation to the rest of the world. the pharmaceutical companies as well to go to start distributing much more to kofax, which is the entity which, which will allow for a fair distribution of doses. and critically, they also have to help other manufacturers around the world increase capacity for developing these vaccines. 16 camps for people displaced by fighting in nigeria bono state are being closed down. tens of thousands of people are such a return to their homes. but rights groups fear some of these places are still

under attack by armed groups. fidelis and why has more from boucher thousands of i . d. p is in this 16 gama iran camps have been here for some years. some of them have stayed here for about 8 years and at the big we used to live in this go, may run, comes where government tries to give them some form of support after running away from our been uprooted by at the po her, i'm from the ancestral homes now the government is asking them to return to the towns and villages. where do i expected to start a new life? some of them will be going directly to their villages, which are not really on daily security threat. and those whose villages and towns i see been occupied by and groups i expected to leave. i did look on my headquarters where government will provide it makes you to an accommodation arraignment, and also provide security for them pending when the villages and towns are safe for them to return that the each household at yeah, of the $10000.00 households were given to $100.00 each to be able to settle back

when they return to their villages. some have collected this money, i stayed back, moved, that will become even before the government deadline. but again, those where they're actually feeling very concerned, which is why international bodies have expressed concerns about, is posing this idea is to danger when they return home. because there's the pockets of attacks in some of the communities. contrary to what government is saying that everywhere, relatively peaceful, the government is even citing that im may jump a military base in at novel base, which is in the bagger. one of these at towns that had come under repeated attacks has returned and life has returned to the city because the military base is now functional. so the advising audi idp is to go back and that will show that d. p, a deputies i re and improve on their lifestyle rather than leaving a mixup times in the city, sent me degree. a growing number of families in afghanistan are so desperate for money. they're being forced to sell off children as young as 6 into marriage.

agencies say a taliban band on forest managers has failed to stop the practice or effect. burke has more in this sprawling settlement camp in western afghanistan. live people displaced by drought and war. but as these goals suffering doesn't end, there, she is now trying to save her 10 year old daughter after her husband sold her into marriage without telling her nervous and fellowship. and i started fighting with him and my heart stopped beating. i wished i could have died. i told my husband, i'm not going to give away my daughter at such a young age. aziz's husband told her he did it for money to feed his 5 children and that without it, they would starve. he was in his word sacrificing one to save the rest. but aziz married off her self at 15 refused. instead securing a divorce for her daughter. it cost the equivalent of around a $1000.00 with money. they don't have early douglas new york. now we are not only

struggling with hunger, we also owe money to the man. if we cannot return the money and he comes to get my daughter, what will happen? i would rather die than let him take her. despite a taliban ban on forced marriages, the practice is continuing with many afghans unable to afford even basic goods. a payment from a perspective groom's family can amount to the difference between life and death. in some cases, families are now also giving up their sons break. so it's the right time for the humanity in community to stand up and stay with the people of abandon, pleasure in another part of the camp. her meat of dollars says he too is desperate for money to treat his chronically ill wife pregnant with their 5th child. 3 years ago he received a down payment for his eldest daughter. now 7 to be married when she's older, but he needs the money now. worth the dear do now while arthur,

i have another daughter, i'm even willing to sell her because i need to buy food and medicine. i don't have any other choice, and it's likely other afghan families will feel they'd to have to do the same. according to the united nations, more than 3000000 children under 5, a facing acute malnutrition, more mothers like these, facing the unthinkable. laura frick burge out a 0 to be in supporting in for hollywood actress and comedian betty white, who's died 3 weeks short of our 100 birthday she'd been acting for over 80 years. the guinness world records named her the female entertainer with the longest television career. barbara on gov reports. in a youth driven film industry, betty white was a rarity. she was one of the few actresses who maintains top power well into her ninety's. oh, this is something you did to mrs. miller that she began her career in the 19th

thirty's on radio and in variety shows. i'm sorry, this is a very critical touchy one to best supporting actress emmy awards for her role in the mary tyler moore show in the 19 seventy's. oh oh. oh. but her portrayal of sweet and quick heroes nyland the 99. his cit. com, the golden girls shot her to super stardom anne and her new legion of fans. she won an emmy in 1986 for the role playing a widow living in retirement with 4 older ladies and the antics in miami. she wasn't afraid to laugh at herself. ah, here was her response when she unveiled a wax work of herself at madame to sorts. you know, the only thing that hurts me. why did they wait to do this till i was 90? i mean,

a few days ago would have no idea she was starring in the tv show hot in cleveland at the age of 92 until it was cancelled in 2014 or betty white continued to make new audiences smile. darker saying a glass of wine a day can extend your life. and that perhaps was the secret of her lengthy career. looks like we're little in forever. 2022 begins. it's time to look back at some of the biggest stories that i'll just say was covered over the past 12 months. let's walk down pennsylvania avenue. ah, you, a capital building under su. cannot however, her from our responsibility to validate with joseph robinson

by your new songs where no sense of what is known a guilty is cherry always just me. i'm on democratically elected leadership retained, as the military staged, a bit of a general thought of a bit bloodless qu. they couldn't have been more wrong. taliban has taken over the final departure of the u. s. military up to 20 years. i believe this is the right to switch a violent day over dangerous days, still ahead. nowhere in gaza feel safe with

i'll just 0 will not be silenced. about him is reaping around the world. you see that right? and by the tragedy of the lack of political will, selfishness and music. the new all the cone very and to spread it. 2022 must be the year we end the funding code. read at a much pro. there is no planet. there is no sign of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, i'm deeply sorry. ah mm . they see up in the government does call the fight against that security rebels on the special rule that the damp generals have paid a say. they don't want committed to the rules

there was always liked only we're brave enough to see if only we're brave enough. ah . this is all the 0. these are the top stories.