and i, we be to go over some stuff in this class. she saw this as my, and my robe on africa direct on al jazeera bottles in cameron's rivers come on england. st. plastic is everywhere. but if locals can be fishing boats, a bubble gum. wellington boots, what more can be done with this plague of polymers? earth right. re imagining plastic on al jazeera. ah, us fighter jets shoot down a suspected chinese surveillance balloon that's been over american as space.

ah, hello, i'm mary. i'm no mozy in london. you're watching al jazeera, also coming up on the program. hope francis miss children displaced by conflict and south to dawn, and urge them to rewrite that history. as a history of peace. death toll from dozens of deadly wildfires in chile rises to 22 . as an emergency, the order is extended to a 3rd region and is ready, protest is keep all the pressure on benjamin netanyahu is far i government and his judicial reform plans. ah, now the u. s. military is down to a chinese balloon off the south carolina coast, which it says was 8 surveillance croft pentagon says the was being used to surveil

strategic sites across the u. s. president joe biden authorized a fight across to take down the balloon as soon as possible, as long as it was without any risk to civilian lives. he gave an order on wednesday . now on friday, the balloon was spotted above montana near a compound housing nuclear missile silos. it was shot down off the coast of south carolina. shortly after the government ordered a host to flights in the area. china's maintain the cough was a civilian weather balloon was blown off course me one day when i was brought down the blue or the brethren to shoot it down. i want to be as soon as possible. i decided without doing damage than the one on the ground and decided that the best time to do that when we got over water on saturday, we didn't are, we wouldn't throw bottom of it. the successor took a dow and i want to compliment already did it, and want more to report on her so

a little later back. because like what they say by the way, i don't lose, i am a recommendation from your was fun and that's why this whole revenues down on wednesday, i was like a recommendation with me. let's wait to las vegas place to do it. let's get one out from potty go in his life 1st in washington. any more detail from the pentagon on this patty? yes, i've done a briefing with the pentagon reporters and it was on background. so we can't tell you who said it, but we can tell you what they said. and basically they said they used one f 22 rafter fighter. that's a pretty modern aircraft, can actually get up to that altitude, which was one of the concerns. it's 18000 meters in the air that this raptor one raptor took one shot brought down this. what they are calling or surveillance balloon. they said the debris field has been contained. they've got several navy assets in the region along with the coast guard. and it's only about a, they said the area where the debris is down is only about 11.2 meters deep. and

they expected it to be deeper than that. so they think they're going to be able to recover the equipment. they say that while it was transverse in the united states, that they believed they were taking actions to be able to stop any surveillance or really limit the surveillance that the chinese aircraft could get. but at the same time, they said they were studying the aircraft and really learned a lot about its capability. and it's technology now to do that, even more, they have to recover the aircraft there. they said there's going to be a salvage crane that should be in the area in the next couple of days. what were you do that were to have navy divers and unmanned serves submersible vehicles. they're basically gonna go down, they're going to put buoys on that, bring it up, put it to a crane and put it on a navy ship and bring it to a navy base so they can try and reverse engineer the technology. and again, i don't expect they're going to show us any of this. they, they perhaps will, because again, this is a different narrative. china says it's simply a weather balloon collecting climate data. and the u. s. as this is a sis,

sophisticated worldwide spy and operation. so the operation that started at about $245.00 local time, and we expect that the whole thing should be wrapped up in the next couple of days once they're able to retrieve the aircraft. how much of a blow at this deal to the washington beijing relationship, which is already been a to low very low, and that is in fact the concern every one right now waiting to see how they react in beijing. keep in mind, this all happened at the backdrop of us secretary of state entity, blake, and was supposed to be meeting with chinese president jim hang right now. and when it became public that this, what the u. s. calls surveillance balloon was in the united states over those sensitive sites. the secretary said he was going to postpone his trip not cancel because that would have been much harsher and diplomatic language. he was going to postpone his trip and really said that this was

a complete violation of american sovereignty and at violation of international law . and said that we before we came in, think about meeting again. this aircraft needs to leave us air space. so he was going there because the relationship is in such a bad place. he said he wanted to create a floor for it. and the bigger backdrop of this is, if there's one thing that this new divided congress seems to agree on, is dave a lot of concerns about china? in fact, the newly emboldened house republican leadership has set a special committee to investigate competition with china. the department of defense calls china, it's pacing challenge. so china is 100 percent to the biggest focus of the joe biden administration's presidency. so sending the balloons as the secretary of state was supposed to meet there, meet with them. it really does seem to set back the relationship, but again, it all hinges on how beijing responds to having their aircraft taken down and then confiscated basically how thank you very much from washington. patty calhane. well,

i know clink is a former us deputy assistant secretary of defense for east asia. told me earlier that he doubts bay james explanation for the balloon. i do not believe that it was just a weather balloon blown off. course it would be quite the coincidence if we have this alone going in to us airspace while apparently there's another one crossing latin america simultaneously infringing upon other countries here space. it will be interesting to see how much of the sensor payload will be recoverable. and then we will be able to see exactly what type of sensors and technology were on board. yet at the end of the day, whether it was a weather balloon or not, and i don't think it was quite frankly, the chinese should have informed us as well as canada

prior to entering, entering or your space. if in fact it was an a benign whether belief will say from i not hanging senior fellow at the ty, hey, institute think tank in beijing. now he doesn't think the chinese government is going to complain about that. but in being shut down, if it was in fact a threat to navigation, i'm sure that they have no problem. obviously it was beyond the control of china at that juncture, since it had drifted through a canadian american space. so i don't expect anything dramatic. the chinese government said yes, it was a weather balloon, a scientific balloon and arrow at this juncture. i think that ends it, except it'll be interesting to see what's on the u. s. government says about the capabilities of this was in fact just a scientific blue or a spy balloon. it's kind of funny from the chinese side. social media is full. you

know, the idea that you're trying to do a stealthy, reckon recognizance of us aerospace with something the size of 3 buses that can be seen by the naked eye. eyes struck everybody is a little bit strange. ah . but francis has been meeting with people affected by the conflict in south sea don. the head of the catholic church is on the 6th day trip to africa, which will end on sunday will than $4000000.00 sal sudanese have been forced to flee the homes because of a civil war that's been going on since 2013. the pontiff spoke to people who've been displaced in the capitol about his hopes, the piece of wood with you bear the burden of a painful past. yet you never stop dreaming of a better future. in our meeting today, we would like to give wings to your hope. and earlier i spoke to the right reverend

doctor in green shells head of the church of scotland. there is visiting south down alongside the pope, and he told me that people need to put an end to the conflict that the pope was quite firm in what he was saying. expecting that not much had happened in the 40 years 5 years since they had trying to get things rolling. and i real same. so unless you have a country that's a piece, you know, good to have other countries providing inward investment and you're going to find people continue like vulnerable because of the continued violence. and you know, going to better at the prosperity of the people are there. and i was just, there is harm latasha has been following the pipe strip very closely. she paused her from the capital, juba jacob, now remember, coming to seek refuge in this camp for the internally displaced. people in juba is

next to the united nations base. so he feel safe here. he was a school boy back in 2013. soon after war broke out. he's not 25 years old with children of his own. he hasn't been able to go back home because the violence in pots assaulted on her to as, as i d. p. like in a lot of things we did without for 5 months. the reason is that last year said it, today's there's also button is about it that the put is going to last only for 6 months. then of the 6 months there was no food. according to the united nations, there are more than 2000000 internally displaced. people in south to done, and another 2300000 have flayed the country as refugees. famine was briefly declared in some regions in 2017. more than 2 thirds of the population now need humanitarian aid because of conflict and natural disasters. the 2018 piece deal

stopped the worst of the fighting, but parts of the agreement, including the deployment of a re, unified, national army have not been implemented. and that's why some people say they don't feel safe. returning home be the head of the catholic church. pope francis, along with leaders of the anglican and scottish presbyterian churches, have voice concerns about the government slow progress in implementing the 2018 p steel. they've been delays and holding elections and the ports of violence in some areas. civil society groups that a lack of political will and personal differences between politicians, insults had on is the problem. so i'm kinda able to say and math is enough to all possible problems and we kind of use our personal differences to subject country to suffer in the way we're suffering mouse discount. you a quick hug. believe what we can do for discomfort from violence to be so the leaders need to forget their personal problems. the church has a lot of influence insulted on which is a predominantly christian country. many here hope this historic visit puts pressure

on politicians to do better and work towards peace and reconciliation. harder matessa out is her java. 22 people in our confound dead in wild fires that are sweeping across chilly fi fi to say there are now more than 250 different active fires covering almost 500 square kilometers. government is extended an emergency order to cover the 3 regions of chile. so the fires have been sparked by an unusually hot summer heat wave. it delta under that may the width, you know, multiple sources of forest thighs that added to the weather high temperatures and a lot of wind, of course, great destruction, right? in vacation and building, if you go 11, you know, the al jazeera ally from london still a half way on the program. it quite in russia exchange almost 200 prisoners of war . the bodies of 2 british volunteers also being sent back to crime. and i'm gabriel's onto in boston, massachusetts. we're an arctic blast of cold air is rolling through the northeast

of america, causing record low temperatures. that story coming up. ah it's been arguably rubbish summer in melbourne so far with temperatures at the lowest for the whole the year just yesterday. well, the wind storm coming out from the south is hardly blazing noon. got 22 degrees in brightest weather nickels. that cold air gay, some snow on the victorian else where his warmer brisbin up in 2 queens and we expect showers. it's time yet. we have them. it's dried, the west is warm and purse if not hot, but circulating and trying to form a tropical. lo, interesting, whether off that north west coast, we watch that because it's getting very active in that part of the world in new zealand. where's so wet on sunday, monday looks rather dryer and south allen, but not completely. the rain has spread up,

but nothing like as heavily to the southern grant of north audit in southeast asia . the concentration of rain. at this time, the varies, but we think peninsula malays yet sumatran dance was 7. java is large, be the area. there is rain in southern china with temperatures and we'll have the average and some range got a hit youtube as up towards shanghai. i think during molly the venture towards southern past, japan in the north and how cardo briefs, snow on sundays, gone by monday and touches rattie sasha on i recovering so rapidly be hard pressed to think it's really winter, a tall closet in beijing. ah. the corona virus has been indiscriminate in selecting its victims. it's devastating effects of plague every corner of the globe, transcending class creed and color. but in britain, a disproportionately high percentage of the fallen have been black or brown skins.

the big picture traces the economic disparities and institutional racism that a seem united kingdom fail. it citizens, britain's true colors, part one on al jazeera. ah ah, i'll come back a look at the main stories of following this alan. now, us fighter jets of down the chinese balloon off the south carolina coast, which the pentagon described as a surveillance croft says the balloon was being used to surveil strategic sites across the u. s. at least 22 people have now died and dozens of wildfire. they're sweeping through central chile, in emergency order has been declared in 3 regions. and by frances has been meeting

people affected by the conflict in south sit on. that of the roman catholic church was joined by heads of the church of england and the church of scotland on this trip to call for an end to the decade long civil war that displaced $4000000.00 people or east african regional leaders have been meeting in burgundy and they've renewed their calls for an immediate cease fire by all sides in the conflict in the eastern democratic republic of congo. the em 23 rebels who, congo says back by ra, wanda of seas lodge, parts of north cuba province since october. and this is now threatening the provincial capital. goma knock, webb has more from blanco, which is a refugee camp just outside of thousands of people have arrived in this camp in the last few days. many of them have fled from villages. the m 23 is advancing toward the has taken others have been on the run for 6 weeks or more. having already been displaced once they keep moving each time and $23.00 gets close to them. in 23,

widely understood to be backed by neighboring rwanda. rwanda denies it. meanwhile, congos army is widely reported to have been fighting along signed groups. congos army denies that to the conditions here. a bad people have made shelters from whatever they can, whatever they could carry or things they found here, rocks sticks and grab. some people who say that they're hungry, that there isn't food to eat and they're still waiting to get humanitarian assistance arise in violence. in some parts of nigeria is called into question. how free and fair the upcoming election is going to be that the attacks on civilians election, staff and buildings have been all this has been reported ahead of the poll on february 25th. but the election commission says it's ready for the vote. my interest has more from boucher i just run for equipment and stuff to see the level of preparedness i had of nigeria, general elections, potential voter,

hydro. ne bribe is confident. the poll dcea would be smooth over the process will need very tiffs and moses we shall, yukon, would. 2 times i came back for the 2nd thing to try if the machine was still accepting me. they rejected me political and in the say, the real test for the election commission will come 3 weeks from now. when millions of nigeria as q up to bow to an election day. for now dhl, the commission says it's ready where contradict, in spite of all get upset. so from that i lectures ruled on the tree. that is the very 1st one august. and then of course, the 2nd tuesday at the state level, nigeria says it's deploy more technology during visit lectures to tackle voter fraud and make the process more transparent than previous ones. but security analysts say technology alone can't guarantee a credible election in

a country why security forces are struggling to contain attacks. my uncles it will wonder why we are busily what our police police especially, and then our armed forces. we out and i went in the past few weeks, the frequency and ferocity of attacks ahead of nigeria. general elections have increased. the election commission itself has been targeted with critical equipment and supplies destroyed. consigned by the rise in valez, it warned. the pole could be threatened in many areas, unless these attacks are stopped. with only a few weeks ago, the violence hasn't gone away. this has created fia and voters one on the se, could be intimidated and refused to come out on election day. i'm a decrease, i'm just gonna double check 1000. if israelis have been out protesting against a government fight. 5th success as saturday. benjamin netanyahu coalition is the most white wing and israel's history. as wise by anger about his proposals to

weaken the powers of the supreme court. and ron con reports now from west jerusalem . oh, again, tens of thousands are out on the streets across israel, protesting against the government. here in western islam are outside the president's house, hoping to be heard. however, the numbers are far smaller than in previous weeks. every saturday they gather, calling this right when government a threat to democracy in the rule of law. because it's a coalition built around, openly formright parties. it's worth noting these protests, a, just about israel. not many here are talking about the palestinians, the still peace process, all continued occupation. although their numbers are significant, they don't appear to represent the majority of israel society. i think right now it is a vocal minority. we don't know what the majority of his release believe because the issues we're dealing with a very complex and the people we seeing protesting our people in the economic world . high tech lawyers, a journalist,

people who feel the threat to understand what this means for the change of israel's legal regime. a and the demise of israelis, of israel's democracy, of moving on the path of hungary and poland. and perhaps other countries that have moved into an a of system of weakening our democracy the governments less than 2 months old and therefore too early for polling data. but it would seem, the majority of the electorate still supports the government of benjamin netanyahu . i need on there, but you know you, i am supporting the changes this government makes this country isn't moving or people who aren't letting it move. they must give this government a chance to change. thanks. honey will. i'm right wing. the government should be a right wing one as well another even the protesters no are in a minority right now, but they are hoping that will change and will become more mainstream. but here that still means hard line conservatives. then going to the protest is to force a new election. now they may well succeed in doing that and they may well even get

rid of some of the far right elements that make up of the current coalition. however, it previous governments or anything to go by then that hard line conservatism will still remain demeron calling out 0 was jerusalem. and other developments, 13 palestinians have been wound in after his railey raid on a refugee camp near jericho and the occupied weiss bank. this is the latest incident in an escalation of tensions in which 36 palestinians and 6 is riley's, have been killed. since the start of year, bernard smith reports from ramallah, who more than a week is really for to have kept jericho locked down. and it's a residence at bay as they search for suspects in a drive by shooting. on saturday morning, the israeli military thought that located who they were looking for and rated a refugee camp on jericho's outskirts. a house was hit with an anti tank missile.

and those inside surrendered according to the military, were offered minima. houses were targeted as if the residents were criminals, while they were asleep in their houses, civilians you have nothing to do with the incident on mama. no one has been allowed to move freely out of this town of 37000 people in the occupied west bank. after shots were fired near an illegal israeli settlement in the area. no one was injured in that incident. it's unusual for so many people to be locked down for this long, but then these are exceptional times in the occupied westbank. so far, 36 palestinians have been killed this year in confrontations with israel, military and laura far i ministers in the israeli cabinet, committed to expanding settlements on making life much tougher for palestinians, but it already is. bernard smith, al jazeera ramallah, almost half a 1000000 people in the odessa region of ukraine or without power. after a fire at an overloaded sub station,

officials warned that repairs could take weeks. government said it would appeal to turkey to help restore power to the black sea port. the high voltage substation in the pow infrastructure around odessa have been damaged by repeated russian missile strikes. meanwhile, russia and ukraine of canada, a prisoner exchange, broke by the united arab emirates, ukrainian governments as a 116 of its soldiers have been allowed to return home. while $6.00 to $3.00 russian service men have been released. according to moscow, among the russians fried are those who work in a so called sensitive category. the bodies of 2 british fallen volunteers were also returned to ukraine as part of the prisoner exchange. they must rather is in the ukrainian capital with more. what we're hearing is 116 prisoners of war have been released by the russians and are back on ukrainian soil. the president's office and the coordination, the humanitarian coordination office that works on these prisoner swamps. calling this cause for celebration, but they do say despite the fact that including today,

$37.00 swaps prisoners swaps have taken place since the beginning of this conflict . there remain thousands of russia of ukrainian soldiers in russian custody. and there remain hundreds of civilians as well who are yet to be returned back to ukrainian territory so far in terms of the civilians. only about a 100 have come home in these prisoners swaps. and in terms of soldiers about just a little over 1640 prisoners soldiers have returned home to ukraine. winter in negotiations with russia, but what the ukrainians are saying despite the fact that this is a cause for celebration, there is still a long way to go to bring all of the other ukranian citizens in russian custody home and

a sullivan job. aid has the reaction from moscow. you've seen in the last few months that these releases have become routine where moscow and ukraine exchange prisoners are. obviously we've heard from t of that there been receiving more prisoners than moscow. but this has been a case that we've seen a number of times in january. there was a release in december. there were a couple of releases. and then going back to september where the releases were facilitated, but facilitated by turkey and saudi arabia at this time around. it's been facilitated by the united arab emirates, the ministry of defense, specifically a thanks them. and you have to remember that this is a country which has so far are not given into any of the sanctions that the rest wants imposed on moscow. we know that the chief mom had been zaid visited the vladimir putin and also discussed the issue of ukraine. now mass protests have been taking place in sri lanka against the cost of

a parade marking independence day. estimate the nations was to have an economic crisis. $550000.00 of public funds was spent on the military parade in colombo, on the 75th anniversary of independence from the british empire, that despite flank and suffering from a severe food fuel and medicine crisis. now an arctic blast as had parts the united states and canada. the fis winds, pushing temperatures down to the negative double digits for she's a new york, new england issue. warnings on friday and the fears of hypothermia and frost bite, the windshield, which minus $78.00 degrees celsius at the summit of mount washington gable elizondo is in boston. the people of boston are used to cold weather this time of year. that's nothing new. the differences, these are temperatures that have dropped down to record lows. hasn't been this cold in boston since 1957. how cold is it exactly? at one point, it was negative 23 degrees celsius and with

a windshield factor dropped down to negative 33 degrees. not only here in boston, but it's in the entire north east of the united states, particularly the new england area, where about 14000000 people live all with sub 0 temperatures for the last 24 to 48 hours or so. they're imploring people to stay inside and only to go outside if absolutely necessary. because the conditions were such that in these temperatures, any skin that is exposed to the elements could start to see some frost bite in under 10 minutes. now the temperatures are starting to slowly come up just a little bit here, so you might be able to see behind me now some people are out. ice skating here, playing ice hockey on this frozen pond behind me. but clearly this was one of the coldest. basically one of the coldest fronts of

air to come in to the northeast here in decades. and in one point mount washington in new hampshire. that was unbelievably cold. it got down to negative $78.00 degrees celsius. it was the coldest recorded temperature anywhere in the united states ever. and at one of the well's oldest, public advances kicked off in italy. the venice carnival lay takes place on the city, squares and waterways for the next 17 days finishing on shrove tuesday with a spectacular display of masks. event dates back almost a 1000 years, according to some historians, but was outlawed in 1797. it got going again in 1979 with around 3000000 visitors attending every year. ah.