reveals long hidden scandalous practices, the def, infiltrated international wholesale markets and supermarket chains, and asks, what's really on our plates. food in glorious food. bond. 2 on al jazeera talk to al jazeera, we ask, but should they not be more over signs, perhaps, of foundations like yours? we listen when it comes to diversification. we don't do it in order to beat, gets wrinkled, the rational energy sources. we meet with global news makers. i'm talk about the stool restock matter on al jazeera. ah us fighter jets shoot down a suspected chinese surveillance balloon that been drifting across american air space for days. aging has condemned the move.

ah, hello, i'm a jim jim. this is alger alive from door ha. also coming up. i'm on, i said that i'm getting keep to ecuador, where on sunday people will vote on a number of possible co situational reforms. the many here see as a referendum on the government, the viet molasses. pope francis meets children in south sudan who been displaced by a years long conflict plus the big fries hits north america more on the arctic blast. that is seen record low temperatures and parts of the us and canada. ah, the u. s. military a shot down a chinese balloon, which it says was a surveillance craft. off the coast of south carolina. they jane condemned the move . they maintain it was

a civilian weather balloon that had blown off course. particle, hain reports from washington. a clear shot as it happened, a missile hit the high altitude balloon and it begins its descent in end 2 days of long debate about what to do about this massive air balloon. the u. s. as china was trying to spy on its territory, as it moved from the north west to the southeast traveling, the entire country was controversial enough that you a secretary of state postponed his scheduled trip to meet with china's president over the weekend. china claimed it was a weather balloon that was blown off course. president biden says he gave the order to shoot it down. last wednesday i did about the pentagon says in f 22 fighter jet launched a single missile to bring the balloon down into us territorial waters. pentagon

officials say now they're turning their attention to recovering the balloon. they think it's going to be a fairly simple operation. they are already several u. s. navy and u. s. coast guard ships on the scene. they planned to use u. s. navy divers at unmanned submersible to bring it to the surface in the next few days. and then the u. s. will decide if they want to publicly and the debate offering proof of what this was. it's still an open debate is huge. balloon was in fact of following the air streams of the area and that it has attracted it is not loitering over a montana. it was shot off the eastern seaboard. so at this juncture, this idea that this is somehow a spy ship that was deliberately sent by china seems a little bit far fetched. but you, as analysts say, the fact that they believe a similar balloon is traveling latin america makes this very more likely. so 1st of all, i, i believe the chinese statement,

sergeant solicitous. i do believe that it was just a weather balloon loan. of course, it would be quite a coincidence if you have this loon going into u. s. air space. while apparently there's another one of processing latin america a simultaneously infringing upon other countries here. space another strain in an already frayed relationship, which was supposed to take steps toward improvement on saturday. instead, taking a step back. particle haine al jazeera washington. joseph gregory mahoney is a professor of politics and international relations at east china normal university . and he joins us from shanghai that joseph china has strongly condemned the shooting down of the balloon and said that it would take, it might respond. what does that mean is a response or a retaliatory measure expected? and what might it be? you know,

i don't think that we're going to see some sort of reciprocal action in terms of military response. and let's be clear, chinese criticism of the balloons dramatic downing centers on the unnecessary and hysteria provoking spectacle. the u. s. has perpetrated over an arid weather balloon to advance americans anti chinese discourse at home and abroad to justify washington spar graber provocations in and around china. not only posed escalating risk to chinese secured in socrates in peril. the region and beyond. and these include just to be clear, directly battling and chinese affairs and she and john to that phone call. and of course, taiwan. they include an unprovoked trade war and aggressive tech. the coupling that aims to triple chinese development contributing to inflation and supply chain insecurity. sewing nuclear submarines to canberra and station nuclear capable. b, 50 twos and australia. they include supporting japan, the betterment of

a depends on the military, including offering a tomahawk cruise missiles to you as well as upgrading a missile defense system in south korea. so all of these things are the bigger picture and the thing that has really been obscured and all of this reporting that earlier last week, the united states expanded access military access to, to bases in the philippines, military bases in the philippines. and so this is the story, the bigger story that this balloon imbroglio is trying to cover up. joseph, we can take a step back for a minute. the relationship between china and the u. s. has deteriorated considerably the past few years. so where does all this leave things between the 2 countries? well, i think it came very clear to a number of experts worldwide following the chips legislation that aims to cripple high tech development and restrict china's access to advanced chips that the united states was all land on a containment strategy. that that binding was, was not going to be reverse and course. and so when we, when we hear biden talk about responsibly managing the relationship of trying to

keep within certain guard rails, i think we have to take that with a grain of salt because all the things that we've seen so far have been much more provocative. and i don't think that us really wanted lincoln and beijing. i don't think i wanted his own meeting with she didn't hang on the sidelines of the g 20 and bali last year. i think rather he was compelled to take that meeting given then approaching on the not reaches towards a crown and shots and various other cracks in the us containment strategy that were already on display at the g 20 itself. and that were echoed at the trilateral commission, where senior officials emphasize america's a dangerous approach to asia. but i think if, if, if lincoln had come to beijing, the miss that we were going to see was a replay of the janitor, yellen, lew hon. meeting earlier this year in switzerland, which ellen followed her during her visit to zambia with rather dramatic but long

debunked claims of chinese democrats in africa. now this seems to be the template for high level exchanges that are biting, promised the world as a means for responsibly managing bilateral relations. but the real objective has been to advance a global media war against china. consequently, you know, the theater of the balloon provided much better theatre than a blank and visit above all. because i said it gave the aggressor the a chance, the chance to play the victim. and that's the show we got a just start interrupt you, but we are starting to run out of time with regard to the balloon. the chinese are saying this was a civilian weather balloon that was blown off course. but if it's been hovering over canada and the u. s. for some time when the chinese have known that if it were to be discovered that it would cause a serious diplomatic spent with the u. s. i think so, you know, china has more than adequate satellite cyber human information gathering resources . it does not need that, dangled a camera from a balloon to collect information at the whims of the wind. and it certainly would not do so for so little benefit or such high cost including imperiling relations or

contributing to washington's demonizing discourses. which aim to portrayed china as a threat to the u. s. and the rest of the world. all right, joseph gregory mahoney, professor politics international relations at east china normal university. thanks so much for being with us. thank you. people in ecuador will be heading to the poles in the coming hours to elect local officials and vote on constitutional reforms. many observers see this referendum as a test for a president. kia mulatto was approval rating sits at less than 20 percent. alexander ram pierre, he has more from the capital, kito, apathy and frustration or on the rise among voters in kito ahead of sundays, wide ranging referendum, promoted by embattled precedent, yet more less so to address the countries deteriorating, social and economic conditions. so like if you look at it, we have no faith in politicians for all the scandals that happened recently. people has lost trust in politics, it back on. so ha, with an approval rating below 20 percent, a hostile congress,

mounting government corruption allegations, and a dramatic rising gang related crime. conservative president last so has been left with little space to maneuver, russell dilation thought. yeah. but the 8th referendum questions, which covers security issues, reducing the number of lawmakers in congress, environmental protection, and the possible extradition of ecuadorian could help him regain initiative. and recall the policy goals will just populate popular consultations usually become a referendum on the current administration. but in this case, despite the president's major loss in political capital, the referendum has strong support because it addresses fundamental issues for the people. gain by critics argue that last as hoping to hear the referendum for a personal political when a way to try to boost support for his failing presidency to the detriment of the country's democracy. logic was your belief, guys, all the former president of ecuador is constitutional assembly says the reduction

of assembly members will reduce representation of remote areas and strengthen the hand of the most powerful parties is thermal for i don't want to confront up a political the nothing that far from solving problems this referendum could exacerbate some of them. it's like a poisonous apple that shines on the surface. but if you read the questions and annexes carefully you see it won't solve neither security issues or democratic instability even less the environment. it's a tricky and deceitful referendum, unfortunately, own of it. so ankle into last, so barely survived, and impeachment vote after 2 weeks of cost of living. indigenous lead protests that brought the country to a halt. indigenous lead there lay on the death isa is leading. been no campaign, he says the government should instead comply with the agreements that ended the demonstrations. it will be over and both of the government strategically awards implementing the agreement and comes up with this referendum to confound tanks up. all it really wants is to get some oxygen to continue trying,

implementing policies that have not worked until now. both polls showed a referendum, results could be very close and on sunday, ecuadorian will all select more than 5000 local officials with the opposition expected to gain seats across the country. even the passing of the referendum might end up being a short lived victory for last. so allison, the impunity and jesse akito, european union price caps on shipments of russians, refined oil products have come into effect. the you said price ceilings on a variety of oil products on friday. as part of an effort to cut moscow's export revenues. the kremlin says the move will bring further imbalance to global energy markets. almost half a 1000000 people in ukraine's odessa region are without power. after a fire at an overloaded electrical sub station, officials warned that repairs could take weeks. the government said it would appeal to turkey to help restore power to the black sea port city, the high voltage substation and the power infrastructure around odessa had been

damaged by repeated russian missile strikes. russia and ukraine have carried out a prisoner exchange. brokered by the united arab emirates, the ukrainian government says 116 of its soldiers had been allowed to return home. while 63 russian servicemen have been released. hope frances has met people affected by the conflict in south student. the head of the catholic church is on a 6 day trip to africa, which will end on sunday. more than 4000000 south sudanese had been forced to flee their homes because of a civil war that's been going on since 2013. the pontiff spoke to displaced people in the capitol about his hopes for peace. lily could with you bear the burden of a painful past, yet you never stopped dreaming of a better future in our meeting today, we would like to give wings to your hope. earlier we spoke to the right reverend doctor ian green shields the head of the church of scotland. he is in south sudan alongside the pope and says he's optimistic the visit will help lay

a path for peace justified. the 3 of us being there together was quite amazing at that in the sales, i think was a credible statement of unity. you can speak to people that piece of you. ready live in yourself, so i think that in itself was, was very powerful, real spirit, optimism around that. maybe this is the time when things will begin to start to turn and change. and certainly all the services today with the political leaders were present and the big service for unity and for peace. later on in the day, there was quite a straight talking from everybody to the political leadership. yes, support was quite firm. and 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're not going to better at the prosperity of the people or the 22 people are now confirmed dead in wildfires that are sweeping across chile. firefighter say there are now more than $250.00 different active fires, covering almost 500 square kilometers. the government has extended an emergency order to cover 3 regions and southern chile. the fires have been sparked by an unusually hot summer heat wave. it the water handled in me, were working on multiple sources of forest fires that added to the weather high temperatures and a lot of wind, of course, great destruction. i think vicki station and building element still had on al jazeera feeling unsafe people in pakistan. call on their government to take action against armed groups. anger on the streets of israel. thousands protests against

benjamin netanyahu is far right government for 5th consecutive. ah. that was when the re been but it's there has picked up is settled now, but that's not the case. to the north, particularly in the eastern mediterranean and that where they robin staying, there spreads east to levant and in toward syria. it's one storm followed by another. and the 1st one is like jesus significant palace about his no eastern turkey. the 2nd one in the west. the course if you're not on the highest ground with this cold wind over the warmish water, you get rain and pretty nasty weather it is to running through by route and in land . becca. valley's lights are pretty unpleasant. this range could be persistence, already been raining for 24 hours. misses sunday it carries on doing much the same

. eventually it will spread through northern syria. it's not the high ground, it'll catch bit of azerbaijan and the round most of the rounds find there is stone afghanistan, admittedly, but sass of all, that looks fairly quiet on sunday. on monday. wind is more of a problem. i think as that wind drives a few showers in to northern us of egypt. so we tend to pick the dust in saudi arabia and kuwait, and possibly in southern iraq in africa. the rains are already concentrating a lot for the cyrus in the tropics. now she can see, but tons of name, tanzania is a focus in south africa. they're scattered, chows that are especially heavy, but they all there ah, ah,

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. 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 and $23.00 is widely understood to be backed by neighboring rwanda. rwanda denies it. meanwhile, congos army is widely reported to have been fighting along signed on groups. congos army denies that to the conditions here. a bad people have made shelters from whatever they can, whatever they could carry on. things they found here, rocks sticks and grass, and people who say that they're hungry, that there isn't food to eat. and they're still waiting to get humanitarian assistance. thousands of israelis had been out protesting against their government for a 5th successive saturday. benjamin netanyahu coalition is the most right wing and israel's history. and there is widespread anger about his proposals to weaken the powers of the supreme court m. ron con reports from western whistler. hans, again, tens of thousands are out on the streets across israel, protesting against that 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. ah, 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. okay, all right, 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 israelis 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 or 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 she knew 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. hello, i'm right wing. the government should be a right wing one as well. never even the protesters, no, they're in a minority right now, but they all 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 of the current coalition. however, if previous governments or anything to go by than that hard line,

conservatism will still remain demeron calling out 0 wish jerusalem. people in the northern pakistani city of the shower had been protesting to demand authorities take action to prevent attacks by armed groups. more than a 100 people were killed in the city when a suicide bomber targeted a mosque on monday. i said, beg, spoke to protesters on the streets of the shower. ah, they came from across the province, demanding peace from the focused on the government. after monday, suicide attack on a mosque that killed 101 people, and injured many more political parties were asked not to fly the flags. instead, white flags were raised. many people here in the northern city of pasha ver say they don't trust box dance, military establishment question, read it out. been something from 20 out of 4. this is the need of the time that don't make for provide us. so peace and our own and o. last and i, meg demonte is based on the city, and this protest is seen as a popular uprising,

similar to the one that followed the killing of 134 students in 2014 natalie bon attack on a military school. the movement stove, the focused on to taliban of supporting towns and villages in the region under long with military operations. attacks by the taliban drastically reduced your spot that these kind of incidents are happening, but no one is taking responsibility. all women and children are suffering. we want these, we want education, we don't want state sponsored terrorism. every house in this room is leading and we can take any will body a they chant, we will never accept terrorism. the threat is still the real security was high run to protest on saturday morning police carried out operations against armed groups. they say to tele, bond commanders were killed and a cache of weapons confiscated and others were taken into custody. the dog you saw this did a rule which were under the districts of abbey,

were policemen v secured installations and some high profile persons in this region . prime minister, shabazz sharif, a said pakistan is facing an unimaginable economic challenge. the killing of over 100 people seems to be a real turning point here in focused on for years they struggled and suffered with militancy and they don't want to see it make a return. but unlike before economic conditions, now the worst the country has ever faith, which would make it even more difficult to get. why to resources, the police so desperately need. couple people here, they don't have a choice. they live on the front line of this battle. i thought vague, i just era a shout of buckets done. staying in pakistan where the government has band access to wikipedia for failing to remove what it calls sac religious content. the pakistan telecommunication authority says the online encyclopaedia failed to comply with a 48 hour deadline to remove and block the content. wikipedia says the move denies the 5th most populous nation, access to free knowledge was i'm a huge. g is a columnist and digital rights activist. he says the ban has wide range and

consequences for people in pakistan. i think it's quite vague and to be honest, there's no transparency around what exactly the content is. because of which they're requesting, you know, take down an entire blockage of the entire website. there's 6600000 articles and we compete here in the english language. but because it's one or 2, it's completely disproportionate to block access to it. and the impact of that is really wide ranging. so i think there needs to be more transparency, but also the realization that this is a crowd sourced platform. so anyone can edit articles that so maybe the regulator themselves can edit the article that they have a problem with. instead of blocking the entire platform. i think it's a preposterous man because it's basic source of knowledge and information that i could do me education student, you name it any information and it's available on wikipedia that updated in real

time. but there's also this economic impact focus on starved flooring reserves. and for an investment, and at a time when you need more for an investment in our sector and industry is really growing and booming. when that censorship and bank commonplace, it impacts investor confidence and it impacts the ability of focused on needs to do business in the sector. when tomorrow you don't know what other essential platform or website will be blocked. so i think it really raises economic questions. it's a town in the us state of ohio is declared a state of emergency after a train accident sparked a massive fire in the area. a freight train with more than a 100 cars, derailed in the village of east palestine on friday. 20 of the cars were carrying hazardous materials. emergency crews had been evacuating residents living nearby the railway. the fire has since reduced in intensity, but remains active in the 2 main tracks. are still blocked. 14 cars, carrion,

vinyl chloride were involved in the derailment and have been exposed to fire. true mancha has marked the 75th anniversary of its independence from britain with a parade that cost half a $1000000.00 in public funds. the government has been criticized for spending that amount of money on the event as the country is facing a crippling economic crisis. when our fernandez reports from colombo, this was how many charlatans could participate in the 75th independence day celebrations. then money paid for from the sidelines, watching as the military bands and marching squads left the parade area approach roads and the venue were locked down hours ahead to ensure the celebrations were not disrupted by protest. says people here are angry at their government for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to put on this event at a time when the nation is struggling to pay for essential supplies. but president

runner, vicar missing insists. the celebration is important. addressing the nation, he said, the corrupt political gangster ism which sheets people into being eternally poor and dependent must be defeated. he said this was the system change. the younger generation has been demanding for a long time. yes and are muggy rather now, but my government has entered a new, reformist, half in order to do this. even though the decisions made to watch the seem painful, these have to be taken in order to get out of this crisis, permanent equity, madison. but many like wasn't moodily gay. don't believe the promising has promises . the student leader has been released on bail after being detained for 167 days in what many see as political persecution for his role in the 2022 anti government protests that i would be at the back of the colleen like the freedom struggle to liberate the country from the imperialist 75 years ago. we now have to struggle to

free the country from the robbers or the thieving gangs that corrupted the society for more than 70 years. oh, hundreds of university students and activists joined the delegate to protest against the government crackdown on descent and spending dis, despite a peaceful citizen, being violently broken up by police on friday night. who said the protesters will violating a court order banning the protest. claim lawyers disputed many here say the government should not be spending this money to put on military parade. while millions of sri lankan are struggling to feed themselves, there was organizing protest like this said they would continue their campaign until the country is truly free of corruption. minute fernandez under 0 colombo