>> president biden of japan, australia, and india about countering china's influence in the south pacific. a man is released from a sardinian jail. candidates make their final bid for support ahead of germany's election. angela merkel is urging them to

back her successor. first, the leaders of the u.s., australia have met at the white house for the first in person meeting of the quad alliance. the partnership emerged to counter china's growing influence. this meeting comes a weekfter the united states, u.k., and australia angered eu allies by siing a pt. it would supply camera with submarines.

>> created in the wake of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2004, the quad group of nations worked on helping the nation recover and has since evolved into an informal alliance between the u.s., india, japan, and australia. the leaders share interest in trade, but it is also a partnership to assert democratic consoles in the indo pacific and to stand up to china's influence in the region. joe biden has called u.s. china relations the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century. it is also shared value among the quad. china has engaged in deadly clashes with india in the himalayas, stepped up military activity in islands administered by japan, and imposed fans on australian products such as barley and timber.

china which has characterized the quad as an asian nato continues to establish its dominance. there are challenges within the quad. the indian prime minister and -- india's backsliding on democracy has emerged as problematic. critics say the quad is turning a blind eye to the human rights abuses such as attacks on non-hindus covered --. up by the chinese government. also, a deal signed last week between the u.s., u.k., and australia to build nuclear submarines for camera. the quad is a nonmilitary pact, that he could further alienate india given it is the only group without a defense treaty with the u.s..

>> france's presidential office has announced that french servicemen was killed friday morning in a clash with an armed terror group. we will bring you more information as we get it. next, an exiled separatist leader has been released from jail in sardinia. he is wanted in spain for sedition. he was arrested at spain's request. after holding an independence referendum deemed illegal by madrid. arrested and released barely 24 hours later, an italian judge in sardinia has ruled that the former separatist leader is free to leave with no restrictions. upon his release, he was quick to take a job at spain on social media tweeting spain never misses the opportunity to be

diculous. no surrender. follow-up hearing on the issue of his extradition to spain has been scheduled for october 4. >> next, we will get to the heart of the matter because the court, three judges in this case have to evaluate if there are conditions for the president to be extradited to spain or not. >> he was arrested on the italian island where he was planning to attend a folklore festival. living in exile in belgium since 2017, he is wanted by spain for leading a failed secession bid the same year. madrid issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of sedition in 2019. the spish prime minister says he must be brought to justice. >> i respect all of the judicial procedures being carried out in spain, europe, and italy.

what is clear is that he must be brought to justice and stand trial. >> in the shell of support, his backers gathered in brussels, barcelona, and italy. the incident has rekindled tensions between separatists at a difficult time for the spanish government. madrid has recently resumed negotiations with the pro-independence government. >> let's turn to germany where angela merkel has appealed to the public to vote for her successor. ahead of sunday's votes, she said to keep germany spent -- stable, he must become chancellor. he is a candidate from her conservative city alliance. recent surveys show he is trailing his challenger. >> appealing to german voters on the last day of campaigning,

angela merkel said her would be successor was the only person to replace her as the leader. >> in order to keep germany stable, he must become chancellor. >> the candidate has been trailing his democrat challenger in the polls. final polls put the party at 25% and the conservatives at 22%. a gap that is well be -- within the margin of error. it makes germany's election unpredictable. >> creating a good germany, a good europe and a better world. for this, we ask for your trust and ask for your trust to become the next chancellor of the federal republic of germany. >> during his final rally, the main opponent suggested that

germany needed a fresh start. >> we need a new beginning. we need a change of government and we need a government so we are glad to rule here. >> and third-place are the greens whose campaign for climate action was met with protests. >> if we want to maintain our prosperity, maintain the strong welfare state, then now is the time to build our industry and clean energy. then we will secure the prosperity of this country. >> the greens are likely to be part of germany's next coalition govement as a junrartner. millions of germans will head to the polls next week. >> for more, we can speak to a professor of political science. thank you for joining us on the program tonight. you are also the author of a book about angela merkel.

tell us what is her legacy? [indiscernible] >> i'm afraid we are having a few technical problems with the sound. we will get you back on the show soon as his problems are resolved. let's move on for the moment. our friends 24 family got a little bit bigger today. our spanish channel is now broadcasting 24 hours a day from their headquarters in columbia. the head joins us now. tell us how has the switch to the 24 hour format been going? you must be excited. >> yes, we are very tired and

excited. today at 6:00 a.m., we passed from 12 hours which was our usual time on air to 24 hours. it was a huge effort. the team, everyone here was working nonstop to be sure that at the right moment, we would do the right thing. finally, we did it. now we are told four hours on air every day. >> give us an idea of what the spanish channel will be about. what do you have to offer the viewers? >> as usual, as with all other france 24 channels, we will have teen minute news every hour, every half an hour all day and all night.

the second, we will have the debate once a week. now it will be done on a daily basis. another big innovation that took place today for the first time is now we have a morning show between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m.. that includes information, news, information about health, economics, politics, press review. these are the main novelties all across the programming. then, we will be introducing, we will be rollingut from now until the beginning of next year a series of new programs. part of them done with correspondence in the field. we have about 45 correspondence for the spanish channel in spanish. we're going to roll out a number of programs with them. >> thank you very much.

it sums like there is something for everyone. -- it sounds like there is something for everyone. less than two days before germany's election, the climate strikes saw yng people return to the streets for the first time since the pandemic began. outside the german parliament, they were joined by a german activist. >> taking aim at party politics with the german election around the corner, she said no one was doing enough to tackle climate change. she encouraged activist to vote but not to forget the power of protest. >> it is clearer than ever that no political party is doing close to enough. yes, we must vote. you must vote. remember that voting only will not be enough. we must keep going into the

streets and we must keep demanding our leaders to take real climate action. >> demonstration in berlin, the largest organized by this movement was one of thousands of similar events taking place across the globe on friday. from small gatherings to larger ones. all demanding urgent action from governments to avert climate disaster. parks we expect more action. we want to change legislation. >> the earth is dying as we know it. real policy change. >> climate crisis is the most important problem of our time. i feel like showing up and being heard, being seen that we care about it is important.

>> fridays for future encourages students to skip school on fridays and protest and flavor of -- in favor of climate friendly policies. it takes place ahead of a summit where world leaders will be under pressure to drastically cut the greenhouse gas emissions of the planet. >> volcanic explosions have prompted air authorities to ground planes. 6000 people have already been week.d to leave the area this the volcano began erupting last sunday for the first time in 50 years. it spewed out thousands of tons of lava destroying dozens of homes. no serious injuries or death seven reported. -- no injuries or deaths have been reported.

>> let's start with a major criminal development with official of huawei. >> she is the cfo and the daughter of its billionaire founder. she was arrested in canada on the request of u.s. authorities who accused her of having a shell company to evade american sanctions on iran. since then, she has been fighting against extradition to the u.s.. prosecutors have agreed to a deferred prosecution that should to the most serious charges dropped by december. she agreed to a statement of fact without admitting guilt. the cases become a point of political tension between china and both the u.s. and canada. meanwhile, china's central bank

declared any transaction involving cryptocurrencies illegal effectively banning bitcoin and others. it was already in the midst of a major crackdown: bitcoin and other ritual moneys disruptive to economic and financial order. mining and direct trading have been banned in china since 2019. the announcement appears to drop the final curtain. we have the details. >> china's central bank didn't mince words on friday furthering its offensive against cryptocurrencies. it accused them of disrupting financial order, breeding money laundering, fraud, permit schemes, and other criminal activities. it is unveiled a host of new regulations. >> the people's bank of china has announced a new series of policies and measures. to clarify, the currencies do not have legal tender status.

>> china has taken a dim viewn crtocurrency since 2019 when it create- made the creation and trade illegal. it's hard to regulate. that's a serious issue in china which strict rules about the outflow of capital. elsewhere, it has banned the mining of cryptocurrency. beijing is still planning to introduce its own digital currency which will allow the government to monitor transactions. >> staying in china, a troubled developer is leaving investors in the dark about whether or not the company will default on its

$305 billion mountain of debt. the deadline for an interest payment expired on thursday without payment or comment from the company. 30 degrees. is all that stands between the company and initial default. the company has another payment due on domestic debt nexteek. beijing has yet to signal any attempt to rescue the company. >> i think the government can help. first, it must save itself. after it is rescued itself, the government can come up with a solution. it should not be the case that the company makes all the money but asks the government to cover all the risk. >> that missed payment weighing on investor sentiment despite the ecb president saying friday

that the continent has low exposure. wa street with a mellow friday after a bumpyeek. investors taking in the possibilityf the fed starting to wind down its massive bond buying program soon. all major indexes fishing -- finishg the day near flat line. the american travel industry once a crackdown on unruly passengers. lawmakers and airlines are pushing. the most recent trigger seems to be mask requirements although alcohol may have played a minor role in many if not most of the severe episodes. delta airlines says it has banned more than 1600 people.

united has banned more than a thousand. calls are growing for u.s. airlines to share their blacklists amongst each other thus creating an international no-fly list for bad behavior. if they ban on -- alcohol on u.s. flights, i will be upset. remember your xanax. >> i don't think it will go that far. since like a good idea, the national no-fly list. it's now business -- it's now time for truth or fake. a look at some of the images and stories going viral that may not be quite as they seem. emma is here on set. you have been looking at online claims related to the taliban spokesman. what can you tell us? >> the biggest story always attracts the biggest fake news. the following afghanistan to the taliban is one of the biggest stories for quite some time. there is an avalanche of claims. most of them false.

circulating inside and outside of the country. they appear to have a rogue gremlin in my computer. i'm not sure how much i will be able to show you. one of the targeted figures right now is or one of the most visible figures, the spokesperson. he has been the subject of a number of suites and photographs. where people are claiming he is leading a double life. you might imagine that he would be a fairly easy target because given the level of extremism involved with the taliban, anything he does or is seen to do or claims to have done that is not pious we picked up on. what we have seen in some images has been taking a look at these images to see just how real they

are. as youan see, we have the word debunked slept all over. there are quite a few of these around. at first glance, it is i think really easy to see that there are facial differences. this geneman had been very much ithe shadows up until a couple of days after the taliban took afghanistan. it's probably the fact that he was so unknown in terms of how he looked before than that has enabled people to feel that they can get away with pretending he has been up to things that he hasn't been. his twitter account has lots of images of him always looking very much the same wearing a black turban. if we look at the images again that have been posted online, you can see he is not wearing a head covering, he has short hair and the like. if we scroll downo look at the detail, this gentleman photographed with not only no head covering for himself but more importantly, as far as the

taliban would be concerned, this woman is not wearing any kind of head covering or veil at all. it turns out he is actually a pakistani actor and director, fairly well-known. perhaps it's not the wisest choice. it's interesting to look at how these things are being spread on facebook and other platforms. they claim that this is not his real name. that he used to live in london and in the home of the former afghan president. this is from january 2021 at someone's birthday party. elsewhere, we have someone on tiktok used to supposedly show that this gentleman doesn't always look pious. that person is from india. heas created this image to show himself morphing into the

spokesperson. it i kind of ridiculo, because you can see they are not the same person. he is obviously making a joke, but for some people, this level of fake news is unhelpful indeed. >> we have these examples of prominent gears on the internet being passed off as this gentleman from the taliban but not all of the people in these photos have been identified. >> absolutely. the team has been looking at these images very carefully. using reverse image technology and search estate managed to find out who those other two men were. this one is a mystery man. with the team was able to do is use facial recognition technology to ascertain that it isn't the taliban spokesperson himself. you can see clearly that it is in the same person. what they used were two different types of facial recognition.

both gave the same result that it was conclusive it was not that person. there's a lot of technology and improvements to the technology that has happened the last five years. algorithms used to compare facial structures and the like and biometric data and what it needs is that we can conclusively prove that it is not the person it purports to be. you can say if people look at it closely enough, they can see it for themselves but you have to want to be able to see it. these checks can be done simply, but you have to have the will to want to expose that these are fake images. >> thank you for that. that was truth or fake. there's more news coming up here on france 24, we're taking a quick rate. stay tuned.

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09/24/21 09/24/21 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> what the hell are we doing here? what we witnessed takes us back hundreds of years. what we witnessed was worse than what we witnessed in slavery. cowboys with their rains again with being black people, haitians, into the