>> welcome to "live from paris," news and analysis from france 24. biden and putin in urgent talks about ukraine. the u.s. threatens the sanctions ofhe frontier is correct. russia has troops on ukraine's eastern border and kyiv fears another annexation. our correspondent standing by with the analysis live. the man wanted over the 2018 murder of saudi dissident journalist jamal khashoggi has been arrested trying to board a flight here in paris.

dr. fauci says research so far shows omicron is more contagious but less deadly than the delta variant of covid-19. the u.s. infectious disease experts says more information is to come in coming weeks. this is "live from paris." mark: thank you very much for being with us. the urgent phone conference between joe biden and vladimir putin on the crisis in ukraine took place this tuesday, exchanging frank and professional words, according to the kremlin. putin telling biden that the ukraine's destructive attitude towards settlement. u.s. feels different and feels pressure is planning a military

operation against ukraine. there are reports of 175,000 troops massed on ukraine's eastern border. tf fears another cash k-- kiev fears another landgrab. the u.s., backed by the u.k., e.u. including france, and nato, has threatened at least sanctions against russia if the ukraine border is crossed there has been a tense situation in ukraine's russian-speaking province since 2015. the buildup of trips raises concerns that russia is planning to annex the two regions, a repeat of the landgrab in crimea. let's bring in our original correspondent who has been observing this development for us. good evening to you. are there any conclusions to be

drawn from the readouts of the biden-putin phone conference? reporter: no, there is not very much that we get from this. the readout from the white house pretty much reiterated what joe biden already said, that he would say to vladimir putin in terms of threatening sanctions if there is another major escalation in the conflict and saying that the u.s. is deeply concerned by this very, very significant buildup of russian troops, not just to the east of ukraine's border with russia, but to the north, and troops in belarus and crimea, which russia annexed in 2014 from ukraine. the u.s. is reiterating its concerns. the kremlin's readout long after the discussions finished, ominously long, ukrainians of thought, and it seemed to suggest that vladimir putin had not appreciated the composition very much. the common's readout -- kremlin's readout reiterated

russia's position that this is an internal ukrainian crisis only and russia continues to deny its involvement despite very extensive evidence that russia is directing finding and arming forces in eastern ukraine and the kremlin's readout also said it is not russia being aggressive, it is nato being aggressive due to deployments in ukraine. this has always been russia's line, but going hard on that again in tough talking language does not sound like vladimir putin thinks that the conversation went all that well. what that means for ukraine in the cong days d months come anyone's guess, really. mark: tomorrow marks 30 years since agreement to dissolve the soviet union, an event that vladimir putin sees as a geopolitical tragedy largely because it separated russia from ukraine. there is people in ukraine who also regret that. reporter: i think this is the really big difference between

vladimir putin's conception of ukraine and a large number of russians' conception of ukraine. a lot of russians from vladimir putin on down think ukraine is full of people who are russian speakers and nostalgic for the soviet union and would sooner or later once again elect a pro-russian government as opposed to the pro-european governments that ukraine has had since 2014. we do meet people in ukraine who are nostalgic for the soviet union, but that doesn't necessarily correlate with being pro-russian. some people are nostalgic for the 70 union but would never want to be part of vladimir putin's authoritarian russia today. and those people are in the minority, and i would say it is a shrinking minority, if you go on the result of elections in ukraine, which is a democracy, they repeatedly turn to power governments who promised to integrate with the european union, survey suggested more than half of the ukrainians would like to join nato. the numbers of people who have

soviet nostalgia or pro-russian altitudes are diminishing in ukraine because of russian aggression, which is consolidating ukraine's national identity. mark: gulliver cragg keep an eye on all departments. thank you, gulliver cragg, original correspondent, joining us from kiev. china has expressed defiance in the wake of the u.s. announcement about diplomatic boycott of the beijing winter olympics. china this tuesday says the u.s. will pay the price for its division not to send officials to the event. the u.s. is citing human rights abuses in china against uighur muslims. it once stop athletes taking part. the chinese foreign ministry spokesperson. >> the united states decision seriously violates the principle of political neutrality in sports established by the olympic charter. it runs against the olympic

motto that together we are stronger. without receiving an invitation, u.s. are making a connection between whether to send government officials and the so-called human rights issues in xinjiang. mark: to be clear, it is a diplomatic boycott, and the athletes will for now be taking part in the beijing winter olympics. we are watching for all developments. next, one of the suspected killers of the saudi journalist jamal khashoggi has been arrested here in paris. wrench police--french police say khaled aedh alotaibi, a former royal guard, was about to board a flight to react. an intelligence report in march said prince mohammad bin salman approved the operation to kill or capture khashoggi. reporter: here in the terminals of paris's charles de gaulle airport, whilst attempting to board a plane to react, a

33-year-old saudi man was arrested by french border police on tuesday, suspected of ring involved in the assassination of a dissident journalist jamal khashoggi in 2018. khaled aedh alotaibi is said to be part of the commando of saudi guards which killed and dismembered khashoggi on the second of october 2018 at the kingdom's consulate in istanbul, where his body was never found. an international arrest warrant was issued for him and his alleged accomplices by turkey. french media report he was traveling under his own name and it is currently placed in judicial detention, with the possibility of being extradited. the murder and dismemberment of prominent critic toby caused a prominent divide between saudi arabia and the u.s. crown prince mohammad bin salman has essentially denied any role, despite an intelligence report in march naming hims behind the operation to capture and kill the journalist for speaking out against saudi arabia's huma

rights abuses. saudi court convicted 8 unnamed people in a secret trial in 2019 with five people given death sentences that were later reduced to prison terms. the arrest comes days after french president emmanuel macron met with the 70 crown prince. the first major western leader to visit since the killing. he defended his decision for the meeting, saying it did not mean he had forgotten about khashoggi's assassination. mark: latest now on the covid omicron new variant. it is more infectious but less lethal. this the headline from the latest research in the u.s. dr. anthony fauci, america's leading expert on infectious disease, is leading this research. more define results are expected in coming weeks. let's bring in a virologist at northumbria university. thank you, sir, for being with us. can i ask you -- i know there are more questions than answers at this stage, but i can -- but

can i ask you, do you think this is a sign that it is time for cipher leaf --sigh of relief? >> no, i'm afraidot yet. what we ow in the u.k., there was a lag of roughly a month before we could see deaths as a consequence of the original strain of covid-19. to start talking now about the -- there being less lethal consequences from the omicron variant is a little premature. what we see is a younger population in south africa, which has a younger population in general, coming down with omicron infections, and receipt less hospitalization, almost we look at the under-fives, where there is an increase in hospitalizations compared to the other strains of coronavirus.

it is still a bit early, and it would be very advantageous to remain cautious about whether or not omicron has left legality. -- less lethality. i would urge everyone to pay attention to the problem for millions of people worldwide, along covid. we are way too early in our understanding of omicron to say that you escape death but you don't get along covid. perhaps it is worse for long covid, we don't know. mark: long covid to something more and more countries are breaking up to. the effects of long-term disease in people. i'm wondering with this news of dr. fauci in your interpretation, whether that there is somewhere in all of this i clash between what politicians want and what the medical people think should be done. this maybe adds up to whether society should lock down or not whether people will tolerate that or whether politicians will

because they might lose an election on the back of that kind of thing. or should politicians be taking more action now to ensure that transmission of this disease is reduced? >> loo we have been calling for reduced transmission for covid since before the summer. we have been calling since the first lockdowns started to be lifted. we said it was premature back then, we still believe that the measures that have been implemented in many countries are inadequate. frankly, the united kingdom is leading in infectious cases. we already gifted one variant to the world. hopefully we won't gift the second one. unvaccinated populations, territories were transmission is rife, where the virus will mutate and have the breeding space to actually develop those petitions that will give it the

advantage to a new strain like omicron to take over. what we need to be doing is the same thing we said from day one. we need to reduce transmission aggressively and we also need to vaccinate not just ourselves, but the entire world. the omicron variant is an example of how unvaccinated populations allow for new variants to arise. i totally mechanize that it's your cup -- i totally recognize that it's the economy, stupid, as bill clinton once said, but you need to have a healthy population to have an economy. frankly, use of masks can achieve most of this if they are implemented accurately and correctly and widespreadly. and we have to have vaccination, mandatory if necessary, perhaps even with the threat of loss of health care coverage by

insurance assistance if you fail to vaccinate against covid. so that people get the message that this is not a joke this is a serious problem for the economy and health care systems. mark: ultimately very sensible words -- if you have a sick workforce computer can't keep the economy running. it is a question of chicken and egg, making sure you get the disease capped. i can recall your words. you said it from the very start of the pandemic about stopping things and not lifting lockdown too soon. it was too premature, i recall you talking about going back all those months. omicron, we're led to believe, and you know this better than i do, your specialist knowledge -- it has more chances of replicating, 30 different strains in it or something. is the fear that this could lead to more variants if we don't get a hold of it, put a cap on it? >> whether or not one particular

variant will give rise to another variant is only a guess. can't tell you whether or not this will happen for sure. those of us which burner in -- those of us who experiment with this kind of stuff, given the opportunity, the virus will mutate. as we progress with the decades, these things i'm children on a daily basis within hours, not decades. if we allow for the virus to replicate, there will be new variants that arise. there is no way predicting this. what we do know is that stopping transmission stops the problem. none of us want lockdowns.

none of us want to get to the point where we need lockdowns. what we are asking is for excellent ventilation in all enclosed spaces, the use of masks to be almost mandatory if not mandatory in a possible setting, and vaccination to be ubiquitous so that we can have a functioning economy and containment especially. these are really important messages, and this is not about money at the corporate level, it is not about control. it is about allowing the economy and society to return to a semblance of normality. we will achieve that by vaccination, global vaccination, and control of transmission. the substrates you meant-- substrains you mentioned, things that wobble around and change a little bit -- whether or not one will take over, i can't tell you. not something to worry about. mark: thank you, sir, once

again for joining us and being so frank and clear about the situation. there are more questions than answers right now, but the clarity there is about basically taking all the precautions that we possibly can to avoid passing this new variant, or the present variants, on to anybody and keeping control of that and a clear message from our guest. thank you very much indeed, sir, for joining us. time to return to business. -- to turn to business f business means kate moody. chinese property giant ever granted act in the spotlight after crucial get deadline passed without payment. kate: naughty, especially when it is $80 million. that is what was owed on monday,a 30-day grace period expired. creditors said they did not receive payment. evergrande one that was likely

and the shares plunged to an all-time low. they recovered slightly, faiy stable on tuesday. the company has a total debt load of $300 billion and is now set to be taking steps towards a possible restructuring. a smaller real estate firm in china to miss a payment. others in the country have warned about unsustainable loads. concerns about evergrande and septembers partnerships allow for on global stock markets -- in september spark sharp selloff in global stock markets. i spoke about white similar developments have not spurred market turmoil. danni: we have talked about this for months and investors have got used to it. the second reason is yesterday we heard from china's central bank saying they were going to increase the amount of money that banks were able to land. they were making sure that there was room for maneuver if evergrande did fail.

that certainly made international companies feel a lot happier. what we saw today on the ftse 100 is miners gaining because they thought that there is room for prudent growth. that is the whether china's central bank was using, prudent growth. what they don't want is to reward evergrande. they don't want to see the country going to some kind of credit crunch, which is why they are taking these steps. last time we saw the likes of tesla implode because they sell a huge number of vehicles into china, and if the consumer is impacted, and that affects the kind of money that they can afford to pay for things like cars. what we haven't seen today is the same kind of reaction, and that is because we are finally seeing movement from china's central bank. kate: that brings us to a look at the day's trading action. wall street rising for the second day in a row. nasdaq are performed with its

best to go session since march of this year. investors and businesses increasingly optimistic that the new omicron variant of covid-19 won't throw the recovery too far off track. major european indices closed sharply higher as well. gains of nearly three percentage points for the paris cac and frankfurt dax. the carbon disclosure project has released its ranking of sustainability practices at some 12,000 companies around the world. 14 are ranked aaa for their performance on climate change, forests, and water security. they include france's danone and l'oreal as well as consumer goods conglomerate unilever. 22 firms are on a list altogether, with $12 trillion worldwide. more on how committees are evaluated. >> we look at companies across a variety of factors -- climate

change, water, deforestation -- and we dig into what the targets these organizations have, the capacity of these organizations to report their data, their level of transparency, what understanding of risk they have, and what governance structure they have to take action on these issues. kate: there is a surprising names on the top list. tobacco giant philip morris, not a company associated with environmental leadership, but it comes in at number 12. dexter: philip morris have an a in climate change, water, and deforestation. that is recognizing that leadership on these issues in their operations and, critically, and their supply chain. 11.4 times the average company's carbon emissions are actually in

their supply chain. that is significant for deforestation and water security as well. philip morris is not really able to talk aboutustainability iniatives. it is great in one way because it is absolutely not green wash. they are not going to sell more cigarettes because of taking action on climate change. they are doing this for business sustainability. kate: we are seeing more momentum towards this climate summit with calls for the private sector to step up in terms of transparency and action . mark: kate, as ever, fascinating stuff. kate moody with all the business. on the other side of our studio, good evening too. starting with the story with the fallout of the rally held by eric zermmour.

it ended in a punch up, of violence. catalina: exactly as you mentioned. he launched his campaign with an event on sunday with a fight breaking out between antiracism activists and other attendees. the violence broke out inside and outside the venue. after -- following this event, there were tweets on social media claiming these images would be the artillery used by extreme left-wing activists. during the event you can see there is umbrellas, motorcycle helmets, water bottles, all sorts of stuff that belongs to the people that attended this event. these were objects that were confiscated by the security before the rally this is a normal protocol before any big event in a football stadium or concert venue, and journalists went to twitter to confirm that these images were checked by the

security before the event as protocol. to be fair, this user that posted the image did say "thank you for all this information that i did not have." it is another example of how important it is to check information before you post anything online, especially with a campaign season in france. mark: the second story showing us how google search can create misinformation. do explain. catalina: conspiracy theory for you out of australia. there is a tiktok veo with 90,000 views online claiming the australian government installed streetlights that can modify genes. it comes from this code right here, l17 a, and the streetlamp. they could detect look at the video. >> are you seeing -- let's take a detailed look at the video. >> are the cameras in the

streetlights? i don't think it is a camera, but that green light, another green light underneath it. catalina: what happened is that when this user did a google search and you type in "l17 a," google search suggests the hyphen, and it is on this ribosome protein. research from uniprotk on the synthesis of proteins in the south. the user included this m.i.t. news article on controlling genes with light, which would have sustained the conspiracy. online. but when you go into google and type in "streetlight l17," it leads to this brand of the streetlight, and what the code really is is an indication of the brightness of the led light.

this is another example, or one more, of how google search can lead to misinformation and even worse, conspiracy theories. mark: catalina, thank you very much indeed. the mind boggles. the business with kate, as ever, thank you. more news to come. stay with us, "ve from paris." how ridiculous are people?

>> reporters on france 24 and france24.com. >> climate change is forcing senegal to revive its great green wall project, on hold for 15 years. the pan-african agency is in the northwest to talk to the people there. >> a huge project sewing a small seed of hope. >> deforestation has punch communities into poverty, and poverty leads to migration conflicts. >> find out how some of africa's most arid lands are being brought to life on france 24 and france24.com.

12/07/21 12/07/21 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> what we have seen over the past couple of weeks is that shareholders of pfizer and moderna making a fortune on these vaccines when we should be treating them as a public good, ensuring everyone is vaccinated so we can get over this pandemic as quickly as possible. amy: as nations brace for a new surge of coronavirus cases due to the omicron variant, a new