since the start of the pandemic, with more than 368,000 new covid-19 actions registered through the last 24 hours. kazakhstan's psident says russian-led forces deployed in response to last week's deadly unrest and must leave his country within 10 days. also, the latest action from the africa cup of nations. the reigning champion's have been playing sierra leone. nigeria faced off against egypt. all the results, coming.

welcome back to the "france 24 news from paris." thank you for joining us. the french health authorities have announced a fresh record number of covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic. there have been more than 368,000 new infections were these last 24 hours -- infections reported these last 24 hours. the number of people in intensive care is a by 65 -- is up by 65. a number of french schoolteachers are planning to protest the government's rules, angered at the disruption caused by the spread of the virus, demanding more protective masks for the teaching staff. half of france's are expected to close -- france's primary schools are expected to close as a result of that protest. >> as covid-19 infections soar in france, pressure on the

government to keep schools from closing. new measures were announced by the prime minister on monday. three at home tests will be needed if a student comes into contact with someone who is covid positive. the government defended its move to no longer require a test from a pharmacy or liberatory, which are deemed -- laboratory, which are deemed more reliable. >> [speaking in foreign language] >> [translating] appearance have been standing in lines for an hour -- parents have been standing in lines for an hour, two to test their kids. nowadays, we have these tools at our disposal. >> teachers unions say the latest announcement from the government won't help reduce the number of infections in schools. they plan on walking off the job on thursday. >> [speaking in foreign language] >> [translating] the government is talking about simplifying things.

our main demand is to make things safer. >> parents in france have now started to wonder if conditions at schools will improve anytime soon as they will now need to provide sworn statements saying their child has tested negative for covid. >> [speaking in foreign language] >> [translating] testing kids at home? are we really going to do it? that's the question, really. will people do the tests? >> while the government insists the latest relaxing of rules will keep schools from shutting, some cities in france have opted to start testing children directly on site. >> there are now three chinese cities that are locked down as a result of covid-19 outbreaks. residents of anyang are the latest of a strict covert containment measures -- the latest to face strict covid containment measures.

in those tee cities alone, there are around 20 million ople affected. almost two years to the day since the first step from the virus was announced in china. unrest in kazakhstan led to the deaths of doze and the arrest of almost 10,000. the president of the country and his supporters imoscow have blamed what they call foreign terrorists for that unrest. the president has also been taken the opportunity to issue rare criticism of his predecessor and mentor, an 81-year-old. russian led forces are on the ground. the president says they will leave within 10 days. rfi's regional correspondent has the latest now on the situation in kazakhstan. >> the city center, back to normal life. municipal services are cleaning

the streets. military barricades have been lifted. ordinary peopl seem not quite to understand what happened. >> [speaking in foreign language] >> [translating] there are several versions of what happened. there are people who say they were islamist terrorists from afghanistan and people who think these terrorists were hired by >> [speaking in foreignment. language] >> [translating] i witnessed everything, and it really was a war. >> [speaking in foreign language] >> [translating] the crowd that passed in front of me, there were people in them shouting, we argoing to a peaceful denstration, we are not here to break things, we are just marching toward the in square peacully. and then there were some weird pele. [speaking in foreign language] >> reporter: yes, -- >> [translating] yes, there were

normal people and people destroying things. >> the first phase was a peaceful protest. the second, you have violent crowds that came to damage and break shops. the third phase, a terrorist attack led by islamist groups from abroad, afghanistan, the middle east, and central asia. as unbelievable as this version may sound, i found here local people that do believe this may have happened. because they really have no clue in what could've happened during these terrible hours of violence. >> let's cross now to rfi's regional correspondent, who joins us from subleasing -- from tbilisi. what do we read into the current power struggle between the

president and his predecessor? >> it's very special case, what happened in the country and what happened didn't tell mattie -- happened here. we haveore and more information which confirms thi part of the clan of the former president tried to basically overthrow the current president by making the people angry at him, hiking the price of the gasoli and by organizing with some probably radical muslim oups. a few 1000 of people with criminal groupswith prisoners,

with peoplin the suburbs of the village, poor people, who came to the city to organize this chaos. why this part of the plan of the former president did this -- bec ause when you are in a cntry th an auoritarian regime, a autocratic regime, the family owns almost all the country, the y can't let anyone from out of the family to rule the country. this is why they are not satisfied with mr. tooke i have -- mr. tokayev. >> we heard president tokayev saying russian troops will leave the country within 10 ys at the most. is that really going to happen, do you think? >> it looks absolutely possible. probably the russians decided to

send some troops earlier around 2000 because they feared thatt uld be out of control in almaty, and it would be serious for the regime. the last thing the russians want is the destabilization. now th the power struggle is finished, at the expense of the plan, to be there for the former country is really dangerous. kazakhstan is a country with a fragile ethnic balance in the country. there are frequently ethnic riots in the country. there are many in the west part of the country, where the oi and gas deposits are the anti-russian feelings are quite high in the country, so they should not stay there.

they will probably leave in the coming days. >> rfi's regional correspondent, thank you very much for the update. the ruling junta in mal has called for nationwide demonstrations to protest regional sanctions imposed on the west african nation, in response to delayed elections. during the weekend, the economic community of west african states agreed to close borders with mali and impose a trade embargo. we have more on the situation regarding flights to and from mali. >> there was a lot of confusion here this morning at paris's charles de gaulle airport, with passengers waiting to hear if they would be able to fly to mali today. flights did leave, but only with passengers who were supposed to be on yesterday's canceled flight allowed to board. ecowas, west africa's economic

and political bloc, announced they were canceling all flights to mali as part of a raft of sanctions against the country, decide -- designed to isolate it. the passengers we spoke to today didn't blame the airline and instead pointed the finger at ecowas. >> we waited all for nothing. this morning, it's better. at least some people will be able to go. >> [speaking in foreign language] >> [translating] air france didn't want to take the risk to go, in case they got stuck, but i heard it is ecowas who got the -- who are the problem. i came here again with my brother. they have given him a boarding card and put him on the waiting list. >> air france told us it was deciding day by day whether and how it can maintain its flights to mali as the political situation in the region involves. to get around echo us -- eco

was's sanctions and border closures, it means operating only direct flights for now. >> that's the latest on the situation in mali. the latest twist in novak djokovic's visa saga. his estate in australia could still come to an end as he waits -- his stay in australia could still come to an end as he waits for the visa official. his vaccine exemption information was ruled to be insufficient. >> he just won in a court of and now he's finally back law on -- court of law, and now he's finally back on the court of his choice. his visa was revoked due to inadequate proof of a vaccination exemption, placing him in immigration detention, which was overturned monday,

after the judge ruled the decision to quash is visa unreasonable -- his visa unreasonable. but the administration's verdict could still change. >> the commonwealth government does that. there was a court ruling last week. what that is a field is a matter for the commonwealth government. whether the immigration minister uses his quite extraordinary powers, that's up to him. >> new questions have emerged over the star's application to enter the country. the entry form said he had not traveled in the 14 days before his arrival, but social media posts appear to show him in both spain and serbia during that period. spain's foreign minister doesn't agree. >> [speaking in foreign language] >> [translating] i don't have any record of djokovic's entry to spain, and the australian government hasn't contacted us to request those documents. >> djokovic, who has since confirmed he is notaccinated, has claimed that tennis australia filled out the

paperwork on his behalf. the visa saga has caused outrage with many feeling he has been given special treatment in a country with some of the strongest restrictions in the world. the australian begins january 17. if able to begin -- defend his title, djokovic could become the most successful men's player in history. >> the latest on the africa cup of nations. we speak to our sports editor, simon harding. bring us up to speed on some of the games today. why don't we start by talking about the nigeria-egypt game? >> a deserved victory for the super eagles against the pharaohs. nigeria completely dominated the seven-time winners of the africa cup of nations. the man from leicester scoring the only goal, a beautiful goal, half volley.

absolutely stunning goal, worthy of the three points. nigeria take a big step towards qualification. they put down a marker to all the other would be favorites in the competition that they are very much one of the teams to contend with. for egypt, yes, they boast the best player in the world at the moment, but they really struggled to get any sort of attacking impetus in the game. egypt are going to have to do much better if they want to qualify, because, as it stands, they are last in the group. >> ok. another game you might want to tell us about, sudan and gui nea-bissau, that finished quite recently. >> 0-0 finish, very late finish. a match which guinea-bissau dominated. sud's goaleper was in inspired form and kept out guinea-bissau for a goalless

draw. it's a good result, considering they are above egypt. the game between egypt and guinea-bissau will be vitally important. there was a third game and a very important one, because algeria, the reigning champions, were held to a goalless draw by sierra leone. it's very much a wake-up call for algeria. they didn't lose, but they were expected to win. this will be like a cold shower for the desert foxes, who are going to have to produce much better football and be clinical and take their chances if they want to add to the title they won two years ago in egypt. tom: thanks very much. that's it from the newsroom. thanks for watching. stay tuned. ♪

♪ >> [indiscernible] ♪ >> hello, and thanks for joining us. today's guest has written 19 books and been translated into more than 50 languages. we are joined by the award-winning bird -- british-turkish writer. you are going to start by reading from your new novel, the island of missing trees, which has been translated into french. >> thank you so much for having me. i will read a very short expert -- excerpt. "once upon the memory, there lay an island so beautiful that the many travelers, pilgrims, crusaders, and merchants who fell in love with it either wanted never to leave or tried

to tow it with hemp r all the way backopes -- ropes all the way back to their own country." >> thank you so much. that was from "the island of missing trees." how would you describe the book? >> i think this is a story of love in the time of hatred and division. it focuses on partition, ethnic violence, how family traumas are transmitted through stories and silences. it's a book that also focuses on inherited pain, interdisciplinary -- intergenerational memories. it takes place in both cypru and the u.k. i've been wanting to write about cyprus for a very long time. this is a beautiful island with beautiful people. but it's a difficult story to tell because the past is not a bygone affair.

it's very much alive. how do you tell the story of such a complicated place which has experienced ethnic violence, partition, without itself falling into the trap of men -- of nationalism as an author? i couldn't find an angle, until i found the voice of the fig tree. this voice -- book is also the story of one particular fig tree. >> your last novel, 10 minutes, 38 seconds in a strange world, was shortlisted for the booker prize. you were awarded a prize in france for your contribution to literature. the bbc chose the 40 rules of love as one of the 100 novels that shaped our world. a much-needed something we all need -- much-needed lift of the heart, something we all need.

one of the things that has stood out to me, how you say men should read more fiction. >> i very much believe in this. it's usually male readers who say this. they say, i want to understand what's going on in the world. so much is happening right now, so i read politics, financed, economy, history, philosophy, but i don't read fiction. my wife, my girlfriend reads fiction. inside fiction, there is history, politics, neuroscience, psychology. but more importantly, perhaps, there is empathy, emotional intelligence. i don't know a single person in this world, whatever we do, whether we are designers, dentists, engineers, student -- there isn't a single person who doesn't need empathy or emotional intelligence. fiction tells us truths that

cannot be told any other way. in a world which is losing nuances and is becoming very polarized and losing empathy, i ink we need fiction. i also believe we need more men to read fiction. >> i totally agree. talking about world issues in your work has caused conflicts with the turkish government. he moved -- you moved after a character referred to the massacre of armenians in the first world war as a genocide. the books have been examined by turkish prosecutors on the grounds of crimes of obscenity because they address topics like child abuse and sexual violence. what keeps you going, elif? >> i love the art of storytelling. i love books. to me, it is very existential. i was a lonely child, raised by a single working mother, and i was on my own throughout my childhood, teenage years, for

long stretches of time. i was also raised by a traditional grandmother. so i think, from my, mother i learned the love for written culture and from my grandmother the love for oral culture. books were my companion from an early age onwards. books change us. words heal us. that keeps me going. >> another interesting topic you talk about is the danger of tribes and only surrounding ourselves with like-minded people. you posted a video talking about the word vaccine, something causing enormous debate and separation in a post-covid world. let's take a look. >> any ideology that divides humanity into us versus them and believes that us is somehow better than them or superior to them, i think any ideology that does that is problematic in my eyes. >> now, in the video, you talk

about vaccine tribalism, vaccine chauvinism. this week in france, people who haven't had the third booster jab will no longer have a health pass. this vaccine is creating on them and us sentiment, is not it? is it unavoidable? >> i'm critical of the way vaccine nationalism works. richer countries, western countries are hoarding vaccines. meanwhile, millions of people across africa, southmerica, asia d't have equal access to vaccines and treatments. so, what i'm trying to emphasize is inequalities. we are living in a world in which we have to honestly, directly address inequalities, and they are all connected. for instance, if you care about climate injustice or climate catastrophe, i think you should care about gender injustice or gender inequality, because most of the people who are affected displacements, are women andhese children.

my point is there are widening and deepening inequalities in the world and they affect all of us. it is an illusion to think that by erecting walls and closing doors we are going to keep other people's problems at bay. we are living in a world that is deeply interconnected, so rather than nationalism or tribalism or vaccine nationalism, what we need is a proper, global solidarity, and especially global sisterhood among women. >> this mentality, the them and us mentality, is one of the themes of your new book, set around the cypriot civil war in 1974. there is a romeo and juliet center of the story. their daughter grows up in london. there's a moment where she screams out in class, what are you telling us with that scene and inherited pain? >> there's a scream building up

inside so many people, especially young people. we are living in a world in which it's not easy to be young. many generations have experienced lotsfardships and obstacles, but they always retain and believe that tomorrow was going to be better than yesterday. but if you give proper education to theext generation, they will have better job opportunities. that ith is completely lost today. nobody believes in the time of climate dtruction, a time when ai is moving so rapidly -- nobody believes that tomorrow is necessarily going to be better than yesterday. it is a time of anxiety. the age we are living in is the age of anger, angst, an existential angst. >> in the book, it's not just collective memory that bears the scars of the past, but also natural history, ecosystem, through long passages about climate change, some told by the unusual narrator, the fig tree.

we learn a lot about trees in the book. what made you want to make nature such a big focus? >> we are at a major crossroads. this is a critical time. we have to urgently reconnect with nate, with our inner democracy, but also with each other as human beings, and we have so much to learn from trees. in a place like cyprus, where there is a partition line which literally separates christians from muslims and greeks from turks, so, it is along ethnic and religious lines, a place that has experienced a lot of ethnic violence and division,t is not only human lives that have been lost, but an entire ecosystem has also suffered. so i want to draw attention to how, when we destroy each other as human beings in the name of nationalism, in the name of fundamentalism, religious fundamentalism, and so on, we are also destroying our entire

ecosystem. trees are remarkable. they live longer than us. they are conneed both unr and above the ground. from a tr's perspective, everything is interconnected. we humans like to believe we are the center of the world, that we are superior to everything and that is so dangerous. we urgently ne to learn to think like a tree or two learn more from trees. >> the importance of reconnecting with nature, especially since the pandemic, is much more important for people, as is cooking and food. i love the use of food in the book, to help the daughter reconnect with her roots in cyprus and the past and also bonding with her mom's sister. the menu in the book almost made me book a ticket to cyprus. why is food so important in relation to food -- to memory and identity? >> 's a language. it's how we communicate.

i was raised by a very traditional grandmother, for whom also food was language. i have seen women like that, who havexperienced so many hardships. they want to tell you about that, but they don't know how. so they feed you instead. and they retained this almt naïve belief that we can all sit around the same table and break bread together, maybe there will be less misunderstandings in the world. sometimes, i jokingly think this baklava - we turks like to believe we make the best baklava. the syrians, and so on.s best, the beauty o it is it is nobody's baklava. it does transcend ethnic nationalistic boundaries. >> you have a youtube channel dedicated to the importance of words, which is fascinating. do you have a favorite word? >> it is magic that by shifting, reshuffling letters you can

create endless meetings, so i couldn't choose just one particular word. all i can say is words have the power to hurt, but they also have the power to heal. >> ok. we are going to leave you with some snippets from the videos, to give viewers a taste. elif, thank you so much. your new novel, "the island of

01/11/22 01/11/22 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> no one should be -- stripped of freedoms of right based on suspicion of his background.