the headlines this hour. duress underway in guinea after a botched coup. the diplomatic effort to calm tensions over in ukraine while the prime minister needs vladimir putin in moscow.

guinea says the president is under control. the president says security forces were able to stop the attack against democracy. arrests have now begun. reporter:, has returned hours after heavy gunfire, the president assured the nation the situation was under control, dating he has begun arresting suspects involved. the president is holding a cabinet meeting.

people were seen fleeing the area with shops and schools closing their doors and military personnel deployed on the streets. the country has a history of political turmoil. since gaining independence, the election win was contested. anchor: the country was due to join the european special forces -- france is set to decide

alongside eu partners on the future of its military presence in mali. the announcement comes after the government [indiscernible] boris johnson was in ukraine this tuesday. the british prime minister showing his support to the country. johnson dismissed concerns from moscow that the west was exaggerating the threat. >> it goes without saying that a further russian invasion of the ukraine would be a political disaster, humanitarian disaster. and for russia, the world, a military disaster as well. the potential invasion flies in the face of president putin's

interest. >> 30 years ago, these three decades have been full of friendship, support and meaningful activities. today, our relationship is serving the cause of peace, preventing a new war. anchor: while boris johnson was in kiev, vladimir putin hosted hungary's prime minister in moscow. he pled's cooperation with putin in the wake of the ongoing crisis. putin meanwhile said it had been ignored by the west. >> here carefully analyzing the written responses we received on

january 6. russian concerns have been ignored. anchor: the diplomatic effort to calm tensions continued tuesday. the u.s. secretary of state held a call with the russian foreign minister, antony blinken calling for russia to withdraw its troops. for more on this story, we go to our reporter standing by in washington. what more did the men discuss in this call? reporter: the 30 minute or so call was professional and fairly candid. that is according to reporters. saying there were no breakthroughs, no signs of the escalations from the russians, they added that the u.s. continues to hear assurances

that russia is not planning to invade, but every action we see says otherwise. they said the message that tony blinken delivered is if you do not intend to wage war against ukraine, if you do not intend to invade, show us something by bringing out those troops and sending them back. that was the same message the message -- americans have had for weeks now. on the other hand, they confirmed there was some clarification as to as to -- the response to the americans. his said it was indeed a response from the russians to the americans, but not the full formal response. he said that was still being worked out and that would have

to be sent to the russian president for approval before sent over to the americans. one thing the two men did agree on and probably the only thing they agreed on was once that formal response is sent over to the americans, then they will speak again and decide on the next steps in diplomacy. anchor: russia has accused the west of hysterics ov ukraine, and recently ukraine's presence as he knows his country better than the west. how is washington reacting to all of this? reporter: they said that they heard the comments from the ukrainians and they believe and tried to play down any disagreements between them and the ukrainians, basically not

backing down on their assessment that this is indeed very critical, there is a lot of concern that a possible invasion is imminent. they still insist they believe, at least according to their intelligence that vladimir putin has not made a decision, but they said it could still happen at any point in the coming days, coming weeks. despite the comments and seeming criticism from the ukrainian president, the americans are not backing down. they see this as a major threat. general mark milley compared the buildup to things that he had not seen since the height of the

cold war. he said it was sometng in scale and scope that is larger than anything we have seen in recent memory. it is clear they have the incentive to play down t threat, that is something they understand, they do not want to create panic or more problems, but they also want to make it clear that the threat is real. anchor: thank you very much. a silent strike is called in myanmar to mark one year. shops were shuttered and streets remained empty on tuesday as people remained in defiance of army rule.

sanctions were announced on the evof the anniversary but they have not loosened grip on power. 400 16,000 coronavirus infections were reported in france in the past 24 hours. it comes as the country looks to loosened restrictions. standing at bars will be permitted and nightclubs can reopen. while the omicron variant remains dominant in france, the risk for developing lung covid remains. 100 million people are estimated to suffer from long covid symptoms. current fatigue and breathlessness. to talk more, we can bring in the head of department at a university in south africa. two years into this pandemic, but do we know? reporter: across the globe,

patients that have recovered experience a range of symptoms that are persistent. anchor: have we seen the number of patients go down? >> unfortunately not. the rate is increasing all the time, and we cannot say vaccination has caused long covid to subside. the issue is we simply don't know. there is no diagnostic for long covid, and that is a real problem. anchor: if 's difficult to

diagnose, how does someone know they have it? >> currently, there is no test you can do. the only way to see whether the patient has long covid is when the patient goes to a doctor, the clinician goes through a process of identifying symptoms that were not present in the individual. that has started during the acute covid phase. but has been persistent. anchor: what treatments are there at this point in time? >> unfortunately, there are no

treatments. if you can't diagnose and treat, we will sit with a major economic burden in the years to come. we need to urgently look at ways to treat these individuals. anchor: we need better ways to treat individualsho have long covid. better ways to identify. is there a risk that countries like france, denmark, opening up in spi of the high number o infections? >> that is a difficult question to answer. it is always an economic question, too. definitely patients infected with various variants, we still do not know at this point in time what the effect of omicron will be.

we do not know what reinfection is for individuals that have delta, alpha previously, how they will react, bodies will react to the omicron infection. there are so many questions, but definitely we need to have -- anchor:anchor: i want to ask you about omicron. have you noticed people are developing long covid even though omicron has been the dominant variant? >> that question cannot be answered yet. the simple reason is, omicron, like any other variant, if an individual is infected with this virus and version, it will take

a few months to find out whether these individuals will have persistent sptoms. we still do not know. anchor: we are going to have to leave it there. thank you very much for joining me. time now for the business news. germany has blocked a major deal in the industry of chipmaking. reporter: monday was the deadline for the german government to approve a 400 billion euros deal which would have seen taiwan's global waivers. global wafers confirmed it had not received the approval in time. both companies make silicon wafer's for chips. terminate has tightened its

rules for foreign takeovers of companies in recent years, the european union is seeking to become less reliant on other countries for semiconductors. two thirds of them are produced in asia. the european union is planning to unveil the these hills of the chip act, it aims to double domestic production. unemployment in the eurozone has fallen to its lowest level on record, 7% of the population was without a job in december. it is just under 11.5 million unemployed people. youth unemployment, typically a weak spot, also declined from 15.4% to 14.9%. separately, france said its inflation rate had ticked higher in january, 2.9%, that is still lower than the eurozone average of 5%. the harmonized consumer price index fell slightly to 3.3%.

inflation is causing problems for many french households struggling with costs, and it is likely to be a major theme in the upcoming presidential campaign. muted picture on wall street after january's wild swings, the s&p 500 worst month since january of 2020. we saw stocks managing to rally with gains of around two thirds of a percentage point across the board. exxon mobil was up 6%. earlier, major european indices kicked off a positive note,. moving on, the australian mining company has released a damaging report about its workplace

cultur the investigation found sexual assault, bullying and racial discrimination were right throughout the company. management described the findings as disturbing. they operate in 35 countries around the world. french, chinese oil giants have confirmed a $10 billion deal and you, -- uganda. they plan to build a major pipeline for the region and exploit crude oil reserves. sony playstation has bought a developer for $3.6 billion. the studio was behind halo. the takeover heightens the stakes in the increasingly lucrative video games market. microsoft spent $70 billion to take control of some of the industry's biggest titles. the new york times has paid what it describes a low seven-figure

sum for the online word game wordle. it was created by a software engineer that has become an overnight sensation. reporter: it is simple and free tubelike. originally created by a software developer for him and his partner to kill time during the pandemic. wordle has become an online sensation. within weeks, user numbers skyrocketed to millions. now, he sold his creation to the new york times. >> the game has gotten bigger than i ever imagined. i am just one person and it is important to make as it grows it provides a great experience to everyone. reporter: the purchase is part of the times' strategy. it's ges are a key part of

that. as of december, it had more than one million subscribers. wordle is going beyond the english-speaking world. >> i was afraid ias intruding on other people's territory. all support has been positive and welcoming. >> it would be great if people can find out that cantonese as a romanization system and learn spelling. reporter: the success of the game has led to numerous copycats. one developer put a product on apple's app store bearing the same name. it was later removed and the developer apologize. reporter: seeing that pop up on my social media. you are guessing five letter word. i have not yet dipped into it.

anchor: time for truth or fake. the so-called liberty trackers -- truckers in canada have generated lots of traction. >> the simpsons, it has been said in the past the writers are sort of oracles, predict the future. they probably don't. there are so many hundreds, thousands of episodes that they sort of imagine things that take place. events have gone down, there is a video going around online and it looks close to what happened. remember justin trudeau had to leave.

>> it is one of natures most beautiful sites. >> it is a convoy of truckers. you have one where homer is in the guise of a trucker. that was 2009. there was a more recent episode where the simpsons met with justin trudeau. that was from 2019.

those two moments extracted and put side to side look very much like current events, and played into this idea that the simpsons has this clairvoyant quality. not this time. anchor: there have been video circulating truckers and other countries are following canada's lead. >> the observer has been looking at a few videos showing convoys of truckers in different parts of the world. i will show you this particular one taken at south carolina. quite a few shared versions of this video to show truckers coming together at the anti-covid measures. nothing to do with it at all.

that event took place on the 28th of august. nothing to do with current events. there are a series of other videos as well. this one claimed to be in italy, and in fact, it was on the 25th of september st. michael's fees today. there was a video in brazil, but it has nothing to do with the events in canada.

you can see the brazilian flag. three different events, different parts of the world. that does not mean it's not possibly going to happen. this video shows someone counting 2075 drugs -- 75 truck. the truckers are joining us from all over the world. it is easy to imagine someone has taken this viral quality. not the case. not yet. anchor: thank you very much.

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♪♪ ♪♪ -sicily comes with dramatic coastal scenery, and we're heading west. distances are short, and the island is dotted with fascinations. the shallow lagoon surrounding the island of mozia is ideal for extracting salt from the sea. and for thousands of years, locals have labored in salt pools like these as part of this essential industry. a short boat ride gives us a closer look.

so, alfie, this is like a mountain of salt with tile to protect it from the weather. -it is. it is. -salt must have been a very important industry. -it was a vital industry. in ancient times, if you didn't have salt, you'd die. there was no refrigeration, and the food was preserved mainly by salt. -how long did they have salt pools here? -the carthaginians, when they came here, they established the salt floats in the 8th century b.c. -until today, they're still getting the salt. -yeah, as we can see. -we're heading for the tiny island of mozia. along with salt, this lagoon provided a safe haven for ancient mariners. in fact, 800 years before christ, carthaginians settled here. today, this island is strewn with the scant but evocative ruins of a once-powerful trading outpost. why is mozia so historic? -mozia was the base of the carthaginians in western sicily.

they came in the 8th century b.c. and did many trading posts around the mediterranean. and sicily sits in the middle. sicily is the stepping stone. -perfect place to establish a trade center. now, the carthaginians came about 800 years before christ? how long did they stay here? -they stayed for 400 years and, eventually, were destroyed by the greeks. -we don't know very much about carthage. why? because they lost all the wars. -they lost the important wars. we often say the winners write history. in this case, if you lose a war, you lose your right to say your side of the story.

02/01/22 02/01/22 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> russia has assembled a massive force of more than 100,000 troops along ukraine's border. these are combat forces and special forces, prepared to conduct offensive actions into ukraine. >> d