we will speak to alaa's aunt, the acclaimed egyptian novelist ahdaf soueif. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the world health organization has warned the omicron coronavirus variant is spreading faster than even the delta variant and is infecting vaccinated people and those -- at a far higher rate than other forms of the virus. who director-general dr. tedros adhanom ghebreyesus called on governments to require more public health measures and said many holiday festivities should be canceled. >> canceled is better than a life canceled. it is better to cancel now and celebrate later than to celebrate now and grieve later. amy: here in the united states, the centers for disease control is warning omicron has overtaken delta as the dominant coronavirus variant, accounting for nearly three-quarters of new infections. the pentagon said it is dispatching teams of naval doctors, nurses, and respiratory therapists to wisconsin and indiana as hospitals in those states face shortages of

ahdaf soueif, you were in the courtroom on monday.can you talk about the vertex, or reaction, what happened in court? did alaa get to speak, your nephew? >> thank you so much for this. alaa wasn't even in the couroom. we know he and his codefendants were transported to the cou and they were held cells in the basement, but they never made it into the courtroom. in fact, the judge did not make it to the courtroom. we were sitting there from 9:00 in the morning waiting for the judge to pronounce sentence, but the lawyers and several other options and requests for him. he never came out. conducted all of the other business, the other ces in the docket. this is a misdemeanor court, which usually deals with things like mor tax evasion, petty crimes. so he d all that from chambers. and then there was this good security tng where they tried to get us to leave the courtroom , and we refused because the law is that sentencing has to be public. and so they negotiated that the defendant would just cap to members of the family and all the lawyers.