Transcripts For ALJAZ NEWSHOUR 20240712

Sanctions on hong kongs leader its police chief and other officials. Help but lost the kenyans who lost their livelihoods because of coronavirus question of why its taken so long. And im really a supporter you ventus sack. Of the telly in champions on knocked out of the champions league. The cleanup of lebanons damaged capital is about to give way to a new show of anger a mass protest against the government and the ruling political classes there is getting underway in beirut is just gone 4 pm local time these are the live pictures coming to us from martyr square at the scene of tuesdays port blast search teams are still looking for 60 people reported missing 157 a confirmed another 6000 were. Injured among those killed the secretary general of the cutty party his funeral was held just a few hours ago where 3 of the party m. P. s resigned they now say they will push for political reform turkey has offered to help rebuild the port as Vice President and foreign minister are both in beirut france will host a Donor Conference with World Leaders on sunday by video link live now to beirut and out as heroes correspondent zain a hotter zina how big are we expecting these demonstrations to be. Well as you can see behind me people have started to converge in Martyrs Square Civil Society groups there calling on people to return to the streets theyre saying that enough is enough theres a lot of anger theres a rage people are calling for revenge theyre calling for justice they say today is about justice for the victims of tuesdays blast just look behind me they constructed gallows they want politicians hanged they want politicians executed a few months back last october in fact Martyrs Square was the epicenter of a protest movement we saw a mass demonstrations across the country people called for a change in leadership that they wanted to topple the political and security establishment which has been governing this country for decades but today toppling the ruling elite is not enough for the people in the streets what theyre telling us is that these people should be held to account theyre blaming them for the blast at Bayview Court they say theyre asking questions why explosive material was stored at the court for many many years and despite the fact that the government is conducting an investigation there is little faith in those in power they believe that there will be some sort of a cover up or maybe a low level employees will pay the price what people want are senior officials to be held accountable for such destruction many areas of the capital this troika more nearly 160 People Killed 60 people remain missing 120 people are in Critical Condition there in the hospital so you can just imagine the anger of the people here and when those people told to use it about what they want to see happening over the coming days weeks and months do you get the sense that. Has any confidence in the government. Well the people who are in the streets do not have confidence in the government but there is a certain. Segments of the lebanese population who still support the political powers the Political Parties in power for a number of reasons i to logical reasons or maybe they benefit from the different Political Parties these people are under no illusion that theyre up against a militarized state we saw how the state responded when there were demonstrations calling for change they used force they arrested people they intimidated people this this whole area of central beirut became a battleground so people are not under any illusion that this is going to be an easy battle lets just ask carmen hooty shes one of the activists who has been involved in the protest movement for months do you think that this protest action today will lead to any change that you are demanding and the protests will lead to any change the one you protest actually when you try to voice out whatever concerns you have and all of these people have been concerned about all the corrupt leaders that they have nobody is looking at the demands of the rights of the people at any any concept of any. How do you say sovereign state sitting in if nothing is being done to serve the people of this country so any protest is supposed to get our voice out and thats what youve been doing and you have been doing that for months do you think this time is any different this time is that lives in the front because we protested all along in the beginning and then things went slow for most of the people because they were also tired they were also motivated than everything i think because of the blast and everything thats been going on people are angry now they want to get rid of all of this corruption especially when theyve seen that their leaders havent been down on the ground with them nobodys caring about any surveys what happened to the people and now well were hearing all along that people are sending support from outside and our government is lets lets lets talk about international. Distance and International Solidarity with lebanon most leaders are stressing that theyre supporting the people and not the government but those in government are are seeing this differently theyre saying that theyre no longer isolated in lebanon is no longer isolated so some are saying that this is going to give a lifeline to those in power i dont think this will give any lifeline to those in power because over the last any any trust with this with these corrupt leaders and i think the International Community have seen all along and now they have seen after the blast even more so that these leaders are not being as supportive and transparent to their people now i have had a lot of facts of people from International Community they want to give to the people here any support solidarity is there and they dont care about. How do you say official entities what office is it uses for them to send support they just want to send the support to over people here theyve seen the people in the streets theyve seen Homeless People weve been here for the past 34 days sending food sending water trying to create shelter homes for those who dont have any more now a lot of people are asking us to help with at least closing the outside to outscore outskirts of which we we saw the people take matters into their own answer the state was noticeably absent so thoroughly would you say anything of the sort that would you say the very fact that not everybody not every lebanese is joining your your Movement Today there are people who are concerned to him still supporting those in power there either afraid of the alternative for a case in any country going with the revolution you have people who support the revolution and other people who are definitely going along with the flow its not easy to say no to the whole system sometimes theyre afraid that what if the system collapses some people like to have a system and organize community gloria like that unless the power creates this organized community that will give the trust to the whole community i think i would understand why some people wouldnt want to go into complete. Yeah i mean fake system if you think if the the out the investigations that have been launched by the government and into the blast we have heard a lot from people on the ground that theyre concerned that there are theres going to be some sort of a cover up the middle how do you see the way the government has been handling of this disaster. In a very very bad way when you have when you have people who are devastated because of a specific class the minimum that you would do is you want to be close to the people you want to understand what theyve been through you want to come and see if so far none of the governmental officials have been around to see what happens really with the people and they cant expect people to accept them now when they have been abandoning these people for the whole past months and years corruption hasnt been lately but often a corruption has been built all throughout these years so you are hopeful that this will lead to some sort of thought that this the anger of the people today is going to build up to try to really implement a specific change with our without country so peter as you can see people are hoping for change but weve seen this hold in the past like weve mentioned the state has fought back and the Lebanese Army has beefed up their its presence around the area so were going to have to wait to see what sort of turnout. By the by the end of by the end of today zina do stay with us for the next couple of minutes please because were going to play in some of the latest pictures that weve just got access to the relevant authorities outside the Parliament Building in beirut using tear gas to break up one of the protests taking place there we have a couple of reports saying that the authorities decided to use tear gas because either some of the protesters actually did try to break into the Parliament Building or there were worries and fears Security Services. The protesters were just about to breach the Parliament Building which would have taken of course the idea of people contesting on the streets to a whole new level will stay with these latest pictures and if we get them maybe some live pictures as well well go back to xena harder our correspondent as far as you can tell from where you are whats going on right now near the Parliament Building. Yes we are in central beirut not far from where we are standing is the Government Palace and to my left is parliament and yes before we went on air a few demonstrators started to gather around these 2 government institutions weve seen this happen in the past they tried to breach the concrete walls surrounding these buildings so now the Security Forces responding with tear gas the lebanese authorities have repeatedly said that we will not allow demonstrators to destroy public or private property but we allow them to peacefully protest so its just its just in the in the early we have the protests hasnt even begun and already tear gas is being used it just shows you how quickly this whole situation or those whole peaceful march could change ive been hearing people say here its us or them this time we are not going back home but we have to be very very very careful because weve heard these statements in the past and its easier said than done when you have you know hundreds of Security Forces deployed with tear gas and in the past weve seen them use rubber coated bullets and demonstrators have been hurt taken to hospital so this can happen again but this is this is a city which is mourning this is a city in grief this is a city in shock and this is a city and angry a city where where where so many people are just angry they still havent comprehended what happened on tuesday it was a massive blast it destroyed and damaged many areas in the capital it made 300000 people homeless displaced and many of these people were barely surviving were barely making ends meet 50 percent of the population live below the poverty line and 32 percent of the workforce unemployed hundreds of businesses have been shutting down there was a. There is and was an economic crisis financial crisis before the blast the blast was only the latest crisis the latest disaster that the people of this broken nation had to deal with that the state is near bankrupt many of these people will tell you i cannot access my savings because there are informal bank controls in place and even if you had dollar denominated accounts the banks are not dispersing dollars you get your money and lebanese lira and the lebanese lira has lost 80 percent of its value so People Savings people salaries are now worthless so its not just the blast that brought people to the streets anger you heard carmen anger has been boiling for some time now and people have reached a point where they can no longer put up with a system a corrupt system and even the International Community has told the lebanese authorities time and time again youre not going to get billions of dollars that youve been requesting to kick start the economy if you dont carry out much needed reform Structural Reforms in the state if you dont fight corruption in state institutions so it just shows you how the situation is dire for these people many will tell you we dont have much to lose so a lot of anger a lot of frustration already there trying to break through the barricades around the government institutions we are in the center of beirut weve seen the scenes like this in the past few months. But were going to have to wait to see how how how the situation develops in the coming hours and as you talk us through the atmosphere across the city theres a you know were looking were flipping between different feeds of live pictures were seeing a couple of vehicles that have been set on fire one of them look like a truck with a crane on the back and were seeing a group of right police with batons wearing camouflage uniforms wearing bulletproof vests wearing the. Helmets but the this at a time when we saw emmanuel macro on the french president being featured on the streets of beirut and the local government officials and m. P. s were noticeable notable by their absence the open chicks of the government and the Security Services tear gassing their own people after everything that theyve been through and everything that they are going through that does not look good because the takeaway message for the inhabitants of beirut surely must be their tear gassing us. Well yes weve heard this from people time and time again since the french president mccraw visit to beirut he walked among among the people he hugged one of one of the women who was shouting and screaming and and basically begging the french president to save her to save the country and to save the lebanese people people were telling us they felt that they were hostages in their own country and mccrone was it was a savior and he did what no lebanese leader did since since that blast the lebanese leader visited the hospitals they didnt visit the wounded they didnt visit the destroyed neighborhoods they didnt walk among the crowd and just a few hours after mcallen did that the Justice Minister tried to visit the area and people were throwing stones at her and telling her to leave the beirut mayor as well they you know they did not welcome him so there is a lot of anger many many lebanese want to see a new lebanon a new system in place a new political and security establishment in place but theyre also lebanese who continue to support the Political Parties and who feel that this is some sort of a conspiracy in order to unseat those in power to bring in politicians who belong to the opposition so when you put that. Question to people here they say well we dont want those in power and we dont want those in the opposition either its not that we are we want the Ruling Alliance which is led by the iranian backed hezbollah as well as president michel aoun its not that we want them replaced with the pro western camp the former Prime Minister saddam how do you and the Lebanese Forces leader. Know we want all of them all of them to leave office to leave power we want a new leadership so thats the answer you get in the street here but when you when you go to a neighborhood or a stronghold of one of the Political Parties in power theyll say oh this is a conspiracy that is being exploited by the west in order to shift the balance of power in favor of the pro western camp in lebanon so you see solidarity in the streets you see messages of unity but in reality this is a divided country it has long been a divided country it is a country where political tensions immediately translates into sectarian tensions so on the streets Security Forces now clashing with protesters not very far from here we will. Move to that area shortly but it just shows you how deep the violence here people just cursing the politicians there cursing the politicians they that what people here are asking for is not just accountability they want to see those in power taken to justice they want them tried in chorus its just there is a lot of anger its a very different feeling than when we were here months back. They feel one woman said they bankrupted us they starved us and now they killed us. That is what people are saying a lot of people have lost their savings a lot of people have lost their jobs aid agencies save the children and their latest survey showed 500000 children in the beirut area alone are going hungry so it shows 2 you how bad and dire the economic and financial situation was to begin with and then this blast which is the story of homes which destroyed shops which destroyed peoples livelihoods even taxi drivers their cars damaged these people live are daily wage earners many many work in the Informal Sector daily wage earners who have nothing to lose i can hear the shouts and screams of the young men who will tell you we have nothing to those who are unemployed we cant find a job we dont have a future many lebanese will tell you to day give us a visa where we want to leave because we cannot continue where we are unable to make ends meet and the government has not even able to provide them with food and water its the people the people bought sandwiches for each other they were distributing water to you know and they were helping each other clean their homes so there is that sense of solidarity but theres also. Division division in this country. Ok well leave it there for the moment many thanks well talk to you in the coming minutes or the next hour or so at least i guess in a hold of the reporting live for us from beirut. Well its estimated the loss caused 10. 00 to 15000000000. 00 worth of damage to the port and the wider area our correspondent Bernard Smith has been looking at the damage. Its not until you move away from the beirut shoreline that you get a real impression of the scale all the devastation just over my shoulder the orient queen boat that was capsized by the force of the blast and every building you see along that skyline has been impacted there isnt a single pane of glass left and damaged over that im just on the other side of the remains of the grain silo in the grain silos. Was most of the grain supply for 11 on there is no Strategic Reserve and all around the grain silos the remains twisted remains of the countrys main port where houses everything in that hooting polluted other goats were destroyed or traffic has been diverted further up the coast to tripoli the 2nd point but it is having trouble managing with the capacity and managing with the demands of taking in extra supplies. Well Ammonium Nitrate is believed to have caused the blast on tuesday in the beirut port area is the most common fertilizer used globally and the main component in explosives often used in mining but a lot needs to go wrong to core such a huge blast thats because Ammonium Nitrate is not flammable on its own instead it acts as whats called an oxidizer that increases the burning and decomposing aura stored for long periods of time it can become contaminated making it an accelerant during intense heat that could lead to an explosion the explosion we saw on tuesday the blast in lebanon may have started with a fire and is one of the biggest known Nuclear Explosions ever recorded hey mr Breton Gordon is a chemical weapons expert who joins us on skype from a mish welcome back to the news how can anybody in any country get to the stage where so much Ammonium Nitrate is stored in one place. Well it does seem very strange to most countries around the world there are strict regulations on store and trade and security we know that terrorist groups around the world uses an explosive but is it where everybody is seem quite what a devastating explosive but it can be the regulations certainly in europe and the u. S. Financial wall as well stipulate that you should not store it in any particular Populated Areas and. That we refer to is the danger area if there is an accident should be clear of buildings as people if you dont store it correctly as he said it can come bearing on stable and when its unstable and can explode innocent accent permit reaction the you see here and also store in such large amounts east is against all the regulations that are known and in australia princetons you need special licenses even to buy stuff so this does seem to be something thats been building up and it should never happen it was absolutely a bomb waiting to go off is the ferocity of the original explosion partly explained by the quantity that were discussing or just by what Ammonium Nitrate does when it comes to the chemistry because it seems to me this is making a mockery of michelle and saying i want results in 4 days because from a forensic investigation point of view so much of the evidence has been utterly atomized destroyed because it looked like an atomic bomb going off. Well that is correct i mean that is one of the issues and i knew not how it explodes very very violent name whatever size some people were not a solution in china just 2 years ago which was about half an hour out the Critical Mass and destruction and in the United Kingdom 192. 00 are one and a half ton just one and a half ton and not a bomb blast the center of and im just. Done we had to get the explosion but getting the evidence is going to be difficult but i think an awful lot has been not already done i mean is there any doubt that this was an only nitrate how it started is still to be determined theres no suggestion it was a terrorist attack no doubt that would be looked at but storing it in anything that is volatile can any sort of fire or any fuel would be crazy and it would appear on early indications that that might well be the. Wall of origin with a supporter of the United Nations and others will come to a conclusion here but we must make sure that this never happens again because i will be not stools of Ammonium Nitrate around the world and this should be a wake up call to make sure that theyre stored properly so you dont see another disaster like them see a marriage of the back of whats happened in beirut is there a chance here that we should kind of wrap up this substance not in a safe location or the clearly that there is a need for but wrap it up in International Legislation and make it almost like you know illegal arms shipments make it look make it wrapped up get it wrapped up in some sort of like a post Nuclear Explosion piece of legislation so it is illegal so its outlawed. Who saloon and in many countries that its. Not the storage you know and the passage of and the toxic Industrial Chemicals which this is is very tightly controlled and and certainly you know the chemical weapons convention. Was the use of toxic Industrial Chemicals that anything except a primary purpose Ammonium Nitrate when you use that as it is very attractive and you know and kills the base all around the world however like other toxic chemicals like chlorine or ammonia itself it can be incredibly dangerous that we do probably need as you said yes the United Nations Security Council leading the way here to direct regulations that will be amenable all around the world and that is something that one would hope the u. N. Getting on with it straightaway because you never examined the. Other stashes of Ammonium Nitrate. To not be used or improperly and game crude craze and massive explosion ok well leave it there him is to press on many thanks for unpacking a complex aspect of this developing event for us many thanks to mr breton there in the u. K. Ok before we go to the break lets just show you the latest live shots coming to us from adjacent to you the martyr square i suspect thats near that thats near the Parliament Building in beirut weve heard these reports weve seen the pictures weve got right police on the ground and squaring off against a clutch of protesters they have used to stop protestors demonstrators breaching the fences around the building to Parliament Building they didnt want one of them to get in there to put this in a broader political context for you we have had at least 3 resignation has already and 3 m. P. s decided to write resign from their party. A funeral of one of their colleagues a little earlier today were trying to establish communications with one of those people to see what what what theyre trying to achieve with their resignations about 2 or 3 kilometers away from we have these mass protests gathering around moscow square as well so in a holder with reporting from there intriguingly compellingly the protesters have already built a hangmans noose multiple hangmans noose locations because theyre sending a message to the politicians we dont just want to change you for what you might loosely call the opposition we want all of you gone. That was something that we touched on this time yesterday here on news hour with one of our interviewees an m. P. A lebanese m. P. And she was very clear as far as the political optics are concerned people they know this people do not want to just flip from one to the other they want all the existing political ruling class is gone the key thing here being how long lebanon has been going through crisis after crisis after crisis once the civil war ended 1990 clearly the signals from the then government was we reached a line in the sand we will rebuild we will build again and we will build afresh and make lebanon better than its ever before the everything before the clear signal of 19091990 roundabout the beginning of that decade was we are going to release a new lebanon has it happened no it absolutely has not will get you across all the main developments when we come back on the other side of the bridge. Of the ducted and forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial army. For the socalled comfort women of the 2nd. World war 2 decades have passed but the trauma lives on. Whitneys follows the story of the women who campaigned with unwavering resolve for an official apology for this appalling chapter in history. The apology on aljazeera. The latest news as it breaks there is increasing pressure for nandan to turn its back on beijing and the u. K. Is finding itself caught between 2 superpowers with detailed coverage israels missed opportunities on testing and tracing is now being seen as part of a wider political failure to tackle the panda from around the world human Rights Groups say that at least 12 people have been either killed or disappeared by argentinas Security Forces. Welcome back youre watching the aljazeera news our live from doha your top story this hour Lebanese Police are trying to break up protests outside the parliament in central beirut people are angry at the government accusing them of corruption and inaction that led to an explosion at the port on tuesday the explosion killed 150 certain people. Afghanistans highest consultative body the loya jirga has recommended that the government releases 400. 00 taliban prisoners but it says they should only be freed if they promise not to return to fighting the release is seen as the last step to allow peace talks with the taliban to begin is now up to the president and for afghani to make the final decision that could come as early as sunday Michael Semple is a professor at the institute for global Peace Security and justice at queens in belfast he says the decision could be a significant step in the Peace Process well i think the only real win for the Afghan Government and the Afghan People will be if we make concrete progress towards peace im sure that the president will be confident that this strength of his hand as he tries to set the conditions for the negotiations with revenge and they start to each afghanistan towards peace so yes it will strengthen the president s heart there were some people of course who thought that they could get unconditional release of these prisoners and that there would be negotiations starting next week for anybody who thought that this may be a disappointment but our oath we have to have a show of the of the Afghan People ruled least eking it in favor of negotiations and Peace Process and the afghan president empowered to try to take out for us maybe its maybe its inched us its just towards the taliban to be fairly. At least with what theyve achieved so far this year through negotiations promise of u. S. Withdrawal the reduction of u. S. Air pressure on their forces fighting in afghanistan release of all these prisoners major boost to their armys morale under certain degree of legitimacy around their the country but the one thing they havent done is i this stopped the war or actually made progress towards winning it theyre getting the sense that the population is really tired of this war and they dont quite understand why the taliban are still fighting. No its a decision that hong kong calls despicable and shameless people theyre condemning the u. S. For imposing sanctions on the territories top leaders kerry lamb and the current and former Police Chiefs are among 11 officials who say u. S. Assets will be frozen sanctions come a month after president of trump stripped hong kong of its special status at the time he said it was punishing china for imposing a National Security law on Hong Kong Sarah Clarke is there she says the reaction to the sanctions has been strong. The condemnation has been swift not just from the Hong Kong Government but also a by beijings top representative in hong kong that he has said he strongly opposes and condemns the treasury sanctions he said this reveals unscrupulous the unscrupulous intentions of u. S. Politicians to support anti china chaos in hong kong and inquired or quote from him and whats believed will consider the humorous response he said i dont have any Assets Abroad isnt it a waste of time for President Trump to impose those sanctions and he could send 100. 00 to the United States if President Donald Trump wanted to freeze that 100. 00 now the Hong Kong Government its also released a statement described it as shameless and despicable it said we had one representative the Economics Development and commerce minister he spoke at it would yell but also he repeated what was said in that government statement describing it as unreasonable and savage blatant interference in Hong Kong Hong kongs Domestic Affairs it said will send the wrong signal to any u. S. Investors in hong kong but of course carry land has long defended the introduction of the National Security laws in hong kong she said the legal constitutional and reasonable and that was crucial to restore order and stop the chaos and the violence in hong kong which we saw months of protests in 2019 but of course has been International Condemnation from a number of countries including u. K. And of course the u. S. They say they see this law. Oppresses the freedoms of the city and it undermines the one country 2 systems policy which was promised in this former british territory. Students across the United States urge you to head back to school in just 2 weeks but as the country struggles to control the coronavirus theres little clarity as to how that will look President Trump has been pushing for students to go back into the classroom however many health Officials Say learning should remain on line new york which was once the epicenter of the pandemic so students will be allowed to return to school if infection rates stayed low elizondo joins us live now from new york surrogate for parents and teachers its such a difficult decision to take and its only a couple of weeks away. It really is and if you look at all the School Districts throughout the United States no School District really has any sort of uniform plan in place because theres been no real guidance from the federal government at all other than from the white house saying that School Districts should reopen as soon as possible but how to do that is very very complicated and many School Districts around the country simply just dont have a plan in place yet on how to bring kids back to school for in room classroom instruction however what a turnaround in new york once the epicenter of the krona Virus Outbreak in march april and may now Governor Andrew Cuomo here of new york announcing on friday that new york schools can re open for in classroom instructions instruction as long as the infection rate is below 5 percent and throughout new york its about one percent right now this is key for new york city the biggest School District in one of the one of the biggest in the nation 1100000 students just in new york city and 1800 schools they are scheduled to reopen on Early September the 1st week of september as a matter of fact and by all intents and purposes now with the governor signing off on this they will be able to reopen but still very very complicated on how theyre going to do this safely many teachers unions have said they do not want to go back to the classrooms until they feel safe but gape this is on the one hand a highly charged issue that everyone in america is engaged with everyones talking about especially if theyve got children but on the other hand is it heading towards being a highly politicized issue as well. It certainly isnt everything in the u. S. Right now is politicized because of course we have the election in early november less than 3 months away so it is very politicized you have a donald trump in the white house pushing for schools to reopen now for many many weeks because as schools reopen it will help bring back some normality and thats what trump wants because that will help him presumably in his bid for reelection however you are also seeing on the other side many many parts of the country saying nope weve got to take it slowly we do not want to see a re re re explosion if you will of more coronavirus cases throughout the country so highly pleased politicized but also highly complicated on how this will get done ok he gave thanks for that gabriel is on to the 1st line in new york many kenyans who lost their jobs because of qubit 19 accuse the government of misusing foreign aid to help them they say they get to receive any money catherine soy explains from nairobi. Antonio chang has just received his weekly 10. 00 payment from the government the money is a lifeline to him and thousands of other kenyans in auburn areas who have lost their jobs because of coronavirus and the subsequent lockdown measures. A chain is a casual labor in the western town of q and has 3 children. Under 500 we use 500 shillings for a banana hoping business we then use the other 500 to buy food and other basic things. In another part of the town has a callow tells us this is a fast time shes receiving food since march when the 1st case of the disease was confirmed an advance im in now messire gawain i have only heard about the government money i have not seen it ive just received this food store from well wishers. National treasury has so far dispatched about a 100000000. 00 with more on the way the money adds to an existing Welfare Program that helps the elderly oftens and the disabled while the 300000. 00 people have lost their jobs because of the pandemic government money is helping the poorest back the fans are limited the number of those who need it is growing and some analysts are concerned about the lack of transparency on how its being distributed i. Worry about. The lack of transparency and. Or corruption and youve already started. And we dont want to. Continue or. How much exactly. There are reports here that say much of the money sent to different government offices is being mismanaged through fraudulent procurement processes and inflated costs of medical equipment. Put this concerns to the treasury cabinet secretary giving money to those 2 issues that. Even the money. And how that money is if you know political. You know. d this will be no mercy the treasury secretary is expected to release an additional 500000000. 00 soon to provide father assistance to those who need it many like her. Who are struggling to survive i hope in the money well get to them this time cathy zoi aljazeera nairobi interest in brazil have constructed a symbolic graveyard on rio de janeiros copacabana beach theyve planted 100 black crosses one for every 1000 people who died coronavirus in the country this is the 2nd worst hit country anywhere in the world they want the government to do more to control the spread of the pandemic the president has continually downplayed the pandemic. 3 russian opposition activists have been detained as they traveled to observe a tense president ial election the president there Alexander Lukashenko is facing the strongest opposition yet to his leadership whos expected to declare victory after sundays elections his 6th in 25 years but the opposition says it will fight the Election Results in court step vasant reports now from minsk. Election observation belorussian style. Thanks for the. Independent of service have not only been detained but also been barred from entering polling stations nonetheless they have found irregularities in the voting process that started on tuesday and will have its peak on sunday the 1st day of the elections. 39 people. Think you mean protocol. Nation so there were 89 so they added 50 people as the mood on this new president Alexander Lukashenko has been accused of stealing previous elections but this time hes facing an opposition on a scale has not witnessed before led by this woman 37 year olds but learn at the hand of sky she reluctantly decided to run for president after her husband a popular blogger was jailed suppose the elections were going to be free and free or how many percent of the vote would you get i suppose 65. 00 said. He would be a big winner then. I would be awarded. But the woman who attracted large crowds does not expect this to be the official election result she has promised that if she becomes president the 1st thing she will do is call for free elections even if this. Doesnt happen now. Of course elections will be. I dont think he will. I dont know how can a person. Country people. Softly speaking dont like him just. Most of them. And. But will he go quietly. The fact of this guy has accused the opposition of trying to cause a bloodbath and russia of provoking violence but analysts say these accusations are made to hide the countrys real problems. In the last 10 years theyre going to be has gone down and society is not happy and basically society are united against look at despite their ideological position their values and their political priorities all of them think are the main obstacle for development. But as long as the president is still backed by the military and high ranking officials he believes look i shant i will remain in power. And joins us live from minsk is mr looking a little bit shaky in the job step. He definitely is he was surprised by the strength of the woman you just saw in our story that fly and i think kind of guy he basically called her a little girl in the past few weeks and he was sort of underestimating a woman in general could not be a president of course he set off but completely underestimated the force that basically came when she went on to the stage she was very reluctant i met her in this interview of course and she was still saying that she really really doesnt like to be in politics and she doesnt want to be on stage but she doesnt have. And the other option because her husband is in jail and the people are all looking at her for change now so what she is promising if she would be elected president which nobody really is expecting here then there would be immediately new elections and then well fair and free election could be happening but the crackdown on the opposition is happening as we speak its only one day before the elections up here at a polling station voting has already happened for the last 4 days independent observers there right behind us theyre watching from the window as you saw in our story 50 of them have already been detained in the last couple of weeks 7 have been detained today and they are called the Honest People Initiative and they are calling for a smartphone its a system that has to show what actually people have and not what the government says they have but this whole smartphone thing now is also being attacked by the government the prosecutors today said that they will block this web site altogether. From this distance as if it has a very large kind of an unreal quality to it because. To kind of sky you know shes not campaigning on bread and butter issues shes campaigning on im not the incumbent im not mr look shes so committed to the process i think shes also sent her children overseas because she has worries for their personal safety and security. Exactly i would say the only complaint theme that ive heard since ive been here in baton rouge this guy has to leave thats basically what everyone is saying and then we will see what the future will hold as you say she was very worried shes afraid she also told me that shes worried that shes going to be arrested in the next coming days hours nobody knows she also was receiving a phone call saying that she should step out of the race that her children would be orphanage so she is really really worried she has sent her children away as have the 2 other women who are running who are backing her candidacy together with her so its a very eerie calm here right now in mens its socalled a silent day the opposition has now called on everyone to drive around in cars because thats how repressed they are and play a song that they have been playing from the beginning its a russian protest song called changes and i was standing here just before this conversation and people were driving around playing that song with the window open and they have all these white banners on their arms and they have to stick out of the window as a sign of protest thats the situation right now here in minsk ok many thanks to that step a correspondent there covering the elections in belarus in minutes lets take you live from minsk to life here in beirut you can see the device is exploding you can see the 2 lebanese flags i suspect thats near the Parliament Building with the big mosque in the background the reason were showing you these pictures is because in the past for 15 minutes or so we were getting these reports you could see it. With the life of pictures. Right police on the rights of. Going to accounts to try to stop angry so angry demonstrators protestors getting into the Parliament Building similar scenes of anger minus the 2 reflected in the area around Martin Square where theyve been heading towards that particular location. As the big march kicks off through beirut people are furious at the governments reaction to what happened on tuesday night when those thousands and thousands of tons of Ammonium Nitrate were ignited creating that absolutely huge explosion the effects of which were felt 345 kilometers across downtown beirut it was such a big explosion the aftershock made it all the way to cyprus we will be talking live to our correspondents in a holder who is there in the middle of it all when we come back on the other side of this break. Rewind returns with a new scenery. And brand dates on the pants down to see these documentaries. To. Remind continues with the last try secret alamy at the cia since 1975 a living the same way that their ancestors did living in the forest in the jungle and it seems like theyre abandoned by everybody on aljazeera once welcome now fear. And dividing a nation. Aljazeera explores germanys long Term Economic strategy of pursuing immigrants from the arab world i feel more gentleman and syrian. Money does a richer get those people put up think that its been done it one german and american the new germans on aljazeera. All. Hold. Welcome back youre watching the news hour with our continuing coverage of the aftermath of the ants on tuesday in beirut the lebanese capital we are monitoring whats going on there right now for you that scene coming to us from outside the Parliament Building where police have been using tear gas to try and quell the protests just to get them away from the Parliament Building thats been going on for the past hour case maybe an hour and 15 minutes or so you can see the protesters. Rowing rocks and stuff i assume mulder we havent seen them you can see them in that shot but they must be off camera right. Right police as another way of angry protesters and demonstrators go from the left hand side of the shelter to the right hand side of that shot the authorities the government government ministers were super clear when there was talk of this happening in the past 3 hours this particular facet of the light of protest is going on over the city they were super clear in saying we will not allow you into the building so thats why the decision was taken to use tear gas against those protesters lets go to a honda correspondent whos at another location in beirut zena just give us a sense of not so much what youre seeing but what the atmosphere is like there. Theres a lot of tension but theres also defiance if you see in the distance that Security Forces are using excessive amounts of tear gas to force the antiestablishment protesters away from the Parliament Building people have been pushed back there have been running battles as protesters try to storm Parliament Building weve seen scenes like this many many times in in recent months but the chance that im now hearing in the background is you know we are we will stay we will continue to took to fight theres a lot of defiance theres a lot of anger many people here have told us that we expected this to happen we didnt expect them to just to sit back and and allow us to to to demand change to. What weve theyve taken to the streets not just to demand a new political and security establishment to govern this country what these people want is for those in power to be held accountable for a brass stock to destroy their city a blast that killed dozens of people a black. Yes that put thousands of people in hospital 300000 people displaced so theres a lot of anger theres a theres a range people say this is about justice this is about revenge we wanted justice for the people who died in this blast people here believe those in power are responsible for putting highly explosive material in a port which is located in the middle of a densely populated city so some protesters are trying to storm Parliament Building Security Forces using a lot of tear gas to push them away this could go on for hours. Its still not clear whether or not more people will join this protest movement right now i can say theres a few 1000 here we understand some people are marching from other areas but like weve mentioned from the beginning there is a significant percentage of the countrys population who want change but there is also others who still support the stop this quote people here are chanting insults. Towards the president theyre insulting the Group Hezbollah which is a group that is backed by iran and along with its allies president michel aoun as well as the House Speaker they control the government they control parliament and these people say what we want is a state today levanon is such a weak state that its the Political Parties that control the different states institutions and a party that has a parallel state. So there is this anger and but at the same time you get the feeling when you ask people what are you hoping will happen and they say they believe that this time around its different that this time around they will be able to bring about change but if you just watch those pictures and you see the reaction of the Security Forces its an indication that those in power are not going to give up easily those in power believe that there isnt some sort of. An attempt to change the balance of power in the country. They said the only way to instruct you for a 2nd please my friend because we are heading towards the end of the news in a minute when you talk about the politicians there in a minute to me this why is it lebanese politicians when there is an expectation that they will step up to the plate they dont do that they go off in the shadows they maybe do a News Conference they maybe do a photo opportunity and then they withdraw. To the hallways of power and they dont get down and talk to the people what is it about them that makes them react or under react in that way. Well for because they have supporters because people benefit from favors from politicians 11 or you cannot get a job in the Public Sector unless you have the support of a specific Political Party each state institution is controlled by a specific party its not controlled by the state you are not hired on the basis of qualification so they have the people the people are their hostages in many many ways so they are comfortable they control the Security Forces and they control political power they in fact there is a Political Party has been lost its armed wing is stronger than the Lebanese Army so they are comfortable in their seats and people here are under no illusion that theyre up against it that this is a very difficult battle to win xeno were actually going to stay on air because these pictures that youre talking us through are so very significant i guess you could call it a punctuation mark is that the country and the people of beirut process what happened on tuesday in the aftermath of that but the other thing that really kind of gets a hook with everyone around the world is the strength of anger manifesting itself in these protests and the demonstrations that were seeing today but these people. Im trying to avoid sounding deliberate right here as in these people have been protesting for so many months anyway even before the port explosion over allegations of corruption over everything that was wrong with the country with the way the political system they felt was failing them and thats been going on for a long time. Yes anger has been boiling for years but the economy situation started to deteriorate last year and then the government which needed to raise more revenues to pay for state expenditure decided that the best way forward is to tax whats up calls and that was really the last straw in the back for many many lebanese they took to the streets many of them have families who live abroad making phone calls its quite expensive so they took to the streets because of this decision to tax whats up calls and then tens of thousands across the country united and spoke in one voice and if you can look around all you see is the lebanese flag and thats quite rare in a politically divided country like lebanon in october they spoke in one voice it was maltese sectarian people from different religions stood together and they demand a change people from different areas came together to demand change but the momentum slowly its slowed because at the beginning yes the corruption Everyone Wants a Better Living conditions they want to jobs but when you Start Talking about the divisive issues in this country then its very difficult to keep People United ill just give you one example when people here call for early elections under a new electoral law most of these people will say ok what are you talking about which law will levanon be divided into different destroyed. Its over levanon be one single electoral district if you can see people are cheering now because they managed to push the Security Forces back so theres theres a sense of defiance so and electoral law that will work to the benefit of one religious group for example will enable another religious group so it is very hard to bring people together and the Political Parties tend to