A big no bigger prisoner swap in efforts to end the conflict in yemen. Health emergency in france new restrictions in england a europe grapples with a 2nd wave of the come demick. Thousands of afghans flee to safety after days of intense fighting between the taliban and government forces. We begin in thailand with breaking news in a crackdown against antigovernment demonstrations right place have clay if thousands of protesters outside the Prime Ministers Office they may have shortly after the government announced an emergency decree banning large gatherings to protest leaders have been arrested for the last 3 months demonstrators have demanded the resignation of the Prime Minister and reforms to the monarchy. Ask a straight correspondents go hide who is live from outside the Government House in a hub for the protests scott is just 7 am in the morning but its been a busy night bring us up to date with the very latest. That was a very busy night and busy day yesterday and wednesday that kind of carried on through until the Early Morning hours here on thursday what did happen is this demonstration movement started about a kilometer and a half away at democracy monument thousands of antigovernment protesters marched from there to here and then they pulled up and they gathered along this main avenue behind me is Government House thats the Prime Ministers Office is so they pulled up here thousands gathered in the Late Afternoon through the evening but then several 100 stayed overnight at 4 am about 3 hours ago this emergency decree as you said was issued protest leaders on makes of stage on this avenue just next to me they told the protesters to leave peacefully and they did so but we do know that still dozens of protesters were arrested 3 of the main high profile protest leaders were arrested themselves but you know again when we look now it was very interesting you know weve been here for about a 90 minutes and we 1st came up there are still street sweepers the avenue is blocked off street sweepers cleaning up from all those people here overnight now the avenues open and its almost as normal rush hour here on thursday morning so right now we know dozens of protesters have been arrested and 3 high profile profile protest leaders are also in jail so the streets cleared for now. What is it going to look like 24 hours from now do we know if these protests have any momentum given this decree has been announced. We know that this is this has been part of their tactical maneuvering if you will that these protests you know theyve been a different venues theyve been in different forms if you will theyve been at schools with just students theyve been high profile ones the large ones like this we saw student leaders protest leaders join with the red shirts now this is a populist movement thats going on Political Movement thats been going on here for years they joined in yesterday they joined in about a month ago as well we saw very big numbers so there are different types of protests if you will moving forward now right now this is over this this this where they camped here last night that is over this is just a mop up operation if you will they havent really said what theyre probably going to do on a large scale next time but what we know is they usually planned smaller protests in between these large scale protests that will imagine theyll continue with that but again you know right now we have 3 of their main protest leaders have been arrested will be interesting to see how they try to. Honor that if you will weve seen in the past where some dozens if not hundreds of protesters have gathered at the police stations where they have had their reports for bail hearings or for these arrests so we might see that but right now is on a large scale format this has ended these protests have been going on for a month now remind us. What are people so angry about what theyre looking for no you know weve had kind of an evolution of what the demands and the needs of different protest groups have now theyve theyve really solidified theyve theyve streamed it down the down to 3 demands that their overall looking for and the 1st is the cabinet resign that theres a new constitution formed and that is something that has been in the works for quite some time and then last is a reform of the monarchy and that last one is something we havent heard. It hasnt been touched since a very taboo subject here in thailand but steadily over these last several months since july with these protests and call for monica reform weve started to see more people come out and talk about this more so than ever in decades here in tyler because its such a taboo subject and such strict laws protecting the monarchy here so were starting to see that kind of loosen if you will but it will be the same to see Going Forward i mean if theres something to for people to be on the streets protesting for monikers for me its probably the other thing to see actually reform or discussions proper discussion of reform taking place. For us in bangkok many thanks yemens who things have released 2 u. S. Citizens in exchange for 250 who thief. The freed rebels have arrived in yemens capital some of them on the white house announced the humanitarian worker. Businessman mikhail good dads have been released the remains of a american have also been returned. Lets take a look at how we got here and the efforts to try and end the 5 year old conflict in yemen u. N. Brokered peace talks began install coman 2018 the 2 sides signed a deal to swap about 15000 detainees but the progress has been very slow close to 1100 of them are expected to be exchanged on thursday that hes will reportedly release close to 400 people including 15 saudis the Coalition Forces would free around 700 who the fight is a near lateral moves last year he sprayed 290 prisoners and saudi arabia released 128 meanwhile the war in yemen has killed more than 100000 people millions are suffering from food and medical shortages. And bill corey is a senior at the Atlantic Council to study things also former u. S. Deputy chief of mission in yemen he says the timing of the press nest benefits President Trump these theories it has shouldve never been this should have been done before they at the time the who he is claiming that they were spies but there is no evidence whatsoever that these people were working with any u. S. Intelligence agency. At any rate i think that timing now and as i say this could have happened earlier. Is that for Donald Trump Administration this is a good time to bring back americans from overseas its one more thing he can boast about just before the u. S. Elections. From the hostess point of view this is also a good thing because there was a move in washington to classify them as if they were this organization well obviously if there were still classified. The u. S. Governments hands would be. On the principle that they dont deal with terrorists so this may have forced old. Some of the hawks who are calling war classifying the who these as that are. Europe is battling to contain it 2nd wave of corona virus with many countries seeing infections surged to their highest levels in months of starwood germany weapon daily number of new cases is now at a 6 month high the chancellor Angela Merkel has announced tougher measures on gatherings and mask wearing to the u. K. Which has been hit by nearly 20000 new corona virus infections in a day which is the 2nd highest number of cases so far they havent used a new 3 to lock down system which has come into force through england to curb the worsening outbreak france is declaring a Public Health state of emergency and implementing night curfews for paris and 8 other cities hospital admissions there are their highest levels since june Natasha Butler has this report from paris. French president emmanuel macro sit faulds was in the grip of a 2nd wave of coronavirus he urged people to be more responsible and announced a nighttime curfew for paris and 8 of the citys the could last until december. If we stick to this curfew for 6 weeks if we take collective responsibility for reducing our contacts we think well be able to progress of the reopen at that stage. Over a few more the curfew adds to a raft of restrictions already in place in the countrys big cities where cases of new infections are rising rapidly in the past couple of weeks queues outside the board freeze like this one in the city have been getting longer and more paris Health Officials say its a one in 5 tests is coming back positive. Soon after moving to paris in september these british students fell sick with coronavirus they began having symptoms of her attending University Events and welcome parties every station distance while wearing a mask but it sometimes that doesnt stop if youre in a crowded place and you havent stopped going to electricity very tired in between needy half the students in a year were infected for some recovery has been slow i mean i was covered before but even i just want to get it again or other for me and there are a lot more like conscious of it micro hopes the curfew will help ease pressure on hospitals in paris intensive care beds capacity the problem says this epidemiology just is that the government is taking the wrong approach relying on restrictive measures rather than whites protesting the solution would be to assign to test message really the population and that can be done both using p. C. R. Test with Group Testing when you put in one tube those samples from 20 or 30 people. Also with the un to test so thats whats being done in the countries where the virus has been contained to some new restrictions will deal yet another blow to an already ailing economy for others theyll be welcomed as a sign that often months of urging people to live with the virus the president is hardening his tone the aljazeera paris. Still ahead on al jazeera. Anger grows in cyprus against corruption often algis their investigation forces the government to end a controversial citizenship scheme. The conflict in the going to carry back escalates to spies have russian bright could seize finding. However weve got some dry weather pushing into the northwest of here a pipe for the next couple of davis are very heavy right now which was a society of quite an intense area of low pressure here totally packed ice abbass some very strong winds coming in across the Baltic States into germany through poland and some other weather to just around more than parts of it is not is it a general life in some very heavy right across the north of italy running across the balkans some snow coming back on the tail end of fats and that was the weather just not in its way a little further east was up towards the northwest but we do have that high sinking in still quite a chilly breeze it must be said 13 celsius in london with that northeasterly wind rolling in off the north sea stays dry and fine as we go on through friday this weather system getting held at bay by our High Pressure dispose of christ into central and eastern parts with more snow over the alps and some showers there into central parts of italy for nor the parts of africa where it stays fine and dry usual crop of showers through Central Africa sinking a little further south as they should do there will be some heavy downpours into southern nigeria can cause some localized flooding here cameron also seeing some big downpours the showers around iran across the west of africa pushing all the way into sierra leone. Of defiance it really touched my heart deeply where she started to sing. After. d aljazeera world remembers a palestinian city reached audience is beyond middle east interpretative family of nazareth she sang out a powerful and Emotional Message the story of. The voice of palestine on aljazeera. The earth. Youre watching aljazeera mind top stories this hour riot police in thailand have cleared thousands of protesters outside the Prime Ministers Office a crackdown began shortly after the government issued an emergency decree banning large gatherings 3 protest leaders have been arrested. Yemens who these have released to us citizens and exchange 4250000 fighters this one is the 1st of several prisoner exchanges expected in the coming days between the Saudi Led Coalition means. Europe is battling to contain a 2nd wave of coronavirus germany is imposing top of measures on gatherings and mass wearing france has introduced a nightly curfew and in the u. K. A new 3 tier system is now in force. To afghanistan where heavy fighting between Government Troops and taliban fighters has displaced tens of thousands of people in the south it began on saturday and aid agencies say hospitals are becoming overwhelmed the fighting is in Helmand Province centered around the regional capital lashkar gah the u. S. Has been carrying out strikes to defend Afghan Security forces well is the fast Major Taliban offensive since peace talks with the Afghan Government began last month and it could complicate the u. S. Plans to bring home remaining forces by christmas a reporter fear controversy is in the capital kabul she says Health Service is a stretch in the area where the fighting is the main trauma hospital in provincial capital. Has been operating at full capacity cannot treat any more people and the m. S. F. Supported another m. S. F. Supported hospital in the area has been serving as an overflow facility with over 20 people have been admitted there in the past 24 hours and a mob of them are even pregnant women and children in terms of the displaced according to the u. N. And local sources 35000 people have been forced to flee their homes a lot of them with nothing but their clothes weve seen pictures of them trying to load as much as they can and some model bikes and try to escape the fighting now are you in assessment teams are on the air in the try to assess the situation and its extremely difficult to get information and a lot of the infrastructure the telephone lines have been damaged so its hard to assess what exactly what the exact needs are osama bin divided has been following the peace talks taking place here in doha. There have been some headway in the talks and to discuss that further we have or theres a Senior Advisor to president musharraf going in with another another he was also a member of the Peace Negotiation Team thank you very much for taking the time ive heard you describe this as this ongoing violence as an impediment to peace in afghanistan is the afghan Negotiation Team willing to leave the table if the violence doesnt stop well our brief from the National Defense and Security Forces or doing the job of protecting our people or our constitution. That this level of violence that weve seen in the past 3 weeks is a clear indicator of less care about peace by the other side more about the violence its acceptable to our people to see civilians dying to see Public Properties and Public Infrastructure be destroyed and thats not injecting a good sense of confidence in the Peace Process that we are so willingly in generally and faithfully gauged and the other side doesnt inject that with the same level of genuine mr stop the violence we need to get this violence level down or stop it completely or people demand seats so that they can build a level of trust and confidence that the Peace Process will lead to a shared future for all of us fans thats what we are. Engaged and looking forward to to work with the taliban. To get it that you. Will the conflict has had a devastating impact on the lives of afghans which the war began with the u. S. Led invasion in 2001 and hes 44000 civilians have been killed by the violence and in the past 19 years 64000 Afghan Security forces have lost their lives 42000 taliban fighters and their allies have also died. 2 and a half 1000 u. S. Troops plus 1500. 00 nato and all the Coalition Forces have died in the conflict and fightings force close to 3000000. 00 afghans into exile such as into neighboring pakistan making them the well 2nd Largest Group of refugees lets bring in former u. S. Diplomat Mark Fitzpatrick from washington d. C. Many thanks for speaking to us on aljazeera as you start with Donald Trumps pledge to withdraw all u. S. Troops by christmas that has been some confusion about how true that is what is your understanding of the u. S. His position on this its a great deal of confusion especially when donald trump communicates by tweet which is not the same as orders to his commanders the chief commander the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff general mark milley saying that. He will reach withdraw troops from afghanistan in a responsible manner. Saying explicitly that the president S National Security adviser patrick obrian. Isnt the one to give him worse so whos speaking the necessary about your President Trump or the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff my money is the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff because hes actually the one who gives the orders about where the troops are located and deployed. Or meanwhile the taliban has welcomed the news welcomed the tweeds if you like it does give them the upper hand when it comes to those peace talks with the government. Yes absolutely and so you know President Trump is supposed to be this master negotiator but he really undermines the u. S. Position in the position of his supposed partners in this afghanistan dispute when he you know latterly makes concessions and pledges to withdraw troops gives the taliban no incentive to make any concessions on their own they can just sit back and wait for trumps promise such as it is to be fulfilled its not a good way to negotiate at all and do you think that that is what the taliban doing because on the ground it seems like there is no end to the fighting despite the fact that these peace talks are going on and when you look at the peace talks themselves theres not been much progress a tool in the last month. Right right these things are not going well and when one side makes concessions and sets a a unilateral deadline for pulling out of. Pulling out of there and then leaving it up to the afghanis themselves the talibans incentive right now is to seize as much territory to create as much trouble as they can to gain incentives for them the next stage of any peace talks between the taliban and the Afghan Security forces the Afghan Government with United States advocating responsibility it really undermines the position of the Afghan Government if the u. S. Does withdraw all the troops what is like but by christmas what is likely to be the impact on the ground afghanistan because some afghan officials have played down the impacts saying they have largely been fighting the taliban on their own for many months now so its not going to make much difference. Well thats thats true in one sense of u. S. Presence is not very large its 5000 troops and the other. Smaller number of nato forces but the United States has been supplying buttle intelligence vital air support most recently in response to these taliban attacks United States responded with the air strikes against the taliban no i suppose United States may be able to conduct air strikes without having forces send the ground but its more difficult when you dont have troops to help you direct those strikes so i think the situation will not be good for the Afghan Security forces ok good to hear your thoughts Mark Fitzpatrick former u. S. Diplomat speaking to us from washington d. C. Happy to speak with those is there any time the fighting continues to escalate between armenia and azerbaijan the as areas say they have destroyed missile launches inside on mania that were targeting the cities the armenian government confirms military positions where hits but denies its forces had been firing into us by john the fighting over to go on and how to buy continues despite a cease fire agreed last week but add smith reports from goddess in a media. Theyll be a memorial like this in perhaps every one of the homes of the more than 530. 00 armenian men killed since fighting restarted on september the 27th. Was a 19 year old conscript sent to the front lines just as fighting with azerbaijan started. We last talked on the phone on the evening of september 26th and he said everythings all right after that we heard nothing on the 27th i wanted to go volunteer where my son was serving but i wasnt allowed then on the 30th i got a call and was told everything is finished all the young men ingeborg School Yearbook are doing their Compulsory Military Service now like almost every young man in armenia and nagornokarabakh to my niece up to now i think he will call he will come back i dont know i cant imagine hes not with us anymore. I mean as Prime Minister says theres been some retreats from frontline positions and the situation is what he described as quite difficult for his country. I spy in misery right now the number of our casualties are very high no more. Victims armenias adversary azerbaijan now has the open and full support of turkey. President. Says 26 years of diplomacy have failed to resolve the conflict and its time for armenia to return land it took in the 1991 to 4. 3 members of minsk the United States russia and france are still putting this off with their stalling tactics just give them the occupied lands. Russia has rejected requests from for turkeys involvement in future negotiations on the go in a car about. The father of jeff plays a popular mourns their dead soldiers their son was killed on the 1st day of fighting. Most of the people especially those from places close to the contact line suffer like this theyve all suffered from the armenian separatists its not only us like hundreds of thousands of his there is this family was 1st displaced from armenian territories in earlier conflicts you have no no the fighting shouldnt stop there are so many members inconsolable like me so much blood of our soldiers if we take our lands back ill say i didnt lose my son on both sides of this conflict the pressure on leaders not to give way is intense. John on wednesday accusations the armenians are trying to attack or oil and Gas Pipelines the armenians areas are trying to seize nagornokarabakh and above this angry rhetoric russia is appealing to both sides to observe the humanitarian ceasefire but it seems no ones paying attention Bernard Smith aljazeera chorus armine. President trumps u. S. Supreme Court Nominee amy coney paris has completed her 3rd day of confirmation hearings shes been facing tough questions from Senate Committee members on capitol hill was pressed by several democrats on key issues including Health Care Abortion and election dispute was also asked whether the president should be able to pardon themselves of crime well. First and nobody is above the law or got to play for you. Court. The president every right to pardon shall. We say we heard this question. After president nixons impeachment. Senator leahy so far as i know that question has never been litigated the question has never risen that question may or may not arise but its one that calls for a legal analysis of what the scope of the pardon power is so because it would be opining on an open question when i havent gone through the judicial process to decide it its not want to which i can offer you protests are continuing in cyprus against government corruption by following aljazeera investigation of senior politicians who were willing to sell separate passports to convicted criminals the scheme was run as Financial Investment in exchange for citizenship the government has now abolished the Program David harrison is outside the parliament in nicosia with more on those parts tests. Chanting they want resignations the sick of corruption they want their country back and weve seen some Amazing Things earlier on when i was talking to a local t. V. Company doing an interview and when i looked up there about 40 people around filming and praising aljazeera and this is an amazing turn around when we 1st arrived here and we did a trailer for all film that was sort of conspiracy theories being put around oh what zoologists here is agenda all theyre picking on cyprus and then the film came out and theres just been this incredible turnaround everybody seems to think the evidence presented is for miserably strong and theyve got on board and theyre full of praise for aljazeera val i think some of them are saying things like its galvanized the them its galvanized into action they want to clean a cypress they want these people out they want to salute the demitra salute as the president of parliament who stepped down from his duties but hasnt actually resigned they want him to go they want a clean out and they say its given them new hope that cyprus can actually become a better place what ive been impressed by is just the passion and theres a sense of catharsis here people have been waiting for this opportunity for years and little did we know that our investigation would be the thing that would trigger it. This is al jazeera and these are the top stories in thailand have cleared thousands of protesters outside the Prime Ministers Office the crackdown began shortly after the government issued an imagined seemed to creep banning large gatherings 3 protest leaders have been arrested