and simon shaheen musical journey on al-jazeera. china's government struggles to contain a wave of anger off to a doctor who raised the alarm about the coronavirus dies in a hospital the global stalks of musts list but it is insufficient to meet the needs of. this as the wild health organization says soaring demand from lost is disrupting the fight to stop the epidemic. i know i'm maryam namazie and london you're watching al-jazeera also coming up turkey deploys troops and tanks to syria's last rebel stronghold as pro-government forces close in. a look at the national health crisis that's dominating the agenda

ahead of the island's general election. alloa our top story this hour china's government is battling to contain a wave of grief and anger after a doctor who was punished for raising the alarm about the coronavirus died in hospital hundreds of thousands of people have used social media to pay tribute to dr lee when young who reportedly fell ill after treating a patient many accuse chinese officials of trying to stage a cover up and of putting politics before public safety the government in beijing is saying that it will investigate while also racing to contain the epidemic that so far killed more than $630.00 people on the chinese mainland and been to other deaths reported in the philippines and in hong kong more than 31000 people have been infected on mainland china with at least 320 cases and 27 other countries and territories meanwhile the world health organization says that demands of mosques

gowns and gloves have shot up by more than $100.00 times causing a supply glut of 4 to 6 months on tuesday we're sending testing kits mosques grabs the spiritus. to countries. however. the world is facing a chronic shortage of personal protective equipment as you might imagine this afternoon i would be speaking to the pandemic supply chain network to identify the bottlenecks and find solutions meanwhile inside china the government has sealed off cities cancelled flights and closed factories to limit the spread of the virus in the world's most populous country algis there is adrian brown now reports from hong kong these are some of the last poignant images of li one a doctor who was punished for daring to tell the truth now he's died from the virus

very 1st warned colleagues about late last year to many he'll be remembered as a chinese here. or there to hear during the closure i deeply regret his death and feel sincerely sad for him we need to see if the employment of his death can wake up anything and i hope he did not die in vain. you know of are you here he left us when we needed him to fight the virus and he was a victim of the virus too he was unfairly criticized because of his work so we feel very sad and regretful for assaulting him for his show to responsible attitude towards society and he is honest and faithful so i think the whole society should reflect on this. on social media the grief and outrage is more profound is it that hard for the government to admit it's wrong a doctor had to die twice that's a national humiliation and the eyes of the people are clear his death is the top

trending topic on china's micro-blogging site way below one of the most popular hashtags before being deleted was we want freedom of speech lee had been in the front line of this crisis falling sick from the virus while treating patients his death was confirmed on the website of one hospital on friday morning leader after all rescue efforts said the statement we express our deep condolence as did an official from china's national health commission and now he's in the national your national health commission extends our sincere condolences and respect to the family and wife of dr lee when young we know that for medical workers on the frontline they sacrifice their own family life to contribute to this battle against a virus the society needs to care more about our medical workers. in december lead has sought to share information about his concerns only to be investigated by police who accused him of spreading rumors lee's passing highlights the huge risks

taken by front line doctors and nurses to treat patients a situation made worse by overcrowded hospitals and an acute shortage of beds the government appears to be listening it's dispatched a team of anticorruption investigators to hand to its words listen to the concerns of the public and in china today there is no shortage of people with opinions about the doctor and the way he was treated. the virus is spread across china with cases also emerging in 2 dozen countries 2 cruise ships carrying thousands of holidaymakers have been placed under quarantine in hong kong and japan as doctors test all on board for infection and another ship currently in the south china sea has been refused entry by japan south korea and the philippines. in china the growing public outrage will worry their leadership as it threatens to create what

they fear most social unrest adrian brown al jazeera hong kong alison shellac as a researcher for the eurasia group focusing on china she told me earlier about public outcry over the death of dr lee and government attempts to play down the threat from the disease. we have seen some official media outlets even call him a whistle blower acknowledging that there was there were some attempts to silence them but they're trying to separate the central authorities from the local government in this case and trying to show that the central government is like i said before on the side of the people. but these attempts are coming off rather tone deaf as people are remarking that you know they they know what happened to him and they're concerned that it's going to keep happening unless local officials and people at the center are really held accountable.

to vehicles and tanks of and to live province in northwestern syria the last rebel held region in response to an advance by government forces and could pave the way for them to stage an offensive on the provinces capital but it's an impasse the only reports turkey is determined to stop that. syrian government forces in the suburbs of. hours before distributing well after fierce fighting with the syrian rebel defenders. so rocket sits at the junction of 2 major highways and it was seen as a major up sakho in regaining control of the province one 3rd of which is now under syrian government control. turkey has warned put the massacres forces to back home . unfortunately the syrian regime does not believe in political process and thinks

peace can only be possible by a military solution and i have to say they are wrong about this they have stepped up their aggression. turkey has 2 off military observation posts positioned around the globe the escalation zone agreed with russia and iran in 2017 but 9 of them have been surrounded by advancing syrian government forces to protect and stop the advance troop just stablished for more posts which ended up in direct clashes between the turkish and syrian army's solve little michiru the hook up some of them used you know culture language to get tax responded to within the scope of self-defense from now on any kind of attack will be responded to appropriately and our observation post will continue their duties. the syrian government has intensified its attacks since last november and backed by russia has targeted civilians this triggered a new way of a migration with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the violence in the 9 year

long civil war in syria that was where the displaced could find refuge but it live said the center is now under threat as the syrian government forces captured so rocket and just 7 kilometers away seen em go solo al-jazeera bubble however northwestern syria well in other news israeli forces have shot another palestinian dead in the occupied west bank the 5th in 48 hours a funeral procession has been held for one of the victims a palestinian policeman who was killed in jenin on thursday tariq but one was in uniform at his station when he was shot during raids by israeli forces they were seizing c.c.t.v. footage related to a car running tensions are running high at the moment after u.s. president donald trump unveiled his long awaited middle east and initiative. now to iraq the most powerful shiite cleric has called for security forces to protect anti-government protesters grand ayatollah ali al sistani is intervention follows weeks of violence in baghdad and southern iraq on wednesday at least 8 protesters

were killed and 9 jeff when their camp was stormed by supporters of the shiite cleric saga iraq's human rights commission says nearly 550 iraqis have been killed since the protests began in october. one in india the prime minister says that his government will continue to push for peace in the country's northeast and render modi has been addressing crowds in the state of assam it's his 1st trip to the area since his government passed a controversial citizenship law which is sponsored widespread protests people in a sandwich board with bangladesh say the measure would open up the region to a flood of 4 migrants but modi tried to allay those fears you know the progress. report is there all forces which are using the full energy and spreading rumors in the northeast region they say that with the citizenship of right people from outside the country comes through the state i assure the people of us that nothing of this sort to happen. here

a 20 year old british woman who joined by still has lost the 1st stage of her appeal against the u.k. government's decision to strip of citizenship should mean the begum left london in 2015 along with 2 other schoolgirls to join i still she resurfaced at a syrian refugee camp a year ago when she told reporters she wanted to return to britain and heywood has more on the case itself. it's 5 years ago this month since them along with 2 of her friends disappeared from east london police appealed for their safe return but the girls had travelled from london into turkey and then into record in northern syria where they lived on the ice will rule now nothing was heard of shamima begum until she was spotted inside a refugee camp early last year now within weeks the den home secretary sajid javid 100 boat citizenship now her lawyers argue that that was unlawful because it rendered her stateless but a decision today by a special tribunal set up to look into the shimmy my begum case said that was

simply not true because she is a citizen of bangladesh by descent through her mother well she. said they will appeal against this decision and this is really just the 1st stage of the process it could even end up in the supreme court the u.k.'s highest court and this case really does shine a light on the difficulties governments now are facing in dealing with those individuals who left the country to travel to syria to support isobel who now want to return a key witness in president donald trump's impeachment trial has been fired from his white house job of telling colonel alexander vandeman whose testimony in the inquiry infuriated trump and his allies has been escorted out of the white house than previously oversaw american policy towards ukraine on the national security council let's go live now to roles in jordan who is in washington following this story and we know the president was particularly vocal and next pressing his feelings about benjamin does this come as any real surprise that. it

doesn't come as any real surprise but there's already some chatter among those in the military community that perhaps the pentagon should have. located colonel lieutenant colonel vend men from the national security council earlier than had been planned members of the military rotate on to the national security halsall for specific amounts of time to help provide advice and guidance to the president on major foreign policy and national security issues of course the defense secretary mark esper said on friday that it is the pentagon's policy to ensure that no member of the military is targeted for retribution after doing something similar to what the lieutenant colonel did which was testified before congress during the impeachment inquiry about the phone call which the president trump had with the new

ukrainian president president selenski a call in which lieutenant colonel venkman said he thought that there was undue pressure being put on the new ukrainian government and that he had serious questions about the way that the contents of that conversation were preserved for posterity that the information was deemed highly classified something which he thought was unusual and that is why he agreed to testify about what he knew about the trumpet ministrations engagement with ukraine in 2019 now of course the response coming from many quarters has been very very quick including that from the military community 1st there is this statement from lieutenant colonel benjamin's lawyer david cross when and i'm quoting just a small part of his statement there is no question in the mind of any american why this man's job is over why this country now has one less soldier serving it at the white house and prospering goes on to say lieutenant colonel vend when was asked to

leave for telling the truth his aunt or his commitment to write. frightened the powerful and that's been a code by people such as the senate minority leader chuck schumer who was said that even though the pentagon has promised him that there will be no retribution against mr read when he's questioning whether in fact that will be the case hillary clinton the former secretary of state and democratic presidential candidate in 2016 has made similar comments there are also reports at this hour that perhaps lieutenant colonel vend winced when brother you have gani who was a lawyer on the national security council staff may have been fired as well we have not as yet been able to confirm that detail but certainly this was not unexpected especially given that before he left for a campaign trip on friday morning the president indicated that he wasn't happy with the lieutenant colonel so it's really now it's a question of why today rather than on some other day thank you roslyn jordan in

washington. i'm bringing you some more news from the united states after the break a surprise front runner in the battle take on donald trump the presidency aims to create another hurdle towards the white house. and the brazilians forced to beg for food after major cutbacks in the nation's flagship welfare asking. hello which reading at both ends in australia where both sides if you like it always close trading off from new south wales a thunderstorm starting developer again in the release to science of queens and even to spin it behind my head which is the tropical stockton's about to make landfall sometime during the now the rain of misty can cause trouble but in new south wales where it's been a dry for seems like years said it's

a long time most people are actually enjoying it for you to see shots of happiness of all strangers and we got a vast amount of rain still to come already figures approaching or even exceeding $400.00 to be to mark had been recorded somewhere in new south wales so there's clearly going to be some damaging flooding as well as enjoyable rain and then this thing makes landfall during saturday and it's heads further into rather empty land in western australia bringing floods here too at the same time it's still running down the south wales coast this could cause considerable trouble let's say in total it's probably good news rather than bad news to us australia leaping northwards the good fullest snow is continuing the 4 shows from showers for some parts of japan particularly i think. but really things are on their way a few showers still left to come tokyo still at 11 degrees.

the exclusive undercover report that captured a peaceful protest ruthlessly put down by the military they seem to be testing the ministry the standing over there with their guns ready this seems as if the start of the crackdown is now beginning. nobody almost coming 10 years on what has changed rewind inside me in ma the crackdown on al-jazeera. welcome back a look at the headlines this hour the chinese dr li one of the young who is threatened by police for raising the alarm about the coronavirus has died triggered

a wave of grief anger and demands for freedom of expression in china. turkish omid vehicles and tanks have entered rebel controlled wolf western syria in response to an advance by syrian government forces. is ready soldiers have shot another palestinian dead in the occupied west bank the 5th in 48 hours a funeral procession has been held for one of the victims the palestinian policeman who was killed on thursday. in the united states the race to take on donald trump in of embers presidential election is reaching another critical stage 7 candidates from the opposition democrats are taking part in a debate ahead of the new hampshire primary it comes off to technical glitches mob the start of the selection process earlier this week pete is the early front runner after scoring a narrow victory in the iowa caucus former mayor of south bend indiana is a centrist and also the only openly gay candidates he was point one percent ahead

of veteran senator bernie sanders 78 year old has strong grassroots support from the left and famously lost out to hillary clinton in the 2016 nomination as a both war and took 3rd place she's also from the left of the party has called for more funding from her supporters. joe biden had a disappointing week with 4th place in iowa barack obama's former vice president was seen by many senior democrats as the person who could beat donald trump 3 more candidates have also qualified for this debate minnesota senate senator amy lawyer a businessman andrew young and philanthropist an environmentalist homestay of but one more potential candidate will not be there former new york mayor michael bloomberg started his campaign late and is focusing on these so-called super tuesday states next month let's go to andy gallacher who is in washington's as we were hearing there bernie sanders and pete who's a judge are in

a healthy position they want to maintain that momentum in this debate but it's really joe biden and elizabeth warren that need to. seize the momentum. you know this is really all about survival and the mental at this point as you said sanderson but a judge both going into this both having claimed victory in what was a disastrous vote in iowa which is still being gone over by democratic party officials are even asking to relook at that vote but most of the candidates want to move on now certainly sanderson but a judge have a great deal of immense and because of what happened so i think the big question tonight is whether bernie sanders and pete but a judge will go after each other that's something we haven't seen before and that could well happen tonight you could well see people judge being the punching bag for many of these other candidates of course is also a vital life for the former vice president joe biden a disappointing 4th place vote in iowa he really needed it i was she's got

a lot of work to do but i think it's an important point to make that both of these states iowa and new hampshire are both overwhelmingly white they do not really represent what america looks like these days but it is all about that momentum at the moment because after new hampshire comes nevada and then south carolina very different demographics but if someone like go to judge your son does can get even more momentum in new hampshire that does good for their fund raising activities that looks good going into these next primaries but again i think we might see quite a fierce debate tonight only 7 candidates on stage very different from how it looked in the summer when we had 20 people one of the debates i went to in miami was split over 2 nights because there were so many people so i think this will be fierce people will be watching how but a judge handles attacks from the other candidates and for the other candidates like joe biden elizabeth warren and amy clubbish are as a lot at stake here right so the stakes are high as you say just to be clear who has the most. that's

a good question i think joe biden is looking particularly precarious at the moment because of course all the polls over the last few months of show biden with a pretty healthy lead across the entire country a 4th place finish in iowa that doesn't send out a good message to voters so he has a great deal to lose as does the lives of both warren whose poll high before going into new hampshire the polls are suggesting bernie sanders has a good lead it's his neighbor who area he's from vermont so pretty close by followed closely by warren biden and but a judge so there is a lot at stake for all these candidates but perhaps for joe biden more than anyone else thank you very much anik alex in washington now to political developments in malawi the electoral commission is seeking to suspend the elements of last year's presidential election the body found in a pill on friday saying that judges were mistaken in almost all of their findings when they discarded the results of last year's poll earlier this week the court

cited voting irregularities in overturn the reelection of president telling the terry. well island is gearing up for an election that could potentially shake up the status quo health care is one of the major concerns in saturday's vote with more than half a 1000000 patients waiting to see a doctor as paul brennan now reports from the southern city of limerick issue could have a big impact on the outcome of this election. around cork city political posters gazed down from the lampposts but it's island's health care crisis which the voters want the politicians to look at you know when in the end of a woman to bring in pillows for the mother but during apollo so notice a doctor if you have probably this insurance it's just it's appalling it's no problem for the ordinary man in the street it's not good to see people waiting on trolleys for hours and hours dr sarah fitzgibbon has worked in a deprived area of north korea for the past 15 years her dedication is self-evident

and so are her frustrations so a child presenting today with mental health issues that i feel require specialist intervention and if i put them on a waiting list they might be seen in 4 years time which is just that's not a service in 2014 nearly 359000 patients were on the public waiting list to see a consultant by 2017 the number had risen above half a 1000000 for the 1st time and in 2019 it had grown to more than 553000. it's time to tackle those relentless increases in the waiting lists the irish government is throwing millions every year of public money into buying private health care in 2019 it was the equivalent of 82000000 dollars and this year it's going to be closer to $110000000.00 and still the waiting lists go up having private health insurance meant that when john wall was diagnosed with terminal

prostate cancer in 2017 prompt treatment helped extend his life in the time he has left he's advocating urgent reform frontline staff to their absolute to do whatever they can given the resources that they have but that's the problem they don't have enough resources they don't have enough beds they don't have enough staff and the resources that are being allocated is basically telling good money after bad a universal health proposal called sloan should care has been suggested but the different political parties have very different ideas of what to prioritize and how to implement it so really what's important here is that populations are going to post in the next on saturday are really looking for change and it's a change in culture to actually be citizen centered and to put the politics aside to ensure that everybody can have safe timely access to health care it was the threat of a no confidence vote in health minister simon harris which forced the irish tea should be over at good to call this election faced with

a combination of public anger and the sense that no one was accepting responsibility on saturday in the polling booths the voters will hold the politicians to account al-jazeera limerick many of brazil's poorest families struggling to afford basic goods as the government has been slowing down the flagship anti-poverty program they've just simply cut the number of beneficiaries of the so-called balsa familia or family bag so that a huge waiting list as john heilemann reports from rio de janeiro. at the end of a dirt road outside of real de janeiro palace souza is engaging in a weary daily struggle to make up for a laugh or they think today we had nothing to eat i had to wait and ask a women to help us we had no fit yesterday a pastor and my husband asked some fishermen nearby to get him something from their cats until 3 months ago they received cash from the government the program is called bolsa familia the family bag it was only about $40.00

a month but it helped keep them afloat now for them and about a 1000000 other brazilians that benefits been stopped the number of families newly admitted to the program has also plummeted to a fraction of those accepted before it's meant a ballooning waiting list of half a 1000000 people sell it 58 and unemployed is among them she says she's been given the runaround since she tried to join up last august no thank you they see the authorities don't care they push me from one place to another like a pingpong ball. both of them is helping millions of brazilians it's the government's flagship anti-poverty program but it's a been having problems for 5 years now and this is just the latest setback it started when the leftist thing government stopped adjusting payouts to keep up with inflation now the current administration has again hit what was a successful and cheap and the poverty to their very important and at the same time

you know reached about what one quarter of the of the brazilian population the very very poor is very well parg and the money goes to women go through children with conditionalities and costs very little forward cost from any point 4 percent of the g.d.p. so you basically brazil did a sort of fiscal adjustment on the poor. recipients not just present survival but future is now one whole. book to move freely my children have big dreams the eldest wants to join the army he was training and trying out for a football club but we had to throw him we couldn't afford his transport. the government says it's just real denies him to improve the program million's a way to join home and out to see the real degenerate oh so there's more in everything right here the latest on our top stories but also plenty of comment and

analysis pieces you can get into as well. pick recap of the headlines before we go now china's government is battling to contain a wave of grief and anger after a doctor was punished for raising the alarm about the coronavirus died in hospital hundreds of thousands of people have used social media to pay tribute to dr lee when young who reportedly fell ill after treating a patient more than 690 people have now died on the chinese mainland also the u.s. secretary of state might pay 0 is saying that america is prepared to send up to $100000000.00 to help china and other countries cope on tuesday we're sending testing kids mosques grabs the spiritus and gowns to countries in every region however. the world is facing

a chronic shortage of protective equipment as you might imagine this afternoon i would be speaking to the. world to identify the bottlenecks and find solutions concerned being voiced there by the world health organization that a shortage of supplies as countries try to deal with the outbreak and other headlines turkish armored vehicles and tanks have entered rebel controlled northwestern syria in response to an advance by syrian government forces to present russia type one is trying to drive back the syrian troops unless they withdraw from the strategically important town of sarka. israeli forces of shot another palestinian dead in the occupied west bank the 5th in 48 hours a funeral procession has been held for one of the victims a palestinian policeman who was killed in jenin on thursday a key witness in president donald trump's impeachment trial has been fired from his white house job left in it colonel alexander vinda men who oversaw american policy

towards ukraine on the national security council infuriated president trump and his allies with his testimony last year and a 20 year old british woman who joined i still has lost the 1st stage of her appeal against the u.k. government decision to strip her of citizenship on national security grounds shima begum left london in 2015 along with 2 other schoolgirls to join i still in syria so counting the cost is coming up next looking at the reasons behind france's controversial backing of leaders in libya and chad. well.

this is counting the cost on al-jazeera a week you look at the world business and economic this week france in africa despite trying to stop propping up straw men on the continent france isn't backing a libyan war northern chad's dictator is it all about the oil. well forces loyal to him even have to have blockaded the oil ports and have stopped pipelines trying to get the economy much needed from. getting it done as one hurdle but the long slog to news we find out what it means for one of the worst performing industrial economy.