just agree to give us and give us the close to. 0. at least 20 people are killed as a thai soldier goes on a gun rampage willy's have surrounded the shopping mall where he is still believed to be inside. hello i'm maryam namazie in london you're watching al-jazeera also coming up on the program a team of global health experts is assembled to investigate the corona virus outbreak in china as the number of deaths edges towards the total killed by saddam's. push for aid led turkey sends in a huge column of reinforcements a syrian government forces take more ground raising fears of

a confrontation. and voting is under way in ireland but will the prime minister lose out as 3 parties and to the election in a dead heat. but we begin this hour with breaking news from thailand where security forces have stormed a shopping center after a mass shooting which has left at least 20 people dead more than 30 people have been wounded after a soldier went on a gun rampage in the city of core at the army sergeant then took people hostage in a shopping mall in the city center where he is still thought to be inside that building but it's not known if more people are trapped with him the suspect went there off to 1st opening fire in a house and also an army base so we can see that the they have been attacks in

several locations wayne has been following this story from bangkok and joins us now it is police have identified the gunman have they managed to capture him. it appears not at the moment it seems like the situation is still happening at the more with the gunman somewhere inside this seemingly with several people being held hostage or either trapped inside parts of that mall over the past few hours what we have seen is the security forces both police and military going inside the mall in quite large numbers to try obviously to find where the gunman is exactly to try to get people out of them or so we have seen many many people is well over the past few hours coming out of that more after being trapped inside there for quite a few hours it's not clear whether some of those people were actually being held by

the gunman gunman or whether they were simply caught in a section of the very large building and they couldn't get out so what the police are saying to local media here in thailand is they have managed to secure several floors of the building clear them out of people who are in there and confirm that the gunman is seemingly not on those particular floors so they're not saying where they think he is they have in fact urged all media in the vicinity to stop broadcasting live from the area they are concerned that the gunman may be watching those updates on his phone we saw earlier in the day as this was just unfolding that he was posting updates on facebook as he went videos and photos comments at one stage quite bizarrely where he said that his finger was getting sore because he was pulling the trigger so many times so pretty disturbing stuff facebook were pretty quick to remove the videos from the page and take his account down so the

situation is still very much unfolding it seems. right so the gunman is still on the loose and we've been seeing images as we see now of people being escorted out of the area away from the shopping mall but i suppose the main concern for police right now will be whether or not there are still some people some civilians inside that shopping mall and whether he's taken any hostages. yes that will certainly be the main priority trying to get those people out of the safely and then try an f.b.i. hand the gunman himself we don't really know a lot about this man in terms of what his motive might have been for this attack we know that it's been going on for a very long time in fact it's being almost 11 hours now since this began mid-afternoon on a saturday on an army base we know that he is a serving member of the thai army he began it seems by shooting did his commanding

officer another person on that particular base as well then he went to another military base nearby it has now been confirmed and continued his killing spree taking guns ammunition also a vehicle from one of those army bases and then heading towards the center of the city to this fairly new shopping mall what the or thirty's are also focusing on is of course trying to treat the wounded not only do we have at least 20 people confirmed dead so far but there are many many people who are injured as well so we've had the health minister who has arrived at the scene from bangkok urging people who live in that area to go to the local hospital to donate blood and also he has urged medical staff who in that particular city who may not be working doctors and nurses other medical staff to report for duty to go to the hospital to try to help because clearly there are

a lot of wounded people being taken to those hospitals all right thanks very much wayne have all the latest from bangkok the latest being that it is 20 people have been killed more than 30 injured and police have stormed the shopping mall where the gunman is still fought and signed. turkey has sent hundreds of military vehicles into syria's northwestern edler province and has threatened to attack if syrian government forces don't pull back that comes as officials from turkey and russia met to discuss the fighting in syria's last rebel stronghold both country support opposing sides in that war this week syrian regime forces supported by russia to control of every strategic town which is close to ellipse capital. the town of sarich it gives the government forces access to 2 major highways the m 4 and the m 5 well that could have been a direct route to rebel positions on the western outskirts of aleppo and into the

city of the advance of government forces in the capture of sorry have now means for new turkish observation posts around sarka are surround it. been following the story for us from istanbul and says that turkey is losing patience with russia and it syrian allies the turkish government has been frustrated over way described as lack of corporation from the russian government says that. russia has not been able to raid the president of. his troops who have taken over south africa and seem to be determined to move forward towards the city of live. this meeting is more about the need to see where. the russians will be able to convince. syrian troops to back away from so and. the turkish military outposts that were operating a road side are also on the outskirts of it live that's very crucial for tokyo this

explains why they have been so the more reinforcement. however if you look at the situation on the ground you have the syrian army sending more troops all the way towards some sort arco and we could potentially move towards must former tennis to move ahead to words to words. and this explains why the turkish army is setting up new outposts in those areas and the turkish military has said its troops that are equipped enough and where the to retaliate of the syrian government decided to go ahead. well health organization is sending an expert team to china next week to help beijing cope with the outbreak of the corona virus more than 720 people have been killed by the virus on the chinese mainland while over 34 and a half 1000 people are so far been infected there was at least 288 cases in 24

other countries the w.h.o. is saying it's fighting not just the virus but also the spread of misinformation elsewhere the minus predeceased misinformation makes the job of our heroine cold workers even harder it's diverting the attention of decision makers and it causes confusion and spreads fear to the general public w.h.o. with not just monthly the virus we also bundling the trolls say and conspired as he could aspire to see to it is just that push misinformation and undermine the outbreak response so elsewhere hong kong has started a 2 week mandatory quarantine for all arrivals from mainland china and then in japan thousands of cruise ships passengers remain in quarantine doctors in the port of yokohama have confirmed 64 cases on board katrina you has the latest now from beijing. the owners of this luxury cruise ship describe it as

a home away from home and for those aboard there's now no choice about 3700 people on the diamond princess are being quarantined for at least 2 weeks off of japan's yokohama push that's after more than 60 tested positive for corona virus. we are all instructed in our own cabin. you know that people from the insurer. and allowed up there on they may have had a chance to interact although they've been instructed me to report from each other so it's hard to read. the mood of the other passengers without a contact with them i see you know some people are very worried on the internet and social media japan is already dealing with cases of the virus and has imposed new border controls to stop it spreading it turned away another cruise ship that had sailed from china. the world health organization says there's no need for alarm

there's over 3700 people in crew and this is after extensive searching for cases and testing and testing of many many people so if i don't get my month's wrong that's that's less than 2 percent of people so. it's still a bad it's not a great number it does show the virus has spread in the ship but again let's be careful here not to overreact the outbreak that began in china has spread to at least 25 countries in kazakhstan there were reports of violence between cars and the ethnic quake moving over fears of coronavirus chinese restaurants and businesses have reportedly been burned down singapore has increased its alert level after new cases of corona virus not linked to previous infections or travel to china put it. people are rushing to supermarkets to stock up on food and essential goods and around the world more people are buying masks and what's called personal protective equipment or people pushing the prices in creating shortages the u.n.

agency says more than 80 percent of coronavirus cases globally reported can be considered mild and is calling for nations to work together to fight the outbreak in ruhani a 2nd emergency hospital with beds for 1600 coronavirus patients has been opened china's president xi jinping has declared what he calls a people's war on the virus saying no effort is being spent in fighting the epidemic. but there is growing criticism of the chinese government's handling of the crisis social media is flooded with complaints and attempts by police and other government officials to nationally cover up the outbreak then silencing the doctors who 1st sounded the alarm for china's leaders this is increasingly a battle on 2 fronts against the virus itself and the discontent it's part katrin e.u. al-jazeera dating or now to libya peace talks between representatives of the country's un recognized government in general have to have ended with no agreement senior officers from the warring sides gavitt u.n. and u.s.

european headquarters in geneva to hold talks in an attempt to ease the hostilities but despite initially showing signs of progress including a possibility of progress on a permanent cease fire neither side was able to reach a settlement the next round of negotiations will be held in just over a week earlier at the african union some in ethiopia us actually general antonio the terrorist criticized other countries for interfering in the libyan conflict your god will be brought example with regards to libya it's evident the crisis has been seriously aggravated by the presence of forces and equipment from many other countries in clear violation of the mandate of the security council i think we have to reestablish the sovereignty of international law and the conditions in which the decisions of the security council could be implemented and that countries should understand that they're engaged to promote certain conflicts only increases the potential for action by terrorist groups let's go to her abdul hamid is engineered

where the talks took place and this round of negotiations of broken down tell us more about what went wrong order. well it was never going to be easy i mean you have 2 sides coming in 2 days in direct talks with deep mistrust between each other on a backdrop of a truce that was brokered early january but had been violated nearly on a daily basis just to give you an indication the u.n. envoy a son salam had said that by january 30th there had been over 100 violations of that truce it was a very already fragile. it was fear on the ground now they came in they were supposed to discuss the technicalities about how to turn that truce into a permanent cease fire they were supposed to talk about what to do with the heavy weapons dissolving of all the armed groups and militias. also the pulling back

of the troops certainly the u.n. internationally recognized government in tripoli has been calling for the troops of have to to pull back to do 3 april 2019 position that means all the way back to being pulling out of south of tripoli pulling out of sirte that is something that general have to has been the former general rather has been saying no to and continue to say no to we don't know much about how did what was going on during those meetings simply because they kept it quite secretive and northpoint did read to reporters see any of these delegations coming in and out of the u.n. building behind us but we do know that there were some points where they didn't see eye to eye and 2 main ones being what to do with the diffusion of these armed groups and pulling pulling out of the declare libyan national army that

needs to go back to the east now the communique that was issued at the end of this round it says that the 2 parties agreed that. thousands of displaced people need to go back to their homes but they also did not agree on ways to bring back some normalcy to those areas that had been evacuated by civilians. and yet despite the failure of these talks there seems to be some commitment to keep going . well you have 3 tracks that are sort of good to be going on at the same time the military track with everybody agrees upon that without a permanent ceasefire it will be very difficult to move forward in the other tracks it could track and there's a big conference starting tomorrow in cairo and actually the u.n. envoy in a sense is supposed to be leaving geneva at any point maybe he's already gone

because he is attending that meeting now libya is in a very dire economic situation a dim omit it relies mainly on oil but at the moment you have the oil fields that are under blockade and production has gone down from 1300100000 barrels a day 272000 barrels a day so the economy is in tatters that is the 2nd track the 3rd track and that will be probably as difficult as the military track is the political one there is a date set for that february 26th but there was also this idea that you needed again that ceasefire to make sure that the political track will start on some sort of more friendly atmosphere if i may use that word so in between all of that the 5 plus 5 military commanders will meet again on february 18th so you have these 3 tracks that should be moving at the same time but if one stumbles then the 2 others

will also stumble thank you very much trying to me to in geneva. it was al jazeera live from london more still ahead coldest continent as its hottest temperature on record. voting ends in a crucial indian state election which is being seen as a referendum on the government's nationalist agenda. when i was minus 8 in moscow it roughly that code has been pushed out of the way it is not like it i know but it is because the active feature now is what's coming through the atlantic and increasingly windy storm bringing gusts of a good 230 kilometers per hour late on sunday nearly a monday of the british isles northern france the low countries in scandinavia that will have to shove davis in cold a bit further east some oscars at minus one on sunday and about 0 on monday does

rain the snows start falling now in turkey that is to affording in the caucasus but look at this storm system will spread rain cloud some snow across most of the temperatures have not dropped fitting they've probably risen 15 degrees you'll notice your honour's february madrid is indeed not warm well by degree maybe darkness you got of europe into north africans things are still quiet here we have got a considerable change in temperature with a northerly breeze through egypt you'll notice temperatures in the teens and in libya the middle teens not only slowly warms up when the wind is quite strong as it comes down through chad a nice that will bring up a lot of dust even a sandstorm the won't so still further west but not quite as extreme as it was dakar is now in the twenty's no longer in the 30s.

performa visionary teacher. al-jazeera world meets the man bringing traditional arabic sounds to a whole new audience being a woman and being american playing at it already is something he'll come in boston to palestine and land it is bad enough as the next generation of musical talent simon shaheen and musical journey on al-jazeera. you're. welcome back a look at the headlines now security forces in thailand have stormed a shopping center after a mass shooting that left at least 2020 people dead

a soldier went on a gun rampage in the city of karachi and is still thought to be inside the building . world health organization is sending an expert team to china next week to help it cope with the outbreak of the corona virus more than 720 people have been killed on the chinese mainland. and turkey has sent hundreds of military vehicles into syria's northwestern edley province and has threatened to attack if syrian government forces dode call back. now to our island voters there accosting their ballots in a general election that could see the biggest change in irish politics for generations a prime minister or t. shirt is facing a major struggle to hold on to power and as paul brennan now reports from the capital dublin it also appears a 3rd force could be emerging in islands traditional 2 party system. the buzzword of this election campaign was change ireland's economy may be the fastest

growing in the e.u. but the people here are struggling with soaring house prices and years long waiting lists for public health care the desire for change is one of the expected to oust the t. shirt leo veronica of the female party who nonetheless put on a brave face as he cast his vote his main challenger me hall martin of pheno for will also try to look relaxed as his calling station in the city of cork but it seems the tide is turning against both the main parties this young person carrying out i have a lot of fears about what the future is going to hold for me with climate change and how that's going to affect my life in the future so i hope that the greens can have a fair amount of say in how ireland shapes the teacher i voted for alternatives. so i don't really want to go independent but basically just some kind of alternative to the status quo to help the press. chin fane is the left

wing nationalist republican party previously regarded as the political wing of the paramilitary group the aisle ray now shedding those associations and remolding itself as a progressive alternative to states very important states and a state that the people are in charge and every single vote counts people have chosen to strike this campaign that they want change nonpolitical factors by also influence the outcome of this election is the 1st saturday poll since 1918 store winds are sweeping across from the west bringing gusts of 120 kilometers an hour slap bang in the middle of a polling day a major rugby international guard so scarce that it gave no it was a perilous morning i got a few jobs on and i got up there about 9 o'clock this morning and have you voted already i don't imagine that gave his more important vote and i'm sorry i can't believe that it was really. but it's important we've often counting of the ballots won't start until sunday morning and the most likely outcome of this election is

a coalition government ition fein chooses to enter that coalition government it would be an extraordinary outcome and could open the door to a referendum for a united ireland and even if the party chooses to stay in opposition the days of 2 party dominance here appear to be well and truly over paul brennan al-jazeera dublin let's get to any of barca who is also following the story from dublin for us so the expectation is that this could be an election that results in quite a dramatic change in the country's political lank landscape me when we start to get some idea of what shape and your government might take. yes and if indeed this is a seismic shift in our lives political landscape we'll get the 1st indications of that when exit polls are released and the polling stations close at 10 pm g.m.t. the count itself doesn't begin until sunday morning it's expected to be

a drawn out somewhat laborious process largely because of the system employed here in ireland it's the only country that uses something called the single transferable vote where voters rank in order of preference different candidates from different political parties so each of those a pile of papers has to be counted multiple times but we will have a rough idea of the result towards the end of the day the count may even go on until the start of the week and if the results confirmed what the opinion polls ahead of the election suggested that shim fein will be making significant gains and possibly entering government for the 1st time than the big question over what configuration of government will take shape really need to start because feet again infin a fall of dominated politics here for generations will they now be prepared to work alongside a political party that in the past they said flatly that they would refuse to work with also what potential role may the smaller political parties and independent

members of parliament play in any future government people looking on at this election whom the outside analysts and political experts are also not ruling out the possibility of having another go if no stable government can be formed any time soon thank you very much for the latest. well millions of people voted in india's capital delhi in a key regional elections there it's being seen as a test for the national government after weeks of often violent protests against a new citizenship law which excludes muslims some of the largest demonstrations were in the capital itself from what elizabeth purana reports determined to have this same millions of india's capital region headed to polling stations after a big campaign. from the very old to 1st time voters they told al jazeera what matters to them i think.

from. talking about an. hour to be promised in that in the audience has bought the a jump the party of b j p have campaigned to end weeks of widespread protests against the citizenship including and the shocking bad neighborhood to be j.p. politicians were banned from campaigning after comparing protesters to rapists and murderers saying the demonstrators were determined to make india a muslim country. another politician said protestors should be shot they were 2 shooting incidents against protesters in one week after those comments were made a b j p election candidate said protest is a disrupting every day life yet every year. on race to know we want peace you

want a harmony because. if that is entirely peace in your city and your country. the 2 time chief minister of delhi arvind kejriwal from the common man party focused its campaign on development education and health care which. i'm hopeful that the delhi public will vote on the work that we've done about the common man party can form the government here for the 3rd time analysts say the alternative could lead to more protests but the fear is that if the b.b. comes to power in delhi the protest and the protests in different parts of the country would be approved so what we are stating at this some. more tension in the coming days so let's see how it plays out. the election result is due to be announced on tuesday that the j.p. hasn't been in power in delhi for 22 years the result will indicate whether its nationalist campaign has paid off or if voters are giving the activist arvind

kejriwal a search term in office elizabeth her on al-jazeera. with its ice and snow antarctica is famed for being the coldest and most inhospitable place in the world but it looks as if the continent has set a new record the reading of $18.00 degrees celsius was taken at an argentine research base and is nearly a full degree warmer than the previous record by a sits on the antarctic peninsula which juts up toward south america it's warm significantly over the past 50 years much faster than the global average causing its western glasses to shrink by 87 percent the record will still need to be verified by the world meteorological organization. it's among the fastest winning regions of the planet we hear a lot about the arctic but you know this particular part of the antarctic can influence is very quickly over the past 50 years it's almost 3 to crease celsius the amount of ice lost annually from the antarctic ice sheet

increased at least 6 fold between 19792070. and there's more of everything right here don't forget you can watch just life streaming at al-jazeera dot com as well. so an update on our breaking news story this hour security forces in thailand have stormed a shopping center after a mass shooting which left at least 20 people dead more than 30 others have been wounded after a soldier went on a gun rampage in the city of karachi the army sergeant then took people hostage in a shopping mall in the city center and he's thought to still be inside but it's not known if there are more people trapped with him wayne hay has been following the story for us it seems like the situation is still happening at more with the gunman somewhere inside there seemingly with several people being held hostage or either

trapped inside parts of the mall over the past few hours what we have seen is the security forces both police and military going inside the mall in quite large numbers to try obviously to find where the gunman is exactly to try to get people out of the more so we have seen many many people is well over the past few hours coming out of that more after being trapped inside there. turkey has sent hundreds of military vehicles into syria's northwest and province and has threatened to attack if syrian government forces don't pull back but it comes as officials from turkey and russia met to discuss fighting in syria's last rebel stronghold both countries support opposing sides in the war. and just a developing story that we've been following for the past hour u.s. and afghan forces of come under attack in eastern afghanistan the soldiers were taking part in a joint operation in nangarhar province when they were engaged by direct fire the

world health organization is sending an expert team to china next week to help beijing cope with the outbreak of the corona virus more than 720 people have been killed by the virus on the chinese mainland and there have been over 34 and a half 1000 confirmed cases elsewhere hong kong has started a 2 week mandatory quarantine for all arrivals from mainland china and peace talks between representatives of libya's un recognized government and general who 5 to have ended without agreement senior officers from the warring sides gathered at the united nations european headquarters in geneva to hold talks in an attempt to ease hostilities. the headlines listening post is out next.

consequences of. oh i can't even i'm not. buying i'm not talking it's a that by putting in these positions i've. got a lot at the top of it not alone richard gaisford in you're at the listening post among the media stories that we're covering this week unrest over a new citizenship law in india are all those news channels out to inform or incite a state of the union divided donald trump on years of controversy of talk radio host media in the middle east and the troubling use of blackface why is it still considered an acceptable form of entertainment. plus the u.k. and the war of words. we want.