country. from passion into transformative science that brings about change al-jazeera goes on a journey with 5 scientists who are determined to use scientific knowledge to serve the human crying when we have dolphins in our sanctuary we can monitor them and record their all the photos and behavior were able to figure out how they're adapting to their new environment women make science coming soon on al-jazeera. musician pro-forma visionary teacher. how does your own world meets the man bringing traditional arabic sounds to a whole new audience being a woman and being american and playing i would it already is something new from boston to palestine the land of use by the nutters the next generation of musical talent simon shaheen their musical journey on al-jazeera.

lulu's. force than sars the corona virus outbreak death toll climbs again. i'm richelle carey this is our just your life and also coming up a tense standoff is over in thailand after a soldier goes on a rampage killing 26 people. stuff with nowhere to go life as a syrian refugee and lebannon gets worse in the dead of winter. pale and male alarm bells are ringing once again over the lack of diversity for this year's academy awards.

and the number of people killed by the corona virus has risen to 813 that is more than during the sars epidemic 17 years ago all but 2 of the deaths are in china where there is growing criticism a shortage of medical supplies and the leadership's handling of this crisis adrian brown is in hong kong with more on the political repercussions. in a national emergency the country's leader is normally front and center not so china's president xi jinping his meeting with the visiting head of the world health organization in late january was 1 of his few recent appearances on state television nightly news we normally features prominently and since demanding a transparent and timely release of information about the coronavirus more than 2 weeks ago he's yet to visit. instead he sent the premier league chung to test the temperature and encourage medical workers. one analyst says there's perhaps a good reason for the president's disappearing act if things turn that. thing the

onus will be young young. so in a way seeing thing is protect himself from being too much exposed by that crisis it's almost 2 years since she was appointed president for another 5 years that was after china's parliament voted to abolish the 2 term limit on the presidency effectively allowing she to remain in office for life for president she this crisis is much bigger than the young going protests here in hong kong or trade friction with the united states because the way his government has responded to the coronavirus outbreak is causing more and more people on the mainland to openly question the system they live under. many chinese people feel that core values like family livelihood and food security and now under attack threatening she's credibility and legitimacy especially if the virus becomes pandemic so i don't

think this is as bad as that at the moment. he's got no real competition you know he's secure. but if this sort of crisis deepens and there's becoming a pandemic of course the political consequences could be devastating. a maybe evil style virus is threatening china's city of the future but 17 years ago i reported from shanghai on the aftermath of another deadly virus sars that also caused people to question their faith in the party after officials admitted a cover up a local colleague to help navigate me around a popular chat room be internet in china was still in its infancy then as now though public skepticism ran deep. no tell the truth he says the government here doesn't overthrew. their own more expressions of anger

today in spite of tighter internet censorship lessons that should have been learned from sars haven't proved once more the china remains vulnerable to disease but the beginning of the cries of china was boasting i mean the media were boasting about the how much the chinese well the legal system could better fave the crisis manager crisis and solve the crisis. he said it's hard to imagine the crisis threatening she survival because unlike 17 years ago china's security machine is much bigger and better able to maintain control adrian brown al-jazeera hong kong. and katrina is live for us in beijing so katrina when we spoke yesterday we talked about house there was an element of fear and frustration that people were feeling how is that developed in the last 24 hours as these numbers continue to go up.

that's right so we have more than 37000 cases as we just heard more than 800 deaths more than from sars so people are becoming increasingly frustrated and increasingly vocal in their criticisms people say that the government were too slow to act at the beginning to too slow to contain the virus and there are also some skepticism about the numbers that keep coming out the people are questioning the accuracy of some of these numbers there has been also some backlash from the death of a doctor who's been referred to some as some by some as a hero doctor dr levy when leon who passed away from the coronavirus last week now he was one of the 1st to try to sound the alarm over the virus in early january and was punished for spreading rumors for doing so and just this weekend there was a post circulated a letter signed by 10 academics and hahn demanding that he be made a national martyr and demanding more freedom of speech so the government is really ramping up censorship to try to control it control any criticisms control the

spreading of any discontent and we've also seen the the detention or the arrest of a citizen journalist chen cho sure now he was posting some video some disturbing footage from hospitals inside of one han and he hasn't been heard of heard from since thursday and there are some rumors that he's been detained officially for 4 for sort of cornered fears that he might officially have the virus but others are saying that's because of the message that he was trying to spread and how he was trying to expose what was happening inside who hands are these of exteriorly tense times 50000000 people remain under lockdown in wuhan and surrounding cities but of course this question is affecting the whole of china cities like beijing and shanghai are relative ghost towns at the moment restaurants shops many businesses remain closed and tomorrow actually breed 10 is the official end of the lunar new year period which was extended because of the coronavirus many government offices

are supposed to be open but we suspect that many private businesses because of the fear around the coronavirus will still remain closed for some days if not weeks to come ok katrina you live for us in beijing katrina thank you. security forces in thailand have killed a soldier after he went on a shooting spree at a military base and held hostages in a shopping mall 26 people are confirmed dead and the north a city. where he'll mohammed reports. late on a saturday afternoon a shopping mall in thailand to came under attack a gunman opens fire at a time when it would have been at its busiest. here he can be seen firing multiple rounds towards people and passing cars. people found would have a cover they could after he entered the terminal $21.00 mall in a con leche a sema also known as karate panic shop has run out their day out coming to

a terrifying and this was a heavily armed gunman seeming to walk casually through the mall identified by police as tama a 32 year old soldier in the thai army he began his rampage i was earlier by killing a commanding officer on a military base outside the city as he continued his murderous attack he posted updates on social media including this one where he's complaining to his finger was sore from pulling the trigger so many times others remain trapped inside hiding in stairwells and cardinals trying to find a way out gunfire rang out told dawn with reports of a rising death toll police closed off streets around the mall and kept journalists behind a security cordon. high security services soon stormed the ground floor of the mall where the gunman held out after 18 hours the terror came to an end as police made

their way out of the building with ambulances on standby. the. start of this rampage. was really really trained soldier he. was fully armed not just normally are but fully armed by by robbing a nation development with $700.00 rounds of ammunition. at the same time when he went to that mall there were a 1000 people in there so i thought i thought that the type of carefulness that that security force or there were and picked the right timing to as i'm surely 2 to deal with this this this this shooting gun violence is common in this country but not on this scale while authorities will begin to investigate the motives behind the shooting this will be remembered as one of thailand's darkest days for

him mohammed al jazeera. has in bangkok with more on what authorities have said about a shooter's possible motive. other than a few vague comments about some sort of property dispute between him and somebody else possibly it is only speculation but possibly the 1st victim of his violence which was his commanding officer who he shot and killed at around 3 o'clock on saturday afternoon but again no real details about that we've had a media conference from thailand's prime minister general. and he also made reference to the fact that it may have been some sort of property dispute which led to him carrying this out but clearly what may have been a personal grievance in that 1st incident on 7 day off the moon certainly escalated in some into something much more sinister and horrific and exactly why he decided to go to that shopping mall killing so many innocent bystanders is unclear and we

may not know for some time exactly why did that after the 1st shooting incident where he shot his commanding officer and one other he went to a weapons depot on a military base about 20 kilometers outside the city center of not. where that shopping mall is located the prime minister again in that media conference was asked some questions about how he was able to get inside the weapons and ammunition depôt to get the guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition the prime minister reacted angrily saying that there was no security issue on that particular base and he said that the gunman shot and killed the security guard at that weapons depot again minutes killed 2 u.s. soldiers and wounded 6 others in eastern afghanistan u.s. commanders say the attacker wore an afghan army uniform when he fired on a joint operation with local troops a number heart problem. polls open in cameroons long delayed local and legislative

elections the vote has worried people an angle file regions who have suffered violence and want independence after more than 2 years of conflict with the cameroon army english speaking groups have called for a boycott of the polls annual african union summit is underway in ethiopia leaders from 55 african countries are set for 2 days of talks you can see there gathered in the room there pretty high on the agenda is how to stop the fighting in libya and also violence in this to hell region as well as the continent's economies our correspondent in the ethiopian capital. is in the room ready to go welcome so give us a preview. the heads of state have just walked into the auditorium that's the big round room there and the anthem is being sung right now as i speak that's the beginning of the opening ceremony of the summit and the theme is silencing the guns now that was a statement of intent written by the african union 7 years ago and the idea at the

time that was by this 2020 guns would be silenced africa's conflicts would be resolved that hasn't happened and one of them as you mentioned is libya where peace has been good to be in but little progress with peace talks and it's something that the african union as in recent weeks been expressing a desire to be more involved but one of the key challenges for being involved is the role of foreign powers from outside the continent in that conflict turkey for example to send soldiers to support the. nationally recognized government in tripoli russia egypt and the united arab emirates all accused of supporting the forces of general khalifa haftar asked there's only so much that africa can do when the so many other foreign powers vying for libya's oil wealth has the largest oil reserves in the whole continent another area where they've been criticized for not taking enough of a role is in cameroon where

a conflict between the government and rebels who are connected to. from the english speaking minority has dragged on for several years both sides but in particular the government accused of grave human rights abuses and international rights activists and cameroonian activists been complaining that the african union has been too soft on the government of president paul beer but they have had success in the last african union was credited with staving off violence in sudan last year when protesters were killed in demonstrations broken up by the army african union suspended sudan's membership temporarily and is credited with preventing that violence from escalating ok the latest there from the african union summit thank you. still ahead on al-jazeera ireland appears on the brink of a political shift after saturday's general election.

how i once again welcome to look at the international fall cause we got a few showers now pushing into parts of vietnam some showers today just sliding across the philippines but the west the weather was going to drive its way down into. the part of malaysia saying some see the northeast the winds pushing those showers in across parts of southern thailand into malaysia and some really heavy right also on the cards for indonesia over the next couple of days and even popular new guinea will see some larvae down polls as we go through the next diodes of course they say some very lively downpours into the eastern side of australia along with the northwest and over here we do have what remains of trouble side plain to me and that's going to continue making its way further south which as we go on

through the next few days eventually raining out in the process but this is the same across parts of western australia as damian has pushed its way further southwards into the state on the other side of the country this is sydney we see some really heavy rainfall here as well some damaging winds high surf as well off the coast of australia new south wales of queensland but a lot of the showers there set to continue still driving in the cross at a societal account tree eventually it'll turn a little dry as we go on through the remainder of the week. but. big stories generally found to have line the media angles in this story are too numerous for conflict with different angles from different perspectives things going to really be believed deep for a moment in the war to. separate the screen from the facts the misinformation from the genocide this is clear and sounds to. hear people who think that we've

the listening post on out 0. they're watching out just there let's recap the top stories right now the death toll from the corona virus has risen to 813 and that's now more than the number of people killed in the 2003 sars outbreak nearly all the deaths have been in china's hu a province where there is a shortage of beds and medical supplies a soldier has been shot dead by security forces in thailand 18 hours after he killed at least 26 people in a shooting rampage it's believed he may have been motivated by

a belief that he had been cheated and a land deal. and well african union summit is underway and ethiopia live pictures right there high on the agenda is how to stop fighting in libya and it's a hell region as well as growing the continent's economy needs. counting from saturday's general election in ireland has just begun with the expected results to cause a major political shift exit polls show the republican party in a tie with the 2 center right parties that have dominated irish politics for a decades but the ruling fianna gael in and. they all are both ruling out ruling out a coalition pardon me wish and faint so you parker can explain this from dublin much better than i can answer name what is the latest on the vote counting getting underway. as you can see it is on the way it started about a half an hour or so ago these people behind me up against the royal observers to make sure that things are going according to plan it is expected to be

a very long drawn out very laborious process largely because of the system of seeing that is employed here or not and it's cool the single transferable vote is ranking order of preference different candidates from different political parties as you mentioned we have the results of the exit polls it's the 1st time the left wing. republican party shouldn't frame economic with those 2 centrist policies female and female for who have dominated politics here in ireland for generations so if the exit polls are indeed true then this is going to be very much a major political upset the question is whether when it comes to the difficult process of coalition buildings these 2 traditional parties are prepared to peel off potentially work with shin fein and that would mean she remains possibly entering government for the 1st time or will she inflame look to some of the smaller parties of the political left to form alliances what this system of voting means is that

we'll have a sense of what people 2nd and 3rd place choices are not will be crucial in understanding what people's small voting intentions are. all right and they have barker with the latest there from the thank you syrian regime forces have taken control of several villages in the northwest the soldiers are advancing in the southern part of aleppo province along 2 major highways it then said could open up a direct route to rubble held areas and western and land aleppo that is that. has monitoring the situation for us from istanbul so tell us what these latest moves and ships are. well russia now with the syrian with the turkish army sending more reinforcements to the. must. as. we have. in the syrian government seems to be now shifting tactic and aiming for the southern more the outskirts of. and his been pounding rebel

strongholds and pushing the rebels from those areas he seems to be willing in this time to further expand influence on those areas and to push all the rebels along with the civilians to go to. province and i think ultimately if you see what's going on on the ground it's now about the need to come up to the strategic highways and $4.00 and $5.00 those 2 highways are crucial for with the rebels but also vital for government troops they could have more reinforcement supply of logistics of convoys to continue the fight is also crucial for the rebels because if they lose him for the info they will be completely isolate isolated and confined to one particular area. which is about wishes from all the way to live it seems that the syrian government is

a mean to put more pressure on the rebels and on civilians to evac away those areas and move to the border with turkey. with the latest air. thank you. snow has arrived in lebanon and now is making life harder for the hundreds of thousands of syrian refugees living in the bekaa valley and with the country's economy in crisis so local people are blaming the refugees for making it worse sarkar it has us report. complex and. the syrian refugees living here have been forced to stay in these makeshift tents. but the plastic tarp pooling offers little respite from the snow rain and strong winds. with very few possessions children aren't even wearing socks and some of the refugees have resorted to burning nappies to keep warm they can't afford fuel and would the lebanese government won't allow them to build solid structures sending

a clear message there only to stay in lebanon temporarily new repatriation cross demanding displaced people return to safer areas is expected to be voted in this week as part of the government's policy statement some of the syrian refugees that we've been speaking to have told us that they would actually prefer to die than live in these horrific conditions it's a bitter winter things are getting harder and tougher by the day for them in lebanon especially is going through an economic crisis which has affected the lebanese as much as it has affected syrian refugees in another camp further down the road a woman asked the seller if she can buy eggs and pay at a later date she says she has no money. for the war. there are nearly $1000000.00 registered syrian refugees in lebanon and 3 quarters of them live below the poverty line on around $3.00 a day. since protests started in october of the economic crisis inflation rates

have gone up across the country and they're struggling to buy basics for the people who work hard enough to give me cloth a blanket and fuel to keep me warm other than that i have nothing just under half of the syrian refugees are relying on cash assistance from aid agencies but the financial downturn has meant restrictions on bank withdrawals so funds aren't always available making it more difficult for some to cash their monthly allowance . feeder in hammy's from wroclaw fled the syrian war 6 years ago when our husband and 2 of the sons were killed. she lives here with her family but it's been difficult even though they're safer now. and there were a lot and taking care of my orphaned grandchildren and a little field we have to keep us warm is running out what the weather is called i can barely cover their expenses on saturday president michelle on said international assistance is needed in exchange for the billions of dollars it has

spent on giving syrians refuge and there is rising hostility towards refugees here they're often blamed for making lebanon's economic crisis worse all this making their suffering increased by the day sort of al-jazeera because our valley. pakistan's prime minister has declared a national emergency after billions of locusts have a state of farming communities in the east and sacks of rabbits caught and maize crops raising fears of food shortages the government says this is the worst locusts and station and more than 2 decades other swarms are also destroying crops and east africa or has more from there it's now caught in the khyber attempt. an emergency has been declared the district administration the agriculture department a plan protection department are all busy had dried to can be warm we have the deputy commissioner of the icon who was leading the campaign against the

war and we talked to him about what steps are being taken to try to ease the situation we have encountered in this situation a couple of weeks back but look you leave god the dykey alert and we just go off today and you have got you projected that we consider the front player the front line of before the locusts and i must acknowledge by. the security culture and security levy has given us a great school we have. a manual operation and then we go for the motorized operations then we feel that they should be out of the box solution for this emergency situation so we go for the drone solution as well. deforestation in brazil's amazon rainforest doubled in january compared to a year ago that's according to government data that shows more than 280 square kilometers of land were destroyed last month destruction of the rainforest by

cattle ranchers tends to slow it this time of year as the rainy season limits their access. to. the 92nd academy award ceremony will take place later on sunday and this year a lack of racial and gender diversity in the nominations has caused an outcry it's a reminder of 20152016 when the hash tag oscar so white was trending on twitter robber and also port some los angeles i don't know if you know how extraordinary the scene were not for cynthia air of those nomination for best actress in harriet the oscar acting nominations this year would have been white it's an embarrassing outcome for the academy of motion picture arts and sciences which is troy for several years to expand and diversify its overwhelmingly white older male membership you know hollywood is trying to diversify but it's slower than it should be and that's part of the nature of the film business film the film is very

cautious because in television they take a lot more chances with things and so and so you see a lot more diversity in television and the emmy awards and the the oscars are still on diverse actors of color who were left out this year include phina in the farewell jennifer lopez in hostler's lupita in young go. eddie murphy in it is my name. and so on kong hole in parasite. pub i'm. going to go it's a sharp contrast to 2019 when out of the 4 acting awards only one went to a white person ali would also has a serious gender gap the nominees for best director are all. male female directors passed over include gretta gerwig for little women and little weighing for the farewell in 90 plus years of oscars just one woman has ever won best director

i think all women directors being hired for preacher films was about 6 percent 10 years ago and i think it's about 6.5 percent now so it's like i mean it's ended up but not much it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because there haven't been any in the past there aren't many being hired today and you know again it's because i think the studios are very conservative and cautious financially cautious while the academy struggles with diversity the companies that make films in the way people watch them are changing rapidly streaming services are steadily taking the lead in hollywood's most prestigious event netflix has garnered $24.00 oscar nominations including 2 for best picture with marriage story and the irishman the stage is set for hollywood's biggest night but there will be fewer awards for an industry slow to embrace

diversity robert oulds al-jazeera los angeles. our web site is out to sarah dot com to take a look when you get a moment or 2 but here we have an update of the headlines for you in just a moment. i'm richelle carey these are the headlines right now on al-jazeera the death toll from the corona virus has risen to 813 that's now more than the number of people killed in the 2003 sars outbreak and the all the deaths have been in china's hu a province where there's a shortage of beds and medical supplies to train you has more from beijing. this is really a battle for the government on 2 fronts a battle against the virus but also a battle to maintain their credibility i think there's been a lot of criticism about the chinese government's handling of this that they should've reacted sooner so what we've seen in response in recent days is almost

war time like measures so we've had 2 hospitals go up in a matter of 10 to 12 days in the city of one and surrounding cities stadiums schools other government buildings and holes have been turned into makeshift quarantine centers and this is a live scene here this is a cruise ship that is in hong kong that ship has been under quarantine but really at any moment now we're told that passengers will begin walking off of that cruise ship or we'll keep you posted a soldier has been shot dead by security forces in thailand 18 hours after he killed 26 people in a shooting rampage it's believed he may have been motivated by a belief that he had been cheated in a land deal then all african union summit is underway in ethiopia leaders from 55 african countries are set for 2 days of talks are on the agenda is how to stop fighting in libya and the sahara region as well as growing the continent's economy and we think what you were just saying a moment ago is the vote counting that is underway and saturday's general election

in ireland results are expected to cause a major political change exit polls show the republican party champagne is in a tie with the 2 center right parties that have dominated irish politics for decades but the ruling in a gale and the fianna fail or both ruling out any type of coalition which in fame syrian regime forces have taken control of several villages in the north west the soldiers are advancing in the southern part of aleppo province along 2 major highways offensive that opened up a direct route to rubble held areas western aleppo and it led. those are the headlines keep it here on al-jazeera up next al-jazeera rewind inside myanmar the crackdown.

al-jazeera. hello and welcome to rewind here at the halls museum of islamic well the 1st story as we covered it was the main mall government's brutal crackdown on peacefully protesting monks news reaching the outside world was guest spots al-jazeera correspondent tony was able to.