we don't want to be set realistic in the world we would rather have a fantasy. on al-jazeera. nearly 5000 new cases of corona virus at the epicenter of china's outbreak doctors they're trying new methods to detect the fires. you're watching on 20 live from a headquarters in doha and also ahead taking aim at donald trump's ability to launch an attack on iran the u.s. senate passes a war powers law forcing him to ask for approval. and a cabinet shakeup in the u.k. the finance minister quits in a shock move in prime minister boris johnson fires several ministers. of firsts for

antarctica temperatures hit a record high adding to a growing fears about global warming. hello for the 2nd day in a row the number of coronavirus cases has now surged in the chinese province at the heart of the outbreak officials in who base a nearly 5000 new infections were confirmed on thursday and the rest of china reported fewer than 300 new cases who they also had a 160 more deaths on thursday the new cases had served by almost 15000 on wednesday after doctors and who changed the method of testing for the onus. and passengers from a cruise ship turned away by 4 countries because of coronavirus fears have now finally been allowed off the prime minister in cambodia presented flowers to the 1st people

to leave the m.s. western it arrived there on wednesday but the 2000 passengers and crew stayed on board until any cases of the virus had been ruled out so when they will join us from cambodia in a moments we'll speak to him on that cruise ship but 1st let's get more details on the new deaths in cases from christina you who's joining us from beijing so cases jumping once again christine on the government's also starting a new form of treatments talk to us about these 2 things. that's right so the chinese authorities here have said that this is a pivotal week and trying to tackle this outbreak so what we saw was a huge jump in cases we had 5000 case in the last 24 hours adding to 15000 which were noted on wednesday and the reason for this is that the government has said that they're expanding the way that the that doctors can diagnose these cases they don't have to stick to using one single testing kit they can on now use things like

lung x. rays c.t. scans to confirm this so they giving them more flexibility the government has also seemed to flag a new form of treatment for this so one hospital in one city is telling recovered patients to actually come back and as much as possible to donate blood and this is because doctors in this hospital have said that their particular antibodies in the blood of recovered patients that is effective in helping to treat current patients of this new coronavirus now we don't know how widespread this new treatment is being used but it's something that's been reported widely here and it's given seems to be giving hope to people at least in who a province the prior sheaffer the government now seems to be getting as many people from suspected list of cases into the confirmed list and the continuing to do other things like also offering incentives to people who have symptoms that actually given them like about $150.00 to come into the hospital and get tested so we have

to also remember despite this massive increase in case numbers the world health organization has said that it all seems to be following the sim a similar trajectory we haven't seen any major change in the how the outbreak is the hating the current virus is behaving so you know but here's the thing i mean the government in china has come under criticism for its handling of the crisis ever since the beginning yet it seems as these numbers increase so does government censorship. that's right so we have to remember that it is quite in line with the evils of the chinese government to try to control the narrative and that is exactly the same with this outbreak on one hand they're trying to fight this outbreak and at the same time they want to actually now this week especially convince people that it's safe enough to go back to work so what we've seen is a bit of a p.r. blitz so a lot of positive messaging and state media images of people from all over china in the military being flown into. new hospitals being built very quickly the

government wants to sort of project this message that all that can be done is being done another thing that they're trying to get to persuade the people of is that it is now safe enough to come out of the outside if you're a safe enough to come out of your house and go back to work the government is very concerned about the economic impact of this outbreak we have to remember that this virus is essentially brought the country to a standstill businesses and factories have been closed and it's been very slow going in terms of getting those reopening again so what the government is doing is is really clamping down on social media content down on any criticism scrapping the internet closing any accounts which are doing 2 things spring negative images of what's happening in the bay and also any criticism of the government because we have to remember that this has been a huge cause of public outcry here and here in china people believe that the government dropped the ball and that information was not spread soon enough and the government mr critical window where they could have prevented this outbreak going

into the scale it has so there's also been a lot of anger here in china during katrina thank you for giving us that update from beijing bring in wayne he's joining us from new girl that's in cambodia and as we're seeing passengers on board that cruise ship shunned by 4 countries now the some barking where you are what are they saying about their ordeal and what are officials in cambodia saying about coronavirus fears. well there's a lot of relief as you can imagine from the passengers and crew on board the ship for 2 weeks they were at sea cruising around asia trying to find a port to call in to when all those other governments in port said no cambodia yes so on thursday evening it was finally able to tie up here at the port in sihanoukville and 1st thing friday morning the 1st of those passengers came off here there was jubilation not just from those passengers who were lucky enough to be among the 1st group but also the hundreds more who lined the decks of the ship to say goodbye to them of course they were. they cheered as the cambodian prime

minister hun sen came here to welcome the ship in he spoke to the crowd here spoke to those who were lucky enough to be the 1st to disembark the ship at any again so to allay concerns about the virus he's really done that from day one of the outbreak here in cambodia tried to downplay the threats that it may cause and he did that again in his speech saying that cambodians shouldn't be worried about coronavirus welcome the ship again and he said that even if they were a positive cases all of the virus on board the ship he still would have welcomed it to dock here in sihanoukville and he would have tried to get those affected patients off the ship as quickly as possible so they wouldn't be uncomfortable on the ship so that's been a common theme over the past few days after it was confirmed that the government would allow this ship to tie up here all right thank you for that update. now the u.s. senate has voted to limit president donald trump's ability to go it at it alone and

launch war with iran the move to reduce his presidential powers was backed by 8 members of his own republican party the war powers resolution means trump would have to seek congressional approval to launch any future strikes it was prompted by the assassination of the iranian military commander a qassam still a money in a u.s. strike last month which led to a counter strike on u.s. soldiers trump is expected to veto the measure shihab rattansi is in washington with more on the political motives behind that votes. multiple presidents of trampled over what the framers were very clear about that it's congress's role to declare war on a different country and the way the presidents have tried to get out of it so yeah but these are military excursions incursions but actually was president obama very big on all of this 2011 libya. congressional approval went in democrats grumbled a bit republicans grumbling but they did nothing they didn't do anything like this

for example of course president obama also always using the authorization for use of military force passed after 911 the 2 and you have to go into 100 countries the military footprint to bomb all sorts of all sorts of people who groups the dream exist after 911 so this has been going on for some time now and it's only the democrats rediscover their constitution and they're saying that enough is enough and they were joined by some republicans republicans who have various motives as well in that some of them were just simply rather annoyed by the briefing they got after the assassination of general sort of just too dismissive of the constitutional niceties they felt the white house should have at least paid lip service to but there are always a libertarian side who say look these endless wars have to stop in fact you could ask why more republicans didn't vote for this given the opinion polls have been clear for years that's why don't tread on this bipartisan majority say we've got to bring our troops back from at least we can't have any more war. melanie sloan is

a former federal prosecutor and partner at the public affairs firm summer strategies and she says although trump is expected to veto the resolution his foreign policy will be closely scrutinized because this is an election year. i think presidents have ignored the war powers act and periodically you hear members of congress upset about it and there has been this great expansion of executive power over the years but i think the country is feeling very tired of the endless wars in the middle east and obviously mr trump ran on that so. too i think not only democrats but some members some members of his own party when he made the strike on iran potentially bringing us into a greater conflict with the middle east republicans really crossed president trump at their peril as they are it and he has been very clear that you expect people to be in lockstep and you will go after members of his own party in an incredibly tough fashion so i think the only reason that so many of his members were willing

to cross him on this i was because americans don't pay that close attention to foreign policy sadly so when they're not as worried that trouble you know we need to call him call them out or that americans will be closely following this vote. in the full contest for president because as we have heard while president trump previously said no americans were injured in all of this now we've learned that at least 100 members of the our forces are suffering some kind of traumatic brain injury so you can expect that that will be brought back when you get to the debate in iraq airbase in kirk who province where u.s. troops are stationed has been targeted in another rocket attack there been no reports of any casualties a previous attack on the same base in december killed a u.s. contractor triggering a chain of events that caused regional tensions to soar the attack was blamed on the qatar of hezbollah group and let's a retaliatory u.s. strikes that killed their reigning commander qassam so many are about the sun is in

baghdad with more on what could follow this latest attack. the next question that we're all really asking though is how is the u.s. going to respond to this latest incident well since that attack in december there have actually been several rocket attacks many of which have happened here in baghdad but the u.s. has not responded principally we understand because nobody has been injured and there has been very little damage but it is significant that this is coming towards the end of the mourning period for some silly money and there are still many of the his followers here in iraq in excuse me in iraq but also those members of the popular mobilization forces as well all of whom are determined to get foreign particularly u.s. troops out of iraq who saying that they did the like the killing of customs of the money has not yet been avenged and that further attacks will should take place of

course no information is given about what those attacks are likely to be or planned but there's another section which is saying well actually the fact that iran carried out a rocket attack on the al assad base here in iraq was enough to avenge the death of a custom sort of money and there they are happier for a diplomatic a government process to be gone through in an effort to try to find a diplomatic solution to moving the foreign troops out of iraq still had on al jazeera. the. destruction in south africa's parliament during the president's state of the nation speech find out what the commotion was all about what's coming up in a moment and sidelines why a record number of reformists in iran are blocked from running in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

hello again let's start in northeastern parts of asia where we've had one weather system moving its way across japan another one coming out of the eastern side of china and that's going to run up towards japan over next 24 hours so far south of japan like to see cloudy conditions with a threat of showers we've also got more heavy rain pushing in for southeastern parts of china so expect some heavy showers there affect in taipei and also hong kong as i move the forecast sequence on this further rain across southern parts of china more and pushing up to southern parts of japan some it looks to be fairly heavy but it should remain largely dry there for tokyo highs of 70 and some rain affecting northern parts of the korean peninsula so any further south in so weather conditions expected to remain dry and fine into southeast asia here you've got the usual rush of shout you see the thunderstorms and picked up there in yellow we're

expecting more storms as you'd expect at this time of the year across borders in particular it's looking pretty unsettled with some heavy showers likely to be wet some big downpours expected here possibly some localized flooding not continues as we head on through into saturday as for the indian sub continent weather conditions here looking largely draw and fine expect to stay that way where we may see one or 2 showers affecting sri lanka during the course of the day. the plundering of armenia's natural riches has uprooted residence and desecrated the habitat of some of europe's most inventors species. but the remarkable campaign by local residents is challenging the might of the country's investors and pretty high hopes on its newly elected prime minister people in power investigates armenia

mining out the left. on a jersey. hello again the top stories on al-jazeera chinese health authorities have confirmed nearly 5000 nuke coronavirus cases in who province that's the epicenter of the virus they also announced 116 more deaths in the region on thursday. the u.s. senate has passed legislation requiring the president to seek congressional approval for any future strikes on iran 8 republican senators backed the resolution which was prompted by the assassination of a top iranian military commander a possum soleimani and a u.s.

strike last one. iraq that has hidden iraqi air base in kirkwood province where u.s. troops are stationed there but no reports of any casualties the previous attack on the same base in december killed a u.s. contractor triggering a chain of events that caused regional tensions to escalate. since december more than 800000 syrians have fled their homes in edler province that's the last remaining rebel held area and the u.n. says the majority of them are women and children they've ended up in displacement camps near the turkish border the conditions are desperate as the cold winter weather sets in and storms blanket the area with snow relief workers say 10 children have died in the last week alone. so much you know if you go about there are 10 to 7 families living in tents things are stealing cause we don't have good the situation is very difficult it's impossible for anyone to rent

a home. over the situation here is very difficult as you can see nothing in the temperature is below 0 you can see it so we are staying in a tent because different cost $100.00 or $200.00 and there is a lot of displacement going on now civilians remain in harm's way as hostilities are continuing it live and aleppo reports from the ground indicate the thousands of civilians are on the move from around the m 5 highway with most people moving further north and northwest towards the turkey syria border inclement weather including snow fall is excess abating the situation the coldest continent on the planet has just had its hottest day the temperature in antarctica hit 20.75 degrees celsius the recording was taken at say more island by a team of brazilian scientists it follows a high of 18.3 degrees that was last week and activists fear the rising

temperatures in antarctica will contribute to an even faster rise in the global sea levels than previously thought tim naish is a glaciologist and director of the antarctic research center a victorian university in wellington he says the recent temperature records are not surprising. 2019 was the 2nd warmest year on record and previous record holder was 2017 so we're seeing each year be at least as will or even warmer so it doesn't surprise me at all that we're seeing january as one of the will miss mansel they will this month on record we're already seeing some pretty significant impacts on antarctica we know that the ice sheet is beginning to lose mass that it's me means it's noting and that no water is contributing to suitable rise and it's doing that with an external writing right and we expect that to continue antarctic peninsula or itself has always been

a hot spot it's experience more warming than anywhere else on the antarctic and we see big changes they have we're seeing new species coming from south america that never have lived in antarctica so it's seeing invasions of spaces we're seeing loss of habitat loss of sea ice. for opinions. but this is really just a small window into much greater china now it will ultimately come for antarctica and will lead to significant civil rot is at the moment the science predicts that we could get up to a meter of suitable rise by 2100. the u.k.'s finance minister has abruptly resigned just a month before he was to deliver britain's annual budget statement sajid javid stepped down after prime minister boris johnson said he could only keep his job if he fired his close aides he said no self respecting minister could accept what the

prime minister was demanding economists say johnson will now be free to launch more aggressive efforts to support the british economy while japanese resignation was part of a wider cabinet reshuffle which also saw the departure of the man who helped restore power sharing to northern ireland after 3 years of deadlock julian smith the northern ireland secretary was one of 5 ministers sacked by the prime minister or a challenge has more from london. so what i had been anticipated to be a pretty mundane cabinet reshuffle had his doors run completely off by the shock resignation of the chancellor although there have been differences between him and the prime minister particularly over boris johnson's plans to increase government spending so it was expected that javid would keep his position but that was until number 10 gave him hold is to essentially suck his team of advisors and accept a new team appointed mostly by number 10 itself this amounts basically to

a power grab on treasury autonomy and let's listen now to what such a job would have to say about that the conditions that were attached was a requirement that to replace all my political advisors you know these are people that have worked incredibly hard on behalf of not just the government but the whole country did a fantastic job i was unable to accept those conditions i don't believe any self respecting minister would accept such conditions and so therefore i thought the best thing to do was to go his replacement is richie soon aka 39 year old relative novice a breakfast and a johnson loyalist he is unlikely to give too much trouble to boris johnson and his team but he. takes this position at a very tricky time in the united kingdom is just a month away from a budget that the he has to deliver and then of course there he's the very difficult negotiation period on what the u.k.'s new relationship is going to be with the european union and the rest of the world to bret's it south africa's

president has used his state of the nation address to defend his record on the economy. i the opposition party repeatedly disrupted the speech when it resumed cyril ramaphosa college more needs to be done to kickstart the stalling economy and he blamed widespread power shortages for sluggish growth and admitted debt was reaching unsustainable levels. our country is facing a stark reality. the economy has not grown at any meaningful rate for over a decade even as jobs are created that rate of unemployment continues to deepen we need still fix our public finances. no levers of growth means that we are not to

generate enough revenue to meet our expenses our debt is heading to was unsustainable levels. al jazeera from mr miller is in johannesburg and she says the president outlined options to deal with the country's energy issues now the president when he finally was able to begin that address did say that what's referred to as a low trading in south africa these power cuts these rolling blackouts would indeed continue and this of course wouldn't be you know of any consolation to investors and businesses in this country who are already struggling with the unemployment rate is at 29 point one percent so the president did say these rollouts blackouts would continue but they would also allow room for the use of independent power producers and speeding up licensing and regulations easing to allow for there being options for energy production in south africa but just going back to the economic

freedom fighters these addressed by the president was delayed by almost an hour and a half that's the extent of the disruptions at the time the economic freedom fighters 1st saying that they wanted the removal of the former president f.w. de klerk from the sitting of the 2 houses of parliament in that he was an apartheid apologist iran has unveiled a list of approved candidates allowed to run in next week's parliamentary elections many moderates and reformist candidates were disqualified the guardian council which oversees the approvals is historically dominated by ultra conservatives so big reports from to run. 290 seats over 7000 candidates campaigning has officially started but the attention has not been on the candidate standing but those disqualified from taking part by iran's guardian council the constitutional body that oversees the parliamentary elections and claims that the disqualifications have been politically motivated. i deny this the guardian council

has the judy to verify the qualification of candidates in the council has never had a politico. you over them those who have not been approved can come to us to see the issue in their cases many of those disqualified are politicians linked to the iranian reformist movement one of those who standing again is reformist candidate mousavi. it was an unfortunate event some of our colleagues and friends from the past 4 years who have been cooperating with us were not given the chance to run in elections some of them have been treated unfairly but on the streets it's hard to tell there's an election taking place although campaigning has officially started for now iran's capital isn't showing signs that it's an election moved yet here in one of the city's central squares there's no banners no posters and no country that's kind of the lack of interest has been blamed on the current economic situation last november so widespread protests against the fuel price increase

other areas of the economy are reeling under punitive u.s. sanctions politicians are trying to relate to people's economic woes. i am aware of the difficult situation and economic hardship that today parts versus idea of struggling with the past to change this condition is neither silence nor staying away from voting we should come together to the center of events to be able to trigger change there's been called by some to boycott the elections while leaders of people to come out to vote a good turnout will give legitimacy to the iranian political establishment something iran wants to use to silence its western and domestic critics aside big al jazeera that are on. a free phone application is being credited for helping find 4 people who were rescued from a blizzard on scotland's highest mountain earlier this week it's called what 3 words a new system to identify people's exact locations just the baldwin reports from pembury england. a rescue drill on the river

tease the cleveland fire brigade are called out frequently by people stranded on boats or in trouble in the water time is critical but the river tease is more than 135 kilometers long. and when a call comes in it's not always clear where the people are who need rescuing or for the control of it ask them if that a mobile phone on them and who doesn't know what is literally asked them can you just please download this app and tell us what the 3 way it say those 3 words identified an area on the river behind me called whole ship and so that meant from time of cold download in the app to rescue was about 11 minutes and that is fantastic what 3 words is a free app on your phone the company is divided up the globe into 3 meter squares each specific location is then given 3 random words purple nightingale jumping could be the front door of your house it's an updated laundry tootin latitude

system for a voice activated world and it's in 40 languages they make money by licensing the technology to companies like delivery services or car manufacturers the idea came out of a musician's frustration chris sheldrick spent hours lugging guitars amplifiers microphones around festivals searching for the right stage or entry gate we've written a mathematical algorithm which actually distributes the 3 were addresses across the world and that and it's replicated in every new language that we bring you we literally cover the whole world even the north pole south pole the oceans there is a 3 way to dress for everywhere there are lots of places that are hard to pinpoint if you want to meet a friend at a beach or out in the remote desert it's not so easy. mongolian nomads by their very nature don't stay in one place so they need to update tourists who come to experience 10 life of the 57 trillion squares i made dated shark

which is great if i want to meet a friend or get a delivery but it's not all about convenience if i were to get hopelessly lost or fall and break my leg it could be life saving more than 80 emergency services in the u.k. now use what 3 words they've been able to find people trapped in their cars lost hikers and some drifting in the river tees jessica baldwin al-jazeera pembury england. hello again the headlines on al-jazeera the number of coronavirus cases has surged in the chinese province at the heart of the outbreak for a 2nd day officials in who base a nearly 5000 new infections were confirmed on thursday the rest of china reported fewer than 300 new cases who bay also had 116 more deaths on thursday

a new cases had surged after doctors of who changed the method of testing for the illness the prime minister of cambodia presented flowers to the 1st passengers to leave the m s western the cruise ship had been turned away by foreign countries because of coronavirus fears it arrived in cambodia on wednesday but the 2000 passengers and crew were kept on board until any cases of the virus had been ruled out. the u.s. senate has passed legislation requiring the president to seek congressional approval for any future strikes on iran 8 republican senators backed the resolution which was prompted by the assassination of the top iranian military commander possum so they many in a u.s. strike last month. a rocket has had an iraqi air base in turkey province where u.s. troops are stationed there but no reports of any casualties a previous attack on the same base in december killed a u.s. contractor triggering a chain of events that caused regional tensions to escalate. the u.k.'s finance

minister has abruptly resigned following a disagreement with prime minister boris johnson sajid javid stepped down after being told he could only keep his job if he fired his close aides he said no self respecting minister a critic cept what johnson was demanding. south africa's president has used his state of the nation address to defend his record on the economy the opposition party repeatedly disrupted the speech cyril ramaphosa blamed widespread power shortages for a sluggish growth. that was reaching unsustainable levels those are the headlines on al-jazeera people and power is coming up next. tensions could cut global economic growth by 1.8 percent we bring you the stories and developments that are changing the world. to what extent will china be

a drag on the global economy 2020 something that comes on al-jazeera. 2018 a new government came to power in armenia amid widespread optimism that its leader nicole shenyang quit and deficits of corruption and economic mismanagement but now his administration faces a major dilemma whether to proceed with a huge be defensive mining project that some of warning will cause enormous environmental damage and in danger of one of the world's rarest animal species.