holding to account as we examine the u.s. seats were. no signs of an end to the coronavirus surge china's hu province was swamped with nearly 5000 more cases as doctors try a new form of treatment. much religious or a lie from headquarters and. also our heads 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 speech they didn't want to hear the opposition storm out of the south african

president state of the nation address. side a 1st for antarctica temperatures hit a record high adding to growing fears about global warming. below for the 2nd day in a row the number of corona virus cases has surged in the chinese province at the hearts of the outbreak officials in who base a nearly 5000 new infections were confirmed on thursday the rest of china reported fewer than 300 new cases and who has also had 116 more deaths on thursday well new cases had surged by almost 15000 on wednesday after doctors and who changed the method of testing for the illness. let's bring in katrina from beijing for an update on specifically what the government to you now about the number of new cases that seems to have jumped once again katrina

that's why it's so this week the government has said that they're really saying this is a pivotal week in fighting the outbreak seem to be changing things up a little bit so as you mentioned there's been a change in the how they're diagnosing these cases of the new coronavirus or corvette 19 doctors no longer have to rely on one single type of test they can now use things like chest x. rays and c.t. scans to be able to confirm that people who do have suspected cases other symptoms that they do have the current virus so we're seeing this huge jump 15000 on wednesday 5000 in the last 24 hours because many of those people in the suspected cases lift list has now have now been moved to this confirmed cases list and they're also giving doctors a bit more flexibility in trying for different treatments it seems one hospital and is reporting that they are asking. patients who have recovered from the current

virus to come back and actually donate blood some doctors there are saying that their blood has a certain type of antibody which will be which seems to be effective in treating the corona virus and that they've said that they have been at least 11 patients so far who have benefited from this type of treatment so it seems to that there are some hopeful there is some hopeful news coming out of kuwait despite didn't massive jump in numbers and we do have to remember that the world health organization has said itself that hasn't seemed to be any major difference in the trajectory of the coronavirus this week despite this change in numbers and with this change of numbers in the increase in numbers that we've seen reports seem to suggest that government censorship has also increased. that's right so the chinese government is very much trying to control the narrative when it comes to this outbreak we've seen a bit of a p.r. blitz this week with the government showing on state media lots of footage of

thousands of military officials being sent to war to try to help with the with the outbreak cause there also been lots of videos of the past few weeks of hospitals been builds and and stuff working hard lot of positivity there trying to push that the same time they're doing this because the government is concerned about the economy this virus has brought the nation to a standstill and they're trying to encourage people to start working again to try to get the wheels turning because they don't want the impact of this coronavirus to have devastating effects on the economy but of course they're having to battle a lot of other messages on social media a lot of criticism about how the government has handled this and a lot of negative news that does continue to come out so what they've been doing is clamping down on social media scrubbing out any posts which have shown any overly negative videos for example from hospitals and conditions inside who and also removing of course any criticism of the government we have to remember that has been quite a large public outcry as a result of this outbreak a lot of criticism of especially officials that there was

a attempt to cover up how serious this outbreak was that there was silence in people who were trying to sound the alarm and that they simply dropped the ball and mr critical window which could have been used to prevent this outbreak from getting as bad as it has done so a lot of effort on the government government's part to censor all of this information all right katrina thank you for that update from beijing chris smith as a consultant for all just in who says i'm told now all be one type of trust was being used to detect the virus. now what they did was to change that case definition today or in the last 24 hours and said that rather than just calling a person positive if the test they were positive what we're going to do is to use the clinical diagnosis clinical diagnosis means the person has the symptoms and if you look at their chest x. ray or their c.t. scan for example you can see the characteristic changes on there that we know signify a person has this or

a very similar infection and given by and large that the majority of the cases are going to be this those are reasonable criteria so not surprisingly we went from about 2 and a half to 3000 cases a day here or 2 to today declaring 15000 new cases so it looks very alarming but in fact actually it's a statistical measurement it is not reflecting a sudden up scale in the spread of the infection why it's interesting is that right along throughout the course of this we've been saying well the numbers that are being reported they're the numbers ok we know about those but what's the reality out in the community how many people really have got this how many people are part of this clinical iceberg where the numbers we're seeing and being reported to us they're the tip of the iceberg but he had none to the waterline what's the reality this gives us a closer idea as to what that like the reality is perhaps there really are $15000.00 people per day being diagnosed with this thing there probably are there's $1400000000.00 people in china and this virus has been spreading there for

a couple of months now passengers from a cruise ship turned away by 4 country is because of coronavirus fears have finally been allowed off in cambodia the prime minister presenting flowers to the 1st people to leave the m.s. westerdam it arrives in cambodia on wednesday but the 2000 passengers and crew were kept on board until any cases of the virus had been rolled out when hey was a signal prevailed when that ship arrived. 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 said 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 and 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 who 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 is 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 the cambodian shouldn't be worried about coronaviruses welcome the ship again and he said that even if they were a positive cases 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 the ship to tie up here the u.s. senate has voted to limit president all trumps ability to go 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 this was prompted by the assassination of the iranian military commander qassam sunday 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. the president trump or any other president cannot plunge the united states into an endless conflict in the middle east today our constitution worked exactly as the framers wanted it to work senators work together to assert congress's authority and serve on the check with an overreaching executive branch all $47.00 democrats 8 republicans stood up and said enough is enough she have a chance he's in washington d.c. with more on the political motives behind that vote it's 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 say 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 have the military footprint to bomb all sorts of all sorts of people who are going to 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 mice of these they thought the white house should have at least paid lip service to but there are always the libertarian side who say look these endless wars have to stop in fact or you could ask why more republicans didn't vote for this given but opinion polls have been clear for years that's why don't trump run on this bipartisan majority say we've got to bring our troops back from at least we can't have any more war. protests have been held in iraq and iran to mark the end of 40 days of mourning for qassam soleimani demonstrators in baghdad block the road near the airport where he was killed last month and he was behind iran's efforts to spread its influence throughout the middle east president ordered the killing saying he posed an imminent threat. meanwhile an iraqi air base in 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 coldest continent on the planet has just had its hottest day the temperature in antarctica $20.00 degrees celsius the recording was taken at say more island by a team of brazilian scientists and it follows a high of 18.3 degrees last week activists fear the rising temperatures in antarctica will contribute to an even faster rise in global sea levels than previously thought to may she is a glaciologist and director of the antarctic research center at victoria university in wellington she says the recent 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 wall or

even warmer so it doesn't surprise me at all that we're seeing january as one of the warmest mansel they will this month on record we were already seeing some pretty significant impacts on a tactical 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 sea to the rise and it's doing that with an external writing right and we expect that to continue the antarctic the new chiller itself has always been a hot spot it's experience more warming than anywhere else on the untaet there and we see big changes that we're seeing new species coming from south america that never have lived in antarctica so we're seeing invasions of spaces we see loss of habitat loss of sea ice. for pigments. but this is really just a small window into much greater china that will ultimately come for a tactic and will lead to significant seed it will rise at that moment the science

predicts that we could get up to a meter of sea level rise by 2100 still ahead on al-jazeera and have to demonstrate or take to the streets of malawi and to take out their anger at the heart of the electoral commission and the world's biggest lesson happens back in court as it pushes ahead with a lawsuit against an israeli security for a long while. i'm going to. hello and welcome back now i've just arrived back in the arabian peninsula after a long absence and i tell you what it really was a shock the system how cold it was right here in qatar we have not snow but certainly iran they have had snow across northern areas cause some real problems been some deaths reported an avalanche of very serious conditions but that cold air

has continued to push southwards so we're seeing temperatures really struck here with us 24 to 48 hours yes a bit of a wind chill here in qatar the wind is light to east like every 24 hours the cold air is gradually abating so we're going to see temperatures rising slightly 22 in doha 24 expected in dubai elsewhere cloudy around the eastern side of the mediterranean sea there so a cloudy day expected in beirut highs of 17 just a chance of a shower towards saturday then yemen otherwise dry conditions so head on into saturday you see the temperatures in doha and you by continuing to rise 26 there and you by heading into east africa we're seeing some pretty heavy showers affecting this central area d.r. congo all the way towards the east and certainly for mali down towards times nearer seeing some heavy showers those are expected to continue you see we've got some big downpours expected across lake victoria but it should be dry nairobi with high sierra of 25.

progress. or a serious mistake. intelligence is slowly invading every aspect of our lives. but very few of us really understand its capabilities for better or worse. in a new documentary al-jazeera explores the impact of a are accessing vast amounts of our personal data for data land coming soon. the you're.

going the top stories on al jazeera chinese health authorities have confirmed nearly 5000 new coronavirus cases in a province yet the center 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 the top iranian military commander qassam sunday money in a u.s. strike last month. the temperature in antarctica has hit a record high reaching 20.75 degrees celsius the reading was taken at say more island and it follows a high of 18.3 degrees last week activists fear the rising temperatures in antarctica will contribute to an even faster rise in global sea levels. well you case 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 johnson was demanding from job its 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 minister sacked by the prime minister for a challenge has more from london. so what i had been anticipated to be a pretty mundane cabinet reshuffle had its 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 it was expected that jabbered would keep his position but that was until number 10 gave him all this to essentially sack 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 i have to say about that the conditions that were attached was a requirement that i replace all my political advisors 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 akka 39 year old relative novice a breakfast and a johnson loyalist he is unlikely to give too much trouble. johnson and his team but he takes this position at a very tricky time for the united kingdom is just a month away from a budget that the he has to deliver and then of course there is 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 after brics that. 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 when it was soon cyril ramaphosa knowledge more needs to be done to kickstart this thawing economy he blamed widespread power shortages for a sluggish growth and admitted that was reaching unsustainable levels. our country is facing a stark reality. economy has not grown at any meaningful rate for over a decade even as jobs are created the rate of unemployment continues to deepen we need to fix our

public finances. low levels of growth mean that we are not generating enough revenue to meet our expenses our debt is heading to was unsustainable levels so new shot and i do is a political analyst at the institute for global dialogue and she says rama post says focus on the economy highlights a key concern among south africans. so i think the mood of the country has not been one of optimism there's been a sense of some been as there's been a sense of apathy i think people are feeling the feeling that that that the economic and the social economic challenges that exist today haven't really moved in what particular majority majority of upside africans who live in poverty unemployment and of course the increasing levels of inequality but i think what what is interesting for me in the speech was that it was also trying to ease the

cost of doing business because i think for the president he's very much about how this investment to be eco that he's put together that he's talked about in the speech that needs to find traction with regard to the structural conditions that actors impediments to the investment coming in so you had a very you had a big broad sweep at one network talking about integrating your marriage and we consolidate some of these the structural weaknesses that we find ourselves in but at the same time how do we need to use the the cost of business that licensing and so forth i think given the situation that is given the context of where the country is. this is the speech that he could have bet he could have made best he talks about of decisive action but i also think that one of the challenges of a decisive action is that we need to see a better implementation and coordination of policy and that's going to be a critical that mention come the budget speech in 2 weeks' time. hundreds of demonstrators gathered in malawi's capital calling for the head of the electoral commission to step down it follows the supreme court's decision to cancel last

year's presidential vote citing widespread irregularities or burden manoli reports . rather. i mean if you're going to protest as i'm allowed the seal of the building of the electoral commission and it was a matter of not. hundreds marched to the streets of the southern city of blantyre only a few managed to get past police barricades calling him 2 a protest the to says he will only take the chains off when the commission's chairwoman jane and has started to resign. mic because all what we need this this best scenario in this office should be so we don't want them to get inside this room. in the capitol a long way people also march towards the offices of the electoral commission. is a given present peeta motoric have

a narrow win in last year's election but the court accused the commission of numerous and consistencies that included using correction fluid on ballot sheets janeane saad denies accusations the results had been altered and the materials that we sent. we indeed did not include the pics. and even the doing it training we taught we told the trainees that the 2 peaks is no doubt but in court one election commission member pointed the blame at. the instructions were given by this year to this. and the time that this issue is getting research and this it will not even involve this commission i think it just happened by literally. malawi's constitutional court on wednesday threw out an application by president p. to metallica to suspend the results there will be

a remark this presidential election i have there will be a new chairperson of the electoral commission that will need to be close scrutiny of that process but from mastic observers but also international ones the court had given the country just 150 days to order a new election with many now concerned that may not be enough time to restore confidence in the electoral process manly al-jazeera. messaging service what's up has returned to a california court as it presses ahead with a lawsuit against them is really a surveillance company it's suing n.s.o. group for allegedly hacking into the messaging app to spy on more than a 1000 people the company denies the accusations in a separate incident in 28 seen the saudi arabian crown prince was a curious they're using and so group technology to hack the phone of amazon boss

jeff bezos the company again denying any involvement john scott railton is a senior researcher at the university of toronto and help whatsapp unvested gates the n.s.o. group over the alleged hacking he says the case reflects a wider trends. i think we're really living in sort of like the gray areas of international law and certainly the gray areas of oversight and it should come as no surprise that when there is a technology like this that's so powerful that's so invasive and so unregulated it's going to get abused and the what's app case is a perfect example of this a lot of governments took this technology and they abused it to spy on dissidents human rights defenders journalists and others i think what's unique about this case is that it's a window into what happens when states think that they can behave without a lot of oversight the way to look at this is every technology that we use on

a daily basis has vulnerabilities and with enough effort and time and resource can probably be hacked the question is really what happens when technology does get hacked what do companies do to protect their users what do legal structures provide by way of protections for users what's interesting about this case is that many companies have had their technologies hacked but what's have to respond in this case to go after and so is muscular for years and so has showed up being abused to target journalists and others and for the most part they've kind of been the bully on the playground what's different here is that you know what's out somebody is big cousin has showed up and said not so fast and not on our platform a century old efforts to enshrine gender equality in the u.s. constitution has passed a major hurdle the house of representatives has approved extending a deadline that would allow the inclusion of the equal rights amendment heidi so

kastor reports. it's been 100 years since american women got the vote almost 50 since they gained access to abortions but as for getting equal rights protection under the u.s. constitution the clock is still ticking why has it taken this long. you know it's a great question i find it very confused heidi shrek is a pulitzer nominated playwright i thought i had just been left out of this document from the beginning her work what the constitution means to me tells the history of domestic violence in her family for their benefit the rights and i met when i was 1st was i guess what kinds of music oh. i believe that the law was related to domestic related to sexual assault of women. would have been. i believe that. the women in my family would not have needed to suffer the way that. the proposed equal rights amendment was drafted in 1923 it took 50

years for its language to clear congress but it wasn't ratified by 2 thirds of us states which is required by the constitution until the year 2020 in january virginia became the critical final state to ratify the equal rights amendment for the women ever jinyan the women of america the resolution has finally. but there was just one hitch the deadline for state ratification had come and gone in 1982 and the trauma ministration says that makes the proposed amendment void democrats in congress are pushing for its addition to the constitution regardless delays and distractions will not slow our progress because there can be no expiration date on equality this is a clear message to the international community that we have bed in our constitution equal rights for women and that there cannot be discrimination based upon. gender

extending the deadline for the equal rights amendment would also need approval in the republican controlled senate where it'll likely face opposition. some conservatives fear it could lead to more abortions or even outlaw separate sex bathrooms as for heidi shrek the playwright she's expecting tween girls in april i want their future to look very different from our past she says she hopes to soon show her daughters a u.s. constitution that guarantees very quality castro al-jazeera washington. hello again the headlines on al-jazeera the number of coronavirus cases a surge in the chinese province at the heart of the outbreak for a 2nd day officials in who base say nearly 5000 new infections were confirmed on

thursday the rest of china reported fewer than 300 new cases who may also had 116 more deaths on thursday but the prime minister cambodia welcomed the 1st passengers to leave the m.s. westerdam the cruise ship had been turned away by 4 countries because of coronavirus fears it arrived in cambodia on wednesday but the 2000 passengers on true were kept on board and so 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 this was prompted by the assassination of a top iranian commander possum's today money in a u.s. strike last month a rocket has hit in iraq airbase in crooked province where u.s. troops are stationed there been no reports of any casualties a previous attack on the same base in december killed the u.s. contracts are triggering a chain of events that cause regional tensions to escalate its. the u.k.

is finance minister has abruptly resigned following a disagreement with prime minister boris johnson such a job and stepped down after being told he could only keep his job if you fired his close aides he said no self respecting minister could accept what johnson was demanding the temperature in the antarctic has had a record 20.7 degrees celsius the reading was taken at say more island by brazilian scientists it follows a high of 8.3 degrees last week activists fear the rising temperatures in antarctica contributes to an even faster rise in global sea levels than previously thought the stream is coming up next on al-jazeera. we talk about the biggest problem facing the endemic corruption. we listen so if you replace china's enemy with and that's really then yours we meet

with global news makers and tweek about the stories that matter just 0. in the stream today a look at a new series that celebrates the history of black hollywood and in the age of oscars so white and bafta so white why is it so difficult to acknowledge the chief creative tell us what you think on twitter at. how much the oscars of shape the past. you know they have you know and not back in 1929 there were no black acting nominees and now 2020 we got 1. 100 mazing great. comedian steve martin and chris rock at the oscars on separate the 10 and the new talk a serious. british photographer simon frederick.