we are discussing here on the final part of my journey when i had to become a target of the hindu 1st policy in search of india's soul on al-jazeera. another surgeon coronavirus cases in china as it begins trialing blood transfusions to help patients. working to al-jazeera live from doha in muncie indiana it's also coming up. celebrations as more than 2000 cruise ship passengers are allowed to disembark in cambodia after being turned away by 4 countries. digging for the truth families of mexico's drug war victims accuse the government of failing them in the

search for their relatives. the u.s. senate passes a new law curbing the president's power to attack iran. the 2nd day in a row the number of coronavirus cases has surged in the chinese province at the heart of the outbreak officials in who say almost 5000 new infections were confirmed on thursday the rest of china reported fewer than 300 new cases bringing the country's total to more than 55000 while there still isn't a cure one hospital says there are signs that blood transfusions from people who've recovered from the virus could be an effective treatment the world health organization says the mortality rate of the virus is at around 2 percent which is less fatal than the sols epidemic of 17 years ago all right let's go live now to

hong kong our correspondent there brown adrian so we are in danger of losing ourselves in a focus to to states how much confidence do the people of china have in the numbers that are being given out on a daily basis by the chinese government. i think it depends who you talk to i think a lot of people on the ground certainly feel that they haven't been getting the full picture from china's government we now know that the authorities the medical authorities have brought in their criteria for diagnosing people that means we had a huge spike on thursday in terms of deaths and infections today the rate is a bit smaller so it's a very mixed picture it's hard to determine whether things are getting worse or whether things are getting better the the narrative on state television state media

and the government has really taken control of the narrative now is that china is winning it's trying to send out of message of reassurance that china can control this virus so journalists hand-picked fine by the government have gone to to hand to report the the emphasis is on the positive that's what they are accentuating they're trying to stress that you know people are recovering we've been seeing pictures of patients leaving hospital holding garlands of flowers and going home so those are the sorts of stories the government wants to put the emphasis on not the fact that we've had a big spike in cases on thursday and friday what it's trying to do is to is to reassure a nation that i have to say still remains if you believe what you see online as being very deeply skeptical you know we know there have been changes at the top of the local government in will hand the head of the party has of the branch of the

communist party has been brought down he's been replaced by the mayor of shanghai you know the focus for the government is not just sort of containing this filers virus it's also the political aspect of maintaining control and at the moment the authorities are maintaining absolute control of the narrative that's very important to them absolutely and it seems that the w.h.o. they don't seem particularly perturbed. by that huge spike in confirmed cases that we reported on 24 hours ago and what also is quite compelling is this stark difference between the numbers in wu han in the who bay province and the rest of china which seem relatively small yet there hasn't been a significant increase in infections outside of province you're absolutely right so that is again another you know encouraging sign the world health organization who you just mentioned are sending more experts into in the next couple of days they

will be of course supplementing the team that arrived there several days ago and of course the w.h.o. at the beginning of this crisis lauded china's efforts efforts sort of course were led by the man who is now been disgraced who's been replaced as party chief of the province of hoover that the world health organization i think has to be very you know walk very carefully here diplomatically because it cannot appear to be sort of undermining or criticizing the way that china has been handling this crisis because i think it believes the best way of getting the best out of china right now is to be supportive edger and brown live in hong kong thank you. well in cambodia it was all smiles as passengers disembark from a cruise ship they'd been turned away by 4 asian governments because of fears of coronavirus there be no confirmed cases on board among the moment 2000 people on

the west a dam ship when he reports now from c.n.n. will that's where the ship is docked. there was celebration and relief as passengers finally received would they were allowed to begin disembarking from the west a dam a ceremonial welcome in cambodia marks the end of a 2 week journey around asia as port up to port rejected the ship's request to dock you know the ship was very very safe the crew were spared care stick we had a very good time considering the circumstances everything was very nice it's nice to be able to get home feels very good but my remote say on the ship was fairly well the food was well at the table to us well so we didn't suffer at all and we knew it was no illness at book. cambodia's prime minister who flew in for the occasion he's consistently downplayed concerns about coronavirus and did so again on the dock in sihanoukville when other government said no to the ship he said yes

and he wasn't about to let this opportunity slip by. people aust if there are people on the ship that have coronavirus would commode lot up to dock i can respond very clearly that if there are people with the virus on the ship i would allow them to dock as soon as possible but there were no confirmed cases on board blood tests taken from 20 passengers who were unwell when the ship arrived in cambodian waters on thursday tested negative these are among the 1st passengers to disembark and sit force on land for the 1st time in 2 weeks the whole process of getting everybody off the ship is expected to take around 3 days so for many on board the frustrating waits will continue. the plight of the westerdam was another blow to the cruise ship industry which is being hit hard by coronavirus its own a carnival is the largest cruise operator in the world and says its share price may tumble this year by more than a half because of cancellations it also earns the diamond princess which is docked

in new york a hummer japan with thousands quarantined on board and many confirmed infections among passengers and. crew experts say the potential for transmission of the virus on a ship is high so they're not surprised the industry is suffering so if you are in a confined environment like in a cruise ship or in a train then if you are exposed to like you know within the family or with your next to the cabin of the infected person then you can get infected for those on the wish to dam a bizarre cruise around asia is over ending with a welcome and a farewell in cambodia don't never forget when hey al jazeera center phil. of the u.s. senate has voted to limit president trump's ability to go it alone and launch war with iran the move to reduce his presidential powers was backed by 8 members of his own party the republicans the war powers resolution means the president would have

to seek congressional approval to launch any future strikes it was prompted by the assassination of the iranian military commander kasem solo money in a u.s. strike last month which led to a counter strike on u.s. soldiers she habra tons of reports from washington d.c. on the politics behind the vote. 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 those 2011 libya no const no question approval went in democrats grumbled a bit republicans grumbling but they did nothing they didn't do anything like this for example and of course president obama also always using the authorization for use of military force passed after $911.00 the 2 and you have to go into $100.00 countries the military footprint to bomb all sorts of all sorts of people who are

groups that the dream exists after $911.00 so this has been going on for some time now and it's only the democrats rediscover their constitution and 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 a libertarian side who say look these endless wars have to stop in fact that 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. in iraq air base for u.s. troops the station's been targeted in another rocket attack it was in the northern province of kirkuk so far there were no reports of casualties a previous attack on the same base in december that killed a u.s.

contractor and that triggered a chain of events that coles regional tensions just saw. families of people killed in mexico's drug war he is saying the government of support in their search for their relatives heartbroken families say they are forced to take the lead to recover remains man. has met volunteers helping at a dig in vet a cruise that's about 400 kilometers east of mexico city. a search party has assembled on the grounds of a catholic church in vera cruz who says the volunteers of the family members of missing persons mission wide more than 60000 people have disappeared since the start of the war on drugs in 2006 most are believed to be the big terms of criminal gangs or corrupt authorities there's no doubt in recent years it's become commonplace for the families of the disappeared to participate in organized search it's preposterous clandestine gravesites. the recent discovery of

a human bone fragment in this field means other human remains could be hidden nearby. might yet that is hello this traveled nearly 2000 kilometers from her home in sonora to join the search. but it's sometimes for a family member being given just a small piece of bone can make them feel better because they'll know that that's their family that fragment can mean some months parents or children can finally have peace. false alarms are not uncommon. but a few volunteers like mine you've got to have gotten quite good at spotting clues. he says he can't remember exactly how many bodies has helped uncover in that time i mean yes and up and deal with the families of the missing that have learned and are now teaching the government how to conduct a search these families don't have forensics training but we're the ones finding

the bodies this should be an embarrassment to the mexican government. there are fishel observers and police keeping watch over the search brigade but it's the volunteers digging holes and sifting through the soil that seem to be doing most of the work. one of the most common things that we've heard from members of the search brigade is that it's the mexican government that should be out here in the heat and the sun searching for human remains still if it is a count again this is the 5th time a national brigade has gathered for this kind of search and it's the largest one to date. by the end of the day authorities arrived to examine the scene and determine whether or not this site will be counted among the more than $600.00 clandestine graves discovered in bitter coups in recent years. up a little. bit a cruise. still to come here at al-jazeera dumb enough to. find out what all the commotion was about in south africa's column and during the president's state of the mention of being. the world's biggest messaging app is

backing court in its fight against an israeli security. hello and welcome to international weather forecast let's take a look at weather conditions across europe 1st of all a root of you've got these intense areas of low pressure has been a really stormy week across europe low pressure systems driven by really intense jet stream and that's going to continue this area of low pressure really exception of this time of the year. it's going to be driving some very heavy snow into wards ice and in particular and i think over the next 48 hours we could well see flight disruptions for reykjavik in fact blizzard conditions here the heavy rain is going to be pushing him towards the u.k. this early as friday sunny for western areas and that will continue as we head on

through into the weekend sorry that stormy weather set to continue and other north sea coastal regions like the perfect pitch or in the course of the weekend running up and into southern parts of scandinavia with also there you see picking up some snowfall across more central eastern parts of europe weather conditions are looking draw and fine if not too part of day in vienna with highs expected to reach 10 degrees celsius as you move into northern and central parts of africa weather conditions here are largely fine but we will find the wind picking up during the course of the day so across the mediterranean sea it's like to be pretty stormy at times temperatures coming down those results coming in off the say with highs of 17 expected in benghazi. life begins. thousands of babies every year in the united states. it also ends on the same day. the baby is african-american.

this is twice as likely to happen why. rewind america's infant mortality on al-jazeera. or for. the as. far as some of the top stories here it out there are the province at the center of china's corona virus outbreak has reported almost 5000 new confirmed cases and chinese actors from one hospital in lohan are claiming that blood transfusions from people who have recovered from the virus may help them find a cure. to the u.s.

senate. which requires the president to seek aggression approval for any future strikes on iran this follows the assassination of the top iranian commander kasim for the money that was killed in a u.s. strike last month. a rocket has hit an iraqi air base in kirkuk province that's in the north of iraq where u.s. troops are stationed there been no reports of any casualties so far a previous attack on the same base in december killed a u.s. contractor and that triggered a chain of events of calls regional tensions to seoul. now iran is warning that it's ready to strike the u.s. and israel if they give it any reason to do so the head of the revolutionary guards made the statement during a ceremony marking the end of 40 days of mourning for the money large crowds marked the occasion remembering the former top iranian commander in iraq and in iraq with

some demonstrators in the iraqi capital baghdad blocking the road near the airport where he was killed last month president trump ordered the killing claiming he posed an imminent threat. in iran the list of approved candidates allowed to run in next week's parliamentary elections is now being unveiled many moderate and reformist candidates have been disqualified the guardian council which oversees the approval is historically dominated by ultra conservatives as a big. reports now from tehran. 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 now you're turning i deny this the guardian council has the judy to verify the qualification

of candidates and the council has never had a political view 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 40 to mousavi therefore. 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 out in 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 here and 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 protest 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 has 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. the south africa's president has used his state as a nation address to defend his record on the economy. but one of the opposition past his repeatedly disrupted his speech when they finally resumed say were ram oppose a knowledge law needs to be done to kickstart economic growth and he admitted debt was reaching unsustainable levels and is for me to miller reports now from

johannesburg the disruption by the almost overshadowed the president's address. ahead of president bush's state of the nation address his spokeswoman said the president was not concerned about any disruptions at parliament and question what it would achieve but when the president was prevented from starting his speech much of the attention was indeed on the opposition party the economic freedom fighters who orchestrated that disruption rather than on the president the opposition party demanded that the minister of public enterprises be sacked saying he's responsible for corruption and the failure of state owned power utilities respond so for many south africans politics dominated proceedings on thursday evening. has previously been criticized for being out of touch and promising far more than he's been able

to deliver when remote also finally began his address he dealt with many of the issues that concern south africans from the high unemployment rates to the ailing economy and importantly the provision of electricity the president said rolling blackouts had hampered the recovery of the economy and that while blackouts would continue the government would support the production of wind and solar energy to ease the energy problems that south africans are experiencing. also tackle the high level of crime promising higher police visibility and he's also promised to fight corruption saying the government is working to stabilize these struggling state owned enterprises but for many south africans this may have been a repeat of what they've heard in previous years good ideas although baig on implementation. a century old effort to ensure gender equality in the u.s. constitution has passed

a major law the house of representatives has approved extending a deadline that would allow the inclusion of the equal rights amendment i do joe castro explains from washington. 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 schreck 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 and. would

have been. i believe that. the men 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 of virginia and 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 trumpet 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 embed in our constitution equal rights for women and that there cannot be discrimination based upon. general extending the deadline for the equal rights amendment would also need approval in the republican controlled senate where it will 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 twin 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 their he quality audio castro al-jazeera washington the messaging service what's up has gone back to a california court to continue its case against an israeli surveillance company it's suing and this group for allegedly hacking into its up to spy on more than

a 1000 people the company denies the accusations in a separate incident in 2018 the saudi crown prince was accused of using group technology to hack the phone of amazon boss jeff bezos the company denied any involvement jones scott railton is a senior researcher at the university of toronto and help he helped whatsapp investigate and is so over the alleged breach he says the case reflects a wider trend. 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 prayer on 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

the coldest continental in the planet has just had its hottest day the temperature and then tell us it hit 20.75 degrees celsius the recording the taking the seymour island by a team of brazilian scientists and 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. well we've been taking to tame and that is a blessing all the death of especially if they pass a is and a director of the antarctic research center of it or a universe same wellington he says everything recollects and not a tall 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 warmest months or 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 sea to rise and it's doing that with an external writing right and we expect that to continue dean tactic the new chiller itself has always been a hot spot it's experience more warming than anywhere else on the antarctic 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're seeing loss of habitat loss of sea ice. for opinions. but this is really just a small window into much greater change that will ultimately come for antarctica and will lead to significant suitable rise at that moment the science predicts

that we could get up to a meter of sea level rise by 2100. there you can find a lot more about all the major stories as ever on the al-jazeera website i desire to counter. terrorism take a look at the top stories here it out is there the number of coronavirus cases is search for a 2nd day in a row in the chinese province at the heart of the outbreak officials in who bays say almost 5000 new infections were confirmed on thursday and that brings the country's total to more than 55000 while there still isn't a cure one hospital in more hands says they're all science a blood transfusions from people who have recovered from the virus could be an effective treatment adrian brown has the latest from hong kong we now know that the

authorities the medical authorities have broadened their criteria for diagnosing people that means we had a huge spike on thursday in terms of deaths and infections today the rate is a bit smaller so it's a very mixed picture it's hard to determine whether things are getting worse or whether things are getting better the the narrative on state television state media and the government has really taken control of the narrative now is that china is winning it's trying to send out of message of reassurance that china can control this virus the u.s. senate has passed legislation which requires the president to seek congressional approval for any future strikes on iran it was backed by 8 republican senators and follows the assassination of the top iranian commander. who was killed in a u.s. strike last month. a rocket has hit in iraq here base in kirkuk province where u.s.

troops a stationed there been no reports of any casualties a previous attack on the same base in december killed a u.s. contractor and led to a chain of events that calls regional tensions to saw the messaging service what has returned to a colorful new court as it continues with a lawsuit against an israeli surveillance company it's suing n.s.a. group for allegedly hacking into its app to spy on more than a 1000 people the company denies the accusations and to the separate incident in 2018 the saudi crown prince was accused of using n.s.a. technology to hack the phone of the amazon boss jeff bezos of those are the headlines. tensions could cause global economic growth by 1.8 percent we bring you the stories and developments that are changing the way. we're trying to be

a drag on the global economy 23. counting the cost on al-jazeera. britain takes steps to regulate content that appears on social media it says it wants to protect users from what it considers harmful material that is regulation the arts and cannot be done without violating personal freedoms this is inside story. hello and welcome to the program i must say now it's a long running debate how should we regulate the internet and social media sites including facebook and twitter and alice to share information they've also become places for illegal and harmful content to thrive the u.k. now wants those fans to be more responsible the government.