a diverse range of stories from across the globe from the perspective of and that what journalists on al-jazeera. were. china reports a significant drop a new coronavirus infections after a change in screening criteria. for watching i'll just 0 in life from a headquarters and up high in dayton obligato also ahead billionaire michael bloomberg joins a democratic debate in nevada where voters will decide who should face donald trump in the presidential election. the u.n. warns of a humanitarian catastrophe is nearly a 1000000 people flee syria's loss to rebel strongholds turkey is threatening an offensive against the syrian army. and the e.u.

unveils plans to try to resolve the real life in the mass caused by artificial intelligence. hello china is reporting a significant drop in the number of new coronavirus cases and that's after a medical authorities reverted back to only blood tests to diagnose symptoms beijing has been taking a series of drastic steps in recent weeks to fight code 19 which has killed over 2100 people right across the country and there were only 394 confirmed cases on wednesday that's down from nearly 7800 the day before 114 people have died in the past 24 hours and the cruise ship diamond princess which has the highest number of confirmed cases outside of china has just reported its 1st casualties 2 passengers both japanese nationals in their eighty's died after being taken to hospitals where

the middle east to has experienced its 1st casualties 2 elderly people have died in iran's home province and schools and universities have been closed on thursday to stop further spread of the disease. in a moment we'll be live in yokohama japan that's where the ship we mentioned is still docks we'll get an update from robert wright he's standing by for us over there but 1st let's bring in katrina you she's joining us from beijing katrina to 1st tell us what moral authority is are saying about the drop in the number of new cases and why they've changed their screening methods. that's right so up until a few hours ago we had the number of confirmed cases at about 75000 and now it's chopped considerably it's more around the 56000 mark as you mention in the reason that we're given is that the authorities have changed the way that they're diagnosing coronavirus cases again so last week we had

a jump in about and we sort about 20000 cases added to that list because they were saying that they were expanding the ways that doctors are able to diagnose kovan 19 so what china has been doing since january is using this one type of test this nucleic acid test to test for covert 19 and there were some complaints about this test people said that it mainly it took too long for us to receive a result about 2 to 3 days and so the what they did last week is that they expanded it and said that doctors can clinically diagnosed patients using things like c.t. scans and lung x. rays so what they've done now is they seem to have reversed that decision and gone back to using just this nucleic acid test to confirm cases of chronic virus patients and one of the reasons is that because having this number they saying using the clinically diagnosed method was pushing down the mortality rate it was giving a skewed a skewed version of the mortality rate maybe giving people the impression that this

disease was not as deadly as it actually is so now they've changed that and the numbers are down the chinese government is saying it's continuing to say that this is there is a downward trend in this corona virus and that it's looking good because we've seen as you mention about $394.00 cases over the last 24 hours which is the 1st time we've actually seen a number below 1000 when it comes to new cases reported on a day to day basis which is good and at the same time we're seeing more cases of patients who have been cured of the krona virus i think 800 today so that seems to be a good trend but we can't be complacent with this because we have to look at the fatality rate the fatality rate of. people dying from covert 1000 is still quite steady we've had more than 110 deaths in the past 24 hours including as you mentioned 2 deaths in iraq and there's 2 deaths in japan other governments are also becoming more aware of this and trying to raise their alert level certainly in south korea there has been concerns there about 31 new cases over the past 24 hours adding to

their case load of easy runs particularly the city of daegu and they're talking about having a paradigm shift to address the way they're doing but the outbreak there because of these concerns ok katrina thank you for that update from beijing let's now bring in rob mcbride he's joining us from york to hama in japan and the train i was just mentioning the faith toilets the numbers and now we're getting reports of 2 people who have died on that cruise ship the diamond princess royal what more are you hearing. that's right these reports started to emerge throughout this thursday morning and in the last few minutes it has now been confirmed by japan's health ministry it is a man and woman both in their eighty's who we believe died in hospital here but obviously became infected board this ship we've seen in the past few days i'm bill it says continue to take passengers off with their sirens blaring off to off to hospital as some of them the symptoms develop they become gradually sicker has to

be said there is a real range of infection from the people who do become infected onboard this ship some people do show symptoms and they get taken off to hospital other people we understand that they are found to be positive for the virus they carry get they've been infected but don't show any symptoms and we've been seeing as people have been evacuated starting this disembarkation process yesterday wednesday and over the next couple of days we see that as well as people people who have been given a clean bill of health leaving this vessel other convoys of coaches leaving on the police escort. with some of those infected people on board to be. looked after at shore facilities so this whole process continues but these 2 deaths certainly have raised concerns just about this whole quarantine process that's been going on here the japanese all over 2 years are confident they say that said this is being handled as well as it can be but

a lot of other countries do not share that sense of confidence we know that they have been organizing special charter flights to bring that people out and still go through more quarantine when they all brought brought out we've heard for example just in the last hour from indonesia that there you have 73 nationals on board and they certainly want to get those people out as quickly as possible so this has certainly raised concerns here all right rob thank you for that update the former new york mayor a billionaire mike bloomberg has come under attack from rival democrats and their debate just days ahead of the caucus in the state of nevada this is the media mogul's very 1st debate as he was a late entry in the race to take on donald trump in november's election he spends hundreds of millions of dollars on television ads 5 other candidates are debating in las vegas so bloomberg is up against a veteran senator bernie sanders who tops a reuters ipsos poll with 25 percent of registered democrats and independents

saying they'll vote for him former mayor has surged to 2nd place in the poll on 17 percent that but it puts him ahead of barack obama's former vice president joe biden who started as a front runner but now only manages 13 percent. edged out sanders an i one finished a close 2nd in new hampshire has 11 percent senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts will be fighting for her political survival she's currently at 9 percent on the minnesota senator amy close our rounds of the pack with 5 percent she did manage 3rd place in the new hampshire primary though. let's talk about the democratic debates with alan schroeder he's a professor at northeastern university and author of presidential debates risky business on the campaign trail he's joining us from albuquerque that's a new mexico hi there thanks for speaking to us on al-jazeera so let's just look at the broader picture and then we'll drill down into the candidates specifically what stood out for you in this debate how would you describe what you saw

well i think all eyes were on mike bloomberg in this debate because as you mentioned it was his 1st one and i think a lot of people were really interested in checking him out you know people who don't who aren't that familiar with him wanted to see how he did and frankly it was not a good performance for him you know we've been reading that he spent weeks and weeks and weeks in intensive rehearsals preparing for this debate but it really didn't show and you sort of see that he's not only an outsider in the sense of not being like the other candidates on the stage but in his lack of preparation that he just didn't quite fit in with the program there what does bloomberg says entry though in today's democratic debate mean for the entire race it's 1st time we've seen him. right and you know he's been spending as you said heavily on advertising but a debate is really a different kind of test you know in advertising you can position yourself however you want to you don't have to answer for anything but what really struck me about

bloomberg in this debate was that he did have to answer for a lot of controversy positions he took as mayor of new york city and the other candidates on the stage were not going to let him get away with much of anything so he seemed a little to me unprepared for that in spite of having done a lot of rehearsal in advance of the debate so i don't know that the other candidates necessarily have to worry about him although the billions of dollars that he have has or you know are going to be spent going forward his candidacy will remain alive i just don't think this debate helped him in any way well let's look at the other candidates how did bernie sanders do in defending his leading position i mean looking at the polls or the latest right reuters ipsos poll that we've seen at least putting him at 25 percent of registered democrats so how did he fare in this debate i thought he was pretty good in this debate you know it was a really interesting contrast between bloomberg the billionaire in bernie sanders

who is a literally said that he does not think billionaires ought to exist so i think you know bernie also has the advantage here of having been in previous debates this cycle so he felt a little more comfortable on the stage and i think as the front runner that gives him some comfort as well you know when you're the front runner maybe you don't have to work quite as hard as the people who are falling behind and for joe biden and liz and those both warren i mean presumably they must be looking to widen their base after sort of failing to meet early expectations in new hampshire and iowa so heading into have next week the nevada caucuses is it a little too late for them. well it might not be too late for joe biden he has a lot of institutional strength in nevada i think warren is probably in a weaker position but what i really notice about both of them in this debate tonight was they they seemed almost

a little desperate you know it's tough when you're falling in the polls and you're trying to regain some standing but sort of felt like in this debate they were trying really hard to get there or momentum back and i'm not sure that either one of them accomplished that and just finally i have you with us let me ask you about people to judge and amy club us are how would you rate their performance this evening. well all along i think both of them have been very strong debaters and i think in general have a very good night again in nevada and you mentioned that she was the 3rd place winner in new hampshire largely on the basis of a debate performance but a judge is just this incredibly articulate man who is able to sort of describe complicated things in a way that people can understand so i think if i had a clear winners for these debates where this debate tonight i would say boo to judge and colbert sure came out ahead now whether that translates into victory or even you know

a highly placed showing in nevada that's another question all right alan schroeder great to have you with us thanks very much for joining us on al-jazeera thank you at least 8 people have been killed in 2 shootings in germany they happened a short time apart and bars in the western city of her now that's near frankfurt and police are now looking for the suspects and fled the scene in a car according to a local newspaper one person has been detained. still ahead on al-jazeera coming up in just a moment we're in argentina and we look at the raging debate around abortion rights details coming up. how we got yet more unsettled weather spilling in across the middle east over the next couple of days as we go on through thursday cloud right sleet and snow that

will tumble across parts of syria outs of that eastern side of turkey pushing across iran through the caucasus southern end of the caspian sea summer all the wintry weather coming in behind brightest guys to come in behind that for a time as we go on through the tempter here in doha 28 celsius as a system makes its way further raceways it'll tumble but a small way in setting it 23 degrees the top temperature on friday afternoon and by friday we will see some wetter weather just spilling back came across southern posits very cyprus and yet heading back towards the levant so meanwhile we have clear skies across northern parts of africa but a few showers just around the east as side of the country around the highlands we'll see some wet weather coming in here from time to time into burundi and this bad season showers some longer spells of fine a little further south through kenya down into northern parts of tanzania will see some wet weather just coming through over the next a dial so the show is actually stretch across

a good part all of southern africa so we'll see some showers there into angola and also into namibia and staying a little disturbed south africa. a unique kid endangered biodiversity lies in the heart of one of ecuador's tropical jungles there was a lot of misinformation about a city i knew most of which half here and now that probably alleges becoming boss other self bus or mission their communities out there are journeys deep into the rain forest to follow a scientist untouched team's efforts to save the flora and fauna so precious in the region women make science ecuador's hidden treasure on al-jazeera. were to be aware to.

well again the top stories on al-jazeera china's who they province the epicenter of the corona virus outbreak has reported fewer new infections on wednesday as compared to the day before that's after all thor it is referred back to just blood tests to diagnose and since. 2 elderly people who are on board a cruise ship that have been quarantined in japan for 14 days have now died from the virus those were the 1st deaths on the passenger liner which has the highest number of cases after mainland china. former new york mayor mike bloomberg has come under attack from liable democrats in their debate just before the caucus in the state of nevada is the media mogul's very 1st debate as he was a late entry in the race to take on donald trump in november. well the u.n. has warned of catastrophic human suffering in syria the government and its allies

continue their bombardment of the last rebel strongholds in the northwest turkey says it will launch another military operation in syria unless the government ends its assault mike hanna has more from the united nations we have missed repeated violent confrontations between turkish and syrian government forces were of support the russian federation is actively engaged in support of the syrian government's military operation u.n. special envoy offers a bleak view of the political crisis in syria which in turn has resulted in a devastating humanitarian situation that continues to deteriorate on a daily basis close to a 1000000 displaced people being squeezed into an ever decreasing space by advancing front lines on all sides i am getting daily reports of babies and other young children dying in the cold. imagine the grief of a parent who escaped

a war zone with their child only to watch that child freeze to death many members contend the crisis is a direct consequence of russian support can only and with the plea to our russian colleagues to stop the support of syria if you tell the syrians that there is no longer military support to the syrian regime they will have to stop the onslaught on their own population so we will get one school colleague to my german colleagues we will not stop supporting the legitimate government of syria which is conducting a legitimate fight against international terrorists how can you justify carrying out such indiscriminate and inhumane attacks what are you doing to uphold international humanitarian law what are you doing to protect the people who are fleeing where do you expect those people to flee to and another question posed

by the u.s. ambassador the question i asked before the council today then what will tomorrow's headline be and what are we going to do about it the answer today as it has been on so many occasions in the security council before nothing the security council has been deeply divided since the very beginning of the syrian conflict russia has wielded its veto on 14 occasions preventing any form of united security council action in the face of what is becoming the greatest humanitarian crisis of the 21st century the international community appears unable to act political interests continuing to take priority over the suffering of millions of civilians. mike hanna al-jazeera united nations. and turkey's president has warned he's ready to launch a military offensive against syrian government forces of damascus doesn't stop it's

fact as some had better reports about say new york turkey's border with syria. turkish troops in have been asked to expand their military outposts their presence here is the result of an agreement between turkey russia and iran 2 years ago to establish safe zones but these turkish soldiers might soon get involved in the biggest military campaign or their deployment president was up by your husband the military operation is imminent to get. on the subject of id lip turkey has made all preparations to carry out its own operational plans as with every military operation on the subject i'll say we could enter it lip suddenly one night. undeterred by the turkish warning the syrian army stepping up its offensive government warplanes struck the town of to many in the attacks have intensified

over the last few days earlier this week president bashar al assad said in a rare that his troops won't hold their campaign until it live forced into their hands talks between russia and turkey to diffuse tension have stalled each side is accusing the other of failing to implement the terms of the escalation in sure the guerrillas the key agreement on it was to separate the syrian armed opposition who cooperates with turkey from the terrorists a terrorist according to the agreements regarding adlib was not be involved in a cease fire regime russia considers hate the us an alliance of rebel groups in it live a terrorist organization and therefore excluded from the ceasefire agreement of 2018 turkey seems to want the syrian government troops to go back to the areas behind the demilitarized zone but for president said such zones are no longer relevant

since his army has advanced further into it and taken over more territory if there's no agreement by the end of this month the chances the ask. in the fighting of my turn into an outright war between syria and turkey with significant increase . we took his border with syria. a battle over control of the world's largest aid operation is putting millions of yemenis at risk that's according to the associated press which says quote the rebels have blocks half of the un's aid programs while pushing for a share of humanitarian funds for months the authorities allegedly demanded a 2 percent cut from aid budgets amounting to between $60.00 and $80000000.00 a year but aid agencies rejected the demands leaving nearly $300000.00 mothers and children under the age of 5 without nutrition supplements for over 6 months the a.p. says at least 2000000 people have been affected by the delays 10000000 people in

yemen are on the brink of famine and 80 percent of the population need food aid the law is a middle east analyst and editor of the arab digest he says the hope these are winning the battle over aids in yemen. the hoodies have been very successful in how they have used the situation used aid really as a weapon they have withheld aid they have been prepared to allow their own people to star they have seen situations where children are dying as you mentioned with rolling nutrients from women pregnant women and expectant mothers and children at the age of 5 so they have been very ruthless and how they have played the aid game and of course the u.n. and all of these supporting aid agencies are faced with this almost impossible choice because their duties are saying you give us more access give us more control or we will simply let these people die and it's

a very harsh and awful approach but very much a useful tool for the who g.'s and as i said in the front the humanitarian war front they are winning this battle aid organizations are faced with this really impossible choice and the who these are are playing a very very tough game and in a in a sense calling the bluff of these organizations what are they going to do they have said that they would recalibrate indeed they might lower the amount of aid they're going to put into into yemen that who these are not pushed back on that they pushed back on that very strongly and said you know what we don't we don't really care. in argentina thousands of protesters calling for abortion to be legalized activists say it's a public health issue but they're facing a pushback from the country's conservatives as well as the catholic church to risible reports from one of those. green scarves in front of argentina's congress

once again it's a long running demand from human rights groups to legalize abortions in this south american nation. thinks need to change we need a law that protect women we will continue fighting until abortions are legal in this country. that you know argentina abortion is only allowed in case of rape or if a woman's life is at risk and women having illegal abortions could end up in prison . says the fight for legal safe and free abortions is a difficult one because opposing it is the powerful catholic church well i would argue. things need to change we need a law that protect women who will continue fighting until abortions are legal in this country. in 2018 the legalization of abortion was discussed in congress for the 1st time it passed the lower chambre but the senate rejected the bill for these

people legalizing abortion in this country as a matter of public health because every year thousands of women mostly poor are hospitalized because of complications with botched abortions many of them died because they did not make it was hospital in time afraid that they could face criminal charges. the new bill has not yet been sent to congress but reports suggest president of the fed a man this is likely to do so next month. there are conflicting reports on what type of legislation will be sent in whether you would seek to legalize abortion or only decriminalize the terminations of pregnancies. congresswoman katherine. things there is a big difference between little and of and then there's the middle in the way union president fernando spoke about decriminalising abortion and we all agreed a woman should not be persecuted for a seeking a painful solution to her problems but now we're seeing changes and he's talking

about legalizing it and it's a completely different story i don't agree with abortion being legalized it is not something that would help all women because it's a traumatizing experience. but women here do not agree they believe argentina needs to advance in women's rights and legalizing abortion is one of the ways to achieve it. i'll just sit out one of scientists. the european union is planning to invest billions into artificial intelligence over the next decade many see this technology as vital to the future economy and the e.u. hopes to forge a different path from the u.s. and china so they were unveiled a strategy that aims to develop machine learning without compromising people's data rights barker reports from brussels. on a tour of the future european commission chief ursula von delay in bringing. the use a technological crossroads he wants to protect the rights and privacy of millions

of citizens but it also wants to compete with china and the u.s. where access to people's valuable data is more relaxed activision intelligence is about big data data data and again data and we all know that the more data we have . the smarter how algorithms this is why we want to give our businesses but also our researchers and the public services better access to data and the data can be used to create some sort of personally identifiable information about you is personal data so that it can encompass a wide range of different things from very personal of history personal character things around your health your genome but also to things when combined might also give information about you in the way that you live access to people's data is vital for machine learning that's a branch of artificial intelligence where machines talk to each other without any

human interaction well the european commission want to do is increase access to people's data without compromising their rights they want to create a safe data ecosystem but that requires rules and regulations. 80 percent of all of the information that's digitally stored on people in europe is held outside the e.u. in huge storage facilities such as this one in iceland or using base technology but in the near future much data on people their habits preferences and how they interact will be stored on smart interrelated devices from household appliances to medical equipment and factory machines that will be used to shape supply chains new technologies and public transport but some high risk data such as medical records or police files requires tighter controls there are also concerns about the potential abuse of facial recognition technology china's mass surveillance of its citizens including the use of facial recognition is well known the e.u. stepped away from

a 5 year ban on the use of the technology in public areas leaving it up to member states to decide the commission also wants to protect small companies from the dominance of tech giants of monopolies allowing for fair competition and for data storage to be environmentally sustainable they are ambitious goals that come at a price $21000000000.00 a year over the next decade that level of investment is vital say the e.u. to ensure trust in technology needs barker al-jazeera brussels. hello again the top stories on our. china's hu province the epicenter of the corona virus outbreak as reported flu or new infections on wednesday as compared to the day before. reverted back to just blood tests to diagnose intense training you on the outbreak from beijing. so last week we saw this massive job about $20000.00

people added to this list in a matter of days simply because they are said they were expanding the diagnostic criteria they were allowing doctors more discretion in diagnosing cases not using this one specific are in a kind of test but they could diagnose cases with c.t. scans and lung x. rays and things like that so now it seems that they've returned to using this one type of test this r.n.a. or this nucleic acid test as the only means of confirming a krone virus case 2 elderly people who were on board a cruise ship that had been quarantined in japan for 14 days have now died from the virus those were the 1st steps on the passenger liner which caused the highest number of cases after mainland china the u.n. has warned of catastrophic human suffering in syria the government and that's all i russia continued their bombardments of the last rebel strongholds turkey says it will launch another military operation in syria unless. the u.n.

says it's hopeful that talks aimed at reaching a cease fire in the b.l. will be able to resume negotiations were suspended on tuesday by the internationally recognized government after warlords funding the hottest forces of the tripoli ports would be as prime minister pfizer as visited ports after. national public never requested the holding of the weapons above go 4 years ago not just these days if the weapons of budget had been respected we would not have been in this situation today if it is to be respected it must be upheld of all that land sea and air. those are the headlines on al-jazeera will have more news coming up right after the stream that's next thanks very much for watching by for no. was there a we let me talk about 2 of the biggest problems facing and they all the endemic corruption and we listen so if you really put place china as an enemy of the woods

and that's really that yours we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that although just 0. josh rushing filling in for me ok and you are in the story after 17 years of war what are the prospects for peace in darfur we'll look at the ongoing sudanese peace talks you can join this conversation live in our youtube chat. dar for is all but disappeared from international headlines but for the past 17 years the conflict in western sudan has waged on since the overthrow of sudan's former president omar al bashir 2019 the transitional council that now governs khartoum has been eager to make peace with rebel groups across the country so far talks have missed their original deadline but continue would some success just last

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