a ceasefire and the yemen war the saudi led coalition announces a 2 week break to help peace efforts and the fight against coronavirus. i'm about to sin and this is all just here live from doha also coming up new york state reaches a grim new tally more cases than the whole of spain but president trump is optimistic. and soon will be over that curve will be over the top and will be headed in the right direction i feel strongly about the. a warning that the world faces its deepest recession ever because of the coronavirus pandemic with global

trade likely to shrink by up to with. bowing out of the race us democratic presidential hopeful bernie sanders ends his bid for the white house. now we're going to get on to the latest in coronavirus in a moment but we're going to begin with the announcement of a cease fire right across yemen it came from the side united coalition that's been fighting hooty rebels since the war began in 2015 its juta last 2 weeks and it's going to come into force at noon thursday but in the past few hours have been reported attacks from both sides this is the result of one set to be carried out by the who thieves' the missiles fired into the city of money but the saudi glad coalition is based. the u.n. special envoy to yemen has welcomed the move calling it

a critical moment muhammad ali. he says the ceasefire should help yemen struggling healthcare system deal with the pandemic it's an important news because the situation in yemen is very difficult for the health care sector to counter the coronavirus in case it emerges in the country the minister of health. in a parliamentary incision has appealed to the world or to do something to end the conflict especially that the he has made it clear that the health care sector although only has. nearly 1500 beds while in case the coronavirus emerges at least 28000000 yemenis could be. affected with this disease while the we have only this kind of 1500 beds so the situation here is very difficult for the health care sector in case the the

coronavirus disease emerged here but so far the world health organization has announced that no cases have been found in yemen so far christine burka is the legal director for accountability and redress more talent for human rights it's an independent yemeni organization involved in defending human rights and she's joining us now from barclay in california thanks very much indeed for giving us your time. as mohammed was saying there it appears that there are no current cases or at least reported cases of coronavirus in yemen at the moment there have of course been cases of cholera for the least the last couple of years why do you think so idea arabia has decided to do this now. christina burkle i don't know if you can hear me it's rob matheson here in doha 0

i'm not sure if you can hear maybe it would appear as though we have lost our link to christina bakker we will try and get her back at some point in the show but in the meantime it will him qatar is a yemen specialist he says it's less likely the ceasefire will hold for very long this is more of a p.r. move for the public relation a consumption but we know the yemenis don't need just a 2 week sort of cease fire we need to end the war we need to lift the blockade we need to end the crimes that are happening all across the country that a number of endemic splits side coronavirus and the i mean you know the color of cholera outbreak of there's so many other issues that need to be dissolved in the country so we did we hope that this 2 weeks ceasefire would would hold but we know from previous experiences that neither side now that with these militia and or the

you know saudi led coalition at the herd to the agreements they either agreed to or you know we know that from the sweden taught. a few years ago that they need to release the detainees but they did and and end up doing that so this is coming in a time where there is an international pressure to make sure that yemenis have access to. medicare equipments you know that outbreak could happen in any time in the country of the outbreak of cholera i mean of the corona fires so we have a difficult situation remember again this war has been going on for over a half decades and yet many need access to food and medicine. despite calls from the world health organization to stop politicizing the coronavirus pandemic the us president has once again criticized the agency's actions donald trump says the

w.h.o. has been unfair to the world by taking decisions that favor china on tuesday tom threatened to cut funding to the agency meanwhile the number of deaths in the country's hardest hit states continues to rise new york as recorded its highest a single day death toll of nearly 800 fatalities more than 6200 people have died fighting code 19 in new york it losing more body bags i think we would have done. and he would have been much better serving the people that he's supposed to serve if they gave a correct analysis i mean everything was i said china centric everything was going to be fine no human to human keep the borders open he wanted me to keep the borders open i close the borders despite him and that was a hard decision to make at the time we're all together made a decision against the world health organization i can't believe he's talking about politics when you look at the relationship they have to china so china spends

42000000 we spend 450000000 and everything seems to be china's way that's not right it's not fair to us and honestly it's not fair to the world and maicon is joining us from washington d.c. mike we had the situation where donald trump made his allegations against the w.h.o. the w.h.o. then responded robustly this does not seem to be going away does it. now indeed president trump insistent on running home his belief that the w.h.o. is as he puts it china centric interestingly enough earlier in that briefing from the white house the secretary of state might pump a 0 pushback against any immediate criticism of china saying china or indeed the w.h.o. saying that this is not the time however president trump a few minutes later rammed into the w.h.o. once again claiming that the u.s.

funded it disproportionately compared to a country like china and saying as well very seriously that the w.h.o. had downplayed the threat of the epidemic now within the administration not all voices on the same page the medical adviser to the white house deborah brooks said early on in the day that an organization is only good as the data that it gets she says that the administration has to look at what data. actually got from china and at what was the timeline off this particular data that the h received but president trump absolutely insistent once again that his administration will look into cutting off funding to the w.h.o. because he says of the fact that they are biased it would appear against the united states might we were watching the press conference here or much of it as usual was featured the president being very bullish about the future saying that there was

a definite in a sense a light at the end of the tunnel although it was still a long way off nevertheless he was still determined to push the benefits of an anti malaria drug when it came to treating coronavirus tell us more about bot. well indeed years c. told a briefing that the federal government has collected some 30000000 doses of fide roxy chloroquine an anti malarial drug as you mention he continues to insist that this is worth trying it is being tried in several field trials at this particular point but then he goes beyond and says some people tell him without giving any source whatsoever that it would be a good idea to add zinc to this particular anti malarial drug now some of his own spokespeople and some of his own medical advisors such as dr anthony fauci have

dismissed any form of anecdotal information to impart to the public clearly president trump imparting information to the public that his critics believe could be incorrect if not downright dangerous and i must just add as well a recent report by the mayo clinic which says that current coronavirus patients treated with a drug seeker quinn mix threaded with as you throw meissen 11 percent of those virus victims moved into the red zone in danger of cardiac arrest now this is from the mayo clinic so certainly there are questions about the efficacy of untested drugs and certainly there are questions about the president of the united states basically touting these drugs from the forum of a briefing platform on coronavirus my kind of bring us up to date from washington

d.c. mike thanks very much indeed. in spain more than $700.00 people have died of corona virus that's the 2nd daily rise in a row that brings the total number of deaths to more than $14000.00 the health minister maintains the rise is small and consistent with what was hoped to have been a slowdown spain is one of the worst affected countries in the world it's registered more than $146000.00 confirmed cases while the coronavirus is taking its toll and economies in europe talks between the e.u. finance ministers broke down on wednesday as they discussed a multi-billion dollar rescue package that in baba has more. reminding people to stay indoors in space. the military drafted in to disinfect nursing homes and public transport despite a slowing down in the country's rated coronavirus transmission the world health organization is warning the european governments to flee carefully before relaxing

their lockdowns or social distancing measures one new report predicts splays economy will shrink by between 5 percent and 9 percent this year that could leave up to 800000 people unemployed depending on when restrictions are lifted on wednesday morning european union finance ministers meeting via video conference were close to a deal on support measures for southern economies worth around $540000000000.00 but talks broke down amid a dispute between italy and the netherlands over how to apply the coronavirus recovery from portugal's mario centeno head of the euro group of euro zone finance ministers tweeted after 16 hours of discussion we came close to a deal but we're not there yet i suspended the euro group and continue tomorrow thursday my goal remains a strong e.u. safety net against fall out of coverage 19 to shield workers firms and countries and commit to a sizable recovery plan. france is now demanding the e.u.

use the existing mechanism set up during the eurozone crisis with no strings attached as well as some promote the need you know most to me i would just like to point out something obvious the european stability mechanism was created to deal with a crisis and what are we facing now a crisis which is serious and profound the spanish prime minister pedro sanchez has warned that e.u. itself could quote fall apart if it fails to agree a plan to help member states deal with debts incurred fighting the pandemic italy and spain have accused northern nations led by germany and the netherlands of not doing enough that germany has its own covered related economic worries several financial institutes expect europe's largest economy to shrink by nearly 10 percent in the 2nd quarter that's twice as big a contraction as during the 2008 to 2009 financial crash chancellor merkel's government now plans to tighten rules to protect german firms from hostile takeovers by non e.u.

investors to underscore doubt on. its about tightening our very liberal foreign trade laws which permit takeovers from foreign investors in a generous way this is in light of the significant german security interests which for me include supplying the public with vital goods such as vaccines and critical infrastructure. of course coronavirus is already hitting hard germany's lufthansa has announced it will shut down its low cost airline german weekends as part of a broader over home warning it could take years for the industry to recover. across europe amid all the uncertainty there are moments of hope like this neighborhood in seville welcoming home a recovered college 19 patients. but recovering financially may also need a similar show of solidarity from the. al-jazeera. or global trade is expected to fall by up to a 3rd this year's the pandemic brings economic activity to a standstill the world trade organization is describing the future results as ugly

and says global markets are being disrupted by the lockdown of factories and shops the head of the w t o says this may be the deepest global recession in living memory worse than the financial crisis 12 years ago. as we construct what may well be deepest economic recession or downturn of our lifetimes we should aim to make the most of all potential drivers of sustainable growth to reverse this situation governments around the world can and must lay the foundations for a strong and socially. trade and international coordination were generally will be orton greedy and. still ahead and al jazeera the u.k. records its highest daily death toll but new infections and hospital admissions begin to show signs of flattening.

hello welcome saw the look at the international forecasters say some rather violent storms across the midwest recently this weather system has made its way through introduced some very strong winds and some rather wet weather thousands without power it's a pos of a higher we are going to see clear skies gradually coming back in behind it there's a long line of wetter weather pushing over towards the northeast and colder ahead of the west the weather well time which is still going up to 20 celsius in they say make the most of it because those temperatures will plunge as we go on into friday so struggling to get into double figures at that stage now to some wintry weather there it's eastern parts of canada central areas of kind of the central parts of the u.s. generally dry we have got some wetter weather just pushing into texas and still on

the west side there into the fosse out of california l.a. struggling to get around 19 degrees celsius but it should dry up as we go on into the weekend slightly fighting meanwhile across the taliban simply clear skies for the most part still seeing a few showers just around puerto rico pushing across into hispaniola and west a weather staying on the cars as we go on through friday but should be a little drier as we go on into the weekend for most of the settled in sunny kingston with a top temperature of 28 degrees celsius. crossing borders breaking boundaries recording injustice frenching inequality from africa and asia to europe the use exile as it were mine of a street every very good for me is one country al-jazeera world meets for refugees who've come to us touched people's lives and made

a difference. a hard road from home put telegraphers and activists on our ages era . movie or. world war. you're watching out to see it up a reminder of our top stories this hour the saudi led coalition has announced a cease fire it's due to last 2 weeks and will come into force at noon on thursday in yemen but in the past few hours there have been reported attacks from both sides . despite calls from the world health organization to stop politicizing the coronavirus pandemic the us president has once again criticised the agency's

actions donald trump says the w.h.o. has been unfair to the world by taking decisions that favor china. global trade is expected to fall by up to a 3rd this year as the pandemic brings economic activity to a standstill ahead of the world trade organization says this may be the deepest global recession in living memory worse than the financial crisis 12 years ago. ok let's get more on that ceasefire in yemen christine back alleys the legal director for accountability and we dress more tanna here for human rights it's an independent yemeni organization involved in defending human rights she joins us from barclay in california we appreciate your time and your patients we tried to get your earlier we had some technical problems thank you for staying with us can i ask you 1st of all why do you think the saudi that saudi arabia and the saudi led coalition has decided to make take this decision at this time.

thank you very much for having me i think that there's been a lot of pressure from multiple sides on both of the party is including the saudi coalition as well as on who these in the face of corona because everybody agrees and it's certainly true that would current reach yemen it would be absolutely devastating but the thing i think to remember is that what people in yemen are quite used to is warring parties be at the coalition or that these making announcements that they then don't follow through on or are marketed as far more than they actually mean in reality so the question now really becomes is how far does this announcement go will it be implemented will it extend to coalition proxy forces and what will the response be and i think we have to push for it to be something real to be different than what it's been the past but the fact of the matter is the news of the last few hours i think will raise a lot of concerns amongst people that we're still far away from steps towards either a full ceasefire or even further comprehensive peace do you think that this decision

has been driven solely by concerns about coronavirus the reason i ask is because if i understand it correctly there are no recorded cases of coronavirus yet in yemen obviously yemen for the last at least the last couple of years has been suffering from other epidemics a certain spreads of disease like cholera for example and yet it is taken until now for saudi arabia to make this announcement why do you think it is. well so i think there's 3 things in there 1st there are no 2 reported cases of corona in yemen yet but we also have to be very clear that there's basically 0 testing capacity so the notion that there's no reported cases doesn't really give us anything of a clear picture as to what the actual situation in the country is i think the 2nd thing is absolutely yemen has been decimated pre-cursor own by this 5 years plus conflict and a range of deadly diseases as well as humanitarian aid obstruction attacks on health kind of you name it yemen has had to deal with it throughout the course of

this conflict so i think it be very hard to say that any of the warring parties are acting through purely humanitarian motives that said i do think that there has been create corona a push to try and get the warring parties to at least agree to a ceasefire the fact of corona has created some political space where there seems to be more possibility where you could actually get an agreement for a cease fire and so the motivations for that i think are manifold but the notion that you have this political space where you can push the warring parties to at least a pause is quite important now the problem is that over the last few weeks we've heard a lot of conversations around a cease fire and we simply haven't seen enough political pressure on the warring parties to ensure that these conversations are actually implemented more in parties have been able to get too much good press by saying yes ok yes ok we think a ceasefire is good with actually without actually being held to those promises and ensuring there are effectively implemented so you can actually have

a response to corona and all of the other humanitarian catastrophes that yemen is currently dealing with really very good to get your thoughts on this christine bakaly we appreciate your time and to thank you again for your patients thank you. the un's chemical weapons watchdog has released its 1st report explicitly blaming the syrian government for saturn and chlorine attacks against civilians the report highlighted 3 attacks in northern city have in 2017 it found reasonable grounds to believe government forces used satin bombs joining the attacks on heavily congested civilian areas in hama province including a hospital added says chemical weapons have been a crucial part of president bashar al assad's military strategy. u.s. senator bernie sanders has ended his bid to be the democratic party's presidential nominee the vermont senator had been the front runner in the race to take on donald trump earlier this year sandra's exit clears the way for former vice president joe

biden to become the party's candidate sanders told his supporters the crisis was a factor in his decision. i know that there may be some in our movement who disagree with the city who would like us the fight on the last ballot cancer at the democratic convention i understand opposition but as i see the crisis gripping the nation exacerbated by a president unwilling or unable to provide any kind of credible leadership and the work that needs to be done to protect people in this most desperate hour while i cannot in good conscience continue to about the campaign they cannot win and which would interfere with the important work required of all of us in this difficult hour well michael fauntroy is an associate professor of political science at howard university is joining us live from washington d.c. via skype thanks very much indeed for giving us your time on al-jazeera sir let me

ask you 1st what's the contrast do you think between bernie sanders decision to pull out no and his decision to keep going against hillary clinton even though it was clear at some point that she was going to be the nominee. it it's a perfect juxtaposition as i was hearing the clip of him giving his remarks today the 1st thing i thought of was 4 years ago where he continued to hammer on hillary clinton and continue the primary contest even though it was pretty clear that he had no real chance to win the nomination that activity that posed to reality activity weakened hillary clinton going into the general election and made it more difficult for her to compete with donald trump who had already marshaled the republican forces going into the general election so i think this is an example of a lesson learned bernie sanders does not want to go down in history as the person responsible for weakening to one of whom presidential races and so i think and

never got it's a great example of how he has accepted the reality of the situation and he knows that perhaps if he'd done this earlier 4 years ago donald trump may have never won the presidency ok let me ask you how the trumpet ministration is going to be viewing all of this well they're not happy about it that can't be part of the republican strategy going into november senator going to a fractured democratic party because they expected bernie sanders to continue in the race deep into the spring and perhaps even into the early summer and that his forces would be so angry with biden's with really vice president biden that they would not want to be enthusiastic supporters so by jumping out now he complicates the republican plan and so it will be quite the contortion of the truck campaign want to do to turn all of its fire on by now

without the prospect of a split democratic party. what does joe biden and his campaign have to do now in order to try to bring on board the sanders supporters and what does beni sound as have to do to persuade his supporters to move towards joe biden well this is the big challenge for the biden campaign 4 years ago hillary clinton was reviled by many of bernie senator sanders most ardent supporters and their position was you know there's no real difference between trump and hillary so ali the stay home vote for trump because i just can't stand hillary this time around i think bernie sanders and joe biden understand that if they want to be trop and november it's not going to happen without bernie sanders people being won't board so but is going to have to extend some olive branches he probably will have to accept some of bernie's

. position policy positions and exchange for bernie support and bernie sanders is going to have to enthusiastically reach out to his own supporters to encourage them and make clear to them that the best option is not to stay home or vote for the best option is to vote for him out michael fauntroy good to get your thoughts on this thank you very much and if you times my pleasure thank you the corona virus death toll in the u.k. continues to surge with an almost i 1000 deaths in the past 24 hours by notice about his johnson remains in intensive care but he is said to be improving the baka reports the british prime minister's personal battle with coated 19 continues with him still in intensive care for the 1st time in days though some positive news on boris johnson's condition the latest from the health bill is that the prime minister remains in intensive care where his condition is improving i can also tell

you that he has been sitting up in bed and engaging positively with the clinical team. the prime minister is not only my colleague and my boss but also my friend and my thoughts are with him and his family the 55 year old tested positive 2 weeks ago he was admitted to hospital on sunday evening with a persistent high temperature and cough he was later moved to a specialist unit where he is conscious and has received oxygen scientists say the u.k.'s entering the deadliest phase of the outbreak in east london an exhibition center converted into a 500 bed hospital in only 9 days has admitted its 1st patients in this london hospital medics are handling a surge in sufferers but there are worries about the availability of lifesaving equipment we've got enough people that's difficult that's in never had staff go off we have got enough oxygen our current problem today is having enough great

ventilators some of those admitted are young and fit with no underlying health problems you don't know. how bad it is until it actually hits you and. i would absolutely. everybody to listen to the government guidance and stay away from all this is the hospital where johnson is under close observation just across the river thames from the houses of parliament the scene of so many of johnson's recent victories only a few weeks ago he was telling journalists how he was still shaking hands with people some of them patients in hospital but that was before current restrictions before the death toll started to accelerate and now johnson like so many others across the u.k. have to put their faith in one thing modern medicine in his absence johnson's designated deputy dominic robb and the rest of the cabinet are debating when to lift the lockdown is costing british businesses billions of dollars after facing

criticism for failing to impose restrictions quickly enough there's now a. danger of the government lifting things too soon a risk known all too well by london's transport workers 14 have done it after contracting covert 19 most of them bus drivers the price of keeping our cities moving needs barca al-jazeera london. if you will be his prime minister has declared a state of emergency to help curb the spread of corona virus experts are worried an outbreak could be hard to contain in a country where the health care system is already under strain ethiopia has reported around 50 confirmed cases so far i don't these 2 deaths. a surging coronavirus cases in afghanistan has forced authorities to strengthen lockdown measures only government employees and essential workers and now allowed to leave their homes hundreds of police officers have been deployed and the name of breaking

the rules will be taken into custody afghanistan has seen 14 coronavirus deaths and more than 400 confirmed cases and for the 1st time in nearly 3 months residents in the chinese city of wool han have been allowed to leave after its lockdown was lifted 55000 people bought train tickets out of the city on wednesday and domestic flights have also resumed ones 11000000 residents were the 1st to be placed under movement restrictions in january inspiring similar measures around the world but the city at the epicenter of the corona virus outbreak remains under close watch amid fears of a 2nd wave of infections and the news continues here on al-jazeera in about half an hour after counting the cost. as the world battles the caret virus pandemic will bring even. without dates travel restrictions and how to protect your. special coverage on

al-jazeera. and this is counting the cost on al-jazeera your weekly look at the world of business and economics this week. health services in rich nations are struggling to cope with the coronavirus pandemic so what about poor nations will the world bank multi-billion dollar fund be enough to help developing countries. putting people before a debt crisis argentina gets money into the hands of families to fight the economic impact of the pandemic. and from a helicopter money to universal basic income.