of its own people segregation occupation discrimination injustice this is appetite in the 21st century jerusalem a rock and a hard place and how does the. if you want to help save the world. sneeze into your own. families reunited and millions return to work as italy eases a 2 month lockdown. elam's the whole rommany watching al-jazeera live my headquarters here in doha coming up in the next 30 minutes the race to find a corona virus vaccine in record time global leaders pledged $8000000000.00 to speed up research also chinese state media slamming u.s.

claims that the virus originated in the lab in hand calling on washington to provide evidence and masks by the 1000000 the challenge facing a factory in afghanistan as it works to provide much needed protective equipment. welcome to the program world leaders organizations and banks have come together to pledge $8000000000.00 for research into coronavirus vaccine now this comes as europe's worst affected country italy has begun loosening tough social restrictions and that means people can now go back to work visit family and some businesses are reopening after 8 weeks in lockdown alexia brian begins our coverage. for how good they've been waiting for for 2 months. old grandfather and granddaughter. re united. during the korean teen we were

desperate because now i call you can speak for how excited i am too excited we have only seen her with video calls for 2 months but it was not the same it couldn't be the same. quarter when i saw her my heart stopped it seemed to be a century since i'd seen her after the longest lockdown in europe family visits ever allowed but only of relatives live in the same region. elsewhere the queues were back at rome's my new terminal station though it's not just take it but temperatures being taken. by a lot of the but this obviously after staying at home for almost 60 days it feels good i feel good and i feel safe. across as a lay more than 4000000 people were back at work as construction sites and factories reopened and restaurants were allowed to sell takeaway food but taking

public transport is still being discouraged by government and mosques a compulsory when sharing public spaces and doors. funerals remain limited to 15 people but the bereaved able to lay flowers on the graves of the dead the florists nearby carefully disinfected. with more than 210000 reported cases and around $29000.00 deaths italy's one of the worst affected countries government leaders fear the loosening of restrictions will lead to a resurgence in cases health care workers are taking extreme measures to track infections isolate pastas and to make sure hospitals and overwhelmed again. want to get every. we're being careful trying not to do too many things but at least we're finally outside and breathing some fresh air families making the most of the sunshine and parks that have been reopened playgrounds remain off limits but some of them are happy because. finally today they have opened

a few laberge as he after having close to 4 months and a half even though obviously my daughter was disappointed to find the playground are blocked off there are many reminders that life isn't the same with school cinemas n.p.'s is shot indefinitely but the sanctioned country has witnessed plagues before and recovered italians just need to find a balance between staying safe and embracing their new found freedom elixir brian al jazeera the search for corona virus vaccine has been given a massive boost leaders from the e.u. and other nations have promised to give billions of dollars to of research into the disease a video conferencing fluting presidents prime ministers health officials and banks raised over $8000000000.00 to speed up the process the united states where nearly $70000.00 people have died didn't participate the world health organizations director general says just developing a vaccine is not enough john hall has more from oxford in england. scientists here

at oxford university are at the forefront in the search for both a vaccine and for successful drug treatments that could be saving lives will be for a vaccine becomes widely available well earlier i spoke to professor martin landry he's heading the world's largest clinical trial for covert 19 looking at existing drugs off the shelf medicines if you like trying to find out whether one of them might be successful in treating covert 19 when i began by asking him whether he and his colleagues believe a vaccine absolutely will be found and what the timeline might be there isn't a guarantee we know from previous conditions with hiv or malaria that people have been searching for decades for vaccines and been unsuccessful despite best efforts there having said that there's a lot of signs of encouragement not only from colleagues and also oxford but worldwide and some people refer. to a vaccine i think race the question is what are you racing against what we're

racing against is the virus the impact of of the virus on society health and the economy not racing against each other to my mind it doesn't matter where a vaccine comes from a vaccine would be incredibly useful and incredibly effective. in addressing the challenges what the world needs almost more urgently than a vaccine in order to reopen in order to guard against a 2nd wave in order for all of those things to happen are therapeutics treatments a coup are even i think effective treatments are in sight and they're critical they're critical because patients are dying today and tomorrow and the day after and even with the best will in the world 18 months off having a scaled up vaccine at best we need treatments that deal with the problem of now well you heard professor landreau varies not looking for a cure all or a silver bullet what he's looking for is a drug that helps he's discarding the ones that don't he's looking perhaps for a combination of drugs. it might work the sort of combination therapy we see in

some cancer treatments or in the treatment of a child and there's a sadly treatable h.i.v. a virus that changed the world nearly 40 years ago there's still no vaccine for it but successful drug treatments mean the world has learned to live with hiv well thailand has also begun lifting restrictions after a steady decline in the number of infections but many people need help putting food on the table and some businesses are expected to struggle. has more from bangkok. as thais enjoyed the easing of covert 1000 restrictions many remain reliant on food handouts from charities and local communities and in some cases there's not enough to go around for those who've been waiting many closed businesses are able to reopen after almost 2 months of being shut but the state of emergency remains in place along with the 10 pm to 4 am curfew the ban on international flights to

thailand continues until the end of the month restaurants can have dined in customers but only one person per table and no alcohol for syria the pet soon on it's better than nothing but it might be too late for one party or i'm very worried about the tourism industry ties don't have the same purchasing power as foreign visitors the chinese koreans and japanese spend a lot of money but they're all gone i think it may even take a year for things to get better. the government will evaluate the situation every 2 weeks either determine to further ease the restrictions or if there's a spike in confirmed cases reimpose some of the rules while the government isn't very much focused on the here and now of tackling covidien one thing there's a growing concern about the future some businesses opening up is good news but this country is so we're lying on the tourism industry that's add a standstill like the empty streets here in old bangkok there are many types of businesses connected with tourism so a downturn cuts deep into the population here we are an economy that depends

a lot on globalization we depend a lot on the movement of people in tens of the pentagon's on tourism i think contributing to 20 percent of the g.d.p. we also depend heavily on export pet grooming shops have also opened their doors the owner of bark lounge used her personal savings to keep the business afloat for her it paid off. a lot of my customers are starting to come back i think because my shop was closed for a long time during the temporary shutdown my clients had no choice since the government lifted some of the restrictions my customers are fighting to be the 1st in line thailand southern neighbor malaysia also began loosening covert restrictions most businesses including restaurants can reopen but some states are keeping restrictions in place they want more time to study the potential risks from relaxing the curbs back in the cramped low income neighborhoods of bangkok many

don't work in the industries or businesses that every open so they still need the food handouts but there's hope that this is a 1st step that could lead to more restrictions being lifted and that they soon can return to providing for their families on their own scott hodler al-jazeera bangkok . some of the claims are also coming off in 3 nigerian states residents of the lagos of. will gradually be given more freedom over the next 6 weeks exercise and travelling to work will be allowed but schools and dine in restaurants stay closed and that address has more from the capital a big. there are people who are happy that some of these restrictions are being lifted but there are all it's also a cautious optimism that our people in fact were really really afraid that this could be premature because you're talking about lifting restrictions at a time when. corona virus infection rates are going high deaths have also gone

high from the time the nigerian government imposed knocked down 5 weeks ago to this time i think cases have nearly. multiplied tenfold in across nigeria so right now we just came back from town looking at some of these places after the announcement by the government that today people should start going out where they must yes a lot of people most people are where the mosque that we saw but there are people who are actually not wearing them and talking about social distancing it's quite a big problem go to the banks you see how crowded these places are and how people were packed together we visited one of the major markets in a bill today and what we saw there was shocking a lot of people hundreds of people compacted in one small area trying to get into the market which by the way has not open yet as of the time we left that please so

it's it's a bit warry for some people that this is coming at a time when these cases are rising and that nothing much is going on in terms of large scale testing what we hear from the government is a few 1000 tests can be done every day but the. most states that have in the last 2 or 3 weeks been also recording serious cases for example the case of qana where unexplained deaths have happened in the past 2 or 3 weeks now be authorities are coming to tell us that these days most of these were actually a covered 1000 related. president elect tom says he's confident the u.s. will have a crowd of virus vaccine by the end of the year and he was speaking at a virtual town hall meeting on fox news and some questions from americans about his handling of the pandemic rob runnels reports we're joined now by president in a virtual town hall style event broadcast on the u.s.

television network fox news president donald trump predicted rapid development of a covert $900.00 vaccine we are very confident that we're going to have a vaccine at the end of the year by the end of the or have a vaccine by the end of this year we think we're going to have a vaccine by the end of this year and we're pushing very hard trump went on to claim that he was not told till late january by u.s. intelligence agencies about the spreading coronavirus some reports indicate that those agencies sounded the alarm on january 3rd on january 23rd i was told that there could be a virus coming in but it was of no really important other words it wasn't all we got to do some we got to do something it was a brief conversation trump blames china directly for the pandemic he promised a report with new information on how it originated and spread i think they made a horrible mistake and they don't want to admit it more than 68000 people in the

u.s. have died from coal that 19 and the numbers are rising trump said the toll could reach 90000 higher number than he has cited before many public health experts are warning against premature lifting of stay at home orders saying that could lead to a new surge in infections without giving any specific dates trump said the u.s. needed to restart its economy soon we can't stay close as a country we can have a country left the president ducked a question about safeguarding vulnerable nursing home residents and called white house reporters questions horrible it is widely considered that the presidential election in november will be a referendum on trump's handling of the pandemic rob reynolds al-jazeera. chinese state media says the u.s. has been throwing ground as accusations over the origins of covert 19 u.s. secretary of state mike pompei it has said that there is significant evidence that

originated in the chinese lab while the intelligence committee continues to do its work they should continue to do that and verify so that we are certain i can tell you that there is a significant amount of evidence that this came from that laboratory one that the best experts so far seem to think it was manmade have no reason to disbelieve that at this point is the scientific consensus was not manmade or genetically modified that's right i grieve that i've said i've seen their analysis i've seen the summary that you saw that was released publicly i have no reason to doubt that that is accurate that ok so just to be clear do you do not think it was manmade or genetically modified. i've seen what the intelligence committee has said i have no reason to believe that they've got it wrong welcome to the new year is in beijing with more on the reaction to pompei as comments. there's been a escalating war of words between the u.s. and china in recent months and this latest state media editorial is only adding fuel to that fire so it was in the global times which is

a chinese state media newspaper and it's published both in english and mandarin and both versions really had searing words attacking secretary of state mike pompei oh in particular they called him a liar saying that he quote is engaging in filthy behavior to mislead the public and that he's lost his moral compass they've also accused michael pompei of really only being interested in getting donald trump reelected in the next elections in november and in store king and the chinese hatred in order to do this now this is in response to the comments we had earlier of my compare saying that there's significant evidence that corba 1000 origin aged in a chinese lab in the history of roller g.e. and beijing has flat out denied this it's also denied that it's engaging in any cover up or dissed information campaign and this editorial is really demanding that mike pompei and his colleagues really produce this evidence that they say they say

that they have and they suggest said look he's really just engaging according to state media in a bluff in a big bluff and really just continuing this anti china's smear campaign in order to divert attention from washington's mishandling of the crisis back home well still ahead here on our israel's political future is in the balance we'll have the latest on the legal challenge to a new power sharing deal also partially relaxes strictures but the government is under pressure to go those stories after the break. further flooding in sunrise quite likely with the high ground or western side he also generating showers recently and in the forecast this is the forecast for tuesday so only a few down here rather more gathering on the eastern side of the mediterranean so

that event will see the temperatures drop below the 2023 mark and those blue dots brought along by quite strong breeze they will swing through iraq and syria given that sort of pattern on wednesday leaving the sun to come up behind a drop in temperature all this while the clades been wandering around central saudi he's just going to make things a little bit more humidity things that he set up in riyadh about 35 in dark most of north africa now is bone dry which is no big surprise if that's true along the mediterranean coast and the wind directions been critical to how it feels here it's getting hard to get in tunis and tripoli into the low and then the highest thirty's next day or so the cooling breeze that shows benghazi 22 dancer egypt and further south into the sahara bringing dust with it as for showers all along this part of next tauriel africa increase in the coming north but the progress is erratic focus abidjan on the coast the ivory coast does give you showers daily.

madagascar. a breathtaking tropical paradise. or more protected. interests. we followed their journey as they put their lives on the line to. risk it all. on al-jazeera. i am.

talking about you watching how deservedly so robin a reminder of our top news stories after 8 weeks in lockdown italy is starting to ease restrictions the construction and manufacturing sectors of restarting people are also allowed to visit family members. search for a current virus vaccine has received a significant funding be used during a teleconference dozens of countries pledged $8000000000.00 to speed up research the u.s. and china did not take pass and chinese state media say the u.s. has been throwing groundless accusations around over the origins of covert 19 that's a response to u.s. secretary of state by pump claiming there's significant evidence the virus started in the chinese lab. on to the day's other news now and israel's political future could become clearer as supreme court judges hear final arguments about the legality of a new power sharing deal 8 petitions have been filed against the coalition

agreement between benjamin netanyahu and benny gantz critics argue that that new yahoo shouldn't be allowed to form a new government because of his indictment for corruption hurry for cities in west jerusalem with more on how the supreme court might reach its decision. if there were clues from yesterday's deliberations and exchanges between the 11 justices and the various attorneys for for the parties involved it seemed pretty clear that the court was extremely sensitive about overstepping its bounds it wanted to make sure that the arguments were about the actual niceties and exactitude of the law which says that a prime minister doesn't have to step down if indicted but a minister does what exactly is the status of netanyahu as a caretaker prime minister someone who is putting himself up to take on the job again properly does he hold a status of prime minister or a minister they were examining those sorts of things so that indicates that they are pretty likely to rule in favor of netanyahu on that question it doesn't

necessarily mean that they will take a similar view on the intricacies of this deal we have to see how the arguments play out there is a huge amount of pressure on the high court though not to undo all this work after 3 consecutive elections which of not yielded a result there's a good deal of political pressure on that front and also there's been threats on the high court that if they were in netanyahu supporters terms overstepped their mark in all of this then there could be retaliation taken attempts to try to undermine some of their powers in the future so that's the context in which they're operating today. the u.s. supreme court has held its 1st ever hearing by phone because of coronavirus restrictions is a major shift for the court which to digital change the arguments also live stream to the public for the 1st time or a long time demand transparency advocates. overestimation is underway after a plane carrying aid supplies crashed in somalia killing all 7 people on board the

cargo aircraft went down in or near bardell airport in somalia's bay region the plane was registered to african air express but it isn't clear who's cargo it was carrying international creditors are rejecting argentina's offer to restructure $65000000000.00 worth of foreign debt the deadline to reach a deal runs out on friday now the government wants to delay repaying loan interest for 3 years and 60 percent of payments to be written off for investors of war that failure to agree will lead to a 9 debt default and yet more disaster for the economy police in kuwait have broken up what they described as a riot by egyptian workers some of the stranded migrants were arrested as they demanded flights home egypt's embassy in kuwait apologize for the unrest and says arrangements for repatriation are being made many migrant workers all over the gulf region have lost their jobs are desperate to leave. hundreds of migrant workers

stranded in the western indian state of gujarat her fault with police. well the last india have been stuck in the city of seward since covert 19 restrictions began in late march they say the government hasn't provided them with promised food and train tickets home government leaders say doctors need time to check for infections 1st. the hardest hit country in the middle east is reopening some mosques but iran's capital tehran remains a virus hotspot president hassan rouhani says social distancing is more important than collective prayer same as in the capital. iran's government announced the names of more than $100.00 towns and cities across the country that they now consider safe or white zones these are places that health officials say have seen a dramatic drop in the rate of infection of the coronavirus mosques have the green light to go ahead and reopen their doors and in some cases friday prayer

congregations will also go back to normal but it has to be said these are small population centers in a very big country to iran still one of the worst affected places in iran this city remains a red zone major religious sites into one musher than home in the cities places that were considered hotspots for the virus at the start of this outbreak those remain closed for now when the pandemic began in iran the government response was about weighing what was good for public health against what was good for the country's economic health some say iran implemented a lockdown too late and reopened too early now in the islamic fasting month of ramadan the country's leaders are under pressure to find a balance between managing public health and the country's spiritual health we have to remember that modern day iran was built on the back of a religious revolution this is a country that has a large and vocal population of religious people and this is one of the most religious months of the islamic calendar it's a time of religious gatherings and the government will no doubt be feeling the pressure to reopen places of mass worship some mosques like the one behind me local

neighborhood houses of god have restarted limited operating hours individuals can go inside and pray throughout the day but as long as they maintain social distancing measures it's a small but significant nod by the government to the country's religious identity but bigger gatherings of any kind for any sort of mass worship remain forbidden. well japan is holding off on easing its measures instead it's extending its month long state of emergency until the end of this month at least prime minister shinzo of a says health experts will assess the situation in 10 days to see if a further extension is needed nationwide emergency measures announced a month ago empower local governors to urge businesses to close and people to stay at home now the number of corona virus infections in chile has risen past 20000 the health ministry reported 10 new deaths over the past 24 hours last week chile said it will issue covered patients with immunity pass falls despite caution on the

world health organization afghanistan's health ministry says the number of krona virus infections in the capital could be much higher than the limited testing has detected so far a random test of 500 samples suggest that 30 percent of kabul's 5000000 people could have been trying to cope with 19 more than 80 deaths and nearly 3000 cases are officially recorded so far but a factory in afghanistan is making personal protective equipment for the 1st time the plan is to make 5000000 affordable masks which cost a fraction of imported ones so that has more. suited and booted these factory workers are practicing a social distancing and ensuring health and safety standards are maintained they're making thousands of masks a day by hand it can push though. it could moderate door like many of the countries around the world there's a shortage of good to protect afghans against covert 19 you know i'm going to start

as a poor country who doesn't have enough money to spend for protecting the people i myself try to hold of going to stand because the national market the people good causes out the $60.00 buy them here just in $5.00 with the same as john though the factory in the capital kabul is also providing employment opportunities because. i was jobless before this and was doing nothing in lockdown as home but i'm lucky that i have this job serving my people the government says corona virus has infected close to 3000 people but the true total is feared to be much higher there are not enough testing kits and it's difficult to track case numbers especially in rural areas nearly a 3rd of $500.00 people tested for cope with 19 out of a population of 5000000 in the capital kabul were positive in a bid to contain the virus the nationwide lockdown has been extended until may 24th

but is widely been ignored by the public this is not a complete lockdown why hasn't the government insured and implemented a complete lockdown 2 factors primarily one. mushroom unemployment and poverty i mean i hungry man is an angry man you can not keep him and push him to be at home all the time up to a quarter of a 1000000 poor families living in kabul started receiving 10 pieces of bread a day in the 1st phase of the government's handouts program the charity save the children warns millions of afghan children are its risk of going hungry. it is also being distributed by community volunteers going door to door to raise safety awareness during the pandemic most. poor people are contacting us for help but unfortunately we cannot provide enough help we prioritize the poorest of the poor for example the widows who have no want to take care of them. decades of war in

afghanistan has damaged the health system hospitals rely on aid from the world health organization in countries such as china and turkey despite the foreign help afghanistan remains poorly prepared for a major outbreak sort of al-jazeera. your child is there with me said holroyd a reminder of our top stories after 8 weeks of lockdown italy is starting to ease restrictions imposed because of the coronavirus pandemic the construction and manufacturing sectors are restarting people are also allowed to visit family members to search for a krone virus vaccine has received a significant funding boost during a teleconference dozens of countries pledged $8000000000.00 to speed up research the u.s. and china did not take part the world health organization's director general says just developing

a vaccine is not enough. measurable sense and. to . now for. some. while. this is going to need not only to come again but for which. future. there are some restrictions are also being lifted in 3 nigerian states residents of lagos abuser and ogun will gradually be given more freedom over the next 6 weeks outdoor exercise and travelling to work will be allowed but schools and dine in restaurants remain closed donald trump says he's confident the u.s. will have a corona virus vaccine by the end of the year the president made the prediction during a virtual town hall meeting on fox news but scientists believe it'll take at least

a year before a vaccine is available and chinese state media says the u.s. has been lodging groundless accusations against phasing and that's after u.s. secretary of state mike pompei is said there's significant evidence that covert 19 originated in a chinese lab now his comments are the latest in a growing u.s. backlash against china over its initial handling of the outbreak and hundreds of migrant workers stranded in the western indian state of good draw her fault with police ah. workers from across india have been stuck in the city of sewer since kovac 19 restrictions began in late march they say the government hasn't provided them with promised food and train tickets home government leaders say doctors need time to check for infections. those were the headlines about with more news in half an hour next its inside story with the smith do stay with us.

we'll live ever return to normal after a lockdown from asia to europe all countries cautiously relaxing coronavirus restrictions but is it too soon what are the risks of a 2nd wave of infections this is inside story. hello welcome to the program. it's now more than 4 months since the corona virus

started spreading from china.