privilege as a journalist. if you want to help save the world. enduro. the u.s. coronavirus task force meets for the 1st time in months as infections across the country surged to a record daily high. you're watching al-jazeera live from london i'm dead also ahead a major spike in virus cases in india the government readies a massive treatment centers housed 10000 patients. in mexico city's police chief is certain injured in an assassination attempt he's blamed on a powerful drug gang. and the currency in freefall millions now living in poverty

why new moves by levon on central bank could through futile. thanks for joining us we begin in the united states where the vice president mike pence has led the 1st coronavirus task force briefing in almost 2 months as america records an all time high of new virus infections around 40000 new cases were confirmed across the u.s. on thursday but mike pence echoed president donald trump's message that the number of cases have been increasing because of accelerated testing he says 16 states are seeing a resurgence in cases across the south and southwest. in much of the country where we're seeing a jobs expanding and economic activity expanding but our focus today is very much

on on the advent of rising series of new cases across the american south. and. but where our 1st mission was to save lives once we came out of the $45.00 days to slow the spread of what our task force has been focused on over the course of the past 2 months is to partner with states to save lives and safely reopen let's find out more we learn from the briefing and bring in alan fessor his joining us from the white house allan and also whether there's been a reaction to what the u.s. vice president has been saying. well you know i'm just watching a feed of an event donald trump is having at the white house right now just wondering whether he would make any mention of the could on a virus such that we're seeing it hasn't said anything yet but we'll keep our eye on it certainly would make sense was seeing was interesting in that he spent a large part of the beginning of the briefing talking about what the administration had done and said they had flattened the car but here's the reality 16 states are

reporting not just the surge in cases but also a surge in the infection rate in fact florida has had the same number of cases today 8100100 plus more than italy had her head of population at its peak so you see just how bad this situation is that from a governor who said there was no way that florida was going to be as bad as italy and that was just the media talking about it what have we had from my parents well follow the advice of local health officials dr anthony also made an appeal to younger people saying look you have office they've got to take care of yourself but be aware you can go out and you can infect people and that could be a big problem it seems that the administration has realized that there is a significant difficulty here and it has certainly become more apparent in the last few days because the task force which has been meeting regularly we were told

hasn't had a public briefing in almost 2 months so here's mike pence not seeing it any point people should wear masks but saying they should follow the advice of local health officials and also that they should pray interestingly enough one of the most contentious exchanges when he asked took a few questions from journalists was are you doing but not practicing simply because 1st of all the trump campaign had a rally in tulsa oklahoma last saturday their masks were a matter of personal choice according to the press secretary and then earlier this week they were not one of the states that we're seeing a huge sad too. but it's also said it was up to people whether or not they wanted to wear masks and many of them did not here's an interesting thing a lot of the states that are impacted are those that close don't close don't late and reopened early including texas where in the last few hours they've started to roll back on easing of restrictions pubs bars they have been closed restaurants

they've got to start cutting capacity and gatherings they've got to limit the numbers there so there's a real concern here in the white house that this is surging again one expert told me this isn't the 2nd wave this is still the 1st wave is there concern amongst the president and his people that his handling of the pandemic is now affecting his popularity well certainly that george floyd case would play into that as well there are new polls out over the last 2448 hours which if you are part of the trump campaign do not make good reading the president is behind in states that he won that are considered swing states wisconsin and michigan among them but he's also behind in florida which is going to be a key state in the election but he's also finding that is behind in states that would have been regarded as solidly republican the likes of georgia and the likes of texas now if you're behind in texas that's

a big problem you want to secure your beast but if you've got to spend time money and effort just making sure the base come out to vote you can spend that time money and effort and these crucial swing states all of these polls say that if the election was held today donald trump would lose by a landslide the only good news for donald trump and his supporters they're not holding the election today it's on the vendor of the 3rd reich alan fischer reporting from the white house allan thank you. india's government has opened what it says will be the world's largest coronavirus treatment center it comes as the country recorded its largest single day increase in infections for the 3rd day in a row on friday the country has 500000 cases and more than 15000 deaths but pressure to get businesses back open remains strong elizabeth reports. the chefs at this restaurant in the indian capital used to cook for up to 1200 people

a day that was before the knockdown began in march but despite restaurants being allowed to open for the past 2 weeks it's among the 80 percent of eateries which have chosen to keep their doors closed to diana's or only do deliveries there is no business of them in the market we don't see people walking. so. since. we've recently started. a couple of months. industry experts here say 30 percent of all restaurants and hotels could shut down permanently because of a lack of customers as the number of coronavirus cases rise. as restaurants keep their doors closed banquet halls hotels and train carriages are being converted to cars at 19 treatment centers. government has opened what it says will be the world's largest temporary health facility which will have $10000.00 beds by the end of next week we have. trying to put in

a state to be our interest to. computer software the medical equipment and ready trained medical professionals who are there we remain able to be a bit different in a proper clinical manner. but health officials warn that expanding facilities is not everybody keeps talking about the health care facility as being equivalent to the number of beds it is actually the facility of getting the level of care which is available which is more appropriate than collecting a whole lot of beds so we need doctors we need nurses we need we need all monitoring and facilities we need better medical staff. while some regions are building more facilities to deal with the rising cases the shutting down the northeastern state of asanas decided to go back under a full lockdown from sunday for 2 weeks that means only essential services will be allowed that follows the stage of time and i'd wished at the same thing last week

and markets in the southern city of hyderabad and decided to shut down in making the decision the central government as it tries to keep the economy open elizabeth primetime al-jazeera new delhi. authorities in argentina are expected to extend lockdown restrictions until next month as doctors warn coronavirus cases will peak in the coming weeks there are more than $52000.00 confirmed cases and the death toll stands at around one $1150.00 argentina's government has some restrictions but maintained a strict lockdown around the capital one of sirens a new phase of frustrations set to be announced on friday it's alyan soldiers have been deployed to a small town where a new coronavirus cluster has been detected around 49 people in a residential complex northwest of naples have tested positive soldiers have set up barricades and police checkpoints are in place residents are angry they're being locked inside the complex is home to many bulgarians who work the fruit picking

season. i am. in other news mexico's city's chief of police has been injured in a targeted attack. gunshots could be heard across an upscale neighborhood in the city's west where a shootout took place local authorities say 2 of the police chief's bodyguards were killed in the ambush police are blaming a cartel for the assassination attempts 12 people have been arrested so far money well rapper lows in mexico city and says there were unusual aspects to this attack . approximately 6 38 am local time there was a coordinated attack against mexico city's public security secretary to get see how the food is essentially the police chief for the mexican capital now i want to make one thing clear here intact actually took place in downtown mexico city less than

a block away from al-jazeera is mexico city bureau so it was it was practically right out right outside that in itself is big news this is not the sort of thing that residents of mexico city are used to seeing there are pockets of instability in different parts of the country where different organized groups and cartels operate and controlled territory but it's simply not the sort of thing that we're used to seeing take place here in mexico city this a cutie secretary was traveling in armored vehicle in in a sport utility vehicle when a group of heavily armed men opened fire from another vehicle police say that the attackers were using high caliber weapons 50 caliber rifles as well as grenades so again this is an audacious attack that people here are simply not used to seeing several casualties have been reported we do not yet have a number of how many people died during this attack but we can confirm that at least 2 police officers that were accompanying the security secretary were killed

during the attack as well as one bystander the police chief recently tweeted that he's placing the blame on the got to. move it and get ahead of us here in new generation cartel that in itself is also big news mexico city authorities have long held that the police got there has not been operating in mexico city though the cartel did post a you tube video in february claiming that they were operating here in mexico city the attack that took place earlier today appears to be evidence of that still to come on al jazeera ruslan mercenaries storm one of libya's prized oil fields as rival forces battle for control. british business is are preparing to keep their customers safe from corona virus but they'll have to keep their data safe too.

but. we are now starting to see the heat breaking across western parts of here areas of cloud and family showers now starting to push in across the north west through the british isles easing into what western parts of france spain portugal seeing want to show as well plenty of shows continuing to central and eastern areas of you but that bump into this area of high pressure are going to get stuck as you go on through the next couple days is that what's the weather they say just moving across pilings into ukraine towards belarus than in the rash of showers right across germany through the low countries and a wetter weather making its way in across much of the british isles as we go through saturday a much cooler temperatures around 21 celsius quite gusty winds rattling those showers through see more of those showers into northern and western parts as we go on through sunday but they will dry there for london at 20 degrees celsius

a much more comfortable weather coming in to make a way to the early part of next week showers continue just around the out for the southeast generally dry across much of italy down across the mediterranean find dry and sunny for the most part dry and sunny same across northern parts of africa as well but i suspect she was there into central i was sticky heavy ones there in just southern parts of nigeria cameroon. in a 2 part series. observes the lives of 2 children. over 20 years. in science into. circumstances the cheap law it's the in about the changing. 20 years of me starts with blood and land the story on not just 0.

0 s. . the top stories on al-jazeera the u.s. vice president has echoed donald trump's view that the considering upswing in corona virus cases in his country is down to more testing while the country's infectious disease expert says there is a serious problem in southern and western states. a special facility which can treat up to 10000 virus patients has been opened in india's council it comes after the country saw another record number of new infections in one day of more than 17000. and mexico's city's security chief has been injured in an assassination

attempt 2 of his bodyguards were killed in the attack in the city center which has been blamed on a powerful drugs. the israeli military says 2 rockets have been fired from gaza into israel tensions are high as the government prepares to kickstart its controversial plan to annex parts of the occupied west bank and now the israeli prime minister's coalition partner has also weighed in in a facebook post on friday benny gantz suggested that any palestinians in future and exteriorize be granted equal rights israel looks to roll out its an accession plan from the 1st of july kerry falso has been following the story from west jerusalem. next week could be a very momentous one with the july the 1st date which is the earliest possible date under the deal between him and netanyahu the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu for this coalition government that's the 1st date under which the movement towards annexation can be advanced and he sets out what could be read as

something of a toughened tone in against netanyahu in terms of saying that that he would be willing to speak to the palestinians at any time even tomorrow if they wanted to seriously that there would be no annexation in a palestinian area or least an area with a large palestinian population or where their movement would be severely curtailed if there were palestinians inside such an area they would be granted equal rights that there would be security and diplomatic groundwork that went in place ahead of any annexation to preempt any petition potential security problems and also said that he would advance moves towards bilateral negotiations with the palestinians as part of this as well and all of this he says is part of the american peace plan the trump plan but really when you look at it it doesn't really reject anything that looks within the bounds of what might well happen in any case the indications that

we've been getting from benjamin netanyahu and his officials are that he wants 1st to declare israeli sovereignty as they put it on major israeli illegal settlements close to the green line close to here just south of jerusalem and that they would be the 1st phase. the value of lebanon's currency the euro has been tumbling for months it's now worth around a quarter of what it was late last year so the central bank has launched an electronic foreign exchange trading platform in a bid to halt the slide that's hitting the pockets of consumers but without an injection of dollars. it could be futile as in a hotel reports from beirut. licensed exchange shops are only selling dollars to a selected few among them are people who need to pay a foreign worker or buy an airline ticket it's a 1st for lebanon where the foreign currency has long been used in transactions but the country has run out of dollars due to

a deep economic crisis that has led to the collapse of the local currency attempts by the central bank to stabilize the rate including launching an electronic trading platform have so far failed they've been trying to fix the price of the. rate that is just not reflective of what demand and supply is so they've been just trying to fix it at a very low rate unfortunately unfortunately the lira has lost at least 75 percent of its value on the black market since october nearly 50 percent in the past month many are hurting in a country that is importing dependent. my follow to use it to be $750.00 an hour with was less than $200.00. lebanon needs fresh dollars but money from abroad has stopped flowing in. many war and the exchange rate instability will continue without foreign assistance a return of confidence in the economy and it's not just those $200.00 11 2 on the

worst financial crisis are in power. discussions with the international monetary fund on a bailout have made no progress the political elite the central bank and the banking sector are still arguing over who is responsible for bankruptcy in this state there also failing to carry out reforms like fighting corruption a member of the negotiating team resigned in protest it is the state in all its opera that has resigned from its own responsibilities they have a responsibility to do reforms they have a responsibility to take ownership of the losses in the financial system and to ensure the stability of the financial sector it's desperate times up to 45 percent of a nation of nearly 5000000 people live below the poverty line when. people are selling the gold to pay hospital 3 situation fees and loans on their homes. all the while the state's foreign currency reserves are being depleted we've better stop printing lebanese found their way to stop doing that is to do economy could reforms because

why are we printing lebanese plant because we want to finance government expenditure protesters who have been demanding a new leadership for months are losing hope they held a symbolic funeral for lebanon as their country sinks deeper into crisis. beirut let's discuss this further with having an independent journalist is joining us from beirut itself thanks for your time with us on al-jazeera give us a sense of what a 75 percent slide in the lead actually means for the average lebanese that's trying to go about their day to day life. well if you used to make a 1000000 there of month which is what a professor makes per class etc most important person in lebanon you are making about $700.00 today you're making about 150 dollars. so if you can imagine 75 percent cut in your salary wherever you live and how difficult that would be that give you

a sense of that you go to the store and then and there you're now you're your salary which is so low by so much less food and i was describing at the supermarket right now when i was buying i'm a bag of cheese that used to cost about $10.00 and now it's like something like $40.00. dollars in love and on have become like gold there are so scarce and we have a he khana me that's the pattern on dollars so that makes everything so much worse work and it doesn't really make anything so everything you buy is imported so you using dollars to buy imported goods dollars that are now no longer existing in the market so it's a really devastating thing there's a feeling of anxiety that the currency is like a stock market that's just swinging up and up and up every day you know at different times of day the currency changes values so you see your salary that was

you know $200.00 yesterday might be 100 dollars today tomorrow could be $50.00 people start to wonder if we're going to work for free at some point there's desperation people are selling off their items online they're selling clothes they're selling dishes to get money the government is apparently selling off some of the helicopters that are used to fight fires in lebanon so we don't know what's going to happen when the fire season starts will there be no helicopters with the blazes just. you know. engulf the country so it's a very difficult time. and we know that there have been talks between the government of lebanon as well as the international monetary fund on a bailout but that of course was a conditional upon lebanon taking a series of reforms undertaking a series of reforms that is so where are we on that and has there been any more clarity from the government on the path ahead no i mean that's always been the

problem in lebanon there's no real clarity from the government there's no transparency we don't know what they do we don't know what meetings all the meetings are closed door meetings that's been one of the big demands of the protests that continue in lebanon is what's really happening we know that the i.m.f. itself has said that they haven't had a breakthrough the government can't really decide how much money has been lost some estimate about $50.00 or $60000000000.00 have been lost again that's for a country it's already one of the most indebted countries in the world our debt is aready up words of $90000000000.00 so that's on top of that. and so there's a real fear that the government won't be able to negotiate with the i and i've because they can't agree on how much money they've been losing because there's differences between the central bank and the finance department the government the prime minister's office they're all feuding and that's one of the main fundamental problems of lebanon today is that it's not really functioning as a state it's functioning as many states and so that makes controlling this problem

so much harder so it kind of feels like things are really out of control in terms of the economy people have been showing their fridges of the poor will be hit the hardest empty fridge is across the country and people have had empty fridges for months now so just think about being for and cutting your poverty in half and then cutting it again so it's hard to imagine what can happen next all right we'll leave it there we thank you very much happy battah for speaking to us from beirut it's. libya's national oil corporations as russian and other foreign mercenaries have stormed our oil fields of plants in the west as the country's largest the attackers are attempting to block the resumption of oil exports after a months long blockade most of the country's main oil fields are now under the control of that's a brook based libyan national army which opposes the u.n. backed tripoli government mahmoud is in tripoli and he says this development of the oil field is significance a convoy of 25 vehicles with the russian mysteries and other foreign ministries

into the a shot of oil field on thursday evening and also says that it is deeply concerned that. the developments in. the oil field in about 700 kilometers south of the capital is the country's biggest oil field with the production capacity of about more than $300000.00 barrels a day and the country's already suffering the consequences of the blockade of the oil terminal in central libya by have to his forces since january there and he says that the total losses resulting from from that blockade is nearly $6000000000.00 privacy campaigners are warning that the next phase of the u.k.'s lockdown could lead to a major data breach from the 4th of july restaurants and bars in england town

welcome customers again but owners will be required to record their names and contact details on and has more from london. the u.k. hospitality sector is worth nearly $50000000000.00 a year before coronavirus employs $3200000.00 people as the industry gears up for a new beginning post lockdown social distancing is not the only issue it has to cope with. restrictions when the capacity of this micro brewery in west london has fallen from 35 to just 10 but it's the requirement to somehow keep the names and details of every single customer for 21 days which has led the owner to actually perspective on reopening we haven't had a booking system before it's something completely new we have to look into which is why i think i'm gingerly waiting for a little bit more guidance how to keep that data what they want to do with that data before i write that invest in software let's stop piling in the hours and try to work out how this is going to actually work logistically some restaurants some

props of already commenced with limited reopening offering food and drink on a takeaway basis but the ability to cope with the new rules from july 4th varies widely from the big problem with their existing sophisticated digital infrastructure down to the small independents which are struggling simply to open their doors the u.k. government says it will issue detailed guidance soon but with just a week left until july 4th privacy campaigners say a piecemeal approach and ambiguous instructions puts too much responsibility on pubs and restaurant owners and exposes individual customers to a serious risk of data breaches of the system into placing a secure money. in it so rapidly does seem highly questionable the only way to ensure data resale is for they to be stored with encryption at rest and with encrypted in transit and that's another area in which so far the government has failed to provide any clarity in terms of actual execution in europe data storage

and processing is governed by a rule called g.d.p. on which carries a maximum penalty of $21000000.00 or 4 percent of global turnover that's an existential threat for smaller businesses and the end of. body u.k. hospitality wants government to issue clear instructions to the enforcement body to make clear that all of the guy there in safe workplace is safe for me a secure react over which the track and trace suggestion the pot is not manned and then they should not be imposing regulate this is over and above what is required by the little to get me a 4th of july the industry believes that the coded data collection rules are just a transition measure until the government's testing truck system achieves widespread coverage and effectiveness and how quickly that can be achieved is an open question brennan al-jazeera westland that the u.s. house of representatives has approved a bill to make the capital washington d.c.

the nation's 51st states if it passes the republican controlled senate more than 700000 people in the district would finally have the representation other states take for granted the white house says it opposes statehood and the bill is expected to face opposition in the senate it's. kind of again the headlines on al-jazeera the u.s. vice president has echoed donald trump's view that the continuing upswing in coronavirus cases and his country is down to more testing in a white house virus taskforce briefing my parents continued to say the focus was on safely reopening the country but the country's infectious disease experts says there is a serious problem in southern and western states anthony felt she says outbreaks including in florida and texas so the country was still at risk. much of the

country where we're seeing jobs expanding and economic activity expanding but our focus today is very much on on the advent of rising series of new cases across the american south. and. but where our 1st mission was to save lives once we came out of the $45.00 days to slow the spread of what our task force has been focused on over the course of the past 2 months is to partner with states to save lives and safely reopen an enormous field hospital has been opened in india a special facility in the capital city can treat up to $10000.00 virus pace since some hospitals in the area have been overwhelmed the country saw another record number of new infections in one day on friday if more than 17000 the total number of confirmed infections is now just sort of half

a 1000000 mexico city's security chief has been injured in an assassination attempts omar garcia harf it's received 3 bullet wounds in the early morning attack in the center of the city 2 of his bodyguards and a bystander were killed one of the country's most powerful drugs cartels has been blamed even though authorities had previously claimed it did not operate in the capital city lebanon's currency has had a new low against the dollar and the euro is now worth around a quarter of its value late last year launching a new electronic trading platform the central bank maintain the country's the quiddity is secure but reserves of foreign currency are low those are the headlines on al-jazeera this hour we'll have more news after a day selects. no

there was no you learned most of the new. builds. was the female brain with you if i could think. of this evidence of love. high.