$100.00 to 0. u.s. vice president mike pence visits one of the worst hit states as the global coronavirus death toll exceeds half a 1000000. gallons a roman you want yours there alive my headquarters here in doha also coming up removing a symbol of racism misses a few votes to change its flag carrying the confederate emblem following the death of george floyd. the speaker of the u.s. house of representatives criticizes donald trump over reports of russian bounties on u.s. troops in afghanistan. president micron's party face a setback but it's

a good night for the greens after local elections in france. back into the program across the world half a 1000000 people have now died from corona virus and more than 10000000 have been infected a quarter of all of those infections and deaths are in the united states which is by far the worst hit country with a sharp spike in infections recorded in southern and western states the u.s. health secretary is warning time is running out to contain the virus particle hain has the latest. the corona virus is marching through america in houston texas hospitals are quickly running out of intensive care beds in florida arizona and texas mobile testing sites are being overrun with people waiting for hours many turned away health experts warned this would happen in many of these states mostly

republican governors move to reopen businesses stressing the importance of the health of the economy now critics say the public health system and a growing number of people are paying the price while the trumpet ministration says there is no connection. all 50 states are opening up again to one degree or another states like florida and like texas actually began to open up in in early may for the better part of 6 weeks john we did not see any significant movement but if you look at this tracker showing which states meet the government's criteria to reopen only 4 are safe the ones in red are seen large spikes in cases and now at least one member of the administration is sounding the alarm window is closing we have to act and people as individuals have to act responsibly we need to social distance we need to wear fit more face coverings if we're in settings where we can't social distance particularly in these hot zones but in many of these states

where cases are on the rise there is no mandatory order to wear masks in public and in many ways this is become a partisan issue well the vice president attended an event sunday where the crowd seemed to mostly wear masks the president has not done the same and my understanding that the centers for disease control has recommended the use of mass but not the demand require it because they don't want to send the president and that their president should be example you know real men wear masks for the president's part his focus at least on twitter was elsewhere we tweeted this video of supporters yelling white power. he appears to have deleted it before leaving the white house once again his weekend spent golfing by some estimates the number of cases that have been reported each day has more than doubled over the last 2 weeks and given the way this virus spreads that means the number is likely to jump dramatically in the days and weeks ahead political haim al jazeera maryland

. brazil is the world's 2nd worst hit country with more than 1300000 cases and over 57000 deaths in. brazil and around the world to denials present. of the pandemic. colombian capital. as the sun rose over the capital brasilia a 1000 crosses were planted in front of the brazilian congress to honor the 7000 people that have so far died of 1000 in the country but it was also the 1st of a series of demonstrations on sunday against president. of the pandemic. groups of protesters in more than 20 countries in brazil's main cities called for his resignation. cheering supporters in the state of.

without a face mask despite a court ruling that required him to wear one but number of cases in the country keeps rising or reduction in the number of daily deaths in religion was enough for the mayor to reopen stores. this week and but many customers say they remain worried i think it should be done step by step there can be no crowds everyone should keep their distance we all know our economy is collapsing and we have to get back to work but the viruses and visible so we can only wear our masks. the coronavirus and their mic continues to wreck havoc in much of latin america. even colombia that had managed to control the spread of the virus is experiencing a resurgence of infections after partially reopening the economy the mayor of the capital is asking president to reinstate the strict lockdown.

the numbers are overwhelming but has reached 27th days in cases and arraigned 600 dead the country has more than 88000 cases and almost 50000 deaths we need to prepare to go back to a strict quarantine. staying at home might be the only way to protect the health system reaching a critical state with something difficult to implement again in this and other countries in latin america with a large population working informally hand to mouth then needs to be on the streets every day to survive at least in the room and just. senators in the u.s. state of mississippi a voted to replace the state flag of the last in the nation to display the confederate battle emblem it's being carried by the state senate 37 to 14 are doing passed by the house earlier than many see the current design as racist for its links to slavery in the south a proposed new design will be voted on in november gabriel. from new york on the

significance of the mississippi vote. it's a historic moment really when lawmakers in mississippi on sunday voted to get rid of this flag a flag that's been around for a 126 years as part of the state of mississippi but they voted to take it out at this particular moment because of the recent black lives matter and civil rights movement that has been sweeping over the country after the killing of george 48 in minnesota and so that is the context on why lawmakers were bringing up this contentious flag now they've been talking about it for several years many people arguing for years that this flag needed to be changed because it did have this confederate battle emblem on it a battle emblem that is often used by white nationalists and in the united states and and it's seen as a symbol that does not fit in 2020 now and especially in

a state of like mississippi where it's over 35 percent of the population is black americans but there was some pushback too and that's why it took so long for this to come about this change there were some that argued lawmakers and others that argued that this flag was part of the tradition and history and should not be changed nevertheless it was with this really historic vote in the senate 37 votes to 14 to remove this flag the last state flag in america that has the confederate battle emblem on it now to go to the governor of mississippi who is expected to sign this into law he said he would sign whatever that whatever the legislature agreed upon and then it will go to a 9 person panel that will come up with a new design for a new flag that will be voted on by the residents of mississippi coming in november . now starbucks is the latest company to pull ads from facebook over concerns that

the social media giant has become a platform for hate speech the coffee company follows other multinationals like coca cola unilever and levi's civil rights leaders have been calling for a boycott of facebook saying it doesn't do enough to stop racist and violent content on friday facebook announced it will take potentially harmful posts. the us president says intelligence agencies have told him that reports suggesting that russia offered to pay taliban fighters to target american troops in afghanistan were not credible but the new york times who 1st reported the story now says senior u.s. officials were aware of the plot as early as january the newspaper reports that at least one death was connected to the bounties in a tweet from suggested it was another fabricated russia hoax house speaker nancy pelosi has accused trump of siding with russia's leader vladimir putin this is as bad as it gets and yet the president will not confront the russians on this or

denies being brute whether he is or not is that ministration know that our allies who were some of our allies who will work with us in afghanistan have been briefed and accept this report just as i've said to the president with him all roads lead to putin he will not be able i don't know what the russians have on the president politically personally financially or whatever it is but he wants to ignore are you want to bring them back into the g. 8 despite the annexation of crimea and the invasion of ukraine karen greenberg is director of the center on national security the fordham university school of law and she says even if tribes denials are true the controversy isn't good for him. if this is a story that actually has some merit to it which if the new york times is right it seems to be that of that he would be briefed on it and not just him but his closest advisers would be briefed on it anyway they think there would be some kind of

investigation into the validity of it and some kind of sense of how to respond and what to do you so if he wasn't briefed on it that too was a problem because if there was a story out there intelligence sources or elsewhere then it's the kind of thing that needs to be brought to the attention of the president and so you go away whether he was briefed or not briefed and this actually was information that was in the intelligence community in the national security council arena then either way it doesn't look good for the president in the area of afghanistan pakistan intelligence services who is using who is. who to do their bidding which groups it's an incredibly cloudy complicated and untrustworthy area and if you study the history of the region over the past many decades you there is always

a little bit of who's on whose side who's doing what so it's not unusual but it is unfortunate and it just highlights the complexity of the region and how difficult it is to know who's really on whose side and who's doing what but when you're in the middle of peace talks you really need a level of trust that this story betrays forces loyal to libyan warlord cleef i have to say that deploying reinforcements to regions they hold in the center of the country now the city of only solved the libyan national army is such a show 5 has been sent to the reaches of sirte the u.n. recognized government of national accord has pushed back toughest forces from the capital tripoli and on wednesday arab leaders called for a truce and peace talks between the warring sides. sudanese security forces have arrested at least $122.00 people they say intended to fight as mercenaries in libya a spokesperson for cigars powerful rapid support forces say $72.00 of those

arrested in $1.04 were from an armed group led by a notorious jan jawaid leader joint fighters $14.00 for in the early 2000 and they're accused of killing and raping civilians i said about the metadata that they have not received information at the beginning of this month to a number of citizens in this area have been deceit in recruited to work at mess and beat in libya based on the information we form the joint security force and we sent them to various darfur states we have been able to arrest this group which includes 122 men they are all youth they are part of sit down with national wealth and should not be used in this way in february we have arrested another group of 243 people who were uprooted from various states to work with math and reason libya well still ahead here on al-jazeera in factional fighting the congolese government over the rest of the justice minister pitting the current president against supporters of this predecessor. and out of the cold the ski resorts amongst the

attractions bracing for a bad tourist season the south africa. hello they're hot and dry throughout much of the middle east of course as they when they sow the dust in the sand has also been picking up temperature wise it's also been fairly warm into afghanistan these boys enjoying the cool waltzes to cool down but as we go through the next few days it may actually be a few shots which in calls into nolan afghanistan the times as in the low thirty's once you had to the west of there cools time it is much higher 45 in baghdad 47 across into you still the winds a very strong they way down the gulf and if it is a go through tuesday the time which is actually on the increase so doha could be up to $45.00 degrees celsius on the same across into riyadh and then from there we had down into southern africa plenty of rains around the gulf of guinea out schools west africa but also the last couple of days on

a very strong front worked its way across into the fall so this has also led to a lot of storm damage the winds were gale full strength and just over the seas a blue gum trees came down actually really damaged 8 cars but it wasn't just this that cause a problem there was also flooding as well that was fairly widespread now as we go through monday you can see still a charles a few showers the winds could still be brisk but not as strong as they were but really the south coast if you want to get the winds will be fairly guessed in fact those showers will creep along the east coast and also coast in mozambique as we head off into tuesday. isolating time listening post cuts through the noise looking at another side of this story not so much the information around the outbreak but. separating propaganda from fact it's reality you have to worry. exposing the optics try

and stimulate the rhetoric and blame but they cannot manipulate the fires the listening post your insight going to the media on iraq you see iraq. the war her war. but the market watch al-jazeera means a whole wrong reminder of our top stories across the world half a 1000000 people are known to have died from corona virus and more than 10000000 have been infected a quarter of all of those infections and deaths are in the united states which is by far the worst hit country. in brazil protesters have been demonstrating against president tribals nora's handling of the crisis has set out

a 1000 crosses in the capital brazil is the 2nd worst hit country in the world. mississippi senators have voted to replace a state flag the last in the u.s. nation to display the confederate battle emblem and they see the current design as racist for its links to slavery in the cells. but the green party appears to have made major gains in france's local elections while president will micron's party of struggled it's the 2nd round of polls for manners and municipal councillors which was delayed because of the coronavirus lockdown now the election is seen by many as a test of michael's reform policies and his handling of the outbreak natasha butler has more from paris. victory for annie delgado and a 2nd term as mayor of paris the socialist candidate teamed up with the green party to run on an environmental platform for the city she promised to continue her drive to cut cars and pollution and help the french capital's economy recover from the

covert crisis was that this was the list was that this was you know that you've chosen hope you've chosen unity chosen a pair is that i fitted the leaves no one behind either goes nearest rival conservative candidate for a she did data he conceded defeat the former justice minister on the nicholas sarkozy sheet campaign to clean up the city and crack down on crime trailing behind . the candidate for president emanuel macro centrist policy failed to convince voters to have a message about who's in it but i want to thank all prisons he swam against the tide to place their hope and confidence in os by voting for our list i take on board the result. the 2nd round of the local elections took place more than 3 months after the 1st it was delayed because of the coronavirus lock down the health crisis and likely factor in the historically low voter turnout many restrictions have been lifted in france which is why these elections can finally take place

there although of course special measures in the polling station mosques are mandatory social distancing has to be respected and everybody who works here is behind a prospect screen across france they would be games for the greens taking cities including but it was a crushing day for the president's party the fail to win any major seats macro created his republican the move party to help him win the presidency in 2017 but his struggle to expand it supporter base his party has suffered from the unpopularity of my coin self there was lots of trouble in the past 2 years and in the middle of a pandemic you don't expect a reward for the for the government certainly not in france where people are criticizing a lot the power of the day local elections have little direct impact on the national government and my crawl has played down their importance of the voting in

northern france he looked relaxed nevertheless 2 years before the next presidential election his party's poor results offer some indication of how much confidence voters have in his leadership and as such will be difficult to completely ignore the al-jazeera paris. exit polls suggest poland's president won the most votes in the 1st round of the country's election but only. picked up enough votes to prevent a run of poll next month so you explained. it had been a tight race a battle of ideals pitted between populism and progress but a frustrated win for the manhood occupy. the role for the past by years andre do have tied his fate to the right wing law and justice party and placed his bet on a deeply conservative often homophobic agenda still he attempted a positive spin on the outcome change will come to come did not target someone

still great result is better by far than the one from 5 years ago with 10 other candidates thank you very much for your support but 1st don't foremost i would like to thank my compatriots for the turnout for this massive participation in the election but this was a campaign fought in extraordinary times deferred by the pandemic the vote was supposed to have taken place in may which would have put due to comfortably ahead of his rivals instead the delay allowed his strongest rival. ski to throw his hat in the ring a pro e.u. centrist and the mayor of warsaw whose liberal views have at times put him at odds with the country's influential roman catholic clerics to consolidate his base invoked a nationalist programme condemning the country's l g b t rights movement as a foreign ideology more destructive than communism and under his watch made calls

to chew tional reforms that put the independence of the country's judiciary at stake by giving politicians the power to fire judges if they disagreed with their legal decisions. a move that strained poland's relations with the european union you saw it as an assault on poland and the blocs own legal system but andre do that also had international supporters who chimed in this populist tactics perhaps hoping an endorsement for the u.s. president just ahead of the election would boost his voting base he's doing a terrific job the people of poland think the world of him and by the way this is during the terrific woman terrific woman who we've gotten to know also through our various travels and meetings do this failure to secure an outright win now means that both he and his kosky will face each other again next month but what won't be clear is if it will bring to an end poland's bitterly divided politics sunday

diagonal al-jazeera. thousands of people are mere miles reclined state of flowed from their homes at the prospect of military raids the u.n. says urgent measures are needed to save civilian lives villages were ordered to leave as the army prepared to launch an operation against the arak an army it's a rebel group which wants more self rule the ethnic rakhine buddhists the order to evacuate has been called off after the ek australia the us and canada called for an end to the so-called clearance operations or refugees and humanitarian groups say the operations are a cover for military crackdowns the military has used the term clearance operation in 2017 when they targeted the writing of muslim minority that led to accusations of genocide or chill when is executive director of the burma human rights network and he says raids are still taking place despite the assurances of state officials what we're hearing is that it is just you know sure that the law but it's not true

the are still conducting some operations a lot of operation on the ground and. that of my team also contacted a lot of people on the ground the thing the be a been hearing you know show. slings and hiring and firing and there are so many you location civilians have been detained to interrogate and bear in mind the interrogation regaling in torturing so they are facing torture because the right kind of like the kind they are bullies but they are still because they are supporting. a commie konami so they try to create fear and pressuring the population to give them the information where they are about and in the meantime as. we reported within 48 hours for civilian has been killed and there are several injured and also there are a couple of villages they have. been turned on by the shelling than by the military activity and also we are also learning that you know 111 month old

baby was killed a few days ago so the military operation is continuing and no matter how the community crying and talking about it to stop this so this military operation is clearly breaching. you know. provision measure the international criminal court of justice has you know ordered them to stop all kind of activities that they're going to suffer in your community in china say so they are killing breaching this order democratic republic of congo prime ministers who stray longer has protested for a stop to justice minister. the president to guarantee legal protections for cabinet members sustained to send there was released after being questioned by prosecutors follows a disagreement with the president ever proposed judicial reform critics say they're

an attempt to muzzle judges. symbolic is the is with the center for research on the congo he says the movement's call for reforms is in part due to president felix to she katie's surprise victory in the previous ballot i think it's important to look at this crisis merely from the election in 2018 to 2018 the election was contested by many as being dubbed as fraudulent but what actually created is a deal between the presidents who did not control the state the protests we can be . who controls both chambers of parliament it controls the military and many others to constitution reform is actually taking the judicial branch to be now under the supervision of the justice minister and that's predictable i mean the house if i have to speak about the parliament. 350 members of the lower chamber

are part of the copula regime while we have 500 member of parliament something for the senate so they have been putting in place laws that will actually change the judges judicial system works in advantage south africa has been easing lock down restrictions to revive the economy including its vital tourism sector but as the government deals with the highest number of krona virus cases on the continent the industry is expected to struggle in the coming months so we diminish visited a winter resort where it's feared the season is already lost. more than 2700 meters above sea level this is the highest resort in south africa it's also the only ski resort in the country and one of 3 in africa but with no leisure travel allowed the covert 19 locked down has brought to fidel and south africa's tourism industry to a standstill the resort high is about 120 people during the 3 month long ski season

with good new talent to repeat a cold front coming. now we're not. trying to. make sure that we can run a soon where open borders. so tight it really is a ski instructor who also teaches in the resorts training program for the underprivileged it too has been canceled now that season the winter season it's caused you to lock down it's very rich difficult for me because i don't work on an income so i just sit at home. the resort usually hosts at least one international ski competition every year but it's likely this season will be lost and surrounding tourist attractions are also empty this is the coldest weather this area's had in 7 years conditions are perfect for winter sports making it all the more difficult for people here it's a big had it not been for coronavirus this resort would have 3500 people pass

through during the peak of the winter tourism season instead of being on the slopes 17 year old top is spending his free time trying to keep fit earlier this year he competed in the youth limpy games in switzerland he was one of only 2 competitors from africa he had hoped to train during the winter at his home in the eastern cape i feel embarrassed because i really really looking forward to this game this year and trying my best to qualify for the 20202022 winter olympics and china. i quite enjoyed but. destroyed everything. well topples plans have been put on hold the tourism industry in south africa waits for word on when it can reopen the government says the bulk of applications for unemployment grants has come from the sector and up to 600000 people in the

industry could lose their jobs if it's not fully operational by september but for now the ski resort stays empty for me to malaya al-jazeera eastern cape. and you can find out more on our website at arms or dot com. your children there would be so horribly remind of our top news stories across the world half a 1000000 people are known to have died from corona virus and more than 10000000 have been infected a quarter of all those infections and deaths are in the united states which is by far the worst hit country but the window is closing we have to act and people as individuals have to act responsibly we need to social distance we need to wear fit or face coverings if we're in settings where we can't social distance particularly

in these hard zones in brazil but testers have been demonstrating against present tribal sonar as handling of the crisis they set out $1000.00 crosses in the capital brazil's the 2nd worst hit country in the world and the u.s. president says intelligence agencies have told him that reports suggesting russia offered to pay taliban fighters to target american troops in afghanistan were not credible but the new york times who 1st reported the story now says senior u.s. officials were aware of the plot as early as january mississippi senators have voted to replace the state flag the last in the nation to display the confederate battle emblem many see the current design as racist because of its links to slavery in the south cable is on the house more new york. many people arguing for years that this flag needed to be changed because it did have this confederate battle emblem on it battle emblem that is often used by white nationalists. in the

united states and it's seen as a symbol that does not fit in 2020 now and especially in a state of mississippi where it's over 35 percent of the population is black americans forces loyal to libyan warlord clique to have to say they're deploying reinforcements to regions they hold in the center of the country sources have told al jazeera that sudanese mercenaries loyal to have to have also been sent to the regions of. poland's conservative president. won the most votes in the 1st round of the country's presidential election will face his closest challenger will source liberal there. in the role of next month there's the headlines of more news in half an hour here on al-jazeera do stay with us the listening post is next. as countries begin easing coronavirus restrictions scientists warn of a 2nd wave of infections in the last few days. in some of the neighborhoods and

many feel the economy is be prioritised the boat for human life until the people come clean the focus is on the field the one spike in public 19 places we bring you the latest developments from across the globe coronavirus condiment special coverage on the. indian prime minister narendra modi says his country's that great i got a say i got it i think that is that i try not to do i shut thank you guys i'm out of hospital kashmir region i should take 1st that the clash this whole issue of the way to 5 years. after 45. hello i'm richard burton you're watching the listening post working from home here are some of the media stories we're covering this week china india and the border dispute the turned deadly what is actually happening on the line of actual control advertisers.