i'm female democratic party official just in a special edition of her tan he turned down even through wave one as a result of a lack of a leadership you are good people blow the testing down please that is criminally negligent that i was there not that it was hilarious head to head on al-jazeera. the way. the in. the us orders china to close its consulate in houston texas a move beijing has branded an unprecedented escalation. alone barbara starr you're watching al-jazeera live from london also coming up. too late if we can act no new fears of famine in yemen where the u.n.

says it's seeing alarming levels of food insecurity. protesters keep up the pressure on israel's prime minister to quit over corruption and his handling of the coronavirus plus the bizarre intervention by ukraine's president that helped end the 12 hour hostage standoff. in the welcome to the program we begin with a dramatic escalation in the growing tensions between the united states and china the u.s. government has ordered beijing to close its consulate in houston texas saying it's to protect american intellectual property a spokesman for the chinese foreign ministry has the night media reports that staff had been burning documents inside the bill. thing and accuse the u.s.

of violating international law travis threatening to close the american consulate in rouhani in response it's also warned the chinese students in the u.s. to be on guard for what it calls arbitrary interrogations we're going. surely on july 21st the u.s. abruptly demanded we close our consulate general this was unilaterally initiated by the u.s. side we demand the u.s. withdraw this decision or we will respond. but who knew you in rouhani has more now on china's reaction to the order. certainly beijing is furious about this china's foreign ministry spokesperson one when been spoke on wednesday afternoon calling this outrageous unjustified and said it was an unprecedented escalation even listed a number of actions he said the us government had taken against chinese people in the u.s. in recent months he said that chinese diplomats there had been subjected to intimidation

harassment in some cases detention he also said that chinese students were increasingly being interrogated that personal electronic devices were being confiscated and searched he also said that there would incident at least one chinese diplomatic stop had extra restrictions imposed on them that diplomatic pouch is was searched without permission that chinese official items were also confiscated both of these would be violations of the vienna convention on diplomatic relations one woman also said that the chinese embassy in the u.s. had received a number of bomb threats and death threats and he accused the trump administration of fanning the flames of hatred against china only in the u.s. but overseas as well and certainly this is just the next escalation the newest escalation was a diplomatic freefall in terms of relations between the u.s. and china in various fronts been going on national security law technology and trade and beijing says if the u.s.

does not pull back from this decision it will take what it has called legitimate and necessary counter measures. ok the view there from china and now rosalynn jordan joins us live now from virginia in the u.s. as so a rolls any more details from the u.s. government as to why they're doing this and also perhaps why they're doing it now. well barbara they're not giving any more details about why they have targeted the chinese consulate and houston the deputy secretary of state stephen beacon is testifying right now before the senate foreign relations committee and he's not going into any specific detail other than to say that this was an appropriate decision for the trumpet ministration to take and that in the larger scale of things it is appropriate for the united states government to take a harsher prison all in chinese behavior this is what his boss the secretary of

state mike pompei o had to say about the decision to close the consulate earlier today in copenhagen . we're not going to allow this to continue to happen where they have seen the remarks that. advisor brian gave that f.b.i. director ray gave him that attorney general barr has given we are sending out clear expert taisha as for how the chinese communist party is going to behave and when they don't who are going to take actions that protect the american people protect our security our national security and also protect our economy and jobs strong words there from my compare about how the u.s. thinks that the chinese government should behave is action like closing at the consulate likely to get the u.s. what it wants. it's likely to get the united states what it wants and let's consider that the decision to close this consulate which happens to be the 1st consulate that the chinese

government opened in the u.s. after it renewed diplomatic ties with the united states back in 1979 the u.s. has also been imposing sanctions on chinese government officials on students on businesspeople it's trying to bring to the united states for trial the number 2 of way she is fighting extradition from canada to the united states as we speak the chinese government in turn has kicked out reporters has strongly surveilled people who have been working inside that country has closed off parts of the country westerners and to in particular to americans so you can only expect that this back and forth over tit for tat is going to continue and you can expect barbara to see the relationship between the 2 countries simply grow worse also in jordan with the latest from virginia and the u.s. rosen thank you. the british government says it will open

a special pass way to citizenship for 3000000 hong kong residents from january those eligible will not have to have a job before going to the u.k. and it applies to those with british national overseas passports and very needy and families the new rules are in response to a national security law that china is imposing on hong kong which critics say curbs freedoms. and u.k. prime minister boris johnson has hit back at claims that britain was slow to respond to a security threat posed by russia an intelligence report said the government was slow to recognize the potential threat posed by russia to british democratic processes. this is because i'd really rather marimbas questions are absolutely absurd there is no country in the western world that is move vigilant in protecting the interests of this country or the international community from

russian interference when in fact we are going to follow them out introducing new legislation to protect critical national infrastructure and to protect our intellectual property. the un says fears of famine in yemen are resurfacing just as the world food program has led as had to scale back relief efforts due to a lack of funding nutrition services for 2 and a half 1000000 children could stop by the end of august coronavirus restrictions reduced remittances locusts floods and significant underfunding of this year's aid response have compounded the hunger crisis after 5 years of war the spite u.n. peace efforts there has been a resurgence of violence between warring parties in recent weeks. we are very worried because it's a known arming situation right now in yemen we of reach alarming levels alarming

drivers of food insecurity there are approximately 20000000 people in your men who didn't secure and who struggled to find down next meal. the u.s. centers for disease control has reported more than 1000 deaths occur across the country in the past 24 hours on tuesday president trump admitted the pandemic will probably get worse before it gets better more state governors are making masks mandatory and introducing new restrictions and overwhelmed the testing labs and hospitals are raising the alarm it was self officials have signed a contract with pfizer for 100000000 doses of a potential corona virus vaccine it's the 2nd vaccine washington a secured on the basis of promising create clinical trials. and more than 15000000 people are now confirmed to have been infected by corona

virus around the world and one of the worst hit regions is now latin america get the latest on the situation there from. in mexico city mexico of course a country that's been particularly hard hit overnight the best toll there has passed 40000 but the spike having the 4 size death toll in the world now testing there is still apparently really low why is that. i'll run through the latest numbers that we have from johns hopkins university here in mexico with 356255 confirmed cases and another 40400 confirmed deaths from coke at 19 as you mentioned there barbara overnight mexico surpassed the 424-0000 mark a milestone a grim milestone for mexico like many other countries are experiencing but one that places mexico unfortunately 2nd in death tolls in latin america is 2nd only to

brazil with the country there surpassing one point. 2.1000000 confirmed cases of cope with 19 the big concern that we're hearing from health policy experts here in mexico is as you mentioned the lack of testing the lack of contact tracing and the sort of nonchalant attitude from from officials particularly the president of mexico who many would argue has downplayed the severity of the ongoing crisis now much of mexico has begun reopening in terms of the economy mexico city began reopening on july 1st but the attitudes that many residents here in the city have taken sort of mirrors that of health officials of federal officials who many see as not taking it seriously enough so there is an expectation not only that the outbreak is going to get worse that it's going to be a long time before things start to get better but a sense that the policies that have implemented have not been enough and that it will inevitably lead to further lock downs and renewed lock downs to contain the

pandemic barbara so we've been hearing for a while that latin america is the new at the center really of the pend that make right now so how does mexico compare to other countries i'm thinking brazil for example which for a while now it's had the war estelle the last america. certainly so and we heard from the pan american health organization earlier this week saying that the with very few exceptions countries like chile which are showing promise argentina uruguay coast rica with with few exceptions the pandemic actually shows very few signs of slowing in fact outside of mexico and brazil which you just mentioned which lead the region in deaths and in confirmed cases we're seeing a lorme rates of contagion in several other countries we can point to ecuador colombia peru several countries in central america haiti dominican republic that are showing these alarming rates of contagion we have our eye today specifically on bolivia we know that over the course of 5 days authorities in the country say that

they have recovered $420.00 bodies that were found in automobiles that were found on the street they were found in people's homes the vast majority between 80 and 90 percent of these bodies of individuals who are believed to have died from cope at 19 this is a sign of that worsening health crisis in bolivia but this is a this exponential growth in contagion isn't only happening in bolivia we mentioned that several of those other countries and latin america unfortunately remains the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the world the americas in general from canada down to theatre they are now accounting for almost half of the daily coronavirus deaths worldwide barber on the top of the with the latest there from mexico city man well thank you brazilian president that all has meanwhile tested positive for the corona virus for a 3rd time he 1st tested positive on july the 7th also that i said he's been taking

the anti-malarial drug how droll hydroxy or a quick studies have found that to be ineffective and actually potentially dangerous for some patients. still ahead in this half hour a shootout at the funeral leaves of 14 injured in chicago where president trump is threatening to deploy federal agents and the self-confessed middleman in the murder of a maltese journalists found with severe knife wounds hours before he was using give evidence in court. hello there quite a massive cloud across northern regions of europe the serene of course having you with us as well you notice into areas across the south a scattering of thunderstorms on their way east was there's also been some fog some

mist in the morning as this is a case across into western hungry but those thunderstorms i mentioned they certainly did some damage into care of as you can see his some trees down cars damaged or also some property to homes as well now the good news is that conditions a much clearer and calmer as we go through thursday and funniest most a bad picture generally throughout europe quite a cloudy one still a scattering of shows maybe a thunderstorm across areas in the south and that rain is heading across the u.k. it's moving up through the north sea it will leave a scattering of showers in its wake and how much is a little bit low but generally not too bad but as we head off into friday it becomes if anything rather more unsettled that rain across the south becoming really quite heavy and also quite widespread rain as well pushing through southerners a scan the navy on tools a bowl takes on the next round of all the heavy rain working its way in towards the northwest as the time which is $25.00 in london the same in paris but in both cases fairly cloudy conditions and then down into north africa is fine and dry here we've got some fairly high temperatures as you can see by friday 35 inches.

but. up above the hustle and bustle of cuba's capitol there is a secret world. a community of colorful characters who have made the rooftops their homes. from their unique perspective they reflect on the country's history and how it has shaped their lives and hopes for the future. have on out from on hot buttons on the jersey. the in.

a come back here's a reminder of the top stories on al-jazeera china has the night media reports that staff have been burning documents its side its consulate in houston texas after the u.s. government ordered it to close the facility the u.n. says fears of famine in yemen are resurfacing just as the world food program has had scaled back relief efforts due to a lack of funding christian services for 2 and a half 1000000 children could stop by the end of the focus and the u.s. centers for disease control has reported more than 1000 deaths across the country in the past 24 hours this as more state governors make masks man the tree and introduced new restrictions. restaurant owners and waiters in south africa has they have staged a protest against the government's coronavirus measures they say their industry is

being crippled by the government bringing back its ban on alcohol sales and a nighttime curfew last week the number of infections surged across the country prompting the government to reimpose the strict measures that restaurant industry employs around 800000 people and then strangers say jobs also save lives. as in bob when rights activist and a journalist have been charged with promoting public violence ahead of planned anti-government protests hopewell chain on though was arrested on monday in harare along with the opposition leader jayco but get of whom it say prosecutors accuse the men of using twitter to mobilize and bob wins to commit acts of violence meanwhile a nighttime curfew aimed at curtailing the spread of the coronavirus in zimbabwe came into effect on wednesday opposition leaders say the government is using health restrictions to infringe on people's rights. true israel now with a parliament is due to vote on increasing the government's powers to impose

coronavirus restrictions across the country it comes as protests grow louder against prime minister benjamin netanyahu for his handling of the pandemic and his corruption trial dozens of demonstrators were arrested on tuesday after chaining themselves together and blocking people from entering parliament in west jerusalem harry force that has more. benjamin netanyahu has weathered protests before so called black flag activists have waged a years long campaign against what they call his anti democratic rule but in the last 2 weeks the protests have changed and grown as israelis buckling under a 2nd wave of coronavirus turn their anger on the government. netanyahu has admitted to reopening the economy too quickly allowing gatherings of too many people others point to the government's failure to expand the system of testing and tracing as the 1st wave leaving it ill equipped to stop the 2nd author and

journalist roden bergman has investigated that decision making he says the health ministry went against expert advice you need to know as soon as possible if that person is ill or not you need to test that person immediately after he is they didn't fight is suspicion so is the suspect so if if you do not been the chain of infection it goes on and on if you are not able to cut it the government itself said it needed a 48 hour turnaround from suspected case to test results even now it's taking $6.00 to $8.00 days the concern now is that it's simply too late in terms of testing to catch up with the sheer scale of this 2nd wave israel's missed opportunity on testing and tracing is now being seen as part of a wider political failure to tackle the pandemic under pressure the prime minister has been announcing measures only to announce them from a $1750000000.00 package of cash handouts 1st universal now means tested too in order to close restaurants postponed within hours to weekend closures of beaches

and pools reversed within days the one constant is insistence on avoiding a 2nd full lockdown because. i have requested each ministries plan for a safe exit from the current virus restrictions meaning that if we straighten the coven reach the goals that we see it for the determined number of cases per day that we can work with over time in the coronavirus routing. but the head spinning policy shifts have undermined belief in a prime minister also on trial in 3 separate corruption cases one so they this month put public trust in him just 29 percent it's a problem that. there's really this back and forth that it's not creating trust and trust is crucial. to move ahead because it's a long term situation where they're talking about trustees both ross of the public interest of experts just weeks ago squashed the 1st wave of 19 neutralized his most

serious political rival benny gantz inside an emergency coalition now he's fighting to beat down a resurgent virus and restore his diminishing political capital. television. kept our airways is seeking at least $5000000000.00 in compensation from 4 arab countries for blocking it from their airspace saudi arabia the u.a.e. egypt and bahrain imposed the land sea and the air blockade on qatar 2 years ago accusing it of funding terrorism which it denies the blockade has forced catherine airways to fly over iran last week the un's top court for disputes between countries ruled in catus favors it said the international civil aviation organization has jurisdiction and that this view the self-confessed middleman in the murder of a maltese journalist is in a critical condition after being found with knife injuries that evening before he was due in court police say that they believe melvin tried to kill himself he was

found at his home in a pool of blood with serious injuries to his vocal cords and abdomen film are was granted a presidential pardon and the new unity in exchange for his evidence and this home was under 24 hour guard the incident has renewed calls for europol to formally join multiple leeson investigating the f.a.a. says larder. well the journalist was murdered outside her home by a car bomb in october 2017 she was known for exposing corruption particularly in the ruling labor party say almost said he'd been paid to kong contract a team to carry out the bombing by business when you're again offended who'd been involved in a corruption scandal that a dog that the government for years was arrested on board a luxury yacht as it was leaving malta last november within hours protesters had

gathered demanding the prime minister's resignation after furniture accused key members of the government of being involved in the murder joseph muscat announced he would step down once his party had found his replacement. u.s. president donald trump is coming under increasing pressure of for deploying federal police in portland demonstrations and heard that there are 55th day on tuesday with more than a 1000 protesters gathering against racism and police brutality trump says the officers are protecting federal property but they've been accused of seizing protesters from the streets in unmarked vehicles and detaining them without justification several lawsuits have been filed against the trumpet ministration questioning its broad use of police powers well trump has also threatened to send federal agents to chicago where the mayor is calling on witnesses to come forward after an overnight shoot out of a funeral left at least 14 people injured mourners were shot had by gang members

who were driving by on chicago's south side several targets of the shooting returned fire it backers fled after crashing their car chicago has seen a surge in violence with 116 murders between late june and mid july. jalen everywhere oh it's stunning. oh medically. this is this is this is ridiculous only because we did this only shoot is going on here. or president trump is due to talk about crime in the u.s. this after hours get more now on this from white house correspondent kimberly halkett it can be as a sort of speak what are we expecting him to say. expect this to be the official announcement although for hours we've had a sense of what the us president is about to say he's going to outline officially what operation legend is as he calls it it's named after

a 4 year old boy who was asleep in his bed when he was hit by a stray bullet that went through the window of his apartment building what this will look like in terms of federal authorities is what the u.s. president is calling a partnership in other words. police officers who already work for the federal government the capacity of the drug enforcement administration or the f.b.i. even the u.s. marshals that they would be redeployed under the department of justice to assist local police who have according to the white house been overwhelmed by violence for example in the u.s. city of chicago where we know initially there was some pushback to this but now it appears the mayor of that city lori life that is embracing these troops coming or troops isn't the right word these federal policing authorities what she's saying though is making very clear distinction that she welcomes a partnership but not

a dictatorship so what we've heard in terms of the criticism is that these are sort of an authoritarian over extending of presidential. order of presidential powers and this is a violation of civil liberties but the what we expect from the u.s. present the coming hour is something a little bit more clearly defined in terms of what he's not only expected to deploy in chicago potentially add to in portland and even albuquerque new mexico which is in the southwest of the united states of oversee this is being quite divisive and with president trump it just depends how often how people feel about him as to how they feel about some of his actions but generally speaking how has this gone down in the u.s. the sort of actions that he's taken in portland and potentially elsewhere. they're highly controversial again it appears to be depending on where you are in the political spectrum how you feel about it i mean in the case of portland to the white house would argue that this is been 55 consecutive days of under

a strain violence particularly against federal buildings which are symbols of the u.s. government they say that there have been officers who have been hit by bottles of urine feces other projectiles and this is why they're doing it but the counter-argument to all of this is that in fact this is again sort of authoritarian rule that this is not something that is allowed under the u.s. constitution and that's what the debate is we expect the u.s. president to say in the next few moments though that this is not an over extension of civil liberties what this is is constitutionally mandated to protect u.s. national security interests and that's the arguably expect the u.s. president to make when he starts to speak in the coming hour will be interesting to see what he does say kimberly how you and i will discuss what he best say in a little while for the moment thank you. now it's emerged that a hostage standoff in ukraine ended without bloodshed thanks to a bizarre intervention by president volodymyr zelinsky 13 people were taken hostage

by a gunmen on a long distance boss on tuesday but they were all freed after the president agreed to a phone call with the gunmen and they sue reports were freed unharmed after a 12 hour long siege these travellers turned hostages were on the bus in the western city of lutes when it was seized by a russian gunman. police sealed off the area where the suspect began throwing explosives and firing shots at a drone nobody was injured the hostage taker was identified as 44 year old maxime officials say he wanted to speak with ukrainian president flawed amir selenski his demand that the president and doors an animal rights documentary released 15 years ago selenski obliged. posting this video to show media the movie earthlings 2005 most everyone should watch. earthlings is an award winning documentary about the mistreatment of animals for profit now rated by hollywood actor joaquin phoenix

selenski said he convinced the suspect to release 3 of the hostages when they spoke on the phone and the rest after he posted the video. could we do we did it was obvious for me these were obvious steps for me if we can do anything without launching assault we can avoid putting at least one person's life at risk these are principles i live with lived with and will live with some local media reports say the suspect is an animal rights activist who helped protect stray dogs the standoff ended when he released all the hostages and surrendered police are now determining why he planned such an extreme act at least to al-jazeera. and other top stories on al-jazeera the chinese foreign ministry has denied media reports that staff has been burning documents and side that's consulate in houston

texas the u.s. government ordered that facility be closed to protect american intellectual property china is threatening to close the american consulate in rwanda in response it's also warned the chinese students in the u.s. to quote be on guard for what it calls arbitrary interrogations. we're going. on july 21st the u.s. abruptly demanded we close our consulate general this was unilaterally initiated by the u.s. side we demand the u.s. withdraw this decision or we will respond. the british government says it will open a special pathway to citizenship for 3000000 hong kong residents from january those eligible will not have to have a job before going to the u.k. it applies to those with british national overseas passports and their immediate families the new rules are in response to a national security law that china is imposing of hong kong which critics say curbs freedoms. the u.n.

says fears of famine in yemen are resurfacing just as the world food program has had the scale back relief efforts due to a lack of funding in trisha's services for 2 and a half 1000000 children could stop by the end of august coronavirus restrictions reduced remittances locusts floods and significant underfunding of this year's aid response have compounded the hunger crisis after 5 years of war we are very worried because it's a no learning situation right now in yemen we of reach alarming levels alarming drivers of food insecurity there are approximately 20000000 people in your men who didn't secure and who struggled to find their next meal. more than a 1000 deaths have been reported across the u.s. in the past 24 hours rolling in half an hour the street is that.

right there welcome to the stream home edition i'm josh rushing sitting in for femi ok and you are joining me from my home in fairfax virginia while we're still under quarantine here today we're talking about you know it's been a huge story just in us but across the world black lives matter and many countries e.u. countries offer support for that and so that they stood in solidarity with it but were asking about what about the black life that their southern border the ones that are risking their lives to try to get across the bed to enter the e.u.

and are being blocked off and pushed back to places like war torn libya now we're joined by.