the face of ongoing obstacles repeat. pretty good. news the remarkable. run the slow. to see era. explosion on a gas pipeline plunges syria's capital into darkness the electricity minister says much of the country is affected. this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up the ballerinas president's flights of defiance as hundreds of thousands protest below in the biggest rally yet against

his rule. iran blame sabotage for a blast at one of its nuclear facilities but stopped short of saying who is responsible. i'm pleased to make a truly historic announcement in our battle against the journey of errors that will save countless lives the u.s. president donald trump towers a major advance in the fight against covert 19 use of blood plasma from recovered patients. to begin in syria where there's been a power blackout in large parts of the country after a major gas pipeline explosion these are some of the latest pictures that we're getting from the scene just east of the capital damascus you can see firefighters trying to put out the blaze on the arab gas pipeline images of a huge fireball emerge on state television and social media just

a few hours ago no details yet on what could have caused the explosion but the oil minister is suggesting it could be an act of terror. to belarus now where one of the biggest protests crowds yet has packed the center of the capital despite warnings not to gather and the military being put on standby estimates were of around 200000 people as they call for president alexander lukashenko stepped down he was flying above in a helicopter in body armor and armed with a semi automatic rifle our correspondent stan fasten is in minsk. after a week of threats coming from the this is a reply from the people of ballarat. tens of thousands took to the streets of minsk in defiance the a fear replaced by anger well armed soldiers and police were standing by families with small children shouted the president should step down mrs lowder some abrasion yes we have passed police several times and we're not afraid anymore and our

children are not afraid to use ink and now we'll get the message i don't think she's if he's able to get damascus but i i hope people around here will still be getting these messages more and more and believe and his team announced join our team why are you not scared. i don't know i just care because you know the good people we all always it could be early it could beleaguered but they will always. put look at shanker in a detention vehicle these people are chanting meanwhile also viewed music is coming from the government's loudspeakers along with orders to stop the unofficial gathering. ordering them to leave the square these people are not going anywhere with the military on standby this is the biggest acts of violence we've seen and salaries so far since the disputed presidential vote on august 9th protesters have

been in frying the authorities by gathering every day calling for an end to president took a shank us 26 year rule ahead of sunday's rally the ballots rolled into the central city streets a warning to those marching that any under arrest me a monument and statues would not be tolerated but the feet violent crackdown did not happen. when tons of thousands marched towards local schank us residents on police blocked the road in a what. looked like a scene from a war movie was filmed flying over the city in a helicopter wearing an armed together with his 15 year old son in combat gear and the president emerged from the helicopter carrying a rifle. 20 police who guarded him at the palace they told him they will stay with him until the bitter and. an end might just have come

a little closer. than al-jazeera mintz. a senior consulting fellow for the russia and eurasia program at the think tank house he says sunday's protests have reinvigorated the opposition. there have been tortures there have been apparent murders all intended to dissuade people from taking up the opposition scores and in some cases from not agreeing to sign the false election protocols confirming the bug so put that all together and yes it is impressive that this many people have come out once again today for all of this time russia has been watching and waiting to see which way the situation would develop but there's another angle to this which is disturbing as well which is in the stories that president bush into his trying to put together about external the russian against bill that was you saw him earlier getting off a helicopter with body armor and an assault rifle and in a ridiculous pantomime trying to suggest that the country is under attack all of

this is exactly what russia does not want to hear and it provides a pretext for russia to step in should wish to look at is been pointing to the western region of broughton and near the borders with poland and lithuania is what he says the the center of where nato and the west is trying to stir up unrest to unseat president and in fact to attack from outside now it just so happens that's exactly the scenario of a huge exercise military exercise with russia and belarus working together that we took place a few years ago calls up in 2017 where precisely that region was the site of these nato shenanigans and the response was to russia to send in troops to work with belarus to suppress that and then that escalated into a broader conflict it's that kind of playing with fire by stirring up this war rhetoric by looking at that we need to be watching out for now. an explosion iranian nuclear facility last month was an act of sabotage that's a conclusion of iran's atomic energy organization but it does not reveal who was

responsible a spokesman for the government agency says they will reveal the reason behind the blast at the natanz facility and to course the announcement comes a day before the head of the un's atomic watchdog agency arrives in tehran they're hoping to get access to sites believed to be storing undeclared nuclear material. is the president of the national iranian american council he says there are several reasons why iran has chosen to release this information now. i think the timing is what's most notable as this comes with the i.a.e.a. director headed to iran looking to result some of these outstanding issues with iran and you have the sequence of events. at the u.n. security council last week the united states being shut down in its efforts to snap back sanctions on iran and some very tough statements from europe and others and you how do you ron actually say ok we're ready to result some of these difficulties with the i.a.e.a.

result some of these questions and now as i hence to iran they're saying our facilities are being sabotaged by to me it sounds like perhaps a form of leverage or a negotiating point as they try to work with the i.a.e.a. to sort out some of these lingering issues so i think the iranians are are trying to show that look they are paranoid there are legitimate concerns that they have about the security of these facilities and so as they're granting access that i for other facilities there is this paranoia and it's need to deal with the fact that there are actors out there who do want to sabotage these facilities this also does give the iranians further incentive to bury their or enrichment facilities underground which is one of the main can point of contention during the nuclear talks where iran agreed not to put its facilities in the in the underground the fordo facility and so for iran this is actually an sent an incentive to further hide and bury its facilities that they're not expose these acts of sabotage is

present donald trump is hailing hilfiger as a sign of an emergency plasma treatment had 19 as a breakthrough in the treatment he says plasma of recovered patients to treat those still sick with the virus and there's no conclusive evidence of its benefits trump and that's the food and drug administration had given it the go ahead after accusing it of delaying drugs and vaccines for the virus. that is everybody working together we're years ahead of approvals that we would be if we went by the speed levels of past administration would be 2 years 3 years behind where we are today and that includes and vaccines of you'll be hearing about very soon very shortly. to deliver a true prince and vaccine to save lives who are moving unnecessary barriers and delays not by cutting corners but by marshalling the full power of the federal government. is a senior scholar at the johns hopkins sense of health security he says the

president's actions will hurt the response of the coronavirus treatment when people recover from the coronavirus they develop antibodies and what convalescent classman does is takes their blood the portion of their blood that contains those antibodies in transfused out into someone who has corona virus and those antibodies help to neutralize the virus help them recover quicker and this is something that has a lot of biological possibility but we do not yet know whether this works because we don't have randomized control data to show that it is definitively beneficial i believe the president's move will hurt the medical community we were able to get convalescent plasma i've given it to every patient that i needed to give it to i've had no problems giving it to them under expanded use with the f.d.a. what the president's move does is makes it very unlikely that we'll get a randomized controlled trial result so we may end up in the end not knowing whether or not this worked or not now it's not how we want to do medicine we don't want politics to be injected into the f.d.a. decisions we every time the president has intervened in this pandemic it is and is

actually hurt the response of the pandemic so we saw this with hydroxy clark and we don't want to repeat of this this is actually something that there is a promising signal here and we want to know exactly when to give it and who to give it and the only way we're going to know that is through rigorous randomized control trials and this is going to discourage people from enrolling in the trials because the president has now and put his finger on the scale so-to speak. the gunman who murdered 51 people at 2 mosques in new zealand last year is now in court for sentencing as high security for the parents of australian brendan tarrant prosecutors say he planned the attacks carefully and intended to burn the buildings down tarrant has already pleaded guilty to dozens of charges over the shootings at 2 christchurch mosques he faces life in prison. still ahead here on al-jazeera we take a look at what's behind the massive loss of globalised that's causing our planet to warm even faster and. i'm nicholas cage on

a bombing property in regional australia looking at how border for the night according to problem for the nation $1000000000.00 story. hello there yet more hot and dry weather across much of the middle east but heading to the north across into talking say quite a lot of cloud if not extending right the way across towards the caspian sea and up in saying for several days the rain has been very heavy and it could cause some localized flooding but just have a look at this this is the northern and the devastation is just really quite breathtaking the river overflowed and it was just a poor ring torrent through the streets and just look at what it is down the debris that is left behind but it's not just this look at all these boulders and just look

how deep they are and this goes on all the way through the streets of this town so a huge cleanup process really to take place than others the more rain in the forecast not particularly to that same area but very widely scattered showers through much of jordan on towards azerbaijan to the south of there it is actually mostly fine and dry touches are not too hot really and they 36 degrees the feeling very humid with that 36 at the time it comes up on shoes at 40 and the winds pick up so that should help a little bit with that humidity then down into africa plenty of showers and thunderstorms through central areas and to the south we're going to see more showers not really affecting cape time but working the way along the south coast the pushing on to a port elizabeth and plenty of showers as well 3 mozambique upwards into towns there all the way along the coast towards somalia. in 2008. documents.

preparing some of india's poorest children for entry into its toughest universities . we return to see how the students. helping change the face of india. again you're watching out of there as a reminder of our top stories this hour a large gas pipeline explosion has caused a major power blackout in syria the oil minister says the blast happened on the arab gas pipeline east of the capital damascus he says it could be an act of terror

. more than 200000 people have rallied in the belorussian capsule to demand president alexander lukashenko to step down after his contested reelection but he's refusing to resign and this is a ploy the army to respond to any unrest. and present donald trump has held the authorization of an emergency possibly treatment for covert 19 as a breakthrough treatment uses plasma of recovered patients to treat those still sick with the virus but there's no conclusive evidence of its benefits. here is present donald trump is hoping to revive his reelection campaign the republican national convention which kicks off on monday during the 4 day event the posse will officially nominate him as its candidate for the november poll they have to energize his supporters and woo undecided voters for an election that polls suggest trump could lose could be helped get reports from the white house. for president phone march political rallies the 2020 republican national convention was supposed

to be donald trump's campaign crescendo helping him cruise toward reelection in november. but covert 19 and social distancing his dash trump's plan to accept his party nomination of thousands of bag a hat wearing supporters. trucks claim of creating jobs has also disappeared as thousands of businesses have closed permanently millions of people are out of work and the stock market has seen historic gains wiped out we did it we built the greatest economy of this to the world and now i have to do it again. you know that is. that's right that's gone testing me truck blames china for not halting the virus but have a jordi of americans blame him for a mismanaged coronavirus response that hurt trump in the polls with weeks until the

election he trails his democratic rival joe biden. problem is after 4 years in office people now know what to expect from a donald trump administration and it's really tough for people to not think about a reelection campaign or as anything other than incision about the incumbent and so i'm not sure that the playbook that works for trump and 2016 is going to work this year in 2020 with few new ideas some people are accusing the president of employing scare tactics to round up votes and campaign stops trump says if biden is elected taxes and crime will go up the stock market will go down but when it comes to his own campaign promises his vision isn't clear what are your top priority items for a 2nd term but one of the things that will be really great you know the word

experience is still good i always say talent is more important than experience i've always said that due to the pandemic most states will allow voters to mail in ballots instead of in person voting trumps arguing with little evidence that mail in ballots are open to fraud democrats say trump's insistence people vote in person during the pandemic is an attempt to suppress the vote with both sides accusing each other of breaking the election results of the 2020 vote are uncertain will tropics if he loses as he has always said he'll see what happens on and make a determination aftermath donald trump is counting on the republican convention to inject new life into his lagging reelection bid he's planning multiple appearances before pared down crowds of supporters at a week long event that kicks off in charlotte north carolina and culminates here at the white house on thursday when trump will officially accept the republican

party's presidential nomination kimberly health at al-jazeera the white house. hong kong is joining the global race for a coronavirus vaccine and says he is also launching voluntary mass testing next month to combat what seen as a 3rd wave the government is an enlisted the help of medical experts from mainland china. pollan reports not everyone supports the move. hong kong's latest outbreak was the worst and most widespread prompting the government to impose its sick to social distancing measures here it's proved effective for now but according to the medical community here this will not be the last week for the city. very smart farmers so is behaving more and more like influenza. so is likely to be staying with us for a long story and the way to combat this virus will be by vaccination dr

ivan hung is a very religious treating current virus patients at one of the city's main hospitals and is working with the university of hong kong to develop a vaccine hopefully of actually move we are able to go into phase one in the coming november and the vaccine will be inhaling vaccine it's still in the early stages of development but at least 5 chinese companies are already in phase 3 of clinical trials that's the last stage of testing required for approval which means they could introduce a vaccine for public use by early next year for now hong kong's government believes mass testing is the best way to control the spread of the virus or in the past month we've been the only hong kong profitable or trade to be appointed by the whole government for mass community testing so in the past month we've already done 200000 tests and we will continue that with the high cluster areas danny and is the c.e.o. and co-founder of primitives it's one of 5 companies unlisted to help with mass

testing set to begin next month kinetics will continue to focus on high risk clusters while the other 4 companies all subsidiaries of mainland chinese firms who spearhead the voluntary testing drive hong kong government wants to test at least 5000000 people and about 2 weeks a team of about 60 experts from mainland china that will be leading the process that along with the fact that the majority of the companies conducting the tests lengths across the border is raising concern and suspicion among some groups on sunday activists and local politicians how the news conference calling on people here to be wary of the free government testing offered the mosque testing of government is trying to get the data from hong kong people and may pass to chinese . and so that they. wanted. or even sent to the fun chinese for the government has dismissed the claims saying that new

samples will be sent to the mainland and the trees will not receive any personal information if you go pollen hong kong sheep farmers in the stray are hoping the price of wool rises before they go bankrupt kevin $1000.00 restrictions are just the latest disaster for the multi-billion dollar wool industry to add to problems there's a shortage of sharers for 68000000 sheep nicholas cage has the story from rural new south wales. lambing season isn't far all form is sheep and cattle farm on the plains bringing a small sense of normality to an anything but normal few years for david gergen he's been tested by prolonged drought then bushfires in january soon followed by coated 19 that's certainly having an impact on on everything especially the the wall mock up. that is is collapsing as well and i wonder where we're heading

borda and trade route closures during the penn demick has devastated prices here with the market's down about 40 percent on this time last year it's also leading to a workforce shortage when millions of sheep need to be she he she hundreds of seasonal shears normally fly in mainly from new zealand the spam outside goban is using local but in other parts of the country there aren't enough the government is trying to find solutions with rising unemployment can strike me a trip to heaven montane a logical thing to do would be to write more people locally to work in that he's happy but it's not that simple of course training takes time to a job that requires skill and if the process is delayed well then it becomes an animal welfare problem. and a financial problem to the process have led to a growing stockpile of wool in storage but this shearing contractor says for many

whiting for high a processes isn't an option then i'd have money coming in i cheated by the bill. and that's one of the river on the low i don't. that's i'm either one of the right or incomes as trade tensions between australia and china increase with the restrictions imposed on australian beef imports as well as high tariffs on bali about 90 percent of the strike rule is currently exported to china for food. stage process see everything from clothing to carpets we both need each other we both have very strong and constructive relationships and i see no reason that will change in the near or distant future but the industry's offload looking at diversifying with some experts concerned it relies too heavily on chinese by david gergen he spoke of his own producing world choir who to keep his farm in business nicola gage 0 regional new south wales. a warming planet has caused

a staggering 28 trillion tons of ice to disappear from the earth's surface in less than 3 decades scientists in the u.k. say rising sea temperatures are the main factor behind the melting polar ice sheets was hotter temperatures as cool as glass is to melt the research says say nearly half of the total ice loss would have added to rising sea levels and they warn that millions of people could be displaced from low lying areas by the end of this century the landmark study also found the loss of ice is causing the earth to warm even faster and set of solar radiation reflecting off the white house back into space heaters being absorbed into the darkest sea and the soil that's now exposed professor will steffen is a counsellor with the climate council of australia joins us now from canberra thanks very much for being with us when the amount of ice that has melted it's extraordinary is it $28.00 trillion tons is this a figure that surprises you yeah it does and also we should note that that's

actually accelerating so year by year even more or less so the radial fortunately is going up well it's going through from both greenland and mentor to so when you say it's accelerating is there anything that we can do at this point to stop it . well it's stopping it's going to take a long time because there's a huge momentum in these massive ice sheets but it's really important that we slow it down and we can slow the rate down if we get our emissions of greenhouse gases down deeply and very rapidly because ultimately it's the increased greenhouse gases which are warming the air and warming the surface waters of the ocean that is the 2 factors which are destabilizing these ice sheets so we are on course to do that i mean with the palace agreement to reduce carbon emissions and that's enough to slow down limiting of these ice caps if we would actually observe it meet the parents of

climate goals yes it would but unfortunately we're well well above what we should be admitting when the periscopes that was to keep temperature rise well below 2 degrees right now the rate at which we are a meeting will probably drive temperatures in excess of 3 degrees by the end of the century which means much more massive than rapid loss advice when you say much more what exactly are we talking about how much we like thing to be saying sea levels rising ok chill now from korea duster times have risen about $25.00 or so centimeters but we could actually reach a meter that's 4 times as much as we've seen already by the end of the century if we keep pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when we look at current climate change projections do these models take into consideration this loss of ice because we just read that they affect the the warming of the temperatures because the of a nation is not being protected back into space and have we taken this into consideration

. yes yes we do and that is a very very good point is is that when isis is on on the seat like the arctic sea ice when that melts that does allow the absorption of much more sunlight which is increasing increases the warming particularly in the northern hemisphere yes the climate models do do that and that's one of the reasons that that's the mortals get better they are actually projecting higher temperatures for the center manager in house gas emissions that's because they include now more of these so-called feedbacks from a changing climate. so i talked a bit about the impact this has on rising temperatures and sea levels but what about the impact that the melting icecaps is having on fire diversity what changes are we saying that. well certainly we're losing some habitat for example from creatures that live on the ice at least part of the year like the polar bears it's making life a bit tougher for them and i think also because we're seeing

a lot of increase of thrush water on top of the surface but that's changing the ocean circulation which means that there are changes in the nutrients they delivered for fish and other marine life so it's a complicated food chain that is being it was that we're pouring a lot more fresh water onto the surface of the ocean well steffen great to speak to thanks very much for joining us there from camera thank you my pleasure. now more lightning as for constant california causing concern it could spark more wildfires more than 400000 hectares have already been burned in the past week at least 6 people have been killed with nearly 700 buildings damaged president donald trump has now signed a major disaster declaration which means more resources can be allocated to help the nearly 14000 firefighters battling the blaze as. and thousands of people are bracing themselves for to storm sweeping through the

caribbean and up towards the gulf of mexico hurricane marco which has been downgraded to a tropical storm is expected to make landfall in the u.s. state of louisiana sometime on monday people living in low lying coastal areas have been ordered to evacuate and tropical storm laura is making its way through the region leaving behind a trail of destruction at least 3 people were killed in the dominican republic has been knocked out but thousands of people. there are these are top stories in syria there's been a power blackout in large parts of the country after a major gas pipeline explosion. pictures that we're getting from the scene just east of the capital damascus as firefighters try to put out the blaze on the arab gas pipeline no detail yet on what could have caused the explosion but the oil

minister is suggesting an act of terror well then 200000 people have rallied in the belorussian capital to demand president alexander lukashenko stepped down after his contested reelection but he's refusing to resign or has deployed the army to respond to any unrest iran's atomic energy organization says last month's fire in a tense nuclear facility was an act of sabotage but didn't say who is responsible the government agency says authorities will reveal the reason behind the blast intercourse president donald trump has hailed the authorization of emergency plasma treatment for covert 19 as a breakthrough treatment uses plasma of recovered patients to treat those still stick sick with the virus but there's still no conclusive evidence of its benefits . that is everybody working together we're years ahead of approvals we would be if we went by. the speed levels of past administration would be 2 years 3 years behind

where we are today and that includes and vaccines that you'll be hearing about very shortly to deliver treatments and vaccine to save lives were moving on necessary barriers and delays not by cutting corners but by marshalling the full power of the federal government the gunman who murdered 51 people at 2 mosques in new zealand last year has appeared in court for sentencing as high security for the parents of a stray brenton tyrant tyrant had pleaded guilty to dozens of challenges over the shootings that to christ just mosques prosecutors say he planned the attacks carefully and intended to burn the buildings down more lightning is for constant california causing concern it could spot well wildfires more than 400000 hectares have already been burned in the past week at least 6 people have been killed within 700 buildings damaged. those are your headlines are back with more news on al-jazeera after super.

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