and france conspire behind closed doors to produce a secret agreement that will shape the middle east for the century to come world war one our. own knowledge is in. large parts of syria experience and atrocity blackouts after an explosion damaged a pipeline supplying gas to power plants. and given al this is al jazeera live from dot com also coming up. the batteries in president's flight of defiance as hundreds of thousands protest below and the biggest rally yet against his rule. around says a blast at one of its nuclear facilities was an act of sabotage but stopped short of saying who is responsible. on conjoined for global race for covert 19 vaccine

but that's raising some concern among activists. power is gradually being restored in syria after a major gas pipeline explosion left large parts of the country without electricity for fascism now managed to put out the blaze on the arab gas pipeline just northeast of the capital damascus this was the scene a few hours ago there are no details yet on what may have caused the explosion but the oil minister is suggesting it could be an act of terror was an 100 joins us now via skype from beirut just bring us up to speed on the latest. the information that we have has been provided by the syrian state news agency as well as syrian government officials. what they have reported is that

a large explosion on a pipeline in the early hours of the morning was the total blackout in many areas in and around the capital damascus there was a large fire we saw that on videos that were uploaded on social media but since then firefighters and civil defense teams have managed to put out the flames the syrian oil minister at 1st suggested that this could be a terrorist attack hours later he said after assessing the situation on the ground that this was a terrorist attack he did not provide more details there has been no claim of responsibility the area where this explosion occurred between. in the countryside of damascus an area under the control of the syrian regime in fact there is no opposition presence around that area if we look further south

there are where there's a low level insurgency that's approximately 100 kilometers away to the further east you do have pockets of i still territory in the desert but that too is quite far so it's still not clear on what basis the minister is saying that this is a terrorist attack could it be if it if indeed it is then it is an indication that areas under the government's control are still not safe so that is the information we have for the time being what we understand is that electricity has since been restored to some areas but how often how common rather. is power blackouts like this in the country. well throughout the years of conflict we have seen attacks on gas pipelines so that is not rare but we're talking about in the early days in the early years 2013 for example where the rebels the opposition they controlled pockets of

territory in close proximity with regime held territory so it was very easy for them to carry out such operations we remember just the 2 years ago who thought this this pocket of territory under the control of opposition they were able to frequently target damascus with rockets sowing instability in the seat of power but since 2018 really the government has cleared the areas around the capital the opposition has controls territory in the north of the country in the south it is under the control of the regime even though there is a low level insurgency there because there are many different security agencies who are 4 of which are vying for influence and then you have for example live rebels so-called reconciled rebels who are who are believed to carry out some attacks but in the overall picture areas under the government control we haven't been seeing

attacks like this they have remained relatively stable in the past 2 years. ok i think if there's a lot of there across the situation in syria from beirut. at least 5 people have died and several injured in 2 explosions in the southern philippines that happened in the town of holo in soon to province and initial military of port said one of the blasts was caused by a homemade bomb on a motorcycle there's been no claim of responsibility so far. the russian doctors who 1st treated opposition leader alexina vellum these say bay are the ones responsible for saving his life is now being treated at a german hospital after being flown to berlin and joost coma from a siberian facility on saturday the head doctor says he believes they gave novelli the correct diagnosis and that no poison was found in his system of only is the latest in the long line of credit and critics to become seriously ill or die in apparent poisonings. and one of the biggest protests crowds yes has

packed the center of the capital despite warnings not to gather and the military being put on standby around 200000 people are believed to have turned out on sunday night calling for president aleksander local shanker to step down across one step vasant isn't minsk. after a week of threats coming from look at shankar this is a reply from the people of ballarat. tens of thousands took to the streets of minsk in defiance their fear replaced by anger well armed soldiers and police were standing by families with small children shouted the president should step down mrs lowder can use some abrasion yes we have passed police several times and we're not afraid anymore and our children are not afraid to using look at shanghai now will get the message i don't think she's if he's able to get the masses but i i hope people around here will still be getting this messages more and

more and believe in his team and stealing our team why are you not scared. i don't know i just are scared because you know the good people we all always it could be earlier could villager but they will always. put look at shankar 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 fodder of thousands killed ordering them to leave the square these people are not going anywhere with the military on standby this is the biggest acts of violence from fleas 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 lucas shankar's 26 year rule ahead of sunday's rally the ballerinas army rolled into the central city streets away. morning to

those marching that any under arrest me a monument and statues would not be tolerated but the feared violent crackdown did not happen. when tens of thousands marched towards local schank as residents police blocked the road in what looked like a scene from a war movie because shango was filmed flying over the city in a helicopter wearing an armed fast together with his 15 year old son in combat gear than the president emerged from the helicopter carrying a rifle. running thank police who guarded him at the palace they told him they will stay with him until the bitter and foreseeable and end that might just have come a little closer step passon al-jazeera minsk. southern iraq is facing the prospect of more unrest after a deadline set by protesters for the resignation of the local governor expired on

sunday the been demanding justice for the killing of prominent activists prime minister most of them a has visited basser in a bid to find a solution also jabari reports. a deadline has come and gone but these protesters still don't have what they want. they had demanded the resignation of governor over the killing of prominent activists for now they say they'll continue to protest. on saturday prime minister must suffer arrived in basra only hours after returning from his trip to washington d.c. he met local politicians with the hopes of calming the anger on the streets but he had a warning for those looking to cause trouble i decided to call in which would mean this is a message to all criminals and killers this is a new government that is working to establish the prerequisites of security it aims to establish security and prevent crime i'd like to tell everyone who carries a weapon contrary to the government's law they were. askey punishment on the

killers will be brought to justice very soon i'd like to tell the criminals who are . seen and the young female doctor that your blog will be through for justice. 33 year old is the young female dr prime minister called to me refer to she was a prominent activist investor and let several woman's marches she was killed on wednesday when gunmen with assault rifles riding a motorcycle opened fire on her car. days earlier godman had shot dead activists seen osama their deaths sparked days of protests and on rest fueled by anger protesters set fire to local government buildings in the southern iraqi city demanding those responsible be brought to justice and calling for the resignation of the provincial governor. the recent rise in targeted killings poses a challenge for the new prime minister there have been nearly

a dozen attempts on the lives of well known activists this month and 4 have been killed 3 of them in basra the prime minister dismissed the local police chief last week after osama's death in response a number of senior tribal leaders issued a statement saying the armed themselves if the government fails to protect the people this is the worst andress the city has seen since last year's protests which led to the resignation of prime minister of the law. is known as the wealthiest province in iraq it's home to most of the country's oil reserves yet it has some of the worst facilities of public services years of mismanagement and corruption have led to protests on a regular basis this mural of the scene osama the father of 4 who was killed in basra in august 14th quickly went up in taxpayer square in the capital shortly after his death and that death is a constant reminder of the risks that activists and protesters face in iraq on a regular basis as the new government tries to bring some stability to an

increasingly volatile region dorsetshire bari al jazeera baghdad. still to come here on al-jazeera. i'm pleased to make a truly historic announcement in our battle against the giant of virus that will save countless lives u.s. president donald trump tells a major advantage in the fight against covenanting the use of blood plasma from becoming patients. we take a look at what's behind the massive and loss of global onyx that's causing our planet to warm even faster. hello that's a nice weather across southern areas of europe very unsettled process central and northern regions but we finally got a bit of a break across the northwest that is until the next system has them but look at

this some beautiful sunshine in poland the southeast people are enjoying the weather on the water and also similarly across into albania on the coast that is warm very organized beach as you can see that now away from that we have a cools got the rain in the clouds very unsettled through central europe the winds are quite strong as well coming through the channel more than as a from the low countries and the rain spreading east was all the time but have a down day in berlin with a high of 22 degrees and also a bad day generally across the u.k. but you can see this mass of blue behind me that is on its way on choose a some very heavy amounts of rain and yes again some very strong winds that the u.k. met office has got warnings in place to choose day and on into wednesday but to the south of there is fine and dry pretty good and warm and then that rain across most central areas that will push east was as we go through choose as a very heavy rain through much of central and western areas of ukraine heavy rain that in london on tuesday with those warnings mostly cloudy a was a the rain moves up to the north and then a few light showers as we head into the next attack which is also

a little bit lower than we have seen lady meanwhile paris firing a little bit better if a little bit unsettled. the latest news as it breaks it from testing not only against a police crackdown but also against what they call our big election with details coverage more than 300000 people have lost their jobs because of the pandemic and phillis gendron some from around the world following reports that officials were aware of the presence of highly explosive material there are plans for mass demonstrations.

there are a reminder of our top stories this hour power is gradually being restored in syria after a major gas pipeline explosion left large parts of the country without electricity firefighters now managed to put out the blaze on the arab gas pipeline just northeast of the capital damascus. because 5 people have died and several injured when 2 explosions went off in the southern philippines it's taking place in the town of colo in soup province and michel military reports said one of the bass was caused by a homemade bomb on a motorcycle. the protesters in southern iraq are threatening more unrest unless a local governor resigns the killings of a number of prominent activist sparks threat exists and people are demanding those responsible be held to account prime minister there may has visited better to help resolve the crisis. an explosion at an iranian nuclear facility last month was an

act of sabotage that's a conclusion of iran's atomic energy organization but it did not reveal who was responsible a spokesman for the government agency says they will reveal the reason behind the blast at the nantz facility in due course the announcement comes a day before the head of the un's atomic watchdog agency arrives in tehran hoping to get access to sites believed to be storing under faired nuclear material or jamal abdi 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 the eye 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 to that for other facilities there is this paranoia that his 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 exposed these acts of sabotage there are points that mali's made the trick or allow alson president. to return home something 2 days of meetings between mali's kuti this and west african media may also want a transitional wall invading the country for 3 heads soldiers seized on tuesday and arrested after months of anti-government protests will continue on monday. living in a wall or holy for half that has rejected the un recognized government's calls for a cease fire his spokesman described it as a publicising stunt and accuse the tripoli administration of planning a turkish back defensive on the city of sirte of the us allies a group in egypt and the bravo polman in eastern libya had supported the ceasefire . therefore we believe the ceasefire is false and meant only as propaganda

it is simply to throw dust in the eyes this is the reality on the ground and this is what was confirmed our air and land recon all the intelligence we gathered proves the intent to attack our forces and search and. israel's army has launched more strikes into the gaza strip for the 11th day in a row it's a retaliation for what israel says a makeshift firebombs being told to cross the border by hamas the palestinian group that governs gaza the israeli army says it targeted hamas infrastructure in the southern town of daraa. israel's prime minister says he won't call new elections after accepting a compromise to extend budget negotiations by another $100.00 days internet yahoo says now is the time for unity knowledges more elections netanyahu and his coalition partner benny gantz had until monday night to complete the deal or risk seeing the government collapses. there's been protests in the u.s. state of wisconsin after a video emerged showing police officers shooting at

a black man multiple times. wisconsin governor tony evans signed and fired the man as jacob lake police say blake is in a serious condition crowds gathered the scene but tensions rose when police arrived it was tweeted saying he stands against the use of excessive force when handling people in the state. key trump advisor kellyanne conway has announced she'll be leaving the white house called way was the president's campaign manager and 2016 and stayed on as a senior counselor in the statement she praised trump and said the decision to quit was entirely her own. for months u.s. president donald trump has told to create delts about them just missing of november's election and as his republican convention gets underway on monday there are questions about what he might do if he's defeated reports from the.

president donald trump appears to be laying the groundwork for disputing the election results the only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged to remember the trailing democratic nominee joe biden in the polls trump is hinting he may declare the election invalid be narrowed down the president from the spinning elections are going to be rigged. and therefore are you mean goal one to. make tension really more credible for him to say i won to some scholars of authoritarian regimes trumps moves are right out of the strong man's playbook is trying to say that democracy is corrupt democracy the mechanisms of the don't work. american isms of democracy and

and this is classic. trump is told over 20000 lives. so it will be hard to imagine him. that abrogating idea that there's been widespread well true tampering or you know false ballots has been constantly tweeting about the danger of dead people voting. and he's really. a very skilled propagandist in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic trump and senior officials stand accused of trying to hobble mail in voting because by trump's own admission he thinks it would hurt by. this kind of politics while you're accusing your opponent of trying to break the. actions you hear sound are making mean auctions public outcry and pushback from congress forced trump's postmaster general to backtrack promising lawmakers that mail in ballots would be prioritized

and delivered on time but trump has also suggested delaying the election doing it over if he loses and sending police out in force to polling places what he's aiming to do here is create a sense of uncertainty and suspension so that he wouldn't have to concede defeat based on his words and deeds one thing seems clear trump doesn't want to leave office without a fight rob reynolds' al jazeera los angeles. the u.s. president is how you make the authorization all that an emergency plasma treatment to cover 19 as a breakthrough in the u.s. as the plasma of recovered patients to treat virus patients. no conclusive evidence though all benefits that is everybody working together where 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 soon very shortly to deliver treatments and vaccine to save lives who are moving on necessary barriers and delays not by cutting corners but by marshalling the full power of the federal government. hong kong is joining the global race for a growing of our sexy voluntary mass testing is being launched next month to combat what is seen as the 3rd wave of infections medical experts from mainland china are arriving to help but they're not welcomed by everyone devika public reports. 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 called minority and ours is a very smart virus so it is behaving more and more like in france.

so is likely to be staying with us for a long story and the way to combat this virus will be by x. a nation 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 our own vaccine will be 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 all the other 4 companies all subsidiaries of mainland chinese firms who spearheaded 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 it's 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 moscow testing of hong kong government is trying to get the data from hong kong people and may prostitute charges. that they. wanted wanted or

even sent to the fun chinese stuff for the government has dismissed the claims saying that new samples will be sent to the mainland and the board trees will not receive any personal information if you go pollen 0 on. our warming planet has caused a staggering 28 trillion tons of us to disappear in less than 30 years but if scientists say rising sea temperatures are the main factor behind the melting polar ice sheets and higher air temperature is causing glaciers to melt the researchers say nearly half of the total eisel says added to rising sea levels and warn that millions of in low lying areas could be forced to move by the end of the century the british study also found that the loss of ice is causing increasing global warming instead of solar radiation reflecting off the white ice back into space heat is being absorbed into the darkest sea in soil now exposed professor will

steffen from the climate council of australia explains what needs to be done to slow the ice melt. stopping is 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 and use the 2 factors which are destabilizing these ice sheets when i says is on the sea white the arctic sea ice when that melts that does allow the absorption of much more sunlight which is increasing increases the woman particularly in the northern hemisphere yes the climate models do do that and that's one of the reasons that that's the models get better they are actually projecting higher temperatures for the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions that's because they include now more of

these so-called feedbacks changing climate we were losing some of 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 need increase of crush water on top of the surface ocean but that's changing the ocean circulation which means that there are changes in the nutrients being 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. lightning is focusing california increasing fares of sparking more wildfire 6 people think killed nearly 700 buildings damaged areas of land school to the past week president donald trump assigned a major disaster declaration to give more help her 114500 has battling the blazes. in the u.s. state of louisiana 2 storms are expected at the same time on monday hurricane marco

has already been lashing islands in the caribbean it's expected to make landfall in the u.s. sometime on monday after being downgraded to a tropical storm another storm called laura is also on its way it's already left a trail of destruction in the dominican republic at least 3 people were killed and power knocked out for thousands. this is al jazeera and these are the top stories power is gradually being restored in syria after a major gas pipeline explosion left large parts of the country without electricity firefighters have now managed to put out the blaze on the arab gas pipeline just northeast of the capital damascus and hala has been monitoring the situation from beirut neighboring lebanon. the syrian oil minister at 1st suggested that this could be a terrorist attack hours later he said after assessing the situation on the ground

that this was a terrorist attack he did not provide more details there has been no claim of responsibility the area where this explosion occurred between the other r. and l. do there these are in the countryside of damascus an area under the control of the syrian regime in fact there is no opposition presence around that area if we look further south there are where there is a low level insurgency that's approximately 100 kilometers away at least 10 people have died and several injured in 2 explosions in the southern philippines it happened the town of hollow and soon to providence and initial military reports said one of the blasts was caused by a homemade bomb on a motorcycle. the russian doctors who 1st treated opposition leader alexina valley say bayer the ones responsible for saving his life is now being treated at a german hospital after being flown to then in an induced coma from

a siberian facility on saturday the head doctor in all the 6 says he believes they gave novell made the correct diagnosis that no poison was found system or the 200000 people have rallied to the better regime capital to demand president alexander lukashenko to step down after his contested reelection he's refusing to resign and has deployed the army to respond to any of the rest. protesters in southern iraq are threatening more protests unless the local governor resigns the killings of a number of prominent activists font of mass mailings people demanding those responsible be held to account by mr most of our they may have visited to help resolve the crisis was the headlines when you see here on al-jazeera right after inside story stay with us. in this edition of truth to al-jazeera we'll take you on a journey with us to qatar is diverse wildlife will be joined by human reading by mentioning it and also from generation next and we'll be discussing the impact the

potential uncontrolled development could have on these diverse ones like species living here if i'm protecting. what's behind the record rise in global coded 19 infections several countries are reporting some of the biggest numbers since the pandemic began should we be worried him or look down is the answer this is it's a story. hello and welcome to the program on the i'm wrong come on nearly 9 months since coded 19 from the chinese city of would how the virus appears to be spreading faster than ever all around the world some countries are reporting the highest daily infection rates india.