if you read the media of course take in every little baby that they can to mark the fact that america has been a force for good in the world. from the american people get inspiration from him and the other half cringe your weekly take on u.s. politics and society at the bottom of it. as joe biden closes in on donald trump's lead in the battleground states of pennsylvania and georgia truck profits unproven fraud claims i. have and dueling demonstrations biden and trump supporters trade calls to count every ballot and protects the vote.

hello i'm so raman you're watching al jazeera live my headquarters here in doha coming up in the next 30 minutes critics in hong kong warn of increasing attempts to sideline their voices as 8 pro-democracy politicians make their 1st court appearance over a fight at a legislative council meeting. an economy near collapse we meet the refugees living on less than $3.00 a day in lebanon. welcome to the program and it's another day has ended in the united states with still no clear answer on who will lead the country for the next 4 years the closer the count is to finishing the tighter the race becomes here's the overall picture with just 4 battleground states left to count any of them could give joe biden the victory that he wants now he has the lead in nevada here in the west and of course trump is ahead in the rest of the states for the margins are razor thin and those stay. can

be counted the ones that you see there in yellow over to the east of the map biden now has $264.00 electoral college votes trump $214.00 and then it still puts both of them in range of that magic number of 270 so let's take a close look at georgia 1st i remember joe biden is now fewer than a 1000 votes in fact 665 is the leader that trump pass and that's surprising because georgia has been a solid republican state for decades the bulk of the remaining mail in ballots are from the city of atlanta which generally tends to lean towards democrats as take a look at pennsylvania which is still waiting for the results there is a state where joe biden was born trump's lead has been consistently shrinking and the remaining mail in ballots are mostly from the democratic leaning cities of philadelphia and pittsburgh and their suburbs giving biden a potentially good chance to catch up that we're also in jordan has more on the count and the controversy surrounding it counting the ballots one by one in georgia

one of several states that could yet determine who will be the u.s. president on january 20th 2021 the incumbent donald trump demanded again on thursday that the counting is a legal and must be stopped if you count the legal votes easily when if you count the illegal verts they can try to steal. the election from us if you count the votes that came in late we're looking at them very strongly but a lot of votes came in late trump has repeatedly and incorrectly said the process could be sabotaged but it's actually common for states to need several days to count every vote but trump isn't just complaining he's suing in nevada the trump campaign is hoping this woman story of alleged voter fraud will shut down the count there are going to vote in the cold i have

a vote i personally can order. you and yours for her it started in person this current been mailed out the ballot and somebody took my ballot officials denied stuckey's charges saying they did everything possible to help her vote and in michigan a judge rejected trump's request to halt vote counting in that state around the clock trump supporters have been protesting the vote count even demanding to be let into the rooms where the ballots are being counted after meeting with his campaign staff in delaware democratic candidate joe biden said he trusts the process so you know i would continue to feel very good about where things stand we have no doubt that when the count is truly shannon harrison i will be declared the winners so i ask everyone to stay calm all the people to stay calm the process is working the count is being completed and dad will know very soon so no declaration of victory

just yet given the 2 big unknowns the status of the vote counting and the status of the trump campaign's legal challenges roslyn jordan al-jazeera well my connor is in biden's home state he says the democratic candidate is calling for unity among divided votes as. on the course of the day his campaign team briefed reporters saying that the numbers that they were crunching indicate that joe biden was doing very well indeed in a number of these absolutely tense fraught states in the course of the day to have joe biden having a meeting with his campaign staff and then coming out and making that statement that basically he's feeling good that the campaign's looking good however he continued to call for calm and above all 'd to call for patience but what he's also calling for as well is an appeal for a sense of unity joe biden very clearly attempting to lay some building blocks for

what may come next should he be declared victor in this particular election and knowing that he may well have to be dealing with a republican senate knowing that he's also going to have to deal with the consequences of 4 years of bitter division in particular and he's at this stage attempting to create some sense of unity asking for all to come together at this particular time well for the very latest let's cross over to the white house where our correspondent complete health at his watching the action unfold of course is the dead of the night where you are kimberly so just bring us up to speed on what's the latest we're hearing now from both the trump and the biden camps. well you're right it is the dead of night and if you can see the white house behind me there are only a few lights on and one of them is well i can't say that one of those is the belongs to the u.s. president because that isn't exactly where his bedroom is as far as i understand the math but he's awake and he's tweeting and he is not giving up

what he said and we should point out that this has been flagged by twitter as being potentially misleading it says i easily win the presidency of the united states with legal votes cast the observers were not allowed in any way shape or form to do their job and therefore vote except to during this period best be determined to be illegal votes u.s. supreme court should decide so it appears the u.s. president is willing to take this right to the supreme court where we know that he has a favorable number of judges that could assist him with any legal challenge but in terms of clarifying the president's position some observers were allowed in some cases we've got you know 50 different states different sets of rules what he's talking about specifically is pennsylvania where there was a challenge the term campaign did win that challenge but then it appears that the officials have worked against that challenge in terms of allowing the truck

campaign to observe these votes being cast or rather i counted and so as a result donald trump is making the case that since that happened this was not legal and those votes should be counted and as you have reported the top of the show in fact the. pennsylvania as well as georgia are not looking good for donald trump we can see that joe biden is closing in on that lead in a matter of hours if donald trump loses both of those states there's no way really that he can claim the presidency so what he is saying is that he's going to challenge all of this and go to the supreme court now this is a little surprising to. typically about this point historically in modern history at least with the u.s. presidency i candidate who's in the circumstance would for the good of the country and to bring about unity would concede but don't have a said that he very clearly said this in 2016 he's saying this again that he may

not accept the results of the election i think that tweet is very clear that he's doubled down on his assertion of that so this is where things stand a very divided country a president who is likely to become a one term president but still fighting very hard even if he has to take it to the highest court in order to get a definitive answer in his view on whether or not joe biden who is potentially going to become president elect can really claim that or donald trump is challenging this and i should very quickly point out that many are saying that the president's claims are baseless they have no evidence these are the things he would have to prove in court indeed and we say the night is still young get really is young when it comes to what's coming out of the white house for the moment complete thanks so much and let's bring in scott lucas we've been speaking to him through the tape for us from american cities at the university of birmingham in the u.k. scott good to have you with us again and i'm sure you heard what can be had to say i mean all eyes right on pennsylvania georgia wagner many suggest this outcome of the election will be decided potentially in the courts is it not looking more or

less likely considering trump's questionable comments that this is where we're heading to. yes we have 2 different paths i think the political path is much clearer today and that is joe biden has that lead in the bottom that's likely to expand that along with arizona would give him victory but in addition he's now with an 800000 votes in pennsylvania with the remaining about coming from the democratic areas and just a few minutes ago he closed the gap in georgia to only 665 votes and again those democratic vote to come in there and remember he only needs you know one of those states to try out what is unclear is the legal 'd path and i'll be honest with you the conspiracy theory and that is the legal part is the truck people will try any legal means to try to halt the remaining counts so they are not certified and then they'll try to get mail in ballots thrown out now that is a process that could take weeks to go all the way supreme court and what is intersecting with andy amplifying that is trumps conspiracy theories and i need to

say conspiracy theory because there is no evidence that there was mail and fraud it is not true that his observers were not allowed into polling stations and there's no evidence that there are illegal votes for joe biden yet it 2 30 am in washington only 40 minutes ago donald trump was on twitter saying all of those things that evokes counted for joe buyout by are now illegal that the election is about to be stolen from him and that is very very dangerous because you and i can try to present the plants to deal with that but on the streets people might hear it they might invest in it and they might react sometimes violently but of course with such a vitriolic election campaign there are vague similarities to what happened 20 years ago when it comes to vote counting the mismanagement perhaps a vote counting the democrats have been well prepared for this election in terms of making sure that they have very strong legal teams in respective states should the

trump campaign challenge the certification of the final vote what seal impression of the way that they are behaving the way are they are challenging the trump campaign. how this election is unfolding. well you're right i mean since july when donald trump said he might not recognize the outcome of the election we saw this on the cards in late september when he said that he wanted a county beret on the court as a supreme court justice to hear a case about fraudulent ballots we knew where this was we're heading and indeed there were court cases before the election from pennsylvania to michigan almost all of them ruling against the truck campaign but this is now the latest pass and i think the democrats know that i think what is important on top of that is precisely the message that came out not just from joe biden but from democratic politicians and from a few republicans which is we need to count the votes keep calm this is not just a question of an election believe it or not this is

a constitutional crisis this is a crisis of the american system and it is very important in the next few weeks and months that dialogue and calm take over from division and one man's twitter feed woll casting a vote and counting a vote doesn't seem to be you might say a problem there are questions now about sort of the electoral future of america doesn't let true reform need to be considered talked about discussed and if so can these 2 major parties meet and talk about this in any shape or form of is it just to a divisive issue depending on which state you're talking about there are 50 to choose from. well we need electoral reform of the electoral college but that ain't going to happen on the issue you're raising which is the electoral process which is at state level where it's over saying i'm not at national level the process is working . fewer than 1200 about 1200 ballots in 40 years have been fraudulent and almost all of them have been caught point 0004 percent of ballots are fraudulent according

to the brennan center and almost all of them are caught and this process which is taking days is precisely to make sure that this is a secure vote that the system isn't being manipulated by anyone so amidst all the turbulence of this a lot and despite the misinformation which comes out from donald trump and i have to say as allies the system is working now where the system be respected if donald trump loses the election that's the big media question indeed to say it's always good to speak to scott lukas the professor of american studies at the university of him in the u.k. thanks for the times thank you. well still ahead here on al-jazeera the opposition calls for protests in tanzania after the president is sworn in for another term. and scenes of devastation across central america west all actors left thousands homeless and stay with us here on al-jazeera.

hello part of a sudden germ he said a growing dome of high pressures he's steering all the weather are you windy rain around its edges so there it is sitting there most active weather is probably that is developing just west of portugal that has been rainy of the spain portugal over iberia for the last few days been tickly focused in easton's fame that's about to change forecast for lisbon will show that in just a 2nd but if you're not in iberia it's cold start sunny day for the most part not particularly new for the most far either unless you're in turkey or running down through the jade towards crete that is quite a strong wind sock forecast for lisbon a wet one and a windy one for friday and for saturday little less so on sundays things slowly improve because by that time the heaviest rains were not through space in across the peyronie's and into france ahead of it it's a bit of

a subtly breeze it's warming things up in paris but it's a fairly cold picture in vienna and berlin as an example they're going to measure it in i already mentioned this is quite a strong northerly wind down through the bosphorus the chain down through crete an intern or egypt not much to breeze on the coast of lebanon for example but there are still slow moving heavy showers in this place but the worst weather is going to be in northern egypt. but. it's a centuries old battle and the battle is being passed to a new. generation. witness follows a young native american as he takes the struggle into the 21st century america everybody's there although we did hear the sacrifice of the. is going to be sound as can be remembered. and go on a knife edge on al-jazeera. talk

about the watching of 0 means the whole rom the reminder of our top news stories the u.s. presidential race remains too close to call those 4 battleground states still counting and any one of them could give joe biden the win over donald trump all trump is making unproven claims that if only legal votes were counted he'd win the election he says legal challenges may end up in the supreme court biden is urging people to be patient he says he's confident of becoming the next president he has 264 electoral college votes 270 a needed for victory. on republican in the u.s.

house has come out strongly against donald trump's claims while not naming him directly adamant kinzinger has tweeted that of course every vote needs to be counted but if someone has legitimate concerns about fraud that evidence must be presented he's also calling for a stop to the spread of what he describes as debunked misinformation well the most senior republican in congress senate majority leader mitch mcconnell has been playing down donald trump's allegations saying everyone should wait until the counting is over. the. action. is different.

and approaches. now the u.s. has seen another record jump in corona virus infections 2 days after the presidential vote more than 120000 cases were confirmed on thursday exceeding the record set the day before that's according to a tally by the johns hopkins university an average of 850 people are dying from the virus every day up from 700 a month ago. the entire population of liverpool in the united kingdom is to be offered a test for covert 19 it's part of a trial for mass testing aimed at helping hospitals and lifting restrictions about 2000 military personnel have been deployed to help. china's national health commission has reported at least 36 new cases of covert 19 it says 30 of those came from overseas there hasn't been any new deaths

a strict border closure has been imposed to curb the spread of the virus. 8 pro-democracy politicians in hong kong are appearing in court over fines at a legislative council meeting more than 5 months ago it's their 1st appearance since being arrested earlier this week they're accused of contempt and obstruction related to the incident in may but critics say it's part of an increasing attempt to sideline dissenting voices no pro beijing lawmakers involved were arrested hong kong police have denied any political motivation let's get a very latest from hong kong for correspond to be a pilot who was following the court proceedings those that were arrested did appear in court what's happened since. this was the initial hearing where they were told what their charges were they all put in their pleas to and they were all granted bail but the main crux of their defense is that this is an issue that should be dealt with within the legislative council and not at the

courts upon con now if i can take you back to those events of me 8 that started off quite innocuously with a dispute over who should control the chair of a key committee that descended into scuffles involving both the pro big legislative councillors and also the pro-democracy legislative councillors only the pro-democracy legislative councillors have been charged they could face up to one year in jail if they are found guilty and they say this is just yet another way for the government to silence any opposition or any kind of dissenting voices and of course this comes as a documentary maker was arrested for apparent traffic violations that rights activists really say it was the content of a documentary on police violence that's really upset the authorities. that's right there have been arrests made related to the protests of last year and nots what one what this latest arrest on that vehicle documentation is.

there have been more than 10000 people arrested relating to the protests of 2019 they include politicians activists protesters and also journalists no one has been spared so this is just seen as another step in the government's crackdown on trying to silence opposition voices and this also comes a soon after our months off to the national security law was put in place in hong kong that's that wide ranging well defined law that many say has been put in by the central government to once again quiet any opposition voices and in fact the police launched a hotline yesterday where people can message using messaging apps given tips of who they suspect of violating that national security law and police say they've already received about a 1000 of those messages kind of giving a sense of somewhat of a big brother and vironment here now incidentally hong kong's chief executive is in mainland china on

a tour she's currently in beijing and she has been told by the central government that they have given her their full backing of all the updates and so much to be a part of the force in the whole cold. john mica foully has been sworn in as tanzania as president after he won a 2nd term in last week's elections but opposition parties are calling for protest saying there's been widespread fraud welcome. president john mica foully was sworn in for his 2nd 5 year term at a ceremony in tanzania as capital that omar was i would like to thank all times iranians for being calm during the entail action season oh the polls were marred by violence the opposition says they were rigged. in the indian ocean archipelago of zanzibar opposition say several people were shot dead after discovering pre-taped ballots and they say ballot stuffing was widespread they

showed these pre take ballots to the press the electoral commission denies there were irregularities. few international observers were allowed there were several miles but this election there was a lot stopping ballot as for the ruling party there was delayed or deny opposition polling agents to. write social media services and internet access restricted on polling day and have been since the opposition have rejected magath release victory his presidency did not come from the we the people it was all there let's say was stalin there. was a board and we do not recall this election. is you know. there is one out well. so easy to spot it. the

main opposition leader to listen to call for people to protest the result was one of several opposition politicians who was arrested he was later released. electoral commission said mcafee leaves party won 97 percent of the seats in parliament it's enough for its m.p.'s to make changes to the constitution the opposition say they want a rerun of the election with international supervision it looks unlikely they'll get it malcolm webb al-jazeera the head of the united nations says he's deeply alarmed by fighting in ethiopia the northern region is accusing federal troops of attacking its capital in a bid to force it into submission prime minister. in soldiers and declared a state of emergency he says the ruling t p l f party in the region attacked federal troops the army in addis ababa says it's been forced into an unexpected and aimless war of tensions grew in september

after the t.p.r. left held regional elections despite a government despondent dziedzic ovid 19 degrees ruler say that that was a power grab by the prime minister. lebanon's economy is near collapse and life is a struggle for many but syrian refugees are amongst the worst hit the united nations says 80 percent of the 900000 registered were already living in extreme poverty before the beirut port exploded in august worsen the situation in the heart of reports. at least 200000 syrian refugees live in lebanon's capital. the united nations says 16000 of them were directly affected by the beirut port explosion in august. we have armor and her family survived the blast but their source of income did not she explains her husband hasn't been able to find work in the weeks like so many other syrians he is an informal laborer now

a mother started how do you my husband lost his job after the port explosion he tries his best to find temporary jobs to be able to feed us my son is working he earns 60000 lebanese week. that's roughly $10.00 on the black market the exchange earned by her 10 year old son mahmoud who works 12 hours a day helping to tailor the local currency has sharply devalued in the past year even before the baby we have ongoing distance programs and those are given to us but we have increased the amount in order to partially compensate for inflation it's not enough for many families who are struggling during lebanon's financial meltdown u.s. the cystic show at least 80 percent of the 900000 refugees registered with the agency live below the poverty line that is classified as having to survive on less than $3.00 a day. the situation was about and after the last it got worse if i work i can just

buy food not pay for rent or medicine for my daughter regular jobs are hard to come by already there are government imposed restrictions on the ability of refugees to work support from aid organizations is not enough to stop living conditions from worsening syrians were affected as everyone else in the country but in the greater percentage because when. when you are. i mean cory erving 1st. person as you were laid off we are the syrians lebanon hosts one of the highest numbers of refugees per capita in the world and 50 percent of its population of $5000000.00 people are poor many syrians live in this impoverished neighborhoods next to the port where some of them used to work current tina was among the areas damaged by the blast at least 40 syrians were among the 200 people killed 3 months on the lack of food and shelter is still a concern for many sent to. beirut. dozens of people have had dad from tropical

storm as a that's been flooding and mudslides across nicaragua honduras and guatemala forcing thousands from their homes not all republicans hold some one of the faces storms to hit the region in 2 decades. emergency workers are carrying out critical rescue missions across a large portion of central america heavy rains from the remnants of hurricane ada have caused widespread flooding and mudslides the north coast of honduras has been especially hard hit here flooded roads and collapsed bridges have made it difficult for rescuers to reach those stranded by the floodwaters but a matter of this this is the 1st time something like this happens but everything is flooded over there everything is flooded on tuesday ada slammed into the nicaraguan coast as a powerful category 4 hurricane despite being downgraded to a tropical storm the slow moving system has continued to drop to rental rains across nicaragua honduras and guatemala it's the worst natural disaster to hit this

region in more than 20 years on thursday 100 officials issued evacuation orders warning citizens to move quickly as weather conditions continue to worsen moving there it is they will not feel this amount of water falling on the mountains gives us the space of 2 hours maybe a little more but let's not give it any longer let's keep 2 hours in mind to be able to evacuate to protect people's lives. in cities like lemma people waded through flooded streets many desperately seeking help for their families trapped by the rising water and this no no help has arrived within calling 911 since this morning for them to come for the firefighters to come but no one has shown up. authorities in guatemala say trench will rains and mudslides have already claimed several lives to make matters worse weather forecasters say ada could regain force in the coming days as it now heads on a predicted path toward cuba and the florida peninsula madrid up alone al jazeera.