sneeze and hero. as joe biden closes in on donald trump's lead in the battleground states of pennsylvania and georgia trump repeats unproven fraud claims. by supporters home rival demonstrations as trump supporters demand a vote counting to be stopped. hello i'm so home and you watching i'll just ever live my headquarters here in doha also coming up critics in hong kong more of attempts to silence the voices as 8 pro-democracy politicians make their 1st court appearance over a fight at

a legislative council meeting plus an economy near collapse we meet the refugees living on less than $3.00 a day in lebanon. welcome to the program another day has ended in the united states and still no answer on who will lead the country for the next 4 years the close the count is to finishing the tighter the race becomes is the overall picture with just 4 battleground states left accountant any of them could give victory to joe biden now he has the lead in nevada here to the west and trump is ahead in the rest of the states for the margins are razor thin and those states being counted are the ones that you can see in yellow biden now has 264 electoral college votes trumpets 214 that still puts both of them in the range of that magic number to become president. of 270

let's take a close look at georgia joe biden is now just 463 votes behind trump not surprising because georgia has been a solid republican state for decades now the bulk of the remaining mail in ballots are from the city of atlanta which generally leans towards the democrats now we're also looking at pennsylvania the state where joe biden was born trump leads or his lead has consistently shrunk here and the remaining mail in ballots are mostly from the democratic leaning cities of philadelphia and pittsburgh and the suburbs giving biden a really good chance to catch up was 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 illegal votes easily when if you count the illegal averts 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 code i already know that i personally can order. you and yours are for her it started in person just carbonell down 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 will 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 let's cross over to

washington d.c. and the white house correspondent kimberly halakhah to following events it may be that out of the night can believe it or still a lot to talk about especially what we're hearing both from the trump and biden counts. yeah well the way it is it will soon be daily here in the united states at least on the east coast where i am and i'm not sure that donald trump has gone to bed in fact he's been tweeting in the last couple of hours and is continuing to make the argument on twitter that he won the presidency with the what he calls legal votes cast in other words he is unhappy that there were some deadlines that works tended for accepting mail in ballots and so that he is calling these illegal votes and he's suggesting that he wants the supreme court to rule on this and now this is something that has been flagged by twitter and this is something that is now has a caviar on the president's tweet as so many have in recent days as the president continues to make claims that this is an election that is being stolen from him now

president's critics and even some members of his own republican party are criticizing donald trump for saying that this is happening and saying that he's essentially undermining the confidence in the electoral system i can tell you that there are many americans who believe the president and are concerned that this is an election that is being stolen now the buying campus saying that this is just a sign of a desperate man that is now their words what he's doing is really signaling to the world that he is defeated and he is losing now there's no question that in the next couple of hours this contest could be decided right now there is one county in the u.s. state of georgia that is very close to delivering more results that could ultimately deliver joe biden the presidency georgia is now becoming the state that everyone is watching at this hour because typically this has for many decades been

a republican win one that they could count on but because of some of these mail in ballots that are being counted particularly in areas like atlanta it is looking increasingly like in the next hour. so maybe the few hours at the most joe biden is going to overtake donald trump and potentially have the votes that he needs in order to claim the title of president elect so this is what we're watching very carefully what will also need to watch very carefully in the coming hours is whether or not the president will concede this is something that most contenders would do for the good of the country but don't have a set he may not accept the results he made this clear in 2016 he's made it clear in 2020 and if his tweets are to be any indication this is the position of the president that he's going to challenge this even as the votes of count been counted and would make the case that joe biden is the one to become the next president and of course we'll follow events with you can believe in washington d.c.

complete health at all washington d.c. correspondent thank you so let's cross over to joseph right here in doha he's a professor of political science at texas a and m. university good to have you with us mr you're on the program chuck supporters even seem to have wanted their cake and eat it where they wanted the vote come to stop in michigan but continue in arizona well generally calling it election fraud i mean what is the strategy here if there is a strategy it's all. the question of the strategy that the president wants votes to continue to be counted in places where he's likely to benefit from additional counting and he wants the house to stop in places where he's likely to lose ground or the president by gain ground by continue counting and that's hardly a principled stand or strong commitment towards the democratic norms that have operated in the united states. of course the biden win looks more and

more likely as the hours progress but if we can just talk hypotheticals for a moment we presume possibly a democratic president but with a repub a republican senate and a conservative supreme court are we looking at a potential lame duck presidency or one that will be run with executive orders. well i think there's actually a lot of room for compromise on some important problems facing the country at least early and biden administration even with the republican controlled senate there was a lot of talk about a new economic stimulus program to deal with the pandemic obviously the pandemic itself continues and developing some sort of new national strategy and coordinating between the branches of government and passing federal laws to support that might also be a point of compromise i think on the economy and on relieved and on the pandemic

and there's certainly room for bipartisan cooperation to deal with those very pressing problems in terms of going to war run problems and issues that the country faces a genuine health care immigration trade and an important appointment of federal judges i think a return to gridlock on those enduring problems is likely but here joe biden was a long serving united states senator you have personal relationships with many of the republican leaders i think republicans will be eager to deliver to their own voters the kind of relief and public health response that the country desperately needs and so it's not a foregone conclusion that by an administration will hit a wall in congress right after that indeed a great deal you might say of soul searching and fences to be no men date one of the. election campaign videos i saw with joe biden showed him in the past shaking hands with the late senator john mccain of arizona for the presidential candidate

his wife cindy endorsed biden and i was oh no they cannot bury it in a very influential state i mean whatever legislation is proposed in a potential biden government all passed we're looking at and have a divided nation trying to find a way forward and finding it hard to perhaps find the middle ground both in society and in the politics in the holes of colorado or in washington. it's going to be very difficult to bring the country together i think one of the most important developments in american politics over the last half century is the growing polarization between the 2 major political parties the ideological separation of republicans and democrats on the the sorting of liberal and conservative into those 2 parties and that being reinforced by a kind of social identity that people have outside of politics and it's interesting and important that by president by may bringing the country back together and

healing the wounds particularly in the last 4 years but really in the last half century and to try to find common ground and do things together and i think it will be a struggle for him both to find partners in the republican party and to pacify members of his own party who are going to want to continue to do battle with the republicans in a confrontational way but i think a president biden is going to have a very difficult task by you as you point out he campaigned on the issue of bringing the country together and governing in a new style and doing his best to find common ground and i think if you can make that a priority and then develop a good agenda that begins with the issues on which that kind of compromise is most likely that he might be able to take some 1st steps toward healing the wounds and resetting the country on a more positive putting or to see what happens certainly no one has been declared the winner gets and we'll have to wait and see for the moment to justify the thanks

for joining us from the. thank you. well still ahead here on al-jazeera with global economies mardin uncertainty we look at how china is preparing to bolster its domestic market. and the opposition calls for protests in tanzania after the president is sworn in for another term to stay with us here on al-jazeera. hello ghani has just made landfall on the coast of vietnam south of dung it's not a typhoon it's not really a tropical storm it's winds are not that strong but the rain has been there to pull and once again we're adding 200 millimeters of rain to the same place that's been flooded now for weeks central vietnam the rain itself carry on into something laos

then spreads through to cambodia and thailand as the thing falls apart the very top your screen is out sammy which is a tropical storm just brushing past something parts of taiwan but the place to watch the next development is this here just east of the philippines and i think that may well turn into something as it crosses the philippines time it goes through is probably just a tropical depression so it's a rain problem widespread big showers for the south particularly throughout indonesia it's the rainy season of course huge discrepancy across australia or in temperatures and weather tight for the last few days they've most obviously yesterday where we had temperatures in the high forty's now down to about 42 this part of australia and barely into the teens in victoria and tasmania sydney has coldest november day for 24 years that's improving slowly showers proper big thunderstorms are still there in west australia. but. in part 2 of a special investigation one

o one ace visits western australia's only youth detention center and travels to the remote outback towns of we many of the indigenous inmates come from. an al-jazeera has on a truck been good for america everything is in disarray the media of course taken every debate that they can to demolish 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 you weekly take on the us politics and society that's the bottom of. but the market watching all just there in the whole romney reminder of our top stories the u.s. presidential race remains too close to call for battleground states still counting

and he could give joe biden the win over donald trump trump is making false claims that if only legal votes were counted he'd win the election he says legal challenges may end up in the supreme court but biden is urging people to be patient he says he's confident of becoming the next president he has 264 electoral college votes 270 are required to victory. to the day's other news now and many chinese business owners expect relations with the u.s. to remain tense regardless if you who ends up in the white house with the trade war on going china's president xi jinping has vowed to move its focus from exporting to strengthening the domestic economy trini reports now from shanghai. these custom made coins designed to commemorate events held by u.s. military and police veterans are manufactured here in addison's factory in china

east 90 percent of his customers are in the u.s. but the strained relationship between washington and beijing is forcing him. i never expected trying to u.s. relations would become. deep in my heart of american. power in the history of america. stepsister looking to strike down any good looking sisters the view of the u.s. as a rival rather than a reliable partner is shared by china's leaders at the opening of shanghai's international import expo wednesday president xi jinping invited other countries to invest in china and said beijing was shifting its focus from exports to domestic consumption. china is entering a new development period to adapt to the new situation fireman's we proposed a new pattern with domestic circulation as the mainstay. a new development period spurred say analysts by the trumpet ministrations tough stance on china when it

comes to trade and technology there was acceleration in the technological playing in the past 30 years started with incident and then we saw the trade war as quite a fact of lowering the trade volume between china and the us bad on the sale of high tech u.s. chips has crippled china's technology sector in response the communist party says it will turbo charge chinese technological research and development over the next 15 years regardless of who wins the u.s. election china's is clear it wants other countries to become increasingly dependent on its consumer market and aims to overtake the u.s. in the race to dominate advanced technologies with its coronavirus largely under control. china is the only g 20 economy expected to grow this year the country power's roughly one 3rd of global economic growth a percentage that to increase over the next decade i just don't think it's

a good idea to contain china probably a better way is to collaborating but it's a message and the sun believes it will fall on deaf ears in washington he says he has little choice but to prepare for the u.s. and china to drift further apart katrina al-jazeera shanghai. pro-democracy demonstrators in hong kong appearing in court over a fight at a legislative council meeting more than 5 months ago it's the 1st appearance since being arrested earlier this week mother accused of contempt and obstruction related to an incident in may but critics say it's part of an increasing attempt to sideline dissenting political voices no pro beijing lawmakers involved were arrested hong kong police have denied any political motivation devika pollen is in hong kong for us with the outcome of today's court appearance. 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 of hong kong now if i can take you back to those events of may 8th 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 probate jang 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 there have been more than 10000 people arrested relating to the protests of 2019 they include politicians activists protesters and also journalists 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 after the national security law was put in place in hong kong that set wide ranging well defined law that many say has been put in by the central government to once again quiet any opposition voices in 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. not trying as national health commission has reported at least 36 new cases of covert 19 it says 30 of those came from overseas and there hasn't been any new deaths a strict broader strict border closure patently has been imposed to curb the spread of the finalists the entire population of liverpool in the united kingdom is to be offered a test for covert 19th it's part of a trial for mass testing and to tell the hospitals and lifting restrictions about 2000 military personnel have been deployed to help. kosovo's president hushing touchy has resigned because he's facing charges of war crimes of the hague he's

accused of murder and torture during the fight for independence from serbia in the 1990 s. barbara i can post reports. hashim fact she along with 9 other former rebel leaders are accused of murdering nearly 100 people including political opponents the alleged crimes relate to the period when fact she was a top ficca in the kosovo liberation army or the k.l.a. the group fought for independence from serbia during the 99 th to 999 casa who that she says his resigns to face trial ever his role in the conflict and to shield his country from disrepute. as i promised i would not allow the president of the republic of kossovo to go to court that is why to protect the integrity of the presidency of class of all of the state of castle and the people and respecting the partnership with the international community i am resigning from

the post of the president of kossovo. more than 10000 people were killed during the kosovo war and thousands more were forced from their homes the fighting and the dr a 78 day nato air bombardment against serbian forces serbian leaders face trials for war crimes at a special international criminal court for the former yugoslavia but analysts say crimes were committed on both sides this somehow comes at the end of this drug war and of course i was struggling with its reasoning of accepting a socially that while causal has been the victim of the milosevic terrible policy in the ninety's there have also been committed crimes a special court at the hague has been preparing to try suspected kosovo war criminals since 2015 many top because of our politicians who came. through the k.l.a. have been transferred to stand trial hashim thatcher's prosecution may appease

people who believe justice has not been done in the decade since the war but his supporters call for a hero and say his indictment is unfair barbara and get out of syria john mica fairly has been sworn in as tanzania's president after he won a 2nd term in last week's elections but opposition parties are calling for protests saying there's been widespread fraud malcolm webb reports the. president john mica foully was sworn in for his 2nd 5 year term at a ceremony in tanzania as capital that omar. the i would like to thank all times iranians for being calm during the entail action says it was 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 regularities. few international observers were allowed there were several miles from the selection there was a ballot stop. there was delayed or deny opposition agents too. right. social media services and internet access restricted on polling day and have been since the opposition have rejected magath relief victory president not from the wheel people. they let was. their election. and we do not recognize this election saw you know there is one

out. so easy. 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. the electoral commission said mcafee release 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 now the head of the united nations says he's deeply alarmed by the fighting in ethiopia the northern to grow region is accusing federal troops of attacking its capital in a bid to force it into submission prime minister midsentence soldiers and declared a state of emergency he says the ruling t p l f party in the region attacked federal troops the army and out of the verse

says it's been forced into an unexpected and aimless war while tensions grow in september after the t.p.o. have held regional elections despite a government perspire meant to took over 19 degrees rulers 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 registers were already living in extreme poverty before the bay report explosion all going to worsen the situation 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 maher 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 a weeks like so many other syrians he is an informal laborer. 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 $60000.00 lebanese week that's roughly $10.00 on the black market exchange earned by her 10 year old son mahmoud who works 12 hours a day helping a tailor. the local currency has sharply devalued in the past year even before the break we have ongoing cash assistance 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. you i mean when you are an employer who 1st. persons you were laid off you 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 guaranteed i 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 sena. beirut dozens of people being killed from tropical storm after the number could rise as it pulls away from central america this was the scene in honduras where the president reported shocking devastation left homes and streets submerged and triggered mudslides across the region. what you all deserve at least a whole rom the reminder of our top stories the u.s. presidential race remains too close to call for battleground states still counting any of them could get joe biden the win over donald trump and trump is making unproven claims that if only legal votes were counted he'd win the election.