extrude sanderson. with the election behind us the republican party dumptruck the weekly take on u.s. politics and that's the bottom of. a rising toll the number of deaths linked to crowd virus passes 1500000 the several countries seen record high numbers. and can put out this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up. this is not a football competition we're talking life and the health of people person faces criticism for its approval of the pfizer vaccine raising worries the debate could undermine public confidence. concerns for thousands of or hinder

refugees who are being moved to a remote island that's prone to flooding. and india's army denies reports of carried out reprisal attacks in kashmir after the deaths of 2 soldiers. to begin with the coronavirus crisis and b. global death toll has now passed 1500000 with a 3rd of them in just the last 2 months the united nations secretary general is once again calling for a unified global response to the tent amec which is infected more than 65000000 people a number of countries have been reporting record high deaths among them which even though it has overall cases dropping just under 1000 people died in the last 24 hours and the united states recorded its highest aby death toll on wednesday more than 2800 soaring infections and record hospitalizations have prompted toughen

measures including in the 2nd largest city los angeles. the bottom line is if we don't act now our hospital system will be overwhelmed we don't act now we'll continue to see a death rate climb more lives lost here is what we are introducing today regions where the i.c.u. capacity is falling below 15 percent we are now mandating that we are implementing a stay at home order for 3 weeks rob reynolds is in los angeles and says there's an urgent need for medical personnel across states. the governor gavin newsom of california said that he is going to be instituting a series of regional stay at home orders based on the capacity of hospitals the governor said that once. in each region hospital emergency rooms or

intensive care units fall at or below 50 percent of capacity then there's going to be a series of shutdowns that will involve bars closed completely personal service types of establishment like barber shops beauty parlors nail salons all closed already there is a travel ban within the state for any nonessential travel and shops and businesses will be also limited for example stores will only be allowed to have people come in at 20 percent capacity so we'll be again seeing a lines of people outside the of the grocery stores and markets waiting to get in to get essential supplies. another issue across the united states is a lack of trained personnel because of course as doctors and nurses treat covert patients they may become exposed they may have to quarantine they may themselves

get sick so there's a shortage now and governors around the country like the governor of rhode island gina rimando were begging people to come out of retirement doctors and nurses to suit up again raise their hand and get get involved again in this emergency situation meanwhile u.s. president elect joe biden says he will ask americans to wear a mask for the 1st 100 days of his administration christensen amy has been following developments from wilmington delaware. interesting news coming out late here from wilmington and president joe biden saying that he intends to ask americans to mask up once he takes office for 100 days the 1st inkling we have of how his response may be different than the current administration's he was speaking to us network c.n.n. and described his plans he said where possible he would mandate mass for example on

interstate travel on airplanes and in federal buildings but otherwise would seek to influence americans by his example in this that it was important for him and the vice president themselves to wear masks as an example of course mask wearing has become controversial in some parts of the united states so there could be some pushback on that front but both biden seeming to stress that there would be an end date that this was for a limited time $100.00 days to get the virus under control he also talked about the fact that his plan was not to close the economy but to offer clear guidance not to impose strict or not to impose specific lockdown so much as guidance he talked about if restaurants and bars need to close for periods of time that they need to know that there would be assistance in what the ground rules were going to be moving forward of course that's perhaps easier said than done for him because any type of aid for restaurants would have to be approved by congress but nonetheless

again a clear signal a clear indication of where the administration is heading in terms of its covert plan. you vaccinations and as the opening in russia ahead of a large scale vaccination program starting next week it was announced by president vladimir putin on wednesday 3 new facilities were opened at hospitals in the moscow region with doctors and teachers to be the 1st in line to receive the sputnik v. shots the drug has not completed be involved studies need to ensure effectiveness and safety in line with established scientific protocols. mexico is another country hoping to start immunizing people against coven 19 this month on wednesday the government reached a deal with the u.s. drug maker 5 to buy more than $34000000.00 doses of its banksy it hasn't yet been decided who will be offered it 1st france says it will ensure freak over 1000 vaccines for all residents a minister jean caustics says an immunization campaign will start in a matter of weeks and will be rolled out in 3 phases. america's top infectious

disease expert has apologized for criticizing britain's rapid approval of the pfizer biotech vaccine and the valjean said regulators didn't go far enough to prove its safety and effectiveness but he later backtracked sayings comments came out wrong the apology comes amid criticism from e.u. regulators about the u.k.'s approach shot ballasts has more. hope is housed in a belgian factory where millions of doses of the vaccine developed by german scientists from bio enteric and the u.s. pharmaceutical giant pfizer of being may the u.k. is leading the race to roll out the drug after its independent regulator gave the vaccine emergency approval on wednesday the 1st doses will arrive in person within days we've got the very best people in this country and we've got the best bet ical regulators much better than the french have much better than the belgians have much better than the americans and that doesn't surprise me as well because we're much

better country than every single one well it may be a political win for the u.k. u.s. infectious disease expert dr anthony felt she appeared to cast doubt over how operatives regulators approved it so quickly you know i love the brits they great they're good scientists but they just took the data from the wise a company and instead of scrutinizing it really really carefully they said ok let's approve it that's it may work with it the scientist hastily bet tricks apologizing for what he called a misunderstanding suit he did have great faith in the regulatory community in the u.k. the rabbit approval had already been politicized by the e.u. who called its approach more thora we are definitely not in the game of comparing regulators across countries nor on commenting on claims as to who is better this is not a football competition we're talking about the life and health of people the world health organization has asked british scientists to share their findings the un

body which acts as a benchmark for other countries is eager to approve a vaccine as soon as possible we need to develop more vaccines we should stop we need more than these 3 or 4 we need to increase production we need hold the price down we need we'd love a $1.00 dog's vaccine because the all of the vaccine so far 2 doses so the innovation is a finished we need the research to continue we need everyone to support only certain i will appoint the scientists. the british regulator says the strict standards have been met to assure the vaccine safety and effectiveness the rollout is being cautiously welcomed in the u.k. but the race to regulate exposed rifts between scientists undermining international efforts to prove it safe and ready for use shelob alice al-jazeera. julie fisher is a microbiology and immunology professor at georgetown university medical center in washington d.c. she says the scientific community needs to do more to instill confidence in vaccines. what britain has done is give an emergency use authorization which means

it's essentially a temporary approval when it is made under extraordinary circumstances when there are risks to health and no other treatment available. it doesn't mean that the scrutiny is not there it does not mean that the regulators have not acted safely but i think what we're seeing right now is a bit of political posturing as leaders of countries who are facing ongoing cover not teen crises are attempting to find a bit of a silver lining and it's absolutely critical right now that the communications about the approval process that the fact that scientists in in the e.u. in the u.k. in the u.s. and elsewhere are really carefully looking at the data provided by the pharmaceutical companies that they have invested their own scientists time in combing through this data we need to come together as a scientific community and explain how do we look at vaccines for safety how do we

know that these vaccines are safe and effective to use and how do we know that we're going to keep monitoring people even as we go and make sure that we don't see anything that would contradict or undermine that so that people can be vaccinated with confidence and then we can start to to stem the tide of this pandemic the u.s. tech firms i.b.m. says a sophisticated hacking scheme is targeting companies that are planning the distribution of covert 19 back scenes i.b.m. says the hackers are specifically interested in the delivery cold chain used to keep vaccines at the right temperature during transportation about 10 organizations involved in the just accepting target and security experts say it appears to be a state led operation jodi west is chief executive officer of global cyber risk she says these attempted hacks are sophisticated and are trying to manipulate employees . i think it's one of 2 things where they are sending very specific

emails internally into these companies trying to trick the employees because the emails can look like a real email from someone internally that they are trying to trick the employees into clicking on something or opening an attachment and this would allow them malware in this system they could then use this malware can steal highly valuable confidential and proprietary data that may be one reason the other is they may want to have someone click on i mean a link or open an attachment so they could then install ransomware and encrypt all their systems and essentially disrupt the supply chain and the criminals are going out and they're using things like social media pulling through contacts identifying internal executives and players and and gathering enough information they can write an e-mail that's very credible it's using the serial numbers of the models of the cold refrigeration equipment so they're sending these senate looking like

a very legitimate e-mail that someone internally might respond to so it's a highly sophisticated attack. still ahead on al jazeera judges in the central central african republic decide of the return of a former president françois a. man accused of war crimes plus. we'll tell you why some muslims intra lanka refusing to collect the remains of their loved ones who were killed by the crown of virus. how the weather's fine and dry across much of china at the moment big area of high pressure keeping things settled as is normally the time the case at this time of the year around our area of high pressure we go to the north here northeasterly wind fading in across japan so we will see one or 2 showers just coming through

here as we go on through friday on the side of honshu pushing up into how some snow over the high ground as well take out around 13 so she could catch a shower would see as we go on through saturday for those northeasterly winds all the way down towards taiwan a few showers coming in here then the shot of really packing up across northern parts of the philippines some really wet weather coming in here over the next day or so then some very active storms rolling through quite as bad as it has been recently into central southern parts of vietnam much of indo china should be fine and dry but the showers popping up once again to will see in southern thailand lots of heavy rain meanwhile to slang and indeed to southern parts of india as triple cycling the brevity continues to make its way across southern parts of india look slightly to punch just way out into the arabian sea and may well reinvigorate as we go one through the weekend lots of rain coming through behind with plenty of flooding.

in the light of the open seas hides a dark secret. men forced to work without pay in slave for years but a glimmer of hope remains for the forgotten fisherman as a group of activists delve deep into the illegal fishing industry demanding justice . and freedom. go street a witness documentary on al-jazeera. to. watch al-jazeera

a reminder of our top stories this hour the united states has recorded 2800 deaths from across the virus the highest daily number since the pandemic again u.s. president elect joe biden says he'll ask americans to commit to mask wearing for the 1st $100.00 days of his administration. america's top infectious disease expert has apologized criticizing recent rapid approval of the pfizer biotech vaccine at me felt he says his comments came out wrong to regulate his have also criticized the speed of the. u.s. tech firm i.b.m. says a sophisticated hacking scheme is targeting companies involved in the distribution of covert $900.00 backs and about 10 organizations involved in the logistics have been targeted. the united nations has held a special session of the general assembly to discuss the coronavirus crisis the u.n. secretary general has called for a unified response but he also hit out at wealthier countries for not doing enough

to help developing nations for the 1st time she's 145 entire world is confronted by a common student regardless of nationality a new city or face the world us organization provided factual information and scientific guidance that should have been the basis for equality in a few global response unfortunately many of these recommendations were not followed and in some situations there was a rejection affects. and ignore those of the right. and when companies go in their own direction divided in everybody action. iran has now passed 1000000 confirmed cases covered 19 has now killed nearly 50000 people there but the health minister says the actual number of deaths is probably much higher iran introduced tougher restrictions to counter a 3rd wave of infections which included closing non-essential businesses said big

as in iran he explains the discrepancy in the fatality rate. many people weren't tested and some people died before a covert test could be carried out now figures are coming down slowly slowly since the country introduced this partial lockdown so with the new infections daily new infections around 13000 down from 14000 and the daily death toll come down to mid 300 to what it was last month the highest there had ever seen over 400 now these new restrictions mean that non-essential businesses are closed that restaurants and cafes are serving takeaways only and private vehicles are banned from the roads from 9 pm till 4 am in the morning if they're found to be out on the streets they face a financial penalty but also mosques and religious places have been closed and that's quite significant because iran is an islamic republic facemasks a compulsory both inside and outside in public spaces and government offices have

either closed or working with minimum stuff now this partial lockdown is set to expire on friday night some places could be extended or some restrictions depending on what category they fall into now iran has blamed us sanctions for stopping them and restricting their fight against the pandemic also at the start of this pandemic around march this year iran wanted billions of dollars from the international monetary fund that was refused again iran blamed the united states in fact today foreign minister jihads reef has been speaking and he said the united states has reached an economic war against iran that's cost many lives and they were able to purchase medicines to deal with patients. aid workers say thousands of refugees are being coerced into moving to a remote island off bangladesh which the u.n. warns is prone to storms and flooding buses carrying hundreds of people left camps and called on thursday bound for the island to off. and 1000000 working the refugees have been living in squalid camps in southeast bangladesh assisting

violence and meanwhile there are fusing to return without guarantees for their safety and rights of a child free has more from caucasus design or i thought only take 100000 people to isolated island which is 50 kilometer coast of bangladesh which is prone to. tidal waves the government will say we spent 218000000 with built on bark and there's clusters of villages shelters hospitals although there is a school missing which is one of the primary. reasons the rowing a record you are really concerned about because there is no formal education either in the camp or in that island now talking to a lot of their own many of them said they're really not interested despite having all the infrastructure facilities the government so they'll be farming they'll be domesticated animals that could be the livestock farming they could go fishing and all the stuff they said they feel comfortable here because they can visit camp to camp their extended families here close to their homeland you can see there are

several kilometers away behind me it's me i'm mark there's a sense of belonging here even the regional people here speak their dialogue they can communicate more or less in the same language so that sense of belonging a psychological factor they don't want to be isolated far away in a coastal island which they don't know much about but the government is determined they're going to take probably will take months to relocate the $100000.00 people in that island. india's military has denied reports of targeted civilians in reprisal attacks after 2 soldiers were killed an indian and minister of kashmir last week but residents of one area outside china ghar have told al jazeera that security forces a rounding up in beijing innocent men women and children under schapelle holds. days after an indian army patrol came under attack in 2 soldiers inside this vehicle were shot later died in hospital authorities are looking for those responsible no group has claimed responsibility for the shooting on the outskirts

of srinagar in india and minister kashmir people here say they're living in fear normally soldiers have carried out raids in the past week and those who live here say they've become victims to reprisal attacks. on the day of the attack the soldiers questioned us we told them we didn't know anything a day later around 1 30 am the soldiers write it down neighborhood all men were taken out of their homes and lined up in a neighborhood square we were beaten badly we were separated into 3 groups soldiers took turns beating us at least 5 soldiers beating a single person with iron rods battens whatever they could find we were even pushed on the ground and beaten where civilians why would we know anything about the attack is they were soldiers and they should know how to deal with civilians al jazeera has spoken to numerous people who say they've seen many beatings or have been attacked most have the bruises to prove it you will. go through some were tied

to electric poles and beaten badly children were beaten in front of their parents sons were beaten in front of their fathers fathers were beaten in front of the sons or were ruthlessly beaten always screaming the women were crying and weren't allowed to move closer they were abused to. some say whenever they hear the army coming they now flee their homes. an indian army spokesman has denied the allegations of beatings in this area a local official from india's governing b j p says such complaints are rare when one. incident i believe if such an incident happened we. are in the local administration to launch an inquiry to make sure it doesn't happen again but i don't think that sentients didn't happened as a disciplined force if it has happened they need to be investigated and be guilty needs to be punished. services have been held to

remember the 2 soldiers who were killed as soldiers and civilians alike remain on edge in this disputed region. al jazeera. the un says famine like conditions of reappeared in parts of yemen and almost half the population is experiencing high levels of food insecurity aid agencies are warning time is running out to prevent mass starvation and the outlook for next year is worse famine has never been officially declared in yemen where the more than 5 year old war has left 80 percent of the population reliant on an 8. the former president of the central african republic. has been barred from contesting elections in december his candidacy was invalidated by the constitutional court it role that poses it did not satisfy the good morality requirement for candidates the former leader is accused of war crimes reports. if you can former president taunting authorities at

a campaign rally last week despite an international arrest warrant for his involvement in mass killings and torture the former president currently under un sanction for fermenting unrest after he was deposed in a coup in 2013 is not only back in the central african republic but wants to become the country's next president with the slogan the day has come. except the country's constitutional court has now ruled he's not illegible to run in december's presidential election his supporters are dismayed at the judge's ruling that he lacked both a clean criminal record and the moral character to be a candidate. it's a bit strange so courts have never summoned him neither has he been charged or sentenced he has been the country's head of state for 10 years it's a bit surprising to question his character. french troops intervened in 2013 after a boozy for mentored religious divisions calling on christian militia groups known

as the. to attack pro-government fighters known as the celica university student who is relieved by the court's decision fearing that busies is candidacy could spark violence. the other candidates need to accept the court's decision so that we can move forward with the upcoming election and turn the page from violence the campaign has so far been tense 14 armed groups continue to fight the government and each other despite a peace agreement in the presence of 812000 strong un peacekeeping force as a result 2800000 people are in need of humanitarian assistance and a 1000000 people are displaced with former president out of the race many fear the reactions of his supporters who still include armed militias nicholas hawk al jazeera. lanka the families of a number of muslim coronavirus victims are refusing to claim the bodies of their loved ones the protesting against the forced cremation policy by the government

that goes against their religious beliefs and alpha and as has more. uncle jeffrey died of call the dying teen on november 26th the sri lankan government crew meets the bodies of anyone who dies of cold with 19 even if it's a suspected case it says it's technical experts have advised this is the best way to prevent the spread of the virus. but cremation is forbidden in islam and some families are now refusing to collect the bodies in protest the obey the law therefore you do whatever you want we don't come for you need this thing the leave the body with you and the welcome a number of other muslims are also refusing to pick up the remains of their relatives on tuesday the supreme court dismissed 11 petitions challenging the forced cremations a joint statement by 20 civil society organizations on thursday rejected the ruling saying in a statement the fate the victims of forced cremation of corbett 191000 suspected

dead had been the highest court in sri lanka has been shattered victims and communities are now left without a recourse in sri lanka for the continued injustice they suffer the health minister says burials can't be allowed on till the technical experts committee present its final decision after conducting an in-depth study into the virus muslim activists says her community has lost patience and will continue to leave bodies organizers as they're called here at the morgue until the cremation stop to almost 18 months the most in community has been asking from the government so they are fed up they don't trust the government anymore they feel that it is a punishment so they don't want to be part of this process at all so therefore they are just leaving the genesis and i've been told at least 2 or 3 hospital muslim

genesis up piling up government spokesman. says the decision to cremate lies solely with the experts committee government to. ensure. he just split committee that decides garment garment to the cabinet minister the president prime minister in the cabinet the minister then nothing to do with it it is just that really. and. in terms of the. split committee but cases like that of the murray news are seen here in these pictures are hard for the muslim community to accept the 44 year old was cremated within hours of dying at the infectious diseases hospital the next day the family was informed her test recorded 19 was negative her son seen here in this mobile phone footage had the task of burying her ashes losing

a loved one to call 900 is bad enough but many muslims cremating their bodies is a 5th worse than death the government says all call victims are krimigis on the advice of its technical experts committee and it can't make exceptions for any community with infections and deaths rising rapidly the dispute is far from over fernandes al-jazeera colomba. this is al jazeera and these are the top stories the united states has recorded 2800 deaths from the coronavirus the highest daily number since the pandemic started president elect joe biden says he'll ask americans to commit to mile square and for the 1st $100.00 days of his administration. and a special pandemic session of the united nations the secretary general called for a unified global response.