now say they're essential to control the virus and receive messages on the scene that we are the universe i was a nurse back what i'm doing is not all that different from my ship helping others. mass vaccinations began in the u.s. and canada with a new york intensive care nurse the 1st to get the job and the netherlands joins germany announcing a christmas lockdown surging infections mean london is also set for tougher restrictions. hello i'm barbara sara you're watching al-jazeera live from london also coming up. across the u.s. electoral college voters gather to formally pick the winner of the presidential election the u.n.

says more than 400000 people have now fled their homes in northern mozambique where isolated fighters have seized entire towns and a storm washes away one of australia's most famous features but there's better news from the great barrier reef. thank you for joining us we begin in the u.s. where thousands of people are getting their 1st vaccines against the coronavirus it's a pivotal moment for the country that's been hit hardest by the pandemic with the national death toll fast approaching the incalculable last of 300000 people a new york intensive care nurse who street at some of the sickest cove in 1000 patients for months was the 1st person in the u.s. to receive the vaccine made by pfizer and by on take regulators approved it for emergency use on friday and almost 3000000 doses of seen since being shipped across

the country medical workers and elderly care home residents are being prioritized during roll out. it didn't have any different from it in any other. way than where . i would like to thank you for the front line workers and i will be doing your. part and they're all over the world. are you. hopeful i feel hopeful. relieved. i feel like i'm in. well staff at the white house won't be among the 1st people to be immunized essential government personnel who were expected to receive the job within the 1st 10 days the president trump says he's asked for that to be adjusted unless specific people are deemed in need of the vaccine trump himself isn't shy

jule to take it yet but says he will do so at the appropriate time well how do you feel castro joins us live now from washington d.c. with more on all those developments tell us 1st of all a little bit more about the rollout of the vaccine. barbara this was the big day day one of members of the public these essential health care workers getting the 1st dose is of the kobe vaccine outside of a trial we saw the scene like we just saw in new york with that critical care nurse repeated in hospital settings across the country 2900000 doses of the fires are vaccine went out from its factory yesterday aboard trucks and aboard airplanes and they were distributed to all 50 states and it is up to each state governor to determine exactly who and when are getting these these shots so by the end of this week we know that most of these shots are going to other health care workers and

then next week most states are prioritizing. people stay in nursing homes now the bigger picture here is by the end of the year which is really just 2 and a half weeks away some 20000000 americans is the goal to have them vaccinated according to the federal government and then by march of next year 100000 americans nearly a 3rd of the u.s. population so you can just imagine barbara the law just tickle undertaking that this requires with now weeks of rehearsals having been completed in hospitals and pharmacies across the country all for this pivotal day yeah so undeniably good news but it does come at a critical time doesn't it because deaths are rising dramatically reaching that shocking number of 300000 deaths. that's right this vaccine could not come sooner of course today is the day that x. is expected the u.s.

death toll to cross 300000 which is something in the early days of the pandemic had been a number tossed out there if you recall by government scientists and people scoffed it was unbelievable yet it was predicted and fortunately it has happened and despite having the vaccine now in existence the real hurdle is getting people to actually get the injection and there are some disturbing polls pure research showing that more than 20 percent of u.s. adults say they will not get the vaccine because they doubt its safety now the government scientists and state scientists as well have about 4 this vaccine and you'll see that's one reason to why health care workers are the 1st to get these vaccines publicly on camera to motivate people to get these shots to once it becomes available barbara how does your pastor with the latest there from washington d.c. heidi thank you. so that's the latest from the u.s.

but canadians have also started receiving the pfizer biotech vaccine with 30000 doses expected to arrive this week the 1st batch has been sent to the provinces and torino and quebec both of which have borne the brunt of the country's outbreak health care workers and care of the residents are being prioritized up to 80 percent of all coronavirus that's were recorded in care facilities health authorities of urge the provinces to impose more restrictions as a 2nd wave sweeps the country. speaking of war restrictions the netherlands has just followed germany and allows the new nationwide lockdown as coronavirus cases surge across europe the measures will be imposed throughout the festive period cutting short the busy christmas shopping season meanwhile millions of people here in london are also said to be placed under tougher restrictions as jonah hold now with ports. london's festive preparations dealt a blow to the capital moving to tighter restrictions that will ban households from

mixing and see the hospitality sector shut down again the health secretary warns that a new variant of the virus might in part be behind fast rising infection rates the medical advice that we have is that there is it is highly unlikely that this new variant will impinge the vaccine and the impact of the vaccine but we will know that in the coming days and weeks as the vaccine is called as the new strand is cultured. london joins much of the rest of the country under 2 years 3 restrictions a government plan to relax these measures for a few days over christmas itself is fueling fears of a 3rd wave in the new year there have to do what they have to do it's a shame though that things have been left to the last minute this is something that should have been learned years ago. the u.k. is far from alone in europe too the christmas lights signal festive cheer but

there's not a lot of it about french hotel and restaurant workers in paris protested for the right to work there industry shock since the end of october and won't reopen until late in january. in italy the government is debating tougher measures after an easing of restrictions saw shoppers pouring onto the streets on the weekend the country overtook britain to become the european nation with the highest official death toll more than 64 and a half 1000 italians have died. most are. debate in germany set to go back into lockdown on wednesday with the closure of non-essential shops and schools until january the 10th in the netherlands they're about to do the same. we have 600 deaths a day that's no joke i mean i'm 65 and i'm healthy touchwood but i'd like to stay that way and so now we all have to withdraw bit even though that's not what i want . in the u.k.

the rollout of the pfizer vaccine continues the 1st country in europe to do so a flurry of excitement in recent weeks suggested the pen demick was nearly over christmas besieged by new restrictions proves it's not jonah how al-jazeera. a few weeks ago more than 156000000 americans voted in the presidential election but the final call on who will be in the white house is currently being decided by hundreds of officials who make up the electoral college their meet him to cast their votes across the u.s. it's one of the last steps to finalize the outcome of november's election each state has already certified its result giving joe biden the win and the electors are expected to reflect that outcome officials in georgia pennsylvania and nevada have already voted for the democrat trump had sought to overturn the results in all

3 of those states while nationwide the electoral college has a 538 members but each state's number of electors is based on the size of the state's population to win a candidate needs at least 270 votes joe biden has beat donald trump 53062232 but electors can also defy the choice of their state's voters and cast their ballots for somebody besides the winner known as faithless electors they can be penalized by state authorities trump would need at least $38.00 to defect to hold on to the presidency but that is unlikely to happen as electors are hard core loyalists picked by the state's winning party so it would require democratic electors to vote for trump well alan fischer joins us live now from the white house so allan is this finally it will this and the trumps efforts to try to overturn the election result. well i think every time that donald trump

has lost 'd a court case and there's been more than 50 of them people have said well that my spirit and in fact just in the last couple of hours he lost another case in the wisconsin supreme court where they suggested that the trump campaign was trying to change the rules of the game after the game had been completed and also one judge suggesting the fact that they raised the issue in just 2 specific counties which is predominantly black there was an re system element to what trump was doing and people said after the supreme court on friday ruled against the texas case which the some campaign joined up to that must be the final nail in the coffin of don't trump efforts to overturn the election result well it hasn't been because now we're hearing from steven miller who's a close advisor to donald trump who's saying that they are setting up a shadow panel of electoral college voters who will cast their votes presumably in favor of the current president and they will present that as evidence to congress

when it meets on january the 6th january the 6th is the big date that donald trump will be looking at because that is when congress meets in joint session and there they will endorse the votes of the electoral college no in the last few hours all the votes in the electoral college of gone very much as we expected but there are a few republican politicians who are saying that they will not vote to secure and to affirm the result from the electoral college that despite the fact that the electoral college is doing its job and doing exactly what it needs to do and that also includes the fact that the current attorney general bill barr a donald trump appointee has said that there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 alexion and certainly nothing that would result in overturning of the election so donald trump continues to push the idea that there was widespread fraud

with no evidence to back that up he's been tweeting it and just in the last couple of hours. and bear in mind that rudy giuliani his attorney has said that he will continue his legal battle all the way up to 11 59 am on the 28th of january just a minute before joe biden will take the oath of office is the 46 president of the united states so it's hard to believe that even after the electoral college votes donald trump will see you know what i have lost the election that he will give it up at this point he is going to continue to push and push all the way to inauguration day and probably even beyond here probably so i'll end faithless voters are not neal i mean we've seen them obviously in past elections but we are seeing now is that some states have actually put extra security in for the vote how how strange or unprecedented is that. well juneau in the past days

like this when the electoral college meets have just passed without any incident or any comment but now it's a different whole different ballgame because of donald trump's insistence that the election was taken from him and so we've seen states like michigan for example which a closed state buildings while the electoral college holds its vote with extra security and other states around the country you remember that in michigan there was a plot to kidnap the governor there was even armed men in the state house when the governor there suggested that there be a mass mandate so there was obviously a great deal of concern of what might happen that is why security across the country has been enhanced while the electoral college meets but what is likely at the end of the day given the way the results are going is that joe biden will be the president elect officially by the end of the day it will then be up to congress to do their job and then the 20th of january for the inauguration so even though

there are security concerns the way that things are meant to work are working the way that things are meant to work and given all that's happened over the last 56 weeks since the election that is probably some comfort to many voters across america alan fischer with the latest from the white house allan thank you. still to come in this half hour leaving their families behind for a life in exile the young activists too scared to stay in hong kong last hour. for just a few minutes coronavirus fears are eclipsed in argentina and chile it will. fogs largely gone from western and indeed central europe as is expanding area of

low pressure brings in windy weather and increasingly heavy cloud was right next going to manifest itself in central and southern france during choose day and probably will bring itself into porch go during wednesday was significant rain for a time and is still cold enough as of snow on the high ground of spain the same time the lows in the eastern med will be slowly disappearing into levant by the end of wednesday between 2 it is still kwanten cold but snow is going to be restricted to the baltic states or even finland and look at the time she's back here 10 degrees bit above average 13 down in border a little bit above average as opposed to the syrian vienna which is rather below average cold instillation weather here now has mentioned that story weather in the eastern med here it is on choose to it still to bring wet and windy weather into the coast so for ne may be your a north nature surprised me caro's average temps are december 20 so it's stopped particularly different just a bit wet than is the big dry bit and if you look at the temperatures in the sahara

in the middle to high thirty's they have been no that's above where they bought the expects to be that's been consistent for the last few weeks. from fossil fuels. as societies develop. requiring innovative solutions. as a global development of investment company power is uniquely positioned to deliver . business growth economic benefits and provide innovative safe and environmentally sound energy solutions for a future generation. pioneering future energy. the only the only.

reminder now of the top stories on al-jazeera vaccinations against the corona virus have started in the u.s. and canada and new york intensive care nurse was the 1st person inoculated in the u.s. with thousands of other caregivers prioritised to receive the japs for. more restrictions are being imposed in europe the dutch prime minister says his country will close for 5 weeks and london will be moved into the u.k.'s highest level on wednesday joe biden's u.s. election win is being further confirmed as the electoral college casts the results for each state officials in georgia pennsylvania and nevada a poll of ready for biden. at least 400000 people have now fled their homes in northern mozambique as fighters linked to i saw burn

villages kidnap civilians and seize and tire towns some of them have found shelter at this camp in kabul bill gather province which is home to a multi-billion dollar natural gas project the un's refugee agency has warned that the crisis will spill over the country's borders mozambique's neighbors. leaders from zimbabwe south africa botswana and tanzania talks with mozambique and officials in the capital. alan castle is head of the mozambique and branch of doctors without borders he says getting access to place communities is proving difficult. well the moment they're 50000000000 cells. but then some of them might still be you could do which because they are in the. dark part of the book and also in the. in the mouth so these people that we don't know exactly what use the signals in the. world is or a group. and

a 1000 people and yet they are moving. most of the time though they are moving from one place on that was because of the. more protection and also the need the parental government. cams and this is an process. because now we are releasing them so of course if you go to. look at basically people. nigeria's federal police police force says extra investigators have been deployed to help find hundreds of missing school boys a manhunt spin underway in katsina state since friday night when gunmen stormed a state secondary school in the town of calcutta the state's governor says 333 students are still unaccounted for but the nigerian president's office says at least 10 boys were abducted by the on 2 men parents of missing students have been

protesting demanding that their children be found president for hamad who hire a has been criticized for not visiting the school even though he is currently in katsina which is his home state. the u.s. has officially removed sudan from its list of state sponsors of terrorism which could help the country get international loans and revive its battered economy in october sudan agreed to pay 335000000 dollars to the victims of the 1998 al-qaeda attacks on the u.s. embassies in kenya and tanzania it also said it would normalize relations with israel the deal is a boost for sudan's transitional government which took power after the military removed the former president omar al bashir from power saudi arabia's energy ministry says an oil tanker delivering cargo was hit by a boat full of explosives at jeddah port it also described the incident as

a terrorist attack the shipping company have said that it's boat the b. w. right was hit by what it called an unidentified external source that caused an explosion and fire another tanker was that image by a mine off the coast last month that attack was blamed on you yemen's who the rebels and various craig is an assistant professor at the fence studies department of king's college london he says that this raises serious questions about security at saudi ports the saudis have admitted that it was an explosive lowden bodog vessel that was basically charged against this all tanker which suggests it was a very much a low tech low skill kind of joke which is something that the who these can do without external support but the question that rises then is if you know obviously this is a high target and you know the general port is obviously a very very high security risk high security target then you would make sure that

all receive this port is adequately secured and it's kind of in the current context kind of surprising that the saudi authorities have not had it better under control . hong kong's crackdown on pro-democracy activists is leaving many protesters there with a difficult choice several leading figures in the movement have been arrested in recent weeks now some are choosing to flee the territory rather than risk a prison sentence adrian brown met one young activist who's now facing an uncertain future thousands of kilometers from home. there was a time when hong kong was a haven for families fleeing persecution in mainland china as 2020 nears its end people are now living this city for the same reason aged just 15 a rule ranks as one of hong kong's youngest political exiles here packing her bags in the hotel room where she spent last week before flying to london on saturday she was 14 when she was detained during protests 7 months ago and although not charged

remains worried about the impact of a sweeping new national security law or said i joined a social movement last year and became one of the frontline protesters on my protest team mate have been a rest and charge with serious crimes including rioting and asan i'm afraid that it will not take long for them to come up to me her actions of divided her family but her mother supports her decision to leave she's being helped by a group assisting others who also want to go to britain where a ruler expects to resume her studies in january i found i wonder if i did not expect that i would end up like this when i joined the protest i know a wee bit hard to say goodbye it would be sad but rather leave to seek a bag of future and to live without fear as much about this case that's troubling auroras age the fact that she was radicalized so young and is now seeking political

asylum in a country where she knows few save the members of a group who now in effect be her guardians she least behind a city where pro-democracy activists are being arrested almost daily. on saturday the prominent businessman jimmy lai appeared in court charged under the security legislation and is now facing a lengthy jail term. activists sonny chung fled in august a warrant since been issued for his arrest for. sure my family. home caught. up on their seats and i called our research. studio wiser to try to silence him from office and their families like a real or a son he doesn't know if he'll ever step foot here again and like her has no regrets about where their activism has led them adrian brown al-jazeera home comb

the european union's chief negotiator says a trade deal with the united kingdom is still possible michelle back here has been briefing negotiating teams in brussels as they press on with talks a day after a self-imposed deadline was abandoned fishing rights and economic fair play rules are the 2 main sticking points if they fail to resolve them border checks and taxes will be introduced for goods traveling between the u.k. and the e.u. from january the 1st. heavy storms battering australia's east coast doesn't have washed away a popular tourist beach the main beach at byron bay had already been depleted by previous erosions but it's now but this appeared into the sea a heavy band of wind and rain generated by an intense low pressure system off the coast brought $700.00 millimeters of rain in just 48 hours. but in some a better news from australia scientists are using i.v.s.

to help save the great barrier reef instead of producing babies it's being used to grow and transplant new coral in one of the world's most endangered ecosystems alexandra byers has more. they may not be the most vibrant but these corals are healthy and resilient and represent a major lifeline for the most spectacular ecosystem of its kind on the planet. they're part of the very 1st trial of in-vitro fertilization for corals or coral i.v.'s. coral large by our collective during what are called mass spawning events there are rare annual moments linked to the cycles of the moon then baby corals are cultivated in floating nursery pools before being transplanted onto damaged areas of the reef. 4 years later the original population has grown large and even

survived coral bleaching events. this proves that the lava restoration take works just as we predicted and we can grow very large corals from tawny microscopic larvae within just a few years. scientists say the success of this project is critical for the great barrier reef the un listed world heritage site runs more than 2000 kilometers along australia's north east coast but it's being severely damaged by climate change and ocean warming it's lost more than half of its coral in the past 3 decades impacting many other species that depend on it at the beginning of december its status was downgraded to critical and deteriorating that prompted environmental experts to call on the australian government to step up its efforts to protect the reef. climate. what we.

media in significant we don't need to be chary no more and we need to be glassed. and we need to be blasting. leadership as well broad policy change may take longer to achieve but harrison and his team say they're optimistic their techniques will work. soon these will be the world's 1st transplanted coral populations to start reproducing on their own. and it's hoped they'll start to really grow what's been lost on the great barrier reef alexandra byers al-jazeera. for around 2 minutes coronavirus concerns were eclipsed earlier in argentina and chile. tourists gathered to cheer on this year's only total solar eclipse star gazers were worried that they wouldn't see much

because of cloudy skies but the weather cleared up just in time the next total solar eclipse will not hit south america until 2848. and soon it is and i am i think it has been an incredible experience to watch the eclipse with rain despite it being overcast it was incredible. spectacular the truth is that it was a unique experience the fact that it was cloudy allowed me to watch it without glasses i've not seen one before this is my 1st and it is a beautiful experience. a reminder now of the top stories on al-jazeera the 1st americans and canadians have been vaccinated against the corona virus a new york intensive care nurse was the 1st person to be inoculated in the u.s. with thousands of other caregivers prioritize the to receive the jab regulators approve the vaccine produced by pfizer and.