if you're treated. or even through the join me richelle carey another fine is my guest from around the world take a hot seat and we debate the week's top stories in pressing issues here. as president elect joe biden prepares to get the covert vaccine the number of coronavirus related cases and deaths in the u.s. it's a double record. jordan this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up with corona virus cases rising across europe in the run up to christmas warnings from the world health organization but the pandemic could worsen across the continent next year. china's lunar probe touches down bringing back moon rocks for the 1st time in over 40 years plus. the richardson in the house to be 2022 football world cup have

landed the rights to hold another huge sporting event. welcome to the program the united states has registered a double record the highest single day increases of both coronavirus deaths and cases johns hopkins university has released figures saying that more than $3700.00 deaths and 250000 new cases were registered on wednesday as the world's worst affected country by far rollout of the 1st batch of vaccines continues into its 3rd day well u.s. vice president mike pence plans to get vaccinated on friday the white house says he and his wife will get their shots at a public event president trump is also open to taking the vaccine as well according to his press secretary trump has not said when he would get the shot. and president

elect joe biden will receive the vaccine as early as next week biden says he aims to do so in public to demonstrate his confidence in the medication 3 former presidents bill clinton george w. bush and barack obama have also said they would receive their shots at televised events well the world health organization says the coronavirus pandemic could worsen in europe early next year right now several european countries including the netherlands and germany are struggling to contain rising numbers of infections and deaths many are introducing new restrictions of a christmas john the reports from london. no one is expecting a normal christmas at least of all those who've lost loved ones to the pandemic in london grieving relatives accused boris johnson's government of mishandling its response and demanded a public inquiry my father michael who died 8 months ago tomorrow we were hoping that by now lessons would have been learned there have not been tested cases not

one that's very clear mistakes keep being made the government refuses to admit to any mistakes if one doesn't reflect on one's mistakes happen to be corrected there are concerns that the government is about to bungle christmas as well with warnings from the medical and scientific communities about the deadly consequences of plans to relax restrictions so that families can meet they've provoked a change of advice not a change of plan a smaller christmas is going to be a safer christmas and a shorter christmas is a safer christmas when we see 3 households can meet on for days i want to stress that these are maximums not targets to aim for. the u.k. is not heading into the gloom alone germany has gone into a strict lockdown after previous restrictions failed to bring infection numbers down on wednesday the country reported a record number of coronavirus deaths. it's very strange. i don't know what

these politicians want to do they left it all open and now all of a sudden we have to quickly everything in 2 days we don't know what they're doing anymore in italy meanwhile they've been warnings of a national tragedy after the country statistics bureau said that deaths this year would be the highest since world war 2 the government says it's considering small adjustments to the current restrictions critics feel much more is required many european countries are planning to begin a vaccine rollout by the end of december pending approval by the european medicines agency light at the end of the tunnel but the tunnel still has some way to go. but any number of infections in the netherlands has hit a new record reported more than 11000 cases in one day it's the 2nd day of a strict. schools are closed. businesses are allowed to operate. recorded

almost 650000 cases and more than 10000 virus related deaths. gaza's government is asking for international help to provide medical supplies to contain the corona virus outbreak the strip has reported a new record of 935 new cases in one day the recent rise further strains the health system already weakened by more than a decade of the israeli blockade destructions have been tightened in gaza and doctors say the rate of infections could soon become uncontrollable palestinian territories of recorded more than 120000 infections and more than a 1000 related deaths. from the united nations relief and works agency for palestine refugees he says overcrowded camps make it difficult for people to follow the coronavirus measures like in other parts of the world it's difficult to contact and the virus because it requires at hearings to public health measures such as physical distancing and mask wearing on the context of gaza some of this is

difficult to implement in the 8 to refugee camps where all road works there is huge overcrowding and it's just simply a challenge for people to keep the necessary distance and many people are too poor to afford personal protective equipment including mosques so that's one set of problem i think a 2nd set or european country is the difficult balance to strike between the economy and the council half the population is the end but on daily income and of course the authorities are reluctant to shop things down because they would have a devastating and quick economic impact. parties to the iran nuclear deal including senior iranian diplomats have held virtual talks to discuss the state of the agreement all signatories urged tehran to reverse its violations of the deal which began after u.s. president donald trump withdrew in 2018 president elect joe biden says he plans to

rejoin the pact once he assumes office but iran's supreme leader ali hominidae says he still expects the u.s. to remain hostile towards iran however he won't oppose attempts by government officials to secure lifting sanctions bill so barry has more from tehran. there is a lot of discussion inside iran from various officials we also heard from the supreme leader ayatollah ali khamenei who said that if these sanctions are removed they shouldn't hesitate for one second he was pointing to the fact that officials who are in favor of dialogue should continue if that is in the national interest in the best interest of the country we heard also in the past 24 hours from the u.s. special envoy on iran abrams who said that the united states now has the upper hand given all the pressure the economic pressure that iran is now under they have a chance to really seize this opportunity to force iran into possibly renegotiating this nuclear deal but officials here have said over the past the point of

contention that remains on all sides is iran's ballistic missile program and iranians have said that that is absolutely not up for negotiation the iranians have said that they've done everything there and uphold their side of the way they have had inspectors from there i visited 26 military facilities that are outside the nuclear sites they've given access been on announced visits those are things that could possibly come to an end given the fact that the parliament has passed a new bill given the remaining signatories of the 2 month period to remove some of the sanctions so there is a sense that time is of the essence and there will be a small window for the incoming u.s. administration to try and remedy the situation now the u.s. government has confirmed it was the target of a recent widespread hacking campaign that affected a number of its critical networks and f.b.i. investigation is ongoing in order to pursue and disrupt the perpetrators u.s.

media reported russian government workers were behind the attack the treasury and commerce departments are among dozens of departments infiltrated let's bring in jodi wispy she's chief executive of global side the risk and she's written a piece in food. obs on the u.s. government's side the vulnerability is and joins us live from washington d.c. via skype jodi great to have you back on the program looks of the u.s. government has confirmed this hack on at least 2 big agencies including the treasury a way to closing it to finding out just how deep and how damaging the attack was i don't know that we know that fully yet but we do believe this is the most harmful cyber attack in our history. probably in the history of the world because it is impacted governments and private sector in these and around the globe so we're trying to determine exactly the depth and breadth of the attack what information

may have been stolen. how much the agencies were involved how many private sector companies what data was involved it's still too early to know but we know that this was a very serious attack that went on for many months and i might add it went on for many months during a time when most of the world was really working remotely and monitoring networks was more difficult and so it was a time when they had an advantage that's an extraordinary evolution jodi i mean it's been reported that the hakas about by a foreign government who do you think is likely to be behind the attack and what they're trying to achieve i think russia was behind the attack that's what's been alleged and and i believe the forensic investigation data is very credible i think they were trying to in chiba number of things economic against me in intelligence gathering just well at. that. data that they could get and use

for whatever purpose so i think it was a very vast and broad attack that again went to. defense companies the top 10 communication companies that went to key government agencies and so it's it's very rod i think it says one thing too is this is there a risk when all these agencies in company hughes the same software that some missiles their wrists it's worth pointing out jodi as well that it was just last week that the cyber security firm fire i said its defenses were breached by a really sophisticated attack which stole testing software for their clients could these 2 attacks be related in any way to think well prior i was the one that really discovered this wasn't discovered by the u.s. government or by solar wind it was discovered by fire i 1st you had an attack there and then by a few days later they realize they pinpointed the the solar wind attack and so they

were really the ones that uncovered this so it's been very recent and they denigrate bennett that globally for all the companies and governments around the world by revealing this and coming forward just let me get a final point from you before you go you've written extensively about all of this but what does this latest attack tell us about u.s. government's cyber defenses capabilities i mean if 2 of its main agencies the treasury and the comments department a compromise there could have been other hacks that we don't even know about yet. exactly so the system but then the government is a multibillion dollar system einstein apparently it was not written to detect this sort of anomaly this sort of the event so there are gaps in security it's not her make but we know the government has invested a lot in cyber security but we know also companies have been hesitant to spend

money on cyber security and this just goes to show that companies are not going to be able to stay in business and remain competitive they don't have strong cyber security programs so i think it really shows the soft underbelly everywhere all right we have to leave it there jody westmead great to get your thoughts here on al-jazeera thank you for talking to us thanks. john for a short break here and i'll just say right when we come back. to solving the real knife narco zwei mexico wants to restrict americans fighting the war on drugs. the host 2030 is god. and the asian games are returning to qatar doha and stage the multi-sport event for the 2nd time more about staying with us.

coming up from the size of the u.s. and against cold air is an innocuous looking line of thunderstorms that will turn into a significant nor'easter effectively a snow storm for the snowstorm for the northeast of the u.s. is starting to focus on pennsylvania that run up to the northeast calling clearing massachusetts jewing thursday it could get hit a half a meter of snow so this is obviously a very significant storm it doesn't last more than a day it's gone by the time system has gone for the most part to the west the same time a big pacific storm system is bringing snow not to the same depths down through the rockies with rain on the california coast probably eventually reaching l.a. but all if you light snow inland on the high ground and again towards the plains states the cold stays off the snow has gone that will feel quite biting now was the cold front which is associated what's happening in that nor'easter in hans's the

showers picks up the showers in southern mexico on the yucatan and we see a same increase in shop 10 show in costa rica for the most part around the caribbean apart from the daily showers it's fairly quiet i think friday be a fairly wet day in places like barbados but not for others. but. building a new life on an entirely beach living off the sea and the last. a dream shared by so many but so few make it a reality. a family business led by a remarkable woman with a flair for cooking and a zest for living. my chin is here island kitchen on al-jazeera.

welcome back a quick recap of our top stories here on al-jazeera the u.s. has posted a record number of corona virus deaths and cases in a single day figures from johns hopkins university show more than 3700 people died while another 250000 were infected is the world's worst affected country by far. the world health organization says the coronavirus pandemic could worsen in europe early next year germany has begun an emergency lockdown while london and its surrounding areas have moved into the highest level of restrictions on parties to the iran nuclear deal including senior iranian diplomats have held virtual talks to discuss the state of the agreement they've set to be again next week as the

signature is urged her on to reverse its violations of the deal. now a chinese lunar probe has returned to earth with the 1st rock samples collected from the moon in decades the successful return of the chinese 5 probe brings an end to one of the most complicated missions in china's aerospace history the 2 kilogram delivery makes it only the 3rd country to retrieve lunar rock and soil samples and comes back in 40 years since the last election let's bring in katrina you she's live for us in beijing katrina what more do we know about china's mission to the moon or what was beijing trying to achieve by bringing back these rock samples. well they doing some goals are really twofold one is significant in terms of its scientific achievement they want to learn more about the moon and want to learn more of the solar system the 2nd goal is quite political china wants to showcase its progress when it comes to space exploration and its prowess indeed so we know that this lunar program or arrived in the northwest of china the province of in

among all the about 2 am local time and quickly once it arrived about an hour a recovery team arrived cordoned off the area and promptly put it chinese flag next to the capsule and board custom of these pictures of the capsule to the chinese public into the world and we know that these samples are now being retrieved and being transferred to a facility while the where they're going to be examined and the quality of the condition of the samples will be verified now this mission began about a month ago the lunar probe spent about 3 weeks on the surface of the moon and relatively unexplored area of the room collecting these samples and these samples are quite young compared to some poles are treated by the u.s. or russia 4 decades ago and shortly after this capsule landed president xi jinping called the team congratulating them all their achievement and what china really wants to do going forward is eventually become a major power when it comes to space exploration and many analysts see this

particular trip as paving the way for china to possibly put a man on the moon by the 28th by some to somewhere in the 2030 s. and to china it's really significant because they really want this to be a source of national pride they want to see this as a source of triumph and what's interesting is that the launch and the landing of this lunar probe was not broadcast live to avoid any embarrassment should anything go wrong certainly the chinese government is trying to manage this narrative very carefully because they say it is important for the international image of china which has taken quite a beating this year of course because of the corvette 1000 outbreak orator katrina you live in beijing katrina thank you. now al-jazeera has exclusively obtained the european union draft resolution on worsening human rights in egypt the motion will be voted on by the e.u. parliament on thursday among other topics it condemns the kidnapping torture and killing of the telly and research. in 2016 is some of what's outlined in that e.u.

resolution the e.u. parliament deplores attempts by gyptian authorities to hinder progress into the murder investigation but also expresses regret over a persistent refusal by egypt to provide their italian counterparts with all information needed for a transparent probe and urges e.u. member states to put pressure on egyptian authorities to fully cooperate with investigators in italy and warn against retaliation towards witnesses but arsalan iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer he says the move by the e.u. parliament has been a long time coming. has been in power since 2013 and in that time he has persecuted entire. swimmin political opposition probably were groups his forces of killed thousands of people there are massacre and sadly you know it takes the rumor of a 126 year old white european permanently you know to get

a 70 year condemnation but if the other hand is also being courted by france's leader and then you know mark probably will you know on her words. were you can get to auditions so we really have a long way to go in terms of actually meaningful change in this regard if you know the date it's worth and not doing anything you know it you know though in the world a 3rd of a blind eye to this will last 7 years and you know it will get a little bit of momentum because you have. 26 year old graduate student if that actually means that meaningful change and at the end you have actually you know you know grow spine and actually put their money out there martin says you know you're going to get you in deal without saying that you're going to commit to protecting human rights you know and then c.c. is going to continue to who you know persecute impunity. now it's been 10 years since a fruit seller intern is here set himself on fire in

a protest against state corruption the fatal activists toppled the president and sparked similar uprisings across the region that became known as the arab spring but a decade later many into his yes a little has changed their incomes are down 20 percent and unemployment is rising and smith reports now from a city bouzid where the uprising began. looking for a way out of city boozy this specially choreographed dance is being staged to mark the 10th anniversary of the start of the tunisian revolution its performers hope that their skills will get them work outside tunisia the revolution has failed them the eldest here is $24.00 that's young to be disillusioned. going to the war really going to the world nothing change it's like there was no revolution we only changed the precedent that it has there is too much freedom now but with it the others there is no security like there was before you can be killed going to the stadium

to watch a football match these kind of things never happened before mohammed bouazizi set himself on fire to protest against police in city blues eed who often demanded bribes so he could sell from his street car was the spark for unprecedented protests the forced an autocratic president to flee. led to the arab spring that toppled regimes across the middle east. is there. tunisia is one of the only arab countries where democracy survives but incomes of fallen by a 5th over the past decade. can't leave on what the jobs may need life is more expensive $100.00 a month job is only enough money for yourself if you have a family it's very difficult. this is the memorial to mamma who is easy to miss here is unemployment rate was 11 percent when he died today it's more than 15 percent there's been a 4 fold increase in the amount of illegal migration to europe just in the last 12

months. than it did this generation protested against the all for a tarion rule of xeno bettina ben ali their anger and frustration at how things have turned out is clear don't lay human clearly had diminished when life was really very beautiful under ben ali we have a very beautiful life we lived happily together we loved each other we used to have everything now we don't have anything only crime in of a bad thing. the economy here is expected to contract by 6.5 percent this year that's a significant challenge for any country but there's arguably more pressure to get through the downturn in tunisia where its jasmine revolution is often held up as an example of how popular uprisings can succeed in the middle east bernard smith al-jazeera city boos eat. now a new law has been passed in mexico to drastically curb the powers of u.s. drug enforcement agents the americans say it's

a major setback in the fight against organized crime mexico those sees it as a question of sovereignty john heilemann reports of enforcement agents in fictional series like narcos there are bones storming presence in mexico. the dea a the u.s. is drug enforcement agency. in reality they operate under the radar but for decades they've been given a wide scope in the country to help take down big name couples like walking guzman and chapel minister older kids but now a game changing minutes can law aims to put the d.a. on a much tighter leash the government says it's a question of national sovereignty like mr mickey is the issue here is that if our 2 countries are going to cooperate the u.s. has to respect mexico's area of jurisdiction. this is the main point of the new law the agents will now have to report regularly to the mates can government what they're doing in the country and any information that they dig up. for

a former chief of the d.a.'s international prey shin's widely sharing previously need to know intel in mexico poses a huge problem there is inventing corruption within mexico security forces and this one in danger agents informants operations in investigations the other problem area is that they're requiring all mexican officials to write a report every time they have communication with the well they're not going to work and answering their phones if they have to do their at each and every time as law enforcement officials the u.s. is outgoing attorney general was equally worried the passage of this legislation can only benefit the violent trans national criminal organizations and other criminals that we're jointly fighting he said in a statement but what started all this was the us is the rest of mexico's ex defense

secretary general salvador c.m. fragos in los angeles 2 months ago. u.s. officials didn't inform the mexican government beforehand the president wasn't happy and neither was the army and so talks started in mexico about putting that the way and the closer control in return a key question here has become what the us allow mexican agents the same so how is that the da it's hard for many years down here think of it that you that anything senator knight the u.s. ultimately handed sam for it was bad but it seems the damage had already been done . and now this will be a headache for incoming president joe biden as the powers of his drug agent south of the u.s. border will be dramatically reduced john heilemann how does it. it's crew city. now the asian games are coming to doha for the 2nd time qatar's capital one a vote in oman to host the 21st edition of the event in 2030 rival bidding city

riyadh will stage the games 4 years later a new region reports the city you the high for to and with holes 2030 is gone. another sporting victory for cattles capital doha this time winning the rights to host the 2030 asian games the 2nd biggest multi sports event after the olympics doha beating saudi arabia's capital riyadh in a vote by the olympic council of asia riyadh will host the 2034 edition other than just limit this achievement wasn't made just to the right is the result of 16 years of hard work we are proud of these historical moment today we have won the bid for 2030 and it's no surprise the wider context of 2 regional rivals going head to head in this vote is hard to ignore since 2017 saudi arabia along with bahrain the united arab emirates and egypt has imposed a blockade on qatar. but for both nations there is more than political point

scoring at play with cats are already looking beyond the football world cup it will host in 2 years' time as we know cattle have effectively built a nation. based upon sport so a lot of it infrastructure a lot of its urban developments have been connected to the staging of the world cup and so it was absolutely crucial i think in terms of legacy and in terms of delivering a return on investment for the. from its. various projects to not only did over the world cup but to subsequently also host of that mega event. in 2006 doha held the asian games for the 1st time it was the. starting point of an ambitious plan to make a global sporting hub since then the country's hosted a series of major events including last year's world athletics championships and in

2022 the football world cup will be coming to cats the nation has made no secret of its desire to one day host an olympics with 2032 now looking an increasingly realistic target and the richardson al jazeera. part time for a quick check of the headlines here on al-jazeera the u.s. has posted a record number of corona virus deaths and cases in a single day figures from johns hopkins university show more than 3700 people died while another 250000 were infected it's the world's worst affected country by far the white house has announced u.s. vice president mike pence will be vaccinated against code 19 on friday president elect joe biden will also receive the vaccine as early as next week both men will get the shots in public to boost confidence in the medication.