6 countries most need assistance what's worrying them is that many of those have a deteriorating situation. and of their morakot and these are the top stories on al-jazeera herman's is the latest in a growing number of countries restricting or buying travel from the u.k. they are trying to stop the spread of a more contagious strain of corona virus seen in parts of the country stay at home orders have been imposed on millions of british people here is congressional leaders have agreed on a $900000000000.00 coronavirus relief package for millions of americans their extended federal funding to give themselves more time to finalize the deal and prevent a government shutdown hiser castro reports from washington d.c.

nearly at the finish line congress has now given itself and other day to finalize the deals both parties say are already in place we can find a report for our nation needed here for a very long time. more help is on the work this bill is a good bill tonight is a good night but it is not the end of this story it is not the end of the job anyone who thinks this bill is enough. does not know what's going on in america hospitals are full more than 300000 people are dead and $8000000.00 americans have slipped into poverty since may the code relief bill would deliver checks of 600 dollars to most people and extend unemployment benefits through mid march it would also give more loans to small businesses and offer rental assistance to families on the brink of a vixen what i'm excited about in this bill and it is really the democratic

difference is what it does for america's working families. as we see food lines all over the country it was the our legislation that had the initiative for food for nutrition for our children and school and lee and nash seniors as well as america's working families the deal totals $900000000000.00 it is the 2nd biggest economic stimulus in u.s. history only surpassed by the 1st covert relief bill that was passed earlier this year congress is expected to approve on monday and president trump is expected to sign. back scenes are also urgently moving across the country modernity is the 2nd vaccine to gain government approval in the u.s. about 6000000 doses have been dispatched to hospitals. we are very confident that

by june anyone in america who want to have a vaccine will have that opportunity but only 20000000 doses are available before the end of the year not nearly enough to cover all the frontline essential workers and people over 75 who are next in line for shots that means states must decide who to protect 1st as more governors issue restrictions to limit americans movements over the holidays castro al-jazeera washington. south korea has imposed tough new current virus measures as it struggles to contain a 3rd wave of infections gatherings of 5 people or more abandoned seoul and 2 neighboring regions together make up half of the country's population the government leader of the trainee and state of victoria has apologized for a bungled hotel quarantine program that led to most of the country's coronavirus deaths a report criticized the use of private security guards who became infected and

spread the virus in the community this year. spyware sold by an israeli private intelligence firm has been used to hack the phones of dozens of al jazeera journalists citizen lab say the president of cyber attack is likely to have been ordered by saudi arabia and the united arab emirates best case is a mobile phones were infiltrated with malicious code which uploaded data on to foreign service without tears is taking any action. british and european union negotiators are to continue trade talks in the belgian capsule brussels on monday past the latest deadline they still have to sort out 2 issues the block's fishing rights in british waters and fair competition rules for businesses. update now with all the headlines the news continues here on al-jazeera after man made and visible threat.

it's bad enough to catch a disease naturally but to take a disease and turn it into a weapon to enhance the disease to make it more virulent or more contagious or resistant to known vaccines that's particularly there again just kind of goes off the charts there it's turning mother nature against us. the.

weapons that destroyed by spreading deadly diseases have a long in unhappy history billions of dollars have been spent by governments to create pathogens that can cause fatal illnesses even today some countries are stockpiling just such a deadly arsenal in a widely reported news conference syria has admitted as much. a perhaps more dangerous than the age of rapidly advanced technology it's quite possible for individuals or groups to create biological mayhem. 12 countries that are battling an outbreak of a nasty strain of e. coli i have a strain so of all the consequences of this really long to just not a libya harm see image i know alison interests you want to do that i'm totally clear learn this here not mission critical 16 people have already died identify the source of this because like contamination has become ever more urgent some have

even suggested that this super super resistant strain recall i could have been engineered in a lab. the world health organization calls the deliberate contamination of our food one of the major biological threats of the 21st century. in the modern globalized economy where food gets transported all over the world there are a lot of opportunities for somebody to contaminate food with with biological agents . and i don't want to go into much detail but there was a an article that was published in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences about. some touching dairy products milk using a bunch of talks and you can cause horrible damage with death many thousands of coffee.

cold jackson is a senior scientist at one of the united states most important biological laboratories. that is kind of frightening when you think over the last 2 different passes will somebody there are a large population or a small part of the population what goes with food there are cases in our not so this will pass for people about that. oregon authorities announced that the most serious biological attack in u.s. history was carried out not by foreign terrorists but by the followers of a homegrown religious cult. salad bars and 10 oclock restaurants were deliberately contaminated with salmonella. 751 people were poisoned and 45 hospitalized at disciples of korea right knew she sought to incapacitate voters and see their own candidates when the 1984 was

a go county election. the sun the incident occurred in the united states the biological attacks could happen anywhere in the world and so father has not been a coordinated global plan about how to deal with this. i know. 6 the word terrorism evokes images of airplanes smashing into office towers of bombs blowing up in markets these remain real threats so do attacks by chemicals mustard gas defoliants on nerve agents. but there is something even more

insidious biological weapon see. that's the whole point of terrorism is this to put enormous psychological pressure on the audience to try to reach for talking about biological agents i mean unseen in many cases that you can smell them for that very reason those kinds of weapons have a much more powerful psychological impact on target audiences. even going 5 people with a bio as you would would be more scary than killing $200.00 people with a conventional explosive device there been no confirmed. this is a bad press in britain but it's been a day of false alarms the sorting office in liverpool was closed down and workers were forced to leave the stock exchange in london for a short time today police say people should stay calm but vigilant the latest victims in florida the scene of the 1st outbreak of anthrax 5 new cases reported by the american media company overnight on the basis of blood tests carried out on every employee the fact that this seems to be spreading 10 days after the 1st victim died confirmation of america's worst fears never mind the source then the

point is the kind of on capitol hill today you could hear loud and clear threats from biological and chemical agents are real. following the $911.00 attack and the 2001 anthrax murders the united states government poured billions of dollars into homeland security experts from around the world where tractor to well funded scientific laboratory and think tanks high on the list of threats to be investigated was the use of deadly pathogens as weapons a long and ugly stain on the history of mankind oh my gosh tickle warfare 1st reared its head when man started fighting man you know whether it was putting scorpions in a clay pot and tossing him at your enemy or taking bodies people who had died from the plague and tossing them over city walls and medieval times poisoning water supplies these are all ancient techniques in biological warfare but it was only

during the major wars of the last century where science started just to conduct this time. the real danger of the real threat was the beginning of the 20th century you're moving into bonds airplanes and the. really it's of microbiology. doing the sino japanese war the japanese government engaged in a massive biological weapons program between 19401943 japan

dropped hundreds of bombs infected with deadly germs on the levantine city. as many as 200000 chinese citizens harish. they did initially the attacks on northern cities with plan aig and people did die and then later in the early part of the 1940 s. there were more aggressive attacks where they used anthrax planters cholera and other diseases. martin for months is a united states pathologist with an interest in medical history in 1998 a colleague sent him a package containing autopsies performed on chinese victims years before i opened it up and they were page after page of these people murdered by biological weapons . it was the 1st time and one of the few times when i was looking at it.

i could feel powerful evil and there were. docked with a man's discovered that some of the victims of japanese bombing had survived in 2000 to travel to their villages they're called rot making villages for the simple reason that people who were there in the summer of 1942 got rotten eggs when you interview these people you. of a very similar story a lot of people started getting boils on their bodies throbbing thing it burst minute it loses pus and blood and continues to be horribly painful and essentially never heal eventually talked of the month ski concluded that the villages was suffering from glenda's a disease that attacks horses and which for decades had been all but eliminated. the japanese had dropped bombs laden with this pathogen they spread colorado they

spread typhoid fever is produced in theory they spread glanders they spread anthrax and they spread plague. especially doing a biological scorched earth. perhaps even more horrific than the dropping of germ bombs where the experiments carried out by unit 731. in manchuria. japanese sent out their secret police and rounded up troublemakers and they would end up at unit $731.00 as human guinea pigs and they would inoculate them with diseases to see how long they would die and they would tie them to stakes and drop bombs out of airplanes to see how well the bombs spread the disease. there's always an aspect when you're dealing with biological weapons or chemical weapons some extent of extermination the way you would exterminate germany. after the

end of the war japanese scientists who worked at unit 731 were granted amnesty by the united states in exchange for information on the biological weapons program the japanese who did bad science and killed thousands of people doing it got off scot free and they ended up going back to the universities and became chairman of departments and became captains of industry and and. on happy lives. successive japanese governments have been extremely reluctant to take responsibility for atrocities committed during world war 2. all the major powers have dabbled in the germ warfare but british scientist peregrym work here in this research establishment they stored a male 50 kilograms of bacteriological agent enough to kill every living thing on.

the british experimented with typhoid dysentery and cholera testing these pathogens on animals. if you're using live agent tests and this was done out in the ocean in many cases what you would do is tie animals on cages on deck and disperse the agent and see how well it would affect the animals and this was also done for example by the united kingdom with sheep being tested with anthrax on going out island. world war 2 did not bring an end to biological weapons the cold war heated up providing another excuse to produce this deadly arsenal. britain france and canada for example embarked on a program that experimenting with many kinds of diseases. that awful it would be enough to. be illegal dose and it was to kill something like

50000 people this bottle on the other hand contains a biological agent simulants if that were france a set of cigarettes which causes the disease to remain there could be enough in that vault to infect every man woman and child in the world. but it was the us biological weapons program that was the most dangerous it was by far the largest and most ambitious aggressor military leaders know of disadvantage chemical and biological agents cannot ordinarily be detected by the human sensory or your punishment or anything. to. the effect can be deadly to part of the state guard the experimenter's dangerous organisms are confined to safety cabinet. using rubber gloves which are sealed to the cabinets scientists can handle deadly cultures and still be safe from infection. with the cold war the united states begins

a biological weapons program which is twinned with the nuclear program i thought unicity of any potential danger is another important criteria. of course you're familiar with the pathogenicity of the 2 linus talks a suspension of which is we're being tested by intraperitoneal injection of mikes. many kinds of animals were used in us experiments mice rats rabbits guinea pigs and most especially monkeys a restraining box is used to hold a monkey in position to receive the measured aerosol don't. be on a horse and pass through a series of air locks and positioned in a sealed exposure chamber immense are using monkeys going all the monkeys you want but you still don't know at the end of the day whether to make humans sick how much you make a human sick how long the person will stay sick and so you need to have human subjects in order to proof test whether.

we went through all kinds of room. lights we change our clothes in the scrub then we've got on the elevator and went up to a catwalk in each port hole they had a block of telephone booths and that's when you went in to then they'd close the door and that's when we were hooked up to. you can smell it good taste it. if you 2nd so poor. ken jones was inhaling q. fever a bacterial infection which can result in hepatitis and pneumonia. he is a religious pacifist one of a 2000 conscientious objectors who volunteered for operation white coat. you want to enforce the creek where some $600.00 military and civilian scientists work together in research at the army biological laboratories to protect this

country against a biological attack that is a silent assault by an invisible cloud that carries disease organism. there was testing on humans often done in a facility at fort dietrich known as the 8 ball which was in l.a. sion chamber where they could disperse aerosols and see you know how much it takes to infect a human but they were given immediate medical treatment in to the best of my knowledge there were no fatalities. my code volunteers claim that the us government as she was then that all testing would be for defensive purposes only this is the make of the vaccine to protect you. and make it a hazmat suit to protect you a gas mask to protect you. lot of hospital procedures come from this operation. what was happening at fort dietrich was not only

a defensive program but also an offensive program so. it was research that could be used for either purpose. here was here controversy about the white coat program there was a lot of heat about the biological weapons program there were ethical worries that is it that we really want to start a disease that might sweep the country. we just got rid of. any. biological weapons that. president nixon had decided that given the success of hiroshima and nagasaki in

ending world war 2 nuclear weapons with a supreme deterrent the us biological alsono was deemed unnecessary in 969 the united states halted offensive biological research and eventually destroyed all stockpiles the idea was that the nation state the us as a nation state didn't need it it had the clear weapons with which we could destroy large numbers of people quite nicely thank you. and that you know that possessing these things would just encourage other people to go the white hole april look 1972 a place from the time of real significance for the future of the world and the people in it in 197-2103 nations including the united states and the soviet union approved a convention prohibiting the production of biological weapons. the treaty to which these nations have committed. bind them to stop making

biological weapons and to destroy all existing stocks of those most of gusting means of math that the good thing about the biological weapons convention is a stablish the norm yet established and or against. other people would do what other states would do and at least not that all. but critics felt the convention was all but useless it had no team it still has no inspection provisions in large part because even before any country put in on paper signing that treaty there was the prevailing concept that it was impossible it was unverifiable this servia cheering in actually used the convention to embark on the largest and most destructive biological weapons program in the history of the world and soviet signing. the biological weapons convention while at the same time embarking on

a huge ramp up of their biological weapons program. there are no words to describe just how heinous that type of a government policy is. to syria q knew all views believed that there was not rules behind these conventions and they believed the divas to. use the convention. and to develop biological weapons secretly in spite of the commish. if they believed exactly the see. so the 2 could mention $22.00 summers. in a senior soviet scientist and an army colonel worked at version and in the hour all

see it was here year after year that the soviet union tested weapons loaded with the most deadly diseases imaginable the political year is full of the reservists who are less of the stuff. we should be able to get in really we were able to give. police a resolution you there's a war to there is still a war. there were police be real to the case proves that you was global with a bully or real to a beautiful issue. restorable to google is what i think we'll get with in this. sport is the rest of us are but it really is bull is it really is a lot to do. a russian chemical weapons center a chicana. it suspected that chemical and biological weapons are still being

developed at sites like this so western satellites have been watching for years. the soviet biological weapons program was roughly the same size as the nuclear weapons program it was ultra secret very deeper than. so we're talking about roughly 50 percent latino and upwards of $50000.00 scientists actions that's a lot of technical talent could toward the development of these types of weapons plants against animals against people. i think many of us were very surprised at the enormity of the soviet and. because i think until the end of the cold war we really didn't understand how big it was they said this is officer purposes we're going to make vaccines organisms

for a pesticide use and so on and that's what there's what the called the legend system that their real purpose and by far the biggest biological warfare program that the world has ever seen and probably most of us. an invitation to bear witness to all that life office. the high. horse the trials and tribulations. and every day miracles the injustices the defiance the tests of character and to witness documentaries with a delicate touch on al-jazeera. has become

a major global issue the demand is going straight up and the supply is going straight down turning an essential natural resource into a commodity traded for profit just because. it's cannot be price what about the guy that can afford it and the guys tell these water. al-jazeera examines the social financial and environmental impact of water privatization loads of water on al-jazeera. a mad no moved out of his parents' house after he got married he says he found more space living in biscayne after a run of eating it last year it's now his home along with his wife daughter and health but there's really government said that he was reconstructed we've gotten permits and issues that the militia ordered last month our interview with quite sure. as he hears that the israeli army has a right in the village with a bulldozer residents say soldiers gave them one minute to do. it took the family

months to build their brick house and less than an hour to see you. again i'm sure kyle and these are the top stories on al-jazeera poland is the latest in a growing number of countries restricting or banning travel from the u.k. trying to stop the spread of a more contagious strain of corona virus seen in parts of the country stay at home orders have been imposed on millions of british people congressional leaders in the u.s. of reached a deal on a $900000000000.00 covert $900.00 relief package for millions of americans this comes as shipments for the 2nd approved covert $900.00 vaccine have begun across the country. has more from washington the house of representatives today voted to

give themselves a 24 hour extension that is to get all these deals in writing get those votes taken and that is expected to happen tomorrow monday now what does this deal include well it's $600.00 checks to most americans as well as extended unemployment benefits it's a rental assistance food assistance and help to small businesses that have had to struggle and be shuttered due to cold it south korea has imposed tough new coronavirus measures as it struggles to contain a 3rd wave of covert 19 infections gatherings of 5 people or more abandon seoul and to neighboring regions that together make up half the country's population. government leader of the astray and state of victoria has apologized for a bungled hotel quarantine program that led to most of the country's coronavirus deaths a report criticized the use of private security guards who became infected and

spread the virus in the community earlier this year. spyware sold by an israeli private intelligence firm has been used to hack the phones of dozens of al jazeera journalists researches a system labs so the unprecedented cyber attack is likely to have been ordered by saudi arabia and the united arab emirates and this case is a mobile phones were infiltrated with malicious code which uploaded data on to foreign service without hughes is taking any action british and european union because she continued trade talks in the belgian capital brussels on monday are the latest deadline came and went they still have to sort out 2 issues blocks fishing rights in british waters and fair competition rules for businesses. those are your headlines let's get you back.

to you.

sagna been really is a professor at george mason university and an expert on biological weapons she was born in tunisia and studied in france they had several people from teaching. to the western countries by antibiotics that were available at the time and these were used sent back to the former soviet union and used to develop pathogens that would be resistance resistant to those antibiotics some of the diseases which the soviet scientists experimented with have long threatened mankind lithuanian born raymond zilinskas is a former microbiologist and a director at the monterey institute of international studies nobody thought. anybody would be so irresponsible as to be working with smallpox. so there was another contagious from it spreads from person to person and it's very deadly in nature across about 30 percent. but with

a weapon as it's probably even stronger maybe 50 percent or even higher for so there was horrible and then the circa one i was really awful was a place where the marburg virus the clones which there is no vaccine no treatment it's about 80 percent. of all. ironically it was soviet citizens themselves residents of the industrial city of faired last who discovered how deadly their nation's bio weapons were in 1979 anthrax was accidentally released into the air and winds blowing southward towards the city carried the pathogens 60 people died. for 16 years sergey popped off worked as a scientist in soviet lib oratory creating some of the most destructive weapons ever conceived by mankind after the collapse of the soviet union he immigrated to

the united states. i clearly understood that it was biological weapons research there was no way around it because the system to engage people and did not let them grow. there would be a record the k.g.b. record. wherever you go. the idea was to set up an automated research facility to synthesize different viruses so it was a clear attempt. to take advantage of new approaches. and genetic engineering design new varieties of information so. when these agents are used people who get infected develop the symptoms of one day. and when the physicians try to treat to start treating a person for that disease the treatment triggers the other agent which

eventually kills. the person as horrific as this program was unlike in the united states the soviet scientists did not test the disease on human beings but they did use animals extensively. the typical experiment in that when the guinea pigs lose control of their body so they did not control the real him and that resulted him listen then this. experiments and mark is created demonstrate. for some of this there will be no protection it will become please collapse of the social life. of the society overall of the economic life

a devil opt aerosols a fat. spread the bacteria or virus of the air make it airborne and therefore. increase the number of people that get infected the effects of a contagious biological attack could spread around the world literally within a matter of days. with the collapse of the soviet union in 1901 the new russian state simply couldn't afford to support a program that cost the country billions of dollars bio weapons research and production were shut down ultimately into it turned out to be everest of effort

money complete 1st for. sake a power bar was one of thousands of russian scientists who suddenly found themselves without a paycheck to obscure people who never established career you know in communication vis visit academically she was just so it was very difficult to present ourselves you know as scientists and nobody would hire us. to know accomplishments in the biological weapons to see which so it was a kind of thought trap so the crowd most of the thousands of scientists involved in the bio weapons program remained in russia and tried to adapt to the new society dr popof managed to immigrate currently a researcher in biotechnology at george mason university. with the dismantling of

the soviet program it was hoped that biological weapons would become obsolete this was not the case for years it had been secretly stockpiling a deadly arsenal weapons they had produced themselves they had developed to really serious systems one was based on bombs. that had 3 different kinds of words one worse than tracks the 2nd was was much one talks and then a certain one was something called aflatoxin. so those were ready to go they were loaded they had about $200.00 of those $25.00 scud missiles with the same kind of words and they were ready to. well base sooner than on some of the things that were considered the classic agents in the major western soviet program like anthrax like clostridium but on but then they also did some unusual things why would one turn

a disease that causes liver cancer. into a weapon the results would have. been shocking. the gulf war was over so quickly the iraqis did not have a chance to use their deadly arsenal the united states was pretty clear and articulating that response options would be considered. used chemical or other weapons. and i think that caused some hesitation on his part after the gulf war ended it x. bio weapons program remained hidden until in 1995 united nations inspectors finally uncovered it the inspectors didn't want to get away with it if they had

just thrown in the towel. it it's very troublesome to think about how that would have changed the course of history in the middle east because iraq would have retained a super secret and potentially very potent category of weapons. it asks program illustrated vividly that it is conceivable that nations of all sizes could get their hands on bio weapons. secretive countries such as north korea are suspects and syria has actually admitted to stockpiling weapons of mass destruction including biological i think there are some states out there that are still in this nasty business so if you really want to knock out weapon why not go for the one that's comparatively a lot cheaper easier to develop technologically the one they're not looking for. a more were. russia and the united states both in says that they are not

presently engaged in the research or production of offensive biological weapons questions remain however i believe that the united states modus for the same is the united kingdom but we have very little information about version of facilities still we have for this zarif facility is russian and. indeed in the biological. research nobody can have it different from those facilities but there was a lot of these. d.v. miami black books is. at present the concern is not so much about nation states using bio weapons as individuals especially those with scientific knowledge seth caris is a professor at the national defense university in washington he has written extensively on bioterrorism and bio crimes but one of the the things that surprised me when i

started digging into this was the number of people who used biological agents of one kind or another for criminal purposes it's not uncommon today 'd to see people trying to get hold of toxins to users instruments of murder. 1983 on finesse it in oh we and nursing home manager was convicted of killing 22 patients by injecting them with curious it a muscle relaxing drug used by the holmes medical staff in prison he admitted to murdering many more people in the mid 960 s. mitsuru suzuki a japanese physician then bacteriologist handed out sponge cakes filled with salmon and dysentery bacteria to his colleagues he was eventually linked to an outbreak of typhoid fever and dysentery that sickened 200 people and killed 4.

even more dangerous than vengeful individuals or groups bent on destruction. for georgia man have been charged with conspiring to possess a destructive device one of the accused said there is no way for us as publisher save this country to seem georgia doing something highly illegal this wasn't just hong kong taken real steps toward iran carrying out their plans for the alleged plot involved explosions and a deadly biological toxin all this pressure there was like a little obvious have some other. bioterrorism is a real concern there are certain groups that are motivated and some of those groups that are motivated might have the capabilities at some point there's probably going to be some of it some point we are going to have bio terrorist could be potentially serious according to al jazeera and many other reliable news sources al qaeda had

progressed much further towards developing biological weapons before $911.00 then the world had realized while there has not been a biological attack by this group so far it remains a real concern u.s. secretary of state hillary clinton in december 2011 warned that there is evidence. that al qaeda in yemen is hard at work developing weapons of mass destruction in particular biological pathogens. often called the brains behind a sama bin laden iman is now likely to assume the leadership of the diffuse organization that is al qaida film together by al jazeera in the mountains along the afghan pakistan border on less described as bin laden's closest mental this was in 20032 years after 911 the concern about all of. us primarily from the fact that it's one of the few terrorist groups a. has been interested in causing mass casualties and b.

has explicitly expressed interest that in fact us and try to put together a biological weapons program fact that so who is still there has the has to be concerned. paradoxically the danger of bioterrorism has increased with the revolution in the sciences that are prolonging and enhancing human lives as cures for cancer and other diseases a found the number of trained people who could use their knowledge for nefarious purposes has also grown without the big change has been that biotechnology has spread throughout the world and that means that all the equipment and supplies

related to civilian peacefully directed by technologies out there are all over the place. and that means that theoretically every buddy who's to civilian biotechnology can do military but technology the fermenter does not know that it's from mounting bacillus thuringian says to become a fire pesticide or bacillus anthraces to become the biological weapon of the biological weapons system and that's compound good by the internet having become the world's shopping center. the number of people who know how to use the tools of biology and could simply do as has grown steadily so that millions of people are in that category now of thirst if i wanted to equip a laboratory that would be potentially capable of producing. some important quantities a biological agent i could buy that for not

a whole lot of money in the end the reality is you could do that almost anywhere in the world that. al-qaeda was buying its equipment in pakistan and had no trouble clipping. laboratory in afghanistan. you know the kinds of things from mentor to war laboratory equipment that you would need and you can buy pretty much anywhere there are to do this yourself botulinum toxin you can buy that already and lasts. most of those are in asia and for particular mainland china you don't need them at this so we can provide any quantities you need in that's something completely new that you can buy the most toxic substance in the world over the internet is the 1st so and then the question is what about the what we call the known operators

people now that are setting up molecular biology and editorials in their homes and their garages and resellers or whatever and they're doing for the fun of it are they going to be able to create a pathogen and would one of them be crazy enough to want to do that yeah i would worry about that and. maybe one of the most troublesome aspects of the life science revolution is that the information emerging is available to everyone no matter what their motivation you know most of the science that you need to create a biological weapon is obtainable through open scientific literature that needs to exist in order to improve the world's health. since the 1990 s. no respect i just got behind the idea that all the biological literature should be online so your university undergraduate anywhere in europe has access to stuff behind pay walls their digital libraries and has access on an equal basis as

a 16 year old kid from bangalore. nothing illustrates the dial a number of readily available research more than the bird flu controversy in september 2011 a team of dutch and u.s. scientists announced that they had engineered a strain of h 5 n one that could spread among mammals and possibly humans it caused a worldwide approach it's a real life trail that reads like science fiction a dutch scientist using u.s. government funding creates a deadly synthetic virus the super lethal bird flu physical model of an influenza virus of which bird flu is one inside our genes that change and it's within this heart that mutations happen previously thought and he thought it would take many mutations the bed for it to become airborne now we know it only takes 5 in february 2012 the world health organization convened a meeting of experts who concluded that the h 5 n one research should not only continue but also be published

a tsunami of controversy descended. in order to defend ourselves against the possibility. we need to do that kind of research but the question is still is it worth the risk and that's some people say you know the cost benefit on that the costs are too high because it could be released out of the laboratory and then it would really be how. and other ones to say no you know it's being done under under the highest security conditions and we're learning a lot from it so we are better prepared so make a choice but given that mother nature is the ultimate bioterrorist i think we have to push forward on the research i don't think we have a lot of a lot of options a small group of scientists. so-called community essentially created a weapon of mass destruction and they did so to make a political point that no public health resources and attention should be focused

on this particular problem. the risk of publishing it wasn't just that some malefactor is going to make this and let it loose you know because he thinks it will bring armageddon but that it will now spread to dozens of laboratories who make it and study it you know the risk is in a small number of years you know this will get out to larger scientific community. to put it mildly let the rest of humanity down. the bird flu controversy highlights a difficult question facing the world's population what can we do to stop terrorists individuals or groups from creating and using biological weapons so far the global community has not come up with a planned response to this threat the u.s. government has spent billions of dollars developing vaccines against pathogens such

as anthrax but many critics believe that io technology is changing so rapidly that these will be rendered useless we don't have a medical corner measure for every possible disease especially with viruses so if a terrorist or one of those kinds of. we have problems a certain possibility that we were. existing. if a terrorist group were to. go there they're resistant to some of the more common and that we start it would create tremendous problems for us. it's not trivially simple to do but it's also rocket science i think expecting that there could be. a factor of control over all the components and all the materials and all the equipment that could be used to manufacture. i think this is

a fantasy i still think that's possible for some effort is being made to put in place global safeguards the manufacturers of synthetic d.n.a. for example in the united states europe and china have established guidelines regulating who would have taken this material but these are not industry wide and they are voluntary another strategy is the scientists to report any erratic behavior by. the f.b.i. supported by president obama would like. say more about what goes on in life science laboratories but united states scientists resist this they believe they can police their labs themselves filmed be convinced that the bridge deletions in this field i important but the one to be sufficient less people take very seriously the possibility of biological weapon not dark but i see

individual scientist has access to biological agents so who can visit people seeing people next. to you is is very important probably the only way to really. to prevent some dangerous taking place ironically the best way to control biological terrorism may have to do with the weapons themselves to somebody if i some cells with a horrible disease and i mean that their death is going to be hideous it's going to be prolonged and horrible at least. it's a lot more romantic to go out with that with a glorious bank than it is with a with a slow painful whimper and all of our rules and international conventions are a designed by nations for nations but because of the internet that has been a quantum shift or because now we're dealing with individuals the concert comment

or national routes you have a computer in a city every home how can you control it all so i think that's really the biggest bunch of control issues in their lives and the chemical and biological field right now. in the end scientific ethics and basic human goodwill may be the only deterrent to the proliferation of biological terrorism whether by countries groups or individuals. hello there the weather looks pretty good across the middle east over the next couple of days this last settled and and dry for the most part we have got but some pieces of cloud into iran pushing up towards coaxes might catch

a shower or 2 into armenia maybe into azerbaijan as well for the south is channel retrial it just night just wanted to show was a possibility to northern parts of saudi arabia a brisk wind blowing through the gulf this a little lift it doesn't sound like here in qatar as we go through monday it was so weak to choose day temperatures around 23 degrees celsius last you try to the south of that 11 maybe just saying what it is shallow is just around the southern end of the red sea and i could just bring a shower or 2 into djibouti pushing into ethiopia the church of the show us along the rift valley more heavy downpours there for right uganda pushing over towards rwanda burundi eastern parts of the democratic republic of congo are more of the same as we go on into choose a quite a few showers at this stage pushing into tents and there go somewhere so weather also leaking its way down into one go alone as we go through the next day i will say that western weather coming into namibia very heavy rain here unusually wet

weather and that cloud and rain that will bring possibility of flooding into central pos south africa. but. we've never had a president who has literally for 4 or 5 years repeatedly attacked our democracy. you know loosely limited and finally i don't have a narrative i have a question here hitting their brain where people can't get treated and tested for even further joining me richelle carey and up front as my guests from around the world take the hot seat and they debate the week's top stories in pressing issues here on al-jazeera. when the news breaks the impact of the storms in honduras has been particularly devastating when people need to be hurt no group has claimed responsibility for the shooting on the outskirts of srinagar indian administered kashmir people here say they're living in fear al-jazeera has teams on the ground

we never ate the type of food that we simply don't know if we can take you to bring you more award winning documentaries and live on air and online. south korea puts hof its population on the increase just trick sounds as the country battles a surgeon coronavirus cases. hello there i missed the attain this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up and importantly we're going to supply. in a way short of responsible u.s. congressional leaders reach a deal on a $900000000000.00 coronavirus relief package the 2nd biggest economic stimulus in u.s. history.