on al-jazeera. this time the differences and similarities of cultures across the center matter when. using current that matter to you. motor home explodes in the u.s. city of nashville shattering a neighborhood after playing a recorded ball morning. you're watching alters your own life from a headquarters and navigator also coming up cease fire off fighting flares again in the central african republic ahead of sunday's election. millions fly around the u.s. to be with family for christmas despite warnings that travel will further inflame the corona virus outbreak. around the

world christiane scaled back celebrations on one of the most important days in the calendar. thanks for joining us a huge explosion has ripped through a neighborhood in the u.s. city of nashville it happened early on christmas morning and there was a recorded warning playing beforehand seemingly suggesting there was an effort to minimize casualties 3 people were hurt but not badly the blast knocked out communication infrastructure grounding flights as well she had written c. reports. the early morning blast in downtown nashville was felt under heard from kilometers away authorities at least 20 buildings were damaged when the vertical exploded. police were already on their way having received a call reporting gunshots in the area when they arrived. they had no mounts once

believed to be coming from the vehicle the explosion was imminent they called in the bomb squad and began evacuating the area out of the bomb squad approached the explosion occurred we had one officer that was not too bright this was the testimony of a man who lived a block and a half away we just heard this blast and we felt the windows in our building shake and we were in a high rise development on the 26th floor and we just saw this unbelievable asked. the f.b.i. has taken control of the investigation authorities are also in the public for help these tell us what you know. we need to leads we need your help the the hour prevented more casualties the area is filled with shops restaurants bones i'm glad to poppins and an a.t.m. t. technical facility is adjacent to the site if you want to kill a lot of people and you'll do it during your shopping hours 730 at night or 2 in

the afternoon 630 on a christmas morning there is about the time you would be there the fewest people out possible so that could imply there's this it's a statement grabber act rather than seeking to cause mass casualties the president has been briefed as he spends the christmas holiday in florida she had her town see out. let's bring in karen greenberg she's the director of the center national security at fordham university school of law she's joining us from westchester that's a new york state thanks for your time with us on al-jazeera what's your reaction to what went down in nashville. i mean i think the reaction is from all of us it's quite right and this was a big blast and you know this could have hurt many people and we still don't know how many you know it did hurt and to what extent so i think you know i have the questions everybody else what was the message that was intended to be sent. and you

can be sure that the f.b.i. is going to put together the trail that will lead them to you know the answer. a bomb like this this kind of device leaves a lot of what when where they purchased the materials where they put them together so it'll take some time but they will find out that the size of it is concerning you know we've seen other big bombs in the united states in the last couple decades of this reminds us of welcome to the city bombing in 1905 of the attempted bombing perhaps in times square in 2002 and you know so you know it's alarming but we have no idea who do it to the tune or or what it was meant to say yeah a lot of unanswered questions right now but how do you explain that a recorded warning was played right before the explosion. you know so there are different ways one is perhaps to clear out the area and you know again as as you

had said earlier this took place early in the morning with fewer people would be better than in the middle of the day even encode it. but it's also to call attention to the event and to make sure that people are paying attention and that would have happened anywhere with this bomb of this size going off but it all is part of a package with is that a tension and i think it was just as much for that as to warn people what an explosion of the size be considered or be investigated as an act of terrorism because right now what officials are saying is this appears to be an intentional act what do you make of the wording of all of this you know i think they want to be extremely careful it doesn't seem like an intentional act you know and they said i had a time what was what was going to happen there were gunshots ahead of time that you know called attention and got police called at a time on 911 but. you know the word terrorism usually implies some kind of

political motive but it also has imbedded in a sense of what i mean civilians in the name of politics often and so i think i want to be very careful about the word terrorism you know legally it means different things depending on who the terrorists are whether they're domestic terrorists or whether they're international terrorists so i think they just want to be extremely careful but it won't upset how they go about trying to put the pieces together for what happened and as far as what you expect to see or hear from the president perhaps because we know that the president has been briefed on the situation. what do you expect to hear from him. that's a very good question i think there is so much you know going on in the white house that now into the transition process the issue of party and many other issues including congressional issues right now about spending it in here is that. i don't

know what to expect from you but i can tell you that i think law enforcement the f.b.i. is in charge of this will very much want to pieces together before they bring anyone for any good recommendation or any formal response will take place all right so we'll leave it there we thank you very much for joining us from new york thank you and take a look at the live picture right there apologies that is not the live picture that is the that is the explosion that took place in nashville a few hours ago and we will be hearing from the mayor of nashville mayor john cooper perhaps in the next couple of minutes so once he appears we will take you live over to nashville. now a huge number of americans have boarded flights to be with family for christmas despite

warnings that travel will only worsen are already alarming coronavirus deaths and infection rates more than a 1000000 people pos through u.s. airports on wednesday there was a similar rush during november as thanksgiving holiday which has been blamed for fueling the current spike there were more than 193000 new cases recorded on thursday and nearly 3000 deaths let's bring in jordan she's joining us from washington d.c. and officials believe that the thanksgiving travel contributed to the current spike in cases over in the u.s. so what are you seeing this christmas are a lot of people on the move. well when you're talking about more than 7000000 people who have gone through u.s. airports in the past 7 days and that number is going to go up because the holiday period ends the weekend after new year's day you're probably going to see many many more cases even more than what we're seeing right now and that doesn't even

cover the fact that so many more millions of people apparently have taken to their cars or to bosses or to trains or to all 3 to visit friends and family for the holiday and anecdote is not hard data but i have to tell you it's been very easy to park in my neighborhood this week because so many of my neighbors have left for the holiday period this is the kind of situation that has public health officials very worried and that's because they fear that even if people are taking a test before they start their travels that the vast majority of people i'm a. transmitting the virus or contracting the virus when they're visiting people whether it's in a given region or somewhere else in the country and then bring it back to their home community so rosalynn is now my our moment of harmony as well have to cross over to nashville and that is the mayor of nashville speaking on the expense of the

place in his city let's listen andresen catastrophic damage to this very historic part of nashville. now at the end of the day i think all of us and i certainly haven't gone from relief that there were no more casualties and that's an amazing thing that there were not particularly when people begin to see the devastation on 2nd avenue to relief that there were not more casualties to now. anger and determination and resolve. and a resolve to be to rebuild and not to be deterred and to brings whoever was responsible for this to justice that spoken with governor lee who is working with us to have a declaration of a civil emergency. both with the state and then for team a to work with thema to bring all possible resources to commit to rebuilding 2nd avenue to go forward not being deterred by this and i'm grateful to our state and

our federal partners to help this important part of nashville rebuild and come back there are 41 at least separate businesses that are materially damaged by this blast there will be others. as we see the full extent of this but already you can you can tell that it's going to need special help special resources and i'm grateful to the state partnering with us to commit to rebuilding 2nd. no one to stand with our downtown residents and our business owners for whom this was a terrible day but we are like national has faced other challenges particularly this year we can rebuild and and get back to normal you know as an answer earlier metro is also establishing a curfew in the explosion impact area from 430 today until 4 30

pm this sunday now affected businesses. i would urge them to contact krista lap at the central precinct take 862-8602 be able to manage coming back to your facility safely but in the meantime the curfew area is going to provide safety and security for businesses in this area and i will go ahead and more nashville it will be some time before 2nd avenue is back to normal it is not going to be the 3 days of the curfew for 2nd avenue itself the curfew is going to go from 4th to the river from james robertson down to broadway the police are going to take special care with that for the next few days and our partners at the f.b.i. do have a large crime scene to invest. and they need to be able to do that work effectively and well. the this morning's attack on our community was intended to create chaos and fear in this season of peace and hope. but nationally and sept proven time and

time again that the spirit of our city cannot be broken but we're not going to rest until those responsible for this outrageous and cowardly attacks are brought to justice. and the full force of the metro police and our partners with the f.b.i. and the a for working together to make sure that we will get back to being safe city that we. are now 3 people have been hospitalized as a result of the explosion there and stable condition and my prayers are with them and their loved ones tonight i had to was able to visit with a 4 year old girl this morning who was. had no injury and was. saved. but let's just spend a moment in celebration of the 6 uniformed metro police officers from our central precinct who were at the scene at the time of the blast these incredible heroes who

ran to danger with certain outcomes ahead of them were responsible for so many injuries being saved now i've spoken with chief drake and i can report that the officers who are injured by this are recovering well i would like to come and spend a little bit of valuing officers posy llewellyn wells see post topping and sergeant miller who took swift action and directed people away from danger to save lives even at the time that their own lives would have been in peril they are heroes. and i am grateful to them and all of the nation's 1st responders this is a year where we understand what 1st responders mean to our community time and time again and unfortunately on christmas day you have another example of that. now several downtown residents whose homes were destroyed by the blast and i am inspired by their resilience and we have to draw inspiration from them as our

city to be resilient once again and to get the resources to rebuild and i'm grateful to the red cross who's opened an 8 shelter at the east part community center for those who have been displaced. now with that let me turn this over to the chief and answer questions i think the message of today is we're going from relief now to resolve. to catch those folks and to rebuild our city and one more challenge initials 2020 but we will get through it and we're grateful to our 1st responders and never you know you see all once again these officers running into danger to help save lives and injury it's inspiring and again the gratitude of our community goes to the chief force and with that i'd like to turn it over to chief drake to come in a little bit more specifically about the heroism the great heroism of our

department thank you. thank you mayor cooper as mayor cooper stated these officers acts of heroism is just tremendous this morning they received calls for shots fired and no idea what they were responding to once they arrived in the area they heard an r.v. given out a message basically saying that it was going to detonate within a certain time frame in a countdown would go on and and then it was play music in the countdown would start again as immediately began knocking on doors and evacuating residents here not knowing if the the bomb was going to detonate immediately or if it's going to go off in the time that it was stated these offices didn't care about themselves they didn't think about that they cared about the citizens of nashville and they went in and we'd be talking not about the debris and that we have here but also maybe

potential people so that said officers saved lives today and their heroism is to be noted. that you have believed that either the lift orders are of 18 feet addison or might have been targets. this explosion we don't know the investigation is continuing we don't know the motive at this time the we're following up on all available leads isn't any time the chief at all why this happened christmas morning anything that lead you to believe that this day was chosen particularly. we don't have the. full every lead that we can if it's a total surprise in fact when i was briefed this morning i thought maybe it was going to be a propane explains but explosion from an r.v. and it turned out to be an intentional act but we were going to follow up on every lead with following up on tips that come in now and so we'll 'd continue our investigative efforts have you found human remains in the in the debris we have found 2 issue that we believe could be remains and we'll just have that you know

examined and then we'll be able to let you know from that point isn't enough to power those counties. help i'm sorry. we're not taking me to where that was found if it's like $99.00. the darby was detonated so it was someone inside we have no idea it was such a large explosion but the investigation is continuing the matter all over this area down there and so we'll continue to examine it to see if it is human remains. on. right now has no known fatalities that we know of so just the tissues is what you believe from human tissue in the remains were we we believe we could be but we have the big to be concerned we have to examine it and once we know for sure that and it will let everyone know but we investigating it have you received any

information of roads leading up to the city in the coming days the things we need you to believe that this is something that. we have not received any threats whatsoever total total surprise. when we got the call that when i got the call. i thought it was going to be a camper trying to keep warm the gas leak and it was an explosion. that's when i found out it was into that we had no warnings at all what do you make of the time. being that there are no people out on the street at 6 in the morning. it happened these are officials in the city of nashville and they're giving the media an update on the explosion that ripped through a neighborhood and nashville early on christmas morning so that man right there is john drake is the national metro police department chief and what he said is that the investigation is continuing i mean also did confirm that they have found tissue which they believe could be human remains but they still need to investigate

and right before him speaking was the mayor john cooper we heard from him as well he was talking about the city's results to rebuild in the wake of this explosion he did give out some numbers saying 41 businesses were damaged by the blast and the intention was to create chaos and fear and he also did say the f.b.i. and police are working together to investigate the explosion will move away from nashville and return to the pandemic because it's been a quiet christmas across europe that's where several governments ordered their people to stay home and new and potentially more contagious variant of the virus 1st detected in britain added to the urgency to impose new lock downs dominic kane reports from berlin. christmas in rome during code where goodwill to others means socially distance events providing presence of the poor and homeless as welcome as

these gifts may seem what many people want this winter is the coded vaccine and now the 1st consignment of it have arrived in rome ready for distribution on sunday to people who the pope says should be 1st on the list. i pray for all those in charge of nations companies international organizations to promote cooperation and not competition and look for a solution for everybody vaccines for everybody especially for the most vulnerable and needy ones in every region of the planet as in many other e.u. countries the vaccine will also start being distributed in germany on sunday it's a development many hope will transform the situation. in the long. end of this tunnel we see the long awaited light at the end of the tunnel become brighter we will come closer to the exit in this crisis step by step how long the road will be depends on us if we remain reasonable and patient then we will gradually be able to

do many things again that we had to do without for a long time. the strategy many european governments are adopting is to file a return to hard lock downs and the start of mass vaccination their hope is to reduce the numbers of new infections and eventually lower mortality rates that has been claiming the lives of thousands of people every day for some time dominic kane al-jazeera berlin. there has been more fighting in the central african republic after a ceasefire between the government and the coalition of rebel groups collapsed fighters have been exchanging fire with the army and u.n. peacekeepers in the town of cooma where the rebels accuse the president. of. sunday's elections 6 opposition candidates are demanding the vote be postponed from the capital katherine sawyer explains why the rebels decided to break the cease fire agreements. page of change. the reason why

they have called off the cease fire is because the president and the prime minister is not listening. government to talk to the talking heads b.p. put this on an already white house about 500 kilometers of cars. but it's up to the. area where the fighting going on the politics is one of the largest gold mining areas in the country but people tend to see it and many parts of the country. here in bondi as well as they wait for the next on sunday we have been talking baseball the united nations was saying that it's by talking about the problem talking about a jump off part of the time. that 17th and pierre are closing it was. here. and that was the

material coming. in many parts of the country. and i. welcome said going on but i'll send you. a lot of the abduction of the new state i want to keep people away from coming to the polling station all the way to get ready by the prosecution on. the walk on august 2nd i jumped on the top spot of a decent shot at that point because of the security of the few western iraq taken on african scale going to the u.s. and others on the hot topic by creating more of a lot of conflict and i just want to see a plug to fall for the candidate of choice at least 33 people have died after their boat capsized on lake albert. when you gondar in the democratic

republic of congo uganda says the boat was carrying as many as 50 people when it ran into strong winds a local civil society groups says they were trying to enter the illegally to avoid coronavirus restrictions mali's main opposition leader say has died after contracting cover 90 in the 71 year old is being treated in france since i was kidnapped in march by an armed group in northern mali campaigning for elections he was freed after 6 months. have met in brussels to look over the post trade deal that's finally been agreed with the u.k. parliaments on both sides need to ratify the agreement now barker reports from london i have a small present for anyone who may be looking for something to read in that sleepy post christmas lunch moment and here it is 2000 pages of dense detail

the british government's christmas gift to the nation because this is a deal a deal to give certainty to business travelers and investors in our country from the 1st of january a deal with our friends and partners in the in brussels e.u. ambassadors met for a christmas day briefing with the blocks breaks it negotiated michel barnier the $27.00 european union states are expected to formally back the trade deal within days the european parliament which normally votes on a tax before it becomes law will vote on the deal retrospective early in january the choreography is different for british m.p.'s who will cast their vote on the deal in parliament on the 30th of december where it's expected to pass with the the government controls a sizable majority of the opposition labor party says it will reluctantly back it. a day later midnight december 31st the u.k. will unplug its economy from the world's largest trading bloc in

a deal that will either drive or diminish the country for generations to come it's been a year of painful uncertainty for everyone the british economy is shuttered thousands of businesses a teetering on the edge of ruin a while the country has been grappling with the impact of covert 19 it's also been living under the shadow cast by breaks it and worries that the british economy might never be the same again but now that there is a deal here in london the voted almost exclusively to remain in the european union there's a sense of quiet and reluctant acceptance this time of great upheaval a familiar face with a traditional christmas message even on the darkest nights a queen elizabeth is the hope of a new dawn. but even with this deal uncertainty remains there are fears unemployment will rise to firms relocate to the e.u. few transport companies have access to britain's new border crossing software and

unanswered questions on how to avoid physical border checks between northern ireland part of the u.k. and ireland and e.u. member. as more details emerge is clear the british government's also gone further than expected in granting the e.u. access to british fishing grounds the e.u. and u.k. are now decipher ing the trade deal for general consumption both eager to show they've gained the most ground at the 11th hour the. london well knaves report feature and pictures of the british monarchs christmas message and now a u.k. broadcaster has created a pretend version off the speech using what's called fake technology it's being used to drive dissent from ation online by making it look like prominent people have said or done something that they haven't china for says it's an important warning so here's some of what the queen didn't really say for nearly 70 years i have kept a tradition of speaking to you at christmas but on the b.b.c.

i haven't always been able to speak plainly and from the heart so i'm grateful to channel 4 for giving me the opportunity to say whatever i lie without anyone in my mouth if there is a theme to my message today it is trust trust in genuine and. not. another 800 british military personnel have been deployed to help clear the thousands of truck drivers waiting to get into france more than a 1000 troops are now involved in the operation of the port of dover testing drivers for coronavirus and distributing food and water travel restrictions were imposed by france last sunday in response to a new variant of coronavirus in the u.k. drivers are now allowed to cross over if they've tested negative for covert. and at

least 15 people are said to have died in recent weeks at one of the main border crossings between south africa and zimbabwe local media have reported the deaths attributed to exhaustion and ill health are ready lengthy queues are being made worse by calling a virus screenings it's in the grip of a 2nd wave of covert 19. hello again the headlines on al-jazeera a huge explosion has ripped through a neighborhood in the u.s. city of nashville the mayor says it was deliberate bomb that was set off early christmas morning the police say investigators have found possible human remains near the site of the blasts this morning's attack on our community was intended to create chaos and fear in this season of peace and. good natured billions that proven time and time again that the spirit of our city.