on all these years. the eco friendly solutions to come back threats to our planet on al-jazeera the. campaigning wraps up and fears of violence escalate but a court rules that sunday's election in central african republic we will go ahead. alone barbarous are you watching al-jazeera live from london also coming up. the nashville explosion police search a home linked to a person of interest over the blast on christmas morning a mass covert immunization program starts across the european union is cases of a new coronavirus very into the increase and the literary renee sounds in iraq from

a new generation trying to write their place in the history. of. one of the world's poorest and most unstable countries is going to press ahead with elections despite the threat of escalating violence a top court in central african republic says vote voters will go to the polls for presidential and parliamentary elections on sunday opposition parties wanted it postponed that the qs the president of vote rigging katherine sort of reports from the capital bangui. loral god-i is a driver and shows us pictures from i resent walk trip to a town 300 kilometers north of the capital. shortly after he took this photo as he says on demand attacks and he had to flee he's worried about relatives who live in

the town he blames rebel groups calling themselves the patriots politian for change or c.p.c. for the latest security crisis in the central african republic. told the town is almost empty some of the men are asking civilian to give up their electoral card others are hiding in the charge as far as they know that cannot be a proper election in. president forced to our data has asked people to come out and vote those in to be vigilant with concerns the violence may intimidate who says and undermine the point that government is looking to provide reassurance of countries throughout the world. there is no. let's say. and where. people decide not to vote and you have

a level of 0 for what it is but it's a patient which is no it doesn't mean this election is not credible more than $12000.00 peacekeepers from the u.n. mission are backing c.-r. security forces troops recently sent by one doctor russian military instructors and private security contractors are also on the ground all of this instability that you were. arrested part of the country that. a petition filed by 7 opposition kind it is to postpone their election was rejected by the constitutional court 17 presidential candidates have been cleared to run for the election one has withdrawn his candidacy citing security reasons most are promising to find and bring peace back to central african republic revive the economy and provide basic services. see our has

numerous gold diamond in your rainy and deposits as well as other natural resources yet it's one of the poorest and most unstable countries in the world more than half the population of 5000000 needs a good some people here in the capital told us all they want is a dignified life and to get to the other side of the poles safely catherine saw al-jazeera bondy. they've it auto is the director of counterterrorism of the geneva center for africa security and strategy studies he says the government who didn't want to give in to rebel demands to postpone the vote the united nations missions in central african republic they have received that the elections have to hold. perhaps you know for the reason that the 1st you know objection to the elections to not take place was made by the rebel leaders who will ask the.

question to change all that for marcus's they came across that was easy so i think the reason why the government doesn't want that is because they think that by you know change of elections it gives huge legitimacy to the rebel leaders but this is the same you know impression that a lot of the candidates have shown they think that will be the elections with the central times a lot of people are. federal investigators in the u.s. are searching a home linked to a person of interest over the explosion that rocked downtown nashville on christmas day these are the latest pictures of that search emergency communications of also being knocked out of across large parts of tennessee after the blast ripped through

buildings and injured at least 3 people no fatalities have been confirmed police evacuated nearby buildings on friday after the vehicle blared a warning that a bomb would detonate in 15 minutes while investigators say that they've been inundated with calls from members of the public we've had over 500 leads and tips coming in every single one of those being followed up by a team of investigators that's the stage read in this investigation we are still continuing to follow every lead that we have and we will continue to do so until we find out what's happened. john john hendren is in nashville john what can you tell us about this person of interest. well what we know is the man has been identified as anthony quinn warner a 63 year old man from the town of antioch which is about 15 kilometers outside of nashville where that explosion happened and that is as far as we know but there is

one other intriguing fact and that is google images shows a recreational vehicle parked in his driveway that is no longer there that's interesting because the bomb that exploded was inside of an r.v. here downtown outside of an a.t.m. t.v. transmission office in nashville so that doesn't tell us for certain that this man is a suspect but we did hear in a news conference earlier that police were very confident that they had cracked the case they said that there was no reason for them to believe that there would be a follow up attack or risks of such an attack and that they believed they would be able to identify who was responsible in that news conference where they did not name who was responsible and so far all we know about this man is that he has been declared a person of interest now authorities in the news conference had another term they

said whoever did this bombing was the ultimate scrooge but it was clearly carried out in such a way that suggests that the the effort here was to try to target property and people you had those broadcasts warning people if you can hear this message to evacuate then eventually saying within 15 minutes there would be a possible explosion 15 minutes later at 6 30 am on christmas morning that is exactly what happened and having heard those messages as the. scene 6 police officers rushed toward danger knocked on doors got people out of the area in what would have been in the afternoon a very popular tourist center here in the u.s. capital of country music but instead what happened was only about 3 people were injured and we're told those were life threatening injuries. john hendren with the

latest from nashville john thank you. the european union has launched a mammoth vaccination effort while a new coronavirus very into detected in the u.k. continues to spread across the continent hungry was the 1st country to announce that it's already started vaccinating doctors and health care workers germany and slovakia have also begun their campaigns well the 1st batches of the pfizer a biotech vaccine arrived across the e.u. including countries like italy and spain which were once the continent's worst hotspots meanwhile the new coronavirus variant of detected in the u.k. has now also been found in spain and sweden as well as across the atlantic in canada the variance spreads up to 70 percent faster and resulted in dozens of countries banning travelers from britain paul brennan reports. the refrigerated

vans drove through the night destinations including rome paris spain and hungary the precious cargo the vaccine developed by pfizer biotech kept at between minus 70 and minus 80 degrees the mass inoculation is due to start in a coordinated launch later on sunday but the 1st job went to work at a hospital in budapest. she had a vaccination plan is ready with health workers at the front of the queue those working with patients in intensive care and emergency care units will be vaccinated 1st so they can continue their heroic struggle to see of. europe has seen 16000000 coronavirus cases and suffered more than 400000 deaths the approval and distribution of this 1st vaccine is reason for considerable hope across the continent. we have in total $19500.00 doses which makes $3100.00 vials these those will be stored in our freezer at minus 80 degrees

which will be them distributed to the different elderly homes and public hospitals . who started the company in the course of should we will start the immunization campaign on a large scale 1300000 doses of vaccine as will be delivered all over germany before the end of 2020 and then from january it will be even more each week almost 7 100000 doses every week in january more than $10000000.00 doses in the 1st quarter the relentless spread of the covert $1000.00 virus in the news that more infectious variants are evolving as lent even more urgency to the vaccination program the variant 1st identified in the u.k. has now been discovered in other european countries to try to contain that variant thousands of truck drivers have spent christmas stranded at the u.k. port of dover and prevented from crossing to france unless they test negative for the virus the backlog remains stubbornly large despite the efforts of military reinforcements and lock downs have ruined the festive period for today. high street

retailers with shoppers ordered to stay at home corona virus has hollowed out the u.k. high streets this is oxford street london's primary avenue and instead of hundreds of thousands of people out a good vantage of the boxing day sales the shops are closed instead of festivity and bustle it's full on on the street empty with coronavirus europe has enjoyed much the same charge 2020 as the rest of the world the hope is that from sunday things will start to improve. al-jazeera london. still to come in this half hour desperate times for millions of americans as their jobless benefits expire joe biden accuses donald trump of an abdication of responsibility and an emotional homecoming for guatemalan deportees from the u.s. who find conditions in the country are even worse than when they left.

hello there we've got some fine weather pleasant cricket weather across southern parts of australia at the moment for the the boxing day test in melbourne but things will change as we go in through the next couple of days got a couple of areas the showers just pushing up cross new south wales i'm also the northern queensland across the top end up towards darwin the showers continuing as we go on through sunday but look at the wet weather that into the southeast and showers there pushing towards melbourne there's a cricket weather 33 celsius fine and dry for sunday but as we go on and see where monday that will sweep through somewhat of weather making its way through at least it does go quickly 19 celsius it will be 5 it's going to be noticeably fresher by this stage temperatures in sydney around 30 celsius with a child's of showers meanwhile the heat continues for the west at 35 degrees just

a somewhat weather for a time making its way to new zealand but the fog in dry here over the next couple of days is largely fought in try to across a good part of china alone we have got some western weather pushing out of the eastern side of china as feeding somewhat wet weather into south korea heaviest showers along the spells of rain gradually pushing through q.c. and the possibility of some localized flooding for southern parts of honshu. long before the cove a crisis broke the world was grappling with another global crisis the climate breakdown destruction of nature can lead to destruction all hail the lockdown examines links between these 2 crises and asks why it took a pandemic to bring on changes that should have been made long ago all these things we were told were completely impossible suddenly become connected to the wake up

call can't be ignored and i just see on. the world the world. welcome back here's a reminder of the top stories on al-jazeera a top court in central african republic says voters will go to the polls for presidential and parliamentary elections on sunday despite an escalating threat of violence federal investigators in the u.s. are searching a home linked to a person of interest over the explosion that rocked downtown nashville on christmas day the blast ripped through buildings and injured at least 3 people. and the european union has launched a mammoth vaccination effort while

a new coronavirus varian 1st attacked it in the u.k. continues to spread across the hungry was the 1st to announce that it's already started vaccinating health care war workers. it's going to the u.s. now we're up to $14000000.00 americans will lose job benefits by the end of saturday after u.s. president trump refused to sign a $900000000000.00 covert $900.00. relief package president elect joe biden has called it an abdication of responsibility trump didn't object to the bill which would have extended unemployment aid before it was voted through congress on monday but he now wants payments to increase from $600.00 to $2000.00 and his refusal could cause a partial government shutdown next week wasn't jordan is in washington d.c. a stinging criticism of donald trump from the man who is about to succeed him really that's right joe biden issued

a statement on saturday in which he accused the president of abdicating his responsibility to care for than illions of people who are running the risk of either losing unemployment assistance or losing their rental homes or perhaps both because as of right now the president has not signed the 900000000000 dollar deal that was negotiated by both republicans and democrats to provide supplemental help to people trying to survive this pandemic from a financial standpoint the president's treasury secretary had worked out a deal with members of congress which a one time $600.00 payment would be made to many americans but after that then suddenly the president objected saying that the payment should be much higher $2000.00 now even though there was a maneuver on this past thursday by a democratic seat in the democratic leadership in the house to try to push the

issue and increase that one time a stipend it did not succeed and so the question is of that down there is really the stalemate and as of right now it's a little after 5 pm here on the east coast of the u.s. the president a sensibly has until midnight to sign that legislation otherwise there's going to be a whole host of complications because this bill has not been signed. any sign then that this could be resolved there doesn't appear to be any sign that this is going to be resolved any time soon we are in the middle of a long holiday weekend even though members of the u.s. house of representatives are going to come back to work on monday to try again to deal with this one time stipend issue this really is a situation where you have 3 interested parties really at odds with each other you

have republicans and democrats who had hammered out a deal who are now a very much a part on the size of the stipend republicans don't want to increase the budget deficit they say so they're sticking with $600.00 democrats say that the hurt is very real and very deep they want that amount more than tripled to $2000.00 at this moment politics does make for strange bedfellows and you have the republican president siding with congressional democrats but unless there's some way for the president to make peace as it were with his own party members it looks as if the stalemate will continue. on with the latest on that from washington d.c. of all stank you. america's president to lay the often talks about his working class roots in pennsylvania but joe biden's full if you will career was made for representing the tiny state of delaware his election to the highest office makes him the 1st president from delaware al-jazeera scris and

salumi takes a closer look at the state america's next president calls home. delaware traces its european roots back to the 1600s the city of new castle boasts many historic sites including the courthouse where the state 1st declared independence from great britain not to mention its more powerful neighbor pennsylvania this land marked example of the federal period architecture belonged to the son of george reid one of the signatories of the u.s. constitution like many in the state tour guide and murphy hopes the 1st state's 1st president will finally put delaware on the map i can remember traveling to california one time they asked me where i'm from and i said delaware and where's that even those who aren't huge fans of joe biden can see his election has benefits to bring more and more tours i think that she would be king from it was here in new

castle that joe biden won his 1st election 50 years ago taking a seat on the county council he hasn't lost an election since and many here see a win for biden as a win for delaware the shipping industry has long since left the shores of this former british colony these days wilmington home to the biden transition team is better known as a tax haven for corporations those in the struggling hospitality business are happy the hotels are now full of news media and more than that george taylor is looking forward to the new administration he gives that message of hope and for most black people out of my such as myself i believe he's going to do such a great job you know making sure that we are all integrated we are all united in one america it was in fact delaware founding father george reid who pushed to create the u.s. senate and guarantee equal representation for smaller states turns out politics in

delaware has always been personal when you have such a small place everyone has to get along in some way and i think that. it's the tradition that joe biden is certainly coming coming out of where your senator or your representative or in this case your president is a next door neighbor he's just joe to a lot of people here the hope is joe biden will now speak for the entire nation particularly the under represented in keeping with local tradition christian salumi al-jazeera new castle delaware the united states has continued to deport central americans back to their home countries despite pleas from leaders for a poor as during the coronavirus pandemic this year alone more than 20000 what a mile and so being sent back they found conditions there even worse than when they left john home and has more. it's been a desperate homecoming for me gayle settle he was deported from the u.s.

in september after 2 years of working illegally in miami. now he's back in his village shippey yoon in the guatemalan highlands to find the harvest has failed the young man 20000 guatemalans have been deported from the u.s. this year according to the country's migration institute and they're coming back to find the conditions they fled and now even worse the economy's projected to contract due to the pandemic and experts say the country's also increasingly affected by climate change some of its regions are part of a dry belt spreading throughout central america and guatemala is also just been devastated by 2 november hurricanes they destroyed the crops in miguel's village and now food is scarce bringing other pollutants in midst those natural disasters many of those deported also struggling to pay off debt. that's because people smugglers often charge migrants $10000.00 or more to take the north the idea is

they'll pay it back gradually once working in the states. but it's a gamble and those that are kicked out have to pay the money anyway as the parents of miguel and his cousin who was caught with him and now discovering it will be business legal because when my son arrived i feel glad that we still had his debt to pay for suffering it's $7700.00 and i'm trying to celebrate of land to pay it as a father i want to help my son but instead of getting ahead we only get poorer what healthy but in our hearts we have that pain what can we do what can we go now we have nobody to support to see us. the guatemalan president has recently said the answer to the problem is to create prosperity in communities like ship you so that people don't have to leave in the 1st place. the incoming byte ministration. this place to spend $4000000000.00 on central america to do just that but it's tough to make sure the money gets to where it's needed past efforts so that it won't be

a silver bullet to stop migration. john heilemann does either. at least 5 people have been killed in an attack by syrian regime forces the victims were all farmers in a village near hama in the northern province of idlib one of the civilian was wounded in the earth tillery strike the attack by president bashar al assad's forces violates a ceasefire that was signed in march. turkey's the fence minister has made a surprise visit to libya to increase cooperation with the internationally recognized government who lucy at guard was flanked by top military officers as he inspected turkish units in tripoli on friday turkey's parliament voted to extend that the ploy meant of troops to libya for 18 months but leave it libya's eastern warlord halley for half that has threatened to use force against turkish soldiers if i get up as a stop interfering in the conflict and no more than half of the decisive

confrontation has begun to appear for the near future from what our scouts have detected from maneuvers of the turkish misson aires and soldiers near the front lines piling up weapons equipment building military bases and operating rooms. which reflects turkey's insistence on war and the delusion that they will achieve their dreams of expansion and influence and the ambitions to control the oil fields and export ports to cure with all wealth its collapsing economy and then the incursion into the depths of africa. iraq has produced some of the most celebrated and respected writers in the arab world but conflict sectarianism and political oppression forced many to flee and right from abroad well now a new generation is the term in to keep iraq's literary heritage alive charles stratford reports. mcauliffe has been writing about the momentous and often

violent changes iraq has suffered for more than half a century the baghdad based author whose novels short stories and poems have been published across the arab world has had to navigate censorship political imprisonment and even death threats throughout his career he acknowledges his contribution to iraqi literature but he's saddened by what he says is the lack of impact his work has had. the country has culturally regressed people who don't read or write might struggle to develop culture across the arab world is suffering terribly and their right has to without freedom to write how can of this learn i feel have little effect on people's thoughts the bookshops along elements and up the street named after a 10th century poet have been immortalized in iraq in arab culture for centuries the crumbling alterman buildings have witnessed how the pressures on iraqi writers and readers have changed over the years the challenge of avoiding jail worse under

the rule of saddam hussein to bomb attacks and kidnapping by al qaida eisel and various armed groups that still have much power in iraq elements and up the street as almost a mythical status in the history of arabic literature a place where writers and intellectuals would meet to discuss politics and the arts but despite the political instability and violence in this country continues to suffer there is increasing evidence of young writers appearing who are determined not to self censor and to protect and build on iraq's literary past. but i'll be arty is a young recently published iraqi poet she owns a bookshop and one of a number of recently opened publishing houses close by she says half the book seen her shot by new young iraqi writers we're trying to wake people up from the hibernation for too long iraqis have accepted what we were told so as young writers

we try to stimulate minds without religion or focus on ethnicity instead we look at our readers humanity we're not afraid because we have seen so much of course i sometimes worry about my family but we have to restrain relate ideas of civilized things at baghdad's annual international book fair young people who can afford to buy books including arabic literature history philosophy and translated foreign works but. it is difficult for our generation to find the correct road to walk along so we depend on ourselves and through books and reading i hope we can change the next generation to planted flowers not thorns that we find on the path we travel along we have to read more widely to forge a new future young people here definitely seem keen to read. hope at least that iraq's literary heritage is being rekindled by a new generation who say their country's future stability and growth will be helped

by young iraqis reading and writing more chance travel al-jazeera baghdad. and you can find a much more on that and everything else that we've been covering on our website the address al-jazeera dot com. and now a reminder of the top stories on al-jazeera despite an escalating threat of violence a top court in central african republic says voters will go to the polls for presidential and parliamentary elections on sunday opposition parties wanted it postponed and the cues the president a vote rigging rebel fighters of also rejected the legitimacy of the government and they're straining to march on the capital bangui catherine so he has more now from the capital we have spoken.