prices because of imports from a stranding in india and china. the government says it's not possible for indonesia to stop importing solved but across communities where hundreds rely on the mineral pharma say more should be done to train them in modern farming techniques so they can match the quality of imported cells. we have experts from the government should come here and tell us what kind of production they need so we can compete with the imported salt if their prospects don't improve these men fear for the future of their bombs and their livelihoods jessica washington al-jazeera interim my. results there and these are the top stories india's drug regulator has approved the oxford astra zeneca vaccine for emergency use the government hopes to immunize 300000000 people in the next 8 months 3 other vaccines are awaiting approval this

year's presidential election will be decided in a runoff next month will and party candidate mohamed buzz zoom won just under 40 percent of the vote in the 1st round while former president mohamed osman took 17 percent commemorations are being held ahead of the anniversary of the assassination of qassam sort of mani the u.s. drone strike killed the iranian general in baghdad on january 3rd last year so the money successor is warning that iran is fully prepared to respond to any u.s. aggression iran's government is also saying that it plans to enrich uranium by up to 20 percent that's a significant breach of the 2050 nuclear deal but it falls short of what is needed to build a weapon. an afghan journalist who's been shot dead in the central province of core . was killed when a gunman opened fire on his car he was a human rights activist and editor of a local radio station according to reporters without borders survived at least one other attempt on his life months ago he's the 5th afghan journalist killed in 2

months. dozens of refugees in ethiopia have arrived at the border with dol they include families and farmers fleeing conflict in their country more than $700.00 refugees are now in areas under the control of sudanese military some have reported seeing fighting between the sudanese army and farmers in the area. post breaks that freight traffic between the u.k. and france is so far moved smoothly despite earlier concerns about potential battle the 1st ferry from britain to dock at the french port of kelly arrived several hours after the u.k. officially left the e.u. customs union no serious delays were reported as hundreds of trucks crossed into france by ferry and through the channel tunnel. those headlines and news continues here on al-jazeera right after the bottom line with his coming up next season. talked about who's there and we heard scott realistically how can you deal with institutionalized corruption in this country we listen if this breaks up

a conflict between buggiest on and india this has implications for the rest of the world we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter go to 0 hi i'm steve clemons and i have a question you know we create a virus vaccinations are starting in the united states and in some places around the world is this the end of the pandemic or just the beginning let's get to the bottom line. after a year that shoots humanity to its core forcing people to rethink their basic social interactions and decide a daily basis what risks they're willing to take back to nations have been discovered and they're finally being deployed but what happens now the united states still has the highest number of infections and deaths in the world and the numbers just keep climbing almost 1000000000 americans have been in fact that at the moment of this broadcast more than 121000 americans are in hospitals the death toll is eclipse that of every other country with more than 330000 families grieving

the loss of a loved one scientists warn that this holiday season we're going to see even bigger spread of infections and that we should brace ourselves well into the next year so what are things going to get under control today we talked to one of america's preeminent scientist dr anthony found dr satcher you don't need an introduction but please bear with me as i tell our audience that you've been head of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases since 1984 and now you've agreed to become the chief medical advisor for incoming president joe biden do you see a light at the end of the tunnel on this what should americans be thinking and doing right now what's your message to them. well see this certainly light at the end of the tunnel but it's interesting it's bittersweet because we are still here in the united states in the middle of the worst possible situation where we have a couple of 100000 cases predict a we have about 2000 deaths predict

a and just yesterday we broke yet again another record of hospitalizations with 121000 people hospitalized for covert 19 so we are in a very difficult situation we are now in the middle of the christmas new year's holiday they have been significant travel we've seen the pictures on t.v. of the airports crowded of people going to and fro for the holidays and then there will be. congregate settings where people go to dinners so we can expect that they will likely get worse as we go into january from the standpoint of the lag that you usually see by a couple of weeks between cases versus hospitalizations versus deaths having said that december besides being the worst month that we've had throughout the outbreak is the beginning of the air of vaccines because we now have vaccines that are

already being put into people's arms starting this month and it will accelerate as we get into january february march and april with the priority groups being vaccinated 1st health care providers people in nursing homes and those who care for them then critical people in society people over 75 and on and on by the time we get to march in april where i would get i used the terminology steve as open season namely that anyone who wants to get vaccinated can get vaccinated. by that time hopefully we will have by contractual arrangements the hundreds of millions of doses that will be necessary to vaccinate which as i've been saying we really want to aim at getting anywhere between 70 and 85 percent of the people in the country vaccinated so again challenging times right now as we speak but

encouraging times because vaccines are starting to be rolled out how would you fix this so that when america and the world is hit by the next pandemic of this sort we're better prepared not just in science but also the practice of doing the things we need to do. well there are certain things that we want to continue and certain things that we want to dramatically improve city it's clear as you mentioned correctly the one shining light through all of this was the fruits of the science the fact that given the brand new technologies of platform technology for vaccines. the ability to utilize infrastructure of clinical trial networks that was set up decades ago for hiv you might recall we put so much investment years ago and the fundamental basic science that made that scene successful so in the future

if we continue the support of basic and clinical biomedical research so that we will have the most up to date scientific advances on our side that is important the thing that we really need to do much better on is the public health preparedness namely the building public health at the local level infrastructure so that when you're talking about identification isolation contact tracing it can be done an effective way the other thing is to realize the importance of consistency of messaging the importance of. centrally. i wouldn't say controlled but centrally involved one of the things that we did we left a lot of responsibility on the states who you know did invariably some did it much better than others and we didn't have a consistent response through the country. that we've got to fix we've got to make sure that we have consistency course when you're dealing with outbreaks pandemic

outbreaks even though you respect the individuality of the states there needs to be a consistency in what you do and how you do it. one of the things that's come up is the m a m r n a platform's if i'm describing them correctly that have been a key part of developing these vaccines you know you have worked on viruses after viruses in a bowl of hiv and the question is does this now open a way to go back and look at this library of other viruses that we continue to struggle with and give us new pathways to dealing with things you've you've been wrestling with in the past. the answer is yes steve and if you look at the extraordinary potential for new vaccine platform technologies there are more than one new one but let's take m r n a as an example there was a lot of skepticism when we used the m r n

a as one of our top priority vaccine candidates for covert 19 in fact sometimes that skepticism even kind of meshed into criticism of why we were taking a chance with this brand new technology we had 30000 it because we had been working on it for a few years before and saw its potential we believe that other vaccines that have alluded success that have avoided success and escape success that we will now use these new platform technologies and hopefully will get a greater degree of success with other vaccines using a now proven technology that just a year or so ago was well before it was proven are we ready to go forward and begin looking at what we need to prepare for the next pandemic that comes in do we have a fast action response and as i'm thinking about it we've seen new variants of this

virus and mutations of it in the u.k. and in south africa does the platform that you and your team of help develop now in the private sector is developed are we in a good position to do combat with with you taishan of coven and the next coronavirus the comes down the pike you know so the answer is yes but let's be careful that you know r.n.a. viruses mutate all the time an. asian most of the time is not associated with a functional change in the virus but occasionally it is it seems to be according to the preliminary evaluation by the brits and we'll be confirming this because we're going to be doing a lot of studies on. this mutant virus. the preliminary studies show that it actually does seem to or at least suggests that it spreads more rapidly and is more easily transmissible that doesn't appear to be any effect on its function as

a very ill and virus namely it doesn't seem to make people sick or or kill them faster and it doesn't seem to have a negative impact on the efficacy of the immune response induced by the vaccine so that's all good news but we still need to keep our eye out on it but with regard to your question all we've facile enough to be able to move and switch around if in fact it does what it hasn't yet done namely escapes the protection of a vaccine the answer is yes and that's one of the beauties of the m r n a technology is in you can quickly adapt it to a change in a certain conformation or a certain mutational change that you see in the spike protein. you know one of the things i did in anticipation of our conversation today. is i went out on facebook and i said let's mass doctor questions that he might not get from everyone

else what's on your mind can you you know provide some constructive questions over 100 fantastic questions were listed but among those that came up alive were those that were very unclear about how the vaccine was going to be deployed when they would get it and what you get has this this this facebook page whatever reaches every corner of the country as best i can tell or a lot of them is that people aren't getting it they don't understand there seems to be a communications gap where we have put a lot of effort and a continue literally on a daily basis i mean i do it i don't think a day goes by where i don't outreach in some way to the community usually the community that is often disenfranchised like the african american and with that latino on the community to see and make sure that they understand a the importance of getting vaccinated why it's good for them their family and their community but also forgetting. that clearly is something that we're doing

the fact that you said that there is a lot of confusion means that we've got to do better i mean you just to find out the situation is because if people are still asking questions not fully understanding the difference between getting a vaccine shipped to a local community and actually getting it put into someone's on because you hear a lot about the scheduling for shipping vaccines a certain amount will go to a certain place at a certain time but once it gets there what are the mechanisms whereby that vaccine is going to get equitably distributed so that as you say people from all walks of life will have access to the vaccine not just those who are in a situation be in economically or otherwise where they have easier access. you know president trump and some members of his advisory team on the coronavirus task force talked about mask wearing as if it was a restriction on liberty and encouraged groups to go out and liberate themselves

from governors who are you know sending orders. i just want to know how you felt about that and whether you think there's a way to talk to those people who did get that framing that they felt like their their liberties were being restricted how do we bring the country back together so that they look at the virus and they see the same thing. well the 1st thing is you can't start off by criticizing them for not thinking or feeling like you do but try to reach out in a modest and humble way to explain to them that this is a public health issue this is not a political issue this is not an individual rights issue this is a public health issue and we are in one of the worst catastrophes that we've ever had in the last 100 in 2 years and i asked them to just look at the numbers look at the $320.00 plus 1000 deaths and the couple of 100000 new infections each

day have them look at the numbers and see that we're dealing with a real problem and the problem is not a problem of personal liberties or a problem of politics it's a problem of public health so we've got to transcend any differences i mean you can accept that people have differences politically that's just part of life and part of the way we live in this country but political differences should not interfere with what is the well established and clearly proven response to a pandemic outbreak that's the message we've got to get across not that we feel that because you are different politically then someone else that that makes a difference when it comes to public health it doesn't make any difference at all are our kids going to be vaccinated are there practices that can be deployed do you believe to get schools back open because they are such

a fundamental part of our social contract in the country or is that something we're still going to have to you know hibernate as the best strategy for a while until we achieve a different equilibrium on both vaccinations and you know i don't want to say herd herd immunity but it is out there but when we get another equilibrium out there on our overall public health. well you have a couple of questions in there steve let me let me though i think the 2 big questions so let me answer them separately ultimately children will be vaccinated whenever you roll out a large vaccine program because children are particularly vulnerable you don't want to give them the vaccine a the exactly the same time as you tested in adults so you have to show which we have that the vaccine is safe and effective in adults then you have to get the vaccine out implemented for a while and show that in the big picture of the implementation of a vaccine program in

a safe and it is effective in adult then you go and do phase one a face to a trials and children which will start in january we will start doing testing in children to show that it's safe that means that probably a couple of months there after vaccine will be available for children that will be terrific because if you can vaccinate children it would alleviate vial watch the issue that we face but we've got to schooling now when children are vaccinated you'll feel much more comfortable of their being in school but even prior to the full vaccination of children you still want to as i mentioned before has as your default position getting the children back to school well keeping them in school at the same time as trying to put up a system where you can save them by mitigating any risk that they have of getting infected but 1st choice would be to get them back to school. you know about

a year before coven program you and i had a conversation and i ask you to tell me what your worst nightmare was as you look for 'd and you know you described the respiratory kind of virus that cold it was and it was just one of the chilling moments when i look back at interviews i've done and i guess now i ask you as you sit here today what is your next worse nightmare as you look forward yes well you know my next worst nightmare is not getting out of this nightmare without having a lot more suffering and death and i think that we need to really really put put every effort possible into getting the entire country to it here it's a public health measures and put aside this this very difficult situation of of politicizing it and not wanting to it here to public health measures also to get

the vaccine out and distributed in an efficient way so that very quickly we get as many people vaccinated as possible and he said that we will in this outbreak there's no doubt it will end we've been through a terrible experience but it will end when it does end we have to look forward because outbreaks continue to happen they've happened long before people have even recorded history we've seen in our lifetime with multiple outbreaks hiv ebola zeek and now covered 19 pandemic flu there will be other outbreaks we've got to make sure that we prepare and use the lessons learned that we have actually learned from this experience and make sure we do better next time. you know one of the questions that i have about you know of the situation we're in right now is whether or not science itself has been badly impacted or whether it's prevailed and i tell

people you know clearly science is delivering on this in this pandemic in some ways but of galileo was alive today i'm not sure that he would be found guilty again there seems to be a struggle over rationality empiricism in science how do you feel about that struggle right now and you become identified really as the most respected person in the world when it comes to science it does that burden burden you and how do you feel about the prospects for science itself looking forward. well it's a complicated issue no i don't feel that is burden me this is the life i've chosen and this is what i do so it's not a burden because you know it's my life and i've chosen it and happily chosen it the issue is that science has been very successful in doing something that was unheard of or unimaginable years ago is to go from the identification of

a new pathogen in this case this mysterious virus that just. harnessed and then we identified in granularity of this here in the rest an 11 month it actually now is going into someone's on into a lot of people's arms and it has been proven to be highly efficacious and safe that is a very successful coup de force of science my concern is that there is a lingering anti science feeling in this country that is sort of mixed in with an anti vaccine feeling that we've got to overcome by being transparent about what we've done and what we want to do with science so there's good news and bad news you know the good news is science has really triumphed in this outbreak the sobering news is that there's still a lingering pushback against science in this country i guess my question to you as you kind of look at that legacy of fighting in the zoo and not

a virus is that if that have come down the pike you know do you have larry kramer do we have a larry kramer out there today that we need to get some of this right you know it's a different situation now when you have an outbreak that is involving virtually everybody in the world i don't think there's anybody that can sit back and say realistically say oh this is this outbreak has no impact on me at all even people who call it fake news be a life has been changed by this outbreak namely we can. and do many of the things that we've done under normal circumstances doctor found she brad pitt brad pitt has played you on saturday night live there are now twas the night before christmas tributes to you and there's even a hamilton parody out there is it hard is it more fun or is it hard to be the tony found she that's become such a big shot in pop culture today or or is this something you feel is sort of outside

your world. well i think the latter mostly steve i mean this is kind of nice in some respects it's amusing to see that but i can't pay attention to it because it will be a distraction so just as i don't pay attention to the threats on my life they harassment of my family which goes on continually literally one of daily basis i don't pay attention to those other things because they can be distracting i you know i met some of the people who are doing it it's really nice it's charming it's amusing to see it but if i focused on it and took my eye off the ball which is ending this outbreak then i wouldn't be doing my job so i mean it's happening it's on morning stream in the other but i focus like a laser on what i should be doing which is ending this outbreak dutchy after people are vaccinated do they need to continue to wear masks. the answer is yes for

a couple of reasons because just because you are vaccinated that doesn't mean that there's not a lot of virus outside in the community until you get the level of virus so low that it virtually is no longer an issue you should wear a mask also even though you're vaccinated new you're protected against getting clinical disease you still could have virus in your nasal pharynx remember masks law to prevent you from infecting other people and the revenge of the people from infecting you so until you completely crush the virus we should be implementing the classical public health measures including wearing a mask. about 20 percent maybe 30 percent of americans are resistant on the notion of taking a vaccine. can that be ignored a cancan the rest of america get vaccinated think we achieve an overall equilibrium of health without regard to those that don't want to participate well it's sad

that that many people don't want to do it i've been saying and my epidemiology colleagues agree with me that in order to achieve herd immunity you need somewhere between 70 and 85 percent of the population to be vaccinated so i would like to see a very small proportion of people not vax and i'd like to see everybody vaccinated but i think the reality to be realistic i don't want to see a large proportion because that would hinder our attainment of herd immunity and finally when we reach the next holiday season of christmas and hanukkah and the . our family's going to be able to get back together again are we going to see a return to some semblance of normality of being able to be around the table and in rooms with the people we love. the answer to that in my mind is yes but there isn't if there and the if is if we actually get enough people vaccinated that we can

bring the level of virus in the community so low that it's no longer a threat so if we get to herd immunity by the end of the some of the beginning of the fall i believe that we can have what would appear to be and will in reality be a normal christmas a normal thanksgiving a normal new year's a year from now while the overwhelming message i got from people on my facebook page was to bank you for your service the things you've done to save so many people so dr anthony fauci thank you so much for joining us here today and good luck on your mission thank you very much steve i appreciate you having me on the show so what's the bottom line all i can think about during this conversation with dr felt cheap is how the national conversation on the coronavirus is finally going to shift the folks that still believe it's a hoax and shout about their liberty to not wear a mask and demand that schools and everything reopen as if nothing's going on and

one of the fire scientists and experts like dr velshi well they're still going to be out there but they can't do the same damage they did before as dr fouchier said things are still going to get worse before getting better in the united states and americans are going to have to hunker down for a lot longer than they thought science itself has been on trial this last year but again as has happened over and over in world history science is delivering and that's one thing to be thankful for as we go into a new year and by the way the new year and that's the bottom line. in the conclusion of the 2 part series people in power in vesta gates' allegations that irish catholic nuns facilitated the traffic of babies the cart realized the babies that are that could be sold to america as a coward and why they use and reveals shocking new evidence of how and when religious orders disposed of those who died for a good foreign in

a system like this one church and state are committed to keep the truth from coming else islands mother and baby scandal on al-jazeera. 'd held for over 3 years in an egyptian prison cell denied the right to a fair trial no charges have been brought against al jazeera correspondent mahmud hussein his crime journalism. to demand more neutral thinks and boy solidarity with all detained journalists sign the petition. 3 common hussein. for many young adults a coming of age brings greater responsibility. for this young man the responsibility of 800 years of family tradition weighs heavy on his shoulders. the choice. but the decision must be made soon.

monk by blood part of the viewfinder asia series on al-jazeera. this is al-jazeera. hello i'm sat me down this is the news hour live from doha coming off the next 60 minutes india the country with the 2nd highest number of covert cases in the world is finally approved a vaccine. and a new variant of code it was discovered last month in the u.k. now mutations are found in more than 30 countries. fishel result saw in that and there's no way the presidential election now be a raw mouth plus.