al jazeera wild fun is 5 palestinians making a difference. the new women of gaza on al-jazeera. saudi arabia reopens its borders and airspace to cut a significant step towards ending a blockade of who's by the kingdom and 3 other countries. the breakthrough was announced on the eve of a gulf cooperation council summit which cutter's amir will attend for the 1st time 3 years. elena clock this is al jazeera life and also coming up we're going to fight like hell i'll tell you. donald trump rallying supporters ahead of a crucial senate election a day after recordings revealed he pressured officials to overturn his defeats in

the presidential face. was. a victory for wiki leaks founder julian assange is a british court block says extradition to the united states. to saudi arabia is opening its airspace and borders to culture and what is seen as big steps towards resolving a 3 and a half year diplomatic crisis in the us but it was made ahead of a summit of gulf neighbors in the south the city of ramallah shell reports now from . the more than 3 years after saudi arabia the u.a.e. button and egypt imposed a blockade on qatar finally a breakthrough but that the military fuck up agreement was reached to open the land and maritime borders between the kingdom of saudi arabia and the state of qatar starting tonight this statement from the kuwaitis on the eve of a g.c.c.

summit in saudi arabia was not a surprise since the crisis began they've been mediating between the deeply divided members of the gulf cooperation council the united states has also been urging gulf countries to resolve the dispute in order to maintain the stability and security of the region. for decades rivalry and differences in foreign policy have divided gulf states but when that worsened in 2017 few expected the region would be thrown into crisis and the land air and sea blockade imposed on qatar saudi arabia had shut but that's only land border cutting imports and its food and medicine supply chain the train the u.a.e. saudi arabia and egypt to close their airspace to qatari aircrafts grounding hundreds of qatar airways planes the blockading countries also shut their embassies in and expelled qatari diplomats they issued a list of 13 demands they said oh how must meet including shutting down the al-jazeera news channel the positive aspect of it this as far as cutter is

concerned has been a great a degree of resilience over the last few years the thais have managed to learn to live with the blockade and that has helped really help them discover better ways of living and more efficient ways of sustaining their economy their expenditure managing their affairs and resulted in an extremely resilient country that has now demonstrated this so in the lifting of the blockade without them having to address the totally irrational 13 conditions the impact the crisis has had on the gulf cooperation council is unquestionable and whilst differences remain the hope is that moving forward they will be resolved through dialogue show ya'll al-jazeera. let's hear now from gabriel ellis on the has more from washington d.c. . we heard from a senior white house official that told al jazeera that jared kirschner the senior

advisor to president trump and his son in law is in route to saudi arabia and will be there for this signing ceremony the official told us that questioner played a pivotal role in orchestrating this deal and that it went back to a trip that some advisers made to the region several weeks ago where this deal was finally reached cording this advisor they said that. it was the deal was in doubt up until about the last 24 hours or so and that cushion or worked through the evening and into the early hours of monday morning to codify the deal then once it was. that's when he gave word to kuwait and that's when question got on the plane to head to the region we are hearing from the state department a senior official told out to 0 in all this read you the statement so you get a sense of how they're playing this they're say in a statement out 0 state department official says we welcome the news of the decision to reopen airspace and borders between saudi arabia and qatar

a resolution of the wider 3 year dispute between the quartet and qatar is in the interest of all g.c.c. members as well as the interest of the united states so clearly in these final weeks of the trump presidency you're probably going to see the trumpet ministration spinning this as a clear diplomatic win and in some cases it is because it is widely seen as clearly a big advancement. every man leverett's is strategy or political risk consultancy she's also as does the u.s. state department official and explains the motes is behind saudi arabia's efforts in trying to resolve the gulf crisis. it is just the beginning but it is important and i think 1st and foremost it's important for the saudis to have put something concrete on the table to show to the biden administration even though this was negotiated largely by chaired questionnaire in the trumpet ministration i think for

the saudis it was critically important to put something concrete on the table to show that the saudis could make concessions with the incoming biden ministration the incoming biden ministration is in my from my understanding is really looking to pressure saudi arabia to come down relatively hard on saudi arabia in terms of human rights treatment of journalists treatment of saudi saudis who are living abroad who are embattled with the government in saudi arabia so for the body to ministration this will be an important signal that the saudis can move forward they can do something constructive i think for the for the remainder of the trumpet ministration especially for jared questionnaire he has focused like a laser beam on both iran and israel and for him to have the saudis have take these even minimal steps to normalize with qatar shows that he can maybe

push them even further to get even harder on iran and to make steps more to take more steps towards normalizing with israel so i think those are the motives involved. because president donald trump has been campaigning in the southern state of georgia head of crucial senate runoff votes georgia's 2 senate seats are up for grabs and special election to choose the republicans need to win at least one of those 2 seats and in order to keep that majority in the chain trump says he will do anything to keep the senate in the hands of. the vote tomorrow will decide which party controls the united states senate the radical democrats are trying to capture georgia's senate seat so they could wield unchecked unrestrained. absolute power over every aspect of your lives. the if the liberal democrats take the senate and the white house and then i take in this white house we're going to fight like hell alan fischer is indulge in georgia where

president trump spoke thousands and thousands turned out on what is a chilly night in dalton to hear the president speaking there were there for several hours before he actually arrived the whole idea is to get the vote out ahead of the senate runoff elections on choose day we've gone through that part of the rally with no moved on for the last 10 minutes or so or about his complaints about the 2020 presidential election he's again running through a number of claims and allegations which have either not been taken to court because there was nothing to support them or been tested in court and through you know many of them by judges appointed by donald trump himself he says that he hopes mike pence will do his duty when it comes to affirming the results by congress on wednesday and says that if he doesn't do what he expects that he would like i'm quite so much that is clearly seeing to my parents that he wants him not to certify the results even though the constitution says that surely what he's got to do and

mike pence himself has said he will follow the law he essentially wants mike pence to throughout the election that has been verified by every single state and declared donald trump the president that's simply not going to happen but he is undoubtedly the part of the rally where he is going through his list of grievances as i say he's making many claims and allegations that have already been tested and disproved he says he won the election in fact he started off the rally by saying he's run in 2 elections he's won them both his daughter ivanka described him as the people's president just to point hope he lost the popular vote across the united states by more than 7000000 votes. well earlier president elect joe biden addressed supporters at a rally in georgia thanking them for helping him win the presidency he also for more support to push control of the senate into into the democrats' hands and also made reference to trump's ill founded efforts to stay in office. in america

as their opposition fragile are finding now all power flows from the people from the people. that's our history that's our law that's our tradition that's our constitution that's our democracy politicians cannot assert take or see these power powers given granted by the american people alone the central african republic is electoral commission has declared president. to a dead where that of last week's poll is support a celebrated author results showed him winning more than 53 percent of the vote that means he won't need to face a runoff election was marred by violence from rebel groups aligned with political rivals who dare says he will unite the country as it continues to recover from civil war england has joined other parts of the u.k. by imposing a covert 19 law the prime minister boris johnson says restrictions will last at

least 7 weeks under simmons reports now from london. boris johnson it started monday at the rollout of the oxford university astra zeneca vaccine will 1st easy to store and distribute but any fanfare was last replaced by a realized sation that the spread of covert in the u.k. is out of control by the end of the day came this announcement the government is once again instructing you to stay at home. you may only leave home for limited reasons permitted in law such as to shop for essentials to work if you absolutely cannot work from home to exercise to seek medical assistance johnson had said he hoped the rollout of vaccines could protect the most vulnerable people care homes carers medical staff and people over 70 by mid february he said all schools and colleges would have to close the weeks ahead will be the hardest yet but i really

do believe that we're entering the last phase of the struggle because with every job the goes into our arms we are tilting the odds against coded and in favor of the british people and thanks to the miracle of science not only is the end in sight. but we knew exactly how we will get there earlier scotland's 1st minister was on her feet at a record session of her devolved parliament with a similar announcement we have to say to introduce from midnight tonight for the generation of the january a legal requirement to stay at home except for essential purposes this is similar to the lockdown of march last year and there's another worrying development a u.k. government scientific advisor is reported as saying that he's concerned the vaccines won't be as effective against

a south african variant of covert furthermore might hang the u.k. health secretary says he is concerned because the south african variance seems to be more infectious than the u.k. strain the u.k.'s plan straight into this lockdown with no delay on the country's coded alert level has switched to 5 meaning hospitals are now in material risk of being overwhelmed the u.k. finds itself at its most critical state since the 1st wave in the spring andrew simmons al-jazeera london. still ahead here on al-jazeera they run breaches the nuclear deal again into another affront to world powers also. rabbani a pillar of the lebanese music scene dies at 83 you look back at his life. it's

time for the perfect gentleman. sponsored point qatar airways how it was save some rather nasty weather moving across northern parts of india recently and even to the south has seen some very heavy showers around for lanka and southern areas of india but up to the north where we've seen some big downpours some thundery showers but a bit of snow just around in kashmir but it's the heavy rain which is cause recent problems one consolation as it has been clearing the poor air quality that we have seen in recent days and weeks across the north of the country but warnings still remain in force just across jamul kashmir pushing up into northern parts of pakistan some heavy downpours likely to turn wintry as we go through the next few days further south it quietens down somewhat but we will see heavy showers around the time will not do kerala and also into sri lanka no sort of say many showers across the arabian peninsula meanwhile we got a little bit of cloud in the northern parts of saudi arabia over that general drive

5 plenty of hazy sunshine quiet weather just around the gulf we could see a little bit of early morning mist in folk haircutter over the next couple of days further south lots of hazy sunshine in that stretches down across the whole of africa we have got showers just around tanzania wet weather all the way over towards namibia and we'll see some very heavy showers this week the south africa. sponsored qatar airways. they join one of their wells most notorious sound groups. but found a way out rebuild their lives and now help i bet it's. a tale of course because many child soldiers and they have refit exploitation of women door to is a palace a bad part of the radicalize nude scene and it's tunnel design or. form

. or you know what yards are remind of our top stories in saudi arabia is a princess base and borders to culture and what is seen as big steps towards resolving a 3 and a half year diplomatic crisis kuwait has been mediating between cars and for arab states. it out it was made on the eve of the gulf cooperation council summit in el alert in saudi arabia but as a mere shake timing with the medal tally will attend to choose days some of. us president elect joe biden and president donald trump of rallied in the state of georgia ahead of 2 crucial senate runoff elections republicans need to win just one of those scenes to retain control of. south korea has demanded the release of one

of its oil tankers seized by iran iran says the $100.00 kooker kemi was a breaking environmental laws the seizure comes ahead of a planned visit by the south korean fice foreign minister to discuss to rein in funds frozen in banks due to u.s. sanctions pride has more now from seoul. south korea does have a naval vessel in that area as part of the international anti piracy effort that vessel has now been deployed or redeployed to the waters where this tanker was seized but is not likely or expected to be doing much but monitoring the situation and seeing how this develops the iranians have accused me of environmental pollution the operators of the vessel here in south korea deny that and say that this vessel was in international waters it is thought that this is part of an ongoing much wider dispute between iran and south korea over seas to funds here in

south korea this is $7000000000.00 worth of funds which are owed for oil products imported from iran into south korea which since the imposition of much tighter sanctions by the united states south korea has frozen has not given access to iran to these funds if it did do so then it would risk being sanctioned itself by the united states so these monies are the on the subject of ongoing negotiations and a dispute between tehran and seoul and there is a meeting coming up an anticipated meeting a visit by a vice foreign minister from south korea to tehran where obviously this will appear on the agenda a run is desperate for any funds it can get at the moment given its economic circumstances so it is an expected and it is thought the this happening right now the seizure of this vessel ahead of this anticipated meeting is more than mere

coincidence well iran has been showing off its drone technology is tension similar with the united states state media has shown hundreds of drones ready to launch from the country's central assim one province will reportedly take part in today's drills from choose day. after iran confirmed its resumed enriching uranium at 20 percent the move was denied. this is nuclear extortion by the drug administration when it came reports from berlin. this is what the world's great powers have been trying for years to prevent or to minimize the enrichment of uranium in iranian centrifuges to tehran this is a peaceful civilian enterprise but some around the world fear it may lead to the development of a nuclear weapon under the existing vienna accord of 2015 known as the j c p a iran should be enriching uranium only to 3.67 percent but now it says it aims to enrich to almost 6 times that number and has notified the international atomic

energy agency the i.a.e.a. a day in a tweet iran's foreign ministers said we regimes 20 percent enrichment as a legislated by our parliament the i.a.e.a. has been julie notified our remedial action conforms fully with paragraph 36 of the j c p a after years of noncompliance by several other participants are measures are fully reversible upon full compliance by all to european eyes this act is beyond the terms of the vienna accord which when it was signed brought together britain france germany china russia and the us under then president obama's administration his successor president trump abandoned the deal in 2018 citing iranian noncompliance since then the europeans have been at the forefront of trying to ensure to abide by the terms of the deal helping to by trying to reduce the impact of u.s. sanctions its reaction to monday's announcement in brussels was clear if this

announcement is going to be implemented and also meant by the iranian authorities it would constitute a course if there will be partner from iran's nuclear commitments under the j c p o a serious nuclear nonproliferation implications now let me recall also the importance of any steps that could under. and the preservation of the nuclear deal and here i would like to recall all the previous statements by all the participants of the j c p a way that they are interested in keeping it is still alive and that the ill will be kept alive as long as all the participants deliver on their obligations the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu has condemned iran's move you have abuses. iran has announced that it will increase the level of uranium enrichment and will develop industrial capabilities to refute rhenium underground. this is a blatant and absolute violation of its obligations there is no other explanation

other than continuing iran's international to produce nuclear weapons. the iranian government believes by announcing enhanced enrichment it might be able to compel the other signatories to the vienna court to comply think there is a chance because iran has clearly said that if the other parties to the nuclear deal including the europeans and in case if the united states returns to the if they are written into full compliance iran will do the same in a very short time the question remains as to what response the u.s. government will give both now under president trump and in just over 2 weeks time under joe biden he helped broker the original deal in 2015 as vice president soon he will have to react as president in his own right dominic kane al-jazeera. says it's ready to offer asylum to julian a solid decision by a u.k. court not to extradite the wiki leaks founder to the united states.

to support a celebrated the ruling outside the court society is wanted by the u.s. on espionage charges for publishing thousands of secret american military documents the judge denied the request citing concerns over songes mental health the u.s. is expected to appeal against the decision if barker reports from outside the court . it is for now at least a result chillier songes supporters had wanted. to see the wiki leaks founder will not be extradited to the u.s. to face espionage charges for the publishing of classified military and diplomatic documents and 201011 the u.s. claims the leaks broke the law and endangered lives and will appeal the ruling. outside the court just fiance joined by the new editor in chief of wiki leaks welcome the news that said the fight isn't over. let's not forget indictment in the

u.s. has not been dropped. very extremely concerned that the u.s. government has decided to appeal this decision and. it continues to want to punish julian. and make him disappear into the deepest darkest hole of the u.s. prison system there should be a call out and pressure on the u.s. sides to drop the appeal to say enough is enough we've heard enough of this we have plenty to deal with in this new year. but not this sounds arrived at court from london's belmarsh prison where he's been held since april 29th teen his defense team has always insisted the case was politically motivated powered by u.s. president donald trump's administration but one by one the judge rejected the defense's claims including concerns a son wouldn't get a fair trial in the u.s.

refusing extradition soli over fears he could take his own life if he ended up in a u.s. maximum security jail the judge said he suffered from severe depression and had been diagnosed with autism after a razor had been found in his cell and he told medical staff about suicidal thoughts. it was footage like this if u.s. forces killing civilians and journalists in iraq in 2007 the true intenser still a t from the us government and after swedish prosecutors opened a rape and sexual assault investigation against him he was arrested in london facing imminent extradition 2012 he took refuge in london's ecuadorian embassy and didn't leave it for 7 years. when i could or finally let british police in to haul a sound out the us allegations were finally revealed for publishing hundreds of thousands of classified documents a maximum 175 year sentence under the espionage act the prosecution has cost wiki

leaks is a criminal enterprise responsible for encouraging its supporters to hack into government computers and steal sensitive information but julian assange his supporters say that he is a defender of freedom of speech and the right for journalists to hold the powerful to account a someone just lawyers will now ask for his release on bail at a hearing on wednesday if granted he could be given a taste of freedom within days barkha al-jazeera london. more than $200.00 employees of google and its parent company alphabet to form a union as a ref foothold for the labor movement in the tech industry even if membership represents a fraction of the company's work force those who have signed up say they want more voice on wages benefits and protections against discrimination google says it won't negotiate directly with the new union the world's most popular digital currency

has slumped in value after reaching a record high of the weekend still doing pretty well in one bitcoin was worth a little under $28000.00 on monday down from $34000.00 investors seem convinced that the cryptocurrency is on its way to becoming a mainstream asset there are more than 18 and a half 1000000 bitcoins in circulation. russia has eased restrictions that banned women from working in hundreds of professions the so-called new women the jobs list that been in place since 1970 s. and included professions considered dangerous and threatening to women's fertility among them was a metro train driver but that's all changed now 12 female drivers have just signed up to work in most cases underground rail system. lebanon is mourning the loss of the legendary composer and cultural icon lives for a body it was known for unique as genre of music blending styles from different parts of the world and just chappelle looks back on his life.

when a song 1st lays eyes on the hood in the 1973 film my blood tears and smile the audience is introduced to a melody that manages to capture true love and utter heartbreak at the same time. decades later this and other songs composed by in the us right bonnie are timeless classics the soundtrack for so many other moments. born in 1938 he was the youngest boy in a family full of talent with older brothers months or an aussie who married singer famous in the 1950 s. . she and the ronnie brothers shaped an entire genre of music born in lebanon distinctly different from anything else blending western and middle eastern styles with lebanese folklore politics and audiences loved it. during lebanon's civil war

and the us wrote songs for her that helped to cross the factional divides and became a source of pride for all lebanese. songs that you just wrote for his children during the war continue to help others today. the un's children's agency unicef uses them and psychosocial support programs for syrian children using music to teach them about social harmony and reconstruction for him an immense source of pride. for mossad you just. how you hope to follow up on the good lord. has a few years. he composed hundreds of songs and the soundtrack split dozens of films over his long career songs that continue to be played by people across generations lebanese music

as we know it and viewed with the rematch a system of the golden age would not exist without. a tutor's. for the headlines here on al-jazeera and saudi arabia is a ping its airspace and borders to cut through in what is seen as big steps towards resolving a 3 and a half year diplomatic crisis kuwait has been mediating between council and 4 arab states the announcement was made on the eve of a gulf cooperation council summit in alert in saudi arabia qatar shaped i mean been home at all tony will attend choose day summit that is on that has more now from washington d.c. we can expect that we will be hearing from the white house and they will be spinning this ad.