the government provides free testing and medical treatment for those who need it it's campaigns to raise awareness continue. into the senate to work for. the u.s. state of georgia elects its 1st black senator moving democrats a step closer to securing a majority in the senate. in the u.s. members of congress prepared to turn a ceremonial occasion to certify the presidential results into a partisan fight. come about this and this is all just 0 a live from doha also coming up a 2nd covert 1000 vaccine could soon be rolled out across the e.u.

after health regulators given what down at the green light. we're getting so founder julian assange is denied bail a judge rules who remain in a british prison as the u.s. pursues his extradition. it's a day of political drama in the united states in just a few hours a joint session of congress is going to count the electoral votes which will formally elect the president and vice president that it's usually a short ceremonial affair but dozens of republicans a vote to make it a partisan battle this year the session comes only hours after one republican senator lost a runoff election in georgia and as the state's other republican senator trails in his own runoff that challenger john also claimed victory a short time ago. georgia and thank you so much for the confidence that you've

placed in me i am honored honored by your support by your confidence by your trust and i will look forward 'd to serving you in the united states senate with integrity with humility with honor and getting things done for the people of georgia thank you so much when the tension going to joining us live from atlanta georgia known as you point out of course the all self result is not yet formally completed but the democrats do seem to be in a very good position with also claiming victory and was raphael warnock winning and overturning decades of republican control in georgia. well this is a historic day when we talk about the when of reverend raphael warnock he becomes the state's 1st democratic senator in 20 years the state's 1st black senator and only the 11th black senator in u.s. history i'm standing in front of the ebenezer baptist church it's the spiritual home of dr martin luther king a civil rights icon here in the u.s.

and it is a place where reverend warnock and senator elect warnock is a senior pastor he says he will continue to preach here even though he's been elected senator with regard to democratic senate candidate john i guess he has claimed victory it is not official at last count he was leading the incumbent david perdue by about $16000.00 votes it appears that there are thousands of votes left to be counted in dekalb county that's part of the atlanta metro area and it is a democratic heavy area a standard or former senator produce his term ended released a statement earlier this morning saying that he believed he would be victorious and that his campaign would exhaust every resource and legal measure necessary to ensure all votes have been counted but it's looking in from the democrat supreme spec to as though years of intense voter mobilization efforts targeting

african-americans have paid off with the democratic showing in these a senate runoff following biden carrying the state as a democratic presidential candidate for the 1st time in 20 years they were really keen to show that the biden win was not a one off and really this victory is also about what i would call the c.c. abrams a fact and a victory for the army of grassroots organizing organizers who worked for as i said years targeting african-americans it was estimated there were about 200000 african-americans years ago who were not participating in elections and c.c. abrams a former legist. and democratic gubernatorial candidate launched 2 organizations that spent years getting out the vote fighting voter suppression as a testament to her prowess in georgia politics on that leaked call between president trapped in the georgia secretary of state the last thing president trump said was what c.c.

abrams has done to this party is and believe a ball raphael warnock one against the republican incumbent kelly loeffler now if kelli law for is to go and if john ellis of wins against david purdue to any idea if kerry lost david purdue i'm just going to go quietly all or are they going to potentially drag out this result. kelly lefler has said that there is still a path to victory it is unclear exactly what she means by that and what path she's talking about but as i mentioned it's clear that the perdue campaign is going to be looking at as i said any resource they can get to ensure that this vote count is accurate right now with the margin between asaf and purdue we are getting into recount territory the margin between them is 16000 votes it's less than half a percentage point and that means in the state of georgia that the candidate does

have the right to request a recount it's worth noting though that already john has done better than biden did in the state in november biden won georgia by less than 12000 votes and as i said awesome his leading by about 16000 votes that's actually thanks very much indeed natascha going to him talking to us from the lines in georgia. a lot as natasha just said the u.s. congress is essential to meet shortly to certify the electoral votes that is the final stage in this lengthy american election process and it will fall allies joe biden selection as the $46.00 president of the united states bucks as particle han explains and this era of donald trump is expected to be controversial and unprecedented. this announcement of the state of the vote it's supposed to be a formality. the u.s. vice president along with members of congress receiving the certified votes from the states donald trump of new york has received for president of the united states

304 votes and declaring the election over by president al gore did it george w. bush of the state of texas has received for president of the united states 271 votes and he just lost the election to george bush by just over 500 votes the vice president votes but his vice president my pence prepares to take the gavel he is under pressure to throw out joe biden's win and i hope mike hex comes through for us i have was was crazy was a great vice president comes through for us he's a great guy. for us if he doesn't come through a lot like a quite as much according to the constitution the vice president doesn't have the power to do what the president wants but more than 100 house republicans and at least 13 senators have promised to try and i was majority. on january 2nd i will it just to feel like toro it

was i think it was any they're calling for an emergency audit of the vote and are threatening to challenge the results for key states if they don't get it we've got tens of millions of americans now think this election was stolen we need to go. to the bottom of it again what's what she explained we need to explain it get that off table to be clear there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud even though the trump campaign has filed almost 60 lawsuits claiming that there is all of which have been thrown out by the courts but if these republicans do object to certify the results from certain states then each chamber will debate each challenge for up to 2 hours before voting on whether to certify the results it's unlikely they have the votes to actually change the outcome challenges have been made in the past but never with these kinds of numbers i would like to see it named for what it is which

is the republicans are making a plea to get rid of democracy and and and offer something else which looks like entrenched politicians get to decide who the next leader is and it's absolutely rest as a matter of constitutional basics never before has the loser of a presidential election refused to concede or call the election stolen but for president trump this is one more precedent breaking move on his way out a last ditch and likely futile attempt to stay in power patty going out to hear. all supporters of donald trump have started gathering in washington d.c. as congress moves to certify joe biden's election victory they back the president's unproven claims the november poll was fraudulent trunks praise the protests and promise to appear later on the so-called march to save america is a live pictures from outside the white house in washington d.c.

national guard troops have been deployed in the city at the mayor's request we understand that the national guard troops have not been on under these circumstances but several people have been arrested in washington d.c. on tuesday ahead of those protests and ahead of the congress certification of the electoral college votes 6 arrests of the maid including some involving multiple charges. the e.u. medicines regulators recommended the madonna covert 19 vaccine be approved for people aged 18 and over and still needs to be given the green light by the european commission the region seeing high rates of infections as new highly contagious variant spreads there's been strong criticism of the slow pace of vaccinations across europe a step vasant explains from amsterdam. well all these important decisions if in fact seen as safe enough to be used to buy europeans are taken here in amsterdam at

the headquarters of the european medicine agency and they have been taking their time if you look at the united states for example or the u.k. the modernity fact scene has been administered there for weeks already on monday this week a had delayed a decision that they were taking on this vaccine because i needed more information but now they have finally given this so-called conditional marketing authorization for europeans to be using this vaccine we have to wait for the european commission approval also that will be expected within the next 2 days and then this vaccine can travel to all the tried to soften member states within the european union and everyone was really waiting for the has been pressure coming from germany because they have been using only this one vaccine price so buy intact for the last 2 weeks that they have been vaccinated very quickly so they were running out of whack scene and they were waiting for this new vaccine to come to the market as soon as

possible quite a lot of experts were complaining that they said it's frustrating that are very well organized country supposed to be the nat'l and is going so slow and making so many mistakes in this vaccination program the government has come under huge criticism they had to defend themselves and parliament on tuesday they barely escaped resignation the main issue here was mismanaged basically and miscalculation on the where this vaccine should be distributed to. in the united states california has confirmed 4 new cases of the more contagious strain of covert 19 instead recorded a single day high of 74000 of all corona virus infections on monday number of patients in i.c.u. wards is now quadrupled since november they have the health services in los angeles says hospitals are so overcrowded patients are being left in the hallways and i'm

going and says. and you have judges denied bail for wiki leaks founder julian assange he's accused of endangering lives by publishing hundreds of thousands of confidential documents on monday a judge rejected a request by u.s. prosecutors to extradite a song on account of his mental health we're getting senator kristinn hrafnsson says he's disappointed by the decision you think it's unjust and unfair and illogical the search. when you consider the ruling 2 days ago about julian's health we saw force is caused in large part because he is being held in belmarsh prison. to send him back there doesn't make any sense fall back on him has more from the courthouse in london. this bail hearing had been expected to last anything up to 3 hours but in fact it took less than half that time for the judge

to come to her decision 1st though she heard from both sides and initially it was the u.s. prosecution or the u.s. lawyer clare dobbins who gave her reasons why she felt just julian assange should not be granted bail she said that julian assange was in the past a churning self willing to go to extreme lengths to avoid justice saying this truly extraordinary background of mr ass always his attempts to resist extradition and the offer by mexico of asylum increased the risk of standing in reply to that it was fitzgerald to see who is julian ass i was just lawyer said there was no significant incentive for mr summers to respond so our songs wishes to live a sheltered life with his family and any residual concerns of the course will be met with stringent bail conditions well there was a 10 minute recess before final arguments and then the judge came back with her reasoning and essentially denying bail and keeping judge judy and i saw i was in

custody the reasons given as follows with julian as such a flood before despite stringent bail conditions and the judge said i am satisfied that he would fail to surrender he is willing to flout the order of this court stringent conditions did nothing to stop him last time so julian as sanjay will remain in belmarsh prison that high security prison in the south east of london while we await the appeal hearing against monday's decision not to extradite him to the us the us appealing that decision not to extradite him. still ahead analogous here on hong kong police arrest more than 50 pro-democracy activists and former politicians accusing them of trying to overthrow the city's government. yeah. venezuela swears in its new call on them to put seize control of the national assembly return to the ruling party and use the opposition out in the cold war.

he's turning into a particularly harsh winter in east asia particularly noles in china and if you want to count snow japan this time we got wind to add to surfer honshu it's wind and snow i think blizzard certainly up in the high aground to support roe persistence they're not necessarily as windy but look at the temperature regime we are running night time temperatures by day and going well below the average overnight and it's been a consistent story for the last couple of weeks it carries on into friday some of that snow still be caught on the edges of the islands in south korea even parts of northeastern china but more obviously it's the temperature by day the highs ministry in beijing is about 0 in shanghai and it's 13 in hong kong's everywhere is suppressed temperature wise and some of that cold has picked up boosted the big

showers that run through in this northeast monsoon season so we've had flooding as you probably know in the malaysian peninsula the interior lazy that's going to continue the showers are still big for the next couple of days and some usually wet running out through go towards mumbai in the next day or so rain so therefore for southern india in the north that there has been more rain around but it hasn't disturbed the fog which is still in the forecast. ok calm and make sure you're not hyping the situation be part of the debate my main characters are women when no topic is off the table there was in the last allowed child. marriage to happen legally these are basically archaic walls that often the jet mines and legalized pedophile on air online jumping to the comic section and meeting to be part of the discussion this stream on out is there.

a. form. watch out is it a reminder of our top stories this hour democratic challenger raphael warnock has won a hotly contested u.s. senate runoff in georgia republican incumbent. in the other race democrat john also off is claiming victory over david pardew that race is still too close to call the outcome's going to decide the balance of power in congress. the new medicines regulators recommended the medina covered 19 vaccine should be approved for people aged 18 and over it still needs to be given the green light by the european

commission. and u.k. judge has denied bail for weaker leagues founder julian assange is accused of a danger in lives by publishing hundreds of thousands of confidential documents on monday a judge rejected a request by u.s. prosecutors to extradite a songs on account of his mental health. but he said hong kong have arrested more than 50 pro-democracy politicians and activists an early morning raids it's the biggest crackdown so far under the controversial national security law which china imposed last year those detained accused of subversion for taking part in an unofficial election primaries in july it in brown reports from hong kong. former legislator lam chuckling didn't seem surprised when police came knocking at his front door early on wednesday morning. they tell him he suspected irvine elating the new national security law a scene played out of more than 50 other addresses in hong kong the drama was

recorded by an unidentified person inside lamb's home and later posted on his facebook page before he was taken away. al-jazeera had interviewed him several weeks ago just after he resigned as a pro-democracy politician along with almost the entire opposition camp i will killfile. thing for the most call me their version of enda and the guy that was in response to the disqualification of full fellow legislators following a ruling by china's highest political body police say wednesday's operation involve more than a 1000 officers and involve raids on 3 media outlets as well as honor office where a solicitor who is also a us citizen was arrested we have a rest of the free press is for the all francis office of person under the. p.d.p. the national security law the detentions were linked to an unofficial primary vote

held last july to select candidates for the legislative elections jus 2 months later a poll that was eventually canceled with the hong kong government citing co that 19 now all those involved in organizing a primary are suspected of subversion which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment a further sign of a tightening authoritarian grip here says one analyst it seems to me this is the chinese communist party trying to change the political culture of hong kong it's imposing leninism why did they arrest these people because they demonstrated capacity to organize the us president elect joe biden has said that china will be at the center of his foreign policy so it's possible hong kong will be an early point of friction with china's president xi jinping who has said the campaign against ascent here is justified in the name of safeguarding

national security adrian brown al jazeera hong kong. north korea's leaders made a rare admission of failure speaking during the country's largest political event kim jong un said its economic plan had failed significantly and acknowledged painful lessons have been learned but macbride reports from seoul in south korea. a rarely held event it is normally the propaganda set piece for the ruling workers' party of korea to trumpet its achievements but in his opening address north korea's leader kim jong un admitted his country has failed economically going through what he called the worst of the worst organ injury entry in the country's 5 year economic development plan finished last year and we fell short of our goal significantly in almost every sector already facing international sanctions the country has virtually sealed itself off from the outside world during the global

pandemic it suffered further during typhoons and flooding over the summer that damaged infrastructure and crops. and the end of the trumpet ministration means the end of the road for the unprecedented period of summit diplomacy with the united states in october north korea put on an impressive show of strength at the 75th anniversary of the ruling party's founding but kim seem to be suffering the strains of recent setbacks kim jong un must be really really frustrated even saw disappointed are barred lack of any progress you specially on the front of economic development since the breakdown of the summit meeting with the u.s. president on trial in a noisy so north korean leadership has been basically flailing trying this and that without any well coordinated strategy north korea watchers will be looking in the

coming days of this congress for any clues about kim's likely approach to the new administration of u.s. president elect joe biden and whether there will be a return to more traditional arm's length diplomacy. the 1st test could come soon with a possible announcement of resumed military exercises between u.s. and south korean forces in the spring which had been largely suspended during trump's term you have a very narrow window of opportunity very limited amount of time for biden or the musicians to. strike a conversation and dialogue with north korean regime so close to the inauguration north korea's position for now seems to be a cautious wait and see. robert bright al-jazeera so. saudi arabia the u.a.e. bahrain and egypt have agreed to restore full diplomatic relations with the qatar

announcement followed tuesday's gulf summit in saudi sitting alone in march the qatari amir's 1st visit to saudi arabia since the illegal blockade began 3 years ago delegates from the gulf countries signed a declaration calling for solidarity and stability al-jazeera. has more from doha. what happened yesterday was the announcement of fishel announcement that the chapter that of the crisis is over and this was reiterated by the. by the sa the minister of foreign affairs when he was asked repeatedly about the particular issue and he said the crisis is over life is back to normal embassies will be resettled back and it will be back to normal and i think this is a process which is going to take some time because we are talking about logistics which is going to be taken into place different departments in different countries trying to work out new agreements new formalities for projects to start

trickling in from saudi arabia into qatar and vice versa and for people to start traveling from doha to different distillations because throughout the last the years and half qatar has worked out a new model has been looking for alternative routes it has been striking deals with different new economic financial partners to get products coming into qatar and this time with the crisis over to expect life to come to normal as soon as possible i think is definitely going to take some time plus the restrictions that were imposed by covert 19 which are definitely going to further delay any swift resumption or a. life coming back to normal in this part of the world opposition figures in central african republic was last month's election and meld because of what they're calling numerous irregularities president fast in our homes told that it was ill reelected with more than 53 percent of the vote but the opposition says half the

population are unable to cast ballots because of violence from rebel groups. venezuela's president nicolas maduro has tightened his grip on power with the swearing in of the national assembly controlled by his socialist party iraq's the end of control but the opposition who boycotted last month's election because they said it wasn't free or fair there is a bo has bought. the pictures of latin america's independence hero. and laid precedent to go chavis our return to venezuela's national assembly a symbolic act by the ruling socialist party to let the world know my little is now in control of the legislative body. i tell you this without any rhetoric that we cannot fail we cannot but succeed this time we have to repair what has been damaged we have to rebuild what has been destroyed to rebuild what has been damaged by

hatred betrayal and violence but he took what critics say was a fraudulent election last month for my little to take power in the assembly venezuela's opposition has been in control since 2016 and since then has been in constant confrontation with a government denouncing what it called dictatorial ways 2 years ago the president of the body why though proclaimed himself president claiming model was elected the country's leader in a fragile involved why the last mandate in the assembly expired on tuesday but members of the opposition have extended for another year not as leader of the assembly but of a parallel body to challenge my daughter's legitimacy. this effort and this sacrifice it's worth it this need for change and this scream for freedom it's worth it the parliament is worth it this resistance by each venezuelan it's worth it this country is worth it yes it's worth it the sacrifice the determination respecting

our constitution it's worth it to fight for men and women who are giving everything for venezuela but with the assembly now in my daughter's hands analysts wonder what will happen to. why though on the opposition now that model has taken control of what many see as venezuela's last democratic institution. his capacity to mobilize people has deteriorated the opposition is divided the confidence that they can remove madeira from office is small but he still has a stock for a political fight the united states will continue to recognize and more continue to support them even with biden and power canada japan and other countries recognize them to controlling the national assembly gives my lula the legal tools he lacked in the past and the appearance of legitimacy in front of international law. with the sma duro from a legal point of view he can validate the national assembly in front of his allies like russia china and turkey to sign agreements or oil concessions that legally

need to be done by the assembly aside from their madeira from a real point of view already controlled every institution. grip on power remains strong despite why those efforts as he has failed to turn the bolivarian armed forces against him. but disenchantment with the economic and political situation in the country is significant and growing and that's why the confrontation with the opposition is unlikely to end anytime soon and. that is how will and. this is observing things at the top stories democratic challenger raphael warnock has won a hotly contested u.s. senate runoff in.