an independent panel appointed by the w.h.o. criticizes china's handling of the pandemic saying its response was not forceful enough. and the images from were found that china trying to censor al-jazeera investigation raises questions about beijing's early efforts to control the outbreak.

this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up a scared me the capital as washington d.c. comes on the never before seen security measures ahead of joe biden's the no gration. stopped in their tracks thousands of desperate migrants trying to enter the u.s. a pushback by guatemalan security forces. an independent panel set up by the world health organization has criticized china's response to the pandemic the interim report says officials could have applied measures more forcefully during the initial outbreak in wood home the panel also criticised the w h o's own response saying the global pandemic alert system is not fit for purpose a full investigation will be released in may the only way cho says it's too early

to comment on these interim findings well a senior u.s. health official has called on china to provide evidence linked to the outbreak in wood home including samples taken from the wet market team which finally arrived last week will be well may be successful the plate is provided with the following information conway in possession of chinese authorities 1st all studies produced in china on the presence of sars cruelty to related genetic sequence sequences in animals. and i'm obsessed in results in and around the bay province environmental samples from the markets you can live an hour since the genetic data circles. well al jazeera has obtained video recorded in the chinese city of wood in the 1st days of the corona virus outbreak the images have been smuggled out of china after police trying to prevent journalists reporting on

a local health crisis which of course became the global pandemic they raise questions about beijing's early efforts to control the virus the reese has this exclusive report. a year ago journalists from chinese state media arrived in hand to cover a story about a mysterious new virus is 3 days before the city goes into lockdown. the few confirmed cases of the disease i want to see food market she says and that is it on the net we have concealed the journalists identities for their own safety they soon realize the outbreak is much more serious than they thought you are all over a reporter who we've called yang continues to film secretly after being detained by the police. called a jury oh it was a model called out of the 20200 we showed you part of the hollow when one of their

own lives in the army who are. yang is forced to show images on his camera to public security officers while doing so he continues to film on his phone. or knew very well china's response to the virus was late to praise the lack of openness at the beginning of the outbreak has been blamed for contributing to a failure to contain the disease 10 out of 5 yang is blocked from entering hospitals was either very lonely i'm being told they didn't leave or even when it's really needed in order to enter yang pretends to have a fever. and. not have a heart. he finds packed wards with patients waiting to get tested. this was just one week after the disease had been given a name 19 and on here are a woman brought to simply 8 year old grandfather to the gates of the hospital he'd

already been turned away from one that had no more beds i think i think a family on the guards wouldn't let him in for a very good job you got. to go to the government. offices stop yang filming even at the hospital gates or anything as he would have been going on the lockdown is announced at 2 am on january 23rd yang is told to return to beijing before it comes into force the next morning the roads to the airport and railway station are packed with taxis yang joins 300000 people who left will hand that night the decision to provide an 8 hour window before the city is sealed off allows many infected patients to free rooms and for the outside world. still race al-jazeera. a 2nd quick look at the timeline of events in the 1st few weeks of the pandemic on december 31st 2019 china 1st alerted the world health organization of what it

called a viral pneumonia. the city's wet market where the virus is believed to have originated was shut down soon after on january 11th china reported its 1st death and confirmed a new type of corona virus it was 9 days later when the virus was spreading between humans just days before the country's busiest travel season during the chinese new year on january 22nd chinese officials said the virus has the potential to mutate the following day millions of people in will happen and who bay province were put under lockdown yet on the same day the head of the world health organization delayed declaring the new outbreak a public health emergency. the decision of whether remote to declare a public old emergency of international concern is one i took extremely

seriously and were only prepared to make appropriate consideration of all the. by january 30th infections were detected in several other countries and often emergency meeting the w.h.o. finally declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. micah baker is a professor of public health at the university of otago i am a member of the new zealand government covert response advisory board he says the w.h.o. should have urged countries to take action sooner. i think this report is very timely and very helpful and i think it confirms many of the views of public health workers around the world and the fact that our response globally was not fast enough we do know now almost a year on that actually a vigorous containment approach and aiming for elimination of this virus is by far

the most effective response countries like australia new zealand we followed the asian model of elimination and it's proven very effective but i think this report confirms that the world was far too slow in responding to this pandemic at a stage when it could have been contained and eliminated and we can say that the dick ration of a public health emergency international consumed was very delayed i mean only happens on the 30th of january and subsequently it took chill match before the world health organization even talked about a pandemic what was clearly a pandemic by late in january i don't think we should be blaming in the country at all i think this is been a global failure of managing this through it and it's still withstanding that in this modern age when we have such fantastic so balance data and amazing a laboratory scientists working to understand this virus that we did not act on

that knowledge very early on because we had clear evidence from early january that this was a transmissible virus that highly transmissible virus that also had a significant mortality associated with it and surely that was the time to act in the u.k. health secretary has announced a record number of covert 19 hospitalizations he's warned of the pressure on wards as infections continue to rise today 37535 positive cases of corona virus were recorded. the n.h.s. is under significant pressure in parts of the country there are $37475.00 people in the u.k. hospitals with corona virus that is the highest that it's been throughout the pandemic and someone is admitted to hospital every 30 seconds

and sadly today 599 more deaths were recorded that's 599 more people who have died from this terrible disease. a rehearsal for the inauguration of president elect joe biden in the capital was interrupted today by a fire nearby star for moved out of the capitol building up to smoke was seen it was temporarily shut down and start for advise to shelter while the blaze was investigated the washington fire department dealt with the incident at a nearby camp for the homeless is no indication of anything suspicious while of course the u.s. capitol is a security lockdown ahead of the presidential inauguration which takes place on wednesday the secret service has been carrying out one of his largest ever operations the national mall which is usually packed with tourists now resembles a heavily militarized zone just 2 weeks ago the steps of the capitol was overrun by

rises now it's completely closed to the public biden's integration the will be held on wednesday right outside the capitol building officials are urging the public not to go over security concerns and of course covert 19 the capitol building and nearby areas a part of a red zone that will be completely shot to almost all vehicles most of this area has been fenced off. just beyond that is a green zone which is still open to residents and cars used by local businesses but closed to anyone else this is where vehicle checkpoints have been set up to screen entry into the red zone john hendren has more from the streets of washington d.c. this is where washington d.c. is green zone ends and the red zone begins these are some of the 21000 national guard troops who've been called in to protect the capital by wednesday when joe

biden is inaugurated there will be 25000 of them and there was a bit of a scare because of the fire near the capitol there was some concern that that was an xterm all threat the capitol was shut down people were asked to stay away from doors and windows and people who were outside rehearsing the inauguration were asked to clear the area to evacuate and now the 25000 national guard troops who are here are being vetted because there was a report that there was possibly someone inside this in curity area that was helping someone outside with a potential threat that's why each of these national guard members are now being vetted to make sure they don't have any ties to these outside groups as you can see there's new razor wire that has been added on top of the heavy fortifications already here so you curity is tight now but only likely to get tighter the outgoing 1st lady has posted a farewell message on social media malani

a trump warned against foreign and uncalled for unity in the meats of her cheap we have seen the best of america sign to. students have made cards and delivered groceries to our senior citizens teachers have worked twice as hard to keep children learning. families have come together to provide meals supplies comfort and friendship to those in need. be passionate in everything you do but always remember that violence is never to answer and will never be justified. security forces in guatemala have broken up a group of central american migrants set up camp at a road block the migrant caravan had been held up in the town of a honda near the border with honduras and saturday it happened is the feeling to let them continue on their journey to the u.s. thousands of hondurans aflame poverty and violence and they hope to travel on to

mexico and the u.s. is down home and with more from mexico city. a lot of them have been bussed back to home douras the guatemalan thora teach 1st stopped the caravan after a bit of a confrontation as well on sunday and cleared them off the highway and then others of them still appear to be in the town above the wandle where they're sort of searching presumably for other routes to continue but they're not going to be able to go as this big group of more than 6000 people that were on the highway to central highway going through the town so it's been broken up even though a lot of people perhaps will try and continue their journey to try to get to the united states they're trying to do this a lot of them because they're desperate not only is honduras one of the most violent and the poorest one of the poorest countries in latin america it's also been hit not just by the pandemic but by 2 massive storms in november so in parts

of the country really people have been left with not very much a toll and that's one of the reasons why we saw this mass exodus then tried to get all the way out to the united states perhaps one of the other reasons why this is happening right now they might be encouraged by incoming president joe biden's slightly more sympathetic stance especially towards asylum seekers than his predecessor the current president president donald trump supplement might be one of the other reasons but the acting head of customs and border protection has actually said don't waste your time and money just because there's a new administration doesn't mean that our commitment to the rural rule of law and public health is change. still ahead on al-jazeera from this day forward it's going to be only america 1st. foreign policy legacy president behind. on the growing thirst for scottish

independence in the wake of the crisis and then. it's time for the perfect gentlemen. sponsored point qatar airways however we got a little bit of snow in the forecast once again for japan but it will improve i promise she was we go on through the remainder of the week there we go with more snow coming into that western side of honshu for choose day they sort of the fun is rochelle to by the mountains take what about 8 degrees celsius bright sky started to show their hand behind so around minus 2 celsius on shoes day off new warming up to around plus 5 by wednesday notice by one state should be lousy dry across a good part of japan central and eastern positronic could still see one or 2 light showers but nothing too much to speak of the west the weather is further south because some heavy burst of rain heavy showers making the way back in across

central and northern parts of the philippines usual scattering a showers through malaysia and down across a good part of in the nice meanwhile across india china it's generally settled and sunny generally settled soon across much of south asia mists and fog problems remain across northern parts of india we have got warnings in force here a little more cloud down towards the southeast of india and you might just catch a shower or 2 here as we go through the next couple of days but the majority of the showers will continue through sri lanka will be a few showers too for bangladesh and even into new poll by wednesday. sponsored by qatar airways. underside of a stall. they once prosperous fishing village sinks beliefs from our. parliamentary election night fierce winds that will determine the future of this depleted and

politically divided community. because of the selecting the plight of a nation witness venezuela a sinking ship on a just you know. they're watching out as they're a mind of our top stories this hour an independent panel set up by the world health organization has criticized china's response to the pandemic interim report also criticizing w h o's initial actions w.h.o. says it's too early to respond to these interim findings. the u.s. capitol is on the security lockdown ahead of the presidential inauguration on

wednesday rasul was briefly disrupted by a fine nearby the secret service is carrying out one of its largest ever operations . and security forces in guatemala broken up a group of central american migrants who set up camp at a road block the government is refusing to let them continue on their journey towards the u.s. . after 4 years of america 1st through washington's closest partners eager to see the u.s. pivot but international engagement on the joe biden much of the world will be watching to see how quickly his administration will unwind donald trump's foreign policy agenda diplomatic get a said james bays reports from washington. from the moment he took office it was clear view administration of donald trump would be very different from this day forward a new vision will govern our land from this day forward it's

going to be only america 3rd choice it didn't take long for the united states as our allies to realize that meant they were now dealing with the most disruptive president since world war 2 straining the system of international order built over 75 years trump moved quickly to dismantle the achievements of the obama administration at odds with all his closest allies he pulled out of the paris climate deal believe me this is not what we need and then the iran nuclear agreement this was a horrible one sided deal later in the midst of the pandemic he withdrew the us from the world health organization today terminating our relationship with the world health organization and not only did he pull us out of the un human rights council the hypocritical and self-serving organization rarely ever stood up for human rights and at times he seemed more comfortable with the us is traditional

adversaries than its closest allies we now know from some of his advisors he came close to pulling out of the us is most important military alliance nato summit meetings like this one in brussels what all could events with everyone else treading on eggshells to avoid the ire of the impulsive often ill informed u.s. leader. most u.s. allies around the world are now breathing a sigh of relief despite the drama after november's election president elect joe biden's foreign policy is easy to summarize reverse direction resign international agreements and work collaboratively with allies america is back ready to lead the world not retreat from it once again sit at the head of the table ready to confront our adversaries and not reject our allies ready to stand up for our values the

relationship the presidents before trump built with their allies was based on trust it's a commodity that takes a long time to grow but is easy to lose and that's the problem for the biden administration the u.s. is closed as da lies will be looking over their shoulder wondering whether in 4 years time trump will be back and if it's not him it could be another president with trump like america 1st policy. james byrd's al-jazeera washington central african republic president fast into a day or has celebrated his reelection with supporters cast constitutional court confirmed his win on monday the opposition wanted a rerun of the december election which saw to a dire win 53 percent of the votes they say pre-election violence scared away voters resulting in a turnout of just 35 percent rebels opposed to 2 or dares appointment have tried to invade the capital bangui but failed so far.

together with the international community but also the central african people who are showing the capacity resilience a willingness to say no to violence to the seizure of power by force of arms and challenge to all those who through intimidation and violence prevented them from carrying out the g.t.s. . at least 20 people have been killed in sudan's south darfur region after more fighting between rival tribes dozens of people were also injured in the town of tal wheeler around a $130.00 were killed in violence in neighboring west darfur on sunday the unrest comes 2 weeks after a un peace peacekeepers began withdrawing from the region. 25 people have been arrested in same place back after protesters rallied in support of the kremlin critic alexina volley of or. former. protesters was taken one by one to nearby police forces have always been jailed for

30 days for breaching parole conditions the russian opposition politician was arrested at a moscow airport on sunday he was returning from germany where he was treated for a nerve agent poisoning charlie enter the house the latest. outside of moscow police station protesters demand alexina values release inside the kremlin's chief critic found himself in front of the judge in a hastily convened caught an urge to supporters to take to the streets against vladimir putin the. opposition what is this toad sitting on a pipeline most afraid of what are these thieves from the bunker most afraid of you know the answer people protesting on the streets because that is the thing the political factor that cannot be ignored it's the most important thing but essence of politics so don't be afraid go out on the streets not for me but for yourselves

and your future. novelli was detained on arrival from berlin on sunday arrested for breaking parole on a suspended sentence the reason he missed his parole hearing is because he was in a coma after being poisoned with the nova chalk nerve agent doctors say he should still be resting and recovering from the attack which many countries believe was sanctioned by the kremlin outside the police station his lawyers and journalists were denied entry into the impromptu court city but started back about those who actually i didn't understand why the hearing is taking place at a police station why was no one informed or notified i have seen a lot of times the mockery of justice but it looks like the old man in his bunker was so scared of everything that the criminal procedures codes have been blatantly torn up and thrown out what's happening here is just impossible this is the highest degree of lawlessness. germany the u.k. and the u.s. have all demanded his immediate release story. through its own

constitution and its international obligations is tied to the principles of rule of law and the protection of civic rights which obviously also got was from mr valma these principles must be applied which means nothing else but to immediately release mr not only. the russia's foreign minister has scoffed at the reaction from the west and says a values detention is legal no one on the case of an avanti has gained foreign political resonance artificially and baselessly everything is happening to me in connection with his returning detention falls within the competence of the law enforcement forces. novelli will now be held for 30 days he says he's not afraid because truth is on his side in this important election year for putin truth might not be enough to set him free charlie al-jazeera.

italian prime minister just said become to a house one the 1st of 2 votes of confidence as he tries to prevent the collapse of the ruling coalition conti's fighting for political survival after former prime minister material renzi pulled his party's support from the government last week he's won a vote in the lower house and now needs support from the senate on tuesday if that fails his administration could be replaced with a technical government now brigs it was always unpopular in scotland 62 percent voted to stay in the e.u. even as the rest of the u.k. tipped the balance to leave now the realities of bragg's that coupled with london's handling of the pandemic have led to renewed support for scottish independence joined a whole report from the capital edinburgh. edinburgh's royal mile deserted under lockdown but with just a faint echo of events that have taken place here over the past decade marching for

scottish independence before a referendum in which scots voted to remain part of the united kingdom and later voting for continued membership of the european union but breaks it has changed everything and independence is once more in the air what we were told at that was that if we stayed in the united kingdom it would be staying in the unit you know rights as e.u. citizens would be respected and that's been completely ignore the opportunity now is an. announcement of an end to the unit to realise that that is our destiny prime minister boris johnson treats calls for another referendum on independence with disdain he had a referendum on the issue in 2014 which senior members of your party perhaps what you said was a once in a generation event it was on that basis the people voted in the way that they did very substantially to keep our wonderful union together boris johnson is loathed by

scottish nationalists who see him as the embodiment of for exit and intitled englishman who pays only lip service to the importance of the union so his pitch to build back better together after the pandemic rings hollow here among those who voted heavily to remain in the european union and who now would vote to leave the united kingdom. but there's a catch scottish seafood exporters here protesting outside parliament in london have discovered the e.u. u.k. trade deal means border checks long delays and customers cancelling orders independence could make things worse so one on one hand brags that acts as and is as an accelerator on independence preferences. because people are not happy not being in the european union but at the same time an independent scotland outside of the e.u. but also finding that has difficulty trading with with its former trade partners in

the terms and in the form of the rest of the u.k. what that also is it is a problem so it makes people want independence more but it makes in some ways the economic consequences of independence far more severe than they were in 24 team but those arguments haven't dented voting intentions yet 18 opinion polls in a row show a firm lead for independence and an expected learned slide win for the scottish nationalists in may's parliamentary election could yet create an unstoppable democratic force joe to hold al jazeera. says al jazeera these are your top stories an independent panel set up by the world health organization has criticized china's early response to the pandemic it also criticized the w h o's initial actions a full report to be released.