we understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the world. so no matter what you see al-jazeera will bring you the news and current affairs that matter to you. al-jazeera. u.s. president joe biden signs 10 executive orders to boost the country's covert 1000 response but warns of a difficult road ahead. of them or a trial this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up eisel claims responsibility for twin suicide bomb attacks in iraq's capital at least 32 people were killed in a crowded market. japan denies reports the lympics are going to be canceled saying

it's making every effort to make the games safe and secure join the pandemic. and the u.n. envoy to the central african republic asked for more peacekeepers as rebels try to surround the capital angry about the president's reelection. presenter biden has announced what he's calling a full scale war time strategy to be covert 19 years signed a string of executive orders aimed at speeding up the response of the pandemic which has claimed the lives of more than 400000 americans mike hanna reports from washington d.c. . if you're unsure only day 2 of the biden presidency and another flurry of executive orders 24 hours after the u.s. recorded the worst single day coronavirus death toll. focused on combating the

pandemic the measures ranging from getting more vaccines to more people to improving safety in schools and workspaces we'll give you dismissal really it's good to turn things around but let me be equally. we are we will get through this we will defeat is pandemic into a nation waiting for action let me be clear stand this point help is on the way one of the new things in this administration's if you know of the answer don't guess just say you don't know the answer yet familiar face returning to the white house briefing podium sidelined for many months stuck to antony found she is a central figure in the new pandemic task group and he made clear reference to the difficulties he experienced as a scientist and the president there were things that were said. regarding things like a drug cyclone rick when another things like that that really was uncomfortable because

they were not based on scientific fact i can tell you i take no pleasure at all in being in a situation of contradicting the president the idea that you can get up here and talk about what you know what the evidence what the sciences know that's it let the science speak it is somewhat of a liberating feeling there's been a shock at how little planning had been put to to combating the pandemic but there has been no centralized federal strategy it's been left to governors and their states to plan and sometimes fund and pandemic measures administration officials say that when they are sapient assesses for a pandemic plan there wasn't one. many members of congress are dismayed what did we learn this morning we learned this morning that the company ministration had no real plan for the production and distribution of the vaccine just another in a series. of their. terrible in affective

approach to it from the start and americans are reeling from a startling statistic the country has 4 percent of the world's population but 25 percent of recorded coronavirus cases. before assuming office joe biden stood at the reflecting pool in memory of the 400000 americans who have died his message now that sadly will be many more before the pandemic is brought under control. my camera out to sea or washington. in another break with the trump administration the country's top infectious disease expert has announced the u.s. will reengage with the world health organization last year donald trump informed the agency he planned to pull the u.s. out but dr anthony fauci that will not happen the u.s. will continue funding the agency and join the global effort to make vaccines

available to everyone lawrence gostin is the o'neill professor of global health law at georgetown university he says a national and unified plan is what's needed to combat a pandemic. it's so heartened to hear that we're rejoining the community of nations by rejoining the world health organization that we're going to lead in science and that there's actually going to be and it is a federal plan is not going to just be a free for all. at the state and local government without any funding any planning or any coordination so i feel like we have our are in a position now where the roll ups event in the room. and we've got a strategy and we're going to follow it and it will be a long time but i do believe we'll get to the end and i think we can do a lot better just to give you an example we already in the united states on some

days i think yesterday for example we vaccinated a 1000000 people we can do better with the new administration and i think we can double even triple that amount so this is not a goal that audacious it's very much doable he saw over and over and over again with donald trump that he would over promise in early july i think it's really refreshing that we have a new president and president biden who will under promise and over deliver and i certainly hope that he does over deliver on the vaccine front. they are opinion is planning to put in place tighter travel restrictions in the blocks kovac hot spots areas will be labeled dark red saying some travelers from that will have to get tested underground quarantine paying commission president 7 dilana says non-essential travel must be strongly discouraged. the start behind it is that we understand once again that we are one epidemy

a logical zone and not divided in different member states where we have different situations and we will only contain the virus if we have targeted measures and not unnecessary measures like blankets closure of borders which would severely hurt our economy but not very much restrict the virus or the netherlands is imposing its 1st curfew since world war 2 parliament approved a measure to try to stop the spread of the more contagious variant of the current a virus on wednesday a banned flights from britain south africa and south america where mutations are believed to be widespread. and france could be heading to another lockdown of cases there continue to rise health officials are also worried about the potential spread of more contagious strains they are recommending people west surgical masks in search of fabric face coverings japan's government has denied reports it's considering canceling the tokyo lympics the games have already been delayed by

a year and now a state of emergency is in place in the capital because of a record number of cova cases the times newspaper had said the japanese government has privately concluded the games would need to be scrapped. as the latest from take here. the government has been very very sharp been very fast in denying this latest report about the possibility of concealing took your index crimes the suit mentioned in the parliament where he's attending the plenary session. he mentioned they're still very committed to osce thing that really makes his the top spokesperson a spokesperson so that's not a cut of the government's spokesperson he went on to say that everything came inside their report is that there is no truth in the report. that has been said collated about hinting that and high official in the liberal democratic party the

ruling party in japan say that they are. considering counseling counseling that really big games so this fast and reaction shows you like how sensitive issue is for japan because actually almost 80 percent of the people according to local surveys. are we considering or delaying the games the committee special committee inside the liberal democratic party is considering several procedures of several levels of procedures to be implemented during the olympics one of those is to hold some of the games without spectators the other one is to reduce the number to a certain degree on the other that they're liberal would be to. to allow certain numbers of spectators to attend the games but with the precondition of having the coronavirus vaccine i still has claimed responsibility for twin suicide bombings in

the iraqi capital 30000 people were killed and more than 100 and iraq's prime minister and we shuffle several top security officials following the attack the west and 3 he is not a fault and reports. grief and shock in baghdad market after the deadliest suicide attack in years some people pick through charred clothes in search of human remains others like sit in silence to guard the bloodstone urgent eyes of friends who lost their lives he wasn't around when the explosion went off but arrived minutes later to find the dead. before so why do they target these markets all of them are. people they sell this. dollar why did these people have to die it was a sunny cold winter day when 2 suicide bombers targeted the busy market on thursday morning killing more than 30 people and wounding more than 100 hasan has

a shop tucked away in a side street and escaped the carnage. it happened in the morning there was a young man he came here and pretended his if he fell down he wore a picture he asked for help. came to get him when they tried to carry him he detonated the bomb. as people ran to help the wounded a 2nd bomb exploded the blast comes just a week after the u.s. conference it had cut its troop levels in iraq to 2500 citing gains in the fight against eisel in recent years i saw sleeper cells have resulted mainly to get our style tactics targeting security forces and civilians in rural areas but have been unable to pull off major attacks in towns. yet officials admit iraqi security forces lack the expertise to fight the insurgency i believe after speaking with military and security officials are now no we are still lacking training and

experts weapons and also the need to share intelligence why am i saying this simply because i saw or certain i saw rings are still active and on the move in iraq namely an island on the outskirts of car kirk a mosul i saw on some terrorist groups still have a firm presence in iraq. suicide attacks were common before isis territorial even tried to 17 but there have been few since then many fear that this twin bombing could herald the return of instability to iraq's capital as the country heads towards elections in october this year. within hours of the attacks mourners were carrying the coffins of 2 of the victims through the square other their anger but the government's inability to prevent an attack it says it knew was coming the government has promised to investigate the bombings but few here expect

anyone will be brought to justice soon want to fulton al jazeera but that. it's on the u.s. national security council under presidents bush and obama and is now a senior fellow at the future of war project for the new america think tank he says it's too early to tell if i still is making a comeback. we don't know if this is the resurgence of vice all that's certainly possible or if this is all that i saw happened they burned all their resources in generating this want to attack you hate to say we need to wait and see but we really do need to wait and see if this is a trend or just a one off that they were able to make happen the prime minister is assigning blame and relieving officials but it think it's much more important to get the systemic causes of what's happening here or rather than just firing some commanders their real danger for the brand new bided ministration is in some ways this is in their

comfort zone remember the biden ministration left in late 2016 or early 2017 when these people left government eisel still held mosul so in some ways this is the news that they're used to hearing from 40 years ago so in some ways this may pull them back into their comfort zone and hide the fact that so many other things are real problems in iraq dysfunctional government you know i con a me that can't sustain endemic corruption it's very powerful substate actors all these months to my mind much more important problems in iraq could be overlooked if this causes the by the administration to go back to their comfort zone of fighting eisel. so there has had on on to sarah why the change of government in the u.s. could force brazil's president to change his tune on the environment. and powering ahead europe's big competitive and the electric car battery market.

for the perfect gentleman. sponsored point qatar airways we're seeing some rather nasty weather pushing across northern parts of the middle east recently with cloud rain sleet and snow easing across the event pushing across northern parts of syria well there is over iraq through iran heading over towards afghanistan just sliding out of 10 minutes than it is becky stan temperatures will struggle to get to 4 celsius then in teheran single figures for damascus and notice quite a keen blowing through the gulf on friday lifted dust and sad also visibility problems as a result whole thing that things will quieten down a little as we go on into saturday here at least 10 she's at around 21 sells it but it will feel on the cool side cold enough and coupled with temperatures struggling

to get above freezing but at least it should be dry stays largely dry to across the whole of africa a few showers just coming into somalia for a time but nothing too much to speak of which are see the showers well south of lake victoria very heavy rain now in the process of pulling away from madagascar as tropical sights and elouise gathers strength once again in the mozambique channel it will push its way into central parts of mozambique grassy field some very heavy rain it's a southern areas of zimbabwe where the risk of showers for the north south africa. qatar airways. calm and make sure you're not hyping the thank you ation be part of the debate my main carer. hers are women when no topic is off the table there was in the last allow child marriage to happen legally easter basically archaic walls

they are often legitimized and legal one is pedophile. online jumping to the comment section and. this stream on out is there. the. you are. there again you are watching al-jazeera has reminder of our top stories this hour here as president joe biden has announced sweeping measures to tackle the coronavirus pandemic including expansion of his mall squaring mandate to include airports and some public transport international travelers will also be required to quarantine when they arrive in the u.s. . japan has denied reports it's considering canceling the tokyo olympics times newspaper says the government has privately concluded the games would need to be

called off because of the pandemic. and i saw has claimed responsibility for twin suicide bombings in the iraqi capital on thursday that killed at least 32 people and injured more than a 100 others iraq's prime minister reshuffled several top security officials following the attack the worst in that 3. the top republican in the u.s. senate wants former president donald trump's impeachment to be delayed until mid february mitch mcconnells of this would give trump 2 weeks to get ready for the proceedings once the charges presented speaker nancy pelosi has rejected demands to drop the proceedings trump was impeached just days before the end of his term accused of inciting a riot said capitol hill that left 5 people dead. you don't say to a president do whatever you want in the last months of your administration you're going to get a just get out of jail card free because because people think we should

make nice nice and forget that people died here on january 6th that the attempt to undermine our elections to undermine our democracy to dishonor our constitution no i don't see that at all i think that would be harmful to unity and she had returned to have more from the capitol hill. well when nancy pelosi sends the article of impeachment to the senate the rules say that the trial should begin at 1 pm the following day unless it's a sunday and then the trial will continue monday to saturday every week until it until it ends. the sense that we got from from nancy pelosi and the reports we've had previously all that the that the wrangling over the format of the trial is still underway in the senate questions like who should. over the trial should it be the chief justice of the supreme court if it's

a former president for example at what how long the trial should take what sort of evidence should be presented should there be witnesses involved can the senate and the house conduct alleged of business in the mornings and the evenings and have the trial in the afternoon clearly joe biden has a big legislative agenda he also wants to get his cabinet nominees confirmed and so will that be done in around the impeachment these are some of the details in addition we're actually getting reports of some pretty serious roadblocks ahead for the senate because mitch mcconnell the that the outgoing senate majority leader and chuck schumer be the incoming majority leader i still tussling over the rules of the senate that may actually lead to delays as as well so there are a lot of problems right now in the senate according to according to reports we're getting between mcconnell and schumer the rules moving ahead but what was interesting about what he said was there's that sense of this could be done rather expeditiously once the trial begins because unlike the 1st trial which needed

witnesses and documentation those who up are citing of the trial those in congress were eyewitnesses to what happened on john ritter 6 there isn't the need for that ever dent tree evidently documentation of what happened on the day and we did actually hear there was some talk of maybe having a 3 day trial some agreement coalescing around that i was 11 possibility but there is that sense when it does happen there is a desire on both sides to get it over with as. it's possible. weekly jobless figures in the u.s. have improved slightly after reaching a 4 month high last week the labor department says state's recorded 900000 requests for assistance down from around 926000 in the previous week the u.s. job market has been under pressure after new measures to stop the resurgence of credit 1000 cases were put in place brazil's president has changed his tone towards newly inaugurated u.s. president joe biden biden was critical of brazil over his environmental policies

and analysts say if those don't change the country will pay a high price on a chaotic here has more from where to snare it took him $42.00 days to recognize joe biden's victory in november selection but on his inauguration brazil's right wing president jade bosso now too soon biden an olive branch a tweet and a 3 peach letter mentioning brazil's interest in working with united states on sustainable development and environment protection especially in the amazon the tone was conciliatory compared to both scenarios outburst during the campaign when biden threatened brazil with the economic sanctions if they did nothing to stop farmers in mind grabbers from destroying the rain forest you come across both of us are fragile how can we confront this diplomacy is not enough when we're done yelling we need gun powder we don't have to use it but they must know that we have it. matter had openly campaign for donald trump's reelection.

i can't hide my feelings they come from the heart until now brazil's president had followed trump's lead downplaying couvade 19 criticizing global organizations and attacking china there with trump gone a lot of you know the madness and the rather cold is something that has shaped the way the. acts on a daily basis. will become much more visible and i think you will have to p. a greater price particularly if the united states and europe will work together and pressure or both not only issues like human rights or the environment so it's a it's a it's very bad news i would say that it is probably the most negatively affected head of state from defeat and i think it will force them to adopt a much more moderate stance which for him is not easy. the subject was raised in

washington on inauguration day and white press secretary general 1st media briefing so her change to be one of the defray or it is how this president biden plans to work with brazil what i can convey on climate change of course and addressing the climate crisis that's one of the 4 crises that he's identified will impact his administration is impacting not just the american people but the global community is that rejoining the paris climate agreement is a vital step toward doing that but i'm sure we'll have more to discuss on brazil in the coming months also not is also having to adopt a conciliatory tone with china with beijing being brazil's sole provider of covert 19 backfield so far keeping the country's best interests in mind without hurting his support home made proved to be a challenge china is brazil's main trading partner but both are not of the right

wing voters want to hear him criticize the chinese communist party to people all content you'll have to walk a fine line monica you're not here for i'll just sarah rio de janeiro. a 15 day states for measures has begun in central african republic in an attempt to stop rebel attacks a new alliance of aam groups known as the coalition of patriots for change is trying to get rid of president focused and daraa. has the latest from the capsule bunky. a coalition of groups controls about 2 thirds of the central african republic territory and in its most of the country's gold and diamond mines they're also not far from where we are here in the capital borghi they've been threatening to attack it they did attack it last week they were 4th off by forces aligned with the government that includes the national army un peacekeepers but the most effective prices are russian mercenaries and rwandan troops now the forces along

with the government complain that it's not a fair fight because of the arms embargo they say they adhere to it but they say that their enemy the armed groups do not they say that means the armed groups much heavier higher caliber weapons and rockets they have to fight against the communications minister we spoke to him a couple of days ago even said he thinks those on groups are getting support and weaponry from other countries in the region and possibly even from some european countries as well the united nations envoy says central african republic has appealed to the security council to increase its peacekeeping operations to un peacekeepers were killed on monday during an attack struck to. really need a strategy to manage the mandate a substantial increase of uniformed troops in the missions of the police and the penal administration must be strengthened we must have greater mobility this is because of the increased ambushes by c.p.c. fighters which would lead to 7 deaths amongst the blue helmets. cooperation will

need to be prolonged for several months ago and as many people as possible could come from the integrated mission of south sudan rescue is in china drilling new shelf sent to a gold mine hoping to reach workers who've been trapped for almost 12 days they've been stuck deep below ground since an explosion in the major goal producing region of shandong have been in contact with 11 workers but the face of 10 others remains uncertain and these one miner died from his injuries. the mount for electric cars is booming worldwide with governments in europe making plans to phase out fuel burning vehicles for the continent risks behind asia and dominate the battery development sancta for restraint from government and sweet. further faster cheaper and greener demand for electric cars is rising and so are the demands placed on the the swedish chinese pollstar to is one of the latest

vehicles trying to tempt drivers away from petrol diesel why is this a cyclic time for the electric cars because it's finally happening because finally not nice anymore the other aspect whole can you still at all think that the combustion engine oriented car has a future proof business pole star is a joint european asian vehicle made by the chinese owners but the emerging electric industry is about intense intercontinental competition as well as collaboration. cars like this are developing extremely rapidly as engineers try to match the speed and range of petrol driven very coles and whoever makes the biggest leap forward now is likely to win the race to dominate the transport industry of the future. in europe that race is being run from here the laboratory in uppsala north of stockholm because when it comes to electric cars the advantage is all about the

battery but yes the lab is the standard bearer for the battery 2030 plus project the constant speed to take back some of asia's dominance in the development and sale of electric batteries the europe wide group is led by chemistry professor christina edstrom we need to see very defining a new materials and new battery calls to help europe in the hard competition with asia they're good in asia they're doing new rigs if we want to have industry in europe we need to catch up. there is a lot of catching up to do you factories for the current generation of lithium ion batteries are being built in sweden and germany but europe makes just 3 percent of car batteries globally while asia led by china japan and south korea produces 85 percent to change that europe needs to find a battery that provides great to mileage charges faster underlies less on the damaging effect of mining from mineral such as cobalt the problem with the fact is

today they don't hold enough energy in that container and we want to make it back to something and we need to understand what's going on really the fundamental level that could be the ace up europe sleeve the world's most powerful neutron source a kind of x. ray for atoms is also nearing completion in sweden in time to join the hunt for a new car battery a breakthrough will be needed to stop asia putting the rest of the world in its review bearer for good paul reese al-jazeera gothenburg sweden. 0 top stories as president joe biden has announced sweeping measures to tackle the coronavirus pandemic expansion of his watch squaring mandate to include airports and some public transport and also be required to quarantine when they arrive in the us we get into this mess overnight it's going to take more interest to turn

things around but let me be equally clear we will.