music makers and talk about the stories that matter on the soldiers era understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the world to send a matter when you call. the news and current affairs that matter to you. are an ai. u.s. president joe biden says quote a virus strategy to speed up the pandemic response which he says has so far been a dismal failure. the whole roman you're watching out of there alive my headquarters here in doha coming up in the next 30 minutes virus infections spike across europe with the number of covert 1000 deaths in germany crossing 50000 also a state of emergency is imposed in the central african republic as

a coalition of armed groups threatens to overthrow the newly elected president and . keeping the faith how a russian religious minority has carved out a place for itself in mainly muslim could. walk into the program u.s. president joe biden has launched what he calls a full scale war time strategy to beat covert 19 on his 1st full day in office he signed a string of executive orders aimed at speeding up the response to the pandemic which has claimed the lives of more than 400000 americans biden's team of experts is working on a centralized inoculation strategy revealing that the trumpet ministration had no federally coordinated vaccination plan in place mike hanna reports now from washington d.c. . the subject of. 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 these are focused on combating the pandemic the measures ranging from getting more vaccines to more people to improving safety in schools and work spaces we engage in dismissal relate. to turn things around. let me be equally clear we will get through this we will defeat this 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 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 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 and other 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 but the idea that you can get up here and talk about what you know what the evidence what the sciences and know that sit let the science speak it is somewhat of a liberating feeling there's been shocked 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 safe 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 there sadly will be many more before the pandemic is brought under control. mike hanna washington. the top republican in the u.s. senate says he wants forward president donald trump's impeachment to be delayed until mid february mitch mcconnell said it would give trying to weeks to get ready

for the proceedings once the charges presented house speaker nancy pelosi has rejected demands to drop the trial trump was impeached just days before the end of his term accused of inciting a riot at capitol hill that left 5 people dead you don't say to our president do whatever you want in the last months of your lowest ration you're going to get a just get out of jail card free because because people think we should make nice life and forget the people die here on. that the attempt to undermine our election to undermine our democracy to dishonor our constitution no i don't see that i think that would be harmful to unity. the european union is considering putting in place time to travel restrictions in the blocks coronavirus hotspots areas will be labeled dark red zones and travelers

from there will have to be tested undergo quarantine european commission president delay and says non-essential travel must be strongly discouraged the start behind it is that we understand once again that we are one epidemic 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 now the netherlands or to impose its 1st curfew since the 2nd world war parliament approved a measure to try to stop the spread of a war contagious variant of the krona virus on wednesday and banned flies from the united kingdom south africa and south america where mutations are believed to be widespread french president manuel mccall says coded $900.00 tests will become compulsory for all travelers trying to enter france as of sunday land transport

haitian and cross border workers will be exempt france is now also requiring people to wear higher quality masks instead of fabric face coverings meanwhile in neighboring germany the number of people who died from the virus has topped 50000 chancellor angela merkel is defending the decision to extend the lockdown until mid february she thinks it would be unwise to ease restrictions given mutations of the virus have been detected in germany the country's been in lockdown since november well let's get more this dominick in our correspondent in berlin while many may be dominant look at the recent sort of u.k. figures with horror germany's chancellor really is sounding the warning bells because they're covert 19 death toll is increasing. the points about the milestone as it were in terms of deaths from the coronavirus

here in germany yes 50000 a grim milestone for some says many a grim milestone for some but the point to make is that overall not just in berlin but across the entire country the trend certainly in the course of the last week or so perhaps 10 days has been slowly downward so that. 859 deaths announced today but there were fewer and fewer today than the previous day the day before that and so forth and so there is a feeling of among some analysts some scientists that perhaps the rate of new infections the rates of new deaths is starting to stabilize generally the point behind what angle america and coalition partners and to ministerial partners have been saying is that their view is that what is really concerning them is the potential for the new variant 1st and identified in the u.k. to get to really take hold in germany that explains why they have been insisting

upon the wearing of masks that are stronger than just fabric masks or they refer to the f f p 2 mask requirement which will come into force in here in berlin on sunday so that it that informs the perspective that's why she has been saying that people need to be staying home working from home wherever possible wearing masks whenever possible reducing their movement outside and observing social distance all of it needs to be seen from that perspective and even call sort of europe why the itself really is trying to find ways of curbing the increase of transmission of the infections while still trying to roll out the vaccine in whatever form of volume it can in these red zones now that are being mutated to same potentially to be a way forward. yeah the interesting thing there also is idea of the dark red zones which world approximates to places that are particular hotspots we in germany have that already in one sense just in the one

sense if you look at the the graphics the institute put out that's the agency that tabulates all the information regarding new infections deaths and that sort of thing and also advise his ministers as to what they consider their best course of action would be regarding new measures with the coronavirus and that sort of thing and if you look at the map of germany you see that the dark and the areas with the highest instances are now dark red so people in germany looking at that will blow understand quite what that means but in terms of the wider aspects in so far as the e.u. is concerned well it does show a change in their in their perspective we heard in the introduction that what many in that call the president of france has gotten in training and it all points towards this this this move by the european union remember vaccinate on the one hand and shut down where possible on the other hand but remember also that they are conscious of the effect the coronavirus is having on the economy of the e.u. and so they want to try to reduce the damage the coronavirus wreaks on the economy as much as possible which explains why yes it may sound as if draconian measures

being brought in with the still allowing movement to go ahead because they know they have to try to protect the workforce but also protect the economy those are the 2 factors going on at the same time as it were and that's we need to see it through that prism when we analyze what's been said by a sort of underline and buying it a miracle one of the thing we'll be hearing from the health minister here in germany in the next hour or so talking about the new measures the government has brought in and remember he's someone who's been at the forefront from an e.u. perspective in terms of the negotiation of the vaccines and that sort of thing so if things are moving today and we'll hear from him in the next hour or so and to talk about for an update i'm shocked donna came there for some balance thank you. japan's government has denied reports it's considering canceling the tokyo olympics the british newspaper the times says the japanese government has privately concluded the games will need to be called off because of the corona virus pandemic

which can be reports. the olympic games jewel to be held last year but were delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic now a rise in infections has forced the government to impose a state of emergency in tokyo and other parts of the country and that's raise questions about whether the summer games will be held in 6 months as planned newspaper reports that you pans government has privately concluded the games will have to be reshaped jeweled have been denied by the prime minister. regarding the tokyo games it will be a symbol of humanity overcoming the novel coronavirus and a chance to showcase japan's reconstruction from the devastating northeastern earthquake and tsunami to the world we will be well prepared on the measures for the infection japan has spent $25000000000.00 preparing for the taking of a lympics most of which is public money but a recent poll shows 80 percent of japanese people don't want the games to go ahead this summer. even if japan was able to curb the coronavirus i don't think we can

welcome athletes considering the current situation it should be canceled the money we spend on the game should be used for antivirus measures and stayed. 80 percent i want the olympics to go ahead but the other 20 percent i wonder what would happen to japan if it was canceled we're ready going through a lot. and lympics has been cancelled only 5 times before in war time a final decision on whether to hold the games this year or not is expected in early spring i think the day to watch is march 25th that's when the charge really begins for northern japan 4 months 10000 runners crossing the country arriving there will enjoy our 23rd in tokyo it would seem absurd to start the torch relay and then have to have no olympics the international olympic committee make 75 percent of its income from selling broadcast rights of the olympics if is cancelled it could lose

an estimated $2.00 to $3000000000.00 of revenue victoria gate and be al-jazeera. well still ahead here on al-jazeera and still claims responsibility for a suicide attack in baghdad that killed 32 people we'll find out what it means for the country's security under by vincent so new calls for america but where does that leave israel and its illegal settlements after years of fervent support by donald trump those stories after the break. it's time for the perfect gentleman the winter sponsored plan qatar airways the 1st named storm of the year for europe this is storm kristoff this one here went to trust in a wells producing floods is now producing severe gales in norway but that's almost a dying feature now funnily enough the next developments could be further south the

warm waters of the mediterranean and what's coming in from the atlantic combine to give very windy weather for portugal and spain then rain then snow then developing circulation just the west of italy which means rain for money and snow quite easily for the sudden now now all this time there will be snow falling thick and fast in norway northern sweden and finland now look at the temperature regime nowhere is subzero by days that's a huge warming trend over the last few days over birds to eastern europe and even moscow just up to about freezing so in progress presents what's coming up from the central mediterranean is 10 degrees and cloudy on friday when it snows on saturday may subzero on sunday now that he's considerably more like winter and this is that masses they're going out through western austria germany the czech republic and probably poland leave behind rather quieter weather but it's still going to be raining ferociously in this southwestern part of france and old in spain.

qatar airways ok calm and may show 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 allow child marriage to happen legally these are basically archaic walls that often legitimize them grega wise pedophile on arrow online jumping to the comments section and meeting to be part of the discussion the stream on out is there a. you're

watching al-jazeera of me still run a reminder of our top news stories u.s. president joe biden has launched what he calls a full scale war time strategy to be covert 19 his newly signed executive orders include emergency legislation to boost vaccine production and requiring international travelers to quarantine when they arrive in the united states the number of people who've died of corona virus in germany has exceeded 50000 chancellor angela merkel is defending the decision to extend the lockdown until mid february to stop the spread of a more inspections mutation of the virus and japan has denied reports it's considering canceling the tokyo olympics the british newspaper the times says the government has privately concluded the games would need to be called off because of the pandemic. a 15 day state of emergency has come into force in central african republic to deal with armed groups trying to blockade the capital bongi un peacekeepers have been helping to push back the rebel coalition pressurizing get

reelected a president today or to quit after disputed elections last december now the constitutional court confirmed today as victory with 35 percent of the vote this week despite a low voter turnout malcolm webb is our correspondent in the central african republic capital bungay joins me now let's begin with the state of emergency malcolm and how that situation is unfolding in the capital and beyond. well coalition of armed groups attacked the capital bangui where we are last week they were fought off by forces that the foreign forces support the government but they're still just outside the city from what we know about 9 kilometers to the about 12 kilometers to the north and we've also heard reports that their cells have infiltrated the city that they've been smuggling in weapons ahead of a possible potential attempt to take the city they've said that the government of

president fast entire data must go now the presidential spokesperson has said that the reason for the state of emergency or one of the reasons is that it will enable the security forces here to do searches from house to house to try and find these hidden weapons normally that would require a warrant from a cotton according to the constitution by suspending those constitutional rights it gives the security agencies powers to search for the weapons that they want to find to try and prevent that rebel attack and try and keep control. of their fragile grip on power in the country and of course real concern about security as we've been mentioning about voices getting louder certainly by the u.n. . yes their head of the peacekeeping force here no myers acronym minister was just on thursday are asking for more troops from the security council he said that they're desperately needed

to try and maintain security across the country just within the last few days or one then the burundian peacekeeper of being killed one of the limitations for the peacekeepers is that their mandate to protect civilians and support the government . is met by a more aggressive enemy the coalition of armed groups have been pushing and attacking the peacekeepers and it's the foreign forces in particular russian mercenaries and rwandan troops the only ones that really have the ability to be proactive in fighting against these armed groups is also an enormous territory with a few small towns dotted across it and massive expenses of bush and road in between it's very difficult for the forces on the government side to keep control of these towns also these transport routes and right now the main route from here to cameroon which is the main route that most imports come in here anything that's not produced here which is all kinds of food materials electronics fuel technology

everything is brought in on trucks along that road is no longer on the government control and so. that's why they're the head of the peacekeeping forces saying that they need a lot more troops to take control of the whole country for the update thank you mark webber for us in boggy. claimed responsibility for a double suicide bombing in the iraqi capital $32.00 people were killed and more than $100.00 injured on thursday the blast ripped through a busy market in baghdad's tyrian square iraq's prime minister reshuffle several top security officials following the attack it's the worst in years so. it's difficult to assess how active eisel is in the country. well i thought never really went away despite the government declaring its territorial defeat in iraq in 2017 the group had a relatively seamless transition to an insurgency and even though it was pushed out

from the urban areas and really pushed to deep into rule areas in the mountains it continued to operate it continued to stage attacks on security forces on checkpoints in remote areas it continued to terrorize the population in remote villages and iraqi officials have acknowledged as just yesterday in an exclusive interview with al jazeera iraq's foreign minister minister of what hussein acknowledged that is still a threat that the country needed support from the region and from international countries to really counter the threat but we also have to say that it is very difficult to quantify how strong the organization is and in my reporting on the matter it was always a challenge to gather accurate statistics in terms of how many attacks actually carries out we do know that for example the u.s. led coalition to fight i thought under reports cases of attacks by isis special

remote rural areas because they rely on the iraqi security forces to report these cases and a lot of times the information is just not captured so it's difficult to say how strong it is but it's still definitely is active. changing course after 4 years of donald trump now some are questioning shifts will play out for israel and palestine. have already said that they won't undo the recognition of jerusalem as israel's capital or the u.s. embassy but they are signaling a move from trying to complete support for israeli interests how many false reports of robin by injury do solemnly swear. of a new u.s. president is a moment of reappraisal for america's friends around the world. aps none more so than israel whose prime minister had aligned himself so closely with donald trump president biden you and i had a warm personal friendship going back many decades i look forward to working with

you to further strengthen the us israel alliance at the same time netanyahu is delivering a very different welcome message for a president he knows will oppose the expansion of illegal israeli settlements issuing approvals for nearly 800 new housing units tendering outbuilding work for 2 and a half 1000 more and with just 5 hours to go before the inauguration confirming building contracts for work to start here at given how much oss the long delayed settlement between jerusalem and bethlehem the palestinians say would be a major obstacle to their future state. it's reminiscent of another major settlement announcement made during a biden visit to jerusalem in 2010 meeting and then vice president furious it's basically netanyahu poking a finger in the president elect why he's doing that it baffles me he is going to need the cooperation of president biden an issue sectors iran the reality is biden's pick for secretary of state anthony blinken expressed support this week for

a 2 state solution to the israeli palestinian conflict along with doubts about making progress on that in the near term nonetheless palestinians have been making moves designed to find favor with biden such as president abbas is announcement this month of the 1st presidential and legislative elections for 15 years. we receive positive messages that we can build on to restore bilateral relations and restore a peace process that is built on the 2 state solution and international legitimacy biden supports the normalization deals between israel and arab states that the palestinians call a stab in the back deals that netanyahu happily emphasized had come without concessions but some see scope for biden to extract concessions from netanyahu in the future but he would like to have a. from president biden in securing additional normalization agreements he knows now that this will require further changes in israel's policy towards the palestinians into the extent that these are minor he seems to be ready to go down

that road the initial phase of the biden netanyahu relationship is likely to be defined by differences over iran the israel palestine conflict may well slip down the agenda the 1st time but bruised by 4 years of donald trump the palestinians at least have a more familiar style of u.s. leadership with which to engage our reforms that are just 0 in the occupied west bank google has threatened to make its search engine unavailable in australia over plans by the government to make tech giants pay for news content but prime minister scott morrison has replied we don't respond to threats the proposals would allow local news websites to be paid for content featured on google and facebook in its current form the code remains unworkable and if it became law would hurt not just google but small publishers small businesses and the millions of australians that is out services every day the principle of unrestricted linking between websites is

fundamental to search and coupled with the unmanageable financial and operational risk if this version of the card were to become law it would give us no real choice but to stop making a search available in australia strive you makes our rules for things you can do in a strike that's done in our parliament it's done by our government and that's how things work here in stride and people who want to work with that in australia you're very welcome but we don't respond to threats. a group of russian pilgrims have made a full 1000 kilometer journey to a remote area stand to reconnect with their roots now the northern community was settled by a russian cossacks in the 19th century in what was then the most eastern outpost of the russian empire that has been speaking to descendants of the settlers that a religious ceremony and.

russian priest vladimir stupidly cough into the new bells and he's all for the church in northern kyrgyzstan. they recently arrived from the town of bor in russia almost 4000 kilometers away. members of this small russian orthodox community have gathered to pray on the day of the orthodox epiphany many of the worshippers can trace their lineage back to cossacks who fought their way into and then settled in this remote region of central asia in the mid 19th century . before we get support from local cagas people and from russia it's important because our community is small it is sometimes difficult to find money for things like coal to keep the church woman winter but we feel accepted there are a much part of the gig as community the original church was built in $863.00 but was destroyed by fire it was once the center of

a small garrison on the most eastern edge of the czarist russian empire the current building was constructed in 1912 on the same spot as the original it was renovated last year this is one of 10 churches in the region serving an estimated 40000 ethnic russians many of them descendants of those settled here around 200 years ago vladimir and the constant leaders who lead the congregation chancing the russian orthodox liturgy down to the frozen river they gather on the bank and pray. the icy water is blessed before the priest splashes it over them they don't collect water to use in prayer and ceremonies at home. the most the biggest. was good everyone should be blessed by the holy water we pray for russia and all people may god bless them all igbo wears his medals with pride his cossack mother was born

here she met his father when he came from southern russia to live here after world war 2. this year for the russians in this region are deep rooted we have been here for generations so we feel like kurdistan is our motherland. their ancestors came from far away to expand an empire for these russians kyrgyzstan has always been holland charles stratford al-jazeera to northern kurdistan. as there are a reminder of our top stories u.s. president joe biden's laws what he calls a full scale war time strategy to beat covert 19 his newly signed executive orders include emergency legislation to boost vaccine production and requiring international travelers travelers to quarantine when they arrive in the united states we engage in dismissal.