months and a vaccine keeping you up to date with what's happening on the ground in the wounded and in the lab now more than ever the world needs w.h.o. making a healthier world for you. to everyone. pakistan's top court upholds the acquittal of a man convicted of killing wall st journal reporter daniel. write this is al jazeera life and also coming up. a team of scientists from the world health organization prepared to begin its long awaited investigation into how covert 19 began in china. last week.

thousands of women in poland push back against tough new restrictions on abortion. and love overcoming barriers how the elderly and its me are connecting with their family and friends during the pandemic. pakistan's supreme court has apel the acquittal of a man convicted of murdering wall street journal reporter daniel pearl back in 2002 judges dismissed the appeals against the of course all of british born omar saeed shaykh they have ordered his release site shaikh had received the death penalty but was acquitted of poles murder last year will have a net an update in a few minutes from pakistan.

in the chinese city of a team from the world health organization is getting to investigate the origins of the corona virus pandemic the scientists have left the hotel off a 2 week quarantine and will soon interview people from research institutes hospitals and the seafood market linked to the initial outbreak the long delayed inquiry comes off to months of negotiations between beijing and the w.h.o. . there is a question to you has the latest from will hand. well the debate has said that planned for the next few weeks is yet to be finalized but since they arrived in china 2 weeks ago they've already been in gauged in frank discussions with their chinese counterparts and others involved in the management of the outbreak here in han they've got a mammoth task ahead of them they're investigating a lot of theories and among them is one that covered 19 1st originated in a wild animal potentially

a that secondly they're also going to go into the 100 black market where the 1st cluster of the current virus was 1st identified and see how the virus might have spread from there and also they're going to check out the institute. which is the lab where former us u.s. president donald trump alleged covert 19 allegedly leaked from all those months ago or now of course the team is going to face a lot of challenges 1st of all it's been more than a year since this outbreak 1st started and many people believe that much of the key evidence may no longer exist and also we do know are that beijing has been tartly controlling any information any doctor around the outbreak and there is a lot of skepticism as to whether they will be able to fully cooperate with the world health organization but the team members that we have spoken to say that it's early days but they are quite positive about going forward but they do mention that the public should be warned that this is a long process it's going to take a while and they need to be patient for us to have any conclusive findings on the

current virus. let's return now to our top story the acquittal of a man convicted in the murder of the wall street journal reporter daniel pearl by pakistan's top courts let's go live to our correspondent in islamabad developments taking place this morning talk us through the details of what pakistan's supreme court has announced this morning. well 1st of all it's important to understand that the government where the case was being heard initially and where the supreme court of this province had 1st marché clark had filed that government had fired a petition and the supreme court along where daniel pearl's family against that they quit the supreme court decided to. of died but take

a look at the sendai court and of course as has sent shock waves their family lawyer has said that omar shaykh had indeed admitted and written or the idea had a minor role in the murder of the wall street journalist daniel pearl what that drove certain but the court of course are portraying the. announced by the same the high court. kemal this was a huge story at the time with global repercussions give us a bit more background on how we go on to this point. where this dates back to 2002 journalists for wall street journal the bureau chief daniel pearl was in the city of karachi where he made omar shake and of course. dad to say. at that time your day into our trap was done led to his beheading and

he was put in a shallow grave after dad. got word he was arrested for direct stayed and sentenced by a 9 kid character scored to dead of course altered that the case went on for several years he was on death row along with other accomplices however lost their through to send a high court decided to equate him and the other accomplices as well dad then was challenge pakistan's supreme court but it was a huge case it was a high profile journalist at central where around the journalistic worry that israel and to a degree also harmed relations with washington because the american administration the outgoing administration of trump had also dysplasia already a quick off key suspect. and he thanks that that for

us. one person has died and 200 others have been injured in a night of violence in the northern lebanese city of tripoli these pictures appeared to show security forces using live ammunition to disperse dozens of protesters and they say there were spawning to hand grenades thrown by demonstrators there is anger and a lockdown which many say has made lebanon's economic crisis even worse. evan protests in poland as tough new restrictions on abortions come into effect women's groups estimate hundreds of thousands of women all forced to go abroad to terminate pregnancies and now they fear that number will rise has more on the story. during a winter night in warsaw hundreds of protesters came out to the streets to tell the government that they think its stance on abortion is wrong is that she will go back

to the say nothing is enough we demand some the gerrity from you we demand solidarity. on wednesday night poland's new abortion law went into immediate effect banning terminations of pregnancies with fetal abnormalities abortions will now only be allowed in cases of rape and incest or if the mother's life is at risk doctors performing illegal abortions will face jail time. right now i want us to have our basic rights the right to decide to buy our bodies the right to decide what we want to do and if we want to bear children and in what circumstances to have children i do not want to get pregnant one day and see my child die off to this thought horrifies me. the ruling led to weeks of much larger nationwide protests in october because of this the conservative law and justice party delayed its implementation of the law the abortion law is in line with other policies from the right wing party since taking

office in 2015 it has also ended state funding for n.v. trophyless ation was this predominantly catholic country now has one of the most conservative laws on abortion in europe there are fewer than 2000 legal abortions every year but women's groups estimate that an additional $200000.00 women either abort illegally or abroad leah harding al-jazeera. the course in moscow is expected to hear russian opposition leader lexan of ami's appeal to be released from prison on wednesday police raided his offices on the homes of his relatives an associates vollies brother a leg was among those detained the opposition leader was arrested last week when he returned from germany where he was being treated for poisoning he's been accused of violating previous parole restrictions america's top diplomat says one of the top priorities of the new biden administration will be how to handle iran in his 1st

press briefings and taking office u.s. secretary of state and lincoln said washington wants to return to the 2050 nuclear deal which dumb trump of course pulled out of a blinking cold on iran to act 1st she habra tansey has more to the new u.s. secretary of state once again pledged to rejoin the g. c.p.o. iran's nuclear deal president biden has been break clear in saying that if iran comes back into full compliance with its obligations under the j.c. v.o.a. the united states would do the same thing. but there is still a great deal of ambiguity about the new administration's approach sometimes officials around biden appear to be saying the administration will rejoin the j.c. as it was with no change lifting the u.s. is crippling economic sanctions concurrently with iran's return to compliance while leaving open the option of follow on deals to address other issues of concern that

did seem to be what lincoln said on wednesday but at other times they suggest the u.s. will use its economic leverage to strike a tough a deal before it lift sanctions we are a long ways from that point iran is out of compliance on a number of fronts and it would take some time should it make the decision to do so for it to come back into compliance and time for us then to assess whether it was meeting its obligations both blinken and biden have repeatedly pledged unconditional military aid to israel and that the u.s. embassy will remain in jerusalem despite the occupation and it's clear that the israeli government understands biden will be a close ally and. we are in front of the era of a new american administration that is friendly to israel and we will know how to start to correct a strategic dialogue in the near future we will use all the tools available to us politically economically intelligence and security. but some wonder if the israeli government is concerned about exactly where the bike ministrations stands they have

the very real prospect the united states and iran you mean negotiations at a very high level these are things that the israelis are trying to grapple with and they're doing so by in my view really trumping up a threat from iran that has not changed in the past ever. iran meanwhile continues to reiterate that it will return to compliance with iran nuclear deal once the signatories decide they really are prepared to abide by the agreement if they rejoin the deal will do so as well and for an entire year we kept going forward this way but we've always said as soon as you return to the deal we'll return to full compliance the next hour. in the meantime the biden ministration are sending conflicting signals even on tuesday sending a b. $52.00 bomber on a round trip from the u.s. to the gulf in a show of force aimed at iran used by the trumpet administration several times in the dying days of its presidency she abrahams the al-jazeera of the state

department. still ahead on al-jazeera essential breakthrough and nonny to end the violence that has killed thousands. unfortunately it's a little like. why the sudden rise in the stocks for gaming company is worrying some investors. hello that weather doesn't say bad for indochina at the moment we have got plenty of showers across much of southeast asia the heaviest of which affecting in the nation are saying in excess of 100 millimeters of rain in many parts here and that's where the wettest weather will remain as we go through the next few days they'll be a few showers there through malaysia heat of the day showers also cropping up into parts of the philippines but shouldn't be too bad more in the west sunshine than

showers in the similar picture as we go on through saturday again the wet weather into indonesia so we could see further flooding insists of all parts of the region here the just around java some very heavy downpours coming through and heavy downpours 2 across the fall north of australia little clumps of cloud here remaining in place or some rather wet weather in the forecast for victoria over the next to die or sound like could lead to some flooding some parts could see maybe 10 to 20 millimeters of rain in next to no thomas that sweeps its way through heavy rain could cause a little bit of destruction here not just the showers there into a good part of new south wales still some showers just around the cape york peninsula around the top end and into the far north of wu wei the warm sunshine will look no further than perth temperatures here getting up to 35 degrees.

north korea isolated and heavily sanctioned yet earning billions around the globe here and 39 is involved in everything that makes money for north korea. to carry different as a consequence so they come to us and. the money this year and it goes straight into the coffers as the leader said a $2.00 part people in power investigation bureau $39.00 cash for came. on and just 0. the. you watching out is are a mind of our top stories this hour pakistan's supreme court has ordered the release of a man convicted and then acquitted in the murder of wall street journal journalist

daniel pearl judges dismissed the appeals against the release of british born ahmed omar saeed sheikh. a team from the world health organization is ended its 2 week hotel quarantine in china will now begin investigation the origins of the corona virus pandemic of to blunt today. the new u.s. secretary of state to be blinken says the u.s. will rejoin the 2050 nuclear deal with a problem one step on his return to compliance with its commitments. the us has temporarily frozen arms sales to saudi arabia and the united arab emirates secretary of state blinken says it's not unusual for new administrations to review pending arms sales in the final hours of donald trump's presidency his administration had agreed to sell 50 f. 35 fighter jets to the u.a.e. the m.r.c. and bastards washington says they're working closely with the new biden

administration words peace and stability in the middle east well in lawrence's professor of international relations of the american university he thinks the sale to the u.a.e. will likely go through. well there's sort of 2 stories here one is that it is entirely normal as the administration is saying to review such weapons sales when a new administration comes in with its own usual is all of these public statements and all of this turmoil including tweets by senators you know and all and all the brouhaha around it that that's quite a typical it's very likely that these symbols will go through but it's the way in which the children ministration hastily went through a whole bunch of quid pro quos relating to the abraham accords and other hasty actions at the end of the ministration create a circumstance by which he even if the democrats and the vitamins trishna agree with the arms sales there's a kind of bitter taste in their mouth about the way in which trump went about it

and that's really what's under review and so what happened last year in the year before is the murder of. the war in yemen sort of into one issue at the level of the senate and there was a lot of comments by senators about what you think you can trust saudi arabia can't trust yemen and much as much as that was as much directed at the trunk administration and their relationship with those countries as any human countries were doing and then what happened after that is they got $55.00 votes in the senate $55.00 votes against the arm sales but they needed 60 votes to break the filibuster and that's still about the same ratio in the senate so if it came up for another congressional review the sales would go through again but the opposition to the conduct of the war and you met and world's greatest humanitarian catastrophe is something the senate's going to continue to raise the alarm bells about china is

due to start a large scale military exercise in the disputed waters of the south china sea it comes at a time when the thing cruise tension with taiwan has rocked the pride. that's an air force base in the south of taiwan fighter jets practice for an incursion towards the island by military planes from nearby mainland china jets have been scrambling for real more often as china has stepped up its military patrols most recently last weekend it seems to be beijing's reminder that it will always regard taiwan as part of china and its prepared to take it back by force if necessary wellman we make no promise to renounce the use of force and reserve the option to use all necessary measures our position has been consistent and will not change taiwan's president saying when inspecting her military's preparedness she says the island is ready for any aggression. from last year our radar stations have detected

incursions by nearly 2000 chinese military aircraft and over 400 military vessels we drive them away in a timely manner and secured our maritime an airspace. increased activity across the taiwan strait comes as the u.s. conducts a so-called freedom of navigation exercise sending an aircraft carrier group into the nearby south china sea angering beijing which regards it as largely its own during the recent turbulent years of the trumpet ministration taiwan has often been caught in the middle of strained relations between china and the us and the new biden administration might not mean an end to that turbulence i also believe that president trump was right in taking a tougher approach to china i disagree very much with the way that he won about it in a number of areas but the basic principle was the right one the major players in east

asia geopolitics are embarking on a new era but bringing with them the same tensions from the last one robert bride al-jazeera. at least 53 people have been killed when a bus collided with a truck in western cameroon a truck was carrying flammable liquid 29 others are injured cameron's transport minister has ordered an investigation rival ethnic groups in mali have signed peace agreements out to months of mediation and years of violence between no batek headers and farmers hundreds have died and thousands have been displaced is nicholas hurt. among the cattle in this slaughter house on the outskirts of the capital bamako are families hiding from death they are ethnic dawns and fall on the herders members of true agricultural communities who have been fighting over arable land in central mali their knowledge being side by side in the capital waiting for the violence to subside and you peace agreement mediated by swiss negotiators has

been signed by both sides the deal is supported by mali's transitional government but the people here are still too afraid to return home in their letter how can i don't believe a few signatures on a piece of paper can bring peace 1st we need to disarm everyone i mean each and every one by one needs to forfeit their weapons to allow us farmers to return to our land and bring this war to an end or. low rainfall and more droughts have made central mollies arable land a source of conflict falana nomads encroach on dawn farmland to graze their cattle in 2900 this learn dispute turned violent according to the armed conflict location and event data project almost 3000 people have died in the fighting mostly in central mali the absence of the money and state to mediate this crisis armed groups stepped in fueling divisions and al-qaeda affiliates protecting the full on the

herders fight against dogo militia group done. supported by government forces the fighting is spreading beyond central mali to neighboring turkey to fast so almost 2000000 people are displaced and doggone says. the same people we are all mali and we need to peace accord that can go on to security for all this is what we need for us to come and live side by side together again. as part of the swiss brokered peace agreement full olesen do go on living in the region of coro agreed to forgive past crimes stop carrying weapons and agree to build trust to allow the return of displaced people it is to meet with the swiss center for humanitarian dialogue says the support of the mali and authorities will be crucial in consolidating these new achievements this peace agreement comes as france plans to reduce its military presence in mali where 5000 french soldiers are stationed the government of transition is seeking

a shift in policy calling for dialogue with armed groups the aim is to end the violence so that people can return to their land because hawke al-jazeera olympic bosses are adamant holding the tokyo games in july would not be irresponsible not of japan is in a state of emergency because of code of 19 and one poll suggests that 80 percent of the public is in favor of postponing again or counselling but the international olympic committee says it's a case of how not if the games will go ahead and plans to release a playbook soon explaining how they'll get thousands of athletes to compete safely in japan. the u.s. stock market is in shock of the says in a failing company sold in value videogame retailer game stop has been losing money for years but a group of online traders have linked up to force the price discuss iraq it institutional investors who sold the shares they didn't own at rock bottom prices

are not happy and are having to buy them back to much more money kristen salumi has the latest from new york. game stop a video game retailer was in trouble even before the coronavirus pandemic hit suffering hundreds of millions of dollars in losses and closing hundreds of brick and mortar stores as gamers increasingly made their purchases online but none of that has stopped its stock from skyrocketing in value spurred on by individual investors posting on the reddit page wall street bets started by jamie rosen ski and what we're seeing here is the result of having massive influx of retail traders who don't care about fundamentals never really have cared about fundamentals they cared about the short term moves so in theory in the short term anything is possible i mean the price is set based on supply and demand and at this point anyone who's just buying up the stocks is further putting pressure to raise the price institutional investors had bet against game stop shorting the stock to make

a profit but read it investors rallied against them buying the stock on mass this increased the price and created a so-called short squeeze where hedge funds were forced by the rising stocks to avoid massive losses further pushing up game stop shares after losing hundreds of millions of dollars institutional investors like andrew left of citron research have admitted defeat and walked away analysts warn this is a dangerous game the stock is pushed up what usually it's a little like a ponzi scheme because if you're a last person old in those years under $60.00 a share you got a dollars and now it's trading at $88.00 well you just got stuck the last part of the train you lost a lot of money game stop express and standard statement but many day traders appear willing to take the risk now propping up other struggling companies like the amc

theater chain and black berry threatening wall street institutions and prompting calls for reform of a market increasingly seen as out of touch with main street kristen salumi al-jazeera new york. leaders of a city in southern finland say they've launched the world's 1st been ski sharing system residents of lottery used to skiing to get around during the winter well now they can borrow a path from one of 3 stations around the city officials say they want to encourage people to reduce transport related carbon emissions it's early as well 2nd oldest population and europe's 2nd highest coronavirus death toll for many elderly people social distancing means being isolated from their families for long periods of time especially those living in care homes but as stephanie decker reports from avellino in southern italy some have come up with a novel idea as bringing affection and touch back.

who am i asked his mother might. be. i'm luigi he reminds her it's all a little overwhelming much with a mask is the fuel in the plastic bag she's difficult. but the least she did recognize me after a few minutes. this is the 1st so-called hug bubble in southern italy plastic divides them and yet it's the closes they've been able to get to each other in almost a year a simple touch once taken for granted is now everything. in between family visits everything gets sanitized a new reality it's still hard to get used to this structure gets moved around these villages to the homes for the elderly there are 4 with around 200 residents and this is so everyone gets a chance to hold and to feel and to somehow still physically touch their loved ones

something that's been so terribly missed during this pandemic threat aspect father and daughter kiss for only the 2nd time in a year plus a burger hooker one of them it will pass she tells him everything passes didn't do her pos to the most of them bothering the bigger these are emotional moments it's been a long lonely year for many. italy has the 2nd highest population in the world and one of the highest coronavirus death tolls in europe at more than $80000.00 so far it's also a culture of large family gatherings with grandparents often at the very center. we give you more my dream is to hug or my relatives again to have company to see happiness for a spall to be together. box nation campaign is underway with the elderly due to be inoculated off to health workers and those involved in this hug bubble project in

the villages outside of naples sayed. started just a few days before christmas and believe it will have to remain in place for a while longer but see on the vaccine isn't a magic potion and you are not immediately immune and so we will still have weeks probably months ahead of us in which you will need to maintain all of these protective measures and so this room will continue to be an opportunity for relatives to be able to get close to their loved ones. touch even through plastic has become so very precious these days. i want to go home my dear pleads with her son he tells her not to cry this pandemic has made the pain of loneliness and what we're feeling there are even worse stephanie decker al-jazeera avellino in southern italy. this is al-jazeera these are.