about breaks at the heart of the united states and this president joe biden embarks on his 1st month in the white house to bring you the latest event good chance to repair global relationships february on al-jazeera. al-jazeera. every. europe's export controls on vaccines made in the block raises tensions with the united kingdom. plugs a raman you're watching al-jazeera live by headquarters here in doha also coming up the cost of covert mexico reports its worst economic slump since the great

depression of the 1930 s. also gaming retailer game stops continued surge causes anxiety on wall street a small investors take on the market titans and why namibia's government is auctioning off 170 elephants despite appeals by conservationists. welcome to the program the european union is imposing export controls on vaccines made within the block limiting shipments to dozens of countries including the u.s. japan australia and the united kingdom now that's raised diplomatic tensions with the u.k. because the controls could prevent vaccine's from entering the rest of the country through northern ireland the e.u. has since clarified that a lot use emergency clauses in the brics it deal to block access to the block. the

kids are doing creasing pressure following shop cuts to plant vaccine deliveries it was the pharmaceutical company astra zeneca to stick to its contractual delivery shed jewel but the drug company says it will supply british orders 1st the e.u. just approved astra zeneca vaccine for adults and while the approval process is beginning for 2 new vaccines from novak's a johnson and johnson but both produced we can results against the more infectious south african strain w.k. begins our coverage from berlin this is the astra zeneca vaccine in use available to british patients most at risk from covert since late last month and from now on officially so too for many e.u. citizens most at risk from the pandemic it's a real pleasure to be here and to announce the 3rd positive opinion for the authorize ation of the astra zeneca covert 19 vaccine this expand the range of vaccines available to e.u.

and a member states which will all help to bring the pandemic under control and protect the citizens of the e.u. except that far fewer e.u. citizens will be able to receive the vaccine for the next few months after the company cut back what it could deliver to the block astra zeneca a british swedish firm blames production problems at some of its plants and said it can only deliver fewer than half of the $80000000.00 doses promised the europeans have complained and decided to protect all vaccine stocks made on their territory as a commission because a lot of strictly targeted measures that will allow us to gather information about the production of like since and where manufacturers intend to ship them. the measure is term limited and specifically apply certain zol scored 19 vaccines that were agreed to by advanced purchase agreements as a measure is intended to run until the end of march although on the face of it this

measure could apply to pfizer by on tech more downer and astra zeneca it appears most targeted at astra zeneca the root of the disagreement between the 2 sides lies in the contract they agreed last year the company says it promised its best reasonable efforts to produce sufficient vaccine for the e.u. the europeans disagree saying the deal is binding to both they say the company agreed to use its plants both in the e.u. and in britain in order to guarantee supply. the europeans have also asked how astra zeneca can have insufficient product for the e.u. but still supply the british who are immunizing far more people than in the e.u. particularly since in the terms of this contract the company confirmed it had no other contractual obligation with any other party to prevent it fulfilling its obligations to the european union and while the round rages on the measures to deal

with the pandemic are intensifying in place germany has announced that from saturday it will ban travel from several countries where covert mutations have been reported dominick came al-jazeera berlin. kenya says health care on security personnel will be 1st in line when it starts inoculating people next month that scenes are being secured through the african union and the w.h.o. but health officials say it will take until june next year to vaccinate around a 3rd of the population kenya is a member of the kovacs by cd and has made an initial commitment to procure vaccines through this proceeding with this commitment the country will receive 24000000 doses from their facility and will procure 11000000 doses from amichai new zealand to vaccinate nearly 16000000 people that is 30 percent of our population of a period of 18 months. mozambique's president has warned that hospitals across

southern africa are under severe strain 22 percent of all infections the region were in the 1st 2 weeks of january meanwhile doctors in zimbabwe have hit back at a government spokesman who suggested the deaths of several ruling party officials from corona virus may have been the work of medical assassins a joint funeral was held this week 30 cabinet ministers and a retired army general who all died of covert 90 with borders closed many of the elite have been forced to use the public health system for the 1st time instead of traveling abroad for treatment medical workers say it's been a rude awakening for the government. i think it is about being mythical cut. waiting on that broken city where we are. dying waiting for death now all these people it's a little bit to me they get the nation all to give now that 15 distance is

about they think that it is a medical practitioner but it is also fit with protein. mexico's economy has suffered its biggest contractions since the great depression of the 1930 s. it's crown of our us death tolls the past that of india this week mexico now has the 3rd highest number of fatalities in the world with more than 155000 confirmed deaths reports now from mexico city. this is a scene that plays out every day in mexico each time it's a different family saying their goodbyes to a loved one lost to cope with 19. years before if we had 10 funeral services then about 2 of them were for coated the rest heart attacks natural causes but now it's 8 for covert and 2 normal funeral services so it's a big increase in deaths because of coded. over the past month the death toll in

mexico has risen dramatically and on thursday the country overtook india for the 3rd highest coronavirus death toll in the world as you can and will get if we keep on going like this will be the 1st in the world for deaths a piece of advice that people keep on looking after themselves use face masks use hands follow orders from the government because if not will be 1st in the world. in the mexican capital hospitals are nearing their occupancy limits many are already for for months mexico city ambulance drivers have been reporting difficulties finding hospitals with available beds now 11 months into the covert 900 pandemic many fear the public health system is nearing collapse. this week mexico's president and his older brother were tested positive for the virus and has since been out of the public eye here. let me just close with a general report as we do every day about the health of president and just manuel lopez obrador he has had some brief and let the besides of fever practically none

of the discomfort. president lopez obrador has been widely criticized for downplaying the severity of the outbreak in his country. the still worsening death toll highlights the enormous challenge mexico continues to face intervene contagion and joins me now live from mexico city via skype and so the economic worries are also impacting on this country already dealing with what you've reported a depressing covert 19 infection and death rate. that's right it's a hail and like many countries of the world the pandemic has been devastating on the mexican economy that the big difference between mexico and other countries who may have fared better in their economic downturns as a result of the pandemic in 2020 is that mexico was already on the sort of precipice of an economic crisis even before the pandemic arrived the big concern now is that any economic recovery that could have been predicted for the 1st

quarter of 2021 will be wiped by this ongoing surge in kobe 1000 cases that we continue to see here in the mexican capital and nationwide across the country we should note that mexico specifically here in mexico city has been on red alert the highest the highest alert since mid december and even still we continue to see these record numbers of coronavirus cases and record numbers of coronavirus cases just on thursday evening mexico surpassed india as you saw in the report. to now but represent the 3rd highest coronavirus death toll in the world but this 1st month of 2021 has been especially hard. i think many people are surprised. to see the death toll go beyond india but again this is the 2nd largest economy in latin america the impact that this is having on the daily lives of average mexicans is been absolutely devastating and again it's the worst economic downturn that the

country has seen since the great depression some 90 years ago you know certainly new lots of end of the tunnel for latin america for the moment well thank you. let's head over to the middle east now to lebanon where the caretaker prime minister has condemned violent demonstrations in tripoli protesters clashed with security forces and something municipality building on fire the city is now saying its 5th consecutive nights of unrest demonstrations that coronavirus locks on without providing any financial relief hundreds have been injured and at least 2 people killed after security forces used live ammunition to disperse demonstrators . bill bob i will help to lay the mirror i make some planning to destroy other places in the city we will stand up to them and confront them we will not accept anymore the civil committees much the way that they used to be demonstrating is acceptable we are for peaceful protest but we are against any attack on private or public property. well still ahead here on al-jazeera they kept coming back our

project in argentina is releasing endangered jank us into the country's wetlands for the 1st time in 70 years to stay with us here on al-jazeera. hello we've got some quiet weather pushing into eastern parts of the u.s. over the next couple of days this massive clouds in the process of pulling out of the way this dark bordello windy weather wet weather at times when she weather easing off the eastern seaboard then so we're going to pull in a northerly wind so it's going to be cold as we go through the next day or so temperatures new york no higher than around minus one celsius in the heat of the day on saturday a whole lot better in they say we got some disturbed weather pushing across the plains as we go on through saturday some heavy rain here bumping into that cold

rexy of the winds coming from a southerly direction that most direct coming in from the gulf of mexico to hit in the cold air significant snow fall that will cause some disruption and we have seen some disruption recently across parts of california think squatting down here is to go on through saturday temps getting up to around 16 celsius in san francisco by sunday night 20 there in l.a. so something of a rise in temperatures here and it will be somewhat drier and brighter not so she pushed further north more snow into northern parts of california oregon washington state and pushing up towards that western side of canada as the central areas in between is largely fine and dry with some crisp sunshine coming through this week. it's 10 years since revolutions across the arab world challenge the power. but how did these leaders rise to their positions the principle of the dictator before his

dictator was to be patient they played the game very carefully and how did they stay in control the common thing amongst the arab dictators is incredible will to survive the arab awakening absolute power. on the. roof. oh. oh. welcome back you're watching al-jazeera with me sell rahman remind of our top stories the european union has reserved reversed patni a decision to impose export controls on vaccines made within the block to the u.k. which would have invoked an emergency clause in the brics that deal the controls

would have prevented vaccines from entering the u.k. through northern ireland drug companies and novak's and johnson and johnson of introduce 2 new vaccines to fight the pandemic johnson and johnson's inoculation is a single shot jab that both produced weaken results on the more infectious south african strain. mexico's economy last year suffered its biggest contraction since the great depression of the 1930 s. its coronavirus death toll surpassed that of india this week and now has the 3rd highest number of fatalities across the world. now u.s. stock markets remain volatile as concern grows on wall street over how much damage can be done in. a battle between multi-billion dollar hedge funds and small time traders an online campaign to buy shares in struggling videogames retailer game stop has seen prices rally by 1700 percent in just a week small traders have been trying to push up prices in

a bid to thwart wall street hedge funds who make a profit by trading shares in failing businesses christine christine salumi joins me now live from new york our correspondent there in kristen obviously you know the market as we can see has been up and down but this is all being driven by individual so-called retail investors i mean where does it end and how high can the market go. yes so overall the market is down it was the worst week for wall street since october with all 3 major indexes closing 2 percent lower about 2 percent lower even as game stop in other stocks that are considered overpriced and overvalued continue to soar game stop was considered overvalued for example when it was trading at $40.00 a share it's now trading at $325.00 a share and amc which is

a very troubled theater chain here in the united states is up 50 percent despite difficulties with its business so all of this as you mention is calm causing great concern for hedge funds and institutional investors who were betting that the stocks would go down one hedge fund had to bake 8 its positions on game stop after losing literally billions of dollars some of these other hedge funds are hanging on hoping that the price will eventually drop and they'll be able to recoup their losses but all of this is weighing on the broader market as it chad challenges some basic assumptions about wall street namely that for a stock to be valuable it has to meet certain so-called fundamentals there has to be profitability there has to be assets and growth possibilities and so on so all of that you know is something that is new to the marketplace here in s.c.

you see the security and exchange commission here and other regulators the treasury department are all grappling with this how high it can go what it means for a system that has till now been largely controlled by these institutional investors that part of the issue here is you've got people rallying trades on social media and apps that allow amateur investors to easily. get it into the market place one of them called robin hood came under fire when it tried to dial back the ability and put restrictions on the ability of people to trade in these stocks it said it was worried about liquidity that it would have enough money to cover these bets essentially there was a huge push back and backlash not only from investors but also from politicians and it's interesting on on the left and the right they both came out and said this was undemocratic in the app's very claim to fame it's montra if you will is the

democratization of finance that's its whole reason for existing apparently but it was worried about being able to cover these margins so it scaled back the limits after those protests now it's reinstated them and you've got the f.c.c. saying they're monitoring the situation that they're going to make sure that retail investors can get their say but you know at some point the prices are going to drop in the question is who's going to be hurt more these institutional investors or individuals but it really upsets the order of things so so the concern for the regulators is the impact on the broader market and they're trying to answer the same question that you asked where does it end indeed interesting times for the u.s. stock market thanks kristen's leave me a correspondent in new york now the u.s. has a new special envoy for iran robert malley will be tough for the navigating one of

the most controversial foreign policy files facing the by the administration now he'll be in charge of washington's efforts to revive the nuclear deal with tyrol after it was abandoned under former president trump diplomatic editor james bays reports he now has one of the most important roles in global diplomacy rob malley who's been serving as the head of the think tank the international crisis group is a veteran diplomat. he was one of the members of the obama administration who brokered the iran nuclear deal his job according to the new u.s. national security advisor jake sullivan will be to focus on the nuclear agreement 1st and then to deal with the other issues the u.s. has with the world if we get back to diplomacy a political. box that was created on which to grow. clearly birdwell is in that region and in europe and elsewhere to cheney on the

other see if. it was the solution my fellow americans president trump called it the worst steel in history pulled the u.s. out of the nuclear deal in 2018 in an interview for talk to al-jazeera in 2019 mr malley told me he believed that was a big mistake iran is now itself moving away from the deal so its nuclear activities are worse than they were under the deal so far having a better deal having a worse actual such a reality and 2nd just listen to what the us administration itself is saying iran is escalating its behavior in the its its anti-american behavior in the region since the us pulled out things to further unraveled iran has slowly rene don't the conditions of the agreement and the tense plant is believed to now be enriching uranium to the level of 20 percent much less than weapons grade 90 percent but much greater than the 3.67 percent allowed under the deal with not only does mr malley

have a very tough job potentially he also has a very tight deadline to get things done the u.s. elections may be over but the presidential elections in iran take place in june. there are hardliners in iran who want to abandon all efforts at diplomacy with the u.s. molly will face many critics at home on capitol hill where most republicans oppose the nuclear deal. and abroad where some of the most powerful countries in the middle east saudi arabia the united arab emirates and israel are strongly against further negotiation jamesburg days out 0 of the united nations now the united nations says more than 200000 people have fled violence in central african republic in the past 2 months the military backed by un peacekeepers and russian and rwandan troops have been battling a coalition of armed groups trying to overturn december's presidential election be

reports. the small town of undo in the democratic republic of congo used to be home to less than 1500 people it's now sheltering 30000 refugees from central african republic they crossed this river in dugout canoes after their homes were attacked by armed groups. are very far from when i fled with just the cats i took my children and my little sisters and i ran away i got in the canoe and i came han. the united nations says more than 200000 people have fled violence in central african republic in the past 2 months and tens of thousands are displaced inside the country you when it's you are the u.n. g.h.z. is warning tens of thousands of basic guard conditions refugee arrivals in the democratic republic of the congo b.r.c. it reached 92000 according to local authorities and over 30000 people have crossed and become who. in the republic of congo refugees continue to iraq most refugees

arrived here with nothing the u.n. says conditions a diet there's not enough food or housing the river is the main source of water for drinking washing and cooking rates of malaria risp are 3 infections and diarrhea a common you see here given the huge logistical constraints it's very difficult to get humanitarian assistance into this area but we are very aware that the needs of the refugees we have seen enormous. violence has escalated since the elections last month which the political opposition says were braked the armed groups say the government must go un peacekeepers russian mess and reason and rwandan troops support the government of former prime minister has described the situation in the country as a poker that takes african presidents meeting in angola have called for a cease fire and the armed groups to stop the encircled meant to the capital bangui

these refugees have no idea when it'll. be safe to go home but while they wait they desperately need help to survive victoria gayton be al-jazeera. dozens of endangered wild elephants are being sold as an option in namibia despite conservationists appealing for it to be stopped the government puts $170.00 up for sale saying the country has too many elephants and needs to reduce conflict between them and humans libya has been praised for its conservation drive the government says elephant numbers jumped from 751-9952 around 240-2019 but the national park rescue charity says the vast majority of those are migrate reheard which means namibia's actual elephant population is much smaller the group says the auction is actually linked to corruption in a continent that's lost 95 percent of its elephant population in the last 100 years . is an environmental investigative reporter in the beer he says human elephants

conflicts are relatively rare in the region. it likely will greatly reduce the genetic diversity because they has been. somewhat systematic over emptying or of especially the bulls in all of these free of aging populations. it also raises a very serious questions about the actual number of elephants we have in the movie because. it is admitted that the greater part of this claimed large population is basically a migrate to the population. which means that we basically shooting our neighbors elephants most of these elephants in fact if you know track beyond. elephant 2 frames that separates namibia from what's on and the most recent quadrant they say and you know removing the last 3 right to population out of the box i think is not really in the interest of conservation long what if they were to be 3 fold

increase in elephant but relation as they basically busted it since 95 we should have seen at least a commensurate increase in a number of human elephant conflicts with and that's not been the case at all while i've been reporting on this you know all my life 30 years now and what we've seen this is you know a dwindling and it don't die out off such reports he once twice a year perhaps we have reports of elephants causing a problem somewhere but there's never been a threat to human life in recent months of elephants to jack us because it's the 1st time that they've been successfully reintroduced into argentina's wetlands after becoming extinct decades ago in the province of korean tests such a high of a tough spot. free to roam more than one and a half 1000000 acres of swamps waterways and islands in the a barren national park in northern eastern argentina this female jogger is back in

the walled with a new edition car i am part of her cubs both born in captivity. it's been 70 years since a species that algis feline in the americas roam the better wetlands in the province of cordiant as hunting and loss of habitat drove them to extinction but now for the 1st time a conservation program has managed to reintroduce the jag us to their natural habitat. he made every single moment of these 1st 20 days have been very good for the mother she's established herself very quickly in a territory that she's getting to know little by little we've already recorded her hunting and feeding on several giant kepe barrows rodents maria was rescued from the wild in brazil after poachers killed her mother she was brought to argentina to be rehabilitated with other wild giant he was and 6 bred cubs the project has taken years of painstaking conservation work and faced major challenges. seeing those

jaguars walk through that gate was kind of an epiphany that these things that just 10 years ago or 15 years ago we thought i don't know that we thought it was impossible but we thought that it was a long shot we have over the last 20 years not a lot of things that. most people or half of them thought it wasn't possible and the other half didn't like it and would come to like it but this one has. some. ecosystems are perishing at a staggering rate across the southern most regions of south america logan's farmers and mine is a turning amazon canopies into grasslands and become the biggest threat to latin america's largest predator jagger's are extinct in several of their former domains with only $200.00 left in argentina's wild. other jaggers will join

murray worse throughout this year yet our cats will be monitored using collars the g.p.s. for data collection. which i do is at the top of the food chain their presence in the wild is important without these beautiful big cats other animals plants and trees may not survive. from a happy story to not so happy one unfortunately amsterdam's artist who says it can no longer afford to keep its lions because of the financial fallout from the corona virus pandemic attendance was down by half last year and the zoos now closed to the public but it still has running costs of more than $70000.00 a day its 3 lions will be taken to a zoo in france next month. your child is there with me so robyn

a reminder of our top stories the european union has reversed a decision to impose export controls on vaccines made within the block.