which was a good thing absolutely. on al-jazeera. iran says it's an act of terrorism a power blackout at its main nuclear facility. the whole romany watching of 0 live my headquarters here in doha coming up in the next 30 minutes china admits it's reviewing the effectiveness of vaccines it's produced to combat covert 19. also voting in the middle of a pandemic peruvians cast their ballots for president as krone virus cases surge. and teenagers on the front line of conflict in northern ireland but the older generation are being blamed for reigniting the troubles.

but into the program a power blackout at iran's main nuclear facility is being described as an act of terrorism now that comes from the head of the country's atomic energy agency alley akbar salehi he hasn't specified who's behind what was initially called an accident or than and tans facility but israeli media quoting an identified sources claim it was a cyber attack carried out by israel's intelligence services now it's happened the day after iran unveiled advanced you raney m centrifuges at the site and whether iran and the u.s. are struggling to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. fixed patrick is a former deputy assistant secretary of state at the u.s. he says the incident comes during a very dicey political situation in iran. i suppose one can construct

a hypothesis that somehow this puts pressure on iran but i i think pretty doubtful that by the administration would have gone along with that i really do think that they would have nothing to do with this if they had been asked they would sit don't do this because we're making progress in vienna there's a short. timeline ahead to make further progress and and don't screw it up anyone by non-singing military attacks that iran will then feel it needs to respond to and the whole thing could unravel it's a very dicey political situation in iran you know i'm sitting in washington and it's out of here with the half of the political spectrum opposed to restoring c.p.o. and by the administration until it's a needle says to get it through in tehran it's worse most of the parliament is against dealing with the united states and the supreme leader who calls the shots is very very skeptical of the united states and he's he's given of the it is

a people of florida to negotiate but you know i could i could easily see him decide that these kind of military attacks he might think the united states has had a hand in it and get could give him a reason to say no no no compromises with the united states. there all his nuclear program was on the agenda during a visit to israel by the u.s. secretary of defense lloyd alston met his israeli counterpart benny gantz he says any new deal with iran must not undermine regional security are a full set has the latest from west jerusalem. flying into the major foreign policy issue confronting israel's alliance with the united states the divergence in approach to iran and its nuclear program u.s. secretary of defense lloyd austin is the most senior biden administration official to visit israel since the new u.s. president was sworn in. after 4 years of

a trump white house which favored the israeli line on iran these at different days as the u.s. explores options for reviving the iran nuclear deal as a major strategic partner for the united states are below bilateral relationship with israel in particular is central to regional stability and security in the middle east and during our meeting i reaffirmed to mr grant's our commitment to israel is enduring and it is our inquiry. austin's opposite number israeli defense minister benny gantz pledged cooperation in confronting what he called a threat to international security region and israel. and we wore closely american airliners to ensure that any new agreement. would secure the vital interest of the ward of the united states prevent dangerous armories you know

region and protect the state of israel but in the midst of talks in vienna aimed at finding a new agreement the language from israel's prime minister has been very different benjamin netanyahu insisting that israel would not be bound by any deal that pave the way to an iranian nuclear weapon israel is already confronting iran on multiple fronts reportedly behind the attack on a rainy and ship in the red sea last week regularly targeting the iranian military inside syria blamed by iran for assassinating its chief nuclear scientist last year israel's defense minister may be talking about cooperating with the americans on a new deal but it will be interesting to see the language used by his political rival the prime minister benjamin netanyahu long the most vehement opponent of any such deal when he meets the u.s. defense secretary on monday ari force at al-jazeera west jerusalem. rescuers are trying to reach 21 coal miners stuck hundreds of meters below ground in china they

became trapped after a coal mine flooded in the northern province of sheen jang on saturday 8 of them have been pulled out alive now the rest are trapped in 3 different areas of the mine and it's not clear what condition the workers are rained. now almost $100.00 days out from the research will tokyo olympics japan has adopted more coronavirus restrictions all restaurants and businesses in densely populated areas must close before 8 o'clock each night large events have been limited to 5000 people japan's government says it's doing what it can to prevent major outbreaks in the run up to the games now the number of corona virus infections in india has also hit a record for a 6th consecutive day the country is struggling to contain another wave on sunday reported the highest single day death toll in 5 months or forty's and several

states are warning of vaccine shortages in the coming days but india's health minister says state governments should end what he calls fear mongering china's top disease control a visual says locally produced vaccines aren't highly effective it's a rare admission by the center for disease control china has produced 4 different covert 19 jobs and to ship millions of them abroad health officials are reviewing their vaccine strategy considering mixing different brands one study found the job has a success rate of just above 50 percent. and the maker of sort of arc is now recommending longer intervals between the 2 doses to increase the jobs effectiveness it's spokesman admitted the vaccine could work better in some countries rather than others you may argue about we shout it out we show that the protection rate of the vaccine is affected by many factors such as the intensity of

the local outbreak the vaccine immunization program different virus strains the criteria for determining the case the age range of patients under observation and so on this is one of the reasons for the different protection rate of sign of covert 1000 vaccine in a different country. study in israel is suggesting the pfizer vaccine may be less effective against the south african strain it's compared $800.00 people who tested positive for the virus after receiving one or 2 doses of the vaccine with the same number of those who didn't get the visor jab the variant was more prevalent amongst those who receive the fires a shot than those who hadn't been vaccinated but researchers caution the study's sample size was small. there are 13 approved covert 900 vaccines but here are the main 3 the oxford astra zeneca is the most distributed vaccine it's in 116 countries including several in south america and southern asia but its use has been

limited in a number of countries due to a rare but serious risk of blood clots pfizer bio kids also widely circulated around in 84 countries including the us canada and new zealand is in 36 countries mainly in europe and north america. let's bring in dr eric he's an epidemiologist and senior fellow at the federation of american scientists joins me via skype from washington d.c. nice to have you on the program once again dr before we sort of get into the specifics of the issue with china and without creating any vaccine hysteria as there's really no need for that like scenes are not always 100 percent effective and that's normal say the w.h.o. so how do you persuade a skeptical skeptical public that taking a vaccine no matter how effective for now is important breakthrough vaccines are very important and again vaccines are against your disease and

that's. almost all vaccines do you get a pretty well. and also by the way earlier our study about the fires regrets you know against it's not after your parents it's not that your parent doesn't work compared to no at sea it's now it's very it's causing more trouble. than all common current virus vaccine so that scene definitely does work sometimes there is no variance but this is why it's so important to approximate so we have less and less viruses circulating in did that study. yet of course that studied israel was a very small sample group or more research is taking place so let's focus in on china how concerned are you about the admission that's been made from their director of china said to the disease control. it's quite an admission. right and every can see 50 percent it's interesting because the crown of act which

is made by us i don't back was 8325 percent in turkey 65 percent indonesia you know but only 50 percent in brazil and in also another chilean study found it was 50 percent who were to go says. so in certain ways 20 percent is much lower now prevent severe disease well in terms of all symptomatic cases it was much lower and we know for instance a matic it's probably in the 30 percent according to another brazilians. this is worrisome but but you know what it does slow transmission this is not that on 3 fourths of he says get through instead compared to know that seen it cut in half and if this was a cancer drug or some drug reduces ricin out because it would be a miracle drug so something reduced by 50 percent is still really good so that's all countries that have depended on the side of the vaccine for example like

indonesia you mentioned turkey saying the pull the u.a.e. i think it's also in pakistan as well i mean should they be concerned what question should they be asking of the chinese. i think you know the question is you know how well this also protects against a very because some argue that maybe the chinese maxine protects against marion's better because. mr by learned the whole virus as opposed to just the spike protein we don't know for sure whether it's always better because in certain ways brazil had a huge number of infections brazil had huge from infections then in the placebo group with a lot of the previous infections the already have been immune to lots and so that would also bring the efficacy lower than normal but it is it is something to be careful i was and this is why to back to the double back solutions are much more important because with the side of back you were seen around 20 percent with just

one minute c. so that is why to vaccines is really urgent it's interesting that china is in a bit of a dilemma slightly because it doesn't allow the import of foreign made vaccines from other manufacturers i believe so that the potential there it while variants are prevalent that this could be a nation that light need now that scenes from the u.s. all from the u.k. or from germany are they in a bit of a conundrum now about how to deal with this. you know china luckily does not have huge number of cases they have some import cases but you don't have that many communities for now but we've seen many countries that were doing well before it and may need vaccines in the future and in certain ways that. we can. approach there are donating vaccines in different countries via vaccine. a c. in certain ways china's vaccine passport with. the chinese vaccine to be eligible

and western vaccines not eligible that might have to be reconsidered i think in certain ways that this is why no country should oh work on this project together no country should put all their eggs in one basket the world needs to share its vaccines and china needs to reconsider maybe an additional vaccine and i think china is developing an m.r.e. new vaccine in the coming months what we say what does happen is always on the program dr eric gilding thanks so much for joining us from washington d.c. . still ahead here on al-jazeera weighs 2 very different economic visions in a tight presidential runoff election. and covered in the caribbean island of st vincent disappears under a cloud of volcanic dust those stories after the break. how

i would say severe storms moving across the deep south of the u.s. to see the sun to his just rolling through hail lots of lightning strikes and some tornadoes deadly tornadoes in fact some places say will move through as we go on through monday so wetter weather just clearing away from southern parts of florida but the slick back up towards new york towards that northeastern corner into new england some showers well the spells of rain there new york state pushing up into pennsylvania and across the lakes and on the other side of the lakes same to manitoba ontario because a fair old wintry mix coming through here just one celsius in winnipeg perhaps a touch colder as we go through wear shoes day with some snow coming into central parts of canada and down across the northern plains of the u.s. for the showers there was some showers today just easing down towards the southern states but for the southeastern corner things should be a good deal quieter quater which was a southwest plenty of warm still in place and we see temps kicking up to 16 celsius

in the pacific northwest not too bad here seattle 16 degrees and the fine weather the dry weather stretches down across much of mexico we have got some showers across the western side of the caribbean and some showers to tools east the side of the caribbean association showers as a child or 2 coming into spence and over the next couple of days. in the yugoslav rules of the ninety's prime's were committed. size. al-jazeera world needs miracle ground adds a creation son who went to jail for crimes he says he didn't commit. was he a guard in a concentration camp or was he simply in the wrong place at the wrong time made coke out at its trial and error on al-jazeera.

a. book about watching officer of the cell robin a reminder of our top stories a power blackout at iran's main nuclear facilities being described as an act of terrorism israeli media quoting unidentified sources claim it was a cyber attack carried out by israel's intelligence services. with almost 100 days to go before the tokyo olympics japan has adopted more krone virus restrictions curfews room place on restaurants and businesses and large events have been limited to 5000 people. trying to stop disease control of vishal says their locally produced vaccines are highly effective the center for disease control made the rare

admission after one study found that the side of a job had a success rate of just above 50 percent. no voting has closed and could always presidential runoff election polls suggest it will be a time race between the leftist economist on the day is toast and the conservative banker guillermo at last so far as the state of the economy that's dominating the political finds is hugely partly because of the recent global oil price crunch let's get more this more latin america does at least see anyone who's in chile has come to santiago good to have you with us as always i mean let's talk about the voting 1st to me with the pun death pandemic rife across the country what has the turnout look like. in the turnout hasn't been as high as it was in the 1st round as one might have expected because the number of infections in ecuador like just about everywhere else here in south america has been increasing steadily but it was

a healthy enough turnout and the interesting thing is that we have heard from at least some of the authorised polling companies that are allowed to get the results of exit polls and they have coming out with some pretty surprising results although it is still within the realms of a technical tie it does seem to give more laughs on the conservative bank or in business men need up to a 7 point lead now and that is at our house is the tender from the left wing coalition says that he has and he addressed his followers so short while ago we told them not to listen to the exit polls to wait for the official result but a significant percentage of those results will now be out for at least several more hours so it is still apparently a nail biting election indeed this is obviously a runoff between 2 very politically opposed candidates with very different ideas about how to solve the di economic problem not of course the covert situation and

it's about how they actually sell the message and whether people want to listen to it or not. well people want to listen to anything that was that will bring them relief especially from the dire economic strife that ecuador is going through and this was way before the pandemic struck so that is this is not something that you can blame entirely on the pandemic but we do have on the one hand this out out selling themselves as the new generation of the revolution of the 21st century that as you may remember was launched under former but israel and president will go chavis he is the successor of a would be successor and mentor of former ecuadorian president rafael correa very much a left winger who brought a lot of prosperity to the country during those. years but then who is now living in a wood in belgium and cannot return home because he has been sentenced to 8 years in

prison for corruption he has very very clear down to shame italy somebody who wants to take the country back to these citizens revolution time while he had one last fall much much more conservative is concerned more about what he calls the threat of authoritarianism under the left wing and he says that the that what it would or needs is to get its economy together to fight corruption and to provide more jobs i suppose on that score both candidates think about the same thing but they do have to wait a little longer before those results come in we'll come back and speak to you about but when it does happen in the coming days you see a thank you. now polls also closed in less than an hour in neighboring proof for the 1st round of its presidential election the coronavirus pandemic has overshadowed the vote tens of thousands have died and there have been more than one point $6000000.00 cases a team candidates are running but none have so has

a strong enough lead for an outright twin let's get the latest from marianna son jesse joins us from the capital lima and mariana as we said it's a crowded field of candidates but all eligible peruvians have to vote it's mandatory even during this pandemic so who seems to be you might say in the public's favor. well so hill that is the biggest question i think because pollsters have told us that most of we now know pollsters in peru have told us that they have been. short to grealy by the fact that all the numbers have been so different and we have seen them different from day to day and from poll to poll from opinion poll to opinion poll throughout the the past few weeks and the past few days we've been able to see that even the secret. numbers that they have and it's impossible at this

moment to know who of the top 6 or 7 would make it to the 2nd round i think it's probably because most. have been listening to very weak messages in about candidates who haven't really made a lot of campaign because of the pandemic and many people have been changing the votes personally i changed my vote 3 times before voting our so this is how people are feeling and i think the main reason is because. because of this weakness of these all of these have it is some of the have been lying some of them have been saying. crazy things like out the hole in souls can cure you from the koran a virus but what can really be what is clear in this election at least for now is that peruvian provided ideologically. it is the peruvians who vote

conservative and those who vote left wing or progressive or radical left wing that's a big division people don't go from one side to another so we will have to see which of the candidates and then if one from the left and one from the right i think the main issue that the vice president in this vote is the economy with the conservatives the right wing is one thing to keep this free market economy that has been ruling peru for decades and those who want to vote for free or economy work the favor will have more more of a say in the health care in education and of course of the economy of course will come back to you i want to get a more clear idea of what's going on in lima and across peru mariana sanchez force thank you so she is in kyrgyzstan supported handing greater powers to the presidency now the changes from the constitutional referendum the presence of the judge but also to appoint judges and shrinks the country's

parliament while allowing him to run again critics say the referendum is john of course attempt to impose a moral solitary and so move rule preliminary results 80 percent supported the changes although only around 30 percent of people voted. violence in northern ireland has eased after a week of the worst rioting seen there in decades and the claims of some groups broke virus restrictions sparked the anger from pro british unionists and sundry simmons reports now from the capital belfast it's teenagers who are on the front line. it's a new generation engaged in the sort of confrontation that belongs in the last century their teenagers many of them encouraged to take part in the unrest by their elders the late 1960 s. or the start of 3 decades of conflict that's happening here now isn't remotely like

that but it's provocation and confrontation nevertheless and it's league youngsters not old enough to vote in many cases goaded on by adults that has shocked people. well i blame the parents and i'm here with my son who i fear to be in the streets. out of being horrified that the politicians here have to really unite and come together and condemn it and look for peaceful ways forward for you know the young people for the people who don't think they're being listened to at the moment in this process these are the grounds of stormont castle the seat of a devolve power sharing government created by the good friday peace agreement signed 23 years ago and irwin was born just before that now she's leading the youth wing of the alliance party which covers the middle ground in northern ireland politics parents don't feel they have the ability to to stop their kids going right there because the kids are being drawn out by by community leaders by people here

to hear stoking violence and stoking fears they're being drawn i by them parents can't really speak out against those darker forces they can't stop their kids going i'd because they know if they're seen to go against community leaders in the way they could fear is. attacks themselves they could face threats they could face anything there's deprivation in both the loyalist and nationalist community says of northern ireland those who want to united ireland and the loyalist areas where there is anger about a border in the irish sea imposed by a brics deal in many areas like this surrounded by echoes of the past it almost feels as if time stands still difficult then for young people to avoid the bad influences within this youth leader has no doubt that many of the young people are under the firm grip of power by the trees children should be encouraged to take to

the streets this kind of bounce. the child to be starts for the social services to consider in relation to this and even when we think about the sinister forces that are behind some of these young people taking to the streets on the element of their plan that could be considered child abuse also stephen and others like him have an uphill battle on their hands andrew simmons al-jazeera belfast. rescue efforts on the caribbean island isn't vincent after another volcanic eruption called power and water outages the volcano 1st erupted on friday and is expected to continue for weeks the government says most crops and livestock will be destroyed and 20000 people could be displaced for months colvin harry is a program manager for n.b.c. radio who spoke to us from st vincent he says an increasing number of people need shelter. they continued to have individuals who decided to stay a 2nd deciding to move because there is now

a case where it is getting even more serious the scientists are comparing this to the 1000 to 2 eruption it is now it's a pass in terms of the the way it has been erupting the $179.00 eruption which was the last time that we had such an activity. increased numbers in the shelters the last time the last figure we had yesterday was a 3000 across 78 charges i suspect that that number has since increased it was an episode a really in the early hours of this morning just after 1 am when there was a and i don't know why a lot of the electricity supply which leftish out is without power as well and certainly that would have caused some family those who were seeking shelter and they were show doesn't and that the population in general as it is now persons are being moved from from the orange zone there's no mandatory requirement to move from that on zones but they also has been extended to those who want to move from the orange areas into the green zones so that we can ensure that as many persons as

possible can seek shelter if it did so and needed we have received pledges of support from the regional governments and all government is working with these regional organizations and governments to lend support and to see how we can plan a way forward as it is now there are many uncertainties and it's sort of all by a lucky fellow and then things can change rather quickly. with. the headline say power blackout. facility is being described as an act of terrorism but israeli media quoting on identified sources claims it was a cyber attack carried out by israel's intelligence services.