separate in order to stop the turn them because we need to make a storm is done. and i further evidence that the on the con variant is less severe, but is infecting more people than ever. and booster protection could quickly wayne plus, 13000000 people ordered and to lock down a chinese sit, he told to stay at home just weeks before the winter olympics. ah, laura barbara sarah, this is al jazeera ally from london, also coming up, letting me put in foot nato in his sides. the russian president lames,

the alliance for creating tension in the region and remove the in the dead of night . hong kong university removes the pillar of shame, a memorial to the tenement square mass. ah, friday marks a months since south africa announced the 1st case of the corona virus variant, known as all micron. and scientists now are developing a clearer picture of its dangers. so far the data suggests that it is milder than previous variance, but because it's significantly more infectious, it could still cause serious pressure on health systems. on thursday, the u. k. government reported nearly a 120000 positive cases in its latest 24 hour period. the newest on the constitutes things come from the u. k. government's health security agency, which says people with the variant are estimated to be 50 to 70 percent less likely

to be admitted to hospital. and that is fairly consistent with 2 other u. k. based studies that release that this week. imperial college estimated that people infected with on the con are 40 percent less likely to be hospitalized for a night or more compared to the delta variant. and very early data from the university of adam brush indicates a 2 thirds reduction in risk of hospitalization. while in south africa where the strain was initially identified, people are 70 to 80 percent less likely to go to hospital scientists. they are say daily cases appear to have peeked at last week with about 23400 on december 17th. and they have fallen every day since we've barcode begins our coverage health services across europe on a war footing. taking the fight to armor crohn by giving booster vaccinations to

hundreds of thousands of people a day. the variance fueling a new wave of infections across europe. in the french capital long queues formed outside pharmacies and coven testing centers in the run up to the christmas holidays. elsewhere, french police increase their checks on people's health passes, allowing for now at least the cities restaurants to remain open. president emanuel, my crohn took to instagram to urge people to avoid spreading the virus. and for me, you want honey, we say this year, once again because of the virus, i asked you to have a lot of vigilance. this means continuing the protections against virus. you know, st. mark's regularly washing hands respecting, distancing ventilating rooms regularly with fresh air, isolating, and testing ourselves as soon as we have symptoms more. lucas will do some buquet health security agencies, the latest body to crunch real world data on the severity of the disease.

concluding that someone with omicron is as much as 70 percent less likely to be admitted to hospital. but because the transmitter ability of our microns very high infections could rock it to the point, large numbers may still end up in hospital. we do know with only crime that it does a spread a lot more quickly, is a lot more infectious than delta. so any advantage gained from reduce risk of hospitalization needs to be set against that. and we know, for example, if her, if a much smaller percentage of people are at the risk of hospitalization is as a smaller percentage of a much larger number. there could be still significant hospitalization. our best way to, to deal with this, the best way to protect ourselves is through vaccinations and in particular the booster program. it is now even more important to come forward and to get boosted. the analysis also concluded that 2 doses of a covert vaccine are not enough to offer strong protection against omicron. a boosters vital and reducing symptomatic infection and serious illness. although

data suggests protection starts to wayne after just 10 weeks. 3 jobs also don't stop people from contracting and spreading the disease at an alarming rate. despite no new official covert restrictions in england, london's christmas markets are quiet. footfall as down hawkish, british government ministers want clear cut evidence of a risk to the national health service before backing any new restrictions. evidence that may take days to become clear in the hospital data. what happens in the british capital, where omicron cases are at their highest, will sound the alarm for the rest of the country. and given the numbers here, the rest of europe to leave barca, al jazeera, london, or current of ours cases in new york have risen 60 percent in the past week. 12000 new infections were reported on wednesday. health officials say more testing sites

have been opened while hospitals and jails have introduced restrictions for visitors. gabrielle is on the joins us live now from new york and gabe how. how worried are people in new york that we could be seeing? you know, the sorts of scenes that we saw, for example, in winter 2020 people are very worried here, quite frankly. in fact, one of the senators from new york state chuck schumer is calling this a crisis right now. the issue is, is that right now? new york city has become the u. s. epa center of the corona virus pandemic, particularly with the henri cron variant. the numbers have been reached, skyrocketing, and it's just been the last week or so they've been going up exponentially. right during this busy holiday travel time. the issue here now is testing. everyone says testing is key to figure out who has on record. and the line here are very long.

i'll step out so you can see a little bit. this is midtown manhattan on 42nd street. we're just a blocked down from a grand central terminal, one of the biggest trained terminals here in midtown manhattan. and you can get a sense of how long the lines are. we're seeing that the testing sites throughout the city. sometimes dozens, if not hundreds of people wrapped around the book. and if we pivot over this way, i just want to show you, you might see the tend to off and the distance there. that's another testing site. nobody is there right now because the folks in there are on lunch break, but down the block. every block here on 42nd street, there's a tent for testing, but it is still not enough. the demand for testing bar outstrips the supplier. and that is the real problem that we're seeing throughout new york city now. city and state officials are saying encouraging people don't panic. they say this is not march of 2021 new york with the global epicenter of the pandemic.

but you talk to people on the streets, you just anecdotally talked to people and it seems like everybody right now is getting on record is one help official said this is spreading like wildfire. it's not only here in new york city, it's worse here than anywhere else. in the united states, but in neighboring new jersey to or the, the states biggest cities they're, they're mayors both got tested positive. washington dc is reinstituted, a mask mandate. all 50 states here in the u. s. f reported cases of crime. but clearly it is the worst year in new york city. and officials are now embracing that this will be a wave that will continue through the beginning of 2020 to gabriel, lose on the with the lation from new york city gave. thank you. so that's the situation in the us. meanwhile, more than 13000000 people have been ordered to stay at home in china's eastern city

of jan. more than 200 cove in 1900 infections have been recorded there since the start of the month. the country is on high alert as the gears up to host the winter olympics in february, katrina, you reports now from china capital aging. chinese authorities had impose them most severe lockdown in almost a year. 13000000 people living in the northern city of she has been ordered to stay home from midnight on thursday. only one member of each household is allowed out to get food every 2 days. and only certified essential workers can head out for work. he should have the measures prompted crowds to rush to grocery stores and markets earlier this week. more than $200.00 cases have been reported in the cities since the beginning of the month. the outbreak of the delta variance began with just 9 people and quickly spread. why do we keep the trajectories of the 9 cases were complex, evolving transportation services and public places including hospitals,

commercial complexes, restaurants and schools. hundreds of thousands of tourists flocked as she an, a former capital and historic hub to see the terror caught a warriors every year. now, almost all transport in and out of the area has been cancelled. residence must apply for special permission to leave. the city authorities are currently conducting that 3rd round of mass testing. so far, no cases of the on the con variant have been locally transmitted in china. but officials here are on high alert. the baited winter olympics opens in february and chinese leaders her from a safe and secure games where spectators will be able to attend. overseas spectators however weren't be attending. china has maintained it. 0 tolerance approach to the virus and borders has been closed since march last year. the was that during the winter olympics, there will be a large number of olympic affiliated in the reduce from different countries and

readers come to trainer. there is a high possibility that a certain number of covey, 90 and positive cases will arise. more than 80 percent of the country's population have received 2 doses of corona virus. vaccines. officials are now encouraging people to get a 3rd shot. but some studies are found that chinese vaccines have lower efficacy and protection rates against the on the chrome strain. baiting has not approved the use of some other vaccines, such as pfizer or astrazeneca, katrina, you out 0, they doing, ah, military tension between russia and the nature alliance of featured prominently in president vladimir putin's end of year news conference. speaking to about $500.00 journalists in moscow put in, rejected the idea that russia should provide security guarantees to the west saying

that it should actually be nato. that provides the assurances because it has created the tensions poll brennan reports. it's a cold, cold, christmas in terms of russia, nato relations, as evidenced by these russian troops undertaking, firing exercises near the border with ukraine and of all the topics covered in president putin's annual news conference. it was the questions about ukraine and possible nato expansion, which saw him visibly bristling, whereby bordeaux guarantee it, i thought, would we have made it explicitly clear that further later movement eastward is unacceptable. what is unclear about to go? are we putting missiles much to the united states borders unique knows it is the united states to has come to us with their muscles. they already on our doorstep, him a yes natured good and their response to a question from a u. k. news channel, he highlighted the historical context of the grievance. clearly banashali yard. no, we're doing, we're no us talk. discuss not one inch to the east is what we were told mit. mit is

and what happened? we were duped. we were brazenly tricked her. there were 5 waves of mesa, expansion to law, that's what we're talking about. you have to understand, it's not us who are threatening and we didn't come to the borders of the us or the u. k. you came to us ukraine, gained its independence from the soviet union in 1991, although it's cultivated close ties with europe. some parts remain deeply connected to russia by history and language. in 2014, when you're a, my dad protest ousted ukraine's pro russian president, russia swiftly annex the crime in peninsula and supportive pro russian separatist groups in the eastern region of dumbass. but ukraine's express wish is membership of nato and the european union. and i'm bishop reiterated this week by president lensky. my browsing them all. yet we want to unblock the dumbass police process as soon as possible to return crimea to gain membership with the european union in the upcoming years. and to get

a very clear and very specific timeframe from nato. and we want to get it in 2020 to the kremlin, has table security proposals, which would effectively block ukraine's nato ambitions. russia has also deployed tens of thousands of its troops near to the ukrainian order diplomats from the united states and russia. we'll meet to discuss the proposals in january. nato is in real quick position here. an attack against one nato member is considered an attack against all. so while defending ukraine's rights to freely apply for nato membership, the alliance knows that granting membership could bring nato troops face to face with russian soldiers across a buffalo front. instead of these ukrainian soldiers practicing with us supplied javelin miss off, it could be american troops firing them for real. and russian soldiers firing back pull brennan al jazeera still to come in this half hour layer in malaysia's flood that ravaged pang state where many small towns are still cut off and

a week on from a devastating typhoon. millions of homeless people in the philippines still need food and water. ah. it's friday, here's your forecasts. hello, everyone. good to see you. first of all talk temperature. so i put the colors on the dark of the purple, the lower that temperature. quite the divide between east and west moscow minus 9 london, 10 degrees to get that south facing wind pumping up your temperature terms of precipitation. it is cutting across the republic of ireland and the united kingdom could see some freezing rain for northern sections of scotland. a shield of snow across the baltics, mostly eastern sections, spilling into western russia and bela roost. mince has a high minus for soggy weather pattern for iberia rounds of rain to calm. so here we go on friday,

impacting both portugal and spain. probably see that mess behind me press play on saturday. that slammed into portugal. cuts straight across into western spain and northern areas of morocco. now for italy could see some pretty intense downpours toward the north west. also some heavy showers. coastal crecia just showers forth, hirata with the hiv, 10 degrees. rain and snow has made a clean sweep across turkey temperatures on the rise in istanbul, but greasy conditions across the boss 1st. and now for the top end of africa, it's unsettled both in the west for morocco and in the east, but mostly just cloud cover for cairo with a high of 18 degrees on friday. that sure weather up. they will see again soon. ah. but i've always been fascinated by space, but the story, the space race isn't about the men who wish their lives to travel and see are known . but the ones who held those lives in their hands. grandfather and his colleagues

worked on the space suits they designing spaces, hollow 11 with his triumph or all around, and the perfectly designed space suits for his legacy. putting man on the moon on al jazeera blue. ah, a reminder now of the top stories on al jazeera, the u. k. government's health security agency says people with omicron are 50 to 70 percent, less likely to be admitted the hospital and with delta, the u. k. report of nearly 820000 coven, 1000 cases on thursday, just the day after recording more than 100000 infections. for the 1st time,

more the 13000000 people have been ordered to stay home in the eastern chinese. this city of shyanne $200.00 cove at 19 infections have been reported since the beginning of the month. and russian president vladimir putin has told journalists, he views nato's expansion in the eastern europe as unacceptable. and that it's impossible to have good relations with the current ukrainian government. he is urging nato to guarantee that it will deny membership to ukraine and other former soviet countries. it's good of the us now cuz we're hearing that there is an imminent announcement expected in the trial of kim porter, the former u. s. police officer, accused of the manslaughter of dante. right. well, let's go to john henderson in minneapolis a john any indication as do at what this announcement might be about? well barbara, we've been told by the court pool reporter that they have come to an outcome. and

those are the words that we've been given. she been charged for the 1st and 2nd degree manslaughter in the killing of dante right. in april. the jury has clearly had some difficulty. a couple days ago they came back to the judge and said, what are the procedures if we can't come to an agreement and how long should we continue deliberating? well, it sounds like they've come to a conclusion because the court reporter also says that they are told that this is a verdict and not simply a possible announcement that the jury is hung. we don't know that for certain officially, the word we have is that there is an outcome that will be announced in the next 45 minutes. and that's very important here in the streets of minneapolis because when all of this happened to initially the dante right killing. coming during the trial of derek, show him the police officer was ultimately convicted of killing george floyd. the streets were filled with protesters, there was arson and looting. and here people are bracing for this announcement. now it's a cold day in december a couple of days before the christmas holiday,

but it has warmed up. and there is some concern that that could drive people out in the streets. so there's a lot of attention being paid on exactly what the outcome is right here. and we will find out we are told within the next 45 minutes, i will definitely check in with you at when we know more for the moment. john hendrick, with the latest from minneapolis, thank you. hong kong university has removed a statue commemorating the victims of the 1999 tenement square massacre, which is censored in china. the so called a pillar of shame was made by a danish sculptor to symbolize the lives lost during the military crackdown. i said, beg reports taken down under the cover of darkness, boards were erected around the monument, which was then covered up 8 meters tall. the pillar of shame depict 50 torn and twisted bodies piled on top of each other. it symbolized lives lost during the military crackdown on pro democracy program. this beijing gentlemen square on june

4th 1989. but since october it had become an issue of dispute, the university demanding it be taken down in a state trans. they said the decision on the age statue was based on external legal advice and risk assessment for the best interest of the university. they added. the university is also very concerned about the potential safety issues resulting from the fragile statue and just like that, it was taken away and put in storage unit. when we got down the hall and we moved to, hong kong airlines has gone to hong kong university students. union is also gone. and today, given the pillar of shame has gone. maybe they just want to raise our memories of the 198910. i'm incorrect down. so we must preserve men inside against forgetting nikolai moment. in previous years, students gathered on june 4th to remember the event. the chinaman square authorities have now banned them. lighting concerns about the cove in 1900 pandemic

city would become his party, wants to impose here is a kind of an age. yeah. what, what happened in china? more than 30 years ago. the move follows a controversial national security low in hong kong last year that that was the session version, terrorism and foreign confusion to intervene in the city. the fed, its box approaches and criticism of basing for containing freedoms that were promised to hong kong when it was handed back to china by britain in 1997. for now, there is an empty space with a monument once stood. but for many, even though the pillar of shame has been removed, the memory of what took place cannot be raised. i said vague. japira, where yet school shot is the sculptor of the pillar of shame. he says he was surprised by the sudden removal. this is the redistricting case and i think is the kind of attractive good fan is because i offer them for 2 months,

3 months. i have offered them to move and i and all that and a lot of letters and, and then press and be a say we will go down town and keep it away and put it back to europe without problem. and then here in the middle of nowhere to date for christmas in the darkness, they make a lot of gas around it and burgers, and i think this is not really not fans to do this kind of thing. this is kind of source, this is bruce a way to do that. then take a look and i will you have seen and i can see a big part of the discussion is still intact in some way. i can do this. the think part of this kind of stuff that i'm sure this is not able to do to take it down this way that do that without damage. so across the is another discount. so,

and this is a problem because my problem is private property and i lay some rude about that. so i see you make a crime. would take it down the private policy also for an artist. so i think they have a big problem with doing that. the death toll from major flooding in malaysia has risen to at least 37. the floods were triggered by days of heavy rain and have also displaced that nearly 70000 people as foreign. slo reports now from carrack, a small town in pang state. many towns remained cut off the water levels in this river in pa, hung state malaysia may have gone down, but the destruction caused by the floods is evident. water overflowed onto highways, making some roads impossible for days per hung is the worst hit state. with around 40000 people displaced, some towns are still cut off,

accessible only by boat. but in some areas, flood waters have begun to receive, and people are starting to return to their homes to count the cost of the damage to rebuild their lives. you let me know if you will. of course, i am disappointed of what the government hasn't heard this. i am relying on friends . what else can i do? water rose quickly and unexpectedly, leaving many with barely enough time to save themselves, much less salvage their belongings. the damage is extensive. vehicles have to be written off. furniture appliances thrown away. people here estimate ill take 2 weeks to clean their holes. and that task has been made more difficult because water and electricity supply having been restored. non governmental organizations, charities, and volunteers, have been turning up to distribute aid a plantation near by, had sent its workers and tractors to help with the clean up. you know what our fellow, because in, for, from this yourself,

we know to people here. they're like our brothers and sisters. that's why we had to help us. if we don't, who will? the relief centers are full. some say they're worried about the risk of contracting coven 19. but there's nowhere else to go. i not till jana 4 months pregnant with her 2nd child says she's grateful. they got out alive. a for the aid night i'm provided and i do what i wrote to chest level. i was really scared because that's never happened before. i messaged my family to ask them to get help to me, but they said emergency rescue as had been deployed to places, there were even more badly affected officials of warned that could be more flooding of the coming weeks. but the monsoon season set to run through to february florence li al jazeera car up for hun state. malaysia. parts of the philippines are still experiencing the immediate aftermath of typhoon right. at least 375 people are dead

and millions are homeless without food or clean drinking water. sh! as barnaby law reports. now from manila, the government has declared a state of calamity and move expected to get aid to victims. soon. one week since typhoon rides smashed into the central in southern philippines. some the worse devastation is still being uncovered. far flung towns almost completely flattened. local said a storm was reminiscent of typhoon han in 2013. what are the most powerful in recorded history? but last weeks covered a wider area. hundreds of thousands of families across several provinces are now in evacuation centers was some of opted to rebuild their homes out of scrap materials . president would be good to tirty has declared what he calls a state of calamity in order to release of $200000000.00 in government. once the declaration on the state of cologne will be released into the school and relieved under her habilitation edwards of the government than the private sector. this will

also be unaffected. make a new sim door gone through the process of woods and commodity dis, air in areas. horn governance have also pledged support with canada, the european union and south korea. each. donating between $2.00 and $3000000.00 they noted states is providing $200000.00 in immediate assistance. more help is on the way to big bibs of type wound, right? but all indications are that recovery will take time. powered communicated lives are slowly being restored, but there is an urgent need for food and clean drinking water. minor below al jazeera manila authorities in myanmar say that there is little hope of finding any more survivors after a landslide at a jade mine. on wednesday, 3 bodies of been recovered so far. officials say that at least 50 people are missing. the miners were swept into

a lake in northern catching state. the belgian government has agreed to close its nuclear power plants by 2025. the issue has been intensely debated by the 7 party coalition. the decommissioning process is to be completed by 2045. the country will now invest in just over a $100000000.00 in nuclear power technology focusing on smaller modular reactors. and finally, nothing on tv to your taste while then you clearly have the wrong tv. i mean, so, yes, so a japanese professor has created a linkable tv screen. they can imitate food flavors, a person t as the machine, what they feel like eating and that are transparent film with liquid droplets slides out on top of the screen. it's creator says they're all food flavors, can actually be broken down to 10 basic tastes such as salty, sour, sweet, bitter,

and spicy. the machine is programmed, where that recipes that allows it to create the taste of 20 foods. samples are gonna look at it with the uni that the kidney and when we stay home because of close at 19, we can watch videos taken from places far away and talk to people who are far away with your voice and devices such as telephone us and television will say, however, we couldn't host the food in restaurants far away. i wanted to somehow make toasting through the reality so that people can experience various toes, others while staying at home as you. that was my motivation to develop this little class. ah, a reminder now of the top stories on al jazeera, the u. k. government's health security agency says people with on the corner of 50 to 70 percent.