sierra ah, if you want to help save the world. sneeze into your elmo. ah, this is al jazeera. ah, hello, i'm sam is a dime. this is the news. our live from dell coming up in the next 60 minutes. co 19 record shattered again in the us and parts of europe. in china, people are publicly ashamed for violating current of iris restrictions. a body of archbishop desmond tutu arrives at

a cape town cathedral for people to pay their respects. plans to evacuate the ring . refugees after indonesia agreed to take them in and, and sport basketball star, kyrie irving returns to his team. dandy piper is back in training for the 1st time since being exiled by the brooklyn. that's due to his an vaccinated status. now for another day, in a row, countries around the world are reporting record numbers of covey. 19 infections. governments are, again trying to balance, taking the appropriate measures without disrupting their economies. well as focus on the situations in africa and europe. this, our catherine soy is standing by for us in nairobi. but 1st let's go over to rory challenz. he's in london, rory another day of another set of record numbers for infections in the u. k. how

much of a strain is this all putting on the country? yeah, you're right. there were 183 new cases announced on wednesday across the united kingdom. that is a record by a considerable margin. the previous record was 122000 new cases earlier in the week. now say that this 193000 and figures should be taken with the correct context, which is that there has been a big backlog announcing a new data over the holiday period. and so that is catching up at the moment, but it is a worry. what is also a worry is that in england, england has announced that there are now more than 10000 people in the hospital with coven, and 10000 was about the number that the n h has said. it would start finding difficult to handle. so if that number continues to climb, as it is likely to do,

then the n h s is going to come under an increasing strain and an increasing but so much so that they are announcing, i don't know if you remember from back earlier in the panoramic when they were talking about 900 hospitals, they're all set 9 units for about 100 patients east. that is starting to be activated once again to cope with that surge. if it is, if it does happen elsewhere, and you rory, than wait to see what happens, right. some european countries already moving towards greater regulations. now england is not england. is it holding its far, at least until after the holiday period off the new year of the parts of the scotland, wales and northern on it all going down their own route. but yes, on the continent you have france, which is bringing new measures in on the 3rd of january. those are evolving or including mandatory working at home the for period for 3 days a week at least for those who can. there are also limitations on gatherings

indoors to 2000 people outdoors to 5000 people. and also this plan to tighten up the health policies that you use to get into things by restaurants, making those a vaccine only possible rather than a negative test passport as well. greece is bringing 4 measures that were supposed to be coming in the 3rd of january. they are going to be coming in early. they are going to be in greece. they're gonna be tightening up, working from home as well, tightening up mosque, wary, and also canceling effectively canceling. so big celebrations and new year. so yes, on the continence in europe. things are being cranked up in terms of restrictions in england at the moment. they're holding fire the running out of test kids to in some parts of europe. tell us about that. yeah, spain as it has been announcing shorted to test. so has england, particularly in the u. k. i think in the u. k, you have this thing where the government is trying to lower the amounts of time

that people are having to self isolate for if they can prove that they are negative . so if you test positive and then you can, then you can show the negative, then you can get our self oscillation earlier. but of course, that means that people are needing a huge amount more test kids to be able to, to be able to prove that they are negative. so that is creating a huge surge in demand and supply is struck, needs to keep up. but of course, throws the policy into disarray. if you can't prove the on accept because you can't actually get a test at the so arkansas fastened, boring challenge says continue to talk about the situation globally. was covered and go ahead. i was catherine. so she's live for us from nar nairobi. well, the problem in module africa, of course, is not just that they're running out of test case, but basically pretty much everything is a challenge when it comes to covered, right? yes, everything's a challenge, especially when it comes to vaccinations,

the rates are very low indeed. and this has been a problem ever since the roll out of vaccination companies across the world. now the cdc says it at this rate, it will take 3 years to get at least 80 percent of the african population vaccinated. it says that currently only about 20 countries. on the continent i've had a least 10 percent of their populations fully vaccinated. this is a huge concern, and this has been attributed to different reasons, including the fact that it's sticking very low for vaccine. those is to get to the countries that need the most. but even if they get to some of these countries, the infrastructure is poor and you know, the distribution of these books is to different parts of those countries has been a challenge. so we're seeing a some countries like nigeria destroying vaccines that have been lying in their warehouses, vaccines that have already expired. now here in kenya,

only 14 percent of the population has been vaccinated. the government is trying to pull measures to make sure more people get vaccinated, for example, saying that people who have a been fully vaccinated the last 6 months can have their booster shots. and also trying to impose some rules of telling business owners, for example, not to allow people who have not been vaccinated into their premises. or the government had also said that people who are not vaccinated are not to get government services, but this has been blocked out by the court. not another big concern here in the is the democratic republic of congo, which is in the 4th wave. now this is a country that has a very low vaccination rate. the country has a population of 19000000 people and only about 800000 have been fully vaccinated. so that is a huge concern, and the push is to make sure on the continent as many people get vaccinated as quickly as possible, not just to protect them,

but also to protect their health friday health care system. all right, thanks so much. katherine soy. there police in southern china have been captured on camera parading form and through the streets in a public shaming exercise. they've been accused of transporting undocumented migrants while the country's borders remain largely close to the curve at 19. earlier we spoke 20 pages correspondent, katrina, you. she says these recent public shaming exercises a sponsor of backlash videos were circulating on white board chinese version of twitter, but they have since been taken down for the most part after spock, and quite a lot of backlash. them. mix comments think a lot of people were shopped because these public shaming exercises very unusual to see today. but they were very common during china's cultural revolution. the period of the 96970 is a very chaotic time. and for those a live who can remember it's

a period that they would rather forget. and since then, public shaving has actually been outlawed here in china and i was just going back to those videos what we can see, a police parading for people around before a crowd. these people are in the hazmat or protection gear. they are wearing black cards around the next that seem to have their photographs. now these men have been reportedly sentenced for trafficking people across the vietnamese border. and just for a little bit of context. and this is taking place in the city of ging, she, china's province of wong. she this is relative to china. it's a very poor area. it's quite a small city on the border. and in recent months ging, she is actually arrested incentives. dozens of people for similar crimes of trafficking. now in china we have this 0 tolerance approach to covet 19, but the border areas in particular are very vulnerable to outbreaks because of the poor smith. there have been a lot of outbreaks around different borders in china,

and so the authorities in these areas are under extreme pressure to keep coven 19 cases down. well, in the u. s. infections, they're all continuing to break rec, holds case numbers have gone up by 60 percent, but deaths and hospital admissions remain low hogs. jo, castro, now with more that from washington d. c. if the highest daily new cases ever in the u. s. were now at 267000 new coven cases. that's the daily average. 60 percent of which is now attributed to the omicron variant and the nations for most infectious disease expert, dr. anthony thought she is predicting that it will only get worse before it gets better. he says the peak of this current surge will likely come in late january. we're seeing much of this happening now in the north eastern part of the u. s. with places like new york city here in washington, d. c,

and surrounding states. people queuing for hours in search of covey tests, and then one in for, in many communities coming back positive. now if there is some silver lining, it's the evidence that here to the omicron variant is resulting in milder infections. because while those cases of jump to some 70 percent since a week ago and number, the hospitalization has not kept pace, that's gone up by just 15 percent. but when you just look into each individual case, those are still each person occupying hospital beds and hospitals are swamped with many counties declaring local states of emergency and warning that soon these hospital beds will all be used up. all right, now what happens with cove? it might have something to do with what kind of variant you've got in your country . and lucky for us guesses by i call you our stat man. come out with some interesting stats on that, right? yeah, it was dr. tendrils. talked about twin threats and i sort of thought, well,

how much of is it a twin threat depending on, you know, where you are in the world. so that's what we're going to have a look at how these variance compare. so this map, 1st of all, as always, from our world and data, this is all micron. well, micron is most prevalent in the well, and it's pretty obvious the dock of the color of red as the more prevalent. so you can get it in south africa, of course, where we 1st saw a micron in australia. we're looking at india and russia as well. but i think it's interesting, if you just look at europe, i'll circle the u. k. because we know that on the crown is the most prevalent strain in the u. k. but not so much in the rest of europe. if i change the map like that, if the i pad wants to play ball. oh, it's not playing ball, we're going to wait here, just a 2nd. what we're trying to show you as the delta strain and that is a lot more prevalent there it goes as you see, hayden, europe, the darker blue air is showing how much more delta a is through europe. and then also other areas that see if the still working it is

in south america and southeast asia as well. so that just gives you a little snapshot. i've got one more metric here which is to look at. and these are 9 different countries which are selected. this is the cher if you like, of our micron versus delta or microns in red. and delta is in blue. it will sound at the top with south africa, which has 96 percent of its cases of the armor constrain. is that a good thing? perhaps? if you're going to have more infections of one of the strains, maybe it's better to have them and i'm using that term loosely, but better to have the one which is considered to be milder. got further down the list a united states in the middle there. 60 thought he split there. so delta still the stronger one just, but i think it's interesting when you go further down and i'm gonna try to draw a sort of tidy box around these 3 here. sort of tidy. that's actually france and germany between 80 and 90 percent of their cases, their share of cases are delta and bad as may be why we're seeing stronger

restrictions and protections coming in in those parts of europe rather than say for the u. k. so i thing where the states may certainly sammy with the question is, we're dealing with 2 strains here. you don't want either of them, but is on the con, perhaps the lesser of 2 evils. if you're gonna have to get one, right. so that's, that's brilliant. thanks for that command that's. that's awesome. now to have a discussion about the different variants that spring in jeffrey lazarus, he's head of the health systems research group of barcelona institute for global health joins us now from camden to in spain. good to have you with us. so, building on that discussion i just had with kemal does it then mean that you really have to look at what kind of variance you have in your country to know how badly this cove crisis is going to develop as part of what you need to look at but there are other factors which is simply the rate of spreading of. 2 the variance, so regardless of the very end, if you take certain control measures,

you should be able to slow down the spread. so other of be, you know, unique, let's say peculiarities are aspects of l diverse is army con is also no difference in when did you put in measure a verses measure b, right? so there are, there are a bunch of factors, perhaps here to consider all other things being equal. if all me, kron, if our micron is less severe, as the data seems to be indicating so far. if it might give immunity, as some of the research centers in the world are, are talking about at least in that sense, is it good news? i'm. it's mixed news. i am trying to be optimist that we have to remember that hospitals are filling up. i see you beds are filling up and while they're not filling up like they were before and while deaths are much lower and then they were in earlier waves across europe,

a lot of people are still dying. there's also the issue of long cove it, you know, where symptoms persist for 356 months or longer. and then there's the issue that, you know, new variance occur when there's a lot of transmission in the community. so now we're seeing these extraordinary numbers of our 100000 cases reported yesterday in spain. 250000 in the u. s. over a 150000 in the u. k. so there's also concerns that new variance can emerge. and then i would throw into the equation, the issue that we still have most of the world not vaccinated. so even if we build up that immunity in europe, we need to quickly help the other countries. otherwise we could see new variance of concern emerge. and for 5 or 6 months, when our immunity starts to wayne again, well, the life is very and overtake previous parents. how do these things work? and it seems like that's the case though, we just heard that there are some western european countries where it dealt this

still the predominant very. and some of those countries off to close their border quicker than in general. it seems that ali khan is taking over. we've seen that in the u. k. we've seen it in the u. s. denmark, spain. so i think um army con will become the predominant variant and lesser or until another variant comes along or that leads me beautifully to my next question is how long will cove it go on developing more new variance? it's hard to say, viruses seek to evade immunity. they are to seek to, to survive. so while there's a lot of virus around, you know, in countries in the community, they'll be mutations and then one variant may emerge and the factors are right, it can start to spread and start to spread extensively. so that's why i think that the precautions to control measures that are being put in place now during the

winter holiday in western europe just before new years, really needed to be put in a bit earlier. when the warning signs were there already in november that there was a new variant or simply that we new cases would go up because people are inside more because there's poor ventilation. so the abuto has called for 70 percent of the world to be vaccinated by july. i hope we can go a lot faster. otherwise, we could look at a similar situation in the year that i hope will have learned to prepare for it much better than we did this time around. i thanks so much ben. good. talking to jeffrey lazarus that makes rabbit plenty more still ahead on the news our including the hong kong chief executive defends the police raid on the pro democracy media outlet 10 years on from his rise to power. we look back at the role of north korea's leda, added school to rough night for premier league title chases, chelsea football action coming out later on in the show.

ah, now the u. s. and russian presidents are due to ring each other with ukraine, expected to be on the agenda. the white house says vladimir putin requested the call with joe biden. the full talks in geneva next month. the kremlin did i's wargames near ukraine's border. are a prelude to invasion, go over to the n and now and get an update on another set of talks. as of course, all the iran nuclear deal talks to plants from the us and russia have been meeting and appeared to be making some headway and bringing back the deal from 2015 dosage of volley. john just now live from vienna, so doors, so us rush in coordination, producing any progress in the talks. where do we stand now? well, this is day, 4 of the 8th rounder. then you put negotiations, the iranian delegation,

led by the deputy for mr. alibaba. connie just left the hotel behind me where they were having meetings all morning. they are now going to be taking your 3 day break . and coming back to these talks on monday, because of the new year calendar. according to the russians in the rain, in their talk to moving forward, of course the americans have a different version of the you are a secretary said anthony lincoln has been speaking to his european counterparts. and he said that the leaves that the talks are moving not at a pace at that the americans would like them to forward that they believe that the wrong new pre program is advancing much more rapidly than these talk. so moving forward, there is definitely a sense of urgency. there is a sense that these rounds, this round could possibly be the final round, but there is a feeling that all sides are not very serious about reaching some kind of an agreement or altogether coming to terms of the fact that this nuclear jewel can no

longer be revived, of course there were events that took place on wednesday morning in the reigning capital, ron in iran space program. the defense ministry officials announced on wednesday morning that the iranians launched another satellite into space. this is the 1st time since april of 2020 the radians have done this and to talk more about what this means and put it into context of the talks here in vienna. i'm joined now by mohammed mirandi. mr. mandy, can you tell us 1st, specifically this launch into space? was it part of the rounds of ballistic missile program, or is it part of the space program? are they very much the separate? are intertwined. and also can you tell us why with the iranians decide to do this at this juncture? it's a part of the iran space program, and iran had a space program for quite a long time. it's cent satellites, into orbit on a number of occasions. it's over years since iran sent its 1st satellites into space. i think it's pretty clear that the iranians are going to continue with

business as usual, whether it's regards to it's space program or even it's missile. ballistic missile technology. we saw iran's military maneuvers just carried out a few days ago. that was obviously a message the united states into this rallies that any military conflict would lead to devastating consequences. in other words, those maneuvers were carried out to prevent war. but when the writing is believed that when the united states is trying to prevent iran from importing even medicine, and when the europeans assist the united states in banning such import, then iran hassey become self sufficient. and the space program is a natural part of that effort. do you think this launch will have any impact on the talks here and how do you see the talks going so far? well, it definitely shouldn't have any impact on during the previous talk 6 years ago. it

didn't have any impact because it's not linked. the talks here to you runs space program to you runs defense program, t runs indigenous tech i t programs or none of that is related to what is being discussed here. the issue is the nuclear program. the iranians, as the head of the cia admitted recently the iran is, are not seeking a nuclear weapon. western countries know this. every one knows this. but iran is willing to take away this excuse that they have to impose sanctions on ordinary people and to allow them to have access to have certain limitations for a period of time. in order to dispel any myth that may exist about the iranian a program. but if, if they want, the iranian said from the very beginning that this is a, an issue that's isolated from everything else. so the nuclear program is the issue

that's being discussed here. everything else is off the table and how difficult it is. obviously going to be difficult. it's not going to be easy. but the good thing is that they are seriously talking about sanctions, which is very important for you run. we all have to remember that iran was abiding by the deal. and that it was western countries that violated the deal from the very beginning. obama violated the deal out when he's behind the scenes, he forced banks not to work with iran. and so now the iranians are armed, want assurances, they want verification to make sure that this time around they don't implement the deal and then the other side doesn't. and on the other hand, the other side wants to keep some of the sanctions in place and have you run, go back to 2015. that simply not doable. both sides have to work together and they can't have anything extra then before. thank you very much for your time mohammed randy. they're from the university of toronto and the points he's making

is that there is a lot of work ahead. and that is the general consensus by all parties involved moving forward into the new year. and they're going to have a lot of things to hammer out. and the european se, the european union who's hosting these talks have also said that there is a lot of hard decisions that are going to be, have to made in toronto and at washington. but there is hope that they will be able to reach some kind of an agreement in the coming weeks i had time will tell, i guess, thanks so much. tulsa jibari, at least 4 soldiers have been killed in molly, and what the army describes as a targeted attack about a dozen and more were injured on tuesday in the western, not a region. molly's armed forces, se gunman of attacked its troops in the area, and the path leaders in molly are currently holding a summit to address national challenges, including future elections and the ongoing fighting. fidelis and bar is live for us in the buddha, with more on this and about us,

these kinds of casualties know that only going to fuel the debates about the country's future and the conflict well concerning the to the top. no group has claim responsibility for the attack, but then again, these attack is not commonly, especially in recent weeks where the country has witnessed attacks on military personnel just a few weeks ago in 70 un peacekeepers were killed. and that there was international outrage about the attack and also about at least $51.00 tree. those who are traveling in a call. my shoebox were shocked up and they all died. and a couple of others i still missing. so this is actually more like a said back to be on the the national dialogue because the new position principal, how did dialogue and the government did the feel as we are getting from the government is that president brought him k to is not actually more like giving into

the proposals by the position your position is suggesting that along with the groups who have terrorized the country since 2012 and has resulted in the death of thousands and more than 2000000 people. displeased with also about it $150000.00 children out of school k take out. ready already calling for non military solution to be conscious crisis, but ruling out completely. any dialogue also, france is also by, by can use that he's proposal to love any form of dialogue with the fighters. but again, it's national musicians and buddies are more like very concerned because the ruling out for that talks with these fighters, which is college for the college crisis and the violence back to me it spread 2 more into neighboring countries. and booking a parcel which had also come from pack by was picked up fight from money. so

this is actually an opportunity for the country to be able to big progress in terms of resolving, even in track camino clash crisis between head us and farmers. but again, we do position out of the picture and just the people who support the president in this dialogue becoming days may still not be as rosy. i suspected when i, thanks so much. fidelis and bother mona's on queuing in cape town to pay their final respects to south africa. nancy apartheid icon. archbishop desmond tutu. he's now lying in states at saint george's cathedral before his funeral. on new year's day. south africa is observing a week of national mourning for 22. he died aged 90 on sunday. when he was the 1st black archbishop of cape town, he rose to prominence in the 1980s as an opponent of apartheid from them and

joins us now from cape town. no doubt an emotional day for morning paying their final respects. it has been to to it certainly is that st. me and i think we're seeing some of the largest crowds you've seen. i in the last few days, people have been coming to saint george's cathedral where we are now to pay their respects. but the says is quite different to day in that the body of the archbishop is now within the cathedral. and also what is very interesting to note is just a simplicity, the archbishop insisted on in terms of his and the, the ceremonies around to people being fair. well, we know that he's in a simple pine coffin within the cathedral and people outside lining up to put farewell and pay their respects. and 0, one of the people re speaking to today saying you've come to day, you've mentioned how important it is to you. why is that? there is in the year 2 days to pay tribute to our hero and

a giant our ashby shop does want to do as the only confirming the prob, privy to the family. because this man was playing a big role to our church. and in the wild, you, you make us famous as the country proud of a denman to deposit you have done for us to our country. to day you're in a peaceful country to his laws. there is no fi, doesn't or racist. there is nothing happening bad to cause of dis legend. our ashby shop was a father, was a king because ollie's was humble, the counsellor when you meet him, is her powerful man. you're in positions, you want to see today as we are here. our lead does to take a pot produced men to take a rolled, what you have done to us. thank you. i thank you very much, sir. and another morning here today, you've said that this is joanie opportunity to bid farewell to somebody that many

south africans and people are on the wall. consider icon absolutey armina. i deemed this more maint.