us epicenter of the pandemic once again. and just in the last 24 hours, 43000 people in new york city alone have tested positive for grown a virus. it's spreading like wildfire here. the positivity rate is 22 percent. one in for new yorkers is now testing positive for the virus, given all of these scenarios, and all of these numbers, if you will. that is why the new year's eve celebration was scaled back dramatically. here. you still saw the scenes or celebration, but it was certainly not nearly the numbers or the, or the, or the size that we have seen in previous years. still to come here, all the news are for you. we look at how thousands of people displaced by fighting in my cheerio are preparing to leave camps and return to their homes. ah.

hello, thank you for joining in. here's your world's weather report. will begin in the middle east and by far the weather. stay of the year in they'll have we had some sundry downpours in fact probably the what is stay in about 2 years. those winds blowing around as well. so quite fierce weather and we have all of this activity around the gulf by sunday it's moving more toward the north end, the east, very likely to see some flooding for southern areas of iran. and this energy will continue to move toward the east into pakistan in the days to come. so let me put this forward. here we are on tuesdays, it scoots across southern areas. this will play karachi then at the same time toward the north, we've got instability, and that's going to press down your temperatures off to turkey. right now, we're going to see the rain pick up toward the northeast black sea regions and snow over a higher elevation. and this will also push in to georgia as well. now,

through the tropics of africa, we've got some heat to be found here. job at 37 bungie, 34, and as we had towards nigeria lycos with a high of 37 degrees, we are seen some storms flare up around this eastern portion of southern africa. so my boot. so as it's moving into southern sections of zimbabwe as while bulawayo has a hive 29 degrees, and in cape town, you're coming in at 21 on sunday. that's it. happy new year. see again soon. ah, informed opinions, there is a need fabulous federal government to take action to really facilitate a right in depth analysis of the data. global headline inside story on al jazeera, 2020, the year of lock downs, and social distance saying we can't reach across the screen and give someone a hug. ali re explores one of the global pandemic speakers side effects. loneliness

. everyone who lives alone has been forced to be socially isolated for the 1st time ever highlighting its effect on physical and mental health and discovering unique ways of coping. controlling, being alone together, episode to of all hail the lot. down on al jazeera uses performance are to draw attention to the critical and controversial issues facing shawnee side . one on one east meets china's activist on al jazeera lou. ah, welcome back. it's sir 1533,

g m t. you're watching the news i. my name's peter dobby. let's recap your top stories. archbishop desmond tutu has been described by south africa's presidents as a crusader in the struggle for freedom, justice, and peace. the party lira was honored to day at a special funeral service in cape town. please 12 people had been killed and a stampede at a religious shrine and indian administered kashmir. it happened at the hindu vash. no darby shrine in the countries northward deportees were marking the new year thousands people had gathered across iraq, them up nearly 2 years since the assassination of iran's top general cast them solomon. he was killed in a u. s. grown strike along with the leader of iraq's iranian backed popular mobilization forces. not saturday marks, 20 years since the launch of the euro. the european central bank marked the events on new year's eve with a light display in blue and yellow. the euro was 1st introduced in 1999, but it was an invisible currency until coins of bank notes were brought in. in 2002

dominant cane stars are coverage from berlin. 20 years ago, it was a novelty, a new currency across much of europe. as one central bank took on responsibility for the monetary policy of hundreds of millions of people. for much of its 1st decade, the euro's own seemed to prosper. but then came the global financial crisis with the greeks leading a succession of ease states, unable to pay their national debts and close to defaulting on them. and therefore, dropping out of the euro club, brussels became the place the seemingly endless meetings of ant baylor packages. with growing tensions between rich and northern and porous southern european member states. between 20102012. there are endless predictions that the euro is going to fall apart, or at least it would lose some of its weakest members like, like greece. in the end, none of those forecast came true. when the coven pandemic seemed to shake the integrity of the euro zone, angular merkel, and a manuel mac hall,

solved the crisis with the so called corona bonds. effectively using the assets of the rich member states to guarantee the debts of the worst hit nations. now the sea bees main fo is inflation driven by fast increasing energy prices and supply shortages when the euro was being dreamt up, some one that if the plan was a currency to challenge the dollars supremacy to gay, urine has managed to establish itself as the 2nd global most important through currency concerned, for example, the m, the for x market for that market and in the international payments. so for example, it's raleigh's, almost equal to the dollar. the driving force behind the single currency comes from paris and berlin. the new german government will continue to closely cooperate bessie french government. and i assure you that z, franco,

german tan then will stay essential for the further development of the european union and the european monetary union opinion polls both across the euro zone and the wider e. you suggest broad popular support for the single currency. a trend that has been stable throughout its existence. 20 years ago, hundreds of millions of europeans had to adapt to the new notes and coins in their pockets. and soon they may have to again, because the e. c. b has announced an overhaul of the look and feel of its cash. dominic cane al jazeera berlin, while the adoption of the euro brought some challenges for some ease states, one year resort member nearly destroyed the currency altogether. as a result, john serrato las as that angle of the story from athens. it was a moment of enormous pride, greek prime minister cost assuming this made the country's 1st euro withdrawal from

an atm inside the bank of greece, signaling the countries change over from the drachma a decade. long process of lowering budget deficits and double digit inflation had enabled grease to meet eurozone criteria. and the trade off was credibility in international markets. greece could now borrow at 5 percent interest down from 25 percent. but there was a problem, governments over borrowed and largely to buy votes. it financed increase of government consumption spending. ah, hiring in the public sector increases spectacular, in some cases, increases of salaries when the subprime mortgage crisis hit us banks in 2007 lenders began to look more closely at bar. it was balance sheets, especially in the european south. current accounting balances that had been built than the net foreign debt that had been built in the south became unsustainable during the crisis when foreign investors and creditors realized that there was so

much debt that had been built, that didn't been possible to service. ah, and that's how credit rates, when very high the spread when they high and, and the government crash shut out of markets. greece was forced to borrow from its eurozone partners on condition that had cut public spending. that brought protesters out on to the streets. they called for greece to default on its loans, which could have seen the euro come crashing down by encouraging enough traitors to bet against the currency. instead, between 20102018 greece performed the fastest and deepest spending cuts recorded in a developed economy. and also suffered the deepest postwar recession losing a quarter of its g d. p. unemployed swords to 28 per cent. all this happens through a political storm in which governments averaged 2 years in office. but this

instability meant that eventually every major party signed on to austerity. the reason was that even in the depths of the crisis greeks overwhelmingly back to euro's own membership. if there were the active available yet, it was right to stand the euro because we don't have much of a primary sector. we don't produce many things that we import a lot. and if we don't have a strong currency to buy, impulse will suffer what's hurt his suffering right now. it's currency is full against 0 and the u. s. dollar to everything important is expensive. all of the greek crisis created a new institution. the european stability mechanism set up to lend, to distressed euro's own governments, and protect the currency from speculation. and it planted an idea, realised during the pandemic crisis of a common euro bond greeks hope. the $750000000000.00 euro resilience and recovery fund will be the 1st step towards a more perfect fiscal union. jumps are hopeless. al jazeera athens. ok. let's talk

now to john pete's. he is bricks. it and political editor at the economist. he joins us from wilcher in the u. k. john pete, welcome to the news our so the euro clearly not an unequivocal success. how would you describe it? well, i think, i mean, the 1st exam that it is, it survived is 1st 20 years and many people when it started thought it might not make it. you know, an experiment like this. a single currency across a large number of countries is, has never really been, never worked, work before, and i think, you know, now it is, it is managed, but it has gone through a crisis and it's still there. i think it is the real problem for it. now is that there are still very slow growing economies in southern europe, and that's the big difficulty for the euro. is it? but it was, or it still is rather an expression of political ambition. political will surely, i mean, when it was launched for a long. busy time it was essentially the d mark. it was the deutsche mark,

wasn't it? because the exchange rates between the deutsche mark and all those other benchmark currencies state exactly the same. yes, that's correct. and, and actually i think that is particularly relevant to germany in germany before the euro. germany got used to the idea that the deutsche mark would appreciate against other countries in, in the europe, european union. and that hasn't happened because by definition it can't any more. and i think that has helped german exporters, but of course it means that some other countries have lost competitiveness against germany during, during this period. but it is overwhelmingly a political project. and i think those who favored it thought it would be a sort of another step towards the close of political union in europe. but we have seen steps towards the place a political union, but we're not hat a full political union. so it's still a bit of an experiment, bit of an experiment where we lied to by the politicians because it in the run up not to the launch in $99.00. but when it became real, when it turned into being paper and metal in your pocket,

the reality is that what the politician said, which was this, it won't lead to inflation it did. because if one went to the south of france, the southwest to france, the spanish coast, the italian coast, all those greek islands, understandably all those restaurateurs, older hotels. they'd all rounded their prices up. they hadn't rounded their prices down. so the price of your greek, italian, french spanish holiday went up by 1015 percent. yeah, i mean it, as i say, it's been a sort of work in progress. and when it 1st came, it clearly was a burst of inflation, you know, italian coffee shops got up the price of coffee and they got a lot of criticism for doing that. but on the other hand, during it spirited for these 20 years, he has been part of the, a general, very low inflation environment. now we're seeing inflation coming back a bit. that's another test for the euro, or i don't think, i think it's probably not right to say the politicians lied,

but i think that there were people who sort of said this is going to introduce a new period of great prosperity across europe. and you'd say, no, it hasn't, i mean it's, it worked, it functions well. it's efficient. the european central bank works quite well. but, you know, the european union, like other parts of the world is not a very fast growing area. and the communities have economy problems, not caused by the euro, but not sold right either. you get the feeling, john, putting your bricks, it head on for a 2nd that it will be used in the future, perhaps with new member states as a political wedge. if he will, there are voices, and he breaks it voices in the u. k. who say an actual consequence of bricks it in the u. k is a fully independent scotland, but wait for it because when scotland, whoever becomes scottish prime minister, when nicholas sturgeon goes from being 1st minister to being prime minister or stopped being prime minister, say, when edinburgh has to go to brussels and say, actually can we join the e u, the e, you will then say yes, the door is open,

but you've got to jettison sterling because you must use the euro, and that is a, a political demand. it's not a fiscal request. no, the van to none in indeed, any country the jointly european union is required to say they will in principle adopt the euro. but of course they can't be forced to do to reach it. then. i mean, if we got into the hypothetical situation of the independent scotland, they couldn't be forced to join join the euro. sweden, for example, i was required as a matter of law to join to europe, but it's showing no signs of doing so. so there is politics involved in all of these decisions. the euro is the european union currency. countries in the european union are members, and i think that will continue to be the case for a long time to come. if for instance, the u. k. were ever to decide to rejoin the european union, i'm sure it would be told you have to join the euro, but i think political negotiation, it would probably be allowed not to the way that suite hasn't. john paid an

interesting conversation. thank you so much for talking to us. thank you. near brings with it the world's largest free trade agreement, which has come into force in the asia pacific region. the deal called the regional comprehensive economic partnership, plaza muscle, or r c. e p. was signed in 2020, it sent to east trade barriers between 15 nations. they include china, japan, south korea, australia and new zealand, and 10 members of the association of southeast asian nations or assy on countries. the deal aims to slash 90 percent of terrace between those countries. now trade in the region was $2.00 trillion dollars in 2019. the u. n says our c e p could boost that figure by 42000000000 dollars that makes it bigger than any other trading block, including the united states, mexico, canada, and their deal and the european union. and a mock is a senior research fellow at the center for china and globalization. he says,

the agreement will reduce costs to the consumers. this is truly a historic trade agreement that is coming into effect and will have enormous ramifications for not just the people that are covered by the people around the world. one reason is that this is the largest marginally so the u. s. m ca or the us mexico, canada trade area. ready is, was the largest r sep, is a little bit bigger, but here's the really important point. us m. c. a covers less than 10 percent of the world's population are set, covers about one 3rd. and many of these are still looking to achieve a more modern lifestyle that we might see in places like new york, like the g, like london, etc. so this is going to create tremendous new opportunities for consumers to have greater choice,

less expensive goods. it's also going to be an enormous economic driver for businesses in the area as well. because this agreement is not just big. but it also covers the key aspects of a self contained economic region. and that there are countries like korea and japan or industrial power houses as well as cookies are producing more agricultural ra inputs as well. so i think this will be transformational and it won't be exclusionary as well. a chem and charity bullet has arrived in the italian port of pus alo, with hundreds of microns had rescued at c last week. those on board, mostly from africa, include around $200.00 miners, most of them, and accompanied they were rescued in 5 separate operations in the mediterranean. the italian government says the number of migrants that have arrived this year is not nearly doubled. residents in the state of colorado surveying what's left after a sudden wildfire destroyed almost a 1000 homes. snow helped to put out hot spots,

and that was still smoldering. the fire swept through parts of the state on thursday, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee to safety authority, say 6 people were injured, and it was a miracle. no deaths were reported. john henry has more tens of thousands of colorado ins are waiting for the smoke to clear to learn what they've lost. things look ok from here, but there is a smouldering in there until you really get down there. it's almost impossible. i know david mark who lives in fire ravaged, boulder county knows 3 people has lost their homes for home golfing plans, so 5060 feet high probably it was really i've never seen any like it. i mean just house after house fences just supplying through the air just caught on fire. authority say they believe as many as 500 homes have probably been destroyed as the fire tor, through drought stricken neighborhoods. at least one 1st responder and several other people were injured, as winds of up to a 169 kilometers per hours,

spread intense flames with terrifying speed. colorado governor jared poll is in boulder, county sheriff joe kelly took the devastation from the air. this was a disaster in fast motion, all over the course of half a day. nearly all the damage, many families having minutes, minutes to get whatever they could, their, their patch, their kids into the car, and leave. last 24 hours have been devastating. polio says president, job wagon promised to free up federal funds with an expedited declaration of a major disaster. john henderson, al jazeera, still a hat here on the news are for you. tributes pouring in for betty white's the golden girl of comedy whose digests weeks before her one hundreds birthday ah,

african stories from african perspective. most of them are never bought more than i was not going to go machine because of the voice of machine appealing in. i mean, it's short documentary by filmmakers from kenya. he raised almost talent, talented something back. it's about and ivory coast colors. i lived here and scrap yet animal africa direct on al jazeera january, and i just need, i don't know why. here we look back on us president joe biden supposed be in office 12 months on from the capital building by be part of the stream. enjoy. now, social media community at sierra leone recovery from civil war continues. we mark 2 decades since the end of one of africa's most political complex. the bottom line div clemons dives headlong into the u. s. issues that shape the rest of the world.

as we enter the 3rd year period, 19, we go back to where it all began and investigate how far we come into the pandemic . january or not just the it out and talk to, i'll just a wild alarm. we listen. design is are making serious separate in order to in t. i'm to stop the 10 of those. we meet with global use maintenance. talk about the store based on how ah ah ah.

when the news break side is tornado destroyed everything. it touched in mayfield. when people need to be heard and the story town, he has done his job to tell us what's going on with exclusive interviews and in depth reports i get on my right the wind. b. g 0 has teens on the ground to where you are award winning documentaries and lives on air. don't lie, lou. ah, 16 times for people displaced by fighting in nigeria is born of states are being closed down. the government had set

a new year deadline several months ago. tens of thousands of people are set to return to their homes. but write scripts for some of those places. still under attack by on groups. fidelis and bar has more for us from a boucher thousands of id piece in this 16 got me around comes, have been here for some years. some of them have stayed here for about. it's yes. and it used to live in this. got me around comes where government tries to give them some form of support. after running away from there, i've been uprooted by at the book of her i'm from yeah, sister homes now the government is asking them to return to the towns and villages . where do i expected to start a new life? some of them will be going directly to the villages, which had to really on the i me security threat and those whose villages and towns i see been occupied by an groups i expected to leave. i did look on my headquarters where government will provide a mixture to an accommodation arraignment, and also provide security for them pending when the villages and towns are safe for

them to return that the each household at yeah, of the $10000.00 households were given to $100.00 each to be able to settle back when they return to their villages. some have collected this money, i stayed back, moved out of become, even before the government deadline. but again, those where they're actually feeling very concerned, which is why international bodies have expressed concerns about, is posing this idea is to danger when they return home. because there's the pockets of attacks in some of the communities. contrary to what government is saying that everywhere, relatively peaceful, the government is even citing that im may jump a military base in at novel base, which is in the bagger. one of these at taos, i had comedy, repeated attacks has returned and life has returned to the city because the military base is now functional. so the advising all the id p is to go back and that will show that d p a. yep, this is ambry and a groove on their lifestyle rather than leaving a mixture of times in the city center. me too great tribute to being paid to

hollywood legend actor comedian. but white 2 died 3 weeks short of her 100th birthday after a career of 80 years she held the record as the female entertainer with the longest tv in america ever abra and go perhaps more oh, in a youth driven film industry, betty white was a rarity, she was one of a few actresses who maintains ta power well into her ninety's. oh, this is something you did to mrs. miller that she began her career in the 19th thirty's on radio. and in variety, shows. i'm sorry, this is a very critical touchy one. to best supporting actress emmy awards for her role in the mary tyler moore show in the 19 seventy's. oh. 6 0 oh but her portrayal of sweet and quick heroes nyland in the 1980s sit com,

the golden girls shot her to super stardom and and her new legion of fans. she won an emmy in 1986 for the role playing a widow living and retirement with for all the ladies and the antics in miami. she wasn't afraid to laugh at herself. ah, here was a response when she unveiled a wax work of herself at madame to swords. you know, the only thing that hurts me. why did they wait? you do this till i was 90? 0, there, hazel would have no idea she was starring in the t. v show hot in cleveland at the age of 92 until it was cancelled in 2014, betty white continued to make new audiences smile. darker saying a glass of wine a day can extend your life. and that perhaps was the secret of her lengthy career. was like we're

a little infer over more news at 16, she will see you then. ah . with during the debates, 90 percent of the world's refugees have come from of common impacted country. the climate emergency is putting more pressure on cities across the world and amplify your voice. it's not really the future 8. now this is not our responsibility. if people log concrete is completed, we cannot lose hope. we know what to do, and we have the tools to do good act. we must build all the paper. the stream on al

jazeera, a right of passage preserved through the generation. my cousin was laying down there i'm to was claiming she was helpless. the woman who after indoors as go through cycle of paint for what fat manime meets the women affected by f g m. and those re shaping perception. do you think people will abandon the site eventually, but to those take al jazeera correspond the cart barn. we understand the differences and similarities of cultures across the world center might have where you call home will. but you can use in current affairs that matter to you. i don't get a get. oh

lou. oh, south african say good bye to the national hero and to your party activist and well statesman. archbishop desmond tutu. archbishop desmond to do has been our moral compass. but he's also been our national crunches. ah, logan on peter w, watching ultra 0 live from dough. also.