state's top election official to alter the state's presidential election results citing unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. no luck law what i want to do is as i use one of the fine. $11780.00 loans which is one more that we have. on the eve of the runoff georgia secretary of state dismissed trumps claims once again. it has been a big canard it's been a red herring people trying to blame shifting find excuses why they didn't turn their people out to win as a republican i'm disappointed with those results are accurate. but trump isn't backing down the u.s. president flew to georgia to campaign for the state's republican senate candidates he once more refused to acknowledge his election defeat. want to thank you very much georgia by the way there is no way we lost george and

this. was originally. his time in the white house may soon be ending but donald trump seemed to term and not to go quietly. william glu cross from a u.s. election team joins me now william what impact has trump and his popularity had in georgia. i guess i mean we should never underestimate donald trump's impact his popularity is those 2 words are spot on you know he won in the put in the general election 75000000 votes. far short of what joe biden want to become to actually win the election but we should be reminded the fact that he's still very popular you know no one can say and only a court and maybe congress could say if his recent actions especially that phone call constitute illegal behavior we don't really know what was going on in his head

but we do know why so many people in congress other senators other people other people in the republican party continue to support and back him and continue to peddle his baseless claims about the election fraud because while trump may be going trump is is certainly not and there is a resonance in the base of the republican party that response to that that's very excited by hearing you know someone fighting for that for what they see is as the right thing as the correct outcome regardless of their not being evidence and that we can see possibly in strong republican turnout in this georgia election as sort of a microcosm of what we saw across the country in november where people still came out for donald trump despite predictions showing otherwise so what exactly. they. i don't we only have to look back to the obama 8 years of obama and how he often didn't have a friendly senators

a friendly democratic senate in his corner to help him get his agenda through we could be expecting to see the same if democrats can't control the senate or republicans will be able to block almost everything or at least very very very slow much slow down the biden agenda you know the senate's you know possibly number one power is confirming judges and confirming people in the biden cabinet other officials and biden's government and if you want to stymie a president's agenda the best way to do it is of course is to make sure he doesn't have the people around him and literally filling the the offices the desks the posts to get that agenda through even with the executive action that joe biden be able to take he would be limited if there are literally not people to to carry out his his his tasks you've mentioned georgia is a traditional republican stronghold why do the democrats think they they can flip the senate seats in this election. i don't know if democrats think they can they certainly hope they can and they have to if they want to see

a successful 4 years for a biden in ministration remember biden won this state by less than 12000 votes as we heard in the report of the 11780 votes that donald trump wanted to find somewhere in a republican state a republican controlled state allies of donald trump running that state and counting those votes joe biden also as we saw in the general election in november was not good down ballot people he was not able to encourage voters who may have voted for joe biden to still vote for other democratic candidates in other offices so you know we saw you know good on the ground grassroots turnout and a lot of work being done by people like stacey a brings an abrams and other people on the democratic side of things to get people out to vote and now we're going to see as results come back late tonight whether all that turnout all that work they've done a really has led to something or for republicans are able to still mount a strong voter turnout today and win the day as they have historically in

a republican state with him to quote from us election team thank you william for twenty's when he was he had dominated by the cone the virus was spread across the world for emerging in the chinese city of whom from the 1st confirmed covert 19 fatalities last january to over 1800000 dead by the end of the year we've chances the development of a global pandemic. the epicenter of a global disaster the rouhani went to market in january 2020 have met it leased sealed off but it was too late. the novel coronavirus had already spread to humans from animal salt here setting off a deadly pandemic the 1st covert 1000 death was recorded in wu han on january 11th a month later the disease had killed more people in china than the sars outbreak in 2003 with hospitals overflowing

a city of 11000000 went into fool lockdown drastic social distancing measures a low china to contain the virus but by no the pandemic had long spread beyond its borders with europe becoming the next hot spot by the end of march italy had overtaken china as the washed hit country in the city of bearable the army was called in to cart off the coffins of those who perished in the hospitals when emergency wards ran out of ventilators doctors had to choose who wish to live or to die. on a from 9th a grim milestone 100000 corporate 1000 deaths worldwide 2 days later the us registered the most coronavirus deaths in any country status it maintained for the rest of the year in new york bodies piled up in a marriage and storage outside hospitals here too there were no longer able to cope

with the case law and as a long time sought to bring down spiraling infection rates the city that never sleeps grown to a halt. the spread slowed over the summer but that did not stop the global corporate 1000 death toll from reaching 1000000 in september since then colder weather has driven a result of the virus. as the numbers keep rising the world is pinning its hopes on newly developed vaccines to wrest control back from the virus. but with doses limited it will be months yet before the global immunization drive really takes off . and to talk about the global immunization dr when i joined by dr margaret harris public health doctor and spokeswoman for the world health organization dr harrison marks those programs have started in many countries yet there have been some teething problems including here in germany or places how

happy are you with the overall progress good afternoon and happy new year to year and your viewers you should expect teaching programs remember many countries and many of them in europe do not do mass faxon ation this is something many countries have not done for years because the routine vaccinations programs of care the infectious diseases that they so. getting over logistics together getting all the people together getting the places getting the training that is it an extraordinary mobilization. what i have to say is i'm very impressed that people have been able to start because that means put tremendous amount of work in over a period when it's normally holidays for most people. when it comes to us knows nothing so far it seems that every country is looking out for itself is that a good thing or do you think there should be more international corporation and

sharing. well we said it is w.h.o. want to see everybody vaccinated around the world in the same period now of course some countries are going to start earlier than others but we want to see the high risk groups of people who are most likely to get sick and die and and also those people at risk of catching it because if they don't the health workers we want to see those groups vaccinated all around the world 1st and we're putting a lot of if it in and there's a very chilling by most countries we've got less countries involved in our codex facility representing 90 percent of the world's population. well none of us are really safe until the community and unity across the globe supports the kovacs initiative to make vaccinations as accessible to poor countries how's that progress and. so this thing quickly saying well we've got agreements now for up to $2000000000.00 doses and as i said the focus is getting to the 20 percent of each

population that highest risk so now there is a involves really ensuring that every country is ready and we've been doing that work since for about the last 6 months and really working with every country to ensure they've got everything in place and working out which particular vaccines will be most appropriate for which particular populations and countries we're going to be going on right now with our strategic advisory group of experts on vaccines looking at the policy for the 1st vaccine that we have given emergency used that's the fines or by entering. do you have a mask you know to look into your crystal ball that. a rough idea when everybody around the world or when they're when there's a herd immunity around the world. so help me to see and i'm sure everybody knows i'd stand is about getting your population getting in the scented european

population vaccinated so it's difficult for the virus to transmit you know we don't know enough about this virus to put a number on that and we would be wrong to try out the real trick is to bring the transmission right down while you've been working up the immune barrier in your population so the job we have right now and this will state. that wonderful time when we can relax a little the job right now is to bring your transmission down to do absolutely everything so it the hand washing them are squaring be avoiding the crowds ensuring that you have gathered in closed spaces and if you ask quine to really do it if you ask yourself isolate really do it and if you are asking people to self isolate you sure you could support them to make sure they really can do it dr margaret harris thank you very much it's a pleasure. you're watching the news coming up next in the w.

news asia targeted killings in afghanistan. as told in the office. and china's best known entrepreneur jack ma is missing since did his outspoken comments against regulation put him on the warpath but beijing. all that and a lot more was on to the news asia with my colleague melissa chan coming arrives off to this news program and that's it for me other news team thanks for.

the christmas season has come to me misleading and everything is almost back to. triumph cohen mind doesn't stand a chance don't miss the day most economists street cleaning away in. christmas and there's just no end to sufism is.

the new year menards years there's a reason you can how last year's german starts there will bring you a magical as you've never heard her before the surprise yourself with what is possible who is medical really what moves her and what of us who talk to people who followed her along the way admirers and critics alike how as the world's most powerful woman shaking her legacy diners from eccles last stops. i'm secure that the work that's hard and in the end this for me you're not allowed to stay here and more we will send you back. are you familiar with this. with the smugglers we're alliance of. what's your story ready.

i'm with numbers of women especially are victims of violence in. part and send us your story you are trying in order to understand this new culture. another visitor another nurse you want to become a citizen. in for migrants your platform for reliable information. you're watching news asia coming up today deadly attacks in afghanistan taint another round of peace talks for many afghans peace seems like a distant dream when they still see so much violence e.-w. visit a family whose daughter paid the ultimate price for daring to stand out plus where is jack ma she's $1.00 of china's richest and most influential men but hasn't been seen in. mom is in trouble with beijing.

i'm melissa chan welcome to news asia we're glad you could join us talks are set to resume this week concerning the future of afghanistan with negotiators from the government and also the taliban among the different stakeholders they call it a peace deal but that hope seems less and less apt instead we have seen a string of targeted killings across afghanistan specifically of the educated elite the kind of people the country badly needs such as government workers and those in civil society these include judges doctors and journalists including television anchor malala my wind who was gunned down last month. ghoul's wife was murdered by the taliban years ago now their daughter has also been killed malala my wife and was one of the few female journalists in afghanistan until she

was shot dead last month in cold blood. she was brutally murdered for no reason at all her only crime was that she spoke the truth and fought against injustice to give her life because she wanted to help other women in particular. molalla was an anchor at the afghan news station any cas her boss zalmai latif he remembers her as a fearless broadcaster on the day of her death she was shed you have to present the morning show. to your colleagues were waiting for her in the studio at some point a cold cane telling us she was dead. it was tragic that we all started crying and couldn't understand who would do such a thing to malala. and. her father shows us where his daughter

and her driver were killed by unidentified gunmen attacks like this are growing more frequent in afghanistan in 2020 more than 10 journalists were killed malala former boss is concerned about this constant threat. to the of course this puts a lot of pressure on us it was tricks our reporting we expect the government to take necessary security measures so we as journalists can once again report freely in the country and in the future for the you sit well with the. funeral was well attended. there are many here who fear the recent uptick in violence against journalists. intellectuals will further silence civil society. rather than just wanted one thing peace in afghanistan she was so happy when the

peace negotiations with the taliban started and she was so sure that everything would finally get better once she told me that she was ready to die for peace no she's dead but there is still no peace. as legacy hangs over afghanistan a defiant reminder of the victims of violence and the peace for which they fought. joining us is journalist alan latif he is in kabul ali how is it possible that you have a group sitting down for peace talks when the reality outside the meeting room is that there's a lot of violence this is exactly the question people are asking and i think more than anything what it shows is the desperation of the situation because you know while these politicians and these representatives will definitely be jockeying for their own position and their own. advances the average person at this point just wants an end to the fighting and they you know they don't

understand why the war is still going on while there's peace talks but they just want something to actually come from these peace talks so it will be very important for both sides to actually deliver something tangible after all of these months now when it comes to the violence in many cases no organization has claimed credit for these murders but do we have an idea who they might be as the taliban involved in any way. so if you ask the government the intelligence agency the ministry of interior will say that 99 percent of these attacks are perpetrated by the taliban and you know these things are very difficult to prove. and just the fact that there really is very little proof of what's going on and who is behind these attacks that makes it much scarier for the average person because they feel like anybody could be behind my death and it could come at any moment for literally anything i say or do and so it makes it that much scarier

and that much more difficult and again this is part of why people are so desperate for peace because they feel like question is behind these attacks maybe a real peace will actually bring an end to it what is the message what is the goal of attackers here if we don't know who they are here. ideas that literally you are not safe anywhere you're not safe from stick you are not safe from you're not safe from suicide attacks you're not safe from someone getting on a motorcycle and shooting you and you're not safe because of what you say i was just speaking to an analyst for another story and they asked that i don't quote them in the story because of these targeted killings they were so afraid that you know because as we said we don't know who is behind these they. what they say could end up getting them killed and this was just an analyst for

a simple story for another you know news agency that's really what these attacks are accomplishing. but what is the goal of fair do they just don't want a government do they want an arche is that the sense that people are getting behind it what's driving these attackers. the sense is that it's either censorship trying to keep people from criticizing the government or the taliban or any other organization. and or it's literally duffey or that no one is able to protect you that this state. cannot protect those of your the taleban you want to create the fear that the state cannot protect you if you're the state you want to create the fear that the taliban have not changed that they you can't be protected from them as long as they exist in and we should be attacking them and going after them so whoever is behind these attacks has their own unique message they're trying

to send. thank you for joining us. questions are growing over the apparent disappearance of chinese billionaire jack ma the founder of e-commerce giant alibaba hasn't been seen since october after he publicly criticized china's regulators for stifling innovation speculation about his whereabouts intensified when ma failed to appear as a judge on his own reality business show us financial services arm and group was due to be listed on the stock market but days after the remarks regulators pulled the i.p.o. until his disappearance ma was the richest man in china and is one of the country's most influential entrepreneurs he stepped down as chairman in 2019 but remains its biggest shareholder. joining us in the studio is d.w. correspondent clifford kuhn and formerly based in beijing clifford what is going on

well you know the question that they have the answer the germans don't like to give but we don't know but we do know is that the most famous businessman in china has disappeared. and there's been no message from his company for money and it came shortly after he made some comments in shanghai on october 24th saying that he believed the regulations in china for were too difficult to foster innovation so a combination of all these things means that we suspect that he is probably one of several things he could be in singapore on a fake passport that's one room or another is that he's been in the ministers of detention that he's been picked up by the police and then the other is that he's been ordered to take to keep a low profile and he's in the wrong job which is the chinese city where he's had courses give us a sense of how big a deal this is well i think i think it's very difficult to overstate how big is in

china i mean when you get in there. the shelves are full of books about how to be like jack or you know the advice of jack ma the words of jack he's he's most of these t.v. shows that he's on his company is is is the flagship company for china it's one of the 3 biggest tech companies there he's very very important so for him to suddenly disappear like this is definitely suspicious it's a bit like jeff bezos of amazon disappearing or something like that it is it is and as we know china is not a model of transparency so it's not great for getting this information so that's exactly what i wanted to ask which is what does this tell us about the government and also what does what should the international business community take from what's happening well it's interesting the timing of this basically it's not a good sign in terms of transparency and if you're thinking of investing in china you know you're going to see these they're going to be

a bit worried about this kind of thing when someone so famous such a big global company like ali baba can can get can just disappear like this it just shows to me. politics always beats out financial in china even if there's a good sound financial economic reason for this you can be sure that it's something to do the communist party asserting control so i think that's that's the key factor here and as you know this year is going to be the 100th anniversary of the communist party so there's a real sense that in china everyone is getting things lined up getting all the ducks lined up so it's going to be a big year celebrating the communist party and it's very possible that. well it's very interesting because silicon valley is big when it comes to investing in china and china chinese tech so one really wonders what's going through their minds in terms of processing this and to what extent it's going to impact how they invest in china so i guess to sort of step back a bit how this is really weird is it it's definitely very weird but we see. this

kind of thing before we had a case a couple years ago with being being the actress who is china's most famous actress she just disappeared for 2 months nobody knew where she was. absolutely no information and 2 months later she read to months wherever she was she reemerged with a massive tax bill full of apologies and messages of support for the communist party so it's like taylor swift disappearing exactly yes so it's not it's these these big figures and it's almost you can almost see a pattern you know i don't read too much into it because there have been other things about the government of britain preventing rules and about monopolies and stuff but it's also highly symbolic i think that the most famous entrepreneur and the most famous actress you know these leading figures show that in terms of power they're not they're not the main thing on chinese thinking that it could fit couldn't thank you for joining us. that's it for today for more check us out on

facebook or twitter we'll leave you now with pictures of workers in japan visiting shrines to pray for a good start to 2021 or back to mars. the fight against the corona virus pandemic. has the rate of infection been developing what does the latest research say. information and contacts the coronavirus up to. 19. on t w. i

a meal and i'm game did you know that 17 trillion left of them are killed worldwide so that we can include but it's not just the animals of all suffering it's the environment we live on a journey to find ways out in the question if you want to know how overweight clipped the proof i will hold trust changed the thesis listen to our podcast on the green. people with masks a common sight now around the world some of the masks also on at home professionally made. and then there are the disposable masks the ones also used in hospitals they pose a huge risk to the environment because they contain. plastic and often enough they

end up polluting rivers and oceans. we've seen all around the world well with washing up with plastic bags and stomach these masks there are no. better no worse than the rest of the car. we can't stop using masks but we should not have to choose between saving lives or the environment so what should be done. hello welcome to the night in special. and this here is a reusable mask we all have them here at the w. to keep each other safe and i certainly keep this one unlike those single use ones which most of us where only once or twice and then throw away but what happens then time to take a closer look at an item that's become essential for our every day life disposable masks are everywhere on the ground in hong kong.