>> this is al jazeera and these are your top stories, the person who led a coup in mali this week has now been named interim president, all were part of the previous coup last august. nicholas hock has more. >> this was a long time coming since the detention of the president of transition. on monday, it was clear that any resemblance of a civil led

government of transition was gone, of molly -- the country -- he has been meeting religious leaders, union leaders, the opposition, trying to rally to his cause, meaning there was no real surprise when this constitutional court announcement was made. >> germany has acknowledged it committed genocide in namibia in the early 20th century. german settler forces killed tens of thousands of indigenous people after an uprising against colonial rule. after five years of talks, berlin will doubt reparations but agreed to provide aid for development projects. in the democratic republic of the congo, people are seeking

refuge. some killed dozens and destroyed homes. the u.n. refugee agency is alarmed about reports of soldiers taking people from displacement camps in ethiopia's war-torn region. if the op and its allies could raise further action if they don't do more about the worsening military and situation. republicans in the u.s. senate have derailed an inquiry into the attack on capitol hill by donald trump supporters. democrats and some moderate senators from trump's publican party have worked to set up a commission investigating the events leading up to the riots. these continue on al jazeera. next is inside story. stay with us. ♪

>> the u.s. has ordered an investigation into the origins of covid-19 but beijing says it shows a disrespect of science. 10 america's intelligence officials succeed where others have failed? this is inside story. ♪ >> welcome to the program. i'm adrian finighan. conspiracy theories with the origins of covid-19 have been circulating since the start of the pandemic that has killed more than 3.5 million people. speculation it was caused by a laboratory accident in the chinese city of wuhan has gained currency once again.

that is after president joe biden ordered u.s. intelligence agencies to find more. biden has urged the world health organization to launch a second investigation. earlier this year the who concluded the theory was unlikely while acknowledging the scientists based difficulties getting access to data from china. we will bring in our guest in a moment but first a report. >> with more than 50% of u.s. adults not vaccinated, president joe biden is turning his focus to the origins of covid-19. he has given his team at 90 days to investigate how and where the virus first emerged. most controversially, the report will look at whether the virus was leaked from of this chinese lab in wuhan. >> china needed to provide more access to the lab, cooperate more fully with the scientific investigators and we do not think they have met that

standard. >> was dismissed as a conspiracy theory, now leading scientists say the possibility of a lab leak should not be unaware -- ignored. >> we are hearing about people who work at the lab becoming sick with an illness, we have seen the chinese government be reticent to repress the origins of the virus. all street journal reporters have been detained by police, the bbc has been chased out of areas where the people are looking for origins that raises questions. >> echo in march, a joint investigation by china and the world health organization concluded the probable source of the virus was animal to human transmission from a market. an accidental lab leak was highly unlikely. but many governments have criticized the reports credibility. this access was limited and the chinese government withheld data. they argue china's apparent influence on the who has tainted

the reports validity. china don't eyes the virus from a lab -- denies the virus leaked from a lab, saying critics are plain politics. >> 33 million confirmed cases and about six and 2000 deaths from covid-19 in the u.s., the highest numbers in the world, the u.s. is not requesting on its own problems but attempting to make a scapegoat out of china. my question is what are they up to? and they sleep at night with an untroubled conscience? >> the biden administration says knowing the origins is a matter of global health, a way to stop another pandemic in the future but the report could have our region consequent says that go beyond the health sector. ♪ >> let us bring in our guest for today's discussion from beijing, there, -- from copenhagen we

have jeffrey, former who official, and from new york we are joined by a dr., a leading virologist and ceo of cohen therapeutics. welcome to you all. victor, let us start with you. this week china said it would not participate in additional investigations into the origins of the virus by the world health organization. why does china have something to hide -- why, does china has been to hide? >> china has already fully cooperated, the operation started from the burst week of the discovery of the pandemic in wuhan. in 2020 early january. and throughout all of these months, china worked closely with the who and china was transparent in welcoming to bho experts which included many american scientists -- who

experts which included many american scientists in wuhan and they had a conclusion. we need to use that conclusion rather than using politics and refused to put science above everything else. this is the attitude of china and i will propose we build up a global chronology for all of the evidences leading to the outbreak of the pandemic, including many evidences which have been discovered in the united states and in several other countries. by looking at all of the relevant data and evidence, we will have a better idea as to where truly this virus started. >> you say china was very transparent with the world health organization investigators. as we heard about report, they criticized china for saying they lacked access to certain places and access to data. not cooperating, the optics are that something sinister is going on and china is hiding

something. adding to that sense of a cover-up was china's treatment of citizen journalists and medical professionals. the ophthalmologist who did to warm dutch mourn the world about the disease, -- worn -- warn the world. i think it is interesting to do so. >>'s you need to use the report by the who experts group as the stopping point. in dealing with the virus, every country in the world including the united states have always been very cautious because in dealing with the pandemic there are many considerations to be reported and it is particularly true in china, the first weeks of the outbreak. no one knew what exactly this was all about. it was diagnosed as different kinds of diseases, sickness, problems. it took great courage and putting all resources through

many parts of china for the scientists to then quickly discover the real nature of this virus. china took the leadership role of reporting to the who their own sequencing results which laid the ground work force grimly into action for the vaccines by many countries and i think we need to look at, this is the major picture of what china did. i think china has a solid track record of fighting off the spread of the virus and many countries should learn from the chinese success story rather than pointing and accusing fingers -- and accusing finger at china. >> jeffrey in copenhagen, you heard china had courage, a chock record -- a solid track record, played a leadership role. what you think of this probe by the u.s., what did it turn up that is not public knowledge question mark is it political or

a genuine effort --? is it political or genuine effort to get the truth. clark's -- >> there were issues around full freedom of movement, they felt they lacked access to data and that raises issues of what data they were not able to analyze. until that is resolved it will leave a lot of open questions so i agree china opened up the country very early in 2020 two a who team, spent 11 years of the to bho and the who is governed by its member states -- the who, the member states often play a role in contributing to reports and approving them. so great information came out of the report while china made sequencing information available which has been essential to developing scenes, i feel it there is a need to go back and

do further investigation, that should happen. i'm not sure how political it is, i would've thought it was more political under the trump written -- presidency than biden. there is a real interest in understanding what happened so that we can protect labs better and prevent this kind of virus spread in the future. >> how important is this investigation in terms of preventing future pandemics? our governments sufficiently aware now of the dangers after covid-19. -- are governments sufficiently aware of the dangers after covid-19? >> they are aware, we have had lab accidents earlier, plenty of respiratory infections go to epidemic or pandemic levels, we have never seen something like this before. now there is a real concern that we need to prepare in the future

and we don't know what the investigation will turn up. i wonder a year and a half later, how important it is to continue digging into the origins but i think the team felt there was information they need, the need to go back and i think that should happen. >> why is it so important to find out exactly where this pandemic began, to find a patient zero? >> i think it is critical because it will help us place a admap for preparedness for future pandemics and future aspects. this time around we have been very lucky virus that started this whole mess is known to us, it belongs to a family we had prior experience with and that has led to a quick element in many aspects. but it remains of utmost importance that we figure out

who is patient zero in the wuhan area. i think the theory of the wet market, no one really believes it. i think the theory of an accident in the lab, i don't believe it either. i have had the opportunity of visiting many labs in china what i was in south korea and i can tell you the security levels of some of the biosafety level threes are high, they have high standards as we have in the united states. the theory to me is not holding water yet but for future preparedness, i think of you ho needs -- you ho needs to -- who needs to have a roadmap of how to deal with emerging diseases moving forward. it is just a roadmap for the worse to come and we are not prepared.

>> so you are fairly confident this virus did not escape from a lab in china, it jumped from animals to humans we just don't know where? >> exactly. i used to run one of the largest bio safely -- biosafety level threes in south korea and the south korean of authorities, the korean cdc had a list of boxes to tick to keep the lab operational every year. however, somebody can put a vial of the virus in their pocket and walk out with it and if that happened in china, that is a whole different thing. that is not a leak, that is a criminal act. we have to start thinking of a difference between an accident, which is very hard to do, unless you book yourself purposely with a needle -- poke yourself purposely with a needle containing the virus or someone deciding to take a sample of the virus in their pocket. that is different. i think for that, even though

our colleague from china i understand his position, but they can be prepared to release or provide information on that. when the pandemic -- that period when the pandemic started in october, november, december 2019 to try to track the activities that were going in the institute and figure out if somebody was a disgruntled employee that did something like that. this theory i actually buy into. an accident i'm not sure. >> victor, what do you make of that? >> i think it will be everyone's benefit if we can find out the real origin of a virus this time around. on the other hand, i think for example if we want to find patient zero for the spanish flu, the patient zero cannot be

found in spain. it is back in the united states. and that's a historical reason, more than 100 years ago, but it is a similar situation in wuhan this time. china did discover this outbreak and took effective measures to fight off the spread of the virus in china, and we need to build up a global chronology basis collecting all of the relevant information like, for example, the sudden closure of the laboratory in the united states, the e-cigarette incidents which resulted in many patients getting sick and their symptoms were very much like the symptoms of covid-19. there are many other evidences in different parts of the world which i personally believe need to be brought into this global chronology so that the scientists and the medical doctors can really have enough information to reach very

important conclusions, where the pain of preventing such spread of a pandemic again in the future and every country, all of us will be better prepared. this should be done on the basis of science and should be done on the basis that this virus is a common enemy of mankind. >> jeffrey i will come back to you but i want to give the other doctor a chance to answer. what victor was hinting at was that the virus had not started in china at all, what do make of that? >> this has been the chinese position all along and i think scientifically we completely refuted. every country where we had a sense -- chance to sequence the virus it had so much identity to the wuhan sequence and the theories about the e-cigarettes and whatnot that the chinese came up with were from january 2020, we are in a different world to the spanish flu and as an example when i was in south

korea it did not take us long to identify patient zero during the outbreak with the first virus. the same goes to saudi arabia. with china, with wuhan, with the development china has accomplished, i think it would have been much easier to get us to patient zero. here is a strategy for our colleague from china. if china feels very confident about everything it has done so far, they have no reason not to allow us access to the clinic where the doctor, dr. lai used to work. many of us believe the cluster, the center point of the pandemic started there. if that is the case there's no reason they should not release information of what happened there because from wuhan and the information we got from several scientists in china and we have not heard from them

unfortunately since january 2020, we don't know whether they are even still alive, that actually gets to the point of what is china hiding. if what our colleague from china is saying is true, there is no reason to release the information from this clinic so we can understand the clinical manifestations that were presented from the month of september, october, november 2019. >> we come back to the optics. if china has nothing to hide, why is it being obstructive? >> i don't think china is being obstructive. china does not welcome people with vested interest in accusing china or trying to hold responsible for this pandemic. that is what china is opposed to. china wants to oppose those people who refuse to put science above everything else and who wants to shirk their own responsibility for their failure of containing the virus in their own country and also leading to

so many deaths of the goodhearted american people, almost 600,000 of them. that is the shame we witness in the world. talking about the incidents before the outbreak in wuhan, i think the who should organize and investigation into the five american luke perry athletes who attended the military game -- military athletes who attended the military games in wuhan and reported sick to the infectious disease hospital. their medical records were kept in china and they were all of a sudden airlifted, sent back to the united states, what happened to them? what was their condition after they went back to the united states? i hope the who should look into this particular situation. they should cooperate with united states as much --

>> i have to give jeffrey an opportunity to speak because time is tight. what do you make of what you just heard there? what about the world health organization's handling of the epidemic and the origins? is it doing what is designed to? >> i hear in this conversation it has been very political, who was asked by its governing body to use an international team and investigate and they did. there were reports as they mentioned that they did not have all of access they wanted, the report they did not receive all of the data they wanted. so if you ho does not enter a country without permission of that country. -- who does not enter a country without permission and it is working in close collaboration with the government focal points from around the world, particularly those most

affected. i think they have been doing a great job from the beginning of announcing, this is a public health emergency, and concern, they rather quickly found there was human to human transmission, some people think it was too slow but it was within weeks of the first investigation but it's governments who are putting up obstacles, who did not want to declare the pandemic and the who has its hands tied en it goes to a country, it can send experts which it has been doing but if they do not have all of the access they want they can get the job done. china has nothing to hide and who says they would like to go back, the government should yield. it should happen. >> victor a brief answer from you if you can. does china view this investigation, this intelligence

gathering operation announced by the biter administratn is purely political? what is it likely -- the biden administration as purely political? what will it do to china u.s. religions -- relations question mark >> ? >> i think it is bad. president trump tried and failed and i think biden will try and fail again. >> how likely is this inquiry to lead to nothing but a dead end even that the intelligence space will not have people on the ground in china? >> i'm of the opinion and i think my colleagues are of the same opinion that members of the g20 countries have this intelligence back in 2019 and based on that alone i don't think what president biden has asked for will shed any more light than what we know. i agree with my colleague from china, it is going to turn this

into a very uncomfortable tennis game between china and the united states. i believe two things could happen, one, the who lost its credibility and should no longer be involved in any investigation. i think they should be kept out of this. two, i think we should think of starting a new forum composed mainly of international experts around the world with the idea of them going to china or other countries, be on the field, go to labs, talk to people, go to hospitals and then they can come up with once and for all, not looking for the proof as such but a roadmap that is going to help us to be better prepared in the future. the way things have been going under the trump administration and now under president biden, it will not help us and i don't believe it is science driven.

i think intel has been known for a while, it has not shed light on anything that we know so far about what happened there. >> jeffrey, what do you make about, the who should not be involved in future investigation into the origins of the virus? >> i disagree. i think who should continue to be involved but i also agree the importance of building a roadmap. he sought who had a lot of challenges in addressing this pandemic -- we saw you ho had a lot of challenges in addressing the pandemic and preparedness is one of our most important health issues in the world moving forward. we are going to need to have a new institution possibly new ways for current institutions to work and be more effective. we have seen it before with the global fund, organizations that were set up in some ways to fill in for shortcomings in existing

organizations and agencies. >> gentlemen, we are out of time. thank you for being with us. as always, thank you, too for watching. you can see the program again at any time a going to our website and for further discussion join us on our facebook page, you will find that at facebook.com/ajinsidestory. you can also join the conversation on twitter. from me and the whole team, thank you for watching and we will see you again. bye for now. ♪g

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