of countries reporting 0 cases i'm not sure i'd trust their statistics but certainly countries like singapore south korea. new zealand hold an extremely well. estimate from the university of south australia thank you very much you're very welcome to have. that's now take a look at some of the other stories making news around the world thousands of people in poland demonstrated for a 7th day against stricter abortion laws many also walked off their jobs in a nationwide women's strike to protest the supreme court's ruling the tougher restrictions mean that women can only get an abortion legally in cases of rape or incest but not if the baby has fatal birth defects. in hong kong a teenage activist who has become the 1st political figure to be prosecuted under a sweeping new national security law imposed by beijing 19 year olds tony chang is a former member of student localism that's a small group that of hong kong's independence from china. where miles de facto leader aung san suu kyi has voted early in the country's elections scheduled for november 8th party the national league for democracy is widely expected to win sure remains popular at home where image is undented by accusations of co

increasingly assertive china we're going to go to australia for our 1st guest him harcourt the j w neville fellow in economics at the university of new south wales in sydney also was the chief economist of the strain trade commission for over a decade worked for the reserve bank as well so you're perfectly qualified to take us through all of this and i i will focus more on australia in a moment but let's start broad brush here this and i'm using the word very loosely here diplomacy track that china is taking at the moment why such an assertive track i mean it's it's the type of thing which you just feel can only sort of end in in trouble well i think you're i don't think it's a huge embarrassment. to the fact that they mishandled the current situation in. a little spread to iran and italy and all the rest of the world 'd and so i think there's a. great feeling of embarrassment that occurred and the best form of defense is attack and so they've been 'd doing this was diplomacy attacking everyone basically not wanting to be on the on the back thought because of the way that the layout covert to spirit or move on to the rest of china the rest

of columbia university tied toward 130,000 to 210,000 avoidable covid deaths in the u.s., and counting. it's all in the title, and they compare what's happened in the u.s. with other countries like france, australia, south korea, japan, and show if we'd been a bit on track with those countries, about 100,000 or 200,000 americans who have died from covid might still be alive today. this response has been an absolute failure and it really shows when you compare the numbers in the u.s. with other developed nations. >> okay, let's talk about how potentially to change this, dr. scott gottlieb, former commissioner of the fda wrote in the "wall street journal" this weekend saying it may be time now for a national temporary national mask mandate, and i wonder, given the effectiveness of masks, is that a step that you would recommend? >> jim, i think it would be so useful to have a mandate like that, because sure, not everyone is going to follow it. i get that, but at least it sends that clear signal about what is the right thing to do. right now we have top officials exposed to people with the virus, not doing their quarantine, as they should be, still campaigning, not wearing a mask. i've talked to people who