complaints about lack of diversity. and this boy event to suffer a setback in the effort to win the tally league title to a loss to help us there on that means that you they could now do was the top spot later this sunday. the number of people killed by the corona virus has surpassed the stars epidemic 17 years ago the latest coronavirus total is 813 did again the emergency is centered in china where there is growing criticism of the shortage of medical supplies and leaderships handling of the crisis there in hong kong passengers and crew stuck on a cruise ship for the past 4 days are being allowed ashore the world dream was quarantined on wednesday when a chinese passengers on a voyage in january were diagnosed with the virus doctors lifted the ship's quarantine after the results of virus tests on its crew gave the all clear. brown joins us now live from hong kong from that ship terminal what's happening there. well as you can see behind me that giant cruise line are just now starting to light up and just a short time ago passengers and crew began leaving this vast cruise liner not so much a cruise liner more a floating city they've been aboard this vessel now for about a week they left hong kong for taiwan at the beginning of the month but they returned here on wednesday after it emerged that passengers on a previous forage had been infected with the virus so for that reason medical checks had to be carried out on all of the staff all of the crew who'd been on that previous voyage on sunday it was determined that none of the crew had been infected no follow up treatment was required and for that reason everyone has now been allowed to leave this has been a floating quarantine center for them it's been an effective jail but now they've been given the all clear and they can finally go ashore it is a relief i'm sure for some of them even though you want for nothing on a vessel like this meanwhile across the border in china anger continues to grow over the government's handling of this crisis further undermining trust in a party that has ruled china for 70 years. in a national emergency the country's leader is normally front and center not so china's president xi jinping his meeting with the visiting head of the world health organization in late january was 1 of his few recent appearances on state television nightly news where he normally features prominently and since demanding a transparent and timely release of information about the coronavirus more than 2 weeks ago he's yet to visit. instead he sent the premier league chung to test the temperature and encourage medical workers. figure one analyst says there's perhaps a good reason for the president's disappearing act if things turn that. thing the onus will be young and so. in a way seeing ping is to protect himself from being too much exposed by the crisis. it's almost 2 years since she was appointed president for another 5 years that was after china's parliament voted to abolish the 2 term limit on the presidency effectively allowing she to remain in office for life for president xi this crisis is much bigger than the young going protests here in hong kong or trade friction with the united states because the way his government has responded to the coronavirus outbreak is causing more and more people on the mainland to openly question the system they live under many chinese people feel that core values like family livelihood and food security and now under attack threatening she's credibility and legitimacy especially if the virus becomes pandemic so i don't think this is as bad as that at the moment. he's got no real competition you know he's secure. but if this sort of crisis deepens and there's becoming a pandemic of course the political consequences could be devastating. and maybe evil style virus is threatening china's city of the future but 17 years ago i reported from shanghai on the aftermath of another deadly virus sars that also caused people to question their faith in the party after officials admitted a cover up a local colleague to help navigate me around a popular chat room the internet in china was still in its infancy then as now though public skepticism ran deep. may not tell the truth he says the government doesn't owe this through. there are more expressions of anger today in spite of tighter internet censorship lessons that should have been learnt from sars haven't proved once more the china remains vulnerable to disease but the beginning of the cries of china was boasting i mean these. are both saying about the how much the chinese well little system could better phase the krises bit and manage the crisis and solve the crisis. he says it's hard to imagine the crisis threatening she survival because unlike 17 years ago china's security machine is much bigger and better able to maintain control adrian brown al-jazeera hong kong. well as chicken now with katrina you who is live for us in beijing katrina we're seeing these live pictures from hong kong those people who had been quarantined coming off of that ship how is the mandatory quarantine going for those people who are coming from mainland china back to hong kong. in terms of those coming from mainland china into hong kong now we saw that hong kong was actually there was a lot of pressure by the government in hong kong to close the borders is still a lot of people with memories of sars people demanding that that that group from people from mainland china coming to hong kong were being prevented from it. that that that they've closed the route so that they prevent any people coming in from mainland china at all and now we've seen that the amount of people have been slowed to a trickle i think they've only been a few people coming from mainland china into hong kong from we've seen from tens of thousands of people every day i think only a few 100 this weekend being quarantined in specific designated areas now in china there have been a lot of complaints about about this obviously we've had a lot of people even the surrounding provinces who have not been affected by the lockdown trying to sort of as much as possible go leave leave the mainland and certainly before that deadline was put into place there was a rush of people trying to leave before that time but now we've seen in china i think a lot of people are adjusting to these wartime measures sort of wartime measures in china those who are affected by the lock down have been forced to stay in their homes or in families in china only one person per household has been allowed to leave to go get sarees in some areas and there are very strict measures in place in cities across china in terms of reporting if you've left your city for example you have to report to the local police where exactly in china you've been and there are very strict penalties for some of those people coming back for not reporting these things to the authorities so it's a very tense time at the moment and it is something that's affecting not only the 50000000 people in lockdown not only those wanting to travel to call into other places but also other cities far from who hunt here in beijing as well every compound you enter in terms of residential compounds there are temperature checks neighbors are recruited courage to report to police if they know of somebody. who has a high temperature and who is not reporting it and people are also being encouraged with financial incentives to go to the hospital themselves to prevent people from staying at home for fear that they'll be forcibly quarantined so there are a lot of measures in place and this is affecting the daily lives of people certainly they're not allowed to leave this many not allowed to leave the city certainly many are prevented. in terms of traveling outside the country the lot of the airlines have also stopped flights out of china so it is the situation at the moment is quite tense and there is more and more criticism from the people who maybe not directly affected in who can but in other areas of china who are becoming increasingly frustrated that all these measures are affecting daily life but we are concerned continuing to see numbers of people affected by the coronavirus go up and up still think that update that's katrina you there live from beijing. so what is a virus and what can you do to protect yourself well the outbreak is so new it's rarely seen in humans often affecting animals the trouble is the virus can spread even before symptoms appear and that may include coffee and shortness of breath in severe cases the infection can cause pneumonia acute respiratory problems kidney failure and death the world health organization says risk of infection can be reduced by fairly washing hands covering nose and mouth wow sneezing avoiding close contact with those with colds and flu like symptoms and authority cooking meat and eggs the w.h.o. also recommends avoiding wild or farm animals without proper gear. on their state speak now to dog in a mass she is the president of the hong kong public doctors association 1st off thank you for your time as soon as you're in hong kong can you just bring us up to speed how is that mandatory quarantine growing is it is it going to be an effective . actually at the beginning to government advocate to current teen measures instead of the what sit tight for the control we doctors in a school is asked for. we find one practice decorum to do current time issues actually is quite lose we afraid that those people coming from china who may be in fact it all in the asymptomatic to face death do allow to go around the city travel they have not being. police or any kind of measures we afraid at this current time issues may fell to control the disease spread around hong kong. talk to me about the number we've heard about a leveling out of new cases in recent days is there anything that way of knowing whether this is the beginning of the end for corona virus or just perhaps some sort of lag period. i thing for hong kong definitely it will be the beginning same as other parts of the world maybe 4 main is in the middle of the crisis one of the epidemiology study conducted by professor gave bill and of hong kong university medical school he predicted the disease may go on and peak in may or a pro sometime in the before the summer so we hope we think that the disease may still lingering on for a film on this expression. is start to spread it will singapore hong kong and even some european country got in custody of cases in hong kong we start to have come military. besides those cases imported from mainland we saw a case cases. inside a city in during a family gathering spread in we've known contest source so definitely for hong kong it's just the beginning of the disease we have seen all these comparisons with saz even though the death rate for current virus is much lower you believe that it's a more complicated outbreak can you explain that for us. actually this disease seems to be much more complicated than sauce 1st of all it can in fact more people we in one of our local study with one of the chinese families some john but find when you can't close contact with. the new or horace infected patients you got a keeper a sense of charles to get infected and everyone patients who can. feel one in fact that vision can in fact 2 to 3 person and for this disease they have very widespread trauma of presentation you can be completely asymptomatic or long or ages of. you even don't need to see for any kind of medical attention on the other hand there are some patients very severe disease or even within a week's time now are we have no. don't have completely. about the disease who go downhill or who become. but we know the 4 who are above 60 years old we have some kind of chronic illness they're more likely to have a more severe course of the seas so have but however even if you are a symptomatic you can still in fact to someone else so a silent carry maybe everywhere city thank you that that's our scene of president of the hong kong public doctors association. 2 of the new security forces in thailand have killed a soldier after he went on a shooting spree at a military base then held hostages in a shopping mall 26 people are confirmed dead in the north east city of course out and he suspects the soldiers motive may have been because of a property deal that went sour or hillah mohammed reports. late on a saturday afternoon a shopping mall in thailand came under attack a gunman opens fire at a time when it would have been at its busiest. here you can be seen firing multiple rounds towards people and passing cars. people found would have a cover they could after he entered the terminal $21.00 more in a con watch a sema also known as karate panic shoppers run out their day out coming to a terrifying and this was a heavily armed gunman seeming to walk casually through the mall identified by police as jakrapob tama a 32 year old soldier in the thai army he began his rampage i was earlier by killing a commanding officer on a military base outside the city as he continued his murderous attack he posted updates on social media including this one where he's complaining to his finger was sore from pulling the trigger so many times others remain trapped inside hiding in stairwells and cardinals trying to find a way out gunfire rang out told dawn with reports of a rising death toll police closed off streets around the mall and kept journalists behind a security cordon. high security services soon stormed the ground floor of the mall where the gunman held out after 18 hours the terror came to an end as police made their way out of the building with ambulances on standby. start. this rampage. was a really really trained soldier he was fully armed not just normal ya but fully armed by by robbing. development with 700 rounds of ammunition. at the same time when he went through that mall there were a 1000 people in there so i thought i thought that the type of carefulness that that security force there would pick the right timing to really to to deal with this this this this shooting gun violence is common in this country but not on this scale one of thirties will begin to investigate the motives behind the shooting this will be remembered as one of thailand's darkest days for healing mohammed al jazeera thank you more ahead on the news hour including calls in cameroon for an election boycott voting gets underway but many are expected to miss sounds. and we mean the u.s. republican hoping to take donald trump's seat in the white house. in sports the 5 time major who's in with a good chance of adding another trophy to his collection. syrian regime forces have taken control of several villages in the northwest the soldiers are advancing in the southern part of aleppo province along 2 major highways defensive could open up a direct route to rebel held areas of western aleppo until it. is monitoring the situation from istanbul and joins us now live hashem at the same time as this we're seeing turkish reinforcements being sent into italy but what's happening there on the ground. well the turkish army has been sending more we force moment over the last few days but around. near the city of we're talking about to bust. we heard the reason being this turkish army would like to prevent the syrian army from moving towards the city of a red line for the turkish military this is why there are no setting up many military outposts and they are warning that if the syrian army decides to move ahead and cross that line they will they will retaliate what you see at the same time is that the syrian army is changing tactic instead of pushing towards its taken over by eating into rebel territory particularly in the southern outskirts of aleppo and the north western askers of those areas close to the province of. it's quite obvious that the syrian army is on the orphans of determined to encircle the rebels waiting for the find the bush to take over the last remaining years under the control of the syrian opposition we're talking about 2 thirds of. which are now still the control of the syrian fighters thank you for that update that's hashim about it there live from istanbul a vote counting from saturday's general election in ireland is underway with the result expected to cause a major political change except polls show the left wing nationalist party fane in a tie with the 2 center by parties which have dominated irish politics for decades but the ruling finegan l.n. rivals find a bone falling out a coalition with the same brennan reports from dublin. and the results we can now show you pre-election opinion polls suggested that the political order here was about to be turned on its head this exit poll suggests it has been turned on its head and shaken up and down the 2 center right parties phina for oil and phina gale which are jointly dominated irish politics for nearly a century have been matched by shin fein each polling 22 percent of 1st preference votes and what that means essentially is that the party has been making games and it's now consolidated those gains over the last number of years so they're in a strong position going forward not necessarily to form a government this time right there anyone running for 2 candidates but certainly for the next election they're in about a position the buzzword of this election campaign was change islands economy maybe the fastest growing in the e.u. but people here are struggling with soaring house prices and years long waiting lists for public health care voters were just fed up with the 2 main parties voted for the terms of. so i don't really want to go independent but basically just some kind of alternative sort of status quo i have a lot of fears about what the future is going to hold for me with climate change. that's going to affect my life in the future sin fein is the left wing nationalist republican party previously regarded as the political wing of the paramilitary group the ira now shedding those associations and remolding itself as a progressive alternative and it's not clear what shin fein strategy will be now looking at it from the outside i think they would benefit from not going to government on this occasion because they would be going in as a junior partner define a fall if you know gale and previous experience of junior partners with those party suggests that they would lose votes nonpolitical factors may also influence the outcome of this election if the 1st saturday poll since 1918 storm kira brought dangerous winds and driving rain to many polling stations and slap bang in the middle of polar. today a major rugby international hot so scarce that it gave the timing of this election certainly raised eyebrows i can't believe that it was really going well but it's important we've often and have you voted already you know imagine that gave is more important vote and i'm sorry. one of the irish system transfer votes will be crucial how many 2nd and 3rd preferences can the big parties pick up but even if shin fein doesn't get into a government the days of 2 party dominance in this country appear to be over paul brennan al-jazeera doublet well for the very latest me back and joins us now live from dublin neve. well thank you very much ken as you can see behind us the count is well underway is expected to go on for many many hours it could be a long drawn out somewhat laborious process largely because of the system of voting that's employed here in ireland something called the single transferable vote where voters are able to rank in order of preference the candidates that they want from different political parties and that means the ballot papers themselves will need to be counted multiple times before we have any sense of a final result but what we do know as we heard there in paul's report is that the exit polls are predicting a major search for fish in thane now