A skier with the sport so with 145. 00 days until take your host the olympics the japanese kept talking about scale down marathon with just 200. 00 runners in an effort to halt the spread of coronavirus. Welcome to the news greece is stepping up security at its border with turkey where thousands of refugees and migrants are continuing to gather local media is reporting that 10000 people have been prevented from entering over the past 24 hours now the surge in numbers follows turkeys decision to open its borders to europe Greek Police Say more than 500 refugees and migrants also arrived on the greek islands closest to turkey on sunday most of them landing on less boss or we have correspondents across those developments saying both greece and. Turkey in a few moments well hear from John Psaropoulos whos on lens possible 1st and speak to National Attention again then whos in on turkeys side of the border with greece i mean obviously a fast moving story in terms of the way that these migrants are moving natasha but what are you seeing and hearing from them. Migrants are on the move but were seeing and intermittent trickle thats how i would describe it were certainly not seeing thousands of people if you look behind me theres a road and that will lead to the checkpoint with turkey and greece weve seen groups of people maybe in id say 10121012 proceeding since we arrived several hours ago but not hundreds of people and certainly not thousands of people arriving the Turkish Interior Ministry is saying that more than 76000 people have left turkey via the northwest border with greece and ball garia since it opted to open its borders on friday the people were speaking to say theyre not convinced of those numbers simply because its been quite difficult for them to proceed any further then beyond the Turkish Border of course there are various entry points the checkpoint is a bit difficult for certain but there are entry points smugglers are involved and people are paying weve heard reports of up to thousands of dollars for them to be taken various routes that include land the river and the a. G. C. Some people have also been here for a couple of days now i spoke to an afghan man who spent the night in the woods freezing with no food he says he arrived here on saturday hoping that he would be able to cross the border instead he faced a tear gas he complained that there were no International Organization organizations to assist there are teams of humanitarian workers here on the ground now distributing food but its unclear what happens next because certainly at this checkpoint on the road behind me there doesnt appear to be any movement with the Greek Police Saying that it has thwarted the attempts of thousands of people trying to Cross Natasha youve been there for a few days now and obviously its still a middle of winter to europe and conditions that as youve just touched on cannot be any easier for young and old i mean what sort of condition have you seen people lay in you also just mentioned one of the gunmen but there are young people that you wont let. When we arrived this morning i have to say the scene for me was pretty heartbreaking i saw children a raft in blankets and crying those who are old enough to walk i describe it as kind of sleepwalking its what children do when theyre exhausted lots of families and children and yes imagine being stuck out in the elements overnight the International Organization for migration says that was the situation for more than 13000. 00 people bear in mind that here in a dern day the temperature dropped below freezing so again youre dealing with a very difficult situation and that is why were starting to see that picture shift a little bit ive spoken to a few people who are now turning back i spoke to a nigerian man who is quite angry he says turkey is using us we just want to improve our lives im unable to go any further so im going back to istanbul there are taxis here that are ferrying people to a bus stop so that they can head back to istanbul we also saw people negotiating individually with taxi drivers to take them directly back to the city will continue to monitor the situation with you the only turkey growing sport in the chester thank you lets cross over now to Jonesboro Police who joins me from the greek island of less balls and of course slowly by guns have been arriving that over the past 48 hours john what are you seeing and hearing certainly from where you are. Well we do have a rivals today that are above the ordinary for the 1st time 72 hours since the turkish president made his threat to open the floodgates to europe one of those arrivals is here behind me theres a rubber dinghy thats now been parked in the shallows here you may be able to see it 74 people arrived on this boat mostly afghans some of them have already been taken away to be recorded and identified. These 7 arrivals in the a. G. And so forth 5 of them here on this island of lesbos amount to about 360 people at 1st count theres a coast guard figures in there rough still and more boats possibly expected today but it isnt the deluge that was threatened and that is feared however these are still significant numbers of people they add to the already 22000. 00 strong backlog of asylum applications that have to be processed here on lesbos and we spent the last 24 hours looking at the practical problems and the humanitarian problems of that backlog here. A single boat load of refugees is escorted to the shores of less force high winds have likely prevented many others from crossing but they are forecast to die down and more boats are expected to come all who arrive and up here in moria camp there are 22000 people here 7 times what it was built for and many have to find space among the olive groves most are from afghanistan theyve escaped war and death but many say they havent found life here there are no formal schools so 14 year old for operates his family stand selling fruit and vegetables is morea good not good. Red. Home maybe a small maybe that people here have little to do but wait for their asylum applications to be decided upon and their wait has just become much longer a new asylum law took effect at the beginning of the year that fast tracks new applications so the trajectory applicants can be sent back to turkey as quickly as they arrive but that discriminates against people like these who arrived as a family 5 months ago we had in 2 years the smart. 26 to me and they did it but they dont take it to you they see you only take in tales from the people. And you have until 10 months in exile turkey agreed to take back your attorneys in a 2016 statement signed with the European Union and the greek government says it plans to return at least 10000 people this year but whether turkey will all of that agreement in the current Political Climate is an open question so the greek governments entire refugee strategy now hangs in the balance many local people say they have little faith in this new policy for you. Owns one of the olive groves next to moria. Year ago the refugees were chopping limbs of trees to cook with but we can still harvest a few olives this year was a bumper crop but we couldnt pick a single olive my land was burned twice then they pitched a few tens onto the burned patch and soon after the land just filled up with tents. The government is using lesbos as a holding area but many greeks fear that if turkish president had a chapter you threaten flood of refugees becomes a reality the European Union could try and use their country as a buffer zone for the rest of the continent. Now we have spoken with many of the people who arrived both here and at a separate arrival near the airport about an hour and a half south of here near the town of mytilene e. And its clear from our interviews with these people that these arrivals are the result of the turkish government trying to push them further west some of these people have paid money days or weeks ago to come here but 2 people that i spoke to at least said they werent asked for any money they were simply told to get in the boat and go its fine one man from sierra leone said he was walking along the beach he saw a boat load of people being prepared and he just joined in and another man from congo told me he was in church this morning with his wife and a turkish smuggler came into the church and said would you like to go theres a boat leaving very shortly he asked how much money the turkish mugler said nothing just go so indications clearly that the smugglers are being coopted. In a public effort to put pressure on europe to weaponize if you like these refugees but its questionable whats in it for the smugglers because they are a private sector interest so its not clear where the money is coming from also it isnt clear exactly how the greek authorities are preventing entries that see that theres a statement made by the migration minister this morning on Greek Television part from the 10000 entries attempted entries prevented at the land border he said there were also naval crossings that were prevented by the heloc coast guard and navy it is very difficult to prevent a boat crossing so there is an open question there also what the tactics are being used at sea or the moment because we will continue to monitor events with you john on the island of lesbos thanks very much. Lets move to our other top story and that is deal that was signed between the u. S. And the Afghan Taliban may have already hit a major stumbling block afghanistans president assured garney says the government did not commit to releasing 5000 taliban prisoners and it cannot be a precondition for talks with the group a prisoner swap was part of the accord signed in qatar here on saturday the agreement is meant to pave the way for the withdrawal of all american and nato troops from afghanistan and a long lasting peace though there are estimated to be 10000. 00 taliban prisoners being held in afghanistan the group says some of them arent actually combatants at all what are the media is our correspondent for us in kabul and joins us now i mean the incas hardly dried on the agreement. Harder and the spanner really has been thrown into the works by the afghan president. Yes absolutely a complete turnaround also from what he said yesterday during the joint declaration when he was standing flanked by the u. S. Defense secretary mark esper and the nato secretary general where he was basically saying that this was a good day for afghanistan and then this morning another press conference in which i was 7 and he says well hold on we did not sign that deal we did not commit to release any prisoner and that should not be a precondition for anything basically talking about the interim afghan negotiations that should start on march 10th could be delayed simply because of what we heard this morning about the president making the clear that this has nothing to do with him and certainly he would not going to be pressured in doing that now joining me is there would sultanzoy is a former president ial candidate among others that would thank you very much for joining me now what do you how can you read what do do the collaborations of the president are 71 days saying this is a good day for afghanistan the other day saying well we have nothing to do with this deal and we will be pressured well actually when you talk about 5000 prisoners it is not a turn key thing to release them in. These are Different Cases these are all people who have to go through a certain just lead of legal. Other processes the laws of the country the regions office our system the terms a system they all have to be involved in this and also afterwards even after their release theres a process because the accountability of the aftermath of the release is also something that needs to be discussed so its a long process in. Washington may be very eager to fulfill a certain type of timetable the afghan timetable. Here in kabul and washingtons timetable may not match but the actual thing is that it should be a realistic expectation that we should learn to live with that i guess the question is also why did the president say that she day and we weve known that detail its one of the leaks that came out to the media a few weeks ago do this prisoner swap so why today the day after yesterday was of course yesterday everybody was talking about the principle of the agreement in principle every everything is agreed to but when you come to the practice of the process the process is not as. I wish it was saw so summarized as the agreement itself the process is as the name implies its a process and it takes time and therefore as the president was reflecting that the expectation should be where it should be because the in trafton talks if they begin begin based on these conditions and these things will take longer and the as i said earlier the expectation and the timetable of washington in kabul or not. At this in this thing well and also before that could actually happen day is the issue of the integration of ash ever need that was supposed to be last week after pressure from the u. S. It was postponed to march 9th but still that nothing is really set in stone here in kabul u. S. Envoy. Is supposed to arrive in the coming hours or in the coming days he did say that his priority was to put together at the legation to go to does intra afghan talk and to make sure that the process. Of the prisoner swap is respected those are good to be very difficult tasks for. Many say that maybe this is the more difficult part is yet to start indeed Hoda Abdelhamid our correspondent karl thank you. Well plenty more ahead here on the aljazeera news hour including its back to the polls again for voters in israel as Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu tries for a 3rd time to form a majority government and the race for the wall the bald spot in tennis is only between a winning pair of players are coming up with joe in schools. Now the u. S. Has tightened travel restrictions for countries most affected by coronavirus after recording its 1st death from the infection President Donald Trump called for calm after confirming a man died in Washington State the u. S. Is banning all travel to iran and blocking entry to any foreign citizens who visited iran in the past 2 weeks is also issued do not travel warnings to parts of italy and south korea trump is considering closing the border with mexico despite the southern neighbor having only 4 confirmed cases additional cases in the United States are likely but healthy individuals should be able to fully recover. And we think there will be statement that we can make with great surety that weve gotten from e. U. With this problem they should be able to recover should they contract a virus so Healthy People if youre healthy. You will probably. Go through a process and youll be fine. And jordan reports the 1st death in the u. S. Raises questions about how coronavirus is being transmitted. We dont know how this person was infected but Washington State officials did say that the man who was in his fiftys did have preexisting Health Conditions and Infectious Disease experts say those are the people who are most at risk of contracting the virus and having an adverse effect from it from becoming very very sick or possibly dying from coronavirus for everyone else people who are generally considered healthy they might develop worst a bad cold or a moderate cold but their immune systems are supposedly Strong Enough to withstand the virus now we dont know anything more about where this man had been before he was exposed to the virus and that is something which Infectious Disease experts are now trying to determine theyre particularly concerned because there have been at least 3 or 4 counties its now on the u. S. West coast where there wasnt any prior travel to a country where the disease has infected hundreds of people notably china or south korea or italy those are the 3 countries that have the largest numbers of cases right now. And elderly man the 1st australian to die of coronavirus of the he got sick on the diamond princess cruise ship the 78 year old evacuated from the ship to a hospital in perth where he died the mans wife is also being treated for the virus one of 25 people in quarantine and a 35 year old man has died from the virus in thailand the man was already in hospital after being admitted with dengue fever in late january time Health Authorities are looking into the case of to be initially tested negative for the virus the global death toll now stands at almost 3000. 00. The u. S. Though joe biden has won the South Carolina democratic primaries securing almost half of the votes with Bernie Sanders coming in a distant 2nd with about 20 percent by this victory bank of him the momentum he needs going into super tuesday when people in 14 states head to the polls and the teleports. He spent weeks fighting to keep his Campaign Alive but on saturday former Vice President joe biden was back in the race a few months ago victory in South Carolina was a foregone conclusion but both Bernie Sanders and Billionaire Tom Steyer made inroads that threaten bidens bid for the democratic ticket now though joe bidens campaign is alive and kicking thank you thank you thank you South Carolina. Was our thanks to all of your heart of the democratic primary we just won and we won big because it was bidens victory ends Bernie Sanders winning streak after he emerged as the front runner in the 1st 3 contests the senator from vermont finished 2nd and hes now looking to super tuesday when 14 states in American Samoa hold their primarie