A pandemic South Koreans carefully head to the ballot box plus. This is a crisis like no other International Monetary fund says the coronavirus is sending the world towards the worst financial downturn since the Great Depression. And fears the corona virus is spreading through palestinian neighborhoods undetected. U. S. President donald trump has announced hell hold funding for the World Health Organization thats the top u. N. Body at the forefront of a Global Response to the coronavirus pandemic what trump is accusing the w. H. O. Of both a coverup and debauching the National Response to the outbreak he says the group has been spreading disinformation from china where the virus was 1st detected which he said made things worse. We have deep concerns whether americas generosity has been put to the best use possible the reality is that the w. H. O. Failed to adequately obtain vet and share information in a timely and transparent fashion the world depends on the w. H. O. To work with countries to ensure that Accurate Information about International Health threats is shared in a timely manner and if its not to independently tell the world the truth about what is happening the w. H. O. Failed in this basic duty and must be held accountable but the u. N. Secretary general says now is not the time to reduce resources for the w. H. O. Which is on the front lines of what he called one of the most dangerous challenges the world has faced in our lifetime and is a dire forecast on the economic front the International Monetary fund says the world is heading towards the worst financial downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930 s. The i. M. F. Chief Economist Says lock downs could cost the Global Economy more than 9. 00 trillion dollars over the next 2 years well the World Health Organization is the uns Agency Responsible for Global Public health last year the u. S. Contributed 15 percent of its funding the most of a single donor in total the u. S. Paid nearly 900000000. 00 china contributed about 9 about 10 percent of that well Lawrence Gostin is a professor at Georgetown University and the director of the double h. As collaborating center on national and Global Health law he says the u. S. Governments slow response to the pandemic is outrageous the United States had ample warning. The degrade show very early on said that the world had to brace itself. And to do confinement. Contact tracing testing quarantines. The World Health Organization. Similarly. Disclosed the genetic sequencing of the virus and the president and everybody in america could see as a tsunami of katies were sweeping across africa then east and a sorry night africa china and then east asia then to europe and then finally to the United States so we had so much time to prepare and we just didnt it was dismaying. And you know made me almost ashamed to be an american because at a time when were facing literally a once in a century Global Health crisis when tens of thousands of people are dying when this is the time more than ever. For our Global Health leadership and Global Solidarity to have the United States undercut the World Health Organization was indeed painful to watch i never thought i would see an american president. Undercut a vital u. N. Agency in the way the president tried did and i think it will do will happen or it will just the United States has now lost all voice all influence over. International relations and Global Health and affairs. I think that the world will be outraged by this act while the u. S. President is still keen to lift social distancing restrictions in some states possibly by the beginning of may is that although with some governors who want to make that decision themselves mike hanna has more from washington d. C. President trump also against the advice of his medical experts continues to press for an earlier opening of many u. S. States saying that its quite possible that a number of states could have restrictions lifted by the end of this month this is what he had to say there are numerous states that are in great shape right now theyre viewing the rest of the country like we dont even believe this is happening we have a lot of those states theyre set to open practically now i mean they would be open now were going to let them open sooner than the date were going to pick a date were going to get a date thats good but its going to be very very soon sooner than the end of the month but there are many states out there that are looking at this and theyre reviewing it and theyre saying we shouldnt be even included in this you know there are some that want to open up almost now now if we disagree with it were not going to let them open now voting is underway in south koreas parliamentary election its the worlds 1st National Election to be held during the pandemic voters are required to wear masks and gloves plus maintain social distancing south korea has seen more than 10000. 00 infections and more than 220. 00 deaths bride joins us live now from outside a polling station in the capital so rob so just talk us through what sort of special restrictions have been put in place to allow the vote to go ahead. Thats right special restrictions special precautions but it hasnt put off voters we know from the Election Commission here that when you combine some early voting that we had last week with voter turnout on this main voting day then we are seeing a much bigger turnout in fact than the last election but you are right there are various precautions in place here as people turn up we are in a fairly busy residential part of seoul and weve seen varying numbers come throughout the hours that weve been here but they all have to go through the same process everybody has to keep a distance of at least a meter apart as they enter the polling station you have your temperature checked you have Hand Sanitizer of you see everybody is wearing a mask but you are also given special disposable gloves with which you can handle your ballot paper and when you leave the voting station you throw those gloves away again everybody taking absolute precautions that no infections are passed on as people go out to vote interestingly if people do turn up here and they are found to have a temperature they are not turned away they are sent to a special voting booth where you can still have your vote what also is happening on this election day is that the end of the regular polling that youre going to remember that there are Something Like 50000 people throughout south korea who are in self quarantine at the moment who are still have a right to a vote so what happens is that although theyre in self quarantine theyre not meant to leave wherever they are sheltering or whether maybe there are home but for one day only they are allowed to leave and then come to certain polling stations which are going to be kept open just for them so they have a vote and have their say in this ballot rob so what are the key issues then for voters or has the coronavirus dominated everything that. It has absolutely dominated this poll you talk to people even things like the north korea issue kim jong un north of the border launching missiles it matters not a jot it seems when compared to the coronavirus people talk about a yes livelihoods of being impacted the state of the economy but all of that of course is because of the impact of this virus so you cannot separate out the virus and it has dominated here and people are waiting to see whether that is going to feed into the kind of support that we will see for the members of the National Assembly in the parties who support the president in he has largely benefited i think from what has been seen as a successful tackling of this outbreak and we have seen his poll numbers shoot up at the start of the crisis he was polling very low numbers Approval Rating of around 41 percent his Approval Rating is now well over 50 percent more than half of South Koreans it seems believe he has done a very good job. In the south korean capital seoul rob thank you for that well as we mentioned the International Monetary fund is predicting a grim few years for the Global Economy due to the virus is alan fischer. From the International Monetary fund a stark warning this is a crisis like no other which means there is substantial uncertainty about the impact it will have on peoples lives and livelihoods as unemployment lines grow around the world as manufacturing grains to halt in many sectors as businesses are forced to close the Economic Impact of the covert crisis is biting the i. M. F. Issues regular reports on the Global Financial situation 3 months ago they were predicting widespread growth but on a virus has radically changed the landscape we are projecting Global Growth in 20224 to minus 3 percent. Now this is a downgrade of 6. 3 Percentage Points from general 2020 a Major Division over a very short period of time this makes the Great Lockdown the worst recession since the Great Depression and far worse than the Global Financial crises one of the biggest drops will come in the unit paean euro zone which is expected to take a hit of 7. 5 percent the u. S. Where the president is pushing to reopen the economy is looking at a contraction of nearly 6 percent japan 5. 2 percent down the same as latin america in china where the pandemic began and has begun to reopen its economy its expected to record growth of just over one percent the i. M. F. Is predicting that if things dont deteriorate there will be a rebound for the Global Economy in 2021 that one economist warns that might be short lived i think hes going to run into a lot of headwinds in terms of the kind of the drag thats going to come from all of that the big shock thats happened over the past quarter in terms of bankruptcies in terms of lost jobs and that is going to weigh quite heavily on demand and that is why governments and Central Banks in stepping up stimulus to try and give the economy this extra boost when it comes out of this shock this didnt used by the shutdowns one area seriously impacted the Airline Industry its seen as passenger numbers drop by half globally airlines no think theyll lose more than 300000000000 dollars this year much more than expected the i. M. F. Is urging countries to walk together to beat the pandemic saying there is no tradeoff between saving lives and saving livelihoods alan fischer aljazeera virginia. Time for a short break here aljazeera when we come back a few european nations take the 1st course of steps out of lockdowns to revive their economies. And on the other side of the world businesses in australia are pushing for restrictions to be lifted more than stay with us. Hello there it has been a rather unsettled couple of days across areas of the middle east is fine to rain showers and will funnel storms into the full cost but were seeing a very heavy amounts of rain of coals impacting areas of yemen in particular of the capital this is a picture just like a couple of days ago the streets really are under water weve had some very heavy downpours in a very short space of time to come this is it on wednesday really developing through Central Society and on its way east was across much of castle and all the time this system is done of the next 2 or 3 days we could be picking up potentially as much as 50 even 60 millimeters of rain that could well lead to some localized flooding certainly some dangerous flash floods and you can see that rain really all the way down into southern areas a soggy in again the chance of you showers and thunderstorms across into yemen meanwhile to the north wanted to showers across northern Western Areas of turkey but apart from that its a fairly quiet picture that rain working its way east was into southern areas of iran as we go through in again it will be very heavy at times so the chance again of some isolated flooding and then down into Southern Africa still those showers and some heavier thunderstorms impacting eastern areas a south africa and again tanzania for the next couple days very heavy rains along those coastal areas and also heavy rains in the gulf of guinea. Join the global conversation to ask the bubble to the people to expand their brains maybe have a difference here this is a dialogue women in cambodia are in fact selling their hair we dont know how much theyre getting paid for it its hard to track its hard to trade everyone has a voice tell us what you think and your conversation could be a lot right here in this case we need to step away from gaming people are not necessarily game perfect this is a journey of progression not perfection on aljazeera. Welcome back a good amount of our top stories here on aljazeera u. S. President donald trump is suspending funding for the World Health Organization and says the w. H. O. Botched the initial response to the outbreak and spread what he called disinform ation from china u. N. Secretary general says now is not the time to reduce resources voting is underway in south koreas parliamentary elections its the worlds 1st National Ballot to be held during the pandemic voters are required to wear masks and gloves plus maintain social distancing. On the International Monetary fund says the world is heading towards the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930 s. The i. M. F. Chief Economist Says lock downs aimed at stopping the outbreak could cost the Global Economy more than 9 trillion dollars over the next 2 years. While the i. M. F. Is also forecasting that latin america would plunge into a recession that could set the clock back more than 50 years in terms of Economic Growth of the 635000000 people who live in latin america and the caribbean at least a 3rd could lose their livelihoods as a result of the pandemic the sea anyone has more now from santiago. Alexander galavis is trying to make enough to cover one days expenses selling secondhand electrical goods on the street its illegal but he has little choice made and i told the police many a city police are let us work because its going to get worse if we cant sell now well have to go out this deal later. Are pretty good i left. They say theres nothing worse than kicking someone when theyre down and thats exactly what call that 19 is doing to latin america. I was away but all the restaurants closed so now im trying to survive doing this just to pay the rent and that. The pandemic got the region on an already poor 40 with anemic Economic Growth rising. Time and social unrest fanned by severe inequality the forecast now is even more bleak. In the area standing. Extreme. To me and so. To 210000000 people in a. Very human these fears failure. The biggest problem is unemployment and many latin american countries are too insolvent to provide viable economic rescue plans for small and medium sized businesses. Venezuela ecuador argentina and most to Central America and deep in debt already but all without exception will have a hard time keeping their heads above water even after the pandemic subsides between 19952015 tens of millions of Latin Americans woes from poverty and into the lower middle class many of them were able to buy apartments like the ones you see here now these are precisely the people who stand to lose everything i mean the i. M. F. Predicts the region will suffer its worst recession in half a century a lot may depend on if and when latin americas main trading partners china the u. S. And europe recover nothing is certain to disappoint except the regions main weakness a structural inequality that will take much longer to cure than the pandemic you see in human aljazeera santiago all 3 European Countries have taken the 1st steps to partially open their economies after weeks on the lockdown but most shops and businesses in spain its me and austria remain closed and social distancing measures are still being enforced reports. After more than a month under government imposed closure the shutters are starting to be razed europe is taking its 1st cautious steps out of lockdown many italian book shops Stationery Stores and C