To play in spain for the 1st time in 6 weeks as restrictions are eased. Also fears of the food crisis in zimbabwe will get even worse as the government extends a nationwide lockdown. And conspicuous by his absence mistreats surrounds the health and whereabouts of north koreas leader. Good to have you with us and welcome to the news hour a country thats endured more than 5 years of war and a humanitarian crisis the u. N. Has called the worst in the world now has a new challenge separatists in yemen have declared self rule in the south of the country it comes as a Saudi Coalition battles who the rebels in a separate conflict the internationally recognized government says the outcome will be catastrophic alexy abroad begins our coverage. Separatist reinforcements arrive in aden hours after their political leaders the Southern Transitional. So announced its in control of the city and a major port. We are now in front of the Yemeni Central Bank in aden after it was taken back by the sovereign forces that by the Southern Transitional council like the other vital infrastructure in the city they hope this will be a real breakthrough that will be repeated in all the other liberated southern regions of the council defying the internationally recognized government accusing it of being unable to cope with the coronavirus pandemic and failing to improve the lives of yemenis this is actually a pileup. Mis management misgovernance in specially in south yemen less to i. D. S. He she is right now compelled to take action to their own ends while still calling for a ceasefire calling for deescalation in all fronts we want things to go smoothly or things you want to be able to deliver aid services are going to be able to battle this. But the government warns the move could have catastrophic consequences describing it as a resumption of an insurgency. Its yet another complicating factor in yemens 5 yes civil war which is being mocked by shifting sometimes shadowy allegiances. Facade and safer to still backed by the United Arab Emirates and have been nominal allies of the saudi immorality coalition and their war against the who thinks it was last year the saw the movement turned on the coalition backed government seizing aden and fighting that lasted for days. The government says the separatist action is a rejection of a power sharing deal brokered to end last years on wrist which saudi arabia hailed as a step towards a wider political solution to the war. As Movement Goes back fabio on to the current conflict those in the south yemens unification and 99. Favored the north and led to falling Living Standards there are thought to be at least 25. 00 regional separatist groups support on the ground is also in question critics say control shouldnt be taken by force but actions within yemen and not in book 3 but or the one and. Only go and i think this is like premature. That doesnt. You know youre not going to speculate and other places so basically we are playing with fire at the will. Come back. To the 7 Transitional Council says it continues to support the nationwide ceasefire which is just been extended by a month a declaration of autonomy and a state of emergency adds to the uncertainty for yemenis have already suffered years of hunger and war aleksandra on aljazeera. Now the crisis in yemen has many dimensions its fraught with both domestic and Regional Power struggles the war is rooted in the arab spring uprising of 9 years ago longtime president. And a power to his deputy about the rebel ones whove had the now but failed to bring much hope for the stability the movement took advantage reigniting divisions and separatist ambitions and tensions rose on a regional level between sunni ruled saudi arabia and shia are all iran which is accused of backing the who feels now a saudi u. A. E. Coalition began its military offensive against the who these in march 2015 and that was only supposed to last a matter of weeks and then western countries fear that the threat of attacks from al qaeda and i still feel its based in yemen may actually occur simon megan is a senior lecturer in International Studies at Lancaster University in the u. K. Joins me from there via skype good to have you with us on the program again mr may but how does this development in the south of the country sort of change the new political reality rather than actually whos in charge. You know thank you for having me again i think its an interesting if whole together and surprising so developments i mean those people whove been watching yemen for some time will have known that the s. T. C. Have got these these broad their aspirations for secession they want to break away from the state and the established their own state but if with regard to what actually is happening on the ground i think the situation is far more complex in terms of both the opinions of yemenis in the south than in the extent to which the s. T. C. The sudden Transitional Council can exert influence over these different groups but also with regard to the broader geo political dimensions of the conflict as you were just alluding to with regard to to the end there are support for the s. T. C. Which pitted against. The backers of the how to governments saudi arabia and thats thats a pretty fractious rivalry there starting to brew that and of course a while all of that is humans and its a political rivalry is ongoing there are in fact as you say many groups that you alluded to just then vying for influence and power how much is of a sort of political and social vacuum is being developed and causing more confusion for the very people that theyre trying to influence. Well i think thats a really difficult one to answer because lets not forget as you were setting in your package the yemen has been struggling for the past 9 years or so net yemen has really suffered from the uprising the unrest that will prob out by the arab uprisings and its really struggled in the in the 6 years since the war started and that has really opened up a vacuum so its essentially its a vacuum within a vacuum right now because you have all these different competing groups not only the political groups but then also tribal groups religious organizations including their affiliates and all of these Different Actors are trying to vie for influence and while the s. T. C. Is perhaps the most prominent of those groups in the south it certainly doesnt speak for all of them and some some statistics that i saw recently suggest that perhaps only 40 percent of people in the south support the s. T. C. Where does this leave president had the he supported by the saudis any sort of u. N. Backed as such but has he lost legitimacy is he irrelevant now or is he still an important player. Thats the 1000000. 00 question i guess he is officially recognized ruler of yemen he obviously was central in agreeing that the riyadh agreement which brought a degree of peace between the Yemeni Government and the s. T. C. Although many would doubt that that was actually a viable agreement so how does in a difficult position right now hes not really able to exert any influence over whats happening in yemen he spends a great amount of his time out of the country in riyadh and so the extent to which he can actually be seen as a rule is very limited so hes recognized that outside of yemen as a ruler that very few people internally actually recognize him as such so his legitimacy is dramatically on the wane which of course adds to the complexity of whats happening in yemen and opens up that document you were talking about someone may been in lancaster in the u. K. Thanks very much for joining us thank you. The coronavirus toll is still rapidly climbing in many countries but china is marking a new sign of improvement it says all patients have now been discharged from hospitals and the original epicenter Health Officials also say theyve now gone and 11th straight day with no deaths anywhere in china will hand 100 porters more than half of the countrys total cases and nearly 85 percent of the National Death toll residents there are still being tested regularly despite a relaxation of lockdown rules sarah clarke has more from hong kong. This is the epicenter of the initial corona Virus Outbreak and of course engendering we saw this particular city sealed off was in general 23 when live 11000000 people went into lockdown for about 3 or so months it was only when the numbers started to drop that they lift that particular lock down so in january february at the peak of this particular Virus Outbreak in we had we had the likes of thousands of cases being reported on a daily basis of course we had accounts for half the National Total of coronavirus cases in china and 3 quarters of chinas deaths but instead of we had the medical efforts are now being deployed elsewhere weve got the cases on sunday the National Health commissions reported 11 cases and 5 of those have come from a particular region in the north of the country thats an area called long jiang province and this particular province borders russia its about 4000 kilometer a border there and as a result this is now the new battleground because of the cases of the surge in infections in that particular region weve got a number of cities that been put in lockdown or got public transport its been postponed or held for a period of time and this tight quarantine restrictions in a number of those cities and we also have mandatory testing for all arrivals coming from russia into china certainly china is now looking to deploy medical teams to this particular region as it sees a surge in the number of cases and there is food is a professor in the school of politics and International Relations at the university of nottingham he says the Chinese Communist party is doing everything it can to shield itself from any blame for whats happening. The Chinese Communist party hauls. The quote unquote monopoly off fools and that means. The communist party basically by default whatever they say must be true and whatever is reported that kind of counters the official narrative by default must be faults and saw based on this understanding i think its quite clear that we must not trust the carpet 1000 statistics coming out of Mainland China we need to be quite careful when we draw like comparisons to other countries its all good to hold for example the british and Us Government to account for their lets say a belated response and i think that criticism is being articulated day by day but when it comes to Mainland China. As this is the origin of the corona Virus Outbreak and this is of course something that secretary sitting is. Perhaps ashamed off and so the highest it has been going into all the drives to kind of deflect criticism of this fact and theyre now increasing reports that. Conspired is actually orchestrating a global this Information Campaign courageous chinese citizens are attempting to kind of break through censorship but unfortunately just yesterday we learned that. Some volunteers in china would try to document what really happened in and that theyve been harassed by the authorities and so lets bear in mind Health Professionals who just wanted to share information with other professionals like dr levy when young they they couldnt speak their mind and on his deathbed he said china should no longer have censorship and citizen journalists would try to report from the front lines like to ensure sure neither of us they were immediately carts and. And gag spain has recorded its lowest daily death toll in 5 weeks 298 people died in the past day and the number of new infections also dropped its raising hopes that spains Strict Lockdown restrictions are beginning to pay dividends. But some parts of that lockdown are being eased to millions of children being allowed outside to play for the 1st time in 6 weeks but its only for an hour and they must be accompanied by an adult and stay within a kilometer of home public parks remain closed spain has the worlds 2nd highest total number of infections after the u. S. And has europes 2nd highest number of faith teletubbies behind italy marta has more from madrid. This is a big relief after 43. 00 days of Strict Lockdown children under 14 are able to go out for a walk only for one hour one kilometer away from their home and back and with one adult each adult can take at least 3 up to 3 kids of the same family so what were seeing today the big picture in spain have been all these parents with the kids with their bicycles with the scooters and weve seen plenty of Police Patrolling 5 drones warning all the parents and the kids to keep to keep the save safe safety distancing with plenty of kids and all the parks are closed in spain on the playgrounds of course so the access is impossible so these kids have to to exercise or to walk with their own by their own means and with the plans so that our scientists spanish Prime Minister yesterday said that if this continues these slow down trend continues according to 2 ministers sources in the past 34 hours we were just at the lowest death toll. In a month 288 new fatalities in the past 24 hours and 1700 new infections if this trend continues next week and we can see dont point out to sect to exercise individually so we have another picture as well. Valentine is a clinical psychologist its a dramatic she says a gradual transition can help children adjust to normal life. Well theres a number of different ways that children can be adopted and a lot of it will depend on the childs temperament and personality and how their family is handling the lockdown but certainly time away from friends all in their routines can be quite disruptive stressful and then with the news about chronic liar its not understanding everything can also be a bit and say were going in so im sure theyre looking forward to some opportunities to be getting out now in spain its probably not enough but they still start out slowly anyway you know the changes can be overwhelming so starting with this 111 policy helps children kind of ease back into different routines and different schedules and i think you know different children might be really excited others might be a bit anxious so it gives that little bit of flexibility there for children come out slowly and starts to see whats going on as well see maybe see friends while theyre walking on the streets it wont be enough but its a nice start well i think its a really nice opportunity now for parents to be having some mindful conversations with their children about what they want to do in the coming months making some plans together about how to return back to routines that they liked and maybe incorporating changes that worked out really well for them in the in lockdown are important here in the habits that they develop so its an opportunity to really plan because the doors are actually being opened in one day britains Prime Minister is due back at work on monday 2 weeks after he was in intensive care for a strong and facing criticism of his and his governments handling of the crisis including critical shortages of personal protective equipment for Health Care Staff and the lack of testing public calls to these the lockdown are also increasing our correspondent jonah hole joins us now from westminster his Central London so one wonders jonah what its going to be top of the Prime Ministers to do list on monday morning. When he returns here to westminster to downing street with a pretty full in box theres no doubt about that he returns to the helm of a country. Currently in its 2nd 3 week period of severe restrictive lockdown measures that has reached the peak of its epidemic but not yet seen a steep decline still posting perilously high numbers of new infections and fatalities passing the 20000 person mark hospital deaths that is on saturday there is still persists and shortages of personal protective equipment for Frontline Health care workers a government target to hit 100000 tests a day by the end of this month looks a long long way away still and there are louder and louder calls on the Prime Minister on the government to give Greater Transparency about its plans for a timetable for an exit strategy the opposition is saying the public must be kept in the loop about how and when a lockdown will end Business Community leaders and even senior figures in the Prime Ministers own party is saying its got to end very very quickly if were to avoid destroying the economy altogether so hes got lots of things that hes got to work out presumably the most important priority will be to try and figure out how to communicate to the British Public quite what is going to happen next and in order to do that hes got to resolve that central sort of predicament whether and to what extent on the one hand to follow the calls of business and those in his party to end a lock down to save the economy and on the other hand whether and to what extent to heed the rather more cautious calls of the scientific and medical community who say now is not the time the numbers are still too high the public should not be given false hope there should instead be encouraged to double down on the lock down a lock down incidentally that has had pretty broad public support up to now but in terms of which polls released on sunday suggest that support may be waning. For the moment jonah thanks very much for the update jen hole the