a case over a blocked boat. and yes why one of the world's most catchy songs is being played over and over and a korean courtroom. and there has been a massive surge in the number of corona virus cases hours after china had talked of a drop in numbers a province of course that's the epicenter of the outbreak has confirmed more than 14800 new cases on wednesday from just 1600 the day before officials also announced 242 more deaths there are now at least 60000 cases worldwide and 26 different countries world health organization earlier said any reports that cases of corona virus in china have stabilized must be treated with extreme caution an agency says it's too early to say when the outbreak hit and we need to focus on the task and the task is to contain the virus to detect cases treat the cases if we keep doing things yes we will see the growth in the number of cases but i think it's way too early to try and predict the beginning the middle or the end of this it could limit right now. and a cruise ship turned away by 5 ports because of fear some passengers may have the virus has just arrived in cambodia that's carrying 2200 people japan taiwan the philippines guam and thailand all blocked that vessel from entering their ports so let's get more now from katrina you who joins us live from beijing so this huge jump in the number of cases katrina what what is behind this. right so this week we had just been sort of void by some positive news that the number of confirmed cases were actually stabilizing and dropping and now this actually we had in one day 14840 new cases taking the confirmed case toll to up to almost 60000 real social rise in death so more than 1300 deaths as well from the coronavirus now what has happened is that there hasn't been all the sudden we heard this number of people suddenly catching the current of this new coronavirus what we do know is that the chinese government have suddenly changed the diagnostic criteria so before this doctors had to use one particular type of testing kit and there had been for some some weeks now some doubts about the validity of this testing kit there were some reports of people having to be tested for 5 times before actually getting a positive results so now what that the chinese government has essentially done is given doctors more discretion as to how they can diagnose a coronavirus and that's why we've seen this huge jump in numbers when we do know that the only source of numbers we do have about the corona virus is from the official sources we have no other numbers and even the world health organization has said itself as you as you heard that we have to be cautious about this so for some time to has been some skepticism as to whether these numbers were indeed plateaued stabilized and heading for a plateau so it looks like we may not see the end of this by the end of march as some doctors had predicted earlier this week so the chinese government is rolling out a lot of new measures to try to contain the economic fallout from all of this what can you tell us about that. that's right so president xi jinping has declared what he's called a people's war on this corona virus outbreak but we've seen this week that the chinese government although this outbreak is a huge threat obviously to the safety of of the people here in china to the governance of china they're seeing the potential economic fallout as an even bigger threat i think in one sense china's leaders see this as a huge problem but they do know that eventually it will pass for china's leaders at the same time they also recognize that china is a country that more or less people galvanise in times of a crisis but what is potentially a new even bigger threat is a slowing slowing economy which they were already sort of facing before the outbreak happened but now with this the country coming to a standstill factories been closed businesses been closed people staying home not traveling not consuming this is a potentially even bigger problem for the chinese government so they've announced this week a raft of new measures receiving announcements of news different types of investments they're going to give subsidies to all types of businesses are going to give a preferential treatment to small medium sized businesses saying that they don't have to pay their rents they don't have to pay stuff insurance so they're really going to help these these businesses to as much as possible to survive they're also going to have a look at ways to prevent mass layoffs which have already started to happen there been some companies have really said that they can't afford to pay you the staff and are letting go hundreds and even thousands of their of their staff so this is really a major concern for the chinese government and we're seeing as a result a lot of positive messaging in state media trying to encourage people to get back out there saying it is safe enough to go but of course the still battling a big brute of fear and uncertainty and certainty in the face of this coronavirus. the beijing's noisiest and detainment districts is now silent and these restaurants karaoke rooms and nightclubs have been closed until further notice all to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus. this street has everything for us to eat drink and have fun we lived here in the past we couldn't rest because it was too busy and noisy but now it's so quiet and you feel you. has really affected daily life with these closures at her van the virus i think the right decision some local governments say businesses must apply for permission before reopening punishing those who ignore the rules across china more than 80 cities have been partially locked down and people's movement is heavily restricted but president xi jinping says some of these measures have gone too far warning that it could harm the economy season thing walk a fine line between controlling the epidemic and its impact on the economy prior to the outbreak time is already struggling with slowing economic growth and the pressure to prevent a downturn now they have a clear message to the chinese public. carrying on. 160000000 people nationwide are expected to return to major cities over the next week officials are trying to reassure the public that it's safe to travel and go back to work. tried to lower derisive action by preventing passengers from sitting next to each other in vehicles trying. and the implementing ventilation this infection in temperature monitoring chinese factories are beginning to resume production but the damage has been done analysts say the service and manufacturing sectors will be the hardest hit. by and large and then. on some signs of recovery from draw for recovery won't start to all. the 2nd quarter of 20 or 21 and the reason for that. take some time for industry is toward just the production patterns to recruit new yorkers and a lot of. the economic impact of the outbreak is being felt globally i phone maker apple and south korean car brand he are among those expecting losses and outbound tourism could drop by an estimated 30 percent this year with many chinese choosing will be forced to stay home country you al-jazeera beijing. turkey is sending more reinforcements to its observation posts in northern syria as tensions with government forces there continue to escalate present right at hyper to want his warning he will strike back against any attacks on turkish troops by advancing syrian forces and where province syria's ally russia accuses ankara of aggravating the situation in the last couple hell region by having its military on the ground while a syrian civilian as been killed in a confrontation between u.s. troops and government supporters has more from istanbul. a russian patrol in north east syria near punished the after u.s. troops in the area opened fire killing one civilian. the u.s. issued a statement saying they came under attack and how to open fire the incident is now under investigation. 2 that attack came on the same day turkey's president issued a warning to the syrian government and its russian alliance i'm going to move the president was a dylan has given damascus until the end of february to put out beyond to his observation post it. says if talks with russia failed to stop syrian troops targeting turkish forces will respond harshly what varies from the color we are determined to remove the syrian regime to beyond the boundaries of the sochi agreement that is behind our observation post by the end of february we will do whatever is necessary without hesitation without wavering on land and by air. damascus has dismissed the coma and saying turkey is out of touch with reality but despite his anger and frustration president is still hoping he would be able to narrow differences with russian president vladimir putin the 2 signed agreements into 1018. which allowed for safe zones in and restrictive the rebels movements the deals also prevented syrian president bashar assad from launching an all art military campaign to take over the last roll call of the rebels as turkish russian relations remain strained the u.s. has stepped in during a meeting with turkish officials u.s. syria ovoid james jeffrey delivered a sharp rebuke of russia iran and the syrian government which the us blamed for the escalation. as tension mounts turkey sending more troops into it led. outpost to the 12 by the established after an agreement with russia and iran 2 years ago. the syrian government has been increasing its offensive in the north taken over highways and towns from rebels but is can only do this with a close support of russia's military and it's up to the russians and to the turks to decide what happens in syria next house about al-jazeera is the board. u.s. attorney general william barr has agreed to testify before the house judiciary committee to answer questions about president all trumps a close ally roger stone the better and political consultant was sentenced to 7 to 9 years in prison for lying to congress at the justice department entertained and saying it would reduce that sentence kambli how could has more. you not backing down i want to thank the justice department u.s. president donald trump is praising his attorney general william bar after bars justice department took the unusual step of recommending a reduced sentence for trump ally and close friend roger stone. government prosecutors had requested stone serve almost a decade in jail after being found guilty last november of lying to congress during its broader investigation into whether trump's presidential campaign had colluded with russia you have murders and drug addicts you know get 9 years 9 years for doing something that nobody human can defy what he did trump weighed in on twitter calling the potential sentence horrible and very unfair and a miscarriage of justice that's what the justice department changed its recommendation to less jail time prompting 4 justice department prosecutors to quit the case in protest. now there are questions about whether trump may pardon stone i don't want to say that here democrats are calling for an independent investigation into the stone case they allege the president who was last week acquitted in the senate for abuse of power is acting with impunity they point to trump's firing of white house officials who testified against him during the impeachment inquiry as further evidence of the abuse of presidential power left to his own devices president trump would turn america into a banana republic where the dictator can do what ever he wants and the justice department is the president's personal law firm as outrage builds an online petition with tens of thousands of names is also calling for the justice department's internal watchdog to review with the protocols were followed in the stone case go through your authority but such criticism is unlikely to hurt trump among his supporters that's because donald trump promised on the campaign trail to drain the swamp essentially pushing back on the so-called washington establishment that includes judges and prosecutors that the president believes are out to get him and his conservative allies can really help at al-jazeera the white house as president has brushed off the decision by the philippines to withdraw from a decade's old military pact says it will save the u.s. a lot of money the philippines announced this week it will pull out of the agreement by the end of the year and allows us troops to take part in military exercises philippine president robert a territory has criticized it since he took office but senator say it was undermined security and aggression in the south china sea. i really don't mind if they would like to do the fighting to save a lot of money but if you look back if you go back 3 years ago when isis was overrunning the philippines we came in and literally singlehandedly were able to save them from vicious attacks on their islands. grandmama web is a research fellow in the institute for defense and strategic studies at the. school of international studies at nanyang technological university he joins us via skype thank you very much i'm 1st of all what was there any validity to what the president there was saying about how he saved some aspects of the philippines what is he talking about there when i think of several ways to see this i think this is a game or. you know very much been mentioned if you like it's a dialogue between 2 businessmen or 2 respected presidents who see themselves as very savvy businessmen playing a poker game and i think what trump is doing in this case is calling on president of the group that is love to see the real deal want to go down this road that essentially the end of the endgame were to be so many asians a long standing mutual defense treaty a call of the philippines and the united states of a ship so i think it remains to be seen it will be interesting developments over the next 4872 hours in the east about what the philippines nonuse to do desponding in a way that allows the president to take if you get what he wants a so i understand that you're saying both and think of themselves as businessmen but this is not a business international relations in this aspect or not a business so having said that what's really at risk if this agreement goes away what what purpose was it serving. well you know whether we like it or not these 2 gentlemen who see it as a business the business of international affairs right now are our let's talk about our problem or what happened i suspect it will not be here where he's trying to look for the best possible deal who can give it it's going to be the chinese or to be the russian or what i'm asking tonight me the most from i mean i understand what you're saying that that's how they see it but i'm saying is that correct to look at international relations in that way what is really at risk if you look at international relations as simply about business i give you a show normal i am very i mean all of us can have a fundamental of human or what will be the right view of your life or the right side is a view that international affairs isn't part of that actually or indeed go down the connection and sad to see a president trump has taken and led the wheel down this up in dismantling the whole course of very important relationships under his tenure is going to be a great optics for all of us and right now we're seeing more perceive between these 2 players are taking a very transactional route and are doing a very longstanding very tricky that's keeping a very important part of the security architecture in that is it was a big in please specifically the south china sea i mean this is a very important part of who just for that we can't afford to take our eyes off and with like in light of the other risks that are being presented to the asia pacific which is incumbent china other countries that we are so amusing someone share with our tendency so present it started looking an opportunity here and he's playing he's he's playing a sound so what might this mean for china depending on how this plays out. well it depends i mean right now the chinese government is extremely century that you cannot by the rule of violence or virus challenge so all presidents using ping and his and its leadership is our war or the pistons firing all hands on deck dealing with the growing the horror or a challenge which is pleading for china it's a challenge that we have to prevail and overcome now if you have some bandwidth look at the soft targets you should have some steady hands looking at it i think there's some some opportunity for the chinese there as well that the president will do it if it does please hand right the americans somehow who will draw or use the footprint of security footprint in the pacific and i think china will basically get what its what it wants as well which is to have a horse we look at times see under its military control so i think going to be a very interesting week to see how his views are which means he will probably be calling on you again graeme on the web thank you very much for your insight we appreciate it. let's turn to the top story now the sudden jump in the cases of coronavirus and china's hu a province bill ronson is a professor and part of our viral exists at the university of his outwell school of medical sciences he joins us now from sydney so bill thank you so much for your time when you hear about the drastic increase up 214214000 new cases in this 24 hour period what does that say to you. i think there's several reasons why you can see increases increase what we call as to time and simply you know doing more testing you looking for more and you seeing more i think secondly a number of cases that wouldn't have been identified previously perhaps there were 2 lists of via and finally of course the explanation that we don't want to see which is there's increased transmission and increased prices so you know the u.n. had warned and when they think it was yesterday when we had a relatively low increase there were a lot of people that were saying you know calm down we don't necessarily know that we have a grip on this yet and obviously when numbers like this happen you realize why there was caution but what do you think what would you like to see next. like to see testing and diagnosis being in the forefront so we're very sure about what the cases are one of the issues has been that with this what virus we're now calling code 19 is that there's been a range of of illness from really very moderate elements through to very severe illness and even death as we've seen so i think it's important that we we have testing and we are being certain of diagnostics of course what we'd like to see is that then translates into what we call social distancing which is effectively oscillating people or so far slating on the basis of the having the diagnosis for 14 days then don't transmit and certainly in other settings like coronavirus we've seen that conduct intervention be very effective and so i'd like to see that happening and in fact certainly where i am in a stride that's been the focus of what we've been doing and obviously it's awful that there have been any deaths from this but the number of deaths is still relatively low compared to the number of people that have coronavirus is this similar to the flu in that most people can withstand it find that it's people that are already at risk maybe children or older people. that's exactly what we're seeing happening in the interesting thing in and what we're observing now is the coronavirus are acting much more like that to most people who are older people with underlying illnesses of those who are getting the more severe disease and in fact they're the ones where the majority of deaths are concentrated whereas the young middle aged people attending not to get that more severe di