A majority for the rajapaksa brothers to push through sweeping constitutional changes. The number of coronavirus cases in india hits 2000000 as a struggles to bring the pandemic under control. And pitching in to help we visit a city in the u. K. Where its taking a Community Effort to combat coronavirus. Us with your sport jason day shares the lead at golfs 1st major in 13 months the p. G. A. Championship. Emergency food shipments are being prepared the u. N. Is describing the need for shelter as massive 120. 00 schools have been damaged the full effect of tuesday nights port explosion in the lebanese capital is now becoming much clearer. Its just gone 1 pm in beirut where the death toll has been updated to 154. 00 but the search goes on in the rubble and around the port the number of injured is more than 5000 the World Health Organization says the city is now facing a shortage of hospital beds because of the number of damaged facilities amid all the frustration grows 16 port workers and officials have been arrested but the peoples anger is being directed at the government the french president emanuel micro ended his visit saying that the no blank checks unless there is political reform Bennett Smith is our correspondent in beirut so bernard give us a sense of where you are what youve been seeing and what youve been hearing. Everywhere. Since i arrived in barrel yesterday and today. This is a building right across the street. Which took the whole blast of the shock wave of the sea you really see you cross the water going as far as 3 kilometers in all of these buildings as you see another pane of glass. All of them destroyed by the explosion on the other side we can just show. The names of the grain silo it was next to the warehouse walls that exploded and weve actually been told now that but grain silo because it withstood the blast on the outside but the western half of beirut was not as badly affected in the eastern half of i mean there was still broken windows in the west but not quite as much destruction as youve seen. So as far as the residents of beirut are concerned their priorities are food clothing water medicine are they getting that provided for them by the local authorities or are they doing it all to themselves. People are relying on here of themselves and n. G. O. S and seeing the Lebanese Red Cross out to work as a small army of n. G. O. S trying to fill the gaps left by extremely way poor states provision of supports also small armies of volunteers out to get on the streets this morning young people with that with pickaxes and shovels and brushes sweeping up and clearing up as best they can conspicuous by their absence again today is the army and the police or any other indication that the state is in some way involved in directing operations i am not a problem there is little direction ok burn it will leave it there thank you very much ben smith our correspondent reporting live from beirut lets talk now to a. Member of parliament and part of the National Pantry otic movement founded by the president michel he joins us live from. Welcome to the news hour here on aljazeera how do you rebuild the city from now and over the coming immediate few days whats the governments top priority. Of course at the top here just to continue that rescue efforts in order to. To 1st find the missing people and continue providing. Health care for the wounded people and of course remove the wreckage of destruction that has kept so many people sounds of people displaced so i think on top of that the other purity of course is to go on with the investigation as fast as possible and get answers for the people about what happened to day to day humid day and age is most important one is try to find whatever is missing and continue giving. Ola sciri care for the wounded. And give priority also for a need for giving back shelters and homes for those who lost this is i see the top european cities where all the efforts and the International Efforts are focused also was all the. Rescue teams coming from abroad from different friends country is sending sending them to get on as far as the people who are suffering and have suffered so much after the events on tuesday youve got the aid operation up and running are you giving them a guarantee that you can sustain that and that you can maintain it and keep it going for as long as it takes and you will be able to get the aid and some money to the people who need it most. When for the time being we really had the elementary and basic gates whether its has. Missiles would be required Better Health care and hospitals etc and of course food and shelters. Rebuilding the old whats what was destroyed. Would require a financial means that. Lebanon has a problem to secure and state because it was already going through a very acute and severe financial crisis and lebanon went on the field on in steps and you all and its already on negotiation was i am sure a program it sets a lid on it happened at a very very bad time where it and was already running out of need so we definitely need lots of aid in order to. Who all it was destroyed and this of course will be made into a national have also because and let alone of course the port that was completely destroyed and would require Huge Investment in order to rebuild it again so. Besides of course giving the elementary aid at this point. This is that can be sustained of course especially with all of what is the also sent out and the scotch from abroad from lots of countries and certain order to help the bennies i think that the most important part which is reconstruction of houses of the story and. Repairing the damage of houses that are out of service and buildings of course and of course later on that the port also this will require a little bit more than much more than that many scripts its ok to actually cover us ok when you talk about capacity its all about literally not having enough money to do that kind of thing so when emmanuel macro gets a very good reception the french president and he says no blank checks until there is political reform do you understand why he said that and do you comprehend what he is signaling to the lebanese government because weve seen months and months of antigovernment demonstrations and protests on the streets because of these allegations of systemic corruption. Yes and the standard this and this was anyway the speech that the foreign minister French Foreign minister has been given on during is that because a 10 days ago or it could be before the blast and this is also the speech if being had could have been hes authorities by the imam thing that theyre not informed and not be any Financial Aid what about so we all understand that clinton is still beyond what is required in terms of reforms in terms of really from within the system whether in fighting corruption whether it. Be forming its finances in forming its it services it just it gets at the old everything so and definitely we have to acknowledge that. Extensive government building this one actually one or not up to expectations at this level and are still not doing enough and its useless to sustain a state of denial from politicians are doing and saying its enough but were doing no absolutely not and the tragedy of tuesday came on the top of the iceberg of failures and a complete. Ok but when you say theyre talking about political reform talking about financial correct accurate Financial Management if i extracted from what youve just said talking about the port explosion from the rest of what you just said you could have said that to assert 3 months ago or 6 months ago or 12 months ago nothing has changed in the past year it would appear so why why should people in lebanon trust the government to change now. Actually there are a lot of not enough not of the people trust the government actually you know because exactly because of what youre saying because we have been both you can look and be said been vocal even from the big who are considered as from the majority as being vocal about the government critical because i can the government for its base of 3 forms and of and also lack of. Confidence and lack of thats a willingness to do the the forms the system is already complicated i know that this is consensual is a complicated system to take any decision to make the Decision Making process is very complicated living on but this is not. Enough as excuse but should be that we have reached really the limits and we are in the fold and we are in and deep. Financial crisis and social crisis that is affecting lebanese and their and their well being and their finances and theyre. There. And theyre with the weather and everything and actually its not being ok the government is already started the process of negotiation with the i. M. F. This is good but its still not enough and then the base of negotiations is very slow and we have been very vocal starting the government about that and people have the right to be angry about that and actually there is no Immediate Reaction its whats already quiet before this tragedy and its now its even much its multiplied by a by a by the by multiple factors ok terms of. Which is acting very quickly in order to put them on track again and start to see Company Process that will take time but at least we have started correctly ok many thanks. For here. Ok lets move on to our other top story here on the news of the election victory in sri lanka thats expected to cement the power of the rajapaksa brothers the governing party has taken nearly 60 percent of the vote the sri lanka peoples front is led by go to by and by hindu rajapaksa who serve as president and Prime Minister along with their own eyes that secured a 2 thirds majority giving the president the power to make sweeping changes to the constitution lets bring in our correspondent in colombo minal fernando of the rajapakse has done well because a year ago people were feeling so insecure so unsafe fast forward 12 months and they feel safer than they used to. Absolutely that is one of the key factors of this massive victory for the p. P. Led by the large boxes essentially a feeling of confidence in their government that they are going to be taken care of that the government their leaders are in charge of National Security this was a huge hit that the sri lankan population as a whole took after these to bombings in 2019 and the shambles that the last government basically the way they handled it that led to those bombings now the coronavirus pandemic the contrasts the government led by president go top it rajapaksa how he has handled it weve had just 11 deaths with sort of infections being kept to a minimum so all of these things for the people seem to be whats sort of crucial that they have a government that seems to be in control and can get their act together again one of the reasons is is the contrast that they have with the previous government the promise to bring Good Governance but failed so miserably peter these constitutional changes that people are now engaging with what does that mean for the people of sri lanka. C a so far in terms of the government the p. P. That has won this massive manned their key cried during the campaign was give us the mandate to change the constitution they said that the current constitution with the weight was changed by the previous government kind of 9 was opposed obstacles to the way they wanted to deal with the problems that sri lanka had that it didnt give them the kind of flexibility and the room to make the necessary changes and bring in their vision and program now for the people of this country if you look talk about sort of brass tacks of constitutional changes procedures to be really honest it doesnt matter and thats what you see translated at the polling booth the fact that the bigger majority of this country at the end of the day shores the rajapakse is because they felt that they do a better job of leading this country and taking it forward so in terms of constitutions when you do talk to people like sort of civil rights activist human rights defenders there are concerns that there might be a reversal in terms of some of the positive changes of that last amendment which strengthened institutions which reduced and diluted to a little bit to a certain extent the powers of the president in favor of the building behind me and those who sit in it parliament that they had bigger you know better powers but what is envisioned by the rajapaksa is from what weve heard from them on the campaign trail is that they want changes they want a whole new constitution which will allow them a centrally put to put forward their program so those are some concerns but to the average sri lankan on the street obviously it doesnt seem to matter he wants safety he wants a cutie and he wants the confidence that hes leaders are in control and thats what seems to be the main sort of. Sition when they cost that boy a ballot at the polling booth peter minal thank you so much mental phenomena as our correspondent reporting live from the sri lankan capital lets bring in the sort of on the move through executive director of the think tank the center for policy alternatives he says the opposition is weak and divided and there are big challenges ahead i think whats what average marks is sort of enduring was reaching out that he would require a strong stable government in comparison to what happened to him before him the sort of governance which the Prime Minister and the president if part is really weak and vacillating and not store united so strong stable government also the assertion of the identity of the Majority Community so its also a strong signal the biggest star with a strong sense of you know centralized leadership authoritarianism perhaps and emphasis on law and order and on discipline out of the can we can continue them if we do that to speak and i think things will start there is never after because in addition to that the key challenge i think all president and the new government is going to be going on in terms of dealing with the consequence of this article with Bank Inquiries you know we see knocked her house to something right eunice startles full 1000000000 a year from now until the 202020 and we have our Foreign Exchange ermines very bad because of course by the virus be by going to to the middle east the apparently industry and hospitality. So their essence which is that he has to its well. Well small ground still to cover for you here on the news hour including salvaging whatever they can and flooding is not the only threat facing hundreds of families in sudan. And formula one sergio perez woman trace this week after testing positive again for corona virus thats coming up with peter in the sports. Corona virus is spreading faster in india than the 2 worst affected countries in the world in just 3 weeks the number of cases has doubled to 2000000 india sits behind the u. S. And brazil with the most Infections Health volunteers have gone on strike in rural areas saying theyre not getting enough protection its also getting worse across africa where there are now more than a 1000000 cases of south africa alone accounts for more than half of those and mexico has become the 1st country in the world to record more than 50000. 00 deaths its feared the number could be much worse because theres been a low rate of testing start in india elizabeth purana reports now from new delhi the worst hit states are seeking help she says from the government there. India recorded the single highest day rise in cases more than 62000 cases and the worst hit state remains in maharashtra it recorded more than 11000 new cases on thursday the chief minister of the state asking the Central Government to pay for more Treatment Centers there are already around 37000. 00 people either in hospitals or Treatment Centers and there are still reports of people struggling to find beds especially in rural areas which have very Health Care Infrastructure elsewhere in the country cases are rising by around 10000 of those have been saved by. The government there says thats because theyre testing more people than anywhere else in the country theyre testing around 50000. 00 a day despite the overall rise that were seeing around the country the Health Minister as always remains positive he says india is continuing to increase testing they are testing around 600000 people a day nationwide he also points to what he says is one of the lowest death rates in the world but we have to keep in mind that less than a of all deaths in india medically certified so its really difficult if not impossible right now if you know how many of the deaths in the country are from coronavirus. A city in the u. K. Is becoming a Success Story and how it can help build virus theres been a surge of local cases in the city of liverpool but instead of a blanket lockdown is just shut down small pockets of the city are playing a big part in ensuring people looked after. These are the streets where the virus is thriving its been moving house to house often transmitted by children to their parents or grandparents or living under the same roof in other places this would have led to the city being locked down but here they refuse to instead they localized the lock down to the smallest possible area we are doing this with and through our community rather than to our community and that way were Building Trust and relationships with the Funtastic CommunityLeaders Committee champions faith leaders and our ball and see is that weve got in the area much of it is about making sure Vulnerable People dont run out of basics like food or medicines that delivering sewer lead hes not allowed to leave home but in turn hes keeping an eye out on his neighbors and reporting back to the violence he is the d brother across the road each 80 years old he was taken away in an ambulance this morning and wife still there so straight on the phone to fami