this is deja news coming to you live from berlin a german court dru's cities can impose driving bans and diesel vehicles the landmark ruling allows look the part used to ban all but the very latest use it calls from city center of drawings to prove but one environmentalist groups say it's long overdue also coming up reports of mortar and rocket fire. in seriousness of who monitor group's report new as trying some the rebel held on cave brushes ministry says rebels are shelling

a designated humanitarian corridor but both the syrian military and rebels deny launching new attacks. welcome i've admit that shima one of germany's top court has ruled that municipal authorities are allowed to impose driving bans on diesel vehicles if they wish environmentalist have been calling for a diesel ban for you they say thousands of people a year a dive prematurely as a result of right to dioxide emissions from diesel car exhausts authorities in some cities one favor of accused bhatia bans but they did not believe the law allowed them to impose restrictions. on has been following the court proceedings in a live sydney joins me now from elementary studios here in berlin

a welcome silence first of all tell us more about the court's verdict. yeah rita just to recap courts in stuttgart and dusseldorf had said that it was ok to impose bans on diesel vehicles for reasons of attempts to clean up the air. the state governments that is to say those of pardon votes in bag and north run was . a challenge that in the courts now the federal administrative court has. said that no these legal these diesel driving bans can be imposed by local authorities in the interests of public health and indeed they've gone so far as to all those two cities to. their anti pollution plans but i think the impact of this decision goes way beyond those two cities it

extends to many cities around germany which have got a pollution problem and some of the talk about the courts passing the decision up to a higher european court has that now being who die out. well the court today has said that these bans can be imposed without further reference to the european court of justice they also don't think there's any need for a unified regime at national level either. so it could go ahead for fairly quickly i would point out also that the european commission. has been sort of threatening germany for a while and some of the countries which it says are not doing enough to tackle this problem of dirty air and so you know they too have said they might take germany to the european courts if they're not satisfied by any measures that are introduced and the some environmental groups in germany have been pushing for

a diesel ban for yaz and that convinced that pollution from diesel vehicles is a killer and this a this then you have research to back that claim let's first take a listen to what they're saying. there are more than fifteen million diesel vehicles on germany's roads drivers find them reliable and economical and they're popular with businesses transporting freight and goods. but the future of that popularity is in doubt in the face of a possible diesel ban vehicle sales have slowed. the new regulations address concerns over high levels of nitrogen dioxide in diesel emissions. the gas is linked to cardiovascular and lung disease in a study by germany's federal environment agency researchers linked nitrogen dioxide in diesel exhaust to some eight thousand premature deaths from heart related disease. i don't think politicians are serious about the results of these

studies because otherwise we'd have to really enforce these driving restrictions. regardless of any doubt surrounding the findings one thing is certain traffic contribute significantly to nitrogen dioxide pollution and the main culprit is diesel levels are over the limit at nearly half the measuring stations in germany. this applies mainly to main traffic arteries it's a different picture in residential areas. and in those places on average we see levels between twenty and thirty micrograms per cubic meter which is well below the limits access levels are really just an issue on base here roadways and few before . the highest levels are found in large cities such as stuttgart cologne and berlin which have the most to lose from the new rules haulage companies and other trade industries warned that a ban could put the delivery of goods to cities at risk. numbers

think that fiction we'd have to shut down immediately we can't transport our goods by train so we had no other options next under this. initial measures which have been discussed include improved public transportation networks and electric buses that should provide some relief in cities affected by the excessive pollution levels. so some as we saw in this report for various reasons gentlemen authorities under pressure to react the courts now say they can so will they. well now you've got a bit more legal clarity i think a lot of local authorities and city governments will feel that this is a tool that they have to use. it at least in the form of imposing bans on some older diesel vehicles on some roads will parts of roads because environmentalists say that you know if you ban vehicles from taking one route they'll just ease

another route and take the pollution with them so it's not a quick fix you have to have a range of measures to tackle pollution reducing the cost of public transport might be one more electric vehicles is another thing the government would like to do in the talking about you know billions of euros in support for that kind of thing but i think we are going to see some drastic measures to keep old dirty a cause away from city centers and phony salmon how is this case connected the diesel gets scandal involving com makers in particular folks maughan sheeting on the emissions levels of their diesel vehicles. yet will it of course is not directly linked to that but i in a way it's just another milestone in the fallout from that scandal as people have become sensitized to this question of pollution that's being caused by

cause and in particular increasing skepticism about diesel as a form of as an engine type ironically in fact in many cities in recent years in germany the air quality has been improving diesel engine technologies improved it's cleaner than a nice to be but also fewer people have been buoying diesel cause partly as a result of the emissions scandal some young thank you very much for that. and of course we bring you the very latest on reactions to this vanity in our business news coming up later in the program let me know bring you up to date with some other stories making news around the prosecutors in south korea demanding a thirty year jail term for former president back when high in a landmark corruption case the ex-president was impeached for corruption last march

and is facing more than a dozen criminal charges spock has been held in custody for. a check or has ordered the release of syrian kurdish leader salim muslim refusing turkey's request to extradite him check authorities detained salim muslim over the weekend at request salim muslim denies turkey's claim that he was involved in attacks carried out on its territory. the saudi arabia's king said a man has five sought the country's top military officers in a major shake up they include the military chief of staff general a bill to have. and other defense officials know full well reasons have been given for the move. they've been reports of fresh violence including airstrikes in the rebel stronghold of eastern huta and this despite a daily five hour truce of drug declared a short while ago in syria the u.n. says a renewed fighting needs delivering aid impossible to russia's military is claiming

that shelling from rebel groups means civilians have been unable to leave eastern huta rebel factions there have denied bombing the evacuation route or preventing civilians from leaving more than five hundred civilians have been reported killed since the syrian government and its russian allies stepped up their friends if one isn't huta last week. martin is the regional humanitarian coordinator for care international in the middle east based in amman jordan i asked him what his colleagues and he was saying about the situation on the ground. they have been telling is that after ten days of find president at levels of violence and aerial bombardment that they had a rather quiet night and people were emerging from their shelters in the morning at nine o'clock local time looking for their belongings or looking to get some food some water and then unfortunately around lunchtime again we got. we

got information from our partners on the ground that the aerial bombardment had reached you and people were running for their lives again and basically now we have really trouble to reestablish communication at the moment and while people on the ground able to establish where this was coming from do they think it was saving government forces responsible for this because the russians are saying that in fact rebels have also been shelling and fighting mortice. i mean that is very difficult for us to say i mean we are. i mean we have been seeing that bargeman in the last ten days and you know kind of preparations for a ground offensive by the syrian regime. it's very difficult test average far stuff that's sitting in their shelters and sitting on the ground. chanting where exactly but what i can tell you is that the humanitarian situation has really deteriorated

to the degree that people don't know where they can get their food from the war and optimistic that this is an attempt of a humanitarian the ceasefire which is supposed to be in place to take some aid into that besieged. i mean the five hours a day certain that it's not sufficient time to bring in any kind of sheer miniature and eight. so we are definitely calling for the implementation or security council resolution that calls for a. cease fire a cease fire all over syria including mr. martin i mean from canton ashton thank you very much for talking about the situation in eastern. suckin on door one house and outs that on monday night to cap off match to twenty four in the bundesliga despite the host getting off to an only scoring start outs

but were determined to earn a point and avoided third straight defeat. don't need to marco royce fresh off a goal that is last time out back in front of home fans and they were cheering him on the black and yellow tasted honey in the first half after a surely with ball has a chip cut by my chip did by royce marco royce the second goal in three games for the dog been favoring. the trio of mario goodson surely in royce on the same page gave dormant in early one building. out buggies to clean sheet of the season. and first if you don't succeed kevin ganso finishing off that cliche the header block but the follow what was it. out spurred endorsements three game win streak and start an unbeaten streak of their own one one the final school. and not

a formula one testing got underway in barcelona on monday to mark the beginning of the highly anticipated race season for nanda alonso also provided the only had lines returning to his home track the spaniards mclaren a red hot course in a good lap times but his session ended abruptly after one of the cars real wheels came off red bull's daniel recorded the fastest time of the day the formula one season starts on march the twenty fifth with the australian prix. he watching did obvious coming up ahead cities can bang the heavily of polluting decent cars according to one of germany's talk costs coming up and business we look at in fact the ruling is lucky to have one germany's powerful motor industry. that's. shortly and we can organise more news and information on a website that's. you'd also check out. as well as on

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