this is t w news to coming to you live from berlin performing for peace from some of south korea's best known bands play a rare concert in pyongyang north korean leader kim jong un tells state media he was deeply moved by the experience so what is the need for diplomacy also coming up in syria rebel fighters are reported to have agreed to a deal to give up a key stronghold near damascus the plight of civilians trapped there remains unclear. the response the u.s. president tropes punitive tariffs china imposes levies on the u.s.

problems. also on the program what goes up must come down to try to use face station crashes to earth we'll tell you where it landed in how beijing a lost control of the crops in the first place. was life as an immigrant worker in saudi arabia is funny pop chart reports on how reforms in the kingdom are making life more difficult for some foreign labor camps. hello i'm terry march and thanks for joining us. north korean leader kim jong un says his heart swelled after attending a rare concert in pyongyang by musicians from south korea it's the first such performance in more than a decade and some say a sign of improving ties between the two countries and also coincided with the

start of annual military drills between the u.s. and south korea we'll have more in a moment first this report. south korea's k. pop girl bands red velvet and girl's generation as well as others play the kind of music that's being to do in the north. i. thought north korean leader kim jong moon was in the audience in the capital pyongyang and fitting the groove. over a hundred south korean musical artists came to perform in north korea for the first time in thirteen years a possible thaw in what has mainly been a chilly relationship between the two koreas things got really interesting at a theater in pyongyang when south korean perform a song about reunification the crowd didn't seem to mind meanwhile a south korean taekwondo team gave its first performance in since two thousand and

two. on the political stage south korea's leader in a scheduled to meet with his north korean counterparts on april twenty seventh to discuss the north's possible to new theories ation. u.s. president donald trump is also planning to meet in the near future with the north's kim jong. so scaled back military exercises between the u.s. and the south korean military. sunday's concept was held under the title spring is coming many koreans both in the south and north that means peace is on its way. now let's cross over to seoul south korea now reuters correspondent josh smith is standing by for us josh a south korean pop concert in the north korean capital with kim jong un in attendance the north korean regime usually frowns upon western style music what's

going on here well this is the latest in north korea's attempts to though are tensions on the peninsula it's part of an offensive that's launched we keep going speech after new year's and it's included a similar cross border cultural exchanges that happened during the olympics it is quite a stretch to connect himself showed up he's put a. personal face on all of this diplomatic offensive many people however are still wondering whether the upcoming political summits will allow them to be on. more cultural exchanges now while this diplomatic offensive is underway a joint military exercises between u.s. and south korean troops are also underway these are usually seen by north korea by north korea as a provocation what's the reaction this year. yes

indeed north korea has usually labeled these drills as a prelude to war and in the past has even launched missiles in protest of these drills so far this year their reaction has been much more muted according to south korean officials who met with kim jong un last month they said that he told them privately that you understood the need for these drills and that they would go forward. for their part of south korea and the united states say that the rules are fairly routine and they have in fact cut them down there about a month shorter than they have been in the past and will feature some major weapon systems including an aircraft carrier which participated last year ok so the military drills there seem to be scaled down a bit meanwhile the diplomatic offensive is continuing you mentioned that a number of summits coming up how often mystic can we be that this apparent thaw in

relations with north korea will continue. well those who support negotiating with north korea say seoul in the united states and there are other allies have no choice but to. react to this overtures these summits many however are skeptical because in the past there have been these moments of saws and the times with north korea increased cooperation and other measures and they have failed to solve the larger issues that are leading to stand up joss thank you so much for bringing us up to date that was reuters correspondent josh smith there speaking to us from seoul south korea. now to some of the other stories making headlines around the world today in costa rica the center left skaar los. has decisively won the presidential election

with nearly all the votes counted the electoral commission announced that casey had taken almost two thirds of the vote he defeated a conservative evangelical preacher who opposed same sex marriage. huge protests erupted in indian controlled kashmir after at least thirteen suspected militants were killed in fighting with indian security forces tens of thousands of demonstrators marched demanding an end to indian rule some protesters tried to reach the sites of gun battles to help trapped rebels escape. and tell of the israeli peace activists and members of arab israeli political parties demonstrated against friday's deadly clashes at the gaza border israeli forces killed at least fifteen palestinians and wounded more than seven hundred during mass protests there israel has rejected calls for an independent investigation into the by us. and iraq has turned over the bodies of thirty eight indian construction

workers killed by the so-called islamic state in two thousand and fourteen the remains were put on an indian air force transport plane in baghdad iraqi forces found the bodies in a mass grave last year after recapturing the city of mosul. opposition fighters have started evacuating the town of duma the last rebel held stronghold in the eastern suburbs of damascus assad forces say they've reached an agreement with the largest rebel group to pull out of the territory and sources have told e.w. that fighters from a smaller rebel group there are also participating in the back away should now fighting in eastern in recent weeks has killed hundreds regime forces are poised to take control at a terrible human cost. the road to eastern ghouta passers by ruined buildings and abandoned lifeless villages. on the roadside corpses rebels that nobody has

stopped to bury displaying victory signs assad soldiers approach the center of eastern go to the offensive has lasted more than a month with russian warplanes carrying out crucial air strikes. and. the rebel terrorists finally over the syrian army has been able to free eastern gota we thank our president. and the oversight over from the last rebels are leaving the area the conditions of their withdrawal were negotiated late into the evening many are now trying to get to the city of idlib in the north one of their last remaining strongholds. and her children were taking prisoner by the rebels for four weeks and held as hostages. in the end my son was ready to kill my daughter and me so they couldn't violate our

semi more. thoroughly a couple. they beat them with rifle butts and stomped on them with their heavy boots. then they grabbed my daughter and screamed that she was now married to one of the revolutionaries if she refused they would cut off her head and give it to me. said they were monsters so you know. more and more refugees are making their way through the card or out of east and go to more than four hundred thousand people were caught in the crossfire essentially held hostage by rival groups with a common goal overthrowing the assad regime. many are now in the custody of the syrian army apparently the lesser of two evils. eastern ghouta now just a collection of ruins a region without people after the recapture of the region moscow and damascus

bursting with self-confidence and washington after announcing it would freeze millions of dollars in reconstruction aid is on the back foot what's left of the dead the homeless and many displaced eight years after the civil war began with a few isolated protests against the assad regime the president has almost finished bringing the country back under his arm and grip. correspondent oras following developments in eastern from beirut in neighboring lebanon and she joins us now from there bring us up to date on these rebel evacuations from eastern good how close is the regime to regaining full control of the region around damascus. well the regime is pretty close the offensive of the regime began in one thousand february and since then hundreds of thousands of people have already evacuated he says he some who thought was a century dominated by three rebel groups durkee back her some of us controlling

how to stop the war many back we did file up and run mom's back up out of one point and the arab activated jobar which is like next to the old city of damascus and other areas and i gesture this now which is the dominant group in dumas the largest town of east and with that they have apparently come to a deal according to his blood and according to. state media that they would soon begin evacuations to those still there is a certain silence from josh in the slum and they have officially only admitted that the wounded would be allowed to leave and they haven't said anything when the fighters would be needing or not though that evacuation is expected to begin this is certain surprise element it is a gesture a slump continues to maintain the reason is that they want to stay put and dumont but the locals the civilians are saying they'd like to be. if assad's troops do regain control of all the areas there around damascus in the coming days how much

will this strengthen the syrian regime. significantly i mean this is the biggest victory for assad regime after december two thousand and sixteen which is when the regime regained a level the financial center the heart of as many see it after that this is the biggest victory for about shallowness art and the surprising thing for many to develop roups an opposition activist and those who have sort of from the outside supported the uprising not the revolution has been the assad regime has used the same tactics which is sieged and air warfare and then a ground offensive and the same sort of factors have been used in good as it did in the last four and there was really no preparation in a sense from the international community to support the rebels more so this is huge for him once dumas taken over there would be a tiny pocket in that hour one of hama and it delivered to rubble those that he would then be focusing his attention on. the bombing campaign in eastern

has been devastating what's been the cost of this victory for the syrian regime what's been the cost for civilians. well about fifteen hundred people have been killed in the east and without sense there but it's a civil war and it says this in the eighth year and a half of severe us population has been deployed displaced about six million are internally displaced by five million plus are living in other countries like lebanon turkey germany and many of them also illegal at least where i am at levanon so many displaced these people god knows when they would be able to really go back home because a regime does not really have a coherent plan as to how they want to build the international community doesn't really seem to be on the scene just how they would rebuild their whole country that's been sort of formed out of the human cost is is huge and i'm not even talking are the chemical attacks that have been several chemical attacks reported

and at least three of them the united nations has said that the assad regime is responsible for even if you want to call everything a conspiracy but they would have to sort of onset at some stage hopefully when it comes to the chemical attacks and especially the one in live in concert on child thank you so much rains up to date that was correspondent and child speaking to us from beirut lebanon. now saudi arabia is known as the world's most conservative country things may be changing though and the reason is or oil indeed the falling price of oil that's hit the oil rich kingdom very hard crown prince mohamed bin solomonic has unveiled an ambitious program of reforms known as vision twenty thirty it's aimed at transforming the saudi kingdom economy these reforms include diversifying the economy and reducing

its dependence on oil creating new jobs and marking making the country less reliant on foreign workers want to hear more about that just a moment saudi arabia also wants to attract more foreign investment also has taken steps towards social reform towards a more open liberal society and it's made a start in lifting some of the most oppressive restrictions on women too it should be noted for example a driving ban for women will finally be removed later this year now our reporter panipat shar has been in saudi arabia traveling around there she's been in the capital and in jeddah looking at what this vision for the future of this vision twenty thirty really means for the country she sent us this report. riyadh is an international city third of the population comes from abroad many of them manual workers they helped to build the saudi capital but the wall come they once enjoyed is starting to think. saudis first know that the saudi government's plan to reduce

unemployment among native saudis employers who hire none so days they have to pay higher fees and jobs in shops like this one selling electronics for example would be restricted to saudis only. for a nurse will be banned from at least jobs this music store selling instruments has already put up a sign for saudis only be looking for a salesperson me. how does ation is a good idea there are more job opportunities here for saudis than for foreigners. and a lot of saudis return from the u.s. and germany with degrees only to find many jobs already filled by foreigners in their own country should benefit from them as saudi arabia should benefit from saudis. we are in a neighborhood in the south pacific it's

a tough area most of the people here for a number of. want to hear is from bangladesh here i have a month to go to work in this shop learning how to assemble picture frames yes everything is getting more expensive and the salary isn't enough for everyone is how traits if they had to survive for the person's. life or mangled work course was never easy in saudi arabia just as in many parts of the world but for me one prices have made it more difficult and if your prices doubled in a year pushing up prices and recently new taxes and basic goods added an extra boot it's even which i hear has just finished his shift how many hours did you work today i swear words sixteen. hours that's a lot. maybe it's a lot about an inch or two that for the salary he makes one thousand three hundred saudi ryall a month that's about three hundred fifty u.s. dollars on the way home he tells me he used to have a good life until his father got very sick. you know we lost our almost all of our

money in his treatment so i just thought that as you can hear to. keep them alive being the eldest in the family he border responsibility he dropped out of engineering studies and came to saudi arabia to earn money to sleep it wasn't as easy as he expected life is becoming more difficult for. most of the people of other countries a losing their job and even hear of the college leaving so the because you know they're an hour. and that they can't live like that maybe my boss gave me a place to live. there was a not like that in some people don't have a job sometimes the slaves near the road they don't have time money to buy food just want to hear chooses not to show me to rule their lives in three hours he

doesn't want to get into trouble and be sent home he wants to stay as long as he can to make money or he's found he's just one of millions of foreign workers in saudi arabia they are realizing though that the future here belongs to saudis. trade relations between china and the united states continue to deteriorate monica has more yeah beijing's made a move now which is not a big surprise terry china has a post of raise tariffs of up to twenty five percent on one hundred twenty eight u.s. imports including pork and why in the tariffs kick in today beijing said that the move was to quote safeguard china's interests and balance losses caused by new u.s. terrorists. u.s. president trump blames the collapse of a column in the rust belt a region that relied heavily on the steel and auto industries on foreign competition he believes the u.s. has been cheated by other countries in global trade so far the main target of

trumps terrorists are chinese products you recently announced plans for punitive terrace worth up to sixty billion dollars a year on imports from the world's second largest economy the chinese have responded with three billion dollars in tariffs on u.s. products like port wine and. much like china europe also wants to prevent a trade war while the e.u. has not been hit with new tariffs on steel and aluminum for the moment that could change trump gave the block until may first to finalize a deal on trade the us president wants concessions from europe and that's a major concern for europe's largest exporter germany it has a huge trade surplus with the u.s. where it sells many cars much remains at stake. and for more on this a new main trade war and what it means the global trade i'm joined by japan that chima know from did all these business trip on that let's first of all talk about

this imbalance i mean you have china's tariffs affecting some three billion dollars goods from the united states. tariffs affects some goods from china with sixty billion dollars why would your china hold back well i mean the chinese are obviously sending a warning shot with the three billion dollars in tariffs that they've just announced and which went into effect today but they may be holding like their biggest chip bargaining chip that is they holding it close and till maybe get talks underway and they can actually use it to negotiate and that's the tires they could have in soybeans especially sixty percent of exports soybean exports from the us gold to china so that's a major market for the us and. that's something the chinese may be holding onto for now as a bargaining chip for any discussions regarding tariffs and we are waiting for an announcement on more tariffs but i know there's still hope obviously to resolve the

matter by negotiations and if not they could really hit us agriculture what exactly are the next step because the united states is planning more tariffs quite soon exactly this week the u.s. the trade secretary. has until april sixth to announce a list of chinese products that will be affected by tariffs and so from then on we can see how things will unfold and of course for now it's a little bit a waiting game for china the u.s. and actually the world the rest of the world and for germany as well we had in the report to you the united states is a big market specially for german cars but so is china how should germany position itself the question everybody has been asking how to position themselves in this sort of trade dispute we won't call it a war just yet. well it looks like germany is positioning itself with the u.s. that's based on. reports that we heard over the weekend from discussions in

interview with the economy minister peter here in germany he said they might actually agree to reducing the terrace for u.s. cars and so that's where it looks like it's going for now and we also had discussions between merkel and trump last week and in a separate coal spoke with the french president manuel mccollum so it looks likely e.u. germany likely to side wants the u.s. and a lot of toll trade to talk not to trade war just yet. chimbonda thanks so much for this. i've. funked chinese space station has reentered the earth's atmosphere several years after scientists lost contact with it astronomers say that one spacecraft mostly disintegrated upon re-entry but that some debris appeared to have landed in the remote south pacific the vessel was launched in two thousand and eleven and served as china's first space station scientists had planned

a controlled re entry but lost contact with the station in two thousand and sixteen and were unable to fire the engines remotely. got drona is the director general of the european space agency and he joins us now from paris saw thank you so much for talking with us this morning this out of control chinese space station it crashed and burned over uninhabited territory it seems should we consider ourselves lucky i think i'm very lucky because when you look through the obits. there are about eight in all of base so we were very lucky that the disintegration happened in the. south. coast american samoa why was it so difficult for us to calculate exactly where the spacecraft would reenter the earth's atmosphere. the atmosphere is

laid out which is not constant layout which is always at the same height but it is influenced by the activity of the sun and the side and made these days some changes on the soggy side and some basic go to have lost to have less activity and they have thoughts of the atmosphere was different was a strong influence of this on so they have thought i would expect it and i like a collation a little bit wrong because of the changing of the sounds of this nature we cannot change that. there was a lot of interest in this space station and where it was going to crash into earth many people are wondering well could this be happening again in the near future how often does an object the size of chon gong one crash into our planet i'm sincerity yes i'm obviating on earth to have something like if you remove the activity because we have more than force i wasn't five hundred seven lives and all

of it only bansal if i found it i knew it was that means we have seesaw and objects of bigger size which made later harder to you know and so enter into the atmosphere and i think we have to do some say so we have each year we have several pots doing the earth's atmosphere but normally it's smaller pots burning behind a percent. of the atmosphere but the bigger ones can sort my thoughts and in just a phone i thank you for talking with us i was young bernard now the director general of the european space agency speaking to us from pat's. and you are watching t.v. news coming to you live from berlin we have more for you at the top of next hour and of course you can always get the latest news information around the clock on our web site that's t w dot com thanks for watching place. looked.

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