this is d.w. news lawyer from but north korea freezes its nuclear testing regime announces a suspension of all nuclear and long range missile tests state media says pyongyang will also be scrapping its nuclear testing site leader kim jong order says he wants to pursue economic growth and peace instead what about the weapons he already has. and demanding change to protect children in india the indian government approves the death penalty for child rapists off to days of protests and nationwide outrage

over inaction. i'm having a home free thanks for joining me it could be a significant reversal from north korean leader kim jong un after spending years celebrating his country's weapons program he's now announced north korea will stop new clear and intercontinental missile tests international reaction has been broadly positive with south korea china and the u.s. praising the move but neighboring japan remains cautious saying it will keep up the pressure if a complete nuclear disarmament. north korea's missile tests kept the world in suspense throughout last year until in november its leader kim jong un declared his nuclear force complete now state

television has made it official no more nuclear or missile testing. will instead focus on building up its economy and securing peace with its southern neighbor. south korea has welcomed the move as meaningful progress president is due to meet kim in less than a week's time for a rare summit aimed at resolving the deadlock between the two koreas. in the south capital seoul people have reacted with skepticism. here. unless the regime changes i don't believe we can build normal diplomatic relations our safety can't be guaranteed either on that one day he put on it's not a good one to know that it looked as if the north would denuclearize after the last two summits but now we're back to square one we shouldn't blindly believe them

without thorough verification. because of this of the. us president donald trump is also set to meet the north korean leader in the near future having previously derided kim as little rocket man trump reacted positively on twitter. this is very good news for north korea and the world big progress look forward to our summer night but japan's defense minister was not optimistic stressing what was omitted from the announcement of the coverage just statement makes no reference to the north abandoning you can see short and medium range ballistic missiles in the book you did it since. the prospects are not encouraging ten years ago the north blew up a cooling tower in a symbolic show of abandoning its nuclear ambitions clearly they did not and there . let's talk to correspondent stephen barr awake now who is in the south korean capital so stephen is that the sense that we've been here before ten years ago the

north agreeing to end its nuclear program that proved to be a false start is kim serious this time around well it's important to keep that context that we have heard something like this before and just today north korea did not mention actual denuclearization they haven't committed to anything permanent here and all they're saying for the time being is that they're not going to test any more nuclear weapons so this seems like a sign that they are for now satisfied with the love look at nuclear armament and they feel like their arsenal is significant enough that they can negotiate from some kind of position of strength in their upcoming summit swished the united states and south korea and they have of course left the door open if they're not satisfied with how these summits play out they could go back on this pleasure they could begin testing weapons again but this is nevertheless an encouraging sign compared to some of the hostile rhetoric we see from north korea all right but let's get back to that point all that often what about the existing nuclear weapons

he claims to have developed what will happen to them. well north korea invested a ton of results is an energy into developing those nuclear weapons and they have neglected the economy in that neck that neglected a lot of things that governments normally do with their resources in favor of developing nuclear weapons so we cannot expect that they will just suddenly decide to give those up they obviously feel like those nuclear weapons provide them with some kind of legitimacy to be and what they've wanted for a long time is for the international community to recognize north korea as a nuclear power and it seems like now they feel as though they've come to a point of development where they can credibly demand that and let's look at the upcoming summits to see if that's something they put on the table if they see formal recognition from south korea in the united states and that the other most likely explanation is now that they're going to put more of their resources towards developing their economy which is in a pretty dire state due to some strong international sanctions all right let's

break down this statement from came and then a bit more because they only refers to intercontinental ballistic missiles as japan's defense minister pointed out there's no what and what will be happening with shorter range missiles and why do you think that distinction has been made. when japan is particularly concerned with those kinds of missiles because japan is one of the countries that could land that could be in the flight path of those even shorter missiles when north korea launches though that's usually off the east coast in the direction of japan it's a sort of public health concern and public safety concern for people in japan and japan is on the same stage as south korea the u.s. in seeking a more definitive solution to the north korea issue and they will be cooperating on those points going forward stephen barr awake in seoul many thanks indeed. a team of inspectors from the global chemical weapons watchdog has been collecting as samples at the site of

a suspected chemical attack in syria the group from the organization for the preservation of chemical weapons arrived in duma to determine if internationally banned substances were used on residents this month the samples will be sent to the netherlands for testing western governments known as strikes on syrian government targets off to the alleged attack the assad regime and russia deny using chemical weapons and say evidence of an attack was fabricated. not some of the other stories making news around the world around fifteen hundred guests are attending a private funeral for food where us first lady barbara bush the wife of the forty first president george h. w. bush the service in houston is taking place at st martin's church the largest appears couple church in the country bush died on tuesday at the age of ninety two . meaning police have detained dozens of protests is in the capital yet of

software thousands again blocked city streets it's the ninth successive day of demonstrations protesters want the new prime minister to quit he already served two terms as president and they fear he intends to rule on media for life. u.s. and european regulators have ordered the inspection of hundreds of engines on boeing seven three seven and line starts off to choose days accident on a southwest airlines flight when a blade from one of the engines broke off sending shrapnel ripping through the plane one passenger died in the airliner had to make an emergency landing. to india now and following a string of gruesome rape cases the country's cabinet has called for the death penalty for the rape of young children india's president and parliament would have to approve the measure for it to become little and protesters in the capital delhi are demanding that they do just that as our correspondents sonia found and my

daughter found out. now the rallying cry for people at this spot a site in new delhi responding to a spate of brutal rape places across india in recent weeks some of the victims have been as young as eight months old. the mortgage alone if i had a daughter i shudder to think. that even babies are being raped it's so scary also although at the center of the protest starting monday but delhi's commissioner for women she's been on hunger strike you for the past eight days and says she wants stop until the government takes tougher measures to tackle the crisis she's demanding greater police presence on the capital streets and the death penalty it's a sentiment shared by many at the protest. they don't want the you get we need the death penalty and once we have it it will definitely deter future rate fests think twice before committing a crime because their very lives will be at stake we didn't give that one up but it

was the growing outrage and protests across the country seem to have had an effect the indian government on saturday called an emergency cabinet meeting to sign off on an executive order introducing the death penalty for rapes of children under the age of twelve but not everyone is convinced many say deeper societal changes are needed before women and girls can feel truly safe boys given girls are always being told to ignore boys who have wrestling and stalking them but why aren't parents explaining to their boys that they shouldn't her arrest women and instead respect them it's not girls but whores who need to be told what to do. for now so what the money was hunger strike has resonated with many angry at what they see as government inaction and a failure to protect the country's women and girls. and we can bring in our correspondent e.w.s. sonja found i can hear danny so near the indian cabinet approved the death penalty for child rapist today after an emergency meeting called by the prime minister and

there enjoy modi why the rush on this now and what does it mean. you're right i mean it it is really rushed and you know this is literally the most of the meeting called with in the to the i was off prime minister nouri to move the returning today from his fight the trip abroad so that really underlines how urgent that was and i think you know the background to this is that the government of good will believe the party compliments criticism and on the intense fire for failing to do what many say is thanks to an architect of crimes against women there's also been a lot of international criticism by mr another in the modi comparisons face criticism over its dealings response to the problem and you know this is basically focused on two long going rate cases in the northern third question here and one in the northern states with that the bish and in both those cases leaders of the ruling the g.p.u. were seen to be shielding the racists and pictures and i think there's been

incredible amount of public anger around this and i think that's the reason why we're seeing this kind of emergency meeting and the sort of the need is to say of course on you know where as a rape and violence against women occurs it's of horror and been looking at stories from india one might have the impression that it's worse there than other parts of the world is that the case. well i don't think india is really alone when it comes to you know high rates of interest in supporting what is however disturbing is what appears to be a rising number of children who are being targeted not india trying to show that you know the paper reported rates are fine the children have more than doubled between two thousand and twelve and two thousand and thirteen and the conviction rate is very very low so i think that there are issues there and many believe you know there's a deeply encourage pretty lucky but also very few tricks ratio which may be making backers worse and i think that public apathy is well you know the right and security when it never really become elections. when you point to that conviction

rate women in india saying they're often ignored when they report sexual abuse that there are widespread complaints that perpetrators are ready convicted despite the existing laws is there a sense that this is now changing. what i think it is difficult to say i think the problem the problem the police not taking the future please children in big problems the good news i think is that every tire in britain reporting all three of them taking the bad news that we still have a criminal justice system that remains you don't usually vulnerable to political pressures and allows many of you to go free. so you found a case in delhi thank you very much. well the wind in the league is that the games have come to an end and have been some surprising results across the board have badly damaged frankfurt's european hoops hoffenheim scored a bond against leipsic by and beat one of our got down to put a man some hope for home burke in the relegation battle by beating. now on friday

night bill mentioned it aloud back boost to the hopes of european competition next season with a victory over votes but the hosts took advantage of poor defending and scored all three of their goals during a dominant first half display the pick of the lot came from first off comma in the forty fourth minute to see took advantage of a lapse in concentration in the evil spoken defense to seal a three nil victory. and there are three results still to come this match day under way as i speak with dortmund locking horns with couzin on sunday meet mites and cologne clash with shaka and the women's and men's champions league trophies have arrived in kiev ahead of the finals of this year's competition and met all vitali klitschko was joined by champions league winner on day shift. rolling out the red carpet for the iconic cups for teams on the to each competition this year with the finals set to take

place in the ukrainian capital in may. they seized a news lie from berlin plenty more coming up at the top of the hour in the meantime head to our web site t w dot called i'm head and home free in berlin to stay with us if you can. where i come from we have to fly in for a free press and was born and raised in a military dictatorship with just one t.v. shadow and a few newspapers with official information as a journalist i have worked on the streets of many cameras on the wall this.