this is d.w. news live from berlin and the perilous task of clearing land mines and ukraine countless explosive devices still going fast to the former battlefields in the east of the country as a fragile peace takes hold d.w. joins people working inch by inch to make the region safe again also coming over it was horrible the executioner's are all but they should have the video they should you should work over up you should remember that. washington talks tough on saudi arabia and revokes the views of suspects in the death of journalist giovanni.

meanwhile the saudis rulers offer condolences to show she sung despite allegations they ordered the killing and g.w. investigates the dark side of italy's vast food and vegetable industry workers from india are scared to speak out but charities say that middle men are creaming off of their wages and that many pickers are taking drugs to survive the punishing work conditions. i'm sorry kelly welcome to the program more than four years into the simmering conflict in eastern ukraine nearly two thousand people have been killed by land mines alone no one knows how many land mines were laid in the chaotic early stages of the fighting today the country sees more casualties from mines than almost anywhere else on earth it's

a problem that's expected to get worse as displaced people slowly return to their homes our correspondent nick connelly has been to meet the people behind the efforts to clear those mines. it may look calm now but just a few years ago these fields so intense fighting between ukrainian government troops and russian backed separatists. over and over again the front lines shifted each time the retreating troops left mines and booby traps behind them. it's now up to civilians to pick up the pieces halo trust is an international ngo and the world's largest humanitarian mine clearance organization the challenge it faces in ukraine are unlike any other conflict own. the most just don't know what makes you queen different is that we have a real problem with tripwire traps our organisation hasn't come across anything like them in other countries our experts have had to come up with new ways of

dealing with them. it's back breaking work. a grenade and a trip wire that's all it takes a few summers after the traps were laid the weeds have grown tall making them almost impossible to spot clearing these traps is as much about touch as it is about sight. there's no way of predicting how far you'll get in. it all depends on the vegetation. sometimes you'll manage twenty metres in a day sometimes it will be just ten fifty years our priority and all of this in the distance the shooting continues the current frontline is just a few kilometers away. these people are searching for anti-tank mines the anti-personnel mine so characteristic of conflicts from yemen to mozambique a less widespread in ukraine. takes one hundred fifty kilograms to set off this

kind of anti tank mine so a person on foot wouldn't be enough. but a tractor very definitely would. this may be a war zone but the rhythms of the farming year continue this is all that's left of the tractor the c.e.o. of was using to plough back in twenty fifteen soldiers had told him that the field was safe. i lost consciousness when i came round i saw that i was on fire so i tried to get out of the tractor but i couldn't they pulled me out through the back window and then put the fire out. of the photo for us when i woke up in hospital they told me that only one mine had gone off there were more of them underneath me and when they came to get me out of the tractor they had to drive over the mines to. seal sustained eighty percent burns on his legs three years and several operations later he's still in chronic pain it's not

clear whether or not he'll ever be able to work again. back at the site they found a grenade that's failed to go off n.g.o.s like halo trust aren't allowed to dispose of ordinance themselves instead they must wait for the military to collect them and that can take weeks. ten twenty or sometimes just five metres a day the progress here is painstaking no one can say with any certainty how long it will take to find all the mines that were laid in the chaos of the early stages of the war but left untouched these mines have the potential to maim and kill the people of this region for decades to go. in other news now the united states says that it will were broke or deny the visas of twenty one saudis who it has linked to the killing of the journalist jamal khashoggi it's an embarrassing turnaround for washington after president trump at first took pains to defend its key ally in the middle east but as turkey revealed more and more details about the murder in

istanbul the u.s. has been forced to change tack. a jovial donald trump surrounded by lawmakers in the oval office asked about the killing of jamal khashoggi the us president had blown big deal should have never been thought of. somebody really messed up. and they had the worst cover up ever. and where should a stock is at the deal stand when they thought about it because whoever thought of that idea. i think is in big trouble. the u.s. says it's putting together its own intelligence about the killing and has identified some individuals behind it it's barring entry to twenty one suspects from the saudi government secret services and royal courts but washington remains reluctant to get tough on a key ally and a major economic partner but in particular trump is worried about losing

a saudi arms deal to competitors i will tell you that russia. and china would love to have that military order and i can say to my democrat friends too they would love this is one hundred ten billion dollars worth of military. yet some stand over casualties murder many western firms boycotted the kingdom's premier investment event which began on tuesday despite the brave face put on by crown prince mohammed bin salman these are difficult days for the saudis. we are going through. a crisis of short resulted for. a. very. boring. incident that took place in turkey nobody in the kingdom. justified or explained it. earlier saudi

media released extraordinary images the crown prince and king solomon meeting face to face with brother sun the independent sources say the same son has been barred from leaving the kingdom since last year as a result of his father's rights and money directly linking the crown prince with the journalist death. chief among the kingdom's critics the turkish president. he told parliament that turkey has strong evidence the murder in the saudi consulate in istanbul was premeditated and savage he called for the highest ranking of those responsible to face justice. and let's get a quick check now of some other stories making news around the world at least twenty people many of them football fans have been hurt after an escalator on the wrong metro collapsed at talian police say that most of being injured were fans of

c.s.k. moscow heading to their team's champions league game against a u.s. roma fire official say that the accident happened about an hour before kick off eyewitnesses say that people were also panicking. now hurricane wilma has hit the pacific coast of mexico as a category three storm packing winds of nearly two hundred kilometers per hour towns in the storm's path were mostly iraqi waited as they closed in and some people were forced to seek shelter in public buildings a storm is expected to bring to rental rains as it moves further inland. nasa cameras flying over and arctic have discovered an unusual sight a perfectly rectangular iceberg is floating off the larsen sea ice shelf scientists say that the icebergs where shape and sharp edges show that it is likely to have broken away just recently. the larson sea ice shelf is one of several and articulations that have disintegrated in the last decades likely due to rising

global temperatures now if you've brought fresh produce here in europe there's a strong chance that it may have come from an italian farm but there's a dark side to the juicy plums and ripe tomatoes that many of us enjoy on a regular basis d.w. has spoken to migrant workers in the latina area there we found exhausting work conditions poor pay and allegations that organized crime gangs are preying on pickers from india. an hour and a half from rome the villas hidden behind these high walls and hedges are vacation homes for well off italians but there's also a shadow side to this fertile region the projects grown here is sold in supermarkets throughout europe but the laborers who harvest the fruits and vegetables on only a few heroes per hour some of them have come from as far away as india. seeing has

been working in latina for twelve years he's one of nearly eighteen thousand sikhs from punjab working in this region friends from his village back home who told him he could earn good money in italy's agriculture sector he knew life field wouldn't be easy but he found it so challenging at the beginning but he often considered returned to india. called gold jewelry belonging to my wife and sister to pay for the trip here. i thought i'd earn the money back quickly and retrieve the jewelry. but to pay off the loan we had to sell the gold instead. of always almost everyone who comes here goes through the same thing. reality is very different from what we expected. the living and working conditions are for miserable the official minimum wage is

about nine euros the farmers pay less than a third of that many indians work seven days a week during harvest time up to twelve to thirteen hours a day. we were free in india i had my own business. i could come to work late and go home early if i had better things to do so here is different here you're only paid for the areas you work. but i'm doing better than others. jack cheats seeing his paid off his debts so he no longer has to share a small flat with four or five other workers as he did before most are too afraid to speak on camera investigators say the laborers are trapped in the illegal jobs at the mercy of criminal gangs a majority of them have paid thousands of euros to people smugglers in exchange for forged papers and passage to italy as a result many inductors laborers who need years to get out of debt analysts say

this practice is widespread throughout italy and. the farm workers take drugs like amphetamines opium and muscle relaxants especially at the beginning to cope with the punishing work conditions and. prostitution people imagine being bent over picking radishes for fourteen hours a day with a boss standing over you saying you know work work or work or your. contribution toward. your body and soul would burn out pretty fast in main pit investigators say the racket involves middlemen who seek out laborers and keep part of their wages and dictate their work hours all of which is illegal in italy. and there's hardly a business in the agricultural sector that isn't part of the system one of the biggest radish producers in europe allowed us to film on their premises we confront the head of the company with the allegations about the middlemen and exploitation

of their workers. none of that's true that contradicts our company philosophy. if we found anyone was doing this we would fire them immediately i mean we're not among the firms that exploit their workers it's. not proper benefits or even then. the union workers insist that this company also pays its laborers below the minimum wage. and that middle men act if they're too it's one person's word against another the workers themselves won't comment they want to keep their job. singh was able to bring his wife and children to italy a few months ago in the evenings other labor has come for dinner including men who've lived here for years in the hope of bringing families here despite the difficulties they say they're determined to stay because the money they earn in

italy is still far more than what they'd be paying in india. and with that now you are up to date on t w news i'm sarah kelly in berlin don't forget you can always follow us on social media you can also get the very latest news on our web site that's at w dot com thank you so much for joining us have a great. first connie was. doors granted a moment arrives in. your regular turn on her journey back to freedom. in our interactive documentary. on the regular returns home on d w don't come.