the world. before our own december should. go east to work hours it. was. over $27.00 on the dog. this is the w. news asia coming up do you spend more time on the internet reading news or be honest here hanging out on social media a digital expert tells you what billions of people in asia are up to. and it was once a secret soviet era mining site now it's an environmental disaster zone that could get even worse. plus why some south koreans are taking a break from their fast paced lives in poppins.

i'm melissa chan you're watching news asia thank you for joining us we tend to think of the internet with its limitless amounts of information as access to news to education to enlightenment as users learn more about the world going digital means you cross borders and those connections foster more interest than doing but it's more complicated than that china has $800000000.00 internet users but the authoritarian state has walled off parts of its internet ok but how about a democracy such as india with its 450000000 users while the country struggling with a lot of online this information the internet as it turns out doesn't necessarily make people smarter and we have pyloric to explain more she's a digital anthropologist and author of the next 1000000000 users digital life beyond the west pile the. the framework of in terms of looking at the internet

especially by the creators and the early adopters was that it was a tool for education and access to information that's been the framework that we've mostly looked at but what has your research found in terms of actual user behavior . you know so you know there's been a long perception of low income users which is what the next 1000000000 users are and that perception is that surely if you lower income you have other priorities and you and i right you want to satisfy your basic needs your psychological needs and and your blank cell phone but the data today as well as a decade of my field experience has shown that it doesn't matter where you're from from. in brazil you want and they want. that spending a disproportionate amount of the data and the time on things like watching you know films and listening to music watching porn you know socializing with their loved

ones and so yeah this is really about dealing with the fi with find them and saying that they're very regular users like you and i know you've been and you've looked at so many countries i'm particularly interested in india and china are there are behaviors that are different in each country in terms of internet usage. yes of course they both come from a very different sort of context and social institutional structures right so in some sense they are very distinct and it's setting these 2 goliath's against each other but if we look closer to the what we need is a new script of leave from the typical media narratives of when you look at india is the sort of democracy of silicon valley and you know china which is authoritarian or villian regime no we need a different script with the 2 of them actually becoming much more similar than different they both are having similar kinds of approaches and on getting inspired

by each other because they would like to come up with these hyper ecosystems to capitalize on the natural asset which is the billions of users can you give me an example in terms of how they're starting to look more like each other is it through an app or through the way they socialize online for instance right the west across we're talking about breaking up the platforms right because we look at them as hyper monopolies so we need to do. creative divergence decentralization was india and china is looking at hyper convergence like hyper ecosystem is like amazon google and you know what i said all rolled into one and that's that's just the beginning because the way they look at it is they have extraordinary scarce resources and they have to compete with the silicon valley goliath zahari going to do that right and this is a strategy which by the china has already shown works. you set out

to bust a lot of myths and one of them has to do with a person's relationship to privacy in developing countries tell us a little bit more. of course now we are now obsessed about privacy and rightfully so because we are putting ourselves in for carry a situations and so the media discourse is constantly covering privacy but i'm trying to emphasize another story which is really important to these next 1000000000 users who are disproportionately low income and have been invisible for the most part for decades right i for generations by the state and the market because they were not marketed to the one being data fights and now they get it at last a chance to be seen and heard and so they are really thriving in this need and this freedoms of being public to be seen so contrary to their priorities about privacy right there trying to prioritize on is to be free and be seen online pile aurora

thank you yes thank you. and you can find more stories about how the internet is shaping behavior in asia on our website www dot com for its slash asia. a valley in remote kyrgyzstan is one of the world's most polluted regions iranian dumps from soviet era mining near the town of my loose to line the mountain slopes along the local river environmentalists warn thousands of tons of radioactive waste are one landslide away from contaminating the water supply of millions of people. a toxic legacy left behind from the soviet era. the town of my lucy in the mountains close to outsiders founded just after world war 2 it was the site of a secret uranium mining program for 20 years miners extracted over 10000000 tons of

uranium from the mountains surrounding the town providing much of the fuel for the soviet union's 1st nuclear weapons and atomic power plants. the resulting radioactive waste millions of tonnes of so-called uranium tailings was buried around the town 50 years on old protective dams a crumbling and people have started raising their cattle on what was once a no go zone. i've been working here for 35 years when we came here uranium tailing sites used to be restricted areas locked behind barbed wire now people have built houses and live their lives or work. many of my lucy's residents have no alternative but to remain in a town that's been rated one of the most polluted places on the planet. i knew pretty well they suggested we move away somewhere there to another town they said

go and build your house there but without any help they didn't offer us any money you need to get. the radiation is taking its toll on people's health studies have shown that cancer rates here at 50 percent higher than the national average congenital diseases are also more widespread and virtually everyone suffers from a thyroid disease. but the nuclear waste poses an even bigger threat the local river ends up flowing into one of the most densely populated valleys in central asia where kurdistan is because dan entergy christan meet. the uranium waste sites are located in trans boundary areas of 14000000 people live in the for ghana valley in the event of a natural disaster water can erode the waste sites and they will wash into the narran river that would be a disaster for the whole valley reply good safety goggles great value. to

reinforce a relocate the nuclear dumps will cost an estimated $30000000.00 euros. international organizations have now woken up to the threat and have pledged to raise funds so that people in my lucy will no longer have to live with the dangers of the past. sometimes life gets so stressful you really need to get away from it all in south korea you can take it to the extreme you can escape to your own coughing that's the ritual a popular healing center and soul arranges it says 20000 people have signed up to see what death can teach them about life. preparing for death or at least a rehearsal choi jin q is a university student some might think a young age to be contemplating death he came to souls who on hearing center for a break from the fast paced and constant pressure of life in south korea.

everyone lives in such a hot blooded intense manner. you think of the person next to you as a competitor someone you have to beat not a companion. when i was in the car i wanted to the point of that was. the rituals beforehand the experience of having a final photograph taken and writing his will made him appreciate others. and i want to let people know that they matter. and that someone else would be so sad if they were gone. and that happiness is in the present. centers living funerals provide an exercise in imagining and feeling that

separation from loved ones if only for a little while and that in turn can help teach people how to live in the here and now according to the head of the healing center. people like to think they have forever with their families they put off asking for forgiveness or reconciling with the strange family members but we don't have forever. that's why i think this experience is so important we can apologize and reconcile sooner and live the rest of our lives happily. with. for others who are perhaps closer to the year and it's a chance to reflect on their options. of ticket to get to saying it on. my thanks to provides an opportunity to really think about which way is the best

way to go. once you become conscious of death and experience it. you undertake a new approach to life. and then a happy ending as participants are free to go and live their lives death for them is now just a memory. that's our show for today you can find more on our website d w dot com for slash asia and on facebook and twitter as well please tell us what you think about what we cover and what you'd like to see we leave you now with pictures of the fire balloon festival in myanmar celebrating the end of the rainy season thank you for watching see you next time think of by.

the americans at some point in our lives will experience hardship.

thank. you. lisa bloom entire book travel now amazing type. is this the breakthrough we've been waiting for china says it's agreed with the u.s. to roll back tariffs disapproval of a major stumbling block in trade negotiations. ways role in building germany's find jeanne what remains undecided weighs up potential risks against the benefits. germany mounts 30 years since the fall of the boeing wall look at how life changed for towns along the 4 way in a german border. and a physical and business washington and beijing have reportedly agreed to cancel

tariffs hikes on each other they agree to a 1st phase of a trade deal that is have been truces and ceasefires in this dispute this development could represent the 1st time times for actually rollback. the announcement came from beijing where a commerce ministry spokesman said china and the u.s. would remove tariffs in stages there has been no reaction from washington but hope has been growing for signs of tension will progress to a wider deal. if the 2 sides reach a phase one agreement both sides should in accordance with the contents of the agreement revoke the terrorists already in effect in the same proportion and simultaneously this is an important condition for reaching an agreement. china and the u.s. have been fighting a crippling trade war for over a year now installing punitive terrorist on hundreds of millions of dollars.