this is d.w. news live from berlin asian leaders meet as the threat by north korea looms china south korea and japan hold a special summit and agreed to continue close cooperation over north korea's nuclear program also coming up. syria's army presses on with its latest offensive against opposition forces in the eclipse problems fears of an exodus of refugees

are growing. claws searching for answers after dozens are killed and hundreds of prison riots a state of emergency has failed to stop the bloodshed inside the most violent places in one of the world's most dangerous countries. and putting african countries on the digital map until now many places have not been available as online maps we meet the man who is set out to change that and is mapping africa by car and air. america evanston it's good to have you with us the leaders of china japan and south korea have agreed to work together to promote dialogue between the united states and north korea and. bid to ease tensions over pyongyang's nuclear program chinese

premier league chunk japanese premiership and south korean president one day and held a summit in chengdu in china against the backdrop of increasing threats from pyongyang north korea has said it will take specified action if sanctions against it are not lifted by the end of the year. well to talk more about all this i'm joined in the studio now by did of your correspondent bob encroachments who is based in beijing fabienne good to see you so what is likely to come out of this summit to will we see any new initiatives to ease u.s. north korea tensions will there be concrete steps taken though well so far what we've seen coming out of the some of this more symbolic message namely that all 3 nations want peace and do not do cruise ation of north korea however i mean concrete steps i don't expect anything that's a breakthrough but we could see low level communication channels opening up again

however north korea has been really silent on any diplomatic effort recently so i mean the you know cough the conflict between north korea and the u.s. because there's a discrepancy on how to achieve denuclearization well just last week china actually had proposed lifting some of the sanctions in place against north korea could this be a possibility that's what north korea once i mean they've basically given the u.s. a concession that's stopping intercontinental missile tests also stopping nuclear tests and they want something in return for that namely economic sanctions the lifting of economic sanctions washington however once north korea to dismantle its nuclear program 1st and they haven't you know i don't think that they can find anything like a compromise so i think the outlook 422020 is really gloomy all right so if washington is dead set against lifting any of these sanctions and north korea is through. i think some sort of unspecified action as we've been hearing is there any

way to prevent a new confrontation and i think at least in the short term it looks rather dark in the conflict and how that unspecified action could look like i mean it's really open i mean north korea cannot just set alight a space missile overnight they need preparations for that and to so far we haven't seen any you know signs from the satellite images any activities and rocket test sites but also i think there will be both sides the u.s. and north korea will step of their rhetoric and probably. i mean the discrepancy is there it's open and i don't see any sign how can how they can find a compromise they're going to go along with the tensions with north korea they've actually been quite a bit of tension between the 3 countries taking part in the summit but did this meeting between these 3 countries actually improve their ties i mean the future will tell but i think this combination is really interesting because japan and

china they had similar historic issues like south korea and japan has its name over the colonial past of japan and china and japan they've been able to overcome that past and i think south korea could learn from that experience however the sentiment against japan is much more deeply rooted in that among the south korean population and if you look at surveys for example. south koreans really and so that state. even more unpopular than north korea can join and that really shows something. pressure on it's always great to hear inside thank you. all right let's turn our attention now to syria where government forces are pressing ahead with an offensive and at overwhelming the last opposition controlled part of the country it live province in northwestern syria is dominated by fighters linked to the islamist al-qaeda organization but there are also $3000000.00 civilians living in the region

over the latest offensive has fueled worries that a new refugee crisis is imminent as tens of thousands of syrians flee the violence and make their way towards the turkish border. the syrian army has been subjecting rebel positions to sustained attacks president bashar al assad wants to regain control of italy province tens of thousands of people have fled since fighting intensified many want to head north to safety in turkey. turkish president air to one says that more than 80000 people are on their way to his country. he warns that the situation is like the 2050 migration crisis. well but. if this violence against the people of it does not end this number will rise further the pocono unity wash in this case turkey will not carry the burden of this migration all alone. the negative effects of this pressure on us will be

an issue felt by all european countries especially greece struggle barker's it about 3700000 syrian refugees are already living in turkey in difficult conditions . but most have come to terms with their situation and see no other option. it seems we can't endure living through the bomb attacks we have no relatives left in syria that. safety for the civilian population is just one of many problems the international community has yet to solve last friday the un security council could not even agree to an extension of the program russia and china blocked humanitarian assistance for the time being many syrian refugees remain near the turkish border region. now look at some of the other stories making

news around the world at least $24.00 people have died after a bus plunged off a cliff on the indonesian island of sumatra rescuers are still searching for any survivors trapped inside the vehicle which veered off a road above a 150 metre high ravine. police in new zealand say they're suspending the search operation for the bodies of 2 people still missing after a volcano erupted earlier this month police said crews had done all they could to search the area 19 people were killed by the eruption while visiting a popular tourist island. the spanish coast guard has rescued 52 migrants from a canoe off the canary islands most of the migrants were from subsaharan african countries they were brought ashore and are reportedly in good health more than 30000 migrants have arrived at spanish ports this year alone. to the central american state of one during which is in shock after 2 deadly prison

riots in 2 days the death toll has reached nearly 40 in clashes between gangs authorities have declared a state of emergency but that has failed to stop the violence and may even have provoked more. despair written on their faces relatives gather at the morgue and to go seek out the one juror says capital their loved ones died in one of the most violent places in the most crime ridden country on earth one juror says joe's on the tour is but even by those standards the past few days have been grim indeed. added i don't know i would only if the family is a mourning today by the country is in mourning. after a weekend of violence many are also outraged that the authorities found you to prevent the massacres the prisons was supposedly high security.

when the government to create emergency measures last week it did side to stop the killing there but instead more violence followed. my brother's death hurts he had already served 10 years in a maximum security jail why did he have to die. the authorities are defending their policies they say gangs are trying to stop them cleaning up the prisons. and since the massacres they have promised to the point even more troops to the country's high security giles to fight the mafia's influence. all this chaos was planned on behalf of all denies to crime. only so many to avoid us implementing our reforms. but it's not clear if getting even tougher will stop the killings or rather few further anger and violence the united

nations is calling for an investigation into these massacres it says the state must guarantee the human rights of prisoners especially their right to life. when going to a new location many of us turn to online maps for help navigating the way but in fact fewer than half of the world's countries have been sufficiently mapped online our next report follows one man who's trying to bridge the digital divide by putting more african countries on the map. traveling anywhere in africa can be really complicated when you don't have access to about to read maps if you look at africa right now maybe only 6 or 7 countries america. and 54 countries on the continent and within them maybe a 120000000 people his day job is in silicon valley but in his spare time to one the container is thousands of kilometers away feeling in the gaps left by google

street view being from zimbabwe and having grown up in the region i knew. that street that became clear when to want to move to california a decade ago and he tried to show his new friends his hometown of harare a friend parent asked me to show them. the house. so we went on target if we were mad so we turned over we could get satellite view of the neighborhood. i guard why do we not have the same locked arms that you know i do what cities do so last year he borrowed a camera and went back to southern africa to map some of the places he remembered from his youth. those images became the 1st instance of street view in zimbabwe. and he didn't just stick to the streets he maps some of the country's most famous sites like victoria falls from above in order to millions of people back to many of

the axis or resources to travel to this place that sort of just getting an idea of what this place may look like if you think does help using his own money he's now mapped at least 12 cities across 3 countries by car and by foot. i went and we dropped through about 5 sittings. to the web's atlantic coast at the skeleton coast that's the 2000 miles of coastline or long going to be a stark county coast. according to google only $87.00 of the world's $195.00 countries have been significantly mapped the biggest gaps are in asia and africa there's a significant digital gap we are putting some of these communities that are left out of this platforms. within cities in making sure that people in their cities actually ever access to tools that allow them to to live their lives like anybody

else. fully built our digital infrastructure. after him google added several listings for local businesses and the information gathered by car could even help improve drive time estimates which can often be wrong by several hours over to wander maps have another dimension saying every time the making of america. you know where we need to practice deception of the world around us. away from us she hopes to keep building those connections one step at a time. and that's the latest from d.w. news this hour but before we go we bring you some christmas carols german bundesliga club when young berlin have hosted their yearly carolynn tradition with over 28000 fans and joining in a festive sing along at their stadium in the capital and they're going to have a stain from me and the entire news team thanks for watching. my.

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