this is news line from berlin iran's supreme leader lashes out against the united states in a rare sermon at friday prayers ayatollah ali khamenei dismissed president trump as a quote a clown who wants to push a poisoned dagger into your bronze chest also coming up germany's diplomatic efforts in libya lead to a potential breakthrough rebel commander aletha hop star says he will pay tens of

conference in berlin this weekend and has committed himself in principle to a cease fire. plus from flames to flood much needed rain blankets australia after months of catastrophic bushfires but parts of the country are now struggling to cope with the downforce and there's more rain in the forecast plus how much would you pay for life saving medical treatment we need to want baby boy whose gene therapy cost a staggering 2000000 euros is cases for candidates about the ethics behind the crushing cost of some cutting edge to treatment. i'm calling thanks for joining us the wrongs of supreme leader ayatollah ali khamenei has said donald trump's. support for the iranian people is

a pretense now in a rare sermon during friday prayers in tehran he accused the us president of wanting to push a poisoned dagger into the country's chest he also called iran's airstrikes against the u.s. in retaliation for the killing of general hossam sort of money a quote day of god. after weeks of national trauma thousands turned out to see iran's supreme leader in a rare show of strength the main cheered in chanted as ali how many railed against iran's enemies. a spokesman for the wicked governments of america keep saying that we are standing with the iranian people you are lying if you do stand with the iranian people it is because you want to stick your poisoned dagger into the chest of the iranian nation you haven't been able to do that so far and you won't be able to do a damn thing. his intervention comes after the country's top military commander was

killed by u.s. forces earlier this month triggering a nationwide outpouring of grief and a tragic stampede which saw scores killed. then came what iran said was an accidental dining of a passenger jet killing all 176 people on board. angry protests engulfed the capital. of the. year. lamented the crash but said iran was being manipulated. some people followed guided by american television english radio try to portray this incident in such a way that the deaths of these 2 masses would be forgotten your mojo your.

i message haired loud and clear by president rouhani who sat among the washed. the ayatollahs presents underscores the crisis the last time he delivered friday prayers in 2012 amid a standoff over its nuclear weapons program in russia. well joining us now is journalist amir abbas he's in tehran for us he's been tracking that story amir the last time that how many spoke of friday prayers was 8 years ago that was 2012 so what's the significance of his speech today and what did you make of what he actually. the significance here today is that 4 says that after 8 years the speech is important because a colony leader has the origins are as great always of your own political factions as to come in the final say in the situation now the situation has become pretty complicated with the an assassination of general still in money. of the plane and

the people who were lost their lives in this and the during the morning so this even if you can see here it is that works on what the leader today said is the final say after everything that. general rule on the and everyone else said and the main point 0 think the main takeaway is so poor showing the oral it's a good way truong behind the ear on the strike on the u.s. bases in iraq the missile the strike and the fact that this was a retaliation for a general feeling with this killing and other things that have happened planes absent all downy other people killed in protest nothing should be distracting the 19 on this almost certainly see part of the narrative those pictures of his supporters there those prayers now enormous pressure of course for many some calling him for it to resign actually but we also heard he's pushing his own narrative now that 4 nations are trying to manipulate the downing of this plane how

is that narrative being received any wrong could that take some of the pressure off of him. oh well the speech did not exactly address any of the protests and if the chance or even the plane downing itself specifically. of course as you seem the most of the it was about the missile is a strike down the general someone's assassination the media end of it is that. plane downing exactly was not. was not. considered main point in all of this did in the pressure world when the borrowers are on the supreme leader comes in to speak the other factions are going to at the end of it to lisa to listen and your contesting with a team that means so i would say this can be a sleaze inside iran that is inside your own political factions and the ruling

authority that there won't be any watch more of pressure. here briefly if you can is there anything that harmony can do to ease those tensions now within his own country. oh well it all the 1st what you call those tensions within the country well the protesters up after the plane crash they were asking for. for us least the resignation of some of those people involved on that could be a lot of people if they're waiting for that and maybe as the president won he said maybe a special court or. something to address the situation i think the leaders talk today was not exactly a change in tone regarding everything that was going on inside iran or anything that goes on this foreign policy so the idea i think is at the end that the situation is rather comfortable with this issue asian right now and does not seek

to change anything in order to receive any different narrative ok journalist amir have asked the interim for us thank you very much. thank you bonnie well germany is preparing for sunday's international peace conference on libya bringing together the main warring parties and their powerful international allies german foreign minister has been in beit ghazi for talks with rebel leader general how the phone after are who has now agreed to attend that conference was also told last that he agreed in principle with a ceasefire and prime minister fayyad yes also russia leads libya's u.n. back to government has already signed a cease fire deal are currently controls the majority of eastern and southern libya the berlin summit follows failed efforts by russia and turkey to get him to sign a truce and halt an offensive on the capital of tripoli. i have a lot of players here we want to bring in political correspondent simon young for

a look at what will likely be a very high stakes summit in berlin simon 1st of all just walk us through who is likely to attend this meeting and just as importantly who likely won't be there on sunday. yeah it's going to be a very high level meeting unusually so with so many leaders chancellor merkel has invited heads of states and governments are going to have president mccrone of france prime minister johnson of the u.k. but also secretary of state pompei o from the united states and the egyptian president sisi the turkish president the one and vladimir putin of russia has also said today confirmed that he's coming in addition to that you've got various international organizations the e.u. the u.n. the african union and so on as well as the leaders of the 2 warring factions have also said that they will be here on sunday so it will be an extraordinarily high

level summit as to those who are coming yes tunisia is very unhappy that it hasn't received an invitation especially surprising because i could mass the german foreign minister was there recently and he acknowledged that tunisia has been one of the country's most affected by the conflict in libya so that's a bit hard to understand the other country that unhappy i think is greece they're very worried about and in energy deal deal covering gas in the mediterranean that's been signed between libya and turkey greece is worried about that would like to be here the german position on that is saying that issue is being dealt with elsewhere in the council not at sunday's meeting certainly a big and important guest was there despite those missing tell me a bit more about this conference now or is there a chance that be could see either peace or at least some sort of cease fire come out of these meetings on sunday. well the main focus of sunday's conference i

think is on the international partners the backers of the 2 warring factions to get them to commit not to send troops and arms as they've been doing. to the various sides on the one side you've got egypt russia in the u.a.e. supporting general have to are on the other side turkey in particular supporting the unity government in tripoli and it's very important that those countries be able to speak and find a common path other countries have also got interests because of the. raw materials in libya and also the fact that that country has become a conduit for refugees if you can get those countries to agree that will be good but obviously the 2 warring factions need to reconfirm that they're sticking to the cease fire are i did a political correspondent simon young thank you very much as we heard the

libyan ceasefire talks will take place here in berlin on sunday and of course the w. will be there to bring you the latest developments as they happen let's take a look now at some of the other stories making news around the world we now know that at least 11 american troops were in fact injured when iran attacked bases hosting u.s. troops in iraq on january 8th washington had previously claimed that there were no casualties or injuries in those attacks which was in retaliation for the killing of iranian general hossam sort of money ukraine's prime minister or lexy hunt charo as submitted his resignation to president a lot of years of lenski he confirmed the move in a facebook post you see it there comes days after one torak was caught on tape saying the president knew nothing about the economy and says the recording had been doctored. farmers across germany are protesting against the government's agricultural policies many in the industry say tighter rules limiting the use of

fertilizers and low consumer prices are squeezing their incomes hundreds of farmers in tractors have descended on berlin in an effort to raise awareness. i want to take a look now at australia where rain is bringing some much needed relief to parts of the country affected by months of devastating bushfires but those downpours are also bringing new problems in the form of flash floods and with more rain forecast in the coming days australians are finding themselves moving from one whether driven crisis to another i. from flames to flash floods just a week ago staff at this nature park were protecting their animals from oncoming bushfires now they're having to deal with another extreme there's the dr who is also saying absolutely united could. never go to the what's coming in the park

a wall of water. starts rushed koalas to safety. back might be. well for creatures more used to the way it was more about keeping them in their place. heavy rain has fallen across new south wales one of the states worst affected by bushfires in the state capital sydney residents were remembering how to use an umbrella the orange hair use that had taken over the city's skyline now cloudy grey. we need a bit of rain in order to help the 5 is special it is how dry it was part of the day and i think it will help with the hayes's just push everything out there this is what is in many many months we've only got about 4 days of rioting in the last 4 months. and not run of only children but this is well and truly the little for very little. for many in the country the way weather has brought relief and joy.

more a case of sliding than singing in the rain. that rain has helped the not. of the raging bushfires but it does bring with it another threat of danger weather doesn't automatically mean changing fortunes. of pharmaceutical company novartis has announced that it will use a lot of resistance to supply the world's most expensive drug to children suffering from a devastating genetic disease called spinal muscular atrophy but only $100.00 children worldwide will receive that free treatment which usually costs millions of dollars the astronomical price of such drugs has triggered ethical debate. michael story sounds like a modern fairy tale but it also poses questions he was born with spinal muscular atrophy

a life threatening neuromuscular disease when his condition deteriorated despite treatment his family launched an online fundraising campaign the aim for him to receive a gene therapy that's not yet licensed in europe he actually gets. worse. by the treatment cost almost 2000000 euros professional athletes and celebrities lead their support bowing to pressure from the public the health insurance company agreed to pay michael received the most expensive therapy in the world. that. grew thinner and as it was a miracle that it worked at all then on the 3rd day we had another miracle wonder that he could turn himself over properly and in the 2nd week he even sat up on his own. the joint was shared by very many online supporters but there are other opinions about the treatment. some say not enough tests have

been done to guarantee its safety more parents have been demanding access to it health authorities are sounding the alarm. this is about our promise of healing us and i really hope it's one that will evolve. but we still don't know if it will be and so this is a game of hope of one happening outside the normal system so it's not how we should be doing things. then the manufacturer novartis has issued a statement on its product the decision to implement the therapy must be made by specialized doctors under careful consideration of the risks on an individual basis and we are prepared to offer financial concessions to insurance companies. but this case highlights another major question in a public sector health care system how much may have treatment cost many expensive gene therapies are set to gain market approval in the coming years what kind of results justify what kinds of costs at the university hospital in bonn dr youn band

meets families who have the prescription that costs 2000000 euros he says it doesn't make sense yet to start prescribing the therapy on a wider scale i think if you want to do it with very new kinds of therapies where we're not sure how effective or safe they are we need consensus between all parties between specialist doctors experts centers insurance companies and licensing authorities only then can we properly decide which patients we should treat with a therapy that's at such an early stage. michael seems to be doing well so far although no one knows if the 2000000 euro medication has really healed his disease for good still his story shows how vital it is to regulate costly new gene therapies. i'm joined in studio by our science correspondent derrick williams thank you for being here. we saw the piece but but can you just explain

for us how exactly do these sorts of gene therapy treatments work ok well gene therapy treatments are are different than than conventional treatment treatments in the sense that they're they're not pills they're not they're not things that are that are going to be taken on a regular basis it's a single therapeutic step which is the injection of what are basically viruses into your body now the reason that they're injecting those viruses into your body is because a person who has a genetic disorder has got a broken gene they've got a faulty gene somewhere that codes for a more or less important protein and these protests if you get a faulty gene you're going to end up having a faulty protein protein so what you need to do is swap out that code for something that's intact and so what these viruses do they've been genetically altered to carry an intact version of that particular gene and if you get them into the body's cells then the virus invades the cell nucleus and the cell begins to produce the protein at least in theory so there is certainly a lot going on in these vials here we see behind us how can something like this

111 therapy treatment cost $2000000.00 why is this so expensive when this this goes back to the sort of basic business model that they have in the pharmaceuticals industry as i said it's not the these things new drugs are not they don't really fit within that system for decades we've been selling you know pharmaceuticals companies have been aiming at managing your health care by selling you medicines the same medicines often over and over and over again possibly to the end of your life in the case of something like i've pretensions and so there their model is built around selling a lot of medicine what do you do when you've developed a drug that fixes the problem with a single treatment you still have the research and the development that go in. to the drug and that's a very very expensive process only bust them fewer than one in 10 drugs actually makes it through to through the approvals process so how do you how do you then the

money that you've invested in in your development and you do that by saying ok we have a single treatment but that single treatment is going to be very very expensive course a critic might say you know these companies are making pretty big profits selling these these drugs as well then they're not hurting necessarily well they're not hurting but i mean i think this is one of the fundamental problems as we as we move into this brave new world of of health care and position and precision medicine is that the monetization of health care it's driven the system and it's made it's driven innovation for decades now but we're getting to a point where we're past that you know on the ethical side of things we've declared you know the universal declaration of human rights we've said health care is a human bright but we only pay lip service to that ultimately especially in situations like this if you're not allowed to if you're not able to pay for it you're not going to get the treatment that you need and so this monetization health care products or pharmaceutical products aren't like other products they're not like cars or computers because often the product is able to save or save

a life and so we need to really i think i think rethink the system from the ground up and think about fair compensation for a product so that a company content can continue to innovate and can continue to develop drugs but at the same time you cap it so that not that money has not been taken out of the system where it's also desperately needed for other people who are sick who have other conditions you mentioned as ethical debate and let's talk about novartis swiss pharmaceutical company they're the ones offering 100 injections of this drug for free but it's based on a lot of the system is that the right way to go about this i have some really fundamental problems with it because i see it as a cynical p.r. move that really is not going to do much to help much of anyone earlier today i was talking with a colleague about and he says the. combination of the lottery a game and you're talking about the lives basically ultimately of children something that's very very wrong there and for me it's it's kind of

a white washing of the of the of the current topic and it's i thought i think it was a very very bad idea on their part interesting stuff derrick williams science correspondent thanks so much. 5 moving on now to the seychelles africa's smallest country it's been struggling to strike a balance between to resume the mainstay of its economy and sustainability the seychelles wants to protect its environment not least because that's why the tourist keep coming but the rising number of visitors is also damaging the environment. with pristine white sand beaches and abundant wildlife it's no wonder that the 115 islands of the seychelles are a draw for foreign tourists mostly from europe in fact 384000 people came to the islands in $21000.00 a lone that's 4 times the country's population so the question at hand for officials now is how many visitors are too many visitors tourism in general is

increasing and that is of concern to conservationists like myself the sustainable developers like myself who find that review we're reaching a point which excludes over tourism it's not just a matter of well intentioned leaders at about 450 square kilometers the seychelles is the smallest country in africa half of that area has protected status including to unesco world heritage sites officials say preserving the environment now it will make sure that the tourism industry stays strong. it does not really destroy. what we are. for us to do was to. trust those that are in the people feel very much. like you or you. feel. the places

efforts to achieve balance doesn't mean 2 or isn't in the seychelles is going to come screeching to a stop any time soon officials know that the industry accounts for over a quarter of jobs on the islands the government says a survey on tourism and sustainability is set to begin soon. this is news and these are our top stories iran's supreme leader ayatollah ali khamenei has led friday prayers for the 1st time since 2012 taking the opportunity to address the nation ukraine's to iran's recent missile strikes against u.s. forces in iraq in retaliation for the killing of iran's top general he also defended the country's military after it mistakenly shot down a passenger jet. german foreign minister heiko ma says the powerful rebel leader in libya. has agreed in principle to abide by a cease fire and participate in an upcoming peace summit in berlin a country and its backers are split between 2 rival governments. pharmaceutical

company novartis has announced it will use even water eat to supply the world's most expensive drugs to children suffering from spinal muscular atrophy treatment costs $2100000.00 per patient only $100.00 doses will be given away. heavy downpours in eastern australia have triggered flash flooding in regions previously ravaged by catastrophic bushfires rain has lashed new south wales that's one of the states worst affected by the flames this is the news from berlin for more follow us on twitter at d w news or check out our website d w dot com. and before we leave we've got some special pictures coming in from china 20 panda cubs bred in captivity of the country's long giant panda research base there they are the cubs are all between 4 and 7 months old that's according to chinese state television

a total of $32.00 pandas pretty impressive have been born and bred in the center last year. all right up next to the environment magazine and a look at how attempts to restore natural wetlands are bearing fruit stay tuned for that i'm called aspen i'll be back at the top of the hour with more.

on. those who love to eat seafood fish calendar of course. overfishing breeding season. diversity. which fish can people eat anywhere without damaging the ecosystem. know your fish the 1st sea foods the stain ability to guide india. next on d.w.i. . land

will be our fighters want to start families to become farmers or engineers everyone of them as a planet for you to. the nothing is just that the children who have already been there all day and you and those that will follow are part of a new process. they could be the future of. colombia. granting opportunities for global news that matters d. w. made for mines. i think everything challenging 1st and i became a muslim. so much different culture between here and there challenging for everything. from some of the slavic it was worth it for me to come to germany.

my license to work as a swimming instructor in our 2 children wanted us to swim faster just as. what's your story take part charity in for migrants dot net. our love for the fish on our plate and other seafood is causing great harm and an imbalance to the marine ecosystem worldwide how can we preserve our oceans and even our rivers so that we can continue to remain a living species that's what we want to be a welcome this is equal india and i'm somewhat of a. the metropolis of mumbai was a real.