this is deja vu news live from berlin china sees its deadliest day yet in the corona virus outbreak health officials attributing a surge in deaths and infections to a new reporting method the spike in these numbers raises questions about how long it will be before the outbreak peaks also coming up a new study shows a record number of children are caught up in armed conflicts around the world look at the toll the war in syria is taking on the children there. and germany remembers

one of the most controversial chapters of world war 275 years ago today allied bombers began their attack on the city of dresden song the bombing was a military necessity for others a needless tragedy. i'm brian thomas a very warm welcome to our show today china is reporting a surge in the number of infections and deaths from the coronavirus now also referred to as covert 19 the new numbers make it more difficult to assess when this outbreak may peak and this spike is what health officials are worried about into bay province the epicenter of the outbreak officials say over 240 people died of the virus in a single day now that's the deadliest day so far since the disease. merged

authorities have also confirmed nearly 15000 new infections in who badly and almost 10 fold increase ok let's get the latest on this sharp spike in corona virus cases now it's correspondent but here's berlinger in beijing mathias can you tell us what's behind this unexpected spike in fatalities and new infections. yeah the authorities have in a very quick move lowered the criteria for registering patients ask coronavirus patients before they insisted that besides showing symptoms that would point to quite clearly to an infection people would also have to be tested positive really there was these tests there were a bottleneck because there were not enough test kits not enough laboratories to test their results will take 2 or 3 days until they come back and they would have

big. rate of wrong results so i spoke to a woman for example who had whose mother had symptoms and the doctors confirmed that these was symptoms typical folk are on a virus infection but she could not admit her to the hospital for almost 10 days because twice the results the results of the test showed a negative result and the criteria for admission to hospitals was a positive result so by removing this criteria now people can be admitted if they show symptoms but have no test results yet. and they include of course a huge number of people who would keep waiting for admission to hospitals who are not showing up in the sister to sticks but who have already been sick for days and days ok and we have a new picture emerging don't we as a result of these numbers what does this tell us about the threat the real threat

of coronavirus. these problems were already know it was clear that. there was a high the number of undiagnosed patients in one hon this does not come as a surprise and a nice serious estimate for before would of included this at least in evaluating how reliable the estimate is now we seem to have more reliable figures but still. and the province of obey is a black box it's only the chinese officials who have data and who release date and there's no independent verification we still do not know that the hospitals was which seem to be still running out at the edge of their capacities whether they really are able to register all patients are not so. this situation is as before

nobody has a real estimate about how long this outbreak of the corona virus will last came into use thanks so much for that from beijing today. well fears over the virus spreading far beyond china has led to a troubled journey for the cruise ship m.s. vester dom and of course since 2000 passengers authorities in cambodia have finally agreed that the ship can dock their efforts spent 2 weeks stranded at sea 5 asian countries turn the vessel away concern there might be infected individuals on board no cases of the illness have so far been to affirm the hmong the passengers were crew. while in europe health ministers from countries are due to meet today in brussels for talks on the blocks response for the coronavirus europe has already canceled commercial flights to china has been evacuating its citizens as well as masand or went to the emergency response coordination center

located in brussels which is coordinating the. after. a dramatic journey coming to an end these passengers disembarking from a german air force jet in frankfurt earlier this month were among the 1st to be evacuated from china to europe due to the coronavirus it was a challenging task to organize here at the european commission in brussels christiane yacoub is helping europeans in china return home safely on flights such as the one to frankfurt in the operation room of the emergency response center it's his job to oversee all processes and coordinate help we are in close contact with our member states by phone by email and true especially the formation system we are in close contact with the chinese so torrie peace to receive all these from them and to see. the most need to lie to them so that you know to contain these diseases

the r.c.c. has been coordinating the e.u.'s response to global emergencies since 2001 during the evil after demick in western africa the organization oversaw assistance and relief to the affected countries such as liberia valuable lessons that are proving helpful today operations in brussels have taken up pace since france triggered an e.u. wide emergency response procedure over the corona virus outbreak situation definitely is worrisome. to some epidemic this is a serious danger. this virus as you know spreads with great speed so measures have to be taken and we are trying to see that they are taken in a coordinated manner for the e.u. getting its citizens out of china is a 1st important step but with the number of coronavirus cases growing rapidly brussels and member states will have to come up with

a broader strategy to prevent the disease from spreading on european soil. now just released report has thrown new light on the massive number of children and young people living in midst war and violence across the world there are 415000000 children caught up in armed conflict that is one in 6 children on our planet the study by save the children shows the number is highest in africa with some 170000000 children they're living in that smile and also shows 100000 children have been killed or maimed in conflicts around the world over the past 15 years. well one of the countries where children have been most affected by conflict is syria violence there has intensified since december as government troops advance on the rebel stronghold of families must decide whether to leave or face the bitter winter in the province and risk air strikes a warning our next report contains distressing images.

terrified and in shock 3 children are rescued from what's left of this building which was hit by an strikes in what's become known as the battle fit. for too many syrians including children this is the reality of life in the never ending war zone. since december almost 700000 people have been forced to flee their homes they trying to reach the turkish border but that's closed and so this road has effectively become a refugee camp. no one to some too frightened to leave. i'd prefer to rethink but i went away to the last moment because i can't you know

living in the wild in the cold because i might see my kids dying in front of my eyes. it live is the last rebel stronghold in syria it's under attack from president pascha ass sense forces who have the support of russia turkey meanwhile has sent in reinforcements to try to push back the syrian army escalating tensions between ankara and moscow. and it's civilians who are paying the price. these 3 children are lucky to have survived the latest and strikes but unless there is a last thing cease fire no one in it can feel safe for long. so what can we do to alleviate the suffering to talk about that i'm joined by joel bus from save the children in amman jordan thanks very much for coming in this morning these numbers are shocking one in 6 children on the planet living in wars zones

were you surprised by the findings this is the 3rd new that save the children publicist. and while the findings of smoking they're not really surprising because we know that the number of children living in conflict in gaza has been on the rise but i'm about to look at the 2000000 in 1902 1000000 in 2008 and as you mentioned so this year that if woke up again of the 6 to give violations against children in conflict or killing and maiming abduction it kuchma sexual violence among the other and we looked at how these like lesions affect boys in goods why they affected them differently for example goods i hope won't do sexual violence why boys are victims of recruitment they are still affected equally if you know the broad range of violence and violations that you just mentioned this is disturbing as well and your study you focus on the mideast your study finds that the ongoing war in syria has

been going on for 9 years now is placing children there especially for us. yes now in the north of syria children are the new thing and the high intensity conflict zone for the past few days since the offensive start to show that in our kids and every single day and today they make up one 3rd of all victims so again we are seeing children paying the price of a conflict which they did not decide to be part of and this is not to mention their living conditions so if they make it as they thank you for me if they make it safely to the border with turkey if they are not that main they are living and open for me it's intense and it's very cold. it's snowing in these areas and you know who's on the ground out of it and why the children are happy to see snow for example they all so cold that they have to sleep with all the fuel on their backs at night to people. what are some realistic expectations

a lot of these conflicts have been dragging on for years to to do something want to be done to help the millions of children's affected. nobody we have seen. for example being quote month over the use of long lines all the key things would save and conflict but. we need the governments take the size of action now especially by upholding at the rate that is and violate those. holding them to account of causing standards and woods and conflict and finally a full agreement so that all the cup of support and they need to be able to grow up and be happy adults. save the children thanks very much for your insights this morning. let's get you briefed down some of the other stories making the news today the united nations security council has agreed on a plan to end the war in libya that aims to bring an end to years of conflict

between rival governments the phone the ouster of moammar gadhafi the plan calls for negotiations international monitors and the separation of forces. police in northern ireland have charged a man with murdering the journalist clearing a key she was killed last april during a riot londonderry the dissident republican group new are a leader said it shot her by accident the 52 year old man charged as one of 4 suspects arrested tuesday. at least one person has died as heavy rains and flooding batter australia's eastern coast a woman has also been reported missing emergency workers have rescued dozens from the floods many schools have been closed. this comes a story say all bushfires in australia's hardest hit state have now been contained . well here in germany a political foe of chancellor on the macro reportedly plans to run for the

leadership of her party the christian democrats feverish maritz has been widely expected to enter the race for the position of party chief in 2018 he narrowly lost the race for the leadership to undergrad compound our earlier this week she stunned the country by announcing she was stepping down. nachle do not see eye to eye on tough issues like migration and deeper integration now if you became party leader would on the macro remain on as chancellor until next year and put that question to our chief political correspondent melinda craig . that could well happen it's not only her plan of course she is at the head of a government whose official term goes until 2021 and she has said she would stay out that term but the fact is that these 2 free dish mats and they have a long history there rivalry goes way back in in fact she proved such

a nemesis for him that he wound up leaving politics altogether for many years he is distinctly to the right of chancellor merkel if you remember he was the author of that term leading culture to describe the idea that germany needed to return to a stronger sense of its national identity all of that could make them very easy bedfellows so to speak so many people do speculate that if he were to become the head of the party that she might step down earlier which in fact with them prompt new elections because that her social democratic the junior partner in the governing coalition has said it's ready to serve out to the end of this government with angela merkel in place as chancellor but not with somebody else. well in the train there now it was 75 years ago today in the final months of world war 2 the british an american aircraft began bombing the german city of dress and now in the

days that followed warplanes dropped and sendiri bombs that killed thousands of people many of them women and children fleeing the soviet armies advance in the east there's been much debate over the years about whether the bombing was a justifiable military attack or an unnecessary tragedy we met one of the survivors of the now rebuilt city. when aaron's tears comes to the neuer markt public square and sees the restored challenge here he is reminded of the dresden bombings 75 years ago. here. and everything was destroyed and this was when most of the people were killed in the fire storm then on the next day the taste and flown kisha collapsed yes this square was reduced to rubble and. on the evening of february 13th 1945 over the span of just 15 minutes the allied forces dropped bombs

containing 900 tons of explosives on dresden during the next 2 days 3 more attack waves followed after that the baroque old town lay in ruins. at the time aaron's tears was 9 years old when the bombs were dropped on dresden he and his parents he had in a bomb shelter in the cellar of their house seen here in the former you hungry organ alley. after the 1st attack we left the apartment while everything was burning i can still see it before my eyes the flames creeping over the rooftops of neighboring houses. and that's what it looked like afterwards that was my parents' apartment was on the top of that's what the ruins looked like you can see the facade was still in good shape but inside the building everything was burned out and that's what the whole

wonderful street looked like. ants tears his parents were lucky they were able to flee the city as many as 25000 people died during the air raids many of them suffocated during the firestorms. and concur placing this in my eyes this was a war crime many things happened on all sides but this was an act of destruction directed at the civilian population. and tears started working as a camera man in the 1950 s. he sneaked in was the eye of dresden he documented the reconstruction of the destroyed city and he's been collecting photos and videos of dresden since the 19th century for his film archives. documentary film can be brutally honest if you do not read it or change the footage and i never did this then for me it is the most impressive historical witness. today

the rebuilt cityscape of dresden betrays a few signs of the destruction that took place here 75 years ago. the most wonderful thing of all is that the dresden from has been restored. is really the biggest miracle and after the destruction i experienced in my childhood and youth i never hoped or expected this to happen i hope it will stay this way forever. dressed in from one cure here is where aaron's tears was baptized before the war today he sees it as a symbol of peace. now it may be less than a centimeter size but the mosquito remains one of the biggest threats to humans mosquitoes can transmit malaria a disease that kills more than $400000.00 people across the world every year for a long time pesticides were effective in controlling their numbers but mosquitoes

have become resistant to them scientists are hoping to hit back with a new but controversy all alternative. in the book enough village off so most all damane whether all gore is visiting his son's grave since the 2 year old died of malaria a couple of months ago he has been here every single day. losing a child is really painful for me for any parent for that matter. so if we can find a solution against this disease which killed my child we will thank god. they should do everything that to eradicate this disease. roughly 8000 kilometers away at the university of maryland in the u.s. scientists are conducting an experiment that could be a breakthrough in the fight against the disease which kills hundreds of thousands every year. the research team took

a naturally occurring fungus that is known to infect mosquitoes then they genetically modified it to produce a toxin similar to spite of venom when the most kito constant contact with the spores it gets infected and dies. prime love it is the lead author on the study out of the box if they went anywhere on the outside of the recognize that they're on a mosquito and the burrow their way into the mosquito. to test the fungus the researchers build the test side in book enough fossil in an entity area they simulated a village with hearts vegetation water sources and food for the musky toss in the hearts they hang black cloth that was soaked with oil and the fungus spores then they released hundreds of mosquitoes. so. the musk usuals fly around the room looking for something to $3.00 so they feed on an animal after feeding the

mosquitoes look for clues to rest the usually land on the walls. given the are attracted to the color black they will rest on the tree which is black. that is when they make contact with the fungus spores and the fungus starts to grow inside them and that's what kills them. within $45.00 days that toxins had killed almost all of the insects even the ones resistant to pesticides without the presence of the fungus the population of mosquitoes increased over the same period the researchers say the fungus does not harm humans and other insects they hope that one day their approach could also help fight diseases like. that are also transmitted by mosquitoes. so could this be a workable alternative let's talk about that now with our williams from our science desk the morning durga deceives ever. tell us about mosquitoes 1st of all why are they such

a lethal pest for us humans well the thing is is that every female enough least mosquito the enough list miskito is the one that carries malaria every one is basically in and of itself in the state of factory enough least female can lay up to $200.00 eggs that if time and those eggs reach reproductive maturity so they themselves are sexually mature within 2 weeks after hatching and so every female enough of these mosquito can potentially produce thousands with and of new mosquitoes within a couple of months and the problem is if you wipe them out or wiping them out is a major challenge because their populations can bounce back very quickly even if you wipe them out and localities ok this approach that we're looking at genetic modification to wipe them out as a potential downside to gently adverse effects on the environment could just get out of control well the thing is is that in order to wipe out mosquitoes you need very highly specific tools just like just like this one you can't use really

broadband insecticides because they're going to kill all kinds of other insects as well of also small mammals and birds so you need something that's highly effective like this fungus which only affects this particular this particular organisms of the mosquito itself the problem with genetically modified organisms in particular releasing them into the wild is that you don't know you you to lose control over them they're in the environment and so you can't really predict what they're necessarily going to do within the environment or how that organism is that scaring that gee that genetic modification is later going to evolve and so it's not enough to just say we think that this is going to work we really need to think about it long and hard and you need to take it very slowly ok as this process. continues what are scientists saying are they confident that we can get malaria under control the insect question is only one aspect of getting malaria get under control there's also the question of for example developing effective vaccines malaria is

a very very tricky organism in the sense that it's able to get around the immune system in a lot of different ways we don't have effective vaccines like we do for example for polio and smallpox yet but we're working on that that said it's going to tech take decades and there isn't really going to be a silver bullet anytime soon ok no silver bullet there thanks very much dirk williams from the science desk. good reminder now of our top story this hour china is reporting a record surge in corona virus deaths else officials say more than 240 people have died in a single day they've also diagnosed 15000 new infections china's attributing the spike to a new method of counting cases. this is you know if you news don't forget you can always get more news on the go from our app you can get that from the google store or the apple store that would give you access to all the latest news from around

the world as well as push notifications for breaking. i'm brian thomas of the entire news team thanks so much for being with us focus on europe is up next we'll be back at the top of the hour.

when others give up. natalia keeps on fighting. many russian mothers are in similar situations. their sons have run afoul of the country's arbitrary justice but her only hope is protest. and she's not on the. block synthesis of the. next on d w

a enter the conflict zone with tim sebastian. my guest this week here in rome is the jesuit priest father whose solo for his immediate exploits closer to abuse of some of the kludgy as the boss ago serious about wheelchair use for women continues to provide opportunity as cover for priests who commit these also fruitless conflicts. in 60 minutes phone d.w. . beethoven is for me. is for you. is for help. train tovan is for her. beethoven is for the.

beethoven is for us. beethoven is for come on. going to beethoven 2020 the 250th anniversary here on new. hello and a very warm welcome indeed to focus on europe with me peter craven and we begin in vladimir putin's russia a russia that tolerates little in the way of protest and those who do have the courage to take part in demonstrations such as this rally last summer are increasingly branded as extremists who then face the full force of the.