our documentary series slavery routes starts march d.w. . this is newsnight from germany's president criticizes the united states china and russia as he opens the munich security conference. accuses them of stoking mistrust and putting national interests above international cooperation. delegates at the conference will focus on the international community so famous in syria.

families torn apart by conflict. going to die on the plains of the army is very close as the syrian government offensive against deadly province intensifies we're told with a syrian refugee in germany desperate to get his family out of harm's way. also on the program antarctic temperatures are beach record highs will take a look at the far reaching effects of. the icy continent. happy birthday your. father master video sharing site has it all started 15 years ago. with an elephant. i'm filled welcome to the program. a long list of conflicts sounds uncertainty over

the west's role in work in the world those are the top issues of the munich security conference which has just started world leaders and top security experts have gathered for a i know meeting in southern germany on everyone's mind or in syria where government offensive in italy has triggered a full blown humanitarian crisis another issue is the concern of the west's shrinking influence on global security it's even spawned a new term west listeners in his opening speech german present from delta steinmeyer had some critical words on this issue and on the role the united states has adopted in international relations. and our closest ally i mean start with the united states of america and its current administration rejects the very concept of an international community. and. states that needs to every country it believes should look after itself and put its own interests before well as us as

if everyone thinking of him self meant that everyone is being considerate great again but even at the expense of neighbors and. that's what it appears like it's the. political editor at the munich security conference linda crane welcome what do you make of the german president's harsh words about the united states. well it must be said that those words came at the end of a list of 3 countries that began with russia continued with china and then named the u.s. by name basically the president of germany accusing all 3 of putting national interests 1st as you said of transgressing international norms and rules and of undermining international institutions and he where on though to say some pretty self-critical things about germany as well saying we often consider. ourselves to be particularly good europeans but the fact is we too tend to put our own interests

1st and we could use a great deal more humility curiosity and the ability to see things through the perspective of others and basically he said to this me 1st point of view and an approach that essentially sees your strengths as my weakness and vice versa leads all of us to become less secure and he named 2 particular crisis that illustrate that the nuclear proliferation in the world is the destruction of international arms control architecture and then secondly the climate crisis and he said unless we work together we are not going to solve either one of those as well as other challenges the mission is a new security conference was spawned a new catch phrase with wesley snipes what is that. well 1st of all i'm not sure quite how far this phrase is going to go if you talk to people here they all kind

of raise their eyebrows over this term pickups because in a way it's an almost cute designation of something that is very serious indeed namely the sense as the german president put it that there is no longer a we when we talk about the west that all transatlantic community of north america and europe no longer sees itself as a community and as a group that must act in concert to solve international challenges and it's it's basically about the idea that the consensus on multilateralism which has been a recurrent topic here in munich for the last 5 years that this consensus has in a sense reached a new low point precisely related to nations putting their own interests 1st but that it absolutely impedes our ability to face some very very grave to. as in to stay with us in this regard take

a close look at this notion of west look at one of the west's agencies nato. the biggest deployment of u.s. military might to europe in a quarter century is heading this way for nato as defender 20 exercise 20000 american soldiers and 13000 pieces of equipment should give the enemies pause and allies confidence. one or more one way. through showed up real all reliable loyal portals within the nato framework but that reinforced military framework risks being undermined by weakness on the political side increasing apathy across the alliance regarding its most fundamental values collective defense what if nato has the weapons but it doesn't have the will a recent survey by the pew research center indicates that across 16 nato countries fewer than 40 percent of respondents would want their militaries used to defend the

baltic states or poland in case of an attack by russia the munich security conference has coined a new term to describe this kind of ambivalence less listening for those wistful about west listening this geopolitics expert shot islam has some advice move on the west has had its wonderful moment it can still matter i think europe still matters definitely but it will have to work in coalitions and and alliances with countries outside the comfort zone so we would have to work with the indias of this would with russia with china with the straight you would you plan and not just rely on this once very strong transatlantic alliance french president emanuel mccaughan has seized the stage to position himself as a disruptor france has a moment to lead. it can lead in rhetoric it can lead in ideas or can lead to its actions not actually know yet which way it's going to go it is a nuclear country as a state in the security council they can do therefore what no one else can. and it

can do that on the house. but while the west deals with its identity crisis kremlin tactics are working better than never warns retired u.s. army general ben hodges people to lose confidence and trust in each other in their own institutions in the alliance that's those where there's competition news and. i think that we have to compete hodges praises the massive defender 20 exercises for making sure the military side is ready waiting for political cohesion to make it come back. on to melinda crane that melinda typically of the real business of a gathering like the munich security conference is conducted offstage behind the scenes what do you think is going on. well there are there are a couple of perennial topics in here and then a couple of new ones as well one of the current is ukraine always something that is very important as leaders from the region come together this conference as you said

offers the opportunity for national leaders. other important global actors to come together behind closed doors to talk about how to make progress for example in trying to bring peace to east ukraine so that's that's as i said a perennial here but there are a couple of new topics as well that will be of great importance 1st of all libya germany in january hosted a major international meeting of all the players who in one way or another are involved in the conflict of libya trying to get agreement from all of them to cut off flows of arms and financial support to the warring parties there and there's been some concern about the follow up or lack of follow up to that meeting another meeting will be held here on sunday bringing in even more concerned parties as a very very important step for how to get this agreement in principle that way.

agreed in berlin in january how to give that real some real tooth and claw is going forward so that that situation can possibly be mediated and then finally syria russia turkey both represented here there will be opportunities for their highest level representatives to meet behind closed doors and talk about it credibly inflammatory conflict so plenty of stuff going on off stage as well as on . the course of the day for now though melinda crane at the munich security conference thank you. speaking of syria think government offensive in a province is leading to ever greater numbers of refugees people trying to get out of libya heading for the nearby a border with turkey the u.n. estimates that 140000 have fled their homes in the last 3 days germany is already home to hundreds of thousands of syrians fleeing the conflict i'm that's happened

over the last 9 years those with family members stuck in the war zone feel powerless to protect their. checks the news from syria on social media all the time where did the latest bomb fall who or what was hit while he is in safety here in germany the rest of his family are in mortal danger and. he is desperately worried. for whatever heat or drink i think of my children do they have anything to eat or the ill do they have a warm blanket or. his sons mohammad and 9 and 10 years old he had to leave them with their grandparents and he thought it too dangerous to flee with them if the internet is working he calls them several times a day or a little hello how moody or how well you know what's going on.

it's cold then bombing and the plane crashed we were where we were at the. very narrow village get us out of here. come and get us. i want to but i can't we need to get passports for you and lots of other things i can bring you over here. lead going to die the planes are bombing us the army is very close. and the only adult member of the family lets us show his face. people are suffering especially the refugees it's chaos i don't know whether i'm coming or going. everybody is heading north camping in the olive groves sleeping in the open unprotected even though it's bitterly cold. the united nations estimates

that more than $700000.00 people from it to profit and said fled their homes many are heading towards turkey but they're not being allowed in the refugee camps overcrowded it's freezing and there's a lack of drinking water and food there is no going back for them because most of their towns and cities are being bombed out and they are facing is that humanitarian situation this is why an immediate cease fire and its way is the only solution going forward. but there's no sign of that and the fighting continues to come would do anything he could to rescue his children from danger but he can't all he can do is follow events from berlin. nobody notices people see me and think i'm doing fine but inside i die a 1000 deaths every day and my heart goes out to my children and to all the other children.

now to some more of the day's news u.s. attorney general william barr has blamed president trump's tweets for making his job impossible on wednesday the president tweeted in praise of mr bass hunting for a case involving a former presidential advisor roger stone. following the collapse of talks between volkswagen and a consumer group representing hundreds of thousands of german diesel car owners v.w. says it has offered an out of court settlement of $830000000.00 directly to the consumers the german car giant says the talks are failed because of the disproportionate fee demands from the consumer groups lawyers. spain's coast guard has rescued $86.00 migrants travelling from north africa including a baby born at sea the newborn and its mother were taken to hospital and are said to be doing well. into leadership of the french film academy has quit over control

to see evolving disgraced filmmaker roman polanski is nearest the film received nominations for the academy's forthcoming ceasar awards the french polish director fled from the us after pleading guilty to the statutory rape of a teenager in 1970. 6 health care workers in china have died from the corona virus as the death toll climbs to nearly 1400 their deaths expose the risks facing medical staff on the front line of fighting the outbreak or authorities have just announced a 5000 new infections another uptick tributed to new diagnosis criteria. in the fight against the new coronavirus they are at the front line for china's health workers the battle is taking its toll more than 1700 medical staff that have been infected with the virus now named as covered 19 for an unlucky few of them the infection has proved fatal. chinese officials and hospitals have repeatedly spoken

of a shortage of protective equipment including face masks the government now says it's working to improve conditions for health workers. with which i was and saying where is the national health commission is highly concerned about this issue and we have issued technical guidelines for the prevention and control of infection of the new coronavirus within the medical institutions under special notice on the virus infection control for key areas and the fever departments of key hospitals. through these documents we have imposed special requirements on enhanced sing the personal protection of the medical workers the really good no longer. the world health organization said a spike in china's reported cases this week was partly due to a new method of diagnosis and didn't indicate a wide epidemic but experts warn that the new infection figures show there's no

sign the outbreak is nearing its peak critics say the now drastic measures were implemented too late. as china released a song designed to boost morale the nation is hoping to antiviral drugs its scientists are testing will prove promising. but preliminary results won't be ready for a few weeks in which time many more lives could have been lost. well after the holidays january ever scientists in antarctica have reported that for the 1st time since records began temperatures have risen above 20 degrees celsius and they warn that if the trend continues it could have dramatic unforeseeable effects on sea levels the news of the record temperature coincided with a big break in the ice on pine island an iceberg 300 square kilometers an area calved from a glacier last weekend. giant blocks of ice have always broken off antarctica as

ice shelves but in places like pine island the losses are speeding up scientists are worried there are 4 warning of even larger events as climate change drives higher rates of thaw on the frozen continent. a new study says if temperatures continue to go up in antarctica global sea levels could rise by up to one and a half meters by the year 2100 at chile's escudero base on king george island the ice and snow pack has melted almost entirely this year. it's the 1st time we see a lack of snow that is so impressive it really caught our attention we left some sensors installed we've seen temperatures over 13 degrees just so you know in the last 40 years ice loss in the antarctic has increased 6 fold and as it continues to melt the warm temperatures are also having an impact on wildlife like chinstrap penguins populations of them have plunged dramatically we did find one colony an elephant

island that had a very large colony that declined about 77 percent. of the tremendous loss over a very short period of time and with january of 2020 setting new heat records there's no sign the melt is going to slow anytime soon. so your truth is 15 today we internet giant was set up by 3 former colleagues at pay pal to give people a place to share clips on why a decade and a half later it has more than one and a half 1000000000 users every month and brought in $15000000000.00 in ad revenues last year alone so here's a look at how it all began. here a. few

chips very 1st video could scarcely have been simpler during his trip to the zoo co-founder jahvid karim had no idea what his primitive creation would become just a year later he and his friends chad hurley and steve chen would be striking the deal of a lifetime i. think it is a we have. been acquired by google i think bonaire less than $1650000000.00 since being bought by the world's most visited web site you tube itself has become the world's 2nd most visited web site. and it's not just jahvid chad and steve who it's made rich has created our own your brand of celebrity the most successful you chivas such as hyperactive sweet beauty try to make in excess of $10000000.00 a year. over the past 15 years you tube has

become more than just somewhere to share videos branching out into music and subscription services and you have a 70 languages now you choose country using $15000000000.00 a year in ad revenue known as google alphabet if you told the founders if that would be the case back in early days they might well have enough to defeat. them. laughing all the way to the bank let's take a closer look at this with the w. reporter joel roy welcome joe so your chips come a long way since a day at the zoo yeah and there's 3 major unforseen consequences that have happened in the 15 years since we've had celebrities we've had conspiracy theories and we've had climate change so firstly the celebrities as we heard in that report the platform created a whole new job title the youtube of if you like cutie pie people are talking to their cameras and make a fortune from it but not just him we've had also people who open toit boxes and

get money for it my young relatives now talk about wanting to have their own you tube channel and not when they grow up but tomorrow and it's possible ok so that's that's the celebrity we're about conspiracy here as well we all know that a lot of what on the is on you tube is pretty mundane but it's also been called a radicalization machine and gave a platform to people like alex jones who's a conspiracy theorist who promoted lies about vaccines and school shootings now those kind of videos actually prove very popular and not by accident because 70 percent of what people watch on you tube is actually a result of you choose recommendation algorithm and for years you tube has been promoting content that's really controversial in order to keep people watching now that started to change it has since banned alex adjourns and it says it has changed its algorithm so that it no longer promotes content that includes false cues and false claims but it made a lot of money along the way climate change was the last of you'll see what you've

got to do without well and that most people might not be aware of but videos are not climate neutral they require a lot of energy and by some estimates online videos now result responsible for 80 percent of all internet traffic and all of that one percent of all greenhouse gas emissions come from the internet traffic which is. quite a remarkable number and it's only expected to grow now you tube is not the only video platform responsible but it is the biggest ok and is it likely to remain the biggest worry it claims it has over $2000000000.00 monthly active logged in users $2000000000.00 that's like a 3rd of humanity which is pretty huge and our every minute 500 hours of new video gets uploaded but just as you tube destructed television you tube itself is not immune from disruption it's getting its market share eaten up by paid platforms like netflix and younger viewers are now turning to platforms of like tic toc which

have a lots of addictive short videos so who knows in a few years we may be sitting here talking about tick tocks 50th birthday instead of the joe doll roy thank you for that with us. it's quite a future to look forward to now in case you haven't there is today's valentine's day in thailand more than 20 couples who got married aboard hot air balloons hundreds of people turned out to watch the lovebirds receive their marriage certificates and take to the skies as newlyweds the weddings were part of the balloon love festival in challenge right so if you fancy starting your married life on a hike you should know that organizers are hoping for more participants next year. this is the w.'s these are our top stories the annual munich security conference is opened with a warning that the world order is changing german present from delta blamed a lack of unity in the west for fueling lobel insecurity addressing world leaders

and security experts he criticized actions taken by the united states russia and china. the united nations says more than 140000 syrians were displaced in the 1st 3 weeks in the 1st 3 days of this week by violence in the country's north west in total more than 800000 people have fled a government offensive to reclaim the last opposition stronghold said. there's been another surge in corona virus infections and deaths china says there have been $5000.00 new cases in a single day and the death toll has risen to nearly $1400.00 the u.s. is accusing beijing of a lack of transparency. and scientists in antarctica have reported that temperatures there have risen above 20 degrees celsius for the 1st time on record this peak was observed on their february the 9th researches described the figures as incredible and abnormal. this is d.w.

news from above it for more followers on twitter or visit our website t w dot com. i don't get it you can always get d.w. news on the go just download out from google pile for me up so i will give you access to all the latest news from around the world as well as pushed out informations for any breaking news i'm if you're part of a news story you can always use it to send us a photos and videos of what's happening. i didn't lose a fire in the magazine back india is up next i'll be back at the top top the hour and meantime of course as always the web site that's t w dot com. have a direct. blood

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eco india. how can a country's economy grow from harming 6 people and the environment when there are do worse than look at the bigger picture india a country that faces many challenges and whose people are striving to create a sustainable future clever projects from europe and india eco kingda

ka next on g.w. . is the world becoming less western and what does it mean for the world if the west memphis danes 2 other key question at this year's munich security conference the world's most important informal meeting on international security policy to join us for our coverage of the moon and securing conference $21.00 to day one dealing. have fun in pyongyang. the capital city of north korea is reinventing itself. but only

a few can enjoy the benefits for those the regime allows. kim jong un has introduced an insidious reward system to coerce a legion. to the regime. those who don't make it into the fun metropolis are often. very. fun in pyongyang starts feb 28th on w. for those who choose loud swamplands and the expansive scene that are only believe that on monday the biggest group was introduce a carbon dioxide on a platter they absorb this compound to maintain bad.