our documentary series slavery routes starts march 9th on g.w. . this is the news live from berlin harsh words from germany's presidents for the world's super powers including the u.s. china and russia as he opens the munich security conference on faulty steinmeyer accuses them of stoking global mistrust and putting national interests over international cooperation also coming up delegates at the conference will focus on the international community's failures in syria you don't you look at families torn

apart by the conflict. we're going to die and the planes are bombing us the army is very close as the syrian government offensive against it live province intensifies we talk with a syrian refugee in germany desperate to get his family out of harm's way. and in soccer you wait for banns manchester city from champions league competition for the next 2 seasons for breaching its spending rules will get reactions and look at what's next for the english club. i'm called aspen thanks for joining me a laundry list of conflicts and uncertainty over the west's role in the world are the top issues at the munich security conference which kicked off this afternoon nearly 3 dozen heads of state diplomats and top security experts are coming

together for the annual gathering in southern germany the west's dwindling influence on global security as even spawns new tour west lists. the who's who of international politics. with plenty to discuss. the german president frank steinmeyer spent much of his keynote speech deploring the decline of internationalism and of european unity he had harsh words for russia china and the us. and the been that our closest ally the united states of america under the current administration rejects the idea of an international community. great again great again if necessary also at the expense of maybe. fittingly enough it was a former u.s. secretary of state from another era john kerry who made

a plea for reviving international cooperation snow country can solve the problems we face with climate change cyber warfare nuclear challenges extremism disease all of these things require cooperation if we didn't have the united nations would have to invent it so people to just stop playing with people's fears protesters gathered outside the hotel where the conference is being held they said social problems and climate change should also be considered major security issues this is and i'm not. the kind of but i know you cannot exclude climate protection from the security issue because it's a huge issue. and war is definitely not climate neutral. the conference continues until sunday with debates over the role of nato and the conflict in syria likely to dominate its chief political correspondent melinda

crane is in munich for us. in this address the german presidents was highly critical of the big powers we're talking about china russia the united states tell us more what exactly did the german president say. well as mentioned in your report he essentially accused them of putting national interests 1st of prioritizing their own perceived needs undermining international institutions and international rules and norms and thereby making the world as a whole less secure he said that when we come to the point that countries see their interests in terms of a 0 sum game meaning their strength is others' weakness and vice versa that in the end we will be unable to solve the pressing problems that the world faces as a whole problems ranging from nuclear escalation and essentially the decline of the

architecture of international arms control and climate change he said very clearly and many speakers have echoed his words following his address that we absolutely must have multilateral initiatives to address these problems and many more besides one of these speeches are one thing but typically the real business happening in a place like the munich security conference takes place offstage behind the scenes what has been going on there behind the curtain. i think there's business on both both sides both on and off the stage tomorrow for example we're going to be hearing from the french president with his push for stronger nuclear arms control and i think that will certainly be something that will also create some dynamic but beyond doubt off stage absolutely right there are a wide range of bilateral meetings here because this does bring together so many

national and world leaders and just one example of that today on the sidelines of the conference the u.s. secretary of state mike pompei of the u.s. secretary of defense mark esper and the afghan president got only met and agreed on what's being called a one week long reduction of violence agreement now as you know the u.s. and the taliban have been carrying on negotiations for some time with the aim of eventually getting a framework it daring in which the u.s. can begin to withdraw its forces but the afghan government hasn't been party to those negotiations it had said that its precondition for an all afghan agreement that could set the stage for a peace process and then for eventual u.s. withdrawal is exactly this this reduction of violence where the taliban will commit to showing for one week 7 days that it is able to reduce violence across the board

apparently specifying roadside bombs direct attacks attacks by its proxies that it will commit to that and thereby. essentially create a precondition under which the afghan agreement might be willing to sit down with the taliban so certainly that is movement and that happened right here on the sidelines. on the crane reporting there from the munich security conference the syrian government's offensive and provinces leading to a growing number of refugees people trying to get out of bed lebar heading for the nearby turkish border and 140000 of them have fled their homes in recent days germany is already home to thousands of syrians who fled the conflict over the last 9 years. and we met one man who arrived in germany in 2013 he hoped his family would soon follow but now nearly 7 years later that hope has proved wrong

become deep 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 an internet. he is desperately worried. for. drink i think of my children do they have anything to eat do they have a warm blanket or are there. his son small. 9 and 10 years old he had to leave them with their grandparents and if he thought it too dangerous to flee with them if the internet is working he calls them several times a day or a little. while you know what's going on. that's cold the bombing and the plane crashed we were where we were.

very narrow a village get us out of here. come and get us. well 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. we're 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 i'm protected even though it's bitterly cold. the united nations estimates that more than $700000.00 people from into profit and stuff left 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 it's why is the obvious solution going forward. but there's no sign of that and the fighting continuous that. 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. our changing gears now into sports where european football's governing body wafer

has banned english side manchester city from champions league competition for the next 2 seasons that's because of quote serious financial fair play breaches wafer said in a statement premier league champions manchester city who are coached by pep guardiola were found guilty of having falsely inflated their sponsorship revenues of also find man city 30000000 euros the club says it will appeal the decision. i join me in studio now is max merrill with sports max i mean walk us through this what exactly did manchester city do wrong here well a full on file of financial fair play rulings which were introduced by the way for back in 2011 haven't been completely unfolds over time if you ask me basically it's set up to prevent spending more than clubs so that's meant to secure long term investment we've seen a lot of 1000000000 is invest into football clubs over the past decades and also

it's designed to encourage. rather dampen player wage inflation which we've seen quite a lot of as well now manchester city's owner is shake monsoor who's part of the abu dhabi ruling family and he has ploughed literally billions into this club and one thing that you mentioned there is that they falsified their sponsorship revenue now what happened last year to speak of the german magazine the so-called football leagues and among them were e-mails which for instance detail that the sponsorship deal with its he had. ways of $67000000.00 pounds per year ok actually $57000000.00 of that was being paid by shaykh money to himself or his company so there was already a little bit of it all came out in these these e-mails over leaked exactly and so but city have really been flouting these rules since the beginning in 20122013 they exceeded the permitted losses now 45000000 pounds is permitted over 2 seasons they

posted losses of 180000000 losses in that period they will find out the time and had some squad restrictions in european competitions but it was a fairly lenient settlement this is a lot what surprises you more here that manchester city was caught so i mean you said this evidence was out there in emails or that you waif actually implemented these rules and they did so in a strict way well it's actually very surprising that you acted the way they have. have i for one think that in many cases you wife i have been very hesitant if we talk about racism in football tackling that transfer bans and also financial fair play regulations they really have been quite has it's and have been. not really tended to go off to the big clubs and that's a huge problem when you want to prevent these kind of things happening and in those leaked e-mails that we've been talking about one thing that came out as well was that the city chairman khaldoon al mubarak a few years ago had proposed supposedly told johnny infantino then the general

secretary now 50 general secretary that he would rather spend so the team 1000000 on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue you if over the next 10 years than pay any fines now they paid their last fine but they said they were going to appeal this decision briefly max about that appeal any chances they'll be successful well i think what they might be successful in doing is moving this decision further along so what's happening now is they can be banned from european competition the next season and the following season clubs like chelsea boss alone and ryall have gone to the court of arbitration of sport and managed to prolong these decisions or move them into the future ok interesting stuff there in the world of football max merrill with sports thank you. well in case you hadn't noticed today is valentine's day and in thailand more than 20 couples marked the occasion by getting 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 and part of the bloom of festival in showing rise so if you fancy starting your married life on the high you should know organizers are hoping for more participants next year. you're watching the news live from berlin coming up business news with kate ferguson and don't forget all the latest news and information available around the clock on our web site that's d.w. dot com i'm calm as well thanks roger. is the world becoming less western is it me for the world if the west leave the stage to others key question at this year's munich security conference to join us for off coverage of the media shouldn't conferences 2020 today on d w. i where is usually when i arrived here i slept with 6

people in a room. it was hard.