cases in the world here in europe we're seeing the 1st attempts at a return to normality germany says it will begin reopening its economy next week but in the united states the death toll from the virus hit a record high yesterday a country in a crisis that doctors and scientists say could have been avoided tonight the u.s. president pointing the finger pointing it away from himself i bring golf in berlin this is the day. today i'm instructing my administration to halt. the funding of the world health organization severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the throne of the 1st american taxpayers provide between $400500000000000.00 for years and it contributes roughly 40000000000 dollars a year and even less this is not will be the logical step for the president elect

of so to protect ourselves locally in germany or in america. when we'll be fighting the pious exploits that practice between not. also coming up one year ago the dictator in sudan was tall an end to the rule of omar al bashir has anything else changed sudan's economy is still dire and attempts to improve things or hindered by the country's continued presence on the u.s.a.'s list of state sponsors of terrorism. many young people who protested and celebrated a year ago have moved abroad in search of a job or not arise about it but i wanted to stay in my country with my family by the day with very little opportunity. this is a time when sudan especially needs us.

to our viewers on p.b.s. in the united states and all around the world welcome we begin the day with a scapegoat and the power of the purse u.s. president donald trump has accused the world health organization of doing too little too late to prepare countries for the coronavirus pandemic yesterday at the white house trump told reporters so much death has been caused by the w.h.o. those mistakes. he announced a freeze on funding for the un agency and he accused of pushing and showing these misinformation about the virus now it is important to note it was the us president not the w.h.o. who predicted china's handling of the outbreak at the same time trump downplayed the severity of the virus wasting precious time to prepare the u.s. for the pandemic trumps attempt to shift the blame comes as polls show public opinion tipping more americans now disapprove of the president's handling of the

virus. the w.h.o. failed in its basic duty to save lives those were the words of president trumps united states freeze on funding for the u.n. agency today i'm instructing my administration to halt funding of the world health organization while a review is conducted as the organization's leading sponsor the united states has a duty to insist on full accountability trump has repeatedly criticized it up you each will throughout the pandemic this time claiming it's biased towards china is responsible for the viruses rapid spread to other parts of the world. had the w.h.o. done its job to get medical experts into china to objective really assess the situation on the ground and to call out china's lack of transparency the outbreak could have been contained at its source with very little death trump says the roughly

$400000000.00 in annual donations will now be paused and decision drew a sharp rebuke from the german foreign minister. heikal ma said in a tweet blaming does not help the virus knows no borders we should work together closely against kuwait 191 of the best investment is to strengthen the un especially the underfunded w.h.o. for example in the development and distribution of tests and vaccines bill gates to call the move dangerous the us is the washed affected country in the world with more recorded cases and deaths than anywhere else. trumps handling of the pandemic has also been widely criticized and his opponents say this latest ones meant amounts to nothing more than a deflection tactic when there has been an official response from the world health organization here is the w h o's director general of the united states of america has been

a long standing and generous friend. and we hope it will continue to be so we regret the decision of the president of the united states to order to hold in funding to the world health organization when we divided the virus exploits the cracks between us we are committed to serving the world of his people and to accountability for the resources with which we're interested. well for an insider's take on this i'm joined tonight by dr jonathan quick he's a former director at the world health organization and he's the author of the book the end of epidemics the looming threat to humanity and help to stop it is also affiliated with the rockefeller foundation and with duke university dr quick joins me tonight from durham north carolina dr quickens good to have you on the day let

me just get your opinion here 1st do you believe that president trump will withhold funding indefinitely or do you think he's just bluffing. well i mean i think what's happened is like decimating the fire command center for a make a city a blaze it's going on all over the city at the height of it i mean i think it's extremely unwise and on timely i will would presume to to take to guess what what the what's behind that but i think that there is the w.h.o. response probably not been flawless and but this is not the time to debate that because they they really have led in this fight who will you know as someone who has worked with the w.h.o. do you do you see this as an attempt by the president to scapegoat the w.h.o.

. well yeah i mean it it's hard to see it. it's hard to see any logic of it because you know the world health organization's done a superb job of informing of tracking advising of mobilizing shooting and so i just don't i just don't see the logic you don't think i'd agree with those who said it's dangerous as this you know doctor quick what kind of budget the w.h.o. works with what does it mean for the w.h.o. if u.s. funding disappears as well typically and i think the numbers we heard 40 man next about 20 percent of the budget in an organization that is committed to so many different things around the world i mean it is it is i think it's both a. it's

a material cut at the ability of you organization to keep responding to this global crisis ice and and also at a time when we need public confidence will confidence you fight a pandemic with a whole of society whole of globe research states of america grants and trying to and things that hold the global community apart are unhelpful and will only prolong the challenge what about these criticisms are too quick that we have heard we've heard criticism that the w.h.o. was slow to declare the the l. break a pandemic or that the way joe has been to china centric in its work what do you say to those criticisms well i mean it's a classic and we describe it in the book the end of that the democrats damned if you do damned if you don't need it's quite predicting the weather you can get the science but there's a point at which you have to make a judgment and so we've seen this we've seen this before in in the sars outbreak

which was the 1st time and the coronavirus virus went global was in 2003 the director general then called a once they saw the evidence they called a global emergency and that that who virus was put back in the box in 6 months but in 2009 when we had the h one n one. is perceived to have pulled the alarm to suit and and then was was really slower with ebola so the challenge is when you're fighting a virus for which there's. though vaccine and omega sit your most important tool is public cooperation so if you pull the alarm too early too often they don't trust in a sense of the make if you pull it too late your trouble my observation is that the

way w.h.o. made the decisions was just right you had a scientific body that looked at the evidence at one point and said we don't see enough scientific evidence yet to say that this is a will a public health emergency. a week later we got word of friends and remember this is a virus that we've only known for 3 months so but a week later when the evidence was there they called the emergency and again very thoughtful about when to declare it a pandemic darn quick in your book the in the end of so there was there was you know let me just ask you right in your book there will always be new outbreaks but it is within the power of modern public health leaders to keep such outbreaks from exploding into catastrophic epidemics that kill thousands or millions when you say modern public health leaders are you referring to the w.h.o. and the u.s. president. yes all leaders and i think we now

have a a global scorecard for that ranks $195.00 countries on their preparedness only one out of 5 is prepared and even those the better that are most prepared we've seen in this outbreak actually hadn't didn't have the the leadership and the funding in order to respond quickly and tight let me just say part of that leadership is funding the public health budget so as an example and it's this it's a cycle of panic and neglect so in the u.s. what happened was after $911.00 there was panic about health threats a huge fund was set up for public health emergencies over the next few years that went down then there was bird flu in the mid 2000 so it went up then there was a financial crash it went down and over a 6 year period we lost $45000.00 public

risk because we were underfunding the budget that was needed for public health and this isn't just the us this is this is every country and let me say that after the financial crisis. the the members of the world health organization we need to remember the world health organization is 190. 6 it's their organization it is only as effective as those members will let it be and it was the members who passed the budget that defunded some of those public health capacity going into a bola so the doctor gets leadership at all levels there who unfortunately we're out of time but we certainly appreciate your time tonight and your valuable insights an insider's look at what is going on with the w.h.o. at the moment dr jonathan quick joining us tonight from durham north carolina dr thank you thank you greg.

well the united states is now the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic earlier this month as public health officials began analyzing the numbers they discovered a disturbing trend african-americans are being disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus in some states and cities where they are a minority black americans make up the majority of deaths from the virus. correspondent stephanie mones reports on how a pandemic is revealing the inequalities of a society. this is. to follow doctors and nurses to one of 2 intensive care units at howard university hospital. this medical center in washington d.c. has been serving the african-american community in the city 150 years.

on the. other. here in washington and elsewhere across the country high quality primary and preemptive care can often be absent an affordable in poor neighborhoods and communities the lack of access to healthy food sources is another factor that accounts for the stark difference in numbers of covert 19 related deaths in predominantly african-american communities this is the when the us she spent years researching the root causes and impact of what she says are systemic inequities on predominantly african-american and minority. she's not surprised that black americans are impacted by covert 19 and a disproportionately high rate. 3. you had hired to higher

proportion of individuals with hypertension diabetes with obesity these things that are the leading causes of death in the country and the chronic disease the leading chronic diseases in this country it's not surprising that individuals that are already have that higher proportion of those immunocompromised diseases would then be at the higher end of the. i'm across the aisle one of the most economically and socially deprived areas in the district of columbia table a nonprofit organization that serves underprivileged communities is based here providing healthy food and offers education healthy food choices among other things for many residents of. disparately hard by the coronavirus the work carried out day game day out by volunteers is critical this is a there's only 2 grocery stores in this neighborhood and there's a lot of people that don't have the resources to either get there or stop there so we came here because we knew that this is where the food resources were needed as

well as the education and giving families healthy food choices they normally can't afford is perhaps just a band-aid right now but many hope that america's coronavirus crisis could finally trigger real policy change that aims at making underprivileged communities healthier more affluent and with that more resilience to a public health crisis in the future. germany is about to take the 1st step to reopening its beginning next monday stores and shops will be back in business schools will be back in session on the 4th of may the decision was reached today during consultations between german chancellor angela merkel and leaders of germany's 16 states merkel described the country's success against the pandemic as being very fragile with little room for maneuver or mistake. it's been 3 weeks since chancellor angela merkel announced the initial

restrictions on contact now that being largely extended social distancing rules will remain in place until may 3rd groups will remain limited to 2 people and at least 1.5 metres must be kept from of us. from may 4th schools will gradually re-open 1st for school leavers in primary and secondary education day care will remain shut religious gatherings will also remain banned while major events including germany's beloved football will be called off until august 31st meanwhile restaurants cafes theatres cinemas and music venues will keep their shutters down only shops up to $800.00 metres square can reopen from monday face masks are also being recommended in shops and on transport. announced in the amended restrictions chancellor angela merkel warned against complacency but the. what we've achieved is

an interim success no more no less and i emphasise it is a fragile interim success this is now determined our deliberations should be no rushing forward even if it's with the best intentions we have to understand that as long as there's no vaccine we have to live with the virus. that's kind of nimby become in the. controls along germany's land borders with its neighbors in the schengen free travel zone will also remain in place for another 20 days. finale germany will continue keeping its distance the cub may be flattening but the government it seems is taking things slow. artless pulling our political correspondent simon younger he's on the story for us tonight here in berlin going to need to use simon we reported in the last week that pressure has been mounting on the german government to ease restrictions today's announcement was no surprise was the answer to that pressure well indeed i think the government felt that they

had to do something people are desperate off the weeks in lockdown to see some easing of these restrictions where possible and as the chancellor said today you know the numbers have begun to look good the trend of a new infections is down and that means that there is a little bit of room to maneuver as it was over though 'd the chancellor wanted to sound that note of caution but the government has said well you know now we've got an opportunity we can start to open some shops and businesses next week and some some schools can begin to reopen in may so you know the 1st green shoots of the road back to some kind of normality i think a lot of people wanted that and the government wants to send that message that the measures that have that have been carried out so far have worked you know yes i

mean we heard a lot about that about germany's success in fighting the virus how is that going to achieve what has worked so well. yeah there are lots of different answers to this if you ask the experts but one thing has been pointed out the average age of those infected in jamey does seem to be quite a bit lower at least in the 1st wave that was the case so that the medical authorities were 1st confronted with lots of young healthy people as it were then coming down with this disease that helped them to get a grip on it i also think that there's been a huge amount of testing has any comparison with some other countries there's also plenty of intensive care bed space available in gemini's hospital system which is pretty well funded you've also got a population that's willing to follow those government guidelines and the requests from the government so it's a mixture of factors some people have also suggested that germany counts the date from coded 19 in the slightly different way from some other countries if it had

a standard accounting procedure maybe those statistics would look a little bit different gemini's death toll might be a little bit higher but i still think they've done well compared with some of the european countries countries across europe so i mean they're deciding their next moves based on how the virus has impacted them but is there any coordination among them at all i mean are they talking to each other is there an e.u. strategy here. well certainly there is there's a lot of talking to each other and of course the european councils have been going on by video conference even cheering this time of lockdown the european commission has been asking the countries to kind of coordinate somehow but of course national measures have been taken we've seen more than hoffa i think the e.u. member states now announced some form of easing of restrictions so this is part of

a trend across europe and 8 countries doing it a slightly different pace of course the situation in a silly spain and also france is much more serious that in these in germany at the moment our political correspondent tom young of the story for us tonight here in berlin simon thank you. the people of sudan in northeastern africa are marking the one year anniversary of the overthrow a dictator omar al bashir hopes were high that the nation would be able to overcome 30 years of corruption and economic decline but those hopes remain just that as well as economic stagnation sudan is dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and swarms of locusts eating the crops he. covered those historic moments for us tonight she catches up with a friend that she made there during those heady days one year ago.

it was a moment of relief and euphoria. 1129000. protesters in sudan's capital celebrate the removal of dictator i'm going to share. the months they dress their lives on the streets had not been in vain it was there and then that i met mohamed who made a photographer in the middle of the revolution. this is what i put my pictures of for the coming generations the experience of the people in my photos should not be forgotten that. was a time of violence authorities often attacked the protesters you know the government has to bring justice to the people that we are alive because of them everything that has happened is because they sacrificed their lives for those now considered murders by many are not forgotten but their families have not yet seen prosecutions. i asked prime minister hun duc

about this issue back in february. that was the constitutional committee which she's guiding this tons of beauty. it's a very clear. on the taking that it was time to show the. to get in committee so let us not jump to conclusions and come duck heads a new government that was sworn in in august. after a transitional deal was struck between civilians and the military. here is in prison for corruption while his former ruling party has been dissolved. sudanese officials have suggested they might even turn him over to the international criminal court for trial over alleged war crimes committed in darfur yet sudan's economy is still dire and attempts to improve things are hindered by the country's continued presence on the usas list of state sponsors of terrorism.

many young people who protested and celebrated a year ago have moved abroad in search of a job mohammad now lives and works in the united arab emirates. and the rise of art but i wanted to stay in my country with my family they were very little opportunity but this is a time when sudan especially in needs us. she might not be able to be at home to mark the anniversary but like millions of sudanese the heady days of hope in april 21000 will be etched in their memory for a lifetime that. is almost on the conversation continues online you'll find us on twitter you can follow me at brit gov t.v. and remember whatever happens between now and tomorrow is another day we'll see you then everybody.

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

a. ringback like. oh. my god says love our food for the russians so. steamed up. to so many different walks of life. some are pumpin and oddly tried but all

of them come straight from the heart of the high sierra even when there's no more delusional marsh book interactions how much. of the long road to their final resting place the russians on g.w. documentary. 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.