this is the w. news live from berlin tonight the economic costs of the pandemic an unprecedented blow to u.s. g.d.p. shrinking it by almost 10 percent in the 2nd quarter the virus also ravaging europe's biggest economy germany g.d.p. dropping by a record 10 percent the biggest decline in half a century also coming up tonight donald trump floats the idea of delaying the of them 1st presidential election he claims mail in voting will result in the most flawed election in u.s. history and the perils of social media if you live in egypt and these young women

just doing what people do want to talk have been imprisoned for up to 3 years for violating family values and former u.s. president barack obama's speech at the funeral of congressman and civil rights leader john lewis he calls him a founding father of a full and fair a better america. i'm bringing off it's good to have you with us and we begin tonight with the latest victim of the coronavirus pandemic the u.s. economy it's slumped by almost 10 percent in the 1st quarter of this year and that translates into a stunning annual rate of 33 percent the quarterly contraction is the biggest since record keeping began for the u.s. in 1947. it covers the months of april to june when barge parts of the u.s.

economy were brought to a standstill by pandemic lockdowns and unemployment also a reason to worry weekly jobless claims have risen slightly suggesting that any tentative recovery will be slow. neither the stock market crash nor the oil price shock managed what this tiny virus has done the fruits of 10 years of growth were wiped out within weeks the german economy collapsed in march but the federal statistics office says the full force of the crisis is only now being reflected in the numbers. at 10 point one percent decline in the 2nd quarter it has never been anything like it everything has suffered exports imports a services investment it's only thanks to mess of intervention by the state that unemployment hasn't gone through the roof around $7000000.00 germans are currently on so-called short time would they work less and the state pays part of their wages

economic observers are divided some say the german economy is already on a recovery course others are bracing for a tsunami of bankruptcies you know these are not good numbers to talk about the numbers i'm joined tonight by olof groat is and economic strategy is at the university of california in berkeley it's good to see you again professor grow its lists let's talk about this 10 percent drop in g.d.p. what does that mean actually. always a pleasure to be with you brant thank you for having me this is needless to say the worst and fastest decline since the great depression there's a starting out to be really bad we're looking at an unemployment rate anywhere between 13 and 17 percent depending on here are you counting and the reason for why that is bad is that the united states is dropping off as a global economic engine and it was most of europe still ailing in a 2nd wave of the virus asia and especially china will have to pick up the slack

and whether they will have the capacity to do so and quickly at that is highly doubtful given that they're still struggling with their own recovery and their own 2nd waves of infections germany is the big hope in europe it has managed debts much to the united states but of course whether its economy itself can be strong enough to pull your all of europe the united states imports of asia out of the slump remains to be seen but let me ask you about germany for a moment because germany relies on exports and if the global economy is not doing well then that makes it almost impossible for the german economy to improve and i'm seeing that right. that's exactly right brant and i think the great hope here again is china and china house managed the tail end of its 1st wave of viruses a fairly well and is starting to recover but of course you know china also still has not quite out of the slum so a lots and lots of uncertainty we're also seeing other export markets such as latin

america and africa now obviously being hit by the virus so it's a fairly slim rail fairly narrow rail that the german economy is riding on given its export focus there was hope for there has been talk about a very shaped recovery but the way things are looking now i'm hearing maybe a w. shaped or maybe a huge shape i mean how do you see the recovery. yeah i think anybody who is talking about of the ship recovery has a rosy glasses in front of his eyes or her eyes this is clearly a prolonged the long gated w. war bathtub shaped recovery based on our core nomics scenarios research we're seeing scenarios where it's this is going to take 3 years at best to recover from most industries and for some economies it'll take 5 to 7 years to recover and we'll see you know spikes of recession of contraction

interspersed with with periods of recovery well 3 to 5 years that's a long time to be stuck in the bath tub economists joining us tonight as always off it's good to talk with you thank you my pleasure thank you and just moments after the u.s. released the worst g.d.p. numbers on record u.s. president donald trump who he had a 1st of his own he suggested for the 1st time delaying the 2020 alexion until he says it becomes safer to vote unhindered by coronavirus related restrictions the president took to twitter to say quote universal mail in voting would make the election the most inaccurate and fraudulent in history he then asks delay the election until people can properly securely and safely vote it we're told is currently lagging in opinion polls and it's important to note that only the u.s. congress can change the date which is set by law to take place in november i have

more now let's go to washington our correspondent all over salop good afternoon to you oliver it's not surprising that democrats do not like donald trump's idea here what about the republicans they're not too thrilled with it either are they. that's right brant even republican lawmakers opposed that idea many came out on twitter today saying that only congress can postpone the elections and that's actually a phenomenon we've been following throughout the last week that more and more republicans are turning their back on president trump just yesterday with the troop withdrawal from from germany high ranking republicans are opposing that just a few moments ago house minority leader of the republicans kevin mccarthy said that the republican party is not backing that idea and it would be simply a violation of the constitution of the united states and we know that this is not the 1st time but done with trump has claimed that mail in voting could result in massive fraud has the ever been able to substantiate that claim.

he has not i mean the only argument he's putting forward is that voting by mail is in secure but there's no hard evidence really to prove that the question of course is now why is he doing that and want to sumption is that the democrats take take the threat that is posed by the pandemic more seriously are there for more open to vote by mail and that would result there for of course in a higher turnout of the democrats which is not in president tom's favor and critics are saying that he's trying to postpone the election to a better moment when the economy might have improvement of exene could be developed hoping that the polls would be would improve then in his favor yeah i mean it is unprecedented for a sitting u.s. president to suggest this we've got a president who's making a claim without evidence he's making a claim that doesn't have political backing from his own party what does all of this tell us about trump's political standing right now. it's complicated as of now it looks rather unlikely to be honest that he would be reelected the

republicans are turning against him biden is leading by 2 digits of course it's still a little while until the election takes place and a lot can happen but the economic data is grim you've just talked about it the g.d.p. is down by 33 percent 150000 casualties reached as a result of the. virus pandemic the rate of new affection is reaching record highs so the perspective is really grim and if that doesn't change it doesn't look really good for a president trying to reelection or the correspondent oversell of the story for us in washington oliver thank you here's some of the other stories that are making headlines around the world hundreds of protesters have gathered outside israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is official residence in jerusalem to repeat their calls for him to step down and yahoo has come under fire for holding office while on trial for corruption and pushing for seemingly anti-democratic measures under the guise of combating the corona virus

a special prosecutor in switzerland has opened a criminal case against president jiang the infancy no the charges relate to secret meetings he held with the swiss attorney general. in the years 20162017 infancy no was reelected president of football's international governing body just last year. nasa has newly launched mission to search mars for ancient life is experiencing technical difficulties the agency says the spaceship named mars 2020 has entered safe mode where the vessel shuts down all nonessential systems and initial checks of the spacecraft show me that there are now new cern's for 3 reasons for concern the 1st official heat wave of the european summer has hit spain temperatures reached 42 degrees celsius on thursday the same day masks became mandatory the above average temperatures are expected to last several days on friday france and britain are also expected to sizzle.

the court in egypt has handed several young women prison sentences after they posted videos on the social media app tick-tock prosecutors allege that the woman had violated family values houston clue 2 prominent young influencers and. human rights groups see the jailings as part of a larger crackdown on online content especially posted by young women. these videos may look harmless to most to talk users but in egypt they landed these women in prison. a court ruled that 5 women had violated public morals after posting videos like this on the video sharing app tick-tock the young women are social media influencers and together have several 1000000 followers prosecutors relied on

a 2 year old law that gave the government wider powers to censor content online the legal framework is based on the cyber crime which was passed in 2018 specially to articles that are related to my only king egyptian time he bat which is an extremely broad article that is reopening and should be patient and very problematic since punitive articles in the laws should be extremely specific and this case it's very open to interpretation and open to be used in targeting women any time fellow egyptians came to their defense online calling their punishment an injustice a group dumping itself tick-tock women started a petition on change dot org calling on authorities to stop the crackdown on female tick-tock users. amnesty international has said that freedom of expression has suffered more under president of the c.c. than at any other time in the past 30 years. 3 former u.s.

presidents spoke today in atlanta georgia at the funeral of congressman and civil rights activist john lewis former us president barack obama received a standing ovation when he condemned republican attempts at preventing people from voting lewis he marched at the side of dr martin luther king jr died 2 weeks ago at the age of 84 6 6 6. if i could help somebody as i pass along the way then my living shall know the end thing. was which could not match john knew this right why and that. at his funeral. 3 former presidents pay tribute to the i can the civil rights movement $1.00 of them

obama whether it's years from now or decades or even if it takes another 2 centuries john lewis will be a founding father of that fuller fairer. that aroma. just like obama many speakers underline john lewis courage which shaped the history of the us lewis who was born in alabama in 1940 was a leader of the march on washington which helped and racial segregation in the country he was jailed many times and attacked by state troopers lewis was a champion of peaceful civil disobedience which he called good trouble. he got into a lot of good trouble along the way but let's not forget he also developed an absolutely uncanny ability. to heal troubled waters. later in life john lewis turned

from protests to politics he ran for congress in 1907 and state for 35 years until his death on july 17th representative lewis was laid to rest at the south you cemetery in that land but dr martin luther king jr is also buried. business is up next with pete ferguson. because india. how can a country's economy grow harmony its people parliament when there are doers and look at the bigger picture india a country that faces many challenges in terms of people are striving to create.