he was intended to be silenced and together with the entire german government i condemn this in the strongest possible terms alternative that's all there guns in women's figure there are no very serious questions that only the russian government can and must answer would you want to salute you don't bond fortan khan. but i'm told. in march 28th in a poisoning in the u.k. city of solsbury shocks the world russian double agents surrogate scree pile and his daughter yulia were found unconscious on a park bench they have been poisoned with a military grade not for chuck nerve agent a u.k. investigation blamed russia for the attack moscow denied any involvement and while the st paul survived others weren't so lucky one woman who came into contact with residues of the nerve agent later died and before then another russian defector had been poisoned in the u.k.

all members will note is the death squads all believe in yankee in 2006 the former russian agent alexander litvinenko fled to london in 2000 he became ill and died in 2006 after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium 210 a british inquiry found that his killing had been ordered at the highest level. have further concluded. that the. operation to do this to. was approved by mr butt. the head of the f.s.b. . and also by president putin another case is viktor yuschenko in 2004 he was a ukrainian opposition leader running against moscow's preferred candidate he fell ill after having dinner with ukrainian security officials doctors say he was

poisoned with the chemical dioxin he survived going on to become president of ukraine. and activist piaffe to vesa love who has ties to russian protest group pussy riot managed to survive what he says was a poisoning attempt in 2018 his theories backed by doctors who treated him in berlin person off says he was targeted because of his activism but it's more a. kind of like a warning gesture so as to indicate to other people who might want to go down that path to do it's the kremlin has consistently denied involvement in all these cases and while it can be almost impossible to prove who's guilty 1st love and others are sure who is to blame. it's got a closer look at this with the double correspondents kate brady and euro shatter in

moscow welcome both let's start with you kate strong words from the german chancellor what proof do the germans have. well these prove came as a result of a special toxicology test that was carried out by the department of the german military by the german bundeswehr and this department actually focuses on chemical weapons in the protection of civilians and the military against chemical weapons and it was this test result german chancellor angela merkel said that was proof that alexina was indeed a victim of a crime she said that the aim was indeed for him to be silenced so if you are in moscow the chances demanding answers from the kremlin one of a say. well russian authorities have so far been reluctant to comment on this issue to mr bischoff spokesperson of the russian president vladimir putin for example saturday that the kremlin would currently be on able to give

a proper response to their leaders statement but that is in a way also a state a state and i think mr bischoff sat that the kremlin they didn't receive such information from from the german government which was quite doubtful after uncle americal had spoken about this issue whether the russian foreign ministry sat beilin statements on the van there are not based on any evidence the reactions from the russian parliament criticizing the german government were expected we have reaction from alexei kondratiev a member of the federation council committee on the national or international affairs cold he called it a provocation dictated by political motives in his opinion it could be organized by the united states to stop the gas project the north stream to between russia and germany then we have learned slutsky chairman of these states do not international affairs committee he asked to provide concrete and tangible evidence of the

poison ink with it with the substance similar to the chalk and other member of the federation council blame to germany for the lack of cooperation he said germany will deal only with accusations while russian authorities will be ready to cooperate so brave lots of people shouting at each other is this just what we expect or is it actually damaging german russian relations. but it certainly isn't helpful to german russian relations but i think it's interesting that. highlighted in her statement to the press this evening that novell knee is indeed being treated here in berlin on humanitarian grounds but that said the situation right now is increasingly becoming political so it will be interesting to see what she responds germany and its e.u. partners and also nato member member partners decide to take in the coming days but

that said none of the germany nor its partners a rating in a strong position right now to really risk out right confrontation with moscow while the e.u. and nato have had to deal with other suspected kremlin poisoning cases kate so did do these give us a clue about likely steps. well one potential 1st port of call could indeed be sanctions but targeted sanctions against specific people in russia could also be against businesses against vessels but of course i think what we can take away from the statement that came from the german foreign minister and also from german chancellor angela merkel is that germany won't be making any decisions on its own it's looking for a joint and approved create response. to german foreign minister said in response to also have a moscow says and that's the response that will be waiting for but of course that's very hazy right now as your ear was explaining just

a moment ago so let's talk about the. election the valise supporters in russia how are they reacting to this. well here we have the reaction from a mission of the spokeswoman awful accent of only. all the members of and of on this team they all had been insisting from the beginning that tallackson of ali was poisoned and linked to the incident to east political activities and the values supporters have consequently demanded that that he should be medically treated have rolled in germany investigated the true reason of the incident and to guarantee he's safety. kerry to let's not forget then at the center of all of this as a man in intensive care in hospital what do we know about his condition. well the sharon tate hospital where he is being treated at the moment released a statement an update on his health just this afternoon saying that he does remain

in a very serious condition but he is in a stable condition he is still in an induced coma and he's also on a support system to help with his breathing as well and of course one of the biggest concerns for his long term recovery as well is what the long term effects of this know of agent poison might be on his health in the future kate's a brave 8 thank you and really your ear shatter in moscow thank you as well. so on users were broken in the last hour or so germany's chancellor angela merkel calling for answers from moscow over the poisoning of russian opposition leader alexey vali the chance to describe the attack as attempted murder and tests have indeed found that mr valma was poisoned with the coming of age and not the shock so let's talk to yes and here is a member of the german the parliament with business from the free democratic party

she currently chairs the buddhist house committee on human rights and humanitarian aid welcome to the w. let's start with your reaction to this news. well i was pretty sure that and we discussed that on other sessions also here on d w that the russian regime it might be because of the modus operandi might be involved in this poisoning now we have the truth or now we have certainty that only the russian regime only putin himself can answer square can answer questions as chancellor merkel also said in her statement only the russian regime can shed some light on what happened on the attempted murder on their looks a nominee and the cherie taste team here in berlin is doing everything to save his life so watch should the german government do. well 1st of

all i think it's a good sign that chancellor merkel and also searching for some back up in nato and we heard that these meetings will take place in the upcoming hours and days that's a good sign but i think it would also be a good sign to talk about sanctions and targeted sanctions we heard that beforehand that if we have a direct linkage of individuals that can be linked to human rights violations for example or these poisoning with this know the chalk agent we should also talk about sanctions of putin. regime people in these high ranking offices because. we know this modest operandi already and it is important to not let russia out of out of sight at this moment and i think it's an important move also from the general from the parliamentary assemble assembly of the council

of europe to call for an emergency meeting to discuss further steps isn't russia already under sanctions from the from the e.u. there are certain sanctions but not targeted individual ones such as asset freezes travel bans and as a prominent promoter of these mega miscue laws bill browder has said these sanctions could help well shed some light on certain investigations that should or that would not take place of russia sees well the international community doesn't care enough about what has been happening and i think these sanctions could be an appropriate measure to answer also for germany as individual countries and you would see. the president's approach in amongst those those targeted. well

that needs to be discussed but i'm very certain that within the ranks of the putin regime there are certain officials and people who can be linked to to these operations and are linked to the poisoning of aleksei not army and as long as we do not know who else is included in this list we need to call for further investigations i'm not sure how or if president putin could be one of these sanctioned people but a 1st step would be bringing into attention these sanctions that could be imposed it's clear thank you for joining us a good young son a member of the german the parliament with the free democratic party thank you. this is de w.'s a quick reminder of our top story at this hour the german government says it has unequivocal of proof that kremlin critic alexina found was poisoned with

a nerve agent novacek chancellor angela merkel is calling the poisoning unprotected murder under the tent to silence 1st of the fact that she's demanding that the kremlin i'm sorry the question. that's which are up to date more world news at the top off the power of the. combating the corona pandemic. where does research stand. what are scientists learning. background information and news. hour carona update. on the covert 19 special next on d w d 2 you know that 77 percent. are younger than 65. that's me and me and you. and you know what time all voices are.

on the 77 percent the talk about the issue. this is where you cut. the 77 percent this weekend on d w. city life is losing its appeal. to millions of people in asia africa and world centers like new york and tokyo have been escaping the crowds for the countryside. more space fresh air. many others have lost jobs. moved back home to their rural families. mass migration has seen real estate prices in outlying suburbs and community the great escape. welcome to the show we're

experiencing an historic reversal in the global surge of people getting small towns in the country for the allure of the big city the pen is changing so much. needs water she can no longer open. a few weeks ago she lost her office in the city and moved back to her village. to collect water from neighbors. this was i'm hoping to get my own training so that i can connect my word to straight because everything in the city do it inside the house so there's not a good house like. except going maybe jogging oakum to wake. her daughter's remains in the village while their mother spent 80 years in the city working to support them trips home where it wasn't making sense and were because i had to pay

rent home. at the same time i took some money to my kids home and also with the percent of us looking after my kids so it wasn't balancing at all so i thought i might as well just come back home and be with my kids and do something here. for me and my family now the 38 year old is turning a pastime into a profession and her small house she takes spreads and this fits. she receives up to 7 orders a week and has already made enough to invest in an oven her daughter's cell powered they are happy to have their mom back. where did you miss most of your immunity and the most places. when you're home different. and after living in the city it seemed to offer advice many of us is on the boat being merry having kids didn't get as many young men.

independent but getting to see women. in their lives it encourages me it helped me go on how we moved and it helped me even. cultivating fruit for export is just one of the business opportunities she could explore here in the village. since she has full of ideas and optimism for her new life in her home village but also here in the rural areas people are feeling the. the coronavirus crisis and the economic consequences of the lock down. since the determined to persevere in her backyard she's already working on her next project. i wanted to. create the small place this small place is like oh well i'll be sending. people out and make us so that people do not have to go to town to get pizza so they can only get it locally with the political

money that i'm getting from baking is one thing that i'm trying to save so that i can be able to do that. somebody is happy to let her daughter's move to the city to continue their education but she's certain her own future lies here in the countryside. sam brannan leads the risk and foresight group at the center for strategic and international studies have cities there are a little or is this just temporary. in my view it's temporary and the reason is because of course there are a lot of reasons you would not want to be in a city right now the disease is more transmissible among densely populated populations and it is more transposable indoors both of which defined cities and of course through public transit we see higher rates of transmission as well some forms of public transport in any case but i think the long term the growth of

cities is just unstoppable or in a cot to me in the labor market now where people need to be clustered for innovation economy for flexibility between jobs for technology bases and so everything is moving in that direction and as soon as we have a vaccine hopefully next year i think really humanity will be in a hurry to sort of get back to where things were before this began on the other hand i do think the idea of working remotely the nature of work itself perhaps the reduction of commercial real estate these are factors that we're moving before hand and have been excel aerated by that and i've been reading a lot of people feel safe in the country or safer the place they grew up. i've also been reading that a lot of broke remote communities and and country towns at all all it takes is one infected person to enter and the disease can spread like wildfire i mean this is

whole concept of safety have you defined that. yeah so i think the disease obviously moved faster between cities initially they were connected by air corridors there were more people and before we really knew how to take the necessary measures against the virus or we didn't do so effectively you saw a lot of transmission and city so they were the 1st place the pandemic hit but for instance the united states we now see much higher rates of transmission in rural areas. and we're beginning to see in rural areas around the world pretty fragile health systems that are rapidly overwhelmed when the virus shows up there so it's a bit of a false sense of security really people are not safe anywhere right now from the virus if they're not taking the sort of distancing and mask wearing and other other measures. and so in many ways you're probably better off in

a city right now if you're following those precautions but obviously people are returning home also for economic reasons they may have lost their jobs they may not be pay rent so it's really it's a it's a difficult time it's an insecure time no matter where you are and of course the pandemic is an ovum but but what about the next one because we're told next one will hit at some stage will cities be better prepared. you would hope so this should be a wake up call i mean in many ways the 2 cities that were hardest hit by this were was on china new york city and new york and neither really appeared to be prepared for what happened in cities around the world likewise you know it's a very uneven response seattle in the united states on the other hand where there's been a lot of thinking about disease preparedness seem to be much better equipped there was a lot more remote work early part of it for cities is going to be to decide you know can you sort of shut things down rapidly particularly air air transport appears to

have played a really big role in the initial spurred here and so having a plan for that next pandemic keeping an epidemic from becoming a pandemic is critical here and really the biggest lesson learned i think was that everything moved too slow and there was a sense that something that was overseas couldn't just so rapidly as a plane flight arrive in your own city so there's still a lot of work to be done by cities and so much disbelief a lot of people believing it wouldn't hit them or affect them well what about the world's megacities in developing countries. yeah so i think that's a particular challenge because when we say cities it's a big war but there's a lot of difference between cities that are rich cities and poor cities increasingly there are these hyper dense cities that are developing and in africa and in south asia. and in parts of china as well and

you know this is going to put really big strains on the cities were already people are eating out life on the margins and you know i think what we don't see a lot when we talk about migration is that a lot of migration inside of developing countries happens from the countryside to these big cities in within countries before people leave the country so there's a lot of development work to be done as well and trying to figure out how to make those cities safer and safer from pandemics climate change a lot of things that we're going to be experiencing a greater rates over the next decade and beyond sam brown and thank you very much for being on the show today thank you. and you'll turn to ask the questions is out science correspondent derek williams. my wife has cancer and different on college just sort of told her different things about her risk levels if she catches kovac 19 so is she more at risk from the disease.

i'm not a physician so i can't answer this question directly for a specific patient but but what i can do is try to bring you up to speed on what researchers have been finding out about the connections between cancer and covert 19 for many months now trustworthy sources like the world health organization and national health authorities have listed cancer as a co-morbidity with clear time is 2 more severe covert 19 outcomes but as a new study involving over a 1000 patients in britain points out cancer is of course not really a single disease but actually a wide range of them which is why the researchers said that blanket statements like cancer is a risk factor are really reasonable or informative so what they did was

split up cancer patients who taught code at night by of their particular cancer subtypes to see if some of those patients were hit harder by the disease than others and and they found something interesting sars cove to susceptibility they say was worse in people who had cancers that affects the blood or lymph system like leukemia or lymphoma which backs up earlier smaller scale chinese and european studies that came to similar conclusions so the evidence seems to be growing that while cancers in general puts you at more risk when. compared to the general population some types like these the logical cancers likely put you at more risk than others. and before we go let's see if i can do you up with this last story the new york state fairs annual butter

sculpture of a life size exhibit called nourishing al future is made entirely out of bada one panel shows parents having their kids food the other side shows kids home schooled with it teaches face on a laptop. of a stuff. i'm hungry i bet physical and see against a. noob

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who can. this is africa coming up on the program they once fought and killed for boko haram now former jihadist militants are being offered a way back into civilian life but the scheme success in the wrist as some nigerians opposed the plans to let perpetrators go free. and corruption amid the corona crisis south africa's general described.