this is day to day news live from berlin, and the transition to a biden administration fully begins in the u.s. . the federal government agrees to begin the handover process with biden's tame after weeks of stalling by the trump white house over allegations of closure for also on the program, china's on manned spacecraft rockets to the moon with a mission to bring back lunar samples, we ask an expert on international space relations, what china's ambitious launch means for the global space friends.

i'm rebecca ritter's welcome to the program. 3 weeks after the u.s. election president elect joe biden has finally been given the green light to start the transition process. president donald trump tweeted on tuesday that he was directing his administration to cooperate in the handover process. it's the closest his come to conceding defeat. meanwhile, biden has pushed ahead and began announcing nominations for his own administration . president elect joe biden efficiently revealed his picks for the top positions of his cabinet, monday, signaling his readiness to take over the helm, biden's foreign policy and national security choices. mark a clear shift away from trump's america 1st doctrine. instead, a lot of familiar faces from the obama administration so many that some are calling

it the obama administration 2.0. the choice is signaled biden's intention to return to a more traditional way of doing business and interacting with other countries' biden's choices or veterans with many years of experience like his longtime adviser, antony blinken, named for the position of secretary of state. he will be tasked with steering the country back towards the paris climate agreement, the world health organization, and they run a nuclear deal. the best known of the nominees is former secretary of state john kerry, who is poised to become biden's climate change. and boy. from our federal reserve chair, janet yellen says to serve as treasury secretary, if confirmed she would be the 1st woman to take over this pivotal role and would face the difficult task of shaping u.s.

economic policies. at a time when the country is facing both a pandemic and recession biden also named avril haynes as the 1st woman to become director of national intelligence. a question is whether this was a wise action and a $100.00 majorca, as the 1st latino to have the department of homeland security. biden appears to be making good on his campaign promise that his cabinet will reflect america's diversity. linda thomas greenfield was appointed to the helm of the u.s. mission to the united nations. but many of biden's cabinet picks will require confirmation in the senate where republicans still hold a narrow majority. for now, at least with the transition process officially underway, some of the uncertainty and turbulence of the past weeks seems to be settling down . all right, joining me now to delve a little deeper. is peter paul of down. hi peter. thanks for coming in and sent

this part of the process is normally just a formality really, but it's been 3 weeks since the election as we've just heard. yeah, i mean, absolutely normal circumstances. this would not be a big deal, but, you know, usually we see the official transition kick in after just a couple days. we're now as you said into day 16 after biden was declared the winner. so in this case, this absolutely is a big deal. it means that the buy team now has access to the same intelligence that trump has. it means that they have access to government data to the federal agencies and make and money and money. they have whatever it is willing to do it, which is really, really important. that it really essentially means that, you know, the biting team is going to hit the ground running when they entered. we were looking at to at least huge crises, the pandemic, but also an economic crisis. and so it is absolutely crucial that the bite in government can't govern on day one,

and that's essentially what's been blocked and now they can finally start the process. this is certainly not a concession from president trump has vowed to continue to find what avenues does he have left? no, exactly think this might be the closest, will actually see trump getting to making an actual concession. i mean, this is more like a time maybe after the 16 days of a standoff. i think trump is essentially balin, to the growing pressure that we've seen over the past couple days and weeks from his own party. just on monday we saw more than 100 leading republican security experts coming out say that he has to concede this transition needs to start happening because essentially this is posing a national security threat, not just in terms of endemic but also because adversaries out there are looking and looking at a very dysfunctional government at the, there's a kind of a vacuum of power in a way. and so, you know, trump has said that he will continue the legal challenges. we see that he's still

the winner of that state. so, you know, trump won't, maybe continue to do this, but the chances that anything is going to change very, very like more and i want to turn to the president elect. joe biden has started an ounce. think a cabinet picks the 1st latino as head of homeland security as we saw in the pace 1st woman as director of national intelligence. quite a very slight. absolutely. i think in a lot of ways this is the anti trump government. i mean, this is an attempt, i think, to calm a lot of nerves both you know, were broad and at home. it's, i think also the closes that we're going to get to, you know, a technocratic government in the us. i mean, as we heard in that report, there we are talking about people who have served in the obama administration and served in previous as before that who have decades of experience under their belt. you know, notably also there are no really big name picks a lot of speculation about other presidential candidates like elizabeth warren,

for instance, who was very interested in getting treasury secretary sobeit. and also they're really trying to show themselves as a centrist, as someone who will govern from the center and who will need both sides to come together and also reflect in that reality that biden is facing when he takes office on january 20th, that he will not have a majority in the senate, or if so, a very, very slim what he has lost ground in the house, so he won't need both sides to come together in order to be able to govern. all right, pedo hala doll, thanks very much for coming in. thank you. well now, turning to some of the other stories making headlines this hour, shares in tokyo open shoppy high on news of the u.s. presidential transition, going ahead and early trading. the nikkei rose to levels not same in almost 3 decades, like other international markets. tokyo was also boy by new vaccine news. police

in paris have allegedly used tear gas to dismantle a makeshift migrant camp. the can't have been erected to house hundreds of people, left homeless after another camp was cleared last week. france's interior minister has said images of the incident are shocking, and called for details before israel is largest, airline qantas has suggested it could make a coronavirus vaccination. a requirement for international air travelers. its c.e.o. says quantas would implement the measure as soon as a vaccine was made available and that he thought the rule could become common practice among an alliance. the chinese rocket is on its way to the moon with a mission to bring back rock samples to earth. it's the 1st attempt by any nation to retrieve lunar samples. since the 19th seventy's, china has poured billions into its space program and the probes mission is a chance to show global competitors just how advanced it's become.

by the way, this is a milestone for china, a spacecraft. that symbolizes the country's technological progress, and its military might. the unmanned rocket blasted off early on tuesday morning, local time from high in an island in the south destination. the moon going to the aerospace control center reports that the long march 5 rocket lifted off normally. and the channel 5 spacecraft has entered orbit as planned. i can now announce that the launch mission of long much fight has been completed successfully for everyone for the government imo. the chang of 5 rocket is made up of several components. one is the land which will dig for rocks and soil. these materials will then be transferred into the return capsule for the journey back to

protocol to haul out the current lunar program consists of 3 phases, overseeing landing and returning the chuang. a 5 will carry out the 3rd phase, bringing moon samples back to earth that we hope this will be a success. was a good your mother. if successful, it would be the 1st time in 4 decades. that material has been brought back from the moon. china's space ambitions are no secret and have been growing for years. in 2003, it secured a major breakthrough when it became the 3rd country in the world to send a human into space. the 10 years later, china hit another milestone successfully landing an unpiloted spacecraft on the moon. it was the 1st soft landing since the soviet union success in 1976. more chinese cheers in january $2900.00 in a global 1st,

a lunar pro. touching down on the far side of the moon, boosting china's space and bush and must is also in that sights. this year, beijing launched an unmanned probe to the planet. in july, it put the final satellite into orbit for its chinese navigation system. the country's rival to u.s. owned g.p.s. . but this lunar mission to bring back material from the moon is one of china's most ambitious to date. and one that beijing is determined will be another success . joining me now is pleasant bowen. he's an expert for space warfare space policy and international relations in out of space at the university of leicester talked about. and thanks for joining de wu, what's the scientific importance of this mission? rocks have been brought back from the moon before. good morning. the signs of

importance is that we can always do with more materials to analyze. they're going to be from yes, more different areas as well. so as far as my limited understanding of the sides goes, those are sort of the major items because the about material for fucking possibly very rare because it's took. so any more material, it's always a good thing for more scientific tests to do just all right, so china has ambitious plans for space, including the building of its own space station. is it pure science that is driving these plants? so when we talk about china's space program, it's important to think of it the exploration where the robotic recruit is made when program and many, many space programs in china. so i would separate the scientific and civil exploration space program from the economic, commercial military and intelligence space programs as well. so at the moment,

china has launched or has registered with in the states around $350.00 plus satellites. and they provide all sorts of essential services down on earth for military and economic and infrastructural purposes. the space science and exploration. that's very much about stimulating high tech industry. also as packing for techno nationalist purposes as well, which is not unique to china and sort of the propaganda and prestige rationales behind of demonstrating china's high tech space capability. so any last space program has a lot of motivations behind it, but it is important i think, to separate the space station, which is silly benign compared to the more military elements of china's other parts of its space program. ok, why are china's space trans creating sort of a competition with other programs such as the american and european i would downplay sort of an intentional competition because china's becoming

a comprehensive space power. it's doing so on the back of its wives and modernization of its economy. a military on infrastructure and space is part of modern economic and military development. so it's sort of, it's entirely global behavior and really that china is investing in these massive spread to space, get delegates nationally about those rates of concerns based in many ways. china is catching up to where the united states is the lead over 3040 years ago in service office space infrastructure. and i would, i would not sort of these china's actions based on what are the people are doing in space as well. so china is developing its basis of all kinds according to its own timetables, and it's not a rushing about to tell you that it's taking its time to do it right. ok and let them go and expert for space warfare from the university of leicester. thanks very much. thank you. you're watching news live from berlin and stay changed around documentary series doc film. with

a look at morocco's warrior women. more news at the top of the hour with gallant alpha's in the meantime, there's always our web site day w dot com. and we're going to follow us on social media as well. i'm rebecca races. thanks and it's good to parliament. no, bob, you are just despite coming from a poor family, the pop star wants to become president. challenges and god doesn't go to the store starts december turns to double.