we are presenting our national program soon so the fact that we have now been able to commit ourselves just a day before the u.n. climate summit to a joint european reduction targets at 55 percent by 2030 i consider that a very important result one worth losing a night's sleep over and i don't even want to think about what would have happened if we hadn't been able to achieve such a result in this in these 10000 can. so how much of a breakthrough is there is a question for you correspondent martin so of course you know what what else can you tell us about this climate agreement look at 5 years ago at the climate climate paris conference when the e.u. pledged that they would cut their emissions entirely become carbon neutral i remember covering that and how that was big news well look today is the day when the e.u. makes good on that promise when they realize those ambitions from back then that is

the crew that's the fusion today's the day when there's really no direct consequences to be expected and that is why the french president today here said there is no plan b. we now have to see this through and it will be interesting where which things will change 1st but now really this crucial 1st step has been made but how did the u. member states manage to convince some of the more resistant and more coal reliant countries to agree to this deal. one number of things come to mind i think the real game changer here was of course that leaders are early on the summit yesterday agreed the coronavirus relief fund of billions of euros coming member states way and particularly how one half of that fund or rather 30 percent of that package some 550000000000 euros will be used for a green transition and so basically in a way you could say the european member states aborts this compromise from

countries like poland because they will see a lot of money coming into their industry to help them make make that transition happen and then secondly and quite crucially for countries like france or or the czech republic there is a little bit of a new poll when you drop the the fossil fuels you can still use gas and you can still use nuclear energy to do that and for the 4 countries that are strong in nuclear energy of course that is rather helpful. our correspondents from brussels there thank you. and for more background on this story i'm joined by max delivered director of the climate program of the world major logical organization the w m o what is your reaction to this climate deal reached by the you today won't make a difference at all well. all of these.

sort of measures or crucial and necessary. they're not going to have an immediate impact because the climate that we have now is a product of the levels of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that we had 20 or 30 years ago so there's not going to be an immediate response but nonetheless this is exactly the kind of thing that's needed in order to try to bend the curve on the temperature but is it realistic though is quite ambitious if you look at it . as you know 2 emissions by more than hoff in just 5 years how realistic is that well there have been some studies recently really driven by the. pandemic that really show that even a fraction of the stimulus packages that are already being planned to deal with the

cope and situation would be enough to put the world on a very good track with respect to achieving the targets of the paris agreement so we're conducting a big experiment here with the fate of the planet at stake but you know there are reasons to think these measures are going to work and if they're implemented quickly enough they would certainly make a big difference you wish the paris it remained there that's 5 he is old all these targets agreed upon that still realistic. well the global temperature this year as of october which is the ringback when we released our state of the climate report for 2020 already showed that the global temperature is about $1.00 degrees above pre-industrial levels and the paris agreement is calling to try to limit the temperature between one and a half and 2 degrees above very industrial levels so 1.2 is pretty close to 1.5

and another outlook that we issued for between now and 2024 shows that there's a one in 20 chance that the temperature might even briefly during that period go above 1.5 degrees and about one in 5 chance so we're getting there on fortunately but. if nothing is done it's going to go right through those targets and beyond and the entire it gets the worse it gets you talked about getting that they had the united states are now expected to return to the prize agreement with the new president does this give you fresh hope well you know i think like i said in response to the situation in the european union it's also china is making announcements out we seem to be turning a corner and this regardless of your political beliefs and persuasions this is

something that matters to everybody and it's something that intentionally can create some political unity to try to find solutions to approach a global problem that everyone has a stake in thank you very much max dinny the director of the w.m.o. climate program pleasure. now she was living the dream of many a young woman in the high profile job as a t.v. anchor she knew it was dangerous dangerous choice in her country afghanistan own mother and outspoken advocate for women's rights have been gunned down 5 years ago but. braved the threats and going to work and on thursday she too was shot dead but those who took her life could not erase the admiration of the nation. alum who are prayers for a heroine hundreds came out to pay their respects to journalist mona la my wand and her driver assassinated on their way to work.

had a most fair out for many young women in afghanistan my one was larger than life a t.v. anchor in a country where 2 thirds of girls are barred from attending school. my one was also an advocate for women's rights and continued to speak out even after her own mother was killed for doing the same. then early thursday morning in this street she and her driver were ambushed by gunmen the attack was claimed by the militant group islamic state. really. my one was a brave female journalist and anchor she was working for any local t.v. . but unfortunately today she was murdered by the enemies of the not only her family but all the women of mongerer our province are sad for. the. islamic state has claimed responsibility for

a string of recent attacks on civilians in afghanistan. as the u.s. draws down troops there and conservative militant groups research many worry that a life like my ones will once again become impossible. some of the other stories making news around the world cuba has announced a long awaited monetary reform due to take effect on january 1st the communist country will eliminate its jewel currency system to attract foreign investment the reforms will likely spark inflation but the government has promised significant wage increases to cushion the impact. argentina's lower house of congress passed a bill to legalize abortion thousands of pro and anti abortion activists rallied through the night and. lawmakers debated legislation that has been pushed by a president. if the bills clears the senate. the 1st major latin american

nation to decriminalise a bush. time magazine has named u.s. president elect joe biden and vice president elect. harris person of the year for 2020 they were picked ahead of health care workers battling the covert 19 pandemic the racial justice movement and president donald trump since 1927 time has been honoring the person or people who most impacted the news during the color of the year in sports american athletes will now have a bit more freedom when competing on the international stage the united states olympic and paralympic committee says it will not sanction athletes for peacefully and respectfully demonstrate in support of racial and social justice movements at the olympic and paralympic games in the past u.s. athletes were banned from competitor for competition for protesting in mexico

68 olympics the so-called black power salute by tommy smith and john carlos resulted in both been expelled from the u.s. track team the gesture was rebuked as a patriotic. today that same protest would be permitted by the u.s. under the new policy handed down by the country's olympic committee team usa athletes are encouraged to advocate for racial and social justice and be a positive force for change some u.s. athletes were proactive in already using their platform in november the u.s. men's soccer team don jackets with socially conscious messages ranging from n.p.c. brutality to unity before a match the u.s. olympic committee has called on the international olympic committee to recognize that protests focused on human rights in the social justice should be welcome the i.o.c. confirmed that athletes are still banned from any form of protest enough against

following a tidal wave of protests in u.s. sports in athletes who breach that rule are subject to discipline the tokyo games are next summer while the next winter games are in beijing in 2022. you're watching the news is a reminder of all top stories today germany has seen a dramatic spike in coronavirus cases over the past 24 hours new record of nearly 30000 cases was reported and another 598 people have died from 19 holes are calling for a tougher lockdown during the holidays to curb infections. and european union leaders agreed on dramatic cuts to the box greenhouse gas emissions following all my talks in brussels the member states agreed to reduce emissions 55 percent by the end of this decade. that's it from me and the news team for now will be back with more headlines winds 30 minutes of next

. news asia so don't go away don't forget all the latest news and information around the clock on a website that's the w dot com i'm galveston. the entire team has watched.

eco india a. how can a country's economy grow can harmony with its people that when there are do 1st look at the bigger picture india a country that faces many challenges. and those people are striving to create a sustainable future clever projects from europe and india equal to

a 60 minutes w. . in the other life of climate change. most of. what is today the future. of the city. could turn. i only to. turn the monarch. fantasy it's.

up. to see one of. the secrets that. starts december 25th. up. here they're watching news asia coming up today we'll take a closer look at china's latest scientific breakthrough this time in quantum computing the fastest calculations made using themes of laser light and ones which would be impossible for classical computers to run. plus to help replace their country's lost forests pakistani's join a campaign called grow and grow. i'm

melissa chan welcome to news a.j. we're glad you could join us chinese scientists have announced their development of the most powerful quantum computer in the world it works 100. trillion times faster than the fastest supercomputers out there president xi jinping has said research and development in quantum science is an urgent matter of national concern and the country has invested heavily in this technology spending billions in recent years it has become a world leader in the field. to the untrained eye it may not look like much but their says now the world's most powerful computer 20 years in the making jews yang is the brainchild of china's top scientists who are now asserting their dominance in the race for quantum supremacy so that you without a hot sun john has sure an outstanding quantum computational capability.

for a month and we are planning to use it for quantum chemistry research and graphs he'll use common atoll ricks we search paul and even a here through the solution of our many he enjoyed it comes little more than a year after google unveiled sycamore their own quantum computer. achieved an incredible breakthrough in quantum computing their machine needed seconds to perform tasks which conventional systems would require thousands of years to do the chinese team see their light based technique is 10000000000 times faster than doodles it's a remarkable achievement it's a milestone. mental. into medium scale quantum computers it is still early days but scientists hope their achievement will lead to the technology unlocking rapid advancement in encryption and pharmaceutical

analysis. we have demetrius and galactus a scientist with the center for quantum technologies and alex capri of the henrik foundation both are joining us from singapore and dimentia i want to start with you why does this news out of china matter. we met is because a massive and massive center figure breakthrough 1st of all and being a scientist i have to highlight that it's a 1st time arcelor the 2nd time to be exact that we have a quantum computer a prototype on computer clearly are performing classical computers 1st and was last year in the gulag is under barbara and this is the 2nd time using a very different technology based on factors that are similar experiment has been made. now how will the use of this technology impact people's lives demetrius well we are we are talking about the completely different way of computing impossible things to compute classically so although this demonstration

has not achieved it's a mathematical problem the problem has been so if you are a classical computer to do that it would take a few millions or hundreds of thousands of years further down the line we hope that quantum computing will blower's to do impossible problems at this days in biology in drug design in in financial in ways asian interrupting ways asian men and environment as well so at the moment we don't have a communication or power to tackle this very important problems that affect society in very different ways including what we're living through dr designs this very interesting i'm going to turn to alex the chinese government has funneled a lot of money into scientific research why's that. well look this is part of a much broader techno nationalist approach to to advancing chinese interests when it comes to economics national security

obviously geopolitics and you know this is a major priority whether we're talking about the made in china 2025 plan semiconductors of course is big quantum computing is an area obviously didn't print a lot of money into so this is a very important aspect of the of the overall trajectory that the that the chinese communist party is striving for demetrius from a scientific perspective is this china's sputnik moment there's been so much news going on i kind of feel as if this quantum development kind of got lost in its style the covert stuff and everything but should we be paying more attention to this from a scientific perspective. that's a very good question will you say well it is in a sense it is in a sense and that's put me it's out there it doesn't do much it's just blips whether it is there again it has not the 1st by. google in the west has done it 1st and

many other scientific aloud to around the world are working towards the same and demonstration of i mean possible possible classical computers it will take us time before we go from this little blip that sputnik was doing to something like video calls right beside their lives and if i want to do the analogy to the space race but we aren't eating and already there the quantum race in that sense we in many different yet one thing that i am trying to wrap my head around is just how much bigger of a quantum leap this chinese development has been compared to the google one a one of the things that i've been reading is that actually the google one wasn't really quite the you know it didn't count somehow. help us sort of get a sense of just how much more technologically advanced this development has been. well i wouldn't say as more technological advances differ and this is based on

fattens the google on was basis for conducting job is very different of knowledge is at the moment we don't know that the field is so early stage that we don't know which one will really be the final technology that will implement one to computing . i would put it that equal footing in the sense that. we and so yes that's a step 1000 years in the rule that's kind of that the projected thing but on the other hand that the chinese one was not really programmable you cannot really exhausted the way ti's do it on different algorithms except this specific problem so i would say both are equally equally exciting for the field dechen from the center for excite. alex demitra says walk us through some of the applications of this technology what is the perspective of this from someone like you who studies tech nationalism and the competition we're seeing between the u.s. and china and what is techno nationalism. well look take on nationalism essentially

when nation states ascribe. the power and the prowess if you will of their local firms their local champions if you will to national security economic stability and strength and social stability as well so we're seeing all 3 of those in this emerging us china technology hybrid cold war. so i think you know i would i would go back to say that the you know to put this moment in historical context you know the united states soviet union i would think that the sputnik moment would be a bit more significance. to jump forward now to this announcement that we've just had from from the chinese i think the reverse of that is going to be a 2nd moonshot which is really been under way right i think the united states now. and its european allies and other allies are now going to start focusing on greater

emphasis on r. and d. . you know greater emphasis on public private partnerships around making progress with you know all the the you know industries that are emerging in foundational for this next this next century so i think there really is there is significance in that. it will be a catalyst for that way but i don't really i wouldn't call this you know a historic moment in the context of. alex the pentagon through their research arm darpa launched a program to advance quantum computing earlier this year it feels a little bit behind the curve considering the development that we've just seen how would you assess the u.s. a china sort of technological race that we're seeing alex. so so what we will see melissa is we will see more and more r. and d. be shifted under the military industrial complex so stuff that might have been

happening you know r. and d. that might even save the place exclusively companies and maybe universities and specialized institutions you will see more of that being shifted under the military got a sort of if you will. to me case and a la kiss and alex capri thank you so much for joining us. according to recent studies pakistan has the highest rate of deforestation in asia with losses of natural woodlands almost doubling in the last 2 decades experts warned that the country risks losing all its forests within the next 50 years now a new project has been launched to repair some of the lost and anyone can join the effort high in the mountains above islam a bad new forest is being sawn the bulls running down on the slopes here contain pine seeds and hopes for

a green the future will throw and grows both the project's name and the simple instruction for anyone taking part it's part of a push to save pakistan's forests which experts warn could disappear within 50 years if action isn't taken a basic in box on this deforestation as it is becoming a huge challenge for all of us but in the recent few years that has been a lot of of enough on the stopping the scheme is designed to be mass tree planting made easy seeds are rolled into a ball of clay an organic compost. the heart out a liar protects them from being eaten and also provides the nutrients to grow i think even. when the pellets get enough moisture or when it rains the seeds start sprouting after $15.00 to $20.00 days. we can safely say that there's around a 60 to 70 percent chance of the seed bowls sprouting successfully.

alongside professional sewing teams hundreds of volunteers have joined in the effort in just 2 weeks more than a 1000000 seed balls have been cast around the capital with millions more to come. this is a very simple method in which you can easily plant 50 to 60 plants in the same time it would otherwise take to do just one in the traditional way it's actually thrown grown with it. but even nature it needs all the help it can get seed bowls could bring about a much needed rebound in pakistan's dwindling forests. that's it for today there's always more in d.w. dot com ford slash asia and check us out on facebook or twitter we leave you with pictures of some great swimmers in china diving into winter waters they say it extreme exercise is good for your health thanks for watching have a good weekend and goodbye.

to. the fight against the coronavirus tend to have much. as the rate of infection been developing what does the latest research say. information and context. of virus update. on t.w. . hauser virus spread. why do we panic and when will all of this. through the tactics of the weekly. show

is called spectrum if you like and the information on the coronavirus or any other science topic you should really check out our podcast you wherever you go your podcast can also find us and. the holiday season is a time to celebrate and to be around loved ones but this year everything from christmas markets to family gather. is having to be scaled back due to the couvade 19 pandemic. social distancing and other restrictions have left many feeling less than festive so what should a good christmas look like. this is the w.'s covert 19 special i'm joined now on as germany grapples with yet another record number in

corona virus cases it's weighing up how best to allow for merrymaking while keeping the virus from spreading and all across europe it's a similar picture people are breaking with tradition as they change their plans to accommodate restrictions take a look. here. normally we travel to madrid on christmas eve and stay for a few days this year we have to celebrate at home but we'll have entertainment from our grandson where there are children there's christmas for him learning i know you've already worked and we'd like to organize a big party with our friends but i don't think that's possible family that's all there is to it here in the spender city of sin the christmas lights that you see behind you stay off at the moment even at night this city administration is afraid of big crowds that might come in to watch the general restrictions for christmas in spain i'm not clear yet but everybody knows this would be

a very different festive season even in my own family which is partly german and partly spanish we don't know what to do yet and if we will be able to meet each other it's. not really sure how true it would be nicer to go to the christmas market but i think these measures are sensible and more important now x. year we can catch up on our traditions again so i have no problem with the 3 of us it's difficult to usually celebrate with my husband side and also my side together now we have to split everything up so that she her households come together already as a pharmacy employee i always have to be very cautious not to bring the virus. so there is no choice but to put things up they say here. with my family we've all agreed to take coronavirus test before we meet at home and if they all turn out negative we come together if not then nod or in smaller groups. turn up with a thought for again i want to hug my family again when i miss that here normally at this time of year the place behind me would look totally different that would be

lots of christmas market stands and the smell of roasted elements everywhere to get you in the mood but what i personally miss the most this december is meeting friends in the evening and drinking mild wine together the only thing that cheers me up this year as mall trying to go c.s. and merry christmas now how to strike a balance between necessary interpersonal contact and the break wired social distancing is a big question for many of us as the christmas holidays get closer here to help us understand this better is taking who is she is an associate professor and clinical psychologist at the australian national university thank you very much for joining us to again now according to your research our risk perception during an encounter with a person depends on how well we know them why is it that people find it so hard to take the necessary covert precautions with the people we love and it's something

we've been looking at for a number of years in research group and one thing that we found is that this is consistent relationship where people much more willing to take risks with the people that they are closest to the ones that they love and that seems to be because we humans are hardwired to use that sense of social connection we have 2 of those groups that we belong to in the communities that we value we use that as a huge a safety it's a signal that we can trust someone and that they are safe person for us to know put our life in their hands and. some ways that makes a lot of sense you know if you're looking for someone to take care of you sure are your closest networks probably other people you can trust the most on the other hand when it comes to the spread of a contagious disease it doesn't make a lot of sense and so i think that's what we're seeing here is that out instincts to trust those that are closest to us are actually undermining our safety when it comes to. our hard or wired instincts of putting and putting us at risk of

that can be quite a quite a problem but can you tell us ian how did you come to these conclusions. yeah we've been conducting a series of studies over a number of years on including the full covert that we were we were interested in this over the last few years and then a few studies looking at reception but we've also looked at it since the pendant began and one nice opportunity we had to do that was a study that we had running at the beginning of march looking at neighborhoods and people's connection to their community and the original intention was to look at people's sort of the patient and community events but when the pen demick really game stayman much we changed the purpose of wonder secular project in order to look at how this particular research question around the link between a group memberships the trust we have in others and now risk deception and what we found was that in now the sample of a couple of 100 people in

a strain the stronger the people identified with their local neighborhood in their community before coated so in early march the more likely they were to trust the night is in lockdown which sounds like a great thing but the problem in this case with trusting one's neighbors was that that also predicted that they were more comfortable being in close contact with those neighbors so breaching physical distancing recommendations for instance and spending time in the physical presence of the neighbors felt safe because they had that trust in their neighbors so that would be an example of one of the studies they've run looking at this link with social connection and the sense of belonging we have with others which is usually such a protective and positive thing can actually undermine our capacity to respond to a pandemic of this century. indeed and if social contact is needed to stay healthy but at the same time it puts us at risk what are we to do then. yeah it is

a bit of a catch 22 i think because i certainly wouldn't want to say that social connection isn't important i think it's one of the most important things when it comes to placing our health and indeed a mental health over the long time and it's also the case that people who are most vulnerable to kovan 1000 complications are often the same people who are vulnerable to loneliness to isolation and to poor health consequences that we say as a result of that one of the things i think that 2020 has really necessitated for all of us is to be creative about how we stay connected to one another whether that's through using the 2 lanes in ways that we might not have considered prior to the shia all whether it's you know choosing to get together outside or in a in a socially distance more safe way of getting together and saying our out closest contacts i think we need to find compromises that allow us to stay connected while taking as fewer risks as possible when it comes to that you've written that the critical role of shared identity and therefore a higher risk taking has been under recognized in public health messaging how

exactly should public health messages change in your opinion i think that there hasn't been much attention to the the difference between the risks they are willing to take with strangers on public transport out in our communities this is the risks they are willing to take within al closes networks with our families and without friends and the problem with that is that we're actually very very ready to accept the risk of strangers but much less ready to recognize and accept the risk analysis networks and in fact that's exactly exactly where the vast majority of kota transmission is happening it's happening in households it's happening at small gatherings of family and friends so i think ideally i'd like to see public health messaging really be a bit will focused on how we can reduce those risks in our closest networks and how we can celebrate important milestones like birthdays and christmas without putting the people we love into. so it's social this is taking protecting the people you love thank you very much that was teagan crew as she is an associate professor and

clinical psychologist at the australian national university thank you for your time and insights today thank you know. and for the final time this week our science correspondent derek williams answers one of your questions. for a 20 year old was the risk of taking a vaccine compared to not taking it. most of the questions i'm getting at the moment involve potential vaccines and this one is close to the top of the list and the experts i've read who discuss this topic make several important points and 1st of all they say you should look at the numbers that we have so far like the data showing that for tens of thousands of people in 3 big vaccine trials there's been no reported serious side effects although bear in mind that those test subjects didn't have known preexisting health

problems for people who do there could be more risk involved we just heard for example about a couple of cases of people in the u.k. who had preexisting allergies having a bad reaction to one vaccine but the experts still say that the potential risks pale in comparison to the risks involved in catching the virus sure a 20 year old is a lot less likely to die from covert 19 than an 80 year old is but but some do why take that chance if we have something that medical authorities say can safely protect here which brings me to point 2 even if a young person is much less likely to die from the disease there's also a chance that a coded 1000 infection could cause long term health issues by some estimates up to a 3rd of those who recover continued to have more chronic complaints that doesn't

seem to be age dependent so so young people have them to point number 3 dead in vaccinated also. has a social aspect which is that it could potentially help protect the people around you though though that question granted is still up in the air still expectations are high that if vaccines stop people from developing fully fledged covert 19 they'll also help cut down on transmission and that will slow down the pandemic for all of us finally don't forget that young people who aren't in essential jobs will be pretty far down on the list for vaccination in most countries by the time most of them can get a shot we're going to have a lot more information about any potential serious side effects but but based on what we know now most experts expect those to be very rare.

do you have a question for derek just send an e-mail to feedback dot english dot com and type expert in the subject line or leave a comment on our you tube channel that's all from us thanks for watching face think especially during the holidays fight for now.

india. how can a country's economy grow in harmony with its people and violent when there are doers who look at the bigger picture india a country that faces many challenges engines people are striving to create a sustainable future clever projects from europe and india equal to. 30 minutes on w. o. i'm

not laughing at the gym well i guess sometimes i am but i stand up and whip it up and move things deep into the german culture of looking at the stereotypes question but if you think this means the country that i know long time. needed to be taken is grandmother. to me it's all that they know i'm a joke join me for me the german sunday w. . post a message told me push the old loans are sold out on the move right now climb a tree and a different awful story. this is one less thing way from just one week. how much work really do. we still have time to an ongoing.

success. that subscribes like this. why are people forced. to hide in trucks. there are many reasons. there are many cancers. and there are many stories. make up your. job made for mines.

this is the live from berlin germany reports a record number of corona virus infections for a 2nd with nearly 30000 new cases the pressure is growing for a new nationwide lockdown to begin before christmas. also coming up. as hundreds of coronavirus vaccinations sentence as it gets ready to roll out shots nationwide but not everyone is convinced this is the best methods to make sure people. all.