this is. the program.

a bitterly serious situation is how germany's president frank dima described the country's worsening coronavirus crisis health officials reported more than 16000 new infections on sunday that's 4000 more than a week previously and fatalities are increasing in a rare public appeal president urged germans to limit social contract contact as the country prepares to enter a strict lockdown on wednesday because in q darkest d.m.v. it was nish 6 and half we are not at the most of the virus it's up to us

and we know what to do. you can postpone celebrations friends and relatives will also be happy to receive their presence at a later point. what matters now is to preserve health and to save lives. our most important goals must be to bring down infection numbers as quickly as possible and then keep them at a low level. of need to get new votes of. let's get more from b.w. political correspondent nina hoss a welcome nina this is an unusual intervention from the president what do you make of it. well germans were essentially promised that the restrictions would be somewhat eased around the christmas period so that germans could spend christmas fairly normally surrounded by their family and their loved ones and now on sunday

anglo-american in the 16th state premiers looked at the latest infection numbers again and decided that they were so high that on wednesday germany will have to implement tougher restrictions so one photo steinmeyer is a man who sees his role as president to boost germans morale and he has intervened in this crisis several times now whenever he felt that germany was at a crossroads in the fight against the pandemic and has addressed the nation appealing to everybody's own sense of solidarity and asking germans to play along to accept the tough measures and to play their part in combating the virus and this is what he also did today so the tougher restrictions that will be introduced on wednesday follow the current lockdown in light which hasn't worked a lot of people are saying that this was entirely predictable. germany went into the 2nd wave with the attempt to keep schools and kindergartens open for example to

also not closed shops that. not just the essential shops supermarkets cetera but also small businesses they stayed open restaurants stayed open even though you couldn't sit in them but you could get your food from them and take it home so this is a strategy that clearly didn't work and anglo-american one very early on and urged the 16 state premiers to implement tougher measures and what we saw throughout the autumn was a patchwork of measures it really depended on where you were in the country which rules applied and so this is something that probably also didn't make it easy for germans to really understand which rules applied and how to best it here to them now until americal essentially was proven right and the 60 say premiers agreed that the current strategy of the postle lock down was not a sustainable one and didn't help bring numbers down to the level that we needed to

see them at ok well while the job president was urging people to keep the faith germany's health minister was urging the european medicines agency to speed up its approval process for the covered 19 vaccine the vaccine developed by germany's biotech and american drug maker fires are already been authorized in other countries including the u.k. and the united states but it has yet to be approved across the u. so nina hasa. given that situation well one wonders where is germany in this race. yes spawn the health minister issued a couple of tweets on sunday that sounded very much like unveiled criticism that things were going on where he too slowly and he addressed the european medicines agency which is the body that ultimately has to give the approval for the drug to be also to be vaccinated here in europe and he said we every day counts every day that we vaccinate can lessen the suffering and can help protect people's lives

essentially and the e m a so the european medicines agency they are going to have a meeting on the 29th of december on vaccines so this is the date that we're expecting to see the approval for the drug in europe and germany has so far said that it is not going to go it alone unlike the u.k. for example but that it wants to go together with a european agency and bot of course patients is growing thin also here in germany predictably political correspondent nina hasa thank you. well those covered vaccinations that used to begin in the united states on monday following the arrival of millions of doses of a biotech fires a vaccine health care workers and nursing home residents are expected to be amongst the 1st to recipients but with a number of coronavirus deaths in the u.s. approaching 300000 it's too late for many. this is the closest tammie been viet

can safely get to her husband has another life hit hard by the pandemic he lies motionless unable to breathe on his own. mind though it is nothing you really want to want to do in my book or a window. hard over the past 2 weeks the u.s. has repeatedly exceeded 2000 covert related deaths per day surpassing earlier pandemic tolls that are surge back in may we were tired we were exhausted and we thought wow i don't know how this could really get much worse and fast forward to now to this week and the surge that we thought we were having that was really nothing compared to what we're experiencing now but a massive logistical effort is underway that will hopefully save lives and ease the strain on frontline workers this weekend the 1st shipments of the biotech pfizer

vaccine left the manufacturing facility in the state of michigan this precious cargo is expected to reach hundreds of key sites across the country by monday 2 major package delivery services u.p.s. and fed ex are part of the ground in air operations. i was pretty excited. they just came up and said hey you're going to be one of the people on loading the vaccines for us and you know what that's pretty monumental for so i was pretty excited happy to be helping no this is like. can finally do something about these problems instead of just stay home if those gray states are responsible for the distribution once supplies arrive frontline workers and millions of the most vulnerable are supposed to get the 1st dose of. well at stake in the united states who have electoral colleges that due to meet today to cast their votes for

president democrat joe biden won the popular vote but the u.s. constitution stipulates that the college must elect the president electoral college is made up of 538 electors chosen from each state on behalf of citizens the number of electors each state to get depends mostly on its population to win county that needs a simple majority that's at least $270.00 electoral college votes so in november joe biden won $306.00 to donald trump's $232.00 well california the most populous state has a total of $55.00 electors wyoming with the smallest population has 3 whoever wins the vote in a particular state wins all their electors for a few exceptions after the electors made to their vote is then reviewed as a joint session of the u.s. senate and the house of representatives and that will be on the 6th of january congress will count the electoral votes and finally declare

a winner. well while joe biden prepares for his move to the white house what about the man he's replacing well despite the defeat that he still unwilling to admit donald trump has galvanized republican voters like no other presidential candidates so what does he seem to look like i didn't heed that of the grand old party. reports. from supporters rallying for him again they won't accept that their president lost the elections that determined to keep him as their leader around 73000000 americans voted for trump making them a formidable force a force that also threatens to run out of control he loves america he loves america he does not quit on america and that's why america will not quit on him i'd like trump to start a new party if he wanted to get the republican party changed real fast so we're

ready we're going to be represented by the soldiers the veterans the hardworking people in this country not by the corrupt politicians and sit up here and get back on our money and steal everything. there are many who want to take the republican party down a more moderate path to strengthen their case they talk about this man abraham lincoln he was the president who won the civil war and ended slavery and he was a republican he is the man and tightrope republicans turn to when they want to invoke reason and moral values into present day arguments the lincoln project is a political action committee set up by former republicans to prevent donald trump being reelected i want to hear their thoughts on the future of the g.o.p. from rick wilson one of the co-founders i'm worried about the more competent smart

. presentable version. it's going to come down the pike in a few years that. is. an enormously concerning impact of trumpets they're going to be driving the party further and further into the trungpa space which is authoritarian which is nationalist which is highly regimented around the obedience to the dear leader. i also want to hear from a man who sees the new president's democrat joe biden as the driving force for republican party unity called rove a top republican political strategist who is also a contributor for fox news international which is the way liberals in europe i think the republican party will have a you know we'll have some disagreements it's fractures but that biden ministration in the left way that they were going to party are going to are going to be a force for cohesion among republicans gee if he wants to have influence he wants

to have it inside a party that has representation in the house the senate and across the country he doesn't want to start a new party. but his supporters leave no doubt that they want donald trump and his family to stay in the white house even the g.o.p. to decide whether they want to follow him or risk falling apart to me well take a look now at some of the other stories making news around the world police a shot and killed the gunman on the steps of new york city john the divine cathedral shortly after a christmas carol concert people were leaving at the end of the event when the masked man opened fire and no one else was wounded the gunman's motive is not known . you commission presidents are sort of on the line is reporting some progress in talks so the block future relationship with the united kingdom negotiators are trying to resolve differences on issues including fishing rights and fact competition from business britain leaves the e.u. single market in just a 2 weeks. u.s.

has removed saddam from its list of state sponsors of terrorism opening the african nation up to financial assistance that could help it struggling economy washington placed tough sanctions on sudan in 1993 claiming that president omar al bashir was harboring militant groups including al qaeda. and iran was foreign ministry has some of the on the borders of germany and france after the european union condemned the execution of an opposition journalist around described it as an acceptable interference in its domestic affairs. was hanged on saturday over his role in protests 3 years ago. comes as reporters without borders releases its annual report on journalists who've been detained missing or being held hostage around the world $387.00 journalists are in detention globally just to few of them last year the biggest jail is china saudi arabia and egypt but

the study also cites and unprecedented crackdown in ballot rooms which is a month of unrest since its disputed election in august and i want to know today pandemic effect where countries are use the coronavirus to increase control of the media. assane deon yet is director of reporters without borders west africa office he joins us from dhaka welcome to g.w. . let's start with iran we've just heard that the problems are a new journalist ruhollah was executed on saturday provoking an international outcry what sort of response would you like to see. for you if you. should. just result borders 1st.