arctic our full expanse of bitter cold. the sound of global warming. and the inhabitable world it's lonely barren. and breathtakingly beautiful the. way to the journey around the north pole. cross the tears and talk with people experiencing the changing environment or the ice disappears earlier and it keeps retreating ha here's the last 2 years have been smelling roughly. should ard which should. our future depends on what happens here in one of the most fragile ecosystems on our. northern lights with arctic circle

starts december 21st on w. . this is day w news and these are our top stories a paris court has found 14 people guilty in connection with the 2015 islamist attacks on charlie a magazine and a jewish supermarkets they were sentenced to jail terms ranging from 4 years to life the defendants were accused of assisting the attackers who were killed in shootouts with police. in germany reported a new a daily record of corona virus deaths on wednesday the country's infectious disease agency put the toll at $952.00 people the news came as germany started a tougher national walked out with schools and non-essential businesses now closed until at least january 10th. a chinese lunar probe has

returned to earth with precious cargo the 1st fresh samples from the surface of the moon collected in more than 40 years the chinese capsule successfully landed in inner mongolia china is only the 3rd country to have successfully brought back samples from the moon it hopes the rocks and dust can provide insight into the moon's origins and surface this is d.w. news from berlin and follow us on twitter and instagram at g.w. news or visit our website w dot com. or a. one. on this december 16th here in berlin there is no hustle and bustle of shoppers buying presents instead a long silent night of stricter social distancing punctuated with more and more kogut 19 deaths in less than a year germany has gone from respected pandemic manager to one of the world's many

viral victims after 2 months of partial restrictions that didn't work today germany went full throttle against the pandemic tonight a hard lock down is in effect just in time for christmas i brink off in berlin this is the day. it's easy we just don't need to stay healthy i've been stressed and imagine the same issue in the state should it happen soon it's keep the cases down the. effect you think is that high and we need to get them under control you have been encouraged to come let's say it's the right thing to do just that the sun is going to be sent me home for the economy but what alternative do we have really i 30 the home of. also coming up under attack hackers are targeting the u.s. and europe are we equipped to face down the cyber threat. the time affinis and its

is is over. we know that we had a target and we are organizing ourselves to believe there is even some the response capacity that's necessary. to our viewers on p.b.s. in the united states and to all of you around the world welcome we begin the day in another lock down another one because of the others didn't work after almost a year of starts and stops of unsuccessful restrictions aimed at flattening the coronavirus kerr germany today entered a hard lock down the entire country is now shut down for at least 3 weeks everything except grocery stores pharmacies and gas stations the essentials and no one is joyful over the timing of this lockdown christmas and the new year will be observed in a muted manner unlike anything that we've experienced before traveling is almost taboo there will be few if any family gatherings there will be no parties on new

year's eve and yet these interruptions these inconveniences do not begin to compare to the suffering and sadness inflicted upon countless families by the corona virus in the last 24 hours here in germany the daily death toll from coban 1000 hit a record high of almost 1000 and that number it's expected to climb even with this lock down even with the vaccines the loss of life in this pandemic is expected to get worse before it gets better we have this report. the 1st day of germany's tougher lock down all non-essential shops are shuttered at one of the busiest times of the year just before christmas one of berlin's most famous shopping streets is almost empty a strange sight at this time of the year. it's very unusual it depresses me

a bit but i tell myself it's only this year next year it will be better again. it doesn't really bother me we've got all our christmas presents already and i think you can also celebrate christmas a little more modestly it's a time when everything is a little quieter anyway after christmas so it's ok with me. which is nice to buy. we just have to learn other forms of social contact that's the way it has to be because the number of deaths is so high. that it. is through. the new lockdown came as germany reached a somber new record the highest court in $1000.00 death toll since the start of the pandemic in some areas hospitals are nearing capacity and health experts say cases could continue to rise over the next couple of weeks some respite could be brought by the vaccine its approval in europe appears only days away but speaking in parliament on wednesday chancellor angela merkel said the vaccine will not

automatically end coronavirus measures including wearing face masks. must will soon need to wear masks people may not have symptoms at all or symptoms may be milder for those who have been vaccinated and it's not known whether the virus can be passed on to others this needs more research and therefore wearing masks will still be necessary. germany's new lockdown which includes the closure of schools is meant to stay in place until january 10th but health experts and politicians have warned that if the situation does not improve significantly they remain for longer . so the christmas shopping experience cut short. what does it mean for the german capital here's w.'s chief political correspondent belinda corrie. i'm standing in the heart of her lynch shopping district on a city square that would normally be bustling with shoppers and christmas carols and traffic behind me is

a berlin landmark the entrance to europe's biggest department store normally in the christmas season it would be receiving up to 100000 berliners and tourists a day up till last night there was a line around the block to get in but not today despite the fact that the stores luxury grocery stands are still open there's scarcely a shop or insight and if we look further down the street to another berlin landmark the city's memorial church there's a beloved christmas market there that in fact 4 years ago was the site of a terror attack that didn't stop people from going there until yesterday to drink mulled wine and enjoy christmas treats but not anymore all of germany's renowned christmas markets are shut retail association say that the latest lockdown could prove a catastrophe for shop owners predicting that as many as one in 2 could be driven

into bankruptcy if they don't get sufficient help soon the government is in fact opening its purse once again providing direct support payments to affected shops to the tune of up to $11000000000.00 additional euros a month and nonetheless cities like berlin worry that if in fact more and more customers do their shopping online empty urban spaces like this one could wind up being the new normal. that was melinda crane here in berlin well here is a list of the lockdown changes that are now in effect here in germany all 'd non-essential shops of close the only exceptions supermarkets pharmacies and banks schools are now closed as well and companies are being urged to allow stamp to work from home chancellor angela merkel is appealing to the public to limit social contacts during the holidays a maximum of 5 adults from 2 households are allowed to meet indoors there is no

limit for children under the age of 14 and there will be no sales of fireworks to help and force a ban on public gatherings on new year's eve. as we reported the timing of this lockdown is not the best in fact the german chancellor and many physicians wanted a hard lockdown months ago that includes dr viola prison from the max planck institute so what is very clear. already not to tell thinking and we don't make it my brain to calculations about it it's absolutely clear that as soon as cancer numbers add you know this fresh out of 3558 cases then the control is much easier why is that we have the health authorities that do the testing that do they come to try to sing and as soon as these can ethically and that can be possible in the virus if case numbers are too high we don't have sufficient tests we don't have sufficient capacity for contact tracing that help authorities us lower the bias and it's

absolutely crucial especially because of the asymptomatic cases that these people identified before they come to is spreading the virus so one has a 3 to 5 days of integration time and it would be as i said extremely important for it he's met through this contact tracing pasta and this information time. germany in the lockdown also coming up on the day the breaks it bubble net there is still no trade deal between the u.k. of the european union and that has british companies fearing the worst for their supply chain. extreme stockpiling has led to long lines and massive delays in cali in the last few weeks as businesses try to get goods into britain before a potential no the old wreck that. russia has denied any responsibility for a cyber attack that targeted the u.s. treasury department and other government agencies it started in march when hackers

used malware to gain access to u.s. networks washington says the attacks were apparently carried out for espionage purposes by elite russian hackers the impact was so severe that the white house national security adviser has cut short his trip to europe to return to the u.s. to deal with the attack here is more from the white house. but the u.s. government we are aware of all of these reports we're taking all necessary steps to identify and remedy any possible issues related to the situation and as one step in that process issa has issued an emergency directive on sunday night for all federal civilian agencies to review their networks for indicators of compromise well seasoned or the cyber security and infrastructure security agency is charged with protecting the united states from cyber attacks the agency usually works behind the scenes but it hit the headlines after president trump fired its former boss chris cripps for calling the u.s.

elections the most secure were in history from the sidelines krebs said the hacker looked to be a pretty large scale but he had the utmost confidence in seas and other federal partners they know how to do this he says let's let the programs work it. it's. my next guest is one of those pros he's an insider from the world of u.s. defense and cyber security john bateman was director for cyber strategy implementation in the office of the u.s. secretary of defense he is now a fellow in the cyber policy initiative at the carnegie endowment for international peace john it's good to have you on the program based on what has been reported these cyber attacks were possible because the pentagon has outsourced parts of its software infrastructure 3rd parties here are these 3rd parties are they becoming a threat to national security well that's an important question and let me say that

hundreds if not thousands of organizations who are victimized by this hack and just about every major organization today uses 3rd party software whether you're at the u.s. military the white house or microsoft or j.p. morgan no one can write all of their own software and usually it's more cost effective and sometimes even more secure to use 3rd party software but when you do that it does come with new risks that means you have to have that your suppliers carefully you have to understand the supply chain and you need a level of transparency and trust with those suppliers you were involved with cyber strategy for the u.s. secretary of defense what was the policy regarding 3rd parties when you were there . so i was working on this issue about 5 years ago and at that time the focus was really on reaching out to the hundreds of thousands of contractors that the government the military work with and demanding

a level of disclosure to the government about when a major breach occurs and then starting to work toward common cybersecurity standards and maturity across many many different contracts the fact that we were talking about this 5 years ago and my doubt at least people were talking about it long before that lets you know what a vexing problem the says and how difficult it is to get your arms around all of the possible vulnerabilities that could happen outside of your network whether it's with partners suppliers customers if you're a business and others in junk as far as we know these cyber attacks they were carried out for the purpose of espionage but they could have been used to do real damage right. that's always possible and it's important to understand that when it comes to a cyber penetration the actions that the hacker takes whether they're for espionage or for destruction are almost identical and both cases they'll be trying to get an

initial access to a network and then work their way up to a higher level of access spreading from computer to q. computer and gaining more authorities along the way it's only in the final moment when that hacker may decide whether to press one key to delete all the data or another key to steal all of the data and what does this tell us about the ability of the nations to divert to itself from hackers in other states we have we reached the limits of protection is the answer now to always be on the off ensnare have to be on the defense. well there is an uncomfortable truth about out cyber security which is that the attacker tends to have the advantage over the defender if we're talking about an actor like russia we've got a sophisticated well resourced foreign intelligence service that can pay people to

set of computers and persistently target their adversaries day on day year on year eventually drily you're going to have some kind of success and i'm not prepared to say that cyber security is hopeless exercise in vitally important we shore up our defenses and we may find out that some companies and governments fared much better against this act and others but it isn't navigable that major organizations will be hacked and that's why a lot of the focus needs to be on resilience that mitigating the damage and recovering faster and we know this is not just an american issue europe has also been the target of hackers recording more than 400 incidents just last year today the european union unveiled new cyber security rules take a listen to. them stanley and then become every day more important we depend then makes this that's has become more prominent only last week to be in the sense agency it was at that you know the european medicines

agency was attacked and you know how important a coronavirus vaccine is right now is great this is a growing international threat is there enough international cooperation in your opinion john. no international cooperation needs to be more robust than it is today if you think about cyber security it's the ultimate international threat that acts themselves cross borders and the perpetrators can be sitting in any number of countries so it's vitally important that nations are able to share information about hacks that they're seeing in real time and then actually cooperate on action that they can take against the hackers whether it's investigating using law enforcement arresting or extraditing a perpetrator or taking some kind of counter strike or a technical response in cyberspace like switching off malicious bots you know well

let's hope that there will be more cooperation with the new administration coming into the white house we will see deaths john bacon with the carnegie foundation john it was good talking with you we appreciate your time and your insights tonight thank you. thank you well still ahead on the day the fight for democracy in burma reuss as the european union rewards the opposition with its top human rights prize what is a better recognition that we have free think us what is a bad summative ation os to keep going. to be in and to be real rian. well these are the final days on the 31st of december the ukraine's transition out of the european union and the e.u. single market will end breaks it will be a done deal but there is still no post breaks it trade deal both the e.u. and the u.k. say they want a deal to avoid any disruption to business but finding common ground on issues such

as sitting rights has been more difficult than expected. and as things stand i cannot tell you whether there will be a deal on not because 2 issues still remain outstanding you know them a level playing field and the fisheries folks with the there's been progress but no breakthrough and i think we're sticking to our opinion that an agreement would be better than no agreement but we are preparing for the lesser case in 3 or 4 but i think whatever happens in the next few days on this country will prosper. on the terms that we agree with our european friends whatever they may be well for companies wholly goods between the e.u. and the u.k. the new border regulations that will come with broad looks set to mean longer waiting times and more red tape with british stockpiling driving up demand truck drivers leaving france are already getting a taste of the potential chaos to come you don't use all xander phenomenon has more

from the port city of cali britain's gateway to your. the port of cully a key departure point for goods headed across the channel by a truck for now they move freely between the european union and the u.k. but with the end of the brakes a transition there will be new rules and restrictions on what terms that's what both sides are still negotiating the port authorities however tell us they have prepared as much as they can you have all clear we've hired new employees we've restructured the organization we've opened premises we have trained our employees we've created a special computer system so i think we're ready with a deadline quickly approaching the port is experiencing the highest levels of traffic so far this year last week they processed almost 22000 trucks here extreme stockpiling has led to long lines and massive delays in their last few weeks as

businesses try to get goods into britain the floor of potential no the. many here fear this is just a glimpse of what the situation will be like when. stunned us and immigration checks kick in on both sides of the channel. david sedaris wore it his business operates $110.00 trucks that transport flour sugar and other goods from across europe to the u.k. with disruptions and delays to be expected the whole of fear is he'll lose money. i think the main risk is the traffic jams with long standing and waiting times for the vehicles and that's really harmful for us. on the one hand you're not earning any money on the other hand you still have the running costs for the truck and the driver was i think in my opinion he said it was a view from. one of his drivers just came back from a tour today u.k.

he says going there was a nightmare. he started here at 9 in the morning and arrived in dover at 5 pm. and normally normally already in england by midday. david saying there is disappointed that the politicians have wasted so much time they ask you to anticipate the changes to come he says while they wait until the last minute to decide at the port in cali meanwhile the customs officers are also getting a bit anxious or anything but we're impatient to see if everything we did will work and if there are any problems we'll have to figure. out. whether there is a trade deal or not they tell us big changes will come when the u.k. leads to single market. we ask year old and the whole world to stand to be be a rose we call the euro to be brave in their decision and support the people of

their rules now not tomorrow and not sound when in the future. that was bill arose in opposition leaders for. calling europe to action after her democracy movement was awarded the e used top human rights prize to one of scalia said the award was an important marker of the fight for freedom in delegates she's been living in exile since denouncing the results of the presidential election back in august in belarus itself opposition supporters continue to protest despite the threat of arrest we use nick connelly filed this report. just this much just coming out to march on sundays is this much a part of everyday life it's having breakfast our neighborhood just won't keep quiet it's here that you finally get to meet your neighbors goes to church. for all

the demonstrative good humor fear is never very far away in minsk most people here don't want to be recognized you know you greta be filmed wearing them asks one person who is willing to take that risk is media 20 she's only of unknown one leader and xander. was. back in august we felt the change was really close it felt like it was in breach of just a day or 2 more and everything would change. for months later we're not where we wanted to be. there. was. police emerge out of on mt benz scattering the marches in all directions dozens of smaller demonstrations in parallel across the capital means making the police is that much harder but for the hundreds of protesters still routinely arrested each week and the stakes are rising the courts hand out a harsher sentences. the fear only really hits you when you get home and read about

everything that's happened that day online. i always carry a set of instructions with me that tell you what to do and who to call in case you were arrested. eventually the protesters recruited continue this time without the help of modern technology so often in protest there isn't a loose government switched off mobile phone networks. the reaction to their protests from the locals is overwhelming. we got really lucky one time the police were using stun grenades we got hit by some shrapnel there was nowhere to hide and all we could do was knock on people's doors . we moved from house to house and eventually there are about 30 of us hiding in one woman's house she looked after us and wouldn't let us risk leaving the house unless we had a left to pick us up with the facilities of all this is one of my senior. but not everyone is as impressed. as the march reaches

its conclusion the question is as ever how to get home without resting. place it really feels like we've changed as a country never happens now that can't be reversed can the question but. no one can say with any certainty how long these protests will continue or what they might still achieve before most of these young better russians are protesting giving up doesn't seem to be an option for. so long i. was in berlin this week we asked what gives her hope for the people of. our unit our understanding that. this regime of the violence of this regime did too much as can be forgiven and that what we want to renew our identity be we now we realize that we are nation the tree agan might be one to be be

a recess not it but russians did you know a lot of europeans think that the interest is. this is russian i don't know parts but we are separate country we separated into 2 and to be now we understand that we have proud that we had our sense and the serenity and in the and independence acts really important for us and we will be a fighter for this and we know that our will be you feel the change. of voice of hope in these dark times of the day is almost on the conversation continues online .

enter the conflict zone with sara kelly more than 2 years ago ethiopian prime minister ali ahmed road to power with a wave of hope but now he's waved the military offensive on forces in the northern t.t.y. region my guest this week from addis ababa exotica brought up ethiopian minister for democracy as they should where's the peaceful future his prime minister promised conflicts are. next on t.w. . us politics for sale. in the usa able to buy political influence. the koch brothers are a prime example. unbeknown to much of the public they've created

a massive lobbying network their goal stopping reforms and increasing their profits . were all such to go beyond the obvious. that. as we take on the world. we're all about business stories that matter to you. to be something behind. the ship of. what ever it takes to go running now let me go now to. speak to the exchange president jonathan w. mark me minds.

i'll be using one of these fit. it is to get him out of his open again easy bright light how can you say this with 100 percent more than 2 years ago ethiopian prime minister abi off mid road to power on a wave.