this is deja vu the news live from berlin the french president emanuel last called test positive for corona virus the palace says michael will continue to oversee the running of the country while carrying out his duties remotely also coming up critical days for germany's health care system with new infections at record high levels the number of hospitalized patients is also climbing rapidly we report from the front lines with a young and previously healthy patients battling to stay alive. and 10

years ago today a 2 museum street vendor set himself on fire sparking a revolutionary wave across the region known as the arab spring but a decade on the border has really changed the class physically and emotionally abused place speak to 2 elite german gymnast who reveal their experiences of bullying and mistreatment in the school. i'm rebecca races welcome to the program we start this hour with news that french president emanuel call has tested positive for covenanting his office says he will self isolate for 7 days but that he's still overseeing the running of the country and let's go straight to paris where d.w. lisa lewis is standing by lisa. do we know how michael is doing at this stage. well i just talked to the elizee who said that the

president was doing fine we don't know what symptoms he is showing he's now gone into self isolation for at least 7 days as you said he got tested positively to covert $1000.00 but for now he's continuing to run the country. is there any indication where he might have contracted the virus and who else might have to quarantine well that's the big question everybody's asking here in france now people are going through his agenda which is obviously public on the l. is a website and there's been lots and lots of meetings with lots and lots of different people over the past few days he went to brussels last week for a meeting with lots of e.u. leaders some of which have some of whom have already gone into self isolation he also met that spanish prime minister. few days ago who's now gone into sort of

isolation the portuguese prime minister prime minister antonio costa who said he's getting tested and thinking about going into science isolation the prime minister here in france has said that he's also going into self isolation the 1st lady is really having a snowball effect so to say it really is wondering where did he get that virus and who else might he have contaminated with it. or i listeners i'm sure will be speaking to you more throughout the day as more news comes in of this story thank you very much for that update. germany's health minister says all 8 you member states plan to roll out a covert 19 vaccination program on december 27th here in germany care home residents will be 1st in line to receive the shots the vaccines won't come soon enough for many hospitals a leading german doctor fears that in the coming weeks a growing number of medics will be left to make decisions on who gets lifesaving

treatment we look now at the already dire situation in one german hospital. a new covert patient has a drive by ambulance or tribe or good university hospital he's traveling in a special isolation pod so none of the transport team gets infected the patient is only in his forty's or p. for seriously ill covert patients the team make sure the patient is well padded as he will lie like this for several hours afterwards the inflammation sits at the back of the lungs and a lot of fluid collects there the lungs can heal if you lie on them the whole time for turning patients under their stomachs the lungs get and can heal. pretty soft and hire. once a day the team turns each patient on to their front and back and it's a big effort. but printing and being put on a ventilator is not sufficient for many critically ill patients some need to be

connected to an artificial lung to keep them alive. it pumps the patient's blood into a machine where carbon dioxide is extracted and oxygen added. to the blood is then pumped back into the patient's body. for patients who have this ill there aren't many options left this is the last trump card we've got. our therapeutic options a sobering we've got oxygen and the artificial lung but they're only gives us more time the lungs have to heal by themselves. in the hospital pharmacy there's no wonder drug against the coronavirus ram disappear one of the great hopes at the start of the pandemic has yielded disappointing results as have many other drugs medics of the virus for nearly a year now but the odds of surviving a severe case haven't improved much yet every 2nd patient who's on

a ventilator dies and behind each of those numbers is a human being. in the 2nd wave many young and healthy people have also been infected. but that's no guarantee for a milder cause of the illness. this is a young man 45 years old with a very severe case of coded is a prime example that a young healthy person without any notable preexisting medical conditions can be brought to the brink of death by the virus. he was in the intensive care units really are at their limit we have to be clear about that there may still be some spare beds but every day there's fewer and the patients lie here for a long time for weeks even months and that means that the beds don't free up again quickly. at the moment they can still fight every single patients life here but the time off to christmas could turn into the intensive care teams was nightmare. they

have these hands on is covering the situation here in germany for us hands an alarming situation some doctors having to make very tough decisions about who to treat what more can you tell us about the situation in hospitals here well yes there's one hospital this morning that reported that there are more tree capacities have been exhausted and they're having to start storing bodies in refrigerator containers and there's also been some alarming last 24 hours about reports from eastern sections saxony those in the far east of germany on the border between the checked with the czech republic and poland that's a region that has the highest incidence of infections at the moment it's fairly remote the hospitals are small their capacity is limited and there it is said that decisions about whether or not a patient gets life prolonging treatment store already need to be taken for instance in the case where people have to be transported to other hospitals

hundreds of kilometers away sometimes they're too weak to be able to make such a journey so on paper the situation in germany still looks pretty good there's still about 4 and a half 1000 intensive care beds available and an emergency reserve of 11000 emergency hospitals for instance in exhibition holes but in certain regions the situation is dire already all eyes and hopes are of course on vaccines getting the go ahead from april thora teas and being rolled out how fast can hospitals expect to save relief from. well hope so hospitals in fact are not the 1st to be able to get the vaccine and about a week's time of 1st people will be people in care homes aged people who are most threatened by the disease on the other hand these will be people that and then probably not end up in hospital so that will be some relief for hospitals 2nd and care personnel including hospital stuff so they can reckon on getting their shots

pretty quickly they have been pushing for this to happen as quickly as possible because of the difficult situation they're facing now with germany being in a hot a lockdown now until the 10th of january given the situation this die situation in the hospitals almost germans willing to accept these new tougher lockdown missions here's indeed they are most recent polls show that about 3 quarters of the people are in favor of. and i think in the light of the reports that are coming out of hospitals and all the preparedness to follow the rules is actually increasing randi to be political correspondent thank you. my 2nd now on the latest global developments in the pandemic the u.s. has registered more than $3709.00 tain deaths within 24 hours and all the record that's according to figures compiled by johns hopkins university the japanese capital tokyo has raised its medical alert level to the highest possible hospitals

in the city is struggling to provide retain care because of a shop rise in corona virus cases and twitter has announced it will remove tweets containing misinformation about covert 9 tame vaccines facebook and youtube have already announced similar measures. 10 years ago today a tune is in st then this stood in front of his local government offices and set himself on fire it was a desperate act in protest at official corruption and it's found a revolutionary wave across the region that became known as the arab spring but while the protests led to the toppling of longtime dictators they also foreshadowed a number of civil wars that are still raging today. this man lit the spark that left scorch marks across the entire hour bridgend on december 17th 2010 mohamed bouazizi says some cell phone fire to protest official corruption in chinese he died from his injuries a few weeks later but by then his story of desperation had sparked

a nationwide outpouring of rage. and soon afterwards the arab spring protests took down their 1st high profile political target. tunis is vesture an autocrat zenith. fled to saudi arabia with only a few family members and close aides into. the anti government protests multiplied rapidly be on to his ears borders with anger over repressive regimes economic hardship and political failure spilling onto the streets social media was used to spread the word on organize and few of our countries were left untouched by the vast some of the biggest upheaval was experienced in egypt where decades long ruler hosni mubarak was overthrown setting the stage for a power struggle eventually won by the military. and

libya syria and yemen became embroiled in for trucks of conflicts which are still taking a huge humanitarian toll today. i'm joined now by a labor research fellow with the global public policy institute focusing on democracy and human rights in the middle east and north africa this is labor thanks for joining us the revolution the arab spring the so-called arab spring was fueled by hopes of a better future and dave many regime leaders were toppled yet today many people in the arab spring countries say their lives are worse than before a big gap between rich and poor and the like was the arab spring therefore worth it . thanks for having me rebecca well the hopes that europe's uprising start for more of them are perceived as human rights justice and less repression corruption and so if you're going to make an equality has been smashed as you have pointed out

by repressive government responses military coups and civil war and the underlying structures factors actually still remain in place such as so if you're going to make inequality widespread poverty and the lack of job opportunities for the young people prevailing corruption and repressive regime regime apparatuses so all in all although we now draw a rather negative picture i would say it's difficult to judge kind of someone risking their see their life going on the street demanding their rights 10 years ago by these effects as they have been the result largely from government responses . so my next question was well what went wrong do you think it was really the government responses is that the raise and they went successful well i would say that's the main reason the main reason is that but then again not every trajectory was the same but to

a large extent the brutal crackdown that has actually follows followed the protest movements by the incumbent regimes in the region even leading in some cases as you mentioned just civil wars through the total collapse of state of libya yemen and syria for example has actually triggered this result that we're seeing today to a large extent another aspect might be that the regional corporation of autocratic regimes in order to support each other as also fuels distractor in. and we of course can't not mention the international community that former u.s. president barack obama famously drew a red line in the sand in syria and then failed to act when the syrian government crossed it just one example how much blame or responsibility does the international community carry for the finance of the arab spring movement well to blame the international community at large is a bit difficult but we should definitely look at the western democracies and how

they have impacted development and since 2011 as they have often publicly claimed and stated that they support the ideas of these revolutions protest movements right and 1st and foremost that you know the european union and its member states and the united states have actually put their interest in stability in the region over the protection of human rights and the demands of the protesters for the most part at least the basic assumption underlying this is that the autocrats of the region will provide stability and but that is fundamentally flawed in my opinion as long as citizens in most arab countries experience this high levels of inequality the repression and injustice that has actually sparked the protests 10 years ago. and these are actually the very basis of the authoritarian rule as in those countries they do not contribute to stability in the region quite the opposite and thus i think the european union and the u.s.

are fundamentally rethink their approach and their relationship to these are credit to less instead of showering down with state honors on red carpet visits they should include human rights conditions on economic cooperation they should stop selling arms to other credit regimes in the rue eugène that my original. but against their own citizens and they should make clear to the leaders in the region that there can only be more. liberal curbing and persecuting human rights violations and basically provide basic rights for their citizens much to be done the earliest some labor research fellow with the global public policy institute thanks very much for your inside thanks for having me on let's turn to some other stories making news this hour a court in the french capital paris has found 14 people guilty of involvement in the 2015 attacks on the satirical magazine charlie hebdo and a jewish supermarket they were convicted of helping the 3 attackers who were killed

in shootouts with police. a chinese lunar capsule returned to earth on thursday was the 1st fresh samples of rock and a break from the moon in more than 40 years according to a space agency official china wish will share data and samples from the probe the successful mission was the latest breakthrough for china's space program. has declared a state of natural disaster a slight cyclon yes the hits authorities say no part of the pacific island nation is likely to escape the category 5 cyclone and have set a nationwide curfew some experts warn the storm could be the southern hemisphere is most intense tropical storm on record. next year's burden film festival is said to have a very different look the us magazine variety reports that the 71st birthday not it will take place virtually in march organizers are hoping to put on a scaled down version of the festival with some on site screenings in june and is

among the top film festivals well why aren't. you. now to a controversy in the world of sports with the spotlight on german gymnastics a report by the germany's desh beagle race and really shed light on serious allegations of bullying and mistreatment by fame outcoached national gymnastics center in the city city of kemet but now de w. has spoken to 2 former l.a. chip midsts who trained there and elsewhere and they say the problems are much wider than previously reported. then you know me and ruby vandyke are learning to love gymnastics all over again for many years their love for the sport has disappeared. aged 10 and prying for big things the twins moved to an elite training center near cologne when their performances dipped they say they were called fat and lazy by their coach that's slim's the front is the worst thing was

when he said he wouldn't come to competitions with us because we were embarrassing him when you're 14 or 15 you need a coach who supports you no matter how badly he always let us down just before the competition saying you're too heavy i may be out of them yet miss on one occasion suring a balls exercise naomi said she was purposely dropped on her head to teach her a lesson before has he pushed me 2 or 3 times to go down lower but i knew he wasn't holding me properly that's why i didn't go lower and then i did under pressure but he let go of me and said there you see what. they complained to the local gymnastics association but say they weren't taken seriously or believed and made a field day with the problem with devastating effect summit of development is another thing that i still remember when i was 14 i just didn't want to wear my gym outfit anymore i always thought everything about me was wrong how i look where i

come from what i do how i talk who i am. so it really hurt me as a person back then and also meant as an issue. in a statement to the local association the right nischelle turner said it was quote surprised by the allegations adding the r.c.b. takes the allegations raised very seriously and will clarify the facts as soon as possible. at the time naomi and ruby were given 3 options either put up with the coach quit the sport or as they ended up doing move to the olympic training center in chemists earlier this month problems there were uncovered by the magazine a dozen other gymnasts accused the head coaching chemists gabriella fraser of bullying them and making them train through injury naomi and ruby say pain killers and injections were handed out freely without prescriptions and without the knowledge of athletes parents but the twins felt they couldn't speak up because of

the baggage they come with. by it because we were always told we were annoying a we were the problem we didn't want to be a nuisance we just wanted to show we were actually hardworking and so that's why we didn't mention a lot of things. on time off this big. 3 b. that acceptance came at a price and she was forced to ignore her constant back pain with one coach telling her it was just pretty competition. and she would often tell me i was imagining the pain in my back but i didn't know the difference between so muscles and real pain that went on for a year and a half and at some point i believed i was imagining it. if it wasn't her imagination though ruby having been denied access to her mit scans would eventually need an operation. fraser who's been suspended pending an investigation has called all the allegations baseless and says she never

overstepped the mark. it was her strong denials that prompted naomi and ruby to tell their story because stating that we can definitely confirm these baseless allegations that the other girls have made by that i have 2 or 3 of them are with us in canada and we witnessed how badly they were treated it's like we can easily say it's not baseless. and they convince us that. these days the twins are really compete in the national league no longer dreaming of international success but at least now they can perform again with a smile on their faces. and joining me now is doug marsh hi todd who chairs the sports committee of the german bundestag. thanks for joining us what is your reaction to these allegations that have come out here in germany. well

good morning i heard about the allegations a couple of weeks ago and i can say for me it's not credible what the people say and i think it's worth. working with it and talking about it because you know sports is a field with a very close relation between the staff and the athletes think of the coaches think of the medical doctors think of the physicians they all have a close contact to a very young people and they can make the young athletes strong self confident. but the misuse of the power can destroy the souls of the young people and that's not acceptable it or not acceptable but i am surprised by the allegations. no not really we have learned the nesa case for instance we heard about the cases in the netherlands we had some

cases in other parts of germany no i'm not really surprised but in the end i'm surprised about the handling of i was thought federation's of the so-called stakeholders how they have handled it since 2918. i think there could have been done much more and that is why i hope my sports committee will deal with the. whole issue next year or what exactly can your sports committee the parliamentary sports committee do about this. well we can place the topic on the agenda of our sports committee who we can invite stakeholders that means we can invite the president of the gymnastics federation we could invite the boss of these so-called olympians to insects.

and of course we are in close contact with the sports ministry that of course has the power to to do something if they are not satisfied with the handling by the federations. what do you think needs to change in gymnastics in germany. where you see so far we have a league ations but investigations are going on so it's too early to state what exactly has to happen but what is clear to me. it's not acceptable to have anything like pressure on very young athletes on talking about their weight for instance you can talk to athletes but you have to do it in a responsible way and that must be commonsense not only in gymnastics contact

my fight chair of the sports committing of the german parliament thank you. thank you. it watching date over the news here's a reminder of the top stories we're following for you french president emanuel my call has tested positive for the coronavirus his office says himself isolates a 7 days for the still of the saying the running of the country will carry on his activities remotely french prime minister passed x. has also been told to sell us like. germany says it plans to roll out of coronavirus vaccination program from december 27th as lading doctors morning tens of kevins of filling up cost i say hospitals could soon reach their capacities infection on those on pull downs. plus a news update from now focus on europe is coming up after all right stay tuned for that i'll be back with more news headlines out the top of the hour until then you

can always get the latest information on our web site that's d w. i'm rebecca or it isn't about thanks for watching.

one continent. 700000000 people. with their own personal stories. we explore every day life for. what europeans fear and what they hope for. some kids when they're up. next on d w. enter the conflict zone with sarah kelly more than 2 years ago ethiopian prime minister hobby ahmed road to power with a wave of hope but now he's waived the military offensive on forces in the northern

tier growing region my guest this week from addis ababa exotica brother ethiopian minister for democratization where is the peaceful future his prime minister promised conflicts of. 60 minutes found d.w. . in these challenging times it is especially important to us to wish you happy and healthy. the friend of ours has kept us apart family and friends. easy to feel loved and especially during this holiday season we're going to deal with you we're here with. you in the long run for someone to remind you we're all in this to god we wish you happy holidays merry christmas everyone of them very merry 1st of season merry christmas and stacy happy holidays everyone happy holidays to you

again soon happy holidays even when those days it. hello and welcome to focus on europe with me liz show it's something that a few years ago most europeans never thought would be possible but now brags it is really happening how will trade between the u.k. and the work the uncertainty is palpable at the ferry ports and the channel tunnel connecting england and france. this.