when you. entered me. and. joined the u.s. . expects from the visit. with.

welcome to. join us an island with no formal diplomatic ties with most of the world is about to welcome a high ranking u.s. envoy on wednesday u.s. ambassador to the u.n. kelly croft travels to taiwan an island which neither the united states nor the united nations recognized as a country in fact up until a few days back official u.s. policy restricted interactions between u.s. and taiwanese diplomats. and that's because china has always claimed taiwan as a part of its territory and the u.s. like other u.n. member states recognizes china not taiwan but u.s. secretary of state mike bombero has overturned the u.s. restrictions saying they were meant to court apiece the chinese government

naturally the change in u.s. rules and kelly craft upcoming visit haven't gone down well in china. and we advise u.s. secretary of state pump to have a clear understanding of history to stop manipulating taiwan related issues to stop acting insta trend and not to go further down this wrong and dangerous path otherwise he will be severely punished by history. and earlier i spoke to taiwan's representative to germany should you where and i began by asking him what taiwan expected from kelly kraft's visit we are expecting weise great preacher on to work come the visit the official visit out there to support not that visit of the ambassador of the u.s. to the united nations and let them carry it cracked i think it keeps a sign to the work that just like. the state secretary or u.s.

is pointed out in his press it's. really crazy is that one shares their view this in their view we say u.s. 8. we share the democracy we oppose to democracy is we should come to use of individual freedom there who are low in the respect for human dignity. because china because their infrastructure not taiwan has been treated very very unfair for the last 4 even 5 take the case. in these uncertain crop the main question really is the. crofts visit this closeness if you like between the combat ministration and the government in taiwan do you see this carrying over into the new biden administration which in riddick you were in just a matter of days. it where people would say that will be the last the parting gift

of trumped government for taiwan but i think it's also it's also in a part of inferior news for the trump government from the truck coming to department because it both democrats and republicans of the usa are not we're friends has been have been always been the prince of the tyrant governments so you i think it's going to be a pretty good inference that one of the inference for the biden government that would take it off because it goes into the same direction which by didn't know what to do for taiwan because it's in the interest of the usa not in the interests of trump government i would have to say that right now the relation between the us and taiwan of his totally being supported by those so-called taiwan to nations in

the center to the us is required by this law to support taiwan with arms sales so it can defend itself against china but there is nor legal requirement for the us to actually defend taiwan in the affair event of an attack by china do you think there needs to be a change in this. their terror one reaches act is to hip and 10 the security step step parity to freedom skill against a pretty india race to the pacific not the in the telling street suit the importance of taiwan the strategically importance of taiwan is not only for taiwan is oh so for the usa what your pen took in the south korea and for the engine countries is such as i could even say for australia new zealand and indian so. it's should it be suzi it comes to the country it's a war if it's china it's very to india it's probably one that would mean not only

a war between how internally but were declared from the china cuba usa to japan today. into pacific i would say that is the question should be putin it and not the way if taiwan is going to be invaded by china then it means. is it were of china against their would of freedom so i would say if china would do the earth usa japan and i would they say even the e.u. e.u. countries because their interest their trade interest would be damaged should star want be taken over by turn stark warning from taiwan's representative to germany thank you so much for joining us. and taiwan has lived with the threat of

the chinese a vision for 7 decades but with china dramatically building up its navy and military in recent years the threat has risen to new levels double international editor richard walker looked at the threat as part of a larger special report. february 20th 20. effluence releases this image to the media it shows a time going east jet fighter intercepting a chinese. flying near its aspace a rank glimpse of the dangerous tension in the skies so we have been doing our skies with defending all it waters it every more but in the last few decades is constant pressuring from the chinese side it's like a stress test on multiple levels it's hardly going to demoralizing the taiwanese public but it's also simply wearing down time once a plane's. one has disappeared. that not only.

made has a limited number of hours and it also takes 'd away all their activity that would prove their right. and perhaps most importantly all of these probing generates hugely valuable insights for the chinese military james final who led u.s. naval intelligence in the pacific explains you have 'd to know your adversaries defense a structure and its network which there's radar systems where the weaknesses were the strengths how long does it take a fighter f. 16 fighter i want to get off the ground to respond to a dream. based on their mapping all of that out in the cyber realm to china continues to probe and chip away. at least unless you mean building in shanghai reportedly houses the military hacking unit 61398 that taiwan suspects of launching

many attacks there constantly getting taiwan cyber attacks with this information misinformation. and of course espionage and with its open society taiwan is highly vulnerable to disinflation camp. pains for those of us watching from the outside we owe it to the people of the region to sit up and pay attention . to a flashpoint they could blow up into a devastating conference. that special report of course from did up an international editor richard walker joins me now on the line richard good to have you is taiwan in immediate danger. well the rest as we just saw in that clip and as we heard from the representative here is in germany taiwan is under pretty much constant threats. almost under constant attack whether it be cyber attack or other activities that are in this kind of graze so kind of hostile acts that have below the level of of outright military

action now china says that it prefers to seek unification is stated goal by peaceful means and that it would like to implement a one country 2 systems approach in taiwan of the kind that we've seen in hong kong but of course if you're sitting in taiwan of the last couple of years watching what's been happening in hong kong that doesn't look all that appealing right now one country 2 systems eventually collapsed under the weight of its own clear contradictions and china is rounding up all sorts of democratic activists and pushing them in jail so if china is seeking to unite with taiwan by persuasion it's going about it in a pretty funny way so that leaves the question well what kind of military options might it be looking at and that is very important to stress here that the chinese do reserve the right they say to use force to unite taiwan with china so in the

course of this film we look at 3 different scenarios one kind of continuing at this chipping away that we've just seen that one where they mount an attack on an outlying territory you know in the way that we saw russia do with crimea and then finally a full scale invasion the most dangerous scenario what is the role you see the united states playing in the event of such an attack by china. well it's interesting because as we just heard from the representatives there and as you pointed out in your introduction to be rushed the united states is not fully committed to defending taiwan in the event that there is an invasion it is committed to providing taiwan weapons and it is could also committed to provide for maintaining the capability to defend taiwan but not actually promising to defend it so there's a debate going on about that about whether that is too mushy with that the u.s. needs to make a cost on commitment with supporters of that with saying that that would stabilize

the situation that would create a clarity strategic clarity in this in this flashpoint area but others say no this would be too provocative towards china and also runs the risk of the taiwanese government behaving irresponsibly just knowing that it has that american support for the one thing to point out is that everyone agrees that taiwan is particularly vulnerable when the united states is weak or distracted if you look at what's going on in the united states at the moment if you can imagine whether it would be anybody in any position politically to step in favor of taiwan at the moment that's a big question so taiwan is very much on edge at the moment just about 30 seconds left richard what does this mean for the incoming biden administration and its relations with taiwan. with a binding ministration you know it's going to want to stabilize the united states and stabilize the situation internationally too so it's not going to want to rock the boat massively but there's an early test that we all need to be watching out for joe biden says that he wants to call a summit of democracies partly as

a way of kind of generating unity in the face of chinese authoritarianism does he invites taiwan to that or does he not that is a big dilemma for the incoming administration which of oka under so much. and you can find richard walker special report on the new troops there but. the but. the fight against the corona virus pandemic. has the rate of infection in developing what does the latest research say. information and contacts the coronavirus up to. 19 specials. on t w. a free jake out of the story for us and for our climate the book. global ideas is on its way to bring you

more conservation the code to make see the screen the bulk of my projects have a to submit to move to france sublime to the spring environmental series and the 3000 on the w.b. and on the lead of the book. the corona virus keeps evolving. 5 as it spreads its mutating taking on new characteristics that can make it harder to fight. variants found in south africa and the u.k. a more contagious straining health services. this mutation has led to more cases than we've seen ever before numbers that can't be explained away by the rise in tested. japan is trying to isolate

a new variant from brazil there's no proof any of them are any deadly but the virus is constantly changing and could eventually make vaccines less effective. or watching evolution take place right in front of our eyes but you coronavirus is doing everything it can to survive becoming clever at jumping from host to host the hope is that where doing everything we can to survive many big economies are back in lockdown including south africa. this isn't a waiting room it's the treatment room for coffin 19 patients at the hospital in kiley. one patient calls out to tell us she's been sitting and waiting for 3 days waiting for a bed to become free next door he's going. to seek only to we think we do that and distributed it. who were horrible to. dr susan mccann colet has

been working here for 9 years but the pandemic is pushing him to his limits a 3rd of his colleagues here have already had the virus. how do you feel for the office though that sometimes if you forward it was going to be enough for speed from from we don't know who didn't want anything you already in your old in the one point to be difficult if you do something you're too true. to who do you 1st be able to do that you should with the thought that sometimes 350. on average one person dies with coverage 19 in the hospital every day. there's a small room next door with somewhat better facilities for acute patients waiting for an intensive care bed at another hospital. but the local health minister admits the not everyone can get an i.c.u. bed most are already full of food but that doesn't qualify for that i see.

that remember i did cry oh i see you it is but it is what it is what it calls on fire. for south africans are battling a new more infectious variant of the virus the fast spread has led to tighter lockdown measures including a ban on alcohol sales and the closure of beaches the police a struggling with enforcing them. only patients over the age of 45 a. now being tested at the state clinics the demand is overwhelming. here in viral or just both going prizes lub oratory every 2nd test is positive the peak of the 2nd wave is expected in south africa in mid january but even after that experts expect further waves i fear that neither the current enormous suge that we're experiencing know nor the arrival of the vaccine sometime in 2 halfway through to

a g 24 small proportion of the population will be able to make a big difference. the government has said it's already in talks with vaccine manufacturers but there are no details yet. emma holcroft is a molecular epidemiologist how much hope should we be putting in these vaccines so the good news is that your body learns to recognise many parts of the virus when it's exposed to these vaccines or when you've been infected with sars kovi too so even if the virus changes a little bit the hope is your body will still learn to recognise it and be able to mount a really good protective response however it's going to take some time to get enough people vaccinated so that we can really see this impact on the number of cases and it's important to remember that most vaccines need 2 doses before they're fully effective so we really need people to keep using other non-pharmaceutical protections like hand washing and mask wearing and being aware aerosol transmission

until we're certain that the vaccines are helping us to keep the case numbers low but why all the concern then about these mutations considering that there is so slight the boss of buy and take told d.w. that there would be one percent and that wouldn't affect his vaccines effectiveness so why we also worried. i think one thing that is important to keep in mind is that a lot of the fear about vaccines is hypothetical certainly it's possible that the virus could change enough that your body doesn't recognize it anymore and then your protection could be impacted but until we have a reason to believe that some of these mutations are really having that effect on real people who've been vaccinated i think it's important to keep our worry a little bit in check now certainly there are so mutations that have some concerns from early studies but importantly these have all been done in the lab and it's very hard to predict what the impact of a lab study actually means in a full size human and a full sized population so i think until we really have evidence that these

mutations will impact vaccine efficacy we shouldn't be too worried what sort of time frame are we looking at i mean could it speed up the the rate of its mutations so luckily sars could be 2 has a pretty consistent mutation rate we actually call viruses mutations kind of clock like because there's so predictable in how often they happen so we don't expect the virus to mutate faster but one thing we do want to keep in mind is that while we have high case numbers where maximizing the viruses ability to explore different people different immune systems and maybe be put under interesting and unique selection pressures and this might mean that we see a new taishan start rising in prominence because it's been in one of these unique situations we can never completely eliminate that this might happen but clearly the fewer people that are getting infected the less room the virus has to play in these different environments and hopefully the last chance that we see

a mutation that would really rather not see an image tell me more about what we know about these mutations making people's antibodies less effective in neutralizing the virus. so there's been a few studies on some of the mutations that are found in both the 501 y. v $1.00 and $5.00 a one y. v 2 variance those are the variance predominately found in the u.k. and in south africa and the news has been mixed here so what scientists do in these cases is they take the virus and then they expose it to what we call the say around the antibodies of people who've already had sars kovi 2 for some of these mutations it looks like there isn't any impact on how well those antibodies work for some of the other mutations in some cases it seems like it might reduce the efficacy but again these are for single mutations and oftentimes a few people sara so we really need to keep doing studies to find out not only how widespread might this affect to be but does this actually mean that it impacts the

your immunity in a full grown human rather than just in a petri dish and whether this is something we really need to be concerned about the example i tracing or sequencing has become so important. so i do think that one thing that these new variants have really brought to the fore is the importance of janov mix surveillance and sequencing we can only tell that a new variant might be responsible for a rise in cases if we have sequences that tell us that that virus has a different genetic makeup and importantly because that virus has this unique kind of fingerprint of mutations we can track how 1 it's spread around the world as well which is why we know that this u.k. and south african variants are in different places around the world this is really important as not only does it mean that we can identify variants and the mutations that might be impacting things like transmission we can also understand how the virus is spreading and whether we can protect countries from getting it or how we can contain it once it's there now the number of sicknesses countries are

generating is really different from country to country and it would be great to see a more concerted effort to make sure that we have regular sequences coming in from every country around the world and the whole goal of molecular if you give me a logistic thank you very much for being on the show tonight. and let's bring in our science correspondent derrick williams he's been looking at your questions surrounding code 90. visit the same households not always infected with the coronavirus after one member is infected. this is an aspect of the pandemic that puzzled scientists from the start you know it that kind of makes sense to to reformulate this question to something like if this is a novel pathogen that no one had ever been exposed to before then we should have all 'd been equally likely to get it and to get it equally bad right especially in a shared space like a household but we apparently aren't one possible reason why is

that prior exposure to other coronaviruses might possibly lower risks for some people so their immune systems were maybe a little 4 armed then of course there are also plenty of people who are asymptomatic even when they do catch the disease they just appear for all intents and purposes to be healthy and they remain undetected even though they're carrying sars cove 2 and could maybe give it to others but we should also flip this question and look at the other half of the equation how contagious someone is so not how come some people don't catch the virus but instead why some of us seem to give it more easily to others there's some scientific consensus that for reasons that remain unclear a subgroup of people often called a super spreaders or super emitters could be driving most of the transmission

some experts think just 10 to 20 percent of people who can't cope at 19 pass it along to up to 80 percent of all subsequent cases so. in other words if your spouse or your child has the pie or a spot for whatever reason isn't a super spreader they're less likely to give it to you especially if you follow isolation protocols that said there is broad agreement that during lockdowns transmission still happens more within homes than anywhere else simply because sharing a household with someone who has copd at 19 increases your exposure so statistically at least you're still more likely to get it from a family member then you are from a stranger. finally the crisis continues to drive

innovation has a mosque for the hearing impaired which is also eco friendly. juliet and i wanted to tackle uganda's waste problem by recycling its mountains of plastic rubbish at the same time as using fashion to take on discrimination against people with disabilities regular masks were preventing her hearing impaired stuff from liberating these one stuck.

in. the can. not i'm back to how. the salt the bronze inflaming the be. good for going to the broken. legs please.

try meal and i'm game did you know that 17 trillion left out the words killed worldwide syria so that we can get but it's not just the animals of all suffering it's the environment we want to uninsured find ways out in the ignition if you want to know how one click to the priests and the cultural change stuff as lethal as listen to our podcast on in the rain. sleet. listen carefully. don't look too soon to use to get. much sleep discover the. please.

please subscribe to the documentary on you tube. it's about billions. it's about power. it's about the foundation of the new world order limited silk road play china wants to expand its influence with this trade network. but in the uk there's a shot of the morning when for accept money from the new superpower will become dependent on the book image because the fate of the chinese state has a lot of money at its disposal the political and that's how it's expanding and asserting its status and position in the world to play china's gateway to play starts feb 19th on d w. this

is the line from america's f.b.i. warns of more violence ahead of joe biden's inauguration as president of state capitals across the country as law enforcement but pass for the end of the presidency he says democrats implemented plans to impeach president trump. also on the program. a data recorder from a crashed into an easy passenger jet it's hoped the device will shed light on why the plane came down open jobs 62 feet.

into the latest fashion in the war against new agricultural after weeks of protests the country's supremes called the legislation on hold to listen to farmers objections. i'm full gale welcome to the program. security in washington d.c. and other u.s. cities is being stepped up ahead of the inauguration of president elect joe biden tensions are high after last week's invasion of the capitol building by pro trump supporters the national guard is now patrolling the grounds of the capitol with precautions also being taken in other places such as same here in madison wisconsin after the f.b.i. warned of plans by extremists to storm government offices in all 50 states on inauguration day. meanwhile democrats are trying to have president trump removed

from office on monday they introduced an article of impeachment accusing the president of inciting insurrection if their efforts to succeed mr trump would become the only president in u.s. history to be impeached twice. this in a week after protesters stormed. the capitol is much changed and the after effects are not just evident outside inside the democrats are intent on removing donald trump who they say is responsible for the violence. resolution calling on vice president michael r. pants to convene 1st the vice president was urged to use his constitutional authority to activate section 4 of the 25th amendment to declare president donald j. trump incapable of executing the duties of his office and to immediately exercise powers as acting president or what republicans quickly block the move i object democrats

then introduced an article of impeachment against trump which could be voted on as early as wednesday. charges him with incitement of insurrection referring directly to last week's capitol rampage even if democrats have enough votes in the house it could be difficult to win over the senate. the main issue is not on the house side it's on the senate side the senate is not around they're not scheduled to come back until the 19th and so there's really nothing forcing them to do anything. quicker than that and a trial again if if they want it they could rush it through but it would not want to do that neither side whether be sooner or later many washington residents feel action needs to be taken seems pretty clear that the president was ignored and

encourage inciting right encouraging sedition and you know even though it's 10 days i think that you know how to categorize this reaction should mean something no matter who it is and i think the inflammatory words of senator cruz and senator clearly. going strong. at some point. i think he should hold them accountable writing. history will look back on this and if we do not act on this moment we fail and so i think that's really critical that we do our job as americans as a government to put down the possibility of this ever happen again but you have to go with the president having just over a week left in office lawmakers will be pressed to move fast it's going straight to washington then where we joined the w.'s bureau chief in a spa welcome in this we just heard stay stay until joe biden's inauguration so is this impeachment anything more than symbolic. well beyond that this point and

as more and more images and more stories come out about the details of the 6th of january it becomes extremely impossible for the democratic party to stay silent so . it is a moment where they really have to take some form of action because the pressure is so high and it is actually also interesting to remind ourselves how difficult the situation is for the republican party they are struggling to figure out how to move forward after president trump and this whole impeachment is only making it much more difficult for them and what is the white house saying. but so far the white house has been mostly silent but in the last couple of days white house staff and cabinet members have started to depart and some of them

have spoken to the press about their concerns. donald trump but as far as an official statement we've heard nothing but today president trump is meant to travel travel to the alamo in texas to celebrate his war wall and it is possible that we hear something from him for the 1st time since he was banned from twitter and other social media platforms and now we hear the law enforcement in washington and around the country is getting ready for trouble around inauguration day what are they expecting and why. right so the city is preparing really for anything i just come back from a little bike ride it looks like a ghost town high fences everywhere siring ins i just watched a young mother over the little child she heard the sirens and bag back so fear is really dominating this place the d.c. meyer mayor. has placed

a state of emergency funding for more security. $15000.00 additional. guards will be deployed here in washington but we have to be aware that the threats are not only here towards the capitol the f.b.i. put out a warning for all capital capitals of the 50 states to expect violence over the next couple of days thank you for the whole washington. meanwhile germany's biggest lender deutsche bank says it will no longer do business with president trump or his companies as according to a report in the new york times georgia bank is the biggest lender to the trump organization which is currently being seen by the president's sons the move comes in the wake of a trump supporters' assault on the capital a spokesman for the bank declined to comment on the report. indonesian navy divers

serve recover the flight data recorder from the wreckage of the ally that crashed on saturday the device was found on the seabed north of jakarta divers are still searching for the cockpit voice recorder officials hope information recovered from the devices will help determine what caused the boeing 737 to come down just 4 minutes after taking off from jakarta with 62 people on board there was no emergency call no reports of technical problems. julian bray is an aviation accident investigator he joins us from cambridge in england welcome to day to you what will investigators learn from this data recorder good afternoon phil well what is happening now is that this is a recovery mission because on flawlessly we're not going to be able to recover all rescue any passengers the plane went into the warsaw 4 minutes into its flight

and about one minute of the sea and basically what's happened it's sent out of the sky about 10000 feet in under a minute so we are now looking at wreckage and specifically we need to find the flight data recorder and the flight voice recorder the black boxes now they've located but they've only brought one up so the surface so far. and what's what's on each of them. the one they haven't the moment is the flight data recorder now this is an endless loop if you like and what didn't you don't recall every electrical signal that the plane is generated so if the pilot pushes about that will be recorded and he causes a lot of movement that will be recorded as well so the idea is this is on a timeline so they cannot cheat piece together when they get this box this black box back to the lab they freak or to. marry that out with a date and then you have

a complete set of what was happening on the fight it was saying and what the atmosphere was like on board the aircraft and is there a working theory at the moment about the likely cause of this crash there's a lot of speculation around this was a 28 year old aircraft but it is possible it safety checks the things said 37500 this is not the max series that have problems but this is a good old work course it's. being maintained a well and frankly there are no concerns or issues with this chick brand croft and really we have to find out what's happening here we cannot rule out sabotage they could have been a catastrophic event. which calls the aircraft to fall out of the sky so all this will be investigated by the investigators and they will try and do recover as much

of the fuselage as possible to reassemble it and try and work out exactly what happened to the older people waiting for use but just to be clear you say we can rule out sabotage nothing at the moment to points in that direction. nothing yeah equally you can't really say and you cannot rule it out but you have to consider why it is 4 out of the sky drop 10000 seats in the minutes. just went straight down into the sea so that is what they'll be looking at. talking to you thank you that's very clear aviation accident investigator julian bray and we'll take a look at some of the other stories making news around the world u.s. judges hold to the 1st execution of a by the government for nearly 70 years with just hours to go lisa montgomery

killed a pregnant woman and took a baby 16 years ago proceedings were blocked on mental health grounds based on evidence that was mongomery was unable to understand why he was being executed. uganda's opposition frontrunner bobby wine has warned of possible vote rigging in this week's presidential election it's the main challenger to longtime leader your he was a very we seeking a 6th term with or it is of ordered interpret to internet providers to shut down social media ahead of 1st place poll. after india where the supreme court or suspended the implementation of controversial new agricultural laws that have led to widespread protests from farmers the chief justice announce that the court would form a committee to hear farmers concerns about the legislation and the thousands of farmers who've been camped on the outskirts of delhi for more than a month they say the law changes benefit large private buyers at the expense of

smaller producers only 60 percent of india's population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods. straight to delhi then we have rejoined our bureau chief there on research email welcome amrita what more can you tell us about the court's decision. she has some very strong words from the supreme court today they were listening to some petitions a challenging the validity of the street and recounts real laws which will passed in september and their chief justice said that he was very disappointed by the way the government was handling these protests he described the government's way of dealing with the families as ineffective and even tone to say that their current supreme court suggested the panel be set up and he wants to create an atmosphere he said to this panel which was comfortable and conducive for the 2 sides to come together and find a solution because you must remember that any rounds of negotiations between the farmers organizations and the government have yielded no outcome still for any

russian though the supreme court chief justice that he does seem oddly partial in a quote here saying that we will protect farms well i think in the finest perspective they welcome the decision by the supreme court to put a stay on the implementation of these controversial laws but there's a fundamental lack of trust the finalists feel towards the government's proposals so they feel that although the supreme court is sounding they optimistic and positive about finding an outcome they are worried that the panel which the supreme court is suggesting is very cruel is controversial laws so they don't believe that this ban it will bring any outcome and they categorically rejected taking part in any and in discussions with the committee that the supreme court is the pours into a settled matter could quickly outline for us what it says about these changes that are so upset the farms. i feel either man and wish these changes were honest they

were passed at a time during the pants endemic brand the opposition was boycotting parliament and the farm was not consulted and that's the 1st big thing if you look they were simply not consultants and secondly they feel that they will be true in at the ministry of large corporates specially when it comes to selling their crops and they were dependent on a short minimal tricep they would get from the government and these laws into using that and they feel it will be left in the lurch and they'll be left at the mercy of large corporate funds so this sounds like a victory along a long road i guess the farmers must be very happy about this. until they're not happy i think they are really worried about these develop.