today that the a new start treaty is in the national security interest of the united states also because and we should point that out this is the last remaining u.s. russia arms control treaty in the united states and therefore even more important russia ready called for an extension for this military treaty for some time but the top administration had rejected it and even the potential extension for one year i was rejected and for biden this has obviously been one of his priorities regarding russia terry you have the opportunity today to talk to nato secretary-general yes or to ask to get his reaction as a no to a part of your conversation and then i'd like to you to weigh in please the nato allies have made it clear that they all support. the new store piggery mint on call inertial to respond in a full sister way to the u.s. . proposal now it's terry why is this treaty so important to

nato. well lately as carolina mentioned it is the last remaining arms control treaty between washington and moscow so the europeans have seen these other cornerstones of their stability crumble the last one the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty under the trump administration just within the last couple of years so while the europeans are not parties to any of these agreements they are the landmass in between the 2 countries that hold the most nuclear weapons in the world so nobody wants there to be any freedom for missiles to be flying over our heads here in europe so they are very much hoping that the u.s. and russia despite all of the other problems in the bilateral relationship can really nail down this treaty for another 5 years and then move on to renegotiating what other weapons might be covered under it what other countries might be covered under it it's really important for the europeans right now to keep this last thread

of arms control intact family in moscow now to you according to nato the ball is in the kremlin's courts and a new reaction there. well i think the kremlin is also likely to be on board with extending this treaty even though the reaction that we have heard from the kremlin spokesperson to me through this book is called has been rather cautious and almost you might say a bit coy he said that he welcomed the fact that the u.s. wanted to extend the new start treaty but he also said that of course russia would have to wait to look at the finer print to look at the details it seems to me that the kremlin is almost playing a bit hard to get with the new administration in the u.s. especially considering that vladimir putin himself called for an extension a 5 year extension of the new start treaty as recently as last year and russia has always kind of in the last few years on the trumpet administration very much portrayed the u.s. as the side leaving international treaties leaving international arms treaties as

well including the i.n.f. treaty as well and one russian expert that i spoke to here said that really the new start treaty is kind of what remains the bare bones of arms control that remains between the u.s. and russia and i think that especially considering how frosty relations are between the u.s. and russia at the moment with the threat of potential new sanctions from the biden administration hanging in the air with kind of the tension between the west and russia over the arrest of opposition politician i would say of any russia will certainly also be on board with extending this this key treaty and we sure are in moscow to brussels and curly in washington thank you all 3 for your reporting. and now to some sad and very sobering news here in germany the number of that's

from the coronavirus and the mic as passed the 50000 at a briefing a short time ago the head of germany's public health institute said in number was distressing he's urging the government to maintain its tougher national lockdown until there's a nasa drop in both that's and new infections are one of the biggest problems is the situation in nursing homes across the country. the vaccine rollout is well underway in german nursing home spot they remain a big 19 hotspot there are currently outbreaks in hundreds across the country he even as the overall in fiction writes steadily fulls it's a reminder that germany isn't out of trouble yet. we currently know of around $900.00 outbreaks in nursing homes there are probably on reported cases. but there are homes we very few or no cases of covert 19 of these homes are often better results to have bit as senator images and more professional knowledge and support

should be the case in all nursing harbors the chief concern for hill for thought arties now is getting on top of the threat posed by covert 19 mutations this is one of the main reasons germany's current lockdown was toughened and extended until mid february that and trying to bring down the stubbornly high real number of infections and deaths each day. it's on if you can see the numbers are heading in the right direction but they are still too high. in time that's what this is all about. intensified if it's reach and not easy if you've gotten from point isn't so good mine's on for so that we can bring the numbers down to a point where we can gain control over the pandemic once again. we can clear but it's germany's president is encouraging people to light candles to remember the 50000 people who've died from coated 19 in the country. is planning

a memorial service for after easter sadly by the end they will be many more victims to add to this week's terrible milestone a terrible milestone indeed let's cross now to our political correspondent linda crane who is tracking these developments and melinda 50000 people who died what is the situation right now in germany. it is still grave as we heard in that report the numbers are coming down somewhat after having peaked in december for example in december we were seeing close to $200.00 new cases per 100000 rez. residents that is now down to about 115 per 100000 but as the health minister vade made very very clear today the numbers are still too high we had 17000 new cases in the last 24 hours and they are too

high especially because we are now seeing these new mutations it's not clear to what degree those are present and spreading here in germany but certainly the south african mutation is known to have occurred here in germany and the fact is with case numbers that high if these very transmissible mutations really gain a footing then we can see the infection rate go way back up very quickly which is why it is so crucial to keep that lockdown in place as we heard today and as your report also mentioned especially grievous the conditions currently in old age homes but that is of course a very interesting dichotomy there infections are falling slightly but we're strictures are being tightened how does the general public feel about that. i think there's some restriction fatigue setting in the polls show that there's still

a very high willingness to be compliant with the restrictions but people are somewhat exhausted and frustrated by the fact that these restrictions are often imposed on a piecemeal basis then lengthened appear to kill or leave for families the closures of schools and kindergartens have made it very very difficult and again they're just when people have got used to one time frame suddenly it's being extended for now till mid february but we heard people some of the official saying today that in fact we may not seeing a lightening of the infection rate as we go into spring and early summer as we did last year there may be different circumstances in place and that's a very dreary prospect for a lot of germans in the remaining 20 seconds that we have there have been major problems with the vaccine a roll out so how is that developing. well continue to be difficulties germany simply ordered too late therefore it doesn't have an adequate supply at the current

time then there's often often been distribution problems with the vaccine because in fact distribution and logistics very complicated with this vaccine bottlenecks with the producers particularly with pfizer rebuilding one of the factories that's producing the vaccine coming here nonetheless nearly one and a half 1000000 germans have been vaccinated and we're hearing from the authorities that all who want to be vaccinated can be by the end of september political correspondent crane thank you and no and nowhere in germany is the death rate higher than in the eastern state of saxony there are so many people have died that funeral homes are struggling to cope and as we report many of those left behind are in shock over what has happened. there should be a moment of prayer but there's no time for that there are simply too many coffins

too many bodies arriving at the crematorium in saxony. some days there are more bodies than we can actually cremate on a single day but this is when us for our employees also because there's no end in sight. and we're standing in the morning hall of our crematorium. it usually accommodates 90 people for the funeral services. unfortunately we had to convert the hall into a storage space because we could no longer keep up with the deaths. it's a difficult situation for us. because relatives can usually say goodbye to their loved ones here. but at the moment that's not possible because

there's. no room for a funeral service not all of the coffins represent deaths from the coronavirus but many of them are marked so. these people have to end their lives without a final hug from their loved ones. luke spanish cares for the bereaved he is a pastor and. family sometimes only realize how dangerous the coronavirus can be once they've lost a loved one to it. when does your liberal me and i have contact with families who have lost a relative because of covert 19 to scorn or they're in a state of shock and reconsidering things switched on this 1st phase of mourning the so-called shock phase lasts longer for them because something inexplicable something in comprehensible has been added namely that this pandemic is a plan to me. the pandemic is far from over. many more cremations

will be carried out here get a hold monster is worried about the future that if the assuming that the number of infections remains high it follows that the number of deaths will to refer to these in. and that means we won't see any relief here until mid february at the earliest . it is a winter of mourning and as it is in many places in the world during the pandemic. here's a look now at some of the other developments in the pandemic. the european commission says it will seek clarification from pfizer over new delays in delivering covert $1000.00 vaccines to e.u. countries earlier the 2 parties that there would be no further delay next week after supplies slowed in recent days portugal is stopping flights to and from the united kingdom starting saturday blaming

a coven 1000 variant 1st identified in the u.k. for a devastating surge in new portuguese cases and media reports in hong kong suggest tens of thousands of residents will be placed under lockdown for the 1st time to contain a new outbreak the measures will cover a small but densely populated part of the kowloon peninsula. perhaps we know some of the other stories making headlines around the world. a spokeswoman for a jailed kremlin critic alexina vali has been sentenced to 9 days in jail after calling for a demonstration carry on marches a hearing lasted all of 5 minutes she was detained along with other involve the associates ahead of protests planned across russia this weekend in support of the jailed kremlin critic. funerals have taken place for the 32 victims of 2 suicidal suicide bombings in iraq's capital baghdad the services were

held in the early hours of friday in the shrine city of new jobs so-called islamic state claimed responsibility for the blasts it's the deadliest attack on baghdad in 3 days. in 3 years i should have said google now says it will block its search engine in australia if the government does not back down over a new media code forcing the tech company to pay for news content or the code put forward by the government aims to make google and facebook paid australian media companies for using snippets of content from their sites the government has hit back at google saying it will not respond to threats. australian news outlets won google to pay them a fee or face a hefty fine for publishing their content in its search engine a corresponding law was drafted in december google says that's unacceptable and it retaliated at a hearing before the australian senate. the principle of unrestricted linking

between websites is fundamental to say and coupled with the unmanageable financial and operational risk if this version of the card would have become law it would give us no real choice but to stop making google search available in australia this would be the 1st time that google had pulled out of an entire continent but australia isn't taking it lying down. to strive you. now rules for things you can do in a strike that's done in a palm and it's done by our government and that's how things work here in stride and people who want to work with that in australia you're very welcome but we respond to threats google has a lot to lose if australia goes ahead with its demands other countries could follow europe has long post a challenge for the tech company after months wrangling with french publishers on

thursday google finally agreed a payment framework for including their content on its search engine the spam now alexander fanta who works for nets dot org a german blog on digital rights and culture and he joins us from vienna this offense and do you think this new legislation currently being debated in australia will spell the end of the power of tech giants. well i think what we're seeing here a very hard ball tactics played grew in australia and i think it's quite novel this level of confrontation how this will play out it's very hard to set the moment but i think it. is merits bearing in mind that there are very very few examples of google withdrawing its services entirely from and market the only one that comes to mind is 10 years ago when google withdrew from china to avoid censorship so google's move in australia it's pretty unprecedented how much of an

impact could this have on tech companies. i think the world is following these examples so we have. media bargaining code which contain some elements of a similar to the copyright they're active which was. 2 years ago and i think this is. a very close parallel to our investigations going on right now at u.s. regulators looking at google's dominance in the advertising eco system so i think all these initiatives link up in some way and provide examples and models for each other now take giants like google and facebook shrugged off these accusations in the past what's different this time. i think this time regulators really showed it

serious that the dominant market position of tech companies india view has gone too far and i think that more is to come when you look at how the european union has just a month ago announced a digital services markets act specifically targeted to very large online platforms we're seeing a lot of willingness to action that we didn't just didn't see 5 years ago or even 3 years ago what have been some of the reactions towards this annual legislation so of course there has been some criticism some digital rights groups in australia say that the cold does not address underlying problems of google's market dominance in the market footage so i do tightening so i think it's fair to say that a stopgap measure to force tech companies to share a bit of their revenue but it does not fundamentally change the underlying system i

think the same can be said of the copyright directivity european union so the question now is you know what regulates go ahead with these measures and then will they take further steps to really limit the market of these companies could we really see the search engine the biggest search engine in the world google no longer be operative in australia operational in australia and. i think that's entirely plausible i mean also i like to point out even that even though some people forget it who is not the only said and so we have in most countries microsoft's being. a small but significant market presence we have european alternatives such as. in france and i think that people in all are starting to look closer at what our tentative service is to those of these large tech companies alexander found out working for the german blogging

has probably take on digital rights and culture thank you for joining us. we turn our attention now to russia that country is facing a growing problem with garbage the country produces around $60000000.00 tons of trash each year but very little of it is recycled i remember organizations now say more than 90 percent is dumped in landfill sites often close to towns and villages you know these euro shadow reports. is this the elections keep it it's as big as 45 soccer fields and is just one of dozens of garbage dumps on the outskirts of moscow residents say just a few years ago was the pit was still deep in the ground now it's more of a hill and as if the garbage piles up the local health problems due to the dump lies just a few 100 meters from the village of novel shop of all. of us hometown the

mother of 2 says that some days the smell from the side was so bad she couldn't even open the windows and the kids jaroslava and well often sick video saver finally had enough she and her children moved to clean as city several kilometers away. the little ones were constantly sick one day their pediatrician told me their children have rattling sounds in their lungs i didn't think about it for very long before starting to look for an apartment for us here and clean later after we moved we went to the same doctor surprise surprise the lung rattling had disappeared how did that happen simple we moved away. busy few dosia families fate is no isolated incident. removal is one of russia's most pressing concerns only 6 percent of the country's gabbett is either

processed or incinerated as the rest is simply dumped environmentalist who are uneasy. sites around moscow in particular a ticking time bomb rarely conforming to safety standards that they put new to the soil the ground water and to the. breeding stake in by the state civil protection agency show with the area surrounding nixon skip it is also contaminated 3 years ago authorities found that hundreds in sulfite levels were $25.00 times the acceptable amount. but nothing has been done to protect the local residents. of us mother is another of those affected the 67 year old's house is dangerously close to the dump but unlike her daughter she says she can't know. where would i go who would i sell my home to without horrible smell outside who cares about someone like me and how would i even get by in the city my pension is

$190.00 euros per month but i'd have to pay $130.00 euros for a one room apartment. is usually a fair deceiver and to the other residents have tried to repeatedly to stand up for their rights in court but to no avail. but that's what's at the i don't know how much longer we can fight against the system there aren't that many of us and we feel desperately helpless. meanwhile the mountain of rubbish keeps growing and if there are plans to expand to the elections could. shatter reporting there next to northern turkey a devoted dog a spend days waiting outside a hospital where her owner was receiving treatment the dog named joke followed the ambulance carrying her owner and then made daily visits to the hospital even though

she was being cared for by a relative she would repeatedly run off and return to keep. watch outside the hospital all day finally one jerk was reunited with her owner jamal and as you can see she could barely contain her excitement jamal has since been discharged from the hospital and little banjo is said to be taking care of him at home. when a crazy story or soccer magazine kick off is up next with a look back at the weekend's action in the german league i'm willing to rock and roll and on behalf of all of us.

the from. chicago. game day in the middle of the week closed the 1st half of the season. labor close in. their 1st. child lost against a long letter to

a leader the 1st half of the season. w. . bread the real power resides. i come from there lots of people in fact new than a 1000000000 if you but not just democracy that's one reason i'm passionate about people and aspirations and they can sense. the truth and the mission the book is right here in berlin onto the floor of the un in 1 am member thinking at the time if the battle in vulcan for what happened is people come together and unite for a pool. but i do the news often confronted difficult situations more conflict between does some stand i see despite my job to confront reality does on policies

and development to put the spotlight on issues that matter most cons of food security oppression martian isolation. a notch has been achieved so much more needs to be done and i think people have to be at the heart of solutions my name is on the fact she and i work at g.w. .