rich. but in europe there's a sharp morning whoever accept money from the new superpower will become dependent on a living in the other 3 the chinese state has a lot of money at its disposal. and that's how it's expanding and inserting its status in position in the world to be physical but boy are you. china's gateway to europe with your every 19th on d w. this is data we're news and these are our top stories police in myanmar have formally charged ousted civilian leave her son suit she was breaking an important law authorities say illegally imported walkie talkies were found at her home she's being held in custody a civil disobedience campaign that's been growing since

a military coup earlier this week. a new study suggests the oxford astra zeneca vaccine could indeed prevent people from spreading covert 19 the research by oxford university is the 1st to show a vaccine stopping the coronavirus being passed on the university says the vaccine could cut transmission of the virus by 2 thirds. former european central bank chief mario draghi has agreed to trying to form a new government of national unity in italy the governing coalition collapsed last month after a splinter party withdrew its support druggy often referred to as super mario is widely credited with saving the euro during the 2012 currency crisis. this is d w news from berlin you can follow us on twitter and instagram d w news or visit our website that still

w dot com. she was once the hope of a 1000000 more run by the people not by the army now on song suchi could be sent to prison by the very generals who overthrew her government and he dared to challenge vladimir putin's kremlin critic alexina vone he survived a poison attack now he'll have to survive time in a russian prison tonight the 1st foreign policy test for the biden administration the world is watching what will this america do i'm bored golf in berlin this is the day. the united states is deeply concerned. korea and military the strongest possible sanctions the united states will continue to work closely with

our partners and do it with one voice the reiterate our call for the russian government to deteriorate a human rights situation in russia to immediately unconditionally release mr no funny. also coming up amazon's c.e.o. jeff bezos he used his garage to change forever the way we go shopping now he's using his wealth to possibly change the way we see the stars. for to manage and start to want to. look to our viewers on p.b.s. in the united states and to all of you around the world welcome we begin the day with the 1st stress tests of u.s. foreign policy led by president joe biden from the campaign trail all the way to

the white house biden promised americans to focus all of his. tension 1st on ending the pandemic at home and he has been doing exactly that but 2 weeks into his presidency the world is demanding some of his attention to 2 geopolitical flashpoints where democracy is in danger number one russia and the fate of criminal critics alexina volney yesterday of only was sentenced to 3 and a half years in prison for violating probation connected to a conviction for embezzling money involved he says the kremlin is behind the prosecution and that president putin wants him silenced the european union and the u.s. consider a volley to be proof that the rule of law under putin is being attacked the bind administration is reportedly considering sanctions in response year sanctions could also be slapped against me and mar on monday the military overthrew the democratically elected government led by on song suchi today suchi was charged with

illegally importing walkie talkies a strange of skewer charge that could land her in prison human rights groups are already sounding the alarm take a list. in charge. than . any navy anymore on t.v. a charge against your and we are. insane. democracy is in danger and the world is waiting for an answer from a new us president what will that look like what can it look like what to discuss the possibilities i'm joined tonight by tory tell sick tory is a fellow with the brookings institution focusing on u.s. foreign policy she's also a research director at harvard university she joins me tonight from washington d.c. tori's good to have you on the day before we talk about these 2 challenges for the

new administration perhaps you could give our viewers an idea of what joe biden state department has at its disposal after the trip presidency how much credibility remains for america as a defender of human rights and democracy thank you for having me on brant it is an uphill battle for the u.s. state department for the u.s. government for the country in speaking out against these human rights abuses and these challenges to democracy and our very own democracy is being challenged at home over these last few years and we certainly have our work cut out for us americans diplomats have their work cut out for them taking on these challenges abroad you say diplomats what about america's top diplomat how crucial to this new foreign policy is the new secretary of state blinken. now now in place u.s. secretary of state anthony blinken has has come out saying the right things on

these geo political flashpoints he has carved out russian president vladimir putin has called for the release of political opposition leader alexei navalny and the release of those who were arrested in the widespread protests across russia and he's also called out that myanmar generals who have detained a democratically elected leader on sound suki so he's saying the right things he's garnering the right support at home and i think we're going to see a strong response from this administration on both of these challenges to democracy in russia and in the end we know the white house is reportedly considering sanctions against me and more do we know how effective sanctions would be against the military at this point it's a great question we haven't seen exactly the type of sanctions that this administration might put in place what we do know is that the u.s. government has a long track record of imposing sanctions on burma over the last decade of military

rule leading up to the democratic elections in 2015 that were then removed and now u.s. spokesperson. jen psaki has said that all of the sanctions that were removed are now that under review these are sanctions that could be put in place against the military leadership against the generals that have carried out this and their families and networks and so they could have bite but all options are on the table and them help far do you think that this white house will go to help on song suchi but she is she's no longer the torch bearer of freedom and democracy that she wants was. yes time to keyes inability to speak out against genocidal actions against their her friends minority in recent years has certainly furnished her reputation in the last i think this is more a call for me tienen democratic leadership in her maintaining myanmar's kind of

fledgling democracy and less so for this particular leader as you mentioned her reputation has been under stress in recent years in the u.s. but i still think you will see a strong push as you have seen from president biden secretary of state lincoln and other western leaders for the release of this democratically elected leader of myanmar let's consider the other stress test here for russia and the imprisonment of kremlin critic alexina hall today the white house press secretary was asked about that phone call that president biden made with russian president putin shortly before or after biden moved into the white house take a listen when he called president putin he did not hold back he made clear that while there are areas where we can work together say new start which is in the interests of the security of the united states he has concerns about a number of areas of their reported interference whether it's in elections in the

hacking of the united states the solar winds hacking i should say reports of bounties on american troops there's an ongoing review that's happening which he also stated in that in that conversation so torie jen psaki there she does a good job of going through the wong list of problems that the u.s. has with russia what does the prison sentence seeing alexina violent what does it do to the calculus of biden's foreign policy. it adds another gent on the scorecard of challenges that the u.s. and russia face at the beginning of this administration and i think it's important to keep in mind that this is not it ministration that is seeking a reset with russia in the ways that previous administrations have george w. bush came into office seeking a reset with russia president barack obama did the same and of course we saw from president very little criticism if any of president putin and his repression at home and aggression abroad so this is ministration has come in early saying that it

is going to take seriously the challenges it views from russia in the united states when it comes to election interference with the solar wind tacking but also with the imprisonment of political opposition leader alexei navalny so this is a and administration that's come out swinging showing that it is going to take challenges from russia seriously unlike the previous administration for our viewers tell us which is the easier case to be made by president biden to congress sanctions against myanmar or more strict sanctions against russia. we've actually seen support from congress on both of these fronts thus far throughout the trump administration there was bipartisan support in congress for pushing further sanctions on president putin and his cronies on russia for its occupation of ukraine and excision of crimea so i think there is a groundswell of bipartisan support for further sanctions on russia at this at this

flashpoint advances in support from other western leaders that have already moved to impose sanctions because of the nivana placing so we could see that after movement there however i think that there is pretty broad bipartisan support for moving forward in a critical way in both me and mar and russia when it comes to sanctions you focus on transatlantic relations the only story has given ammunition to opponents of the nord stream to natural gas pipeline from russia to germany president biden has always been against this project german chancellor angela merkel she has not budged in her support of the project can never volney can his imprisonment can it move the needle at all here so in his confirmation hearing u.s. secretary of state anthony blinken called north stream 2 a bad idea we've also seen a lot of criticism from the u.s. congress on standing criticism on north stream too there's no question that this is

going to remain a point of difference between germany and the united states i think with this moment with the new vonnie jelling shows is that there are other issues that the united states germany and european partners need to unite on even if we were divided on issues such as nurturing to you in finally there was quite a bit of a stir at the end of the trump administration that the u.s. role in the world has been forever diminished in tarnished in your opinion what do events a 1000000 more in russia say to that 8. well this is an early test for the by the ministration as i mentioned before we have an uphill battle in speaking out against democratic backsliding as we have of course didn't challenge here at home but i think that these issues and the early responses from the by demonstration show that we as a country have a stake in the democratic backsliding that we are seeing around the world and that

when we speak out with one voice we can move the needle on democratic resurgence but that we need to be a stronger ways at the table we need to be a leader in multilateral fora for pushing back against these human rights atrocities as democratic not fighting but it's going to take time and i think the events that we've seen in the united states show that we have just as much a stake in the health of democracy around the world as other countries do tories out from the brookings institution tory we appreciate you taking the time to talk with us tonight it's good to get your insights thank you think. well it is the end of an era at amazon founder jeff bezos is stepping down as c.e.o. later this year giving up leadership of the online retail giant that he began in his garage back in 1994 his stake in amazon has made bezos one of the richest men on the planet even during the pandemic his wealth grew as amazon's business

benefited from lock downs and customers moving online for the last quarter of the 2020 year the company reported revenues of $125000000000.00 profit doubling to over $7000000000.00 that's a nice way to go well bezos will transition to the role of executive chairman he'll be replaced by andy jassi who currently runs amazon web services. all right so what's going on here to talk by them to the table by stephen beardsley from the business stephen so let's start with jesse what or who is c. and what does his rise to say you know what does it mean so any jesse join the company in 1907 and he quickly moved up to something like a chief of staff for jeff bezos so he knows the company really well he's credited with being one of the architects with bezos of this idea of cloud computing services in which a company like amazon also google microsoft they rent out servers and provide data

infrastructure for companies usually it's been very profitable it doesn't account for a lot of revenue but it's incredibly profitable sort of counts for so much of the money that they're actually making you mentioned that last quarter so much of that was actually from cloud computing services he runs that right now and his move up basically is one could say that's a bet on the future viability of that service. has also seen his election is also seen as being basically sort of very much in the mold of jeff bezos right he's rigorously analytical he's very open to a decentralized kind of leadership style very and very detailed data focused i should say and so in some ways it's really not that much of a difference in some ways in terms of leadership style then bezos perhaps the question is he hasn't had so much time on the retail side of course amazon the world's biggest online retailer $300.00 so that could be something that it would be interesting to watch business go from being c.e.o.

to executive chairman mean what does that mean for his role executive chairman this is one of the questions executive chairman is sort of a very trendy way to pull a c.e.o. out of the day to day operations without seeing them completely leave the company so in some cases we see these c.e.o.'s former c.e.o.'s remain on a sort of the face of the company in a way they usually have ties to it such as a founder in the case of bezos and it takes them out of the day to day operational tasks and allow. some sit back and do some the more project oriented stuff while giving them also the ability to help someone like an andy jesse transition to his role the question will be how well those roles are defined right because if you're a c.e.o. suddenly taking over from the founder you definitely want to know you know at what point his base those come in what influence does he have but from what we hear amazon has been discussing this for quite some time so you would think that those roles are hopefully hashed out for jessie that's for sure we know that amazon. jeff bezos is baby right so what would you say how big is the imprint of his on the

company and what about the criticism that the corporate culture there was was toxic that corporate culture really is modeled on bezos is personality itself it's relentless in terms of seeking perfection in terms of seeking customer satisfaction you know what i say seeking perfection it's not like in the model of a steve jobs where someone who says you know we have to have everything specifically right before we release it to the public amazon is known for taking bets on things to see how things work in the public and then rigorously assessing did it work did it not using data really coming through things you mention the criticism of the corporate culture it is seen as a very tough place to work it is seen as somewhere where you come to scrap for your ideas and you're credited with success when you make it all the way to the top by defending your ideas by being very vocal others would say that that vocal ness leans into hostility sometimes in meetings and that some of the criticisms were so

what's the biggest challenge would you say facing amazon moving forward and before we run out of time what about jeff bezos wanting to reach for the stars well but i would say the biggest challenge is regulation right the question of you know amazon as both a platform and a seller that's one of the questions can it be both as far as blue origin's that's his passion project he's made that clear from the beginning he's often referred to amazon as a way to get into space actually he was funding that and he still has some work to do to catch up to you on moss but they have the play. ends and this will probably be a boost for those plans of his. the ticket one of the stars stephen business stephen thank you. if we can reduce the cost of lunch by a factor of $10.00 and then by a factor of $100.00 and believe me that's going to take time and a lot of hard work but if we can do that you'll be living in a completely new world it'll be a golden age of space exploration you'll see so many people then it will be

a big industry in a very dynamic and fascinating one it will be a golden age a golden age that was jeff bezos laying out his vision for space travel back in 2017 now the outgoing amazon c.e.o. plans to devote his full time it is well to exploring the final frontier a couple of weeks ago private space company blue origin successfully tested its launch rocket and capsule new shepherd is a reusable space designed to carry paying tourists on short trips to the edge of space. for maximum reuse ability to help lower launch costs. now compare that compare what you just saw all to the latest test flight by bezos as rival ilan musk his space x.'s latest starship prototype ended well in a fireball the same lisieux rocket managed a successful takeoff and high altitude test in texas but it went up in flames there

you see it boom landing the last prototype at a similar fate in december and a webcast of the latest launch the company said that it had a crate flight but still needs to quote work on their landing a little bit i would say so it's all right to talk about the space race i'm joined now by keith cowing he's a blogger in the founder of the website nasa watch he's also former rocket scientist himself keith it's good to have you back on the show let me get your thoughts 1st on this this space race of billionaires we've got must we've got jeff bezos and you know i want to add richard branson what do you make of this well you know i'm often asked i know you and i don't know the other 2 gentlemen but . they read too much science fiction when they were kids like a lot of us they read so much of it they actually thought that it's possible to do then they somehow became rich and they don't know any better than the trying to do

this stuff and they have now as 11 offices nontrivial resources sufficient to do that and in your prior piece of her just somebody seem to be so slipped down amazon has the way gerry the cash for words it will you and views tesla as other country on companies in the same way so you know you've got you've got people now who have the financial resources that rival who are exceed those of countries so it's inevitable you're going to see something like this happen and am i hearing you right there is there's some criticism in your description of this new space race. not at all i don't feel a lot of people knowing it's not an uncommon thing to say don't go on for over 20 years some ways he's changed but at the core of who he is easy just somebody who dreams big and reaches out to make the dreams happen and you know i mean that he has his detractors but he has his supporters and his fans and you know i mean just look at any normal way of doing things whether it's federal express or whatnot it

always starts with a couple of crazy people with a little too much too much in the way of dreams and a little bit extra money and then years research back later and say well you know amazon what a crazy idea let's go order groceries right i mean. it's very good point i've been reading some critiques of this new space rivalry one criticism is that this is just another story of a rich man who does some research and launches a rocket and that's it and is that is that a fair criticism. no not at all i mean he started out i remember the very early rockets and he was he asked me who says should i show the sly but he says you might as well you get over it's going to blow up to get it over with people see it but if you succeed they see you do it live and he went from doing that to the point now he's making money meet real actual mudding launching commercial satellites into space and this is not dissimilar from what we had here in the states when we had the still berens in the railroad barons back in the hundreds who were competing

with each other and the net result is we had this vast a railroad system and you could argue it through their motives yeah you might say maybe they've you know maybe should chill out a little more but the flip side is we all benefit from you know their dreams becoming manifest reality so you know big pick which sent the equation you want to be on well you know last week was the 35th anniversary of the challenger explosion and iran musk you know he's been very vocal in his criticism of the inefficiency at nasa jeff bezos and he doesn't say much publicly one way or the other. do you feel like we know all that there is to know about these men and their space ambitions. you know iraq it 1st well they're not government so they can pretty much too i mean you could go back to howard hughes in airplanes or the wright brothers i mean there's always you know against people with of money in a dream how much do you want to know i mean even on pretty much taking a break from twitter now but even pretty much puts himself out there twitter i mean

that's not sealant that sets that ceiling these us is a far more private person branson somewhere in the middle he lets you know what he's doing to a certain extent whether it's going into space or selling goods on the internet or electric cars or any other imaginative business usually you have somebody at the top who is sort of the main embodiment of what the company's about we had the previous discussion talked about what basis would be doing just to be a vote of the company he probably just will spend an hour or less every day looking at spreadsheets and so forth you know we talk about the dreams that these wealthy people have but what's the reality in terms of technology i mean we're still years away from mass space tourism are we. yeah we are and it's going to be expensive but you know one thing that was brought up as you know can anybody do this i don't the training i've actually flown it of centrifuge up to 6.2 g.'s

i've done the suborbital thing that the rich and anybody who's a good health can do it it is the last of the other day if you can take one of these roller coaster rides and you know come out of it intact you could go into space the issue really is money and one of the questions that was asked of you and just the other day with the big announcement was how does this you know rich guy put a whole bunch of money into this one flight translate into the you know the rest of us going and you know the analogy is is it feeds the fun scorch of the starship project in you you fly in fly and crash it until you get it right and eventually you know you find the way that you know the market will bear the prices would start to come down and this is been proven before we if you look at the airline industry back in the day it was rich people's you know drinking champagne hopping on flying boats across the pacific until somebody came up with a cheaper way to do it and of course now it's you know ryanair 29 dollars to fly very new of wrong i mean you know it's a very good point chip saints keep telling us always get it's

a 2nd when it's not it's getting your insides to know our vets a fascinating topic i'm sure we'll be talking again and the near future thank you. from britain has been honoring captains sir tom moore the war 2 veterans you walked his way into the hearts of a nation when he raised money for u.k. health care workers he died yesterday at the age of 100 after testing positive for coke at 19 today london paid his respects to the late captain with a tribute on the giant screen at piccadilly circus one of the capital's most famous landmarks and people all around the country took to their windows and door steps for a national class of captain tom including the prime minister. of the day is almost on the conversation continues online you'll find us on twitter me the news you can. remember whatever happens between now and then tomorrow is

another day we'll see you. then during the conflict zone to sebastian. really cocksure is a watching anxiously to see how the new u.s. administration will reset relations with the my guest this week from jerusalem is the community affairs minister sakhi homemade how will his government react to joe biden's new policy on the road and his way into tolerance for the expansion of

jewish. conflicts. next d.w. . escaping town on a. bunch of refugees are risking everything off the coast of libya because behind them flies a terrible nightmare escape hunger and brutal violence in libyan prison camps. on the ocean bonking think tell of their desperation and their flight across the sea. in 45 minutes on g.w. . to life on earth one of a kind and. a gigantic coincidence.

that sample previously the earth was just in a messy chemistry lab the top mission was. to where the improbable but the truth rudolph was the creation of our solar system with our planet is a bit like winning the lottery there are some good. ones earth. starts february 11th on t.w. . are you telling me that you would go ahead with a strike on iran what do you think we're going to do pray know we are going to defend also during the trial president triumph with an amazing cif the administration made clear that settlements are legal there is no walk in patients there is a public funeral 30 that has its own life.