this is d.w. news live from berlin germany adopt strict measures to stop the spread of coronavirus the country closes its borders with austria and the czech republic after certain cases with highly contagious variance only essential travel is allowed which will speak to our correspondent who's at one of the border crossings also on the show russian women joining together to support the victims of a political crackdown there braving icy weather and threats of arrest to voice concern for unity and a volley of wife of opposition figure i like staying up all night and others were

detained after his imprisonment here from our correspondent in moscow. and the donald trump is acquitted in his 2nd impeachment trial as republicans close ranks and vote not to punish the former president for inciting the last month capitol hill riot. omarion evanston it's good to have you with us germany has banned travel from parts of neighboring austria and the czech republic the restrictions are aimed at halting the spread of highly contagious variants of the corona virus which have been detected in several border regions germany has deployed thousands of police officers to carry out strict border controls only essential travel and trade is now allowed the move has drawn criticism from the european union and also intensified

concerns about the negative impact on businesses some german carmakers have warned of potential production shutdowns. well for more on the story correspondent barbara joins us now from sharon ding which is a small bavarian town on the border with the czech republic good evening to you barbara so describe for us the situation today where you are with all of these new border controls. at this conspicuous route here marianna is in fact one of the maybe crossing points between the check reaching here behind us a lot of workers that work in all the supply industry on the other side on the german side are actually busy and they cross here every day for the whole region has about

90000 checked workers that's a substantial number today it was a sunday so it was of course relatively calm but people were crossing over here and trying to figure out what was happening there was a distinct lack of information would it companies who bakes bread for instance the lady who tried to cross the border to be counted as an essential worker or not all this is still very unclear and so people are confused and the check people we talked to today were really confused and and sort of dumbfounded why is this happening to us so we didn't do anything wrong and we had testing every 2nd day in any case because that was already one of the rules here but so this will be completely closed and it will be harsh for the region now barbara the bavarian authorities have rejected the criticism of the newly introduced border checks what have they been saying.