year tool. the history of the slave trade is africa's history. describes how the greed for power and profit plummeted and entire continent into chaos and violence. this is the journey back into the history of slavery. our documentary series slavery routes starts march 10th on t.w. the trip. what happens in a nation where wearing a face mask is seen less as a weapon against a virus and more as a weapon against your political opponent people die lots of people die in the united states more than $500000.00 people have lost their lives to cohabit 19 it took just one year it took just last month for the death toll to rise from 400002 half

a 1000000 tonight the worst public health disaster to hit america in 100 years when the world's superpower becomes the world's super spreader i'm burnt off in berlin this is the day. 500071. is something awful bad for the born in america emigrated to america you know there's people behind the numbers took their final breath a lot you know. i'm honest behind that number we have to resist becoming numb to the sorrow. we must do so to honor the dead it was good food. equally important care for the living goes in the behind. also coming up israel could become the 1st post pandemic country in the world being

banks unaided and having a green pass to prove it means more social and less distance. i feel like at this point i am free i mean just to be able to talk to people you know it is wonderful. to our viewers on p.b.s. in the united states and to all of your around the world welcome we begin the day marking a moment that many say did not have to happen the united states accounts for only 4 percent of the world's population and yet it is home to 25 percent of all cope with 19 deaths last night the number of wives lost in the u.s. since the coronavirus pandemic began last year surpassed half a 1000000 more than 500000 dead in the span of just one year now that is a quibble it to the entire city of atlanta georgia or the city of vancouver canada

or braman germany dine the number itself is outrageous even more so because those deaths occurred in the richest country in the world prior to the pandemic most people would not have placed the us in the list of most vulnerable countries to the virus one year into the pandemic america tops that this. a son the president joe biden and the fast lady commemorated the 500000 victims of the pandemic on the unknowns of the white house along with vice president come in the house and a husband they called on the nation not to forget the individual stories behind the numbers. that's more americans who died in one year to spend them in. the new world war one. or 2 in the vietnam war combined. that's more lives lost to this virus than any other nation on earth. the president has ordered flags to fly at half mast

for 5 days across the country. according to the chief medical advisor to the white house the previous administration has party responsible for the high death toll in the country but i don't think it's you know all donald trump or all this or all that it's a combination of things and certainly the lack of involvement at the very very top of the leadership of president biden has made the fight against the virus a priority the good news is that the number of infections is forming but the fear of yet another wave is growing due to the new variants of the virus. and my 1st guest tonight is dr william schaffner he is professor of preventive medicine and health policy at vanderbilt university in nashville tennessee by the shepherds good to see you again this number 500000 deaths as one of the highest deaths to death tolls per capita in the world do you agree that this could have been prevented.

you know this number is so high it's so devastating. it's painful and yes i believe that majority of those people in fact the substantial majority of those people could still be alive today if we had had a coherent nationally directed science based policy about coated from the very beginning with that gift of hindsight dr schaffner i mean what were the biggest mistakes. i think from the beginning there was the mistake of not accepting this virus for what it was not understanding that the virus was in control that it was not going to disappear number 2 putting political considerations for scientific and public health considerations and number 3

not communicating clearly and in a sustained fashion to the public what needed to be done to contain this virus we needed a national policy not one that was sent out to the states where the states had then a crazy quilt of different approaches that was clearly the worst thing that could have been done and then now we have the flipside the u.s. is one of the leading countries when it comes to the number of vaccinations around 13 percent of people have received their 1st shot in the u.s. how is this changing things on the ground. well i certainly think people are more optimistic they see the light at the end of the tunnel and indeed cases are coming down hospitalizations are being reduced that's not just from the vaccination i think another reason is that there's been so much spread of this virus own long

with the vaccination is that it has created a green a so-called community immunity or her own protection so that i hope these cases continue to go down as we continue to vaccinate and for a period of time continue to wear our masks and do social distancing next time is it possible my understanding you're right is it possible in local communities that they may be reaching a local level of herd immunity because so many people have been backs in aid. i think that we're reaching a herd immunity because this is a virus itself which can deem so readily contagious and transmitted and makes so many people without symptoms after it infects 7 and so we don't really know how far this virus has spread and so you take that along with the vaccine and i think

together they are beginning to turn the cases down but we have to continue to vaccinate and i want to get your opinion of what we're seeing a with the pharmaceutical companies and their production problems we've got pretty production problems at mcgurn a astra zeneca also has problems here in europe i mean how do you explain that is that something that we should have seen coming. well you can't count on everything going right you could hope for the best but you have to prepare for difficulties and these are some of the difficulties i think the companies themselves wifely were overly optimistic in telling everyone at how many doses they could produce and now that they're really in the sustained high production phase they're finding it's not as easy as they hoped if we're looking forward now can we say that the u.s.

his past the peak of this pandemic and how concerned are you about the viral variants creating a 3rd wave. well i be cautious about saying we're past the peak that's my hope but i'm a cautious optimist and so i'm not ready to tell the public that because if i do that they'll start taking off their masks the other thing is the variance a very important the british strain the british variant which is here is even more contagious in the parent strain and is more likely to cause serious disease that masks help protect protect and so does the vaccine the vaccine is covering it so there's a possibility of another surge but i think we can stay ahead of it and prevent it yeah well i certainly hope if you were speaking the gospel truth there dr williams after vanderbilt university as always our after it's good talking with you we appreciate your insights thank you pleasure.

if there is a success story in this pandemic it is israel the country's vaccine rollout has become the global standard more than 80 percent of those eligible have now received at least one shot the result is real is now reopening its economy many shops and services are back in business again but they're not open to everyone some only allow customers who are fully vaccinated with a so-called green pass you to be used on your cramer reports that since september classes at this television studio have been held online because of the pandemic now people can attend again and person but only those who hold a green pass the pass issued by is versed in history of hers that is given only to vaccinated people of those recovered from cold at 90 so it's an amazing feeling and

everyone needs a vaccine they did so there's no fear and it feels like and apparently we are broadcasting the classes that are taking place here we are broadcasting them for people who still did not vaccinate on sunday is rare for the east restrictions after prolonged lockdown malls museums and stores have been opened for all but gyms closed cultural and sports events would be made accessible to cream pass holders of over $4000000.00 people have received at least the 1st try and take place there so it's really this one of the 1st countries trying to get life back to normal opening up has also opened a debate over a variety of legal and moral questions often emitting personal liberties as there are someone not rushing to get the vaccine we are limiting few people and i believe

this is a balance we are not. doing that for good you can really enjoy cultural life you will enjoy those both you will enjoy you know going to the gym but this time only temporary base on the show we will let only people being vaccinated all the coverage from corona to have the green posts it remains unclear whether international travel could also be leading to the green pass for now is bengali an app poetry remain closed for another 2 weeks to keep my wrist variance at bay travelling is not yet on the mind of this group the film 10 friends and 2 recent memory aged between 84 and 95 they had to play that favorite chinese board game a zone online for the palestinians after their vaccinations they feel safe again to meet i feel like at this point i am sorry i mean just to be able to

talk to people you know and it's wonderful very nice to see everybody's ok and remained pretty healthy throughout the year but very lonely and. it really is a wonderful feeling it's a 1st but cautious step back to some kind of phenomena to. our for more tonight i want to bring in dr arthur caplan he's the director of medical ethics at the medical center at new york university are one is going to have you back on the program let's talk about israel they're issuing green cards to people who have been backs and needed so that their lives can return to normal do you think that's a sensible path forward. absolutely there are some downsides you have people saying look i shouldn't be forced to coerced into vaccination and the green card de facto does that i can't go certain places if i don't add it there's also likely to be some fraud and forgery created as people really don't want to get

vaccinated for whatever reason take to alternative pass but overall a way to beat back the virus is absolutely to try to control environments where it's highly contagious and vaccination doesn't and proof of vaccination will i think is inevitably it all our futures we know are that people can still possibly transmit the virus and even if they've been vaccinated so isn't it ethical to demand that everyone should at least have a chance of vaccination before these freedoms are given back to the public. well i think you can control environments there may be areas within cities within particular populations where we know that the vaccination rate is very very high at my medical school almost everybody is going to be vaccinated i think we could meet and circulate used xa nation certification there in that environment to open

it up so it is true that the more people that's needed the better we don't really have great data yet on transmission i'm pretty willing to bet though that the vaccines are going to help reduce transmission as well in any event i think we're going to see the passes or the certification of vaccination take place before we get complete herd immunity people are waiting to get out there waiting to travel waiting to go to work waiting 'd to go to the gym we saw what it meant to the israelis in the news clip i think it is that the same sentiments are out there worldwide. the british prime minister boris johnson he is looking at what he calls coded status certificates take a listen to what he had to say yesterday about that there are deep and complex issues that we need to explore at the cool issues about what the role is for

government in mandating all the people to to have such thing or indeed banning people from doing such a thing there are complex issues we need to work out we can't be discriminator e against people who for whatever reason contact the vaccine it's not happening you've got johnson they're saying that there are people who can't have the vaccine or won't get vaccinated but whatever the reason there should not be any discrimination what is at stake here. well it's really liberty and freedom some people can't get vaccinated they may have to mask and continue to distance because there's nothing more they can do to protect themselves and they may be too nervous and even the slightest chance that infection could hurt them other people may choose not to be vaccinated that's ok but they're going to be restricted in where they can go to go where they can go to work where they can travel oh i think by the way we're likely to see private industry start to mindy thanks

a nation passports and certification before government look at the industries airlines hotels cruise ships restaurants they're going to say come in we're safe our steps are safe and the people you're traveling with are safe that's what they're going to use to get back in business i don't think they're going to wait for government to start making those passport decisions yet travel is interesting travelers to some countries they already have to provide proof of let's say yellow fever an ocular nations where are the problems going to be with co good night t.v. when we're talking about travel requirements. you're right so we have a history already of immunization requirements to countries that have things like deal fever you have to show cord to get in this is building on that but we never head if you will in the developed world this kind of certification passport decimation system required some people are going to say again it's too risky it's

too dangerous i don't trust the vaccines will be swinging toward a situation where rather than scrambling to get the axe and they hit some people are going to still demand to up out i think they're going to be able to do it but i think they're going to see their freedom severely restricted so dearly limited and that will be the price that they're going to wind up paying in these these covered $1000.00 passports i mean how how long are they going to there to have to you have to be valid because we know that this virus can you take and change quickly. well worried about mutations that lead to new strains that lead to things that are more infected and so on keep in mind what we need is a vaccine that present prevents us not so much from being infected but prevents us from dying or getting severely ill that we have to go to the hospital so far the data looks good on that it may not stop infection but it may stop us if you will literally from dying i think that's a trade off

a lot of people are going to take even with new mutations and strains at the same time if the vaccine only works for a year you're going to have a booster significant problem where we don't know yet we don't know how long this protection at the very sad scenes are out there going to afford us so we may wind up having to update our vaccine passports periodically let's say every one or 2 years or i talk to her arthur caplan director of medical ethics at the medical center and new york university dr happen as always it's good talking with you we appreciate your insights tonight thank you if you have a. a public outcry by anti-gay voices in gonna has forced that country's 1st community center to temporarily close its doors the center opened just at the end of january in a ceremony that was attended by european and australian diplomats now it has been forced to shut down after a hostile campaign by churches politicians and homophobic organisations e.-w.

met with the man who opened that center. openly gave their lives in this apartment alone in a crowd away from his family he hutch to relocate after coming out as deep into into 17 that decision hasn't been easy he says since most of his relations who oppose his sexuality and lifestyle complaining of constant threats of our time x. fears for his life. the mere fact. that somebody points with me that he could actually need to mean being ranged. a. bit. you know. and yet but his experience that i go through anything. but and people who identify a huge presence in ghana also who true to my experience and according to their

rights group right not to rights i think is 40 percent of. the community peasants have suffered a tox don't grace worried about the level of detroit for people based on their sexual orientation it is unfortunate that some. would treat differently because of death actually. and if you look if the. right it is unfortunate so it is not. who a purported india mind to discuss needs a gazillion to piss and who hated to abuse the violence in the. same sex relationships and not spend metered by law in gonna complain as against the movement see this won't change anytime soon due to gonna scorcher own untruly just moments. we will be the rules that govern the states that will leave

and for that matter. if you ask me personally i abide by the rules or regulations of the country. so i am for one a government to say what the laws are saying what a traditional believers are saying and one of christian courts say it's gazing on lesbianism i want to call it for. reform i believe that the. and we will who recognize that. 100 that's a common view on the streets of our crime and elsewhere in the country. a thing that. they don't we are 2. sides sucked because i think it's for outs or on our knowledge on our traditions it's allowed on our hard to call it our customs is something that we deem grew up with it is

not an african we are not into this instance they did not in islam to deceive and it is a taboo so we don't need to feel it we don't need it don't go and others like him and to relent in. the rights activists he also more places like minded people to discuss issues affecting them and to 2nd solution us things that would make it any length of carney and we need to talk about this with the community and we need to leave with the proper authorities to make sure that terms the have been put into we were removed from the dunker is hoping for acceptance within the game in society suna but that's hope i.p.s. from a distance for now. or now for a moment meant to be shared on capitol hill this week senators questioned and

listened to a man who was a moving portrait inpatients and granted to despite having with reasons not to be in 2016 president obama wanted to nominate merrick garland to the u.s. supreme court but republicans blocked his hearing it was a disappointing and a bitter moment for garland well now u.s. president joe biden has nominated him to be u.s. attorney general yesterday during his hearing garland was asked by a senator what motivates you why do this this was his answer. yes senator so you know i come from a family. where my grandparents fled anti-semitism and persecution. the country took a stand. and. protect us. and i feel obligation to the country to

pay back and this is the highest best use of my own set of skills to pay back and so all i want very much to be the kind of turned attorney general that you're. saying i could become. i'll do my best to try to be that kind of a come to china. finally snow wind have been causing serious suffering for parts of the united states in recent days just ask the folks in texas but the big freeze it can also bring great beauty take a look at this parts of the famous niagara falls frozen over creating huge abstract ice formations gorgeous as the falls spanned the border between canada and the united states they have a vertical drop when the waters flowing of more than 50 meters.

well the day is almost done but the conversation it continues online you'll find us on twitter either d.w. news or you can follow me at brant go off t.v. and remember whatever happens between now and then tomorrow is another day we'll see you then everybody.

the air conditioning yet is stifling kurdistan's capital is suffocating the smog the reason outdated cooling years. residents and activists are fighting back against the air pollution that was and the government their

demands are falling live down here in the. global 3000. and 90 minutes on d w. with each passing day of the continuing conflict in syria more and more children fear their future may be fading away. with every classroom damaged or destroyed with every child witnessing the horrible every family fleeing the violence and we can't risk losing an entire generation of children to death of your despair. because they are the future of syria. can you hear me now oh yes we don't need you and i last chance just men's hearts now we bring you i'm going to mascot and you've never had to have surprise yourself with what is possible who is magical really what moves fast and want. to talk to people who follow along the way maurice and critics alike join us from echoes la

stops. last week on physical be together shoulder to shoulder the we are together scream springs when we organize because i do come to my difficult challenge to join me and millions around the world to speak out for the nature of show we need to be stupid i'm speaking off our because i think our planet is what fight join those from the 27th of march 15th 30 pm for those up and speak up for the. frank food. international gateway to the best connection self road and rail. located in the heart of europe you are connected to the whole world. experience outstanding shopping and dining offers and try our services. biala gassed at

frankfurt airport city managed by from a bought. this is g.w. newsline from berlin tonight if we have. sentenced to 15 years in prison for the murder of. she was a reporter who exposed corruption within his political and business elite for killing rocked the island nation the protests that led to the resignation of the prime minister also coming up another setback for the european union's vaccination

astra zeneca this is vaccine delivery target yet again we'll get reaction from brussels and facebook and government strike a deal to end the blackout on newsfeeds does this mean facebook will now pay for the journalism on its digital platform. i'm brinkerhoff it's good to have you with us her murder 4 years ago sparked international outrage now one of the 3 men accused of murdering multis journalist daphne. has been sentenced to 15 years in prison it came after he unexpectedly changed his plea to guilty and admitted all the charges against him. had been exposing corruption in the country's political and business elite when she died in a car bomb attack or murder angry protests and ultimately led to the resignation of

malta as prime minister 3 new suspects were arrested on tuesday on suspicion of supplying the bomb that killed her. art for more now let's go to journalist keith micallef in valetta malta he has been covering this story since it 1st broke this good to have you with us we really can't say though that this murder click case is close to being solved with today's prison sentence can we. no definitely not i mean the world will solve today passion is all of this we now know for certain for sure who committed the and should us as a nation but want the people are asking he's who has commissioned the crime who want a different kind of current marriage and let's not forget as you said those on your introduction she used to investigate corruption involving businessmen and politicians so far there have been. no politicians charged over demanded maybe there would be there today one but people are going to be serious hard to believe

there was absolutely not any political involvement. government of the day in relation to this case we do keith that deftly was murdered because her reporting exposed corruption at the highest levels in malta which happens to be where you also work as a journalist what has it done to the profession of journalism i mean does it make you feel less safe when you're trying to work on a story. i think at this point in time yes there is a degree of appreciation but there is also some concern sometimes that you don't even trust your own sources because there have been incidents and there have been reports that were on his jet news they had been misguided deliberately by their sources in order to deflect attention from their think cases so apart from being comprehensive of touching says that issues certain stories there is also the needs to be extremely careful home you speak to because sometimes people might have

vested interest in order to do it even certain investigations distinct happened funneling weeks of movie of different kind of want to manage it would. have been certain quarters who tried to do read the investigation and choose to get weaned from certain aspects and we from politicians we don't know for sure of what it teaches i wrote full of my death and been attempts to date the investigation you know you know the dangers certainly have still there for journalists that's for sure journalist keith micallef joining us from in malta tonight keith we appreciate your time in your reporting thank you. for the drug maker astra zeneca reportedly deliver less than half of the vaccines that it promised the european union in the 2nd quarter of this year the drug maker is supposed to provide $180000000.00 doses to the e.u. by the end of june it has already missed its 1st quarter commitments due to production problems the more than 90000000 doses short fall will likely hit the

e.u.'s ability to meet its target of vaccinating 70 percent of adults by the summer you know this is not good news let's go to our sources correspondent barbara veins of good evening to you barbara we know that the contracts signed between the european union and astra zeneca well they had enough holes in them that you could say it looked like swiss cheese so this news today it shouldn't surprise us right. it maybe not surprising as but it still does mean news because of course the european union had really built its whole vax in the strategy on those contracts the contract. pfizer buy on take the contract with. the contract in particular was us resident because they over promised as we now see vastly obviously and talking about swiss cheese and the contract i mean some of these holes have now been filled we know for instance that the present presumption that

the british contract had been signed earlier than the one of the e.u. was not true because we now go to see it we also know that there are concrete delivery. volumes figures in that contract was us resonate to the end of the of the summer until the end of june they should have to live it 300000000 doses to the e.u. and they will probably not even manage to deliver half of that so that is really a hammer blow for the european union but what's the problem here then why can't they deliver. the problem is manifold the problem probably largely comes from the supply chain they can in some instances not get the basic materials they need to produce this vaccine they have problems was. the bottling and the filling and delivery and and the plans that they are using to to

make the vaccine simply cannot be scaled of could not be scaled up quickly enough to produce those huge doses so basically astra zeneca signed a contract and promised something that is now really by far can not deliver and that is a very bad news for the e.u. and it also throws a light on the company everybody is asking why are they doing that why did they do that why are they not trying to be more realistic. news that affects all of us living here in the european union what is it going to do to target vaccinating at least 70 percent of the population by the end of the summer. politically of course this is a disaster the european governments promised their citizens their population we will get these vaccinations to you and there will be light at the end often so corona crisis tunnel and now dislike might come so much later maybe in the 3rd

maybe even in the 4th quarter of the year so everything will be pushed way back because astra zeneca is not the only company not delivering we're down to has mess of problems was production obviously and pfizer buy on tech 2 so politically for european governments this is bad news we'll going to have a summit virtual summit on thursday and friday of this week and the european leaders will be talking about this and they will cannot really makes things better they will just have to scale back their promises to european citizens disturbing and disappointing at the same time the use overbets with the latest tonight in brussels barbara thank you well here are some of the other developments in the pandemic there is good news for the u.s. vaccine supplies there should surge in the coming weeks pfizer modernity johnson and johnson say they can provide enough vaccines to fully inoculate 130000000 people by the end of march mexico has received its 1st shipment of russia's sputnik

v. vaccine senior citizens in mexico city's poor communities will be 1st to get the shots and the former czech president and corona virus skeptic box of klaus has fallen ill with code 19 the czech republic has one of the highest per capita infection rates in the work. our let's take a look now at some of the other stories that are making headlines this hour the french actor's airhole diploid do is under investigation for allegedly raping and sexually assaulting a young actress in 2018 paris prosecutor's office said depart do it was charged in december after authorities reopened a kates the actor's among france's best known and most controversial star linda thomas greenfield will become the united states' new ambassador to the united nations u.s. senators voted to confirm president joe biden's pick for the job which will be a cabinet position the vote reflects the bind administration's wish to reengage

with the u.n. after donald trump's isolationist policy. the u.s. congress is hearing testimony for the 1st time from a former capitol security officials about the massive law enforcement failures in washington on january 6th officials blame the failures on poor intelligence and a slow response to calls for backup as a violent mob laid siege and in stormed the u.s. capitol building. the un's atomic watchdog has confirmed that iran has started enriching uranium up to 20 percent purity it's a level close to weapons grade the i.a.e.a. also says iran ridge brain is 14 times over the limit that we see in the 2015 nuclear deal curbs on inspections by the nuclear watchdog came into force today. chief executive has backed a bill that will bar anyone seen as disloyal to beijing from elected office the electoral reform will require councillors to pledge allegiance to hong kong as

a special region of china opposition voices in hong kong have increasingly been silenced following last year's mass protests. facebook says it will reinstate access to australian news pages in the coming days after reaching a compromise with the australian government facebook blocking the pages after the government unveiled new legislation requiring tech giants to pay news outlets for con. social media companies have been fiercely opposed to the wall they say it would create an international precedent similar legislation has been considered in other countries now in the compromise in australia the government will feel it will not penalize facebook if the company reaches deals with local media this is what the australian government had to say today well facebook has refrained it astray and a stray in news will be restored to the facebook platform and facebook has committed to entering into good faith negotiations with

a stray news media businesses in seeking to reach agreements to pay for content all right for more now i'm joined by our reporter public fully alias good evening to you pablo you know the tone we're hearing today a lot different than what we heard last week particularly from the australian government how did facebook and the government end up here today. well essentially brant what happened was that this proposed law was going to force platforms like facebook and google to pay for a lot of the content that publishers have on and on their platforms the platforms such as or the publishers have been saying that facebook and google of the using their content and essentially not paying them for it now out of that you've also got critics in australia who are saying that actually this legislation was being pushed and made it through the parliament in australia be at because of their publisher such as rupert murdoch's news corp so there was sort of an interest there

as well for them and they're also. the owner of that the largest number of newspapers in a strenuous of the results so something else going on there as well this is what facebook are claiming but facebook said that they were essentially being forced to pay for content which in fact this content was was actually helping these publishers because it was on those platforms which of course have a lot of reach and which regards to audiences yeah last week when things book blocked these news links basically to all users in australia have we been able to measure do we know what impact that have. yeah it was actually really interesting brant because it was quite clear and within 24 hours you're already seeing the impact in fact actually in those 24 hours overall traffic to a strategy and muse sites actually plough much it it fell quite dramatically so

obviously the question that we have to ask ourselves at this point is whether facebook is actually more important for those publishers than the other way around . ok. with the latest tonight on this apparent turnaround between facebook and the australian public thank you. well the golf superstar tiger woods has been hospitalized after being involved in a single car accident that's according to authorities in los angeles here he's seen winning the masters tournament in 2019 the 45 year old woods we understand had to be extricated from his vehicle his agent says that he's undergoing surgery after suffering multiple leg injuries the vehicle sustained major damage was the sole occupant in that car. is a reminder of the top stories that we're following for you one of the 3 men accused of killing. has pleaded guilty to murder the sentenced to 15 years in prison

she exposed corruption within. sparked international outrage. that forced the prime minister to resign. business news is up next with. will be right back. when it comes to. you.