you know i mean kind of the been i'm so pointing to neighbors armed man had come to take stuff away while father mother and sisters had to flee syria one week later and leave him behind my mom think they still don't know anything about what happened to him the last time when i actually survived by leaving syria and not getting canberra maybe i have physically for 5 somehow but you cannot just get used to the fact that you lost your job in one second you know you cannot just used to the fact that used to the fact that he just disappeared for nor isn't. my 1st father's one of 130000 people who have gone missing in syria. like to bring in now for strife he is a human rights lawyer for the syrian center for freedom of expression he followed this trial from the beginning and is joining us now from the german city of copeland's good to see you again sir these abuses took place in syria why did this

trial take place in germany. yeah good afternoon from collins i think there is so remote that laird asked to this question 1st of all an international justice and international court was an option that i.c.c. in the eighty's national croak or it wasn't an option because syria is not a member state united nations security council has been blocked by the us and by russia mostly so so that was an option also not for for a special international actually you know and then secondly i think it's important to know that germany has since the beginning of this century the necessary law and there is a code on the international crimes we should use germany you can really jurisdiction on the most sure crimes crimes against humanity and genocide and it doesn't matter if those crimes are committed to rot or foreign nationals against foreign nationals and internally it is shooting who want to know here that germany wants to prosecute these crimes and wants to put the capacity into resources and to do so including

because it asked somewhat of a moral obligation as well of course many 800000 syrians living in germany you follow this trial very closely for over a year what have you learned about this ex syrian secret police officer. well i think over the months and also still today became clear that this specific individual was one small piece in the larger structure in the criminal structure community against humanity back into the night and 12th that was now and found to be the case by the court for the 1st time in approach this defendant was really a small piece in debt structure and i think in the very day of 4 years and 6 months and distrait step and in the judge in horrible decision that he made on today made a point of that that this man is not going to do for as a representative of the regime before his international for his individual crimes and his contributions small contributions limited contributions to just larger

crimes by the syrian regime. do you expect that there will be more trials like this . i mean 1st of all of course this this is like i said it well at 1st finding by a criminal court that crimes against humanity happened there this is going to be a direct precedent for the 2nd case that and that is going on in this trial again is this going to be the defendant a higher ranking defendant hung or are and then a very good as opposed to coming as some time to fall maybe you know you maybe do we don't really know for sure so that's a direct precedent and then i'll cite from that in germany for sure and in other european jurisdictions that are preparing cases and against former syrian regime officials and of course they will look at this and they will see this as a 1st step towards holding former syrian regime officials accountable for their crimes 1st strike human rights a lawyer for the syrian center for expression thank you for joining us thank you

for. thrown in another high profile trial also incidentally here in germany another guilty verdicts for a notorious iraqi preacher things active for recruiting young people to fight for the so-called islamic state the man known as abu wallow was believed to be the group's leader here. after 3 years in the dock the verdict was handed down guilty of belonging to a foreign terrorist organization helping to plan subversive violent acts and financing terrorism. find out the law was known as the leading authority in the fundamentalist salafist scene and he and the other defendants primed young men theologically and ideologically for missions for the islamic state they arranged contacts with smugglers planned travel routes and gave the men money to leave the country or to go to the or that i think. this is the mosque in hilda's

heim where i will are preached holy war he was also known as the preacher without a face for his online videos where he had his back to the camera. among those he radicalized from the mosque where german twin brothers who blew themselves up in a suicide attack in iraq in 2015 and a teenager convicted of bombing a sikh temple in germany in 2016. he also had links to his armory who mounted a deadly terrorist attack on a christmas market in berlin the same year. abu alaa was arrested in november 26th scene investigators had him under surveillance for a long time. the preacher chose to remain silent during the lengthy trial he was sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison. 3 co-defendants were handed down sentences ranging from 4 to 8 years. now other stories making news this hour. police in the german port of hamburg have seized 16 tons of cocaine the most ever

found in europe the drugs were hidden in cans shipped from prior why 7 tons of cocaine were also seized in antwerp belgium. germany has approved a 3 covert 19 a rapid test for home use medical professionals have conducted all testing up to now the kids should become available in the next couple of days officials hope home testing could help ease the national lockdown minister yes don had been criticized for moving too slowly over and. georgia has seen fresh protests against the arrest of opposition leader nick a 1000000 demonstrators dros in convoy to the prison where mill yet is currently being held the political situation has been tense since last autumn's elections opposition figures say the vote was rigged by the governing. party. got a has become the 1st country to receive acces from kovacs

a global scheme and at ensuring lower income nations have fair access to covert 1000 shots some 600000 doses of the astra zeneca vaccine have arrived in the capital. the un back program is hoping to deliver 2000000000 doses around the world this year. and i'd like to welcome now seth berkley chief executive officer at the global of vaccine alliance a very good day sir thank you for your time this is the 1st major shipment which countries are next. well what we're trying to do of course is cover the entire world that haven't received doses yet a vaccine today a plane landed in our croghan our which was the 1st in africa we've also had some doses go to india we'll be seeing next dose is going to coat you are hopefully d r c as well and then over the course of the next couple of weeks dozens and dozens

of countries how a vaccination is going on the african continent set the stage for ice people. well up until now there has not been a tremendous amount of vaccines in developing countries there have been some countries that have gotten small amounts of doses through bilateral deals and donations but there hasn't been a systematic coverage of vaccine doses and that is what we need to change we need to make sure that every single country gets stoesz is because we are only safe if everyone is safe either countries that need to be prioritized well at the end of the day the priority really needs to be within the different groups at risk our belief is that health care workers across the world need to be protected 1st because they are at the front lines and then moving into the elderly and at

risk groups and so that's the way it should be prioritized of course there are some countries that have bigger and disease burdens than others but in places like africa the surveillance is fairly poor so we're really not even sure exactly what the disease burden is in different countries which is why it's important to make sure we can protect the health workers everywhere have wealthy nations most notably the global north morally failed the global south by basically hoarding vaccine supplies. well the whole idea of kovacs is to try to get 2000000000 doses out to these countries and so in a sense we're doing that with support of the global north in trying to make sure that there are doses available now of course right now it is hard to get access to doses and there has been with the new variants almost a vaccine panic that has gone on with everybody trying to buy that scene's quickly

the most efficient way is to get vaccines out to all populations at the same time in the priority risk groups that have been a den of fide and that's what we should be working towards in terms of recovery how long do you think it will take for the world to recover from this pandemic. well the 1st thing that's going to have to happen is we're going to have to stop seeing the disease burden and that's why the high risk groups are so important once that happens then we can better understand the transmission of the virus and hopefully reduce that is as well because what we really want to do is return to a world where we can have travel tourism commerce and we can't do that if there are large pockets of virus in different parts of the world that in essence put the whole world at risk we've seen that recently with the. new variants that have popped up and now threaten many different countries around the world to set

berkeley chief executive officer of vaccine alliance thank you for taking out the time to speak to us there. mike mike my pleasure. the new head of the tokyo olympics organizing committee has announced a gender equality teen aimed at boosting the proportion of women on the board psycho hushing moto said she's set a target of 40 percent women and that the initiative is one of her top priorities as she moto became president of the tokyo olympics a committee after her predecessor resigned this month over sexist remarks. and one of the top stories that we're tracking for you this hour a german court has found a former syrian secret service agent guilty of facilitating states also torture in syria in the 1st trial of its kind the defendant was charged as an accomplice in the torture of opposition activists in $27.00. it watching you.

and all the latest news on the pandemic is coming up next stick around. against the coronavirus pandemic. has the rate of infection in developing what does the latest research say. information and contacts the coronavirus update. on t w. floyd. culture. hair.

superfood. long gone. lifestyle drove. the 1st. shows that vaccines are safe and effective they reduce the number of hospitalizations and deaths they protect the vulnerable. but still there are many people who don't want to take the vaccine even medical workers at the frontline of the battle against the coronavirus. the skepticism come from. the information wall experts say and he backs is a better at spreading fear than the mainstream media is

a spy. in the news that many nurses and doctors are reluctant to go get the jab in belgium the vaccination drive has been delayed due to the just equal problems and then there's the skepticism about vaccines which is especially high among the french speaking population they don't use reports. this is a moment to remember. colleague photographs care home worker christina retreats as she receives her 2nd dose of the biotech pfizer vaccine. for months is rarely i really hope to encourage my colleagues but also my family even the country to come and get vaccinated. like. as vaccination drives the nursing homes like this one in the french speaking part of belgium draw to a close many stuff still opting out. almost half of all care workers in private institutions alone in the region are hesitating even the director of this

home is among the more. kids queue of one of the side effects or let's say in 20 years nobody knows today so it's a bit like buying a car you feel like you could be safe but i want to see the crash test results so personally i am a bit skeptical but for the older people clearly it's a good thing it was kind of excess well put it to some sort of. this caregiver is also one sure he prefers to wait because he's heard some rumors. i had yes some products in it that can be used. you can be orbs of from this stand because of those production them like if you're not kind of a stock you know. and this is just the tip of the ice book false claims that the vaccine causes infertility or even death are spreading like wildfire across social

media the french speaking part of belgium appears particularly receptive to these ideas. ahead of most in home federation from a bell things making vaccinations mandatory maybe the only option so far training sessions or online campaigns have failed to convince stuff i did not understand i do not understand that it was so for them this so a lot of of elderly people who died there so the loss of life and it's unbelievable odo's people do not understand that they can protect themself it's a big question. to move. back at the nursing home this local doctor is trying his utmost to demonstrate that vaccines are safe is this and that's why i tell the staff here you need to get vaccinated not 70 percent

of you but 100 percent of all of you in order to win this fight. many of christina rodrigo's colleagues are also taking to social media to encourage others. she hopes each photo will make a difference. how caton is chief executive officer of the international council of nurses how and i know enough people i've got enough neighbors in enough family and friends who a very skeptical about this whole crisis and everything involved on every level but health professionals. so we are strongly recommending health care professionals take the vaccine we have seen infection rates amongst nurses and health workers at a high level tragically we've seen nurses around the world in other health workers who've succumbed to coronavirus this is an issue about their protection and their

safety but also our health systems we have no health care workers we have no health systems so strongly recommending that people take this but for those who have questions and are hesitant it's important to have the discussion with them and to understand the reasons for that is a really about their health and not protecting our health they're the ones doing a service to the community i think if you're on pick the questions that people have is firstly things around the same sort of been developed very very quickly the vaccines come forward again in a matter of months that's true but that's because there's been this great global effort to develop vaccines and you look at the processes the steps that have been gone through by the medical regulate tree authorities they have all been followed so we need to explain that to people so they sure of that some people are worried about side effects there are 200000000 people around the world who had this vaccine to date and the side effects that were in the trials of the same ones that we're

seeing so there's no undue cause for concern there there's some frankly crazy stuff as well about people think they're being implanted with trackers that are going to monitor their movements well if you're worried about that you probably shouldn't have a mobile phone but the key here is to talk to people and explain the facts and the reality so that they do have the vaccine how at the end of the day these doctors nurses and other health care workers of the guinea pigs they're there 1st in line to get the vaccine so i can understand to a certain extent this anxiousness. some people have genuine questions about the speed with which the vaccines have been developed or if there are going to be side effects some people also a young girl in a saying well it won't won't affect us but i think what we have to what we have to get here that this is an individual choice that people can make for the common good so i think actually it's an act of humanity is probably the easiest way to save

a life by having the vaccine because you do not know whether you may even in an asymptomatic white costs on the virus to somebody else you're protecting yourself you're protecting our health systems you're protecting the most vulnerable people as well and when you explain the facts to people i'm sure the overwhelmingly they will take the vaccine how could you explain the facts for us when it comes to the astra zeneca vaccine because that's the one that's really got people skeptical. as i understand it the chest the trials that have been done do show that there is great effect for people with severe d c s and with hospitalized patients as as well this is that's hugely important that we stop people dying and we stop people requiring in needing really intensive hospital care as well none of us can afford for our health systems to be to be

overwhelmed i think there's still work controls being done on the effect if in relation to to milder diseases and moderate diseases but i see the benefits in terms of severe disease and the impact on not just people's lives but hospitalizations is really important why people should take the vaccine what about that early data shows from $28.00 to $34.00 days after the 1st shot the astra zeneca vaccine reduced the risk of hospitalisation by 94 percent. this is data which is just emerging in recent days it's stunning it's beyond people thought was possible a year ago experts were talking about perhaps 5060 percent efficacy so that the efficacy here is she truly important and should be reassuring to people millions of people having the vaccine around the world as as well which gives reassurance around the lack of any severe side effects but also i think we've got an issue

about ensuring that vaccines are available equitably right the way around the world so far the overwhelming majority in fact seems have been delivered in high income countries if we continue down that road the risk is that new variants that might evaluate the vaccine will develop in low income middle income countries and none of us are out of this until we are all vaccinated from the virus the world is intimately into twined we don't win this on a nation not by nation basis we defeat the virus as one world. from our cat and chief executive officer of the international council of nurses thank you. time for derek williams his our science guy with another one of your questions on the corona virus. if we can't develop long term immunity against a pathogen through natural infection how can we do it with

a vaccine. we don't yet know how long that scene induced immunity will last with covert 19 but this is an interesting topic to discuss anyway as as with some pathogens you really can achieve longer term effects with vaccines than through natural infection that's because when faced with a pathogen or in the case of a vaccine a facsimile of it the immune system responds with a a cascade of events that eventually wipes it out but also prepares for the eventuality that the pathogen can show up again someday if that happens the invader can be cleared out fast as a rule of thumb more severe disease appears to trigger a more lasting response and and we've learned something cool in over 200 years of experimenting with vaccines which is that severe disease can be faked and we can

even to the body's response to some extent we got pretty good at doing that effectively in a dose or 2 of harmless vaccine some people think somehow that immunity acquired from actually having the disease is somehow better than that you get from back scenes but but there are 2 reasons why that scene acquired immunity is actually preferable on 1st of course. is that infection with any pathogen can always go badly even in people who are otherwise healthy so if you have the opportunity to protect yourself from that risk you should take it 2nd as counter-intuitive as it might seem at 1st glance because they can provoke a more intense immune response by faking severe disease the longer term protection vaccines provide could actually be more effective than that prompted by getting the

sickness itself especially if you had a mild case as so many people do with copd 19 that's why health care authorities are recommending that you still get vaccinated even if you've had and recovered from the disease. thanks for watching stay safe and see you again sir.

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as it of the trio call system for centuries. the rare form of society do it. differently. what do they do with their power. to clean. yes. this is africa on the program today. the election the opposition has staged protests across the country that the poll was fraudulent and that their candidate won. and the fight over fish from kenya's lake now cooled the community battered by the effects of climate change say it's a blessing but the government has banned its consumption. also in kenya turning pests into profit a startup has.