you can also find us at d.w. dot com look for him to find. her oh. this is e w news live from berlin no and yet to germany's coronavirus shutdown chancellor merkel says lockdown will be extended for another 3 weeks but she also announces steps toward a gradual reopening also coming up the death toll from protests to be on mar rises as the military steps up its crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.

i'm sorry kelly welcome to the program germany is extending its coronavirus shutdown by 3 weeks until march the 28th but some are strictures will be eased to allow non-essential stores and other businesses to reopen in areas with relatively low infection rates now chancellor merkel announced the plan after talks with state leaders continued well into the night they agreed new measures intended to offer a glimmer of hope that life will soon return some kind of normal. the talks between regional leaders and chancellor angela merkel stretched into the night with state premiers having to negotiate a number of details but when merkel finally emerged she had an optimistic message for the german public despite announcing the lockdowns extension until later this month. you know we're at the threshold of

a new phase of the pandemic. i mean it's a phase which we can't go into carelessly but i think it's important to say with justified hope. the leaders agreed to a step by step reopening strategy for businesses schools and public spaces with emergency breaks built in each new step will require affection writes to remain low less than 50 cases per 100000 people over a 7 day period if infection numbers begin to spike then the measures will quickly be reversed however contact restrictions between households will be slightly eased as of next week the reopening strategy also focuses on vaccinations and mass testing jabs will soon be available at many family doctors to try and boost vaccination numbers starting next monday people in germany will get access to one

free rapid test a week. merkel said the regional leaders understood the public's desire for normalcy but stressed optimism shouldn't come without caution when you think the although it's our job now to make sure that the next steps we take are smart ones the steps should allow us to open up a bit more but at the same time they should set us back months in this pandemic. with the lections looming and public pressure growing regional leaders want to curb restrictions quickly but they also want to avoid having to potentially return to yet another lockdown. and political correspondent standing by you know some commentators are calling this a change in strategy is it. well you know if you look at the situation germany has been in lockdown since mid december since before christmas and the goal

was always of course to bring public life to a standstill so that you could bring down the number of new infections so that the health system can cope because we did have an extremely difficult situation in the hospitals around christmas and that the strategy did seem to work the numbers went down but then the new variance started arriving and so germany stayed in lockdown but the numbers have started rising slowly and so impatiens in the population has been growing over the last few weeks and so uncle americal has had to concede that now the pressure is so high you to open up and to change that strategy because you can't have that solution of only ever extending lockdowns again if that's because strategies clearly coming to an end and so many of the state leaders insisted that they think that the health system can still coping even if we have slightly higher numbers than the ones that machall wants because we just need to put more effort

into speeding up the vaccination process and into being really quick when it comes to the national testing strategy and tell us you know what this is now going to mean in practical terms when it comes to day to day life. well if you look at the graph it is very complicated so essentially as a normal german or as a person living in germany you will need to know where your local area stands in terms of numbers of new infections and depending on that number your regional government can then make decisions over the next few weeks which areas can open which speed so if you take the example of the live in where we are here for example and i will have to look at my paper because it is extremely difficult so berlin is at the moment number that is 100 new lower than 100 new infections 100000 people in one week and that means that from next week on words our regional government can

open museums for example and then we need to wait for 2 weeks until the government here in berlin can decide on the next step because they of course need to check whether that decision has infected the new infection numbers and so if that number stays under 100 and berlin can open theatres in the lao for outdoor dining if people can provide a negative test result wait another 2 weeks and we're still below 100 assuming then berlin can open shops with only a limited number of people inside so it is very complicated you will need to look at your fake. vaccination rollout we have to say has been bumpy to put it mildly tell us whether or not you know merkel has discussed this and also the rapid test rollout how is that supposed to go. well i have to say that our health minister is not looking good the opposition parties are already calling for him to

resign because the vaccination process as you said has been extremely sluggish and also when it comes to testing know the government has promised that germans will be getting a rapid test week from next week on the roads but if you look at a neighboring country austria for example they've been giving out these tests for free to the population since mid december and this is when they were approved so here in germany it's a completely a very complicated mix of responsibilities but it is going to be very very crucial for you and spawn to speed up the process and to come up with a proper national testing strategy so that it doesn't look as bad as it did in the vaccine rollout. in berlin thank you to myanmar now where protesters are back on the streets today after the deadliest day so far since last month's military coup 38 people were killed yesterday

according to the u.n. special envoy on myanmar among the victims of the violence was a 19 year old woman who was shot in the head despite the increasingly violent crackdowns by security forces demonstrators are showing no signs of backing down. and it is a journalist covering the coup and the violent crackdown they join us now from young gone thank you so much for giving us a little bit of perspective here 1st of all i'd like to ask you we just saw the protesters are back on the streets of several cities in neon mar do you expect the situation to escalate again today. we've already been seeing escalations actually so today a few hours ago i think 3 and a half hours ago in mandalay fighter jets were spotted above the lake city where a number of people were killed yesterday and you know. on the street escalations today and more deaths than we saw yesterday. that the

military is also not backing down and indeed are showing even more force in the future. and you know as we mentioned earlier the u.n. special envoy on myanmar has called wednesday the bloodiest day since the military junta overthrew the elected government tell us why do you think that you are seeing this intensification of violence this rising death toll right now. so in the last few days you know the previous deadliest day was on sunday and in the time between sunday and wednesday we had a number of more townships in yemen are declared themselves self administered answerable only to an elected government and we also saw a 2nd town 2nd city in your declare itself to be self administered and hold your i'm meant to live with those 2 towns and as well as you can go over

a number of townships have to declare themselves free of rule has seen the most deaths so it's quite likely that the military is doing bartlett's trying to show that regardless of what the students want and what they declared themselves to be they are still the ones who are in charge. absolutely and so far they also appear to be completely ignoring international condemnation and sanctions. through that lens what more do protesters want to see from the international community. so protesters want to see a number of things some of which are not necessarily on the table right now. have all u.n. peacekeeping forces to be implemented in iraq for myanmar to be tried in the huge national courts of law as well as for special investigative groups to be in myanmar to monitor the situation. what the u.n.

and other national other countries can do at the moment based on understanding international mechanisms that the global arms embargo would protesters have also been calling for as well as to mediate the situation and for the time to come to negotiation table with the elected government so that the american figure on the path warrants for turning their country back to the crissy and especially nations like ossie and i have been called to help facilitate that process journalist in intent thank you. first let's get a quick check of some other stories making news in the area 279 schoolgirls released by kidnappers earlier this week have returned to their families but the event was overshadowed by violence parents reportedly clashed with police when families were impatient with lengthy speeches by government officials some angry

parents threw stones and broke into the school building to reunite more quickly with their children and return home before nightfall. he was capitol police are tightening security after announcing evidence of a potential plot by a right wing militia group to breach the capitol building on thursday the capitol police and others in the u.s. law enforcement had been facing criticism for failing to prevent a probe trump mob from storming the capitol building on january the 6th. berlin's international film festival often showcases documentaries which thanks largely to streaming services have moved from a more nice offering right into the mainstream on the festival's 3rd day we're taking a closer look now at 2 films in particular which use drastically different methods to tell their stories. long before me to a woman in showbiz showed how to deal with harassment and violence from men in 1978

tina turner divorced her husband ike and started a solo career bigger and even more successful than before. describing her marriage to ike turner she said i was living a life of death but the divorce brought her liberation and she triumphantly rose to the heights of pop music fame. in some ways we are telling that story to a new generation. but we are also hopefully exploring it through point of view and what it means for her to be. kind of. so associated with some of the worst times in life. the documentary tina gives a chronological overview of all the ups and downs in the life of the woman who was born as anna made public while it offers few new insights it is thrilling to watch . this next film could not

be more different in anime says 2 filmmakers meet stefan who is in prison for having murdered a woman in order to interview him. and his response of his story are retold by 2 puppet ears. next time. we want to. look sometimes looks really threatening sometimes also really childlike but you know all the time the person is a performance you know it's always an interpretation of the way that we see him on the way to be profiteers react to what they're performing or moment. the directors try to avoid a supposedly objective point of view because their film gradually reveals that

there are at least 2 truths but the justice system requires an unambiguous account of events because only then can it declare the accused guilty or innocent this is an exceptionally intelligent film but also an uncomfortable one raising more questions than it can or wants to answer. here up to date on the news i'm sarah kelly in berlin and thanks for watching. different. islands of. you're. here women are in charge. of the archipelago has

a patriarchal system for centuries of. their former.