this is d.w. news live from berlin and no end yet to germany's coronavirus shutdown chancellor merkel says that the lockdown will be extended for a number 3 weeks but she also announces steps toward a gradual reopening also coming up hundreds of people attend the funeral of a 19 year old protester shot dead in myanmar in the bloodiest day since the military coup began the army is stepping up its crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators and security is a get on high alert outside of the u.s.

capitol in washington d.c. this after police received a tip off that a militia group could be plotting another attempt to breach the building. i'm sorry kelly welcome to the program germany is extending its coronavirus shutdown by 3 weeks until march 28th but some restrictions will be eased to allow the non-essential stores and other businesses to reopen in areas with relatively low infection rates chancellor merkel announced the plan after extensive talks with state leaders they agreed new measures intended to offer a glimmer of hope that life will soon return to some sort of normal. the talks between regional leaders and chancellor angela merkel stretched into the night with state per years 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 home. 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 with 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. moco said the regional leaders understood the public's desire for normalcy but stressed optimism shouldn't come without caution when you think the old goes 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 elections 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 nina hostler is standing by you know some commentators are calling this

a change in strategy is it. well 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 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 is that 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 a living 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. and 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 then 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 feet. the 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 though the government has promised that germans will be getting a rapid test per 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 me and mark now where protesters

are back on the streets today after the deadliest days 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 me on 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 we see you

on the street escalation today and more deaths than we saw yesterday. but the military is also not backing down and indeed are showing even more force in the teacher as you know as we mentioned earlier the u.n. special envoy on myanmar has called wednesday the bloodiest day since the military 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 your market declare themselves self administered answerable only to an elected government and we also saw a 2nd town 2nd city and where i declare itself to be self administered and your i'm

meant to live where those 2 towns as well as you know what number of troops ships have to declare themselves for you. will have seen the most deaths so it's quite likely that the military is. trying to show that regardless of what the citizens 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 or un peacekeeping forces to be implemented and here are for myanmar to be tried in the 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 protesters have also been calling for as well as to mediate the situation and for the time to come to the table with the elected government so that the american figure on the path warrants after turning the country back to democracy and especially nations like us here have been called to help facilitate that process journalist in intent thank you. let's get a check of some other stories making news around the world police in sweden say that they are investigating a possible terrorism motive after 8 people were wounded in a stampede a stabbing rampage the suspected attacker was shot and arrested by police following the incident in the southern town of that londo police say that they did not have

any prior information about an attack the right. authorities in california say the 13 people killed in a highway crash belonged to a group of migrants smuggled across the mexican border the victims were among $25.00 people crammed into an s.u.v. officials say that they believe the migrants and toured through a hole cut into the border fence with mexico. israel's environmental protection minister has accused iran of links to a catastrophic oil spill off of the israeli coast the spill is one of the country's worst ever ecological disasters israel says it's found the ship responsible for the slick and is calling it environmental terrorism there has been no immediate comment from iran. well security teams are on high alert in washington d.c. preparing for another possible attack on the capitol by extremists on thursday that

is the day that some right wing conspiracy theorists believe that former president donald trump will be sworn in for a 2nd term in office now the u.s. justice department has charged more than 300 people for the violent capitol siege back on january 6th. the f.b.i. and other in others and law enforcement are facing a backlash for failing to contain the pro trump mob earlier we asked our washington correspondent oliver salih what they are planning to do differently this time around back of the time on january 6th so the threat really was not taken seriously . enough it took. hours to respond to the fact the rioters had entered the capital premises one explanation for that was the police by law enforcement they are didn't really see rioters as a threat police was supportive of donald trump in general simply because trump has

been supportive of police at times of the black lives matter protests and all this time around it is a very different situation clear there are miles off the razor wire top fences surrounding the capitol premises so you cannot even get any close to the capitol itself security has been tied some just for this day tomorrow on march 4th so it's really hard to imagine a repetition of what happened on january 6th law enforcement really wants to avoid a situation like that a repetition and comes well prepared for oliver salad in washington there the latest space x. effort to send people into space ended with a nother rocket exploding but founder elon musk still says that the test launch and landing was a success space x. is a send 10 unmanned rocket just minutes after landing but the vertical touchdown represents the 1st successful rocket landing from the private space company shortly after the initial moment was celebrated the starship burst into flames moscow later tweeted

our i p s and 10 honorable discharge the 1st starship flight to the moon is planned to take place this year a japanese billionaire is currently seeking 8 crew members for that journey. up next sunday w it is comfort zone with my colleague tim sebastian i'm sara kelly thanks for watching. can you hear me now oh yes we're going to tell you and how the last 2 years german chancellor when you bring your uncle a man called and you've never caught her surprise yourself with what is possible who is medical really what moves them part of who talk to people who follow along the way maurice and critics alike join us from adult life stops.