our documentary series slavery routes starts march 10th on w. z w news live from berlin and a year after coronavirus forced china into a shutdown now it is setting out plans to bounce back the country's chips its focus from fighting the virus to longer term economic goals beijing also outlines electoral reforms that will tighten its grip on hong kong. also coming up germans

feeling a sense of lockdown fatigue as restrictions on daily life continue many are starting to ask if chancellor angela merkel's approach to tackling the pandemic is still the right want and on the 1st papal visit to iraq pope francis will urge the country's twinkling number of christians to stay put and help rebuild after years of war and persecution. i'm sorry kelly welcome to the program. one year ago a bunch of china was shut down as part of efforts to contain the spread of the corona virus now the country has the pandemic largely under control and is taking steps to get its economy back on track around $3000.00 delegates are to have big the biggest event on china's political calendar the national people's congress the opening of its legislative session in beijing over the course of the next week they

will be rubber stamping legislation and setting china's political priorities for the next 5 years. china lays out its plans for this year as it emerges from the pandemic at the top of the agenda the economy and hong kong china was the only major economy to see growth last year the nation is bouncing back thanks to its strong response to over 19 but beijing warns there is much work to be done. as the corona virus continues to spread around the world instability and uncertainty are mounting on the international landscape and the global economy continues to face grave challenges domestically there are still weak links in our works to control covert 19. the foundation for achieving our country's economic recovery needs to be further consolidated barriers

to consumer spending remain and invest in growth lack sustainability. china's economic growth target may be modest yet their plans for hong kong are anything but beijing wants to overhaul the territory's electoral system citing loopholes and defects in the current system. tells you which. measures must be taken to improve the election system of the hong kong special administrative region eliminate hidden dangers and risks in the systems and mechanisms and ensure that patriots are the main body of hong kong people administering hong kong. you know also announced it will boost defense spending by nearly 7 percent. there were other sam parliament is also expected to discuss environmental issues and social development over the next week . and for more on this i'm joined by journalist mathias bolinger who is standing by

for us in beijing and mathias we have to just mention for context last year this national people's congress imposed a national security law on hong kong that has led led to dozens of arrests in the region tell us now reforming the electoral system is in focus what does that mean well in the past or until now beijing hired a mechanism. tightly controlled who can be their chief executive and who can be in the government off on call but. it also is sure the majority for the beijing come in the legislature but the opposition always was able to gain quite a few seats in the legislature and use of course the legislature to promote their own political goes beijing has now driven out the opposition come out of the

legislature that means they have disqualified some of the ledges late has and then the others resigned saying they would not be part of a parliament that would not repress and vote as will and they are making sure no that only people can get elected that are approved by beijing this is actually the end off the parliament as we have known it before so there's no opposition in the parliamentary right now and we have the national people's congress spokesperson saying that hong kong electoral system needs to be improved to guarantee that patriots administer hong kong tell us what do they mean by patriots and what does that mean for the hope of democracy in hong kong. in their off ishall. speech this means that anybody who is working to its secession or independence of hong kong could not be. a member of any governing

body or the parliament in hong kong it means. they are accusing the opposition comes off being secessionist and while there are people who promote on calling independence most of the opposition people just want to keep their one country 2 systems out as it has been on this stood on till now but increasingly beijing is using the word patriot meaning loyalists beijing is trying to eliminate the risk of opposition is trying to eliminate dissent in public life in hong kong and it is just briefly before we go 6 percent economic growth that's the target now in china how do they plan to get there yet this is what beijing. says it wants to achieve and it signals that beijing sees its economy back on track to normal how exactly they're going to achieve it is of course not clear the traditional way of achieving it is the investing public investment this is

something beijing does not want to see it is the same extent as before and they want to rebalance the economy towards more consumer growth how they're going to do it is probably something they do not know exactly themselves yet and it is falling and measuring thank you i've got a check of some other stories making is. police in myanmar have opened fire on protesters in mandalay local media are reporting that one person has been killed so fresh protests have erupted in several cities despite the military juntas violent crackdown that's up 38 people killed on wednesday the u.n. security council is due to hold talks on the crisis later today. senegalese police clashed with student protesters in the capital dakar a police official was said that one person was killed there it follows the detention of opposition leader office months on call on wednesday also goes arrest

has triggered the worst unrest seen in the west african country in years. spain has destroyed more than 1000 weapons seized over the years mainly from the basque separatist group. prime minister petro sanches presided as the arms were crushed at the ceremony in madrid the event was part of a tribute to the victims of terrorism. there has been widespread criticism of germany's decision to extend its coronavirus shutdown until the end of this month chancellor merkel met with state leaders on wednesday and agreed to a cautious reopening strategy now the plan also includes measures to make rapid testing more widely available and to speed up the vaccine rollout so far germany has lagged behind many of its european neighbors and getting available ptosis into people's arms in a moment we will hear from an epidemiologist who is also a member of the german parliament but 1st here's

a look at how the country has arrived at this point. i'm going to america has just reset for her strategy on corona trying a new daunting balance in the face of a 3rd wave. and we are taking steps to open up but they must not set us back in our fight against the make a drastic departure from her strategy so far which saw a lockdown after lockdown when infections rose the chancellor and her health minister young span under pressure businesses are struggling and public opinion is shifting over the past year angela merkel has used lockdowns as her prime tool to keep covert at bay now growing frustration that the slow rollout of the vaccination program here in germany is mixing with lockdown fatigue and many are beginning to ask whether angle or merkel still has the right approach when the chancellor 1st directly addressed the nation on covert right at the beginning of the crisis she

vowed that her government would think on its feet these are standard this is a dynamic situation and we will continue to learn as we go along so we can change course and react with other instruments adam and any time. biotech pfizer came up with that instrument everyone wanted the 1st market ready vaccine but germany and the you had vaccinated just over 5 percent of their people by the time israel celebrated vaccinating almost its entire population taking the european way may have prevented an e.u. meltdown but it was painfully slow and the too late course the vaccination effort was slow to get going. it's only now that germany is adding rapid test centers and home testing to its pandemic strategy months after austria merkel's new approach of opening up as mutations gather pace is the wrong move says the opposition. i don't

think that the measures which are taken between regional leaders and chancellor merkel yesterday will fit those u.s. situation and i think we are heading right into a 3rd wave overall support for the government's coronas strategy is still solid at around 50 percent but it used to be more than 70. within 12 months i'm going to machall went from being europe's corona leadership champion who managed to flatten the curve to a chance to increasingly on the defensive over these coming weeks and months her legacy may be rewritten of a corona. mechanic of now reporting there pope francis is set to begin a historic tour of iraq today despite heightened fears over security and nationwide coronavirus curfews the 84 year old head of the catholic church is scheduled to arrive in baghdad on friday afternoon marking the 1st papal visit to the country

security has been beefed up after a spate of rocket and suicide bomb attacks in recent weeks francis will meet with political and religious leaders and visit the former islamic state stronghold mosul . it is the pope's 1st trip outside of italy since november 29th team. vatican and iraqi flags going up for pope francis's visit. people here are working hard to fix everything up before he arrives paving the roads fixing street lights and setting up crowd control barriers expectations are high. we hope for this to be a successful visit and that it will help this injured country. when his holiness the pope visits any place where a lot of positive outcomes from his visit. to

canada cost church sits on the nineveh plain in iraq home to some of the earliest christian settlements centuries before islam established itself across the middle east. over time iraq became home to one of the world's most diverse christian communities featuring catholic how they and armenian orthodox protestant as well as other branches of christianity. then decide we are sending a message to the pope and to the world that we are here to do that now we christians are remaining on our land though our roots are here so that it is impossible to leave the homeland that embraced us let's use that if they must not to joe hockey is so. there were as many as an estimated 1400000 christians in the country at the start of the iraq war in 2003 sectarian conflict drove most of them away in 2014 the so-called islamic state started targeting christians driving

hundreds of thousands of them from their homes those who remain belong to many different branches of the faith. how much there is a crisis of instability our future is completely uncertain our faith has always saved us so far during the islamic state regime and the countless attacks on churches homes and villages it has helped us in iraq and it will continue to do so now through this phase and we love our country and are rooted here but if the situation keeps getting worse we may have to leave. the pope's visit is supposed to send a message of support but who also meet with the head of iraq's shiite muslim community sending a different message that the different faiths can get along. well we leave you now with some winter sports scenes we're heading to the swiss alps where women and men

accustomed to catching ocean winds and riding ocean waves tried snow instead the athletes came together as part of something called the x. project there was no real problem with social distancing they were outside of course most of them were math stuff anyway the extreme sports included snow wind surfing speed riding snowboarding and snow kiting. up next on the w. dock filming india's no maps i'm sarah kelly in berlin thanks for watching. different. women are in charge. archipelago has had a dream or goal system for centuries. do. differently.