leave with this new digital you what so to think it is to improve freedom of movement in the european union so that people can cross borders again which is a core value car european value also interesting this certificate would be free of charge member states can decide themselves which would be accepted for example they could also approve it seems that has not been approved by the e.u. yet for example russia sputnik vaccine so the vaccine passed what will what will the border patrol for instance be able to tell from that past what's what's in that past. the idea is that they will tell you what if you have been vaccinated against cohen 90 or if you have recovered from a covert 19 deceased or simply if you've got a negative test result and that's not to not discriminate against people with that not have not had yet the chance to get the vaccine or it's as we know are many

people here in europe because of the scene rollout has been very slow here and the in the medium term a long term or so so to make this system interoperable so that not only states can access it but also other countries outside of the european union are it and next week or understand leaders e.u. leaders are meeting in brussels where you are for an e.u. summit what are the chances they will reach an agreement on this vaccine pass. yes said it already you've mentioned it that states such as grades or spain and cyprus cobb waited for such an e.u. why is it if a kid's to be introduced they rely on travel they rely on the tourism but others say we 1st have to see if people if the vaccinated can really not spread the virus further we're not sure yet on the scientific level the commission's aim is to

introduce decide to fix by june so come summer comes the certificates but the problem is this is quite optimistic because not only european countries but also the european parliament would have to find a common approach would have to korea on this and they already said they will look into this really is specifically because they also want to take a look at how data is protected when i started reporting from brussels thank you. don't want to bring up to speed now with some of the other developments in the pandemic poland is imposing a nationwide lockdown from saturday shopping malls and cinemas must close because infections there are surging at the moment in the philippines meanwhile has been foreigners from entering and cut the number of nationals who can return each day australia sending extra vaccines and medical supplies to neighboring pup or new guinea fight

a new wave of cases and all foreign workers in the south korean capital seoul must now be tested for the virus. that you caught up with some of the other stories making news this hour a court in japan has ruled the country's ban on same sex marriages is on constitutional a landmark decision says the failure to recognize gay unions denies couples their right to equality japan is the only country in the g. 7 group of developed nations that does not allow same sex marriage. the u.s. secretary of state and secretary of defense have met their south korean counterparts in seoul is the 2nd leg of their tour of asia to shore up support for the biden administration's efforts to denuclearize north korea and contain the growing power of china in the region. u.s. president joe biden meanwhile says he agrees that his russian counterpart vladimir

putin is quote a killer mr biden told a.b.c. news that mr putin would pay a price for allegedly undermining his campaign in last year's u.s. presidential election i asked him whether he agreed putin was a killer biden replied you know i do feel or. human rights groups are sounding the alarm about germany's deportation of refugees back to places they say are unsafe on like several other western nations germany regards pakistan as a safe country of origin to be is the recent tovan met one family from the a medea religious minority they say they face persecution in pakistan oh no every time an osama does the odd time here in leipsic it feels like a small victory in pakistan the call for prayer would land him in jail ahmed and his family are members of the ahmadiyya community and islamic minority which faces

persecution back home 2 years ago they fled to germany. we live in freedom since we came we've been able to wear whatever clothes we want and when we want to veil ourselves no one tries to harm us my husband goes to the mosque and prays there and we don't have to ask ourselves whether he will come home or whether someone will come to the mosque and hurt us. the family only has tolerated immigration status here which means they have few rights and it anytime can be arrested and deported back to a life in fear they have heard that a mass deportation is due to take place soon. sania it is not easy to leave your country and now that we have done this that we are here we're being told that we can't stay so where do we go. believe the movements founder was the messiah they are considered heretics in pakistan there persecution is well documented well how

many shows a school books which tell children to fight the infidels signs at the shop entrances that prohibit entry for mahdi's photos from attacks on a commodity mosques still on like the u.k. and the u.s. germany considers pakistan a safe country of origin leaks says that the government has stepped up deportations . of us and i believe that there is a lack of knowledge or political will. but unfortunately this is to the detriment of the many persecuted people who live here and who are now being deported in large numbers or are still in custody awaiting deportation. for these people it is a matter of life and death. it's good. for the judge. knows this well he says a mob killed his uncle when he returned to pakistan from the u k. achmad in costume are desperate to protect their family but they have

exhausted all legal remedies for now there is little they can do just wait and hope they won't be on the next plane. starting today right here in company will treat its thousands of drivers in britain as contract employees instead of independent contractors the decision follows litigation and a recent loss for the company in the british supreme court's the new designation will give tens of thousands of drivers access to social benefits like paid vacation and pension payments it's a major victory for campaigners fighting for expanded employee protection in the so called gig economy on this is a major decision and we can get more now w. reporter erin tilton has been tracking this story for you erin what exactly does this mean for drivers in the u.k.

. well this is of course a major victory for the some 70000 drivers that were employees in the u.k. and while it may sound like a little bit of an academic debate the difference between contract employee and independent contractor debate really gets at the heart or the bedrock of the economy because many companies really use this model and basically by employing people as independent contractors they can lower their overhead by paying them less social benefits not paying them for their downtime and that really lowers their costs and of course they pass those savings on to the consumer and that's part of the reason that these good companies have enjoyed such success over the last 10 years but if you really think about it this exchange it's not consumers that are paying for the low prices and it's not the employers paying for the low prices a lot of people argue that it's actually coming out of the employee's pockets in this case the drivers themselves so this new designation actually gives em employees access to things like a federal minimum wage pencil payments and paid how that is you know a lot of those things that contract employees kind of just expect the western

democracies now of course it's a great victory for the drivers themselves but many say it's coming too little too late and that the company actually isn't going far enough when it comes to recognizing employee rights and so what has it where has it as you were reacted to this a court's decision. well i mean of course they did they'd say that they're falling in line with the court decision but many of the drivers beg to differ while of course they are being recognized as contract employees there's still a lot of debate about what actually counts as work and says it's only going to pay their employees when they're actually sitting down in a car with a customer driving somewhere but many drivers say we should actually be on the clock the 2nd we sit down behind the wheel with the app open start looking for customers because a lot of the time that they spend waiting for customers that downtime it can be as much to 30 or 50 percent of the time they actually spend working for guber now if they're not being paid for that 30 to 50 percent of the time that makes a huge difference at the end of the month and take a huge bite out of their paycheck now earlier today we spoke with james farrar he's

a former driver and also one of the lead plaintiffs in the case that led up to today's decision so let's take a listen to what he had to say about hoover's re designation today well. i'm thankful that we've moved a step forward in has accepted the judgment but only in part. has decided that he will observe the ruling that workers should be protected but only from the point of the job being dispatched in the op will you drop off the passenger but the supreme court said that we must be protected on the bill all from the period that you log into the op until you log out so that means about 45 to 50 percent of your working time is still not being recognized by a group or that's a hell of a hole in your wage bill at the end of the week and so that is not acceptable because it's not what the supreme court ruled superstring to do something that's far below legal minimum so that's not acceptable. so it sounds like many of the

drivers are still unhappy with the actions that were is taking and so i think it's safe to say that the next round of litigation seems to be preprogramed now over of course aaron operates our round the world could there be global ramifications. well i don't think whoever is going to change its business model around the world just because of this decision you have to realize this comes from a u.k. court case and ringback a court in britain just doesn't have the standing to force over in india and pakistan and russia germany of the united states to change how they do business with their employees especially because they make so much money by declaring their employees to be independent contractors but i think this can be seen as a moral victory basically they're sending a message to the u.k. government is that they're paying a bit more attention to these gate a comedy companies basically saying that their business model may be exploitative and that they may need to change it moving forward if they want to continue to enjoy so much success to the success that they have enjoyed over the last 10 years aaron tilton of reporting thank you thank you. and are right now the

top story that we're tracking for you this hour the european commission has unveiled plans for a digital vaccine passer prop up the continent's tourism industry amid the pandemic all its proposed allowing e.u. citizens to show a digital certificate to prove that they have been vaccinated have tested negative or have recovered after contracting quantifiers. up next is been physical and no with your covert 900 special show. of. the fight against the corona virus pandemic. has the rate of infection in developing what does the latest research say. information and context the coronavirus update 19 special. on d w. is

quite as simple as it seeks. to understand the world. we need to take a closer to. experience no. cut. this hospital in the colombian coastal town to moscow was unprepared for the pandemic. the intensive care unit was only built up to code 19 had reached the city and infected thousands. far from the capital the population here has never been the focus of government decisions. now it's paying for the lack of

health infrastructure like many other remote parts of the country. coronaviruses riskier for indigenous communities lack of health services and clean water poverty keeping variants out of rural canada has been difficult but adults in remote parts are getting priority access to the vaccine aboriginal and torres strait islander people prevented widespread infections in australia with their own travel restrictions they have actually rollout is getting underway indigenous groups are also among the 1st to be getting the job in new zealand the us canada and brazil but things don't look so good in colombia. andres rojas has been working for here in the intensive care unit of the st andrews hospital into. it's the only hospital in the far southwest of colombia a year ago the clinic didn't have any intensive care beds things changed quickly when the covert 19 pandemic began in. at the start of the 1st outbreak

we had more than 2500 patients 21 of them died and 17 were transferred to another hospital in what was. going to mark a hospital is one of many provincial clinics in colombia that opened up intensive care units for the 1st time during the pandemic. it was only after the pandemic hit that we could even think about setting up an intensive care station at the moment it provides 13 units with monitors breathing devices electric beds and step who we trained ourselves. according to dr of us some funding came from the government but most of it came from private initiatives local businesses were especially generous with their donations to moscow is dependent on the tourist industry this is an advertisement from better times the location is the pacific coast next to ecuador

its border is. around 1000 kilometers from the capital of bogota tourists come here from around the world despite the locations popularity medical infrastructure was largely ignored by politicians in the capital of bogota. before the hospital had 38 oxygen tanks imagine that trying to get through a pandemic with 38 tanks of oxygen thanks to donations from local business totaling 400000 pesos we could set up the hospital with a liquid oxygen tank. this helps a little but the 2nd wave of infections is now bringing a shortage of medicine no one here can think about vaccines against cope at 19 the staff are approaching burnout. you can feel their tiredness some staff members have fainted from exhaustion their

working hours are very very long. at the beginning of march 117000 facts in doses were delivered to bogota these were meant to reach 50000000 colombians but nobody in to moscow believes that they will get a single dose. on mario the us is a research fellow in the department of politics and international relations at the university of sheffield why is the situation so difficult in some of colombia's marginalized communities. well drawn to understand the tradition of these marginalized communities is important to take into consideration whether the form of government called the historical death of columbia the state level rural areas which basically can be summarized in 4 aspects the 1st one is the development guard which it refers to rural areas not having basic services like water electricity

abroad hospitals or schools the 2nd refers to a social inequality a long concentration according to ox fun 66 percent of productive live in colombia is in the hands of 0.4 percent of the total population the 3rd one is the brawling of the lack of states presence in some areas of software not of still under control of illegal groups and their 4th that having their most war in is the big themes of the question. the question became sort of which according to all the 2013 report of the center of study committee educates more than 200000 people were killed in the last 15 years and more than 5000000 of colombians were these plays in rural areas or these are beach or that indicates why this situation is so complicated for these communities hi mario can you tell me

what happened to the peace process that has improved the situation in some way. well the baseball was just something bored a lot mark in colombia he's 30 initially was portrayed he does as a way of bringing to one in 50 years of war which it was in iraq even that really strongly appealed to the international community and this is why it also was surrounded by international organizations but what is interesting you've been in colombia during their 4 g. or. their conversations in how bond or could. as serious of national and regional forums where convened by negotiating parties which allow people to discuss the points of the peace legenda basically people get employed being discussed in iraq and reform political parties the question of big themes. transitional and just the is this institutional of illegal crops we gave of this

sense of colombians that the peace process was a great opportunity to transform peacefully all of these social problems that we have historically have been the contrary so it does bring a lot of hope but that dissent time. no room for end of the big game the big 30 over there not come but there are a friend in a lot of implementation of the process is a matter of concern as we see all the high hopes that enough of the population be met. with the compliance and they listen and. rainy social problems remain especially for african lobbying groups i believe how how is the pandemic affecting their situation. i think. many more upper end structural problems in the us if you caused in song growth areas. just to give your an idea before the plan b.

me 40 percent of the post beatles were closed. and saw the former government declare a state of social emergency. went over me and came. off it does your earlier work completely unprepared to the. basically the lack of resources they lack of. a community where yes. something that they have really struggled to live with. what is more concerning for these communities is the joy of the bible by those who they have reemergence of violence which allow us to see their faults you question not seen the me which is there can be mission of their. element in binge on a dream give solutions to people and to dealing with the problem effectively. so what's the best way to tackle the big divide in colombia and ensure these people

get treated all vaccinated. i think the 1st thing we need to think about is hard to be politicized. there wake up on him yet have present economy we've got nothing to be some political problem but that's a social problem as a health problem so i've been big government needs to listen as well more people the same from the territory it's from what the local. but the local media sessions are is messages that the local incisions are sending to the to the local to the central government in order to get better results in the way that the columbia is even with these. people i think that how do you what he has thank you very much for being on the show today thank you so much. if you've got a question about the corona virus feel free to get in contact with our science correspondent darrent williams. if you are

a symptomatic and don't know you have called it 19 is it dangerous to be vaccinated . the short answer to this appears to be no but it's pretty complicated question so of course there's a little more to it than that current advice from the u.s. centers for disease control focuses mostly on whether or not people who've had the disease and recovered can be safely backs unaided afterwards the answer to that is a clear yes however the c.d.c. is far less clear about people who might have an active asymptomatic infection at the moment they get a shot the implication though is certainly that there's no reason to think that vaccination would pose a danger that's because the guidelines do say there's no need to test negative for infection before you're vaccinated they also say that even if you've been exposed

and have been tested and are awaiting results if you live somewhere like a rest home you should go ahead and be vaccinated as long as you don't have any symptoms i'm sure the guidelines wouldn't say either one of those things if there were a suspected dangers for people with asymptomatic infections being given the shot and that the c.d.c. would adopt a much more cautious approach but it's important also to remember something else at the same time if you know you've been exposed and are in quarantine but aren't showing any symptoms don't go get vaccinated and tell your quarantine period has passed because you might be an asymptomatic carrier and even though we've established the vaccine doesn't pose a threat to you in that case you could still pose a potential threat to people who are vaccinated you so wait out your couple of weeks just in case to protect them.

and just briefly the world health organization says the astra zeneca vaccine rollout should continue for now some countries have stopped over reports of blood clots finally we leave you with images from sao paulo brazil's biggest city now more of a ghost town they usually bustling mega city of 21000000 people went into curfew this week to try to stop the corona virus from spreading several brazilian cities are running out of hospital beds as cases rise and the crisis worsens. they spoke once of.

the mole. have to say 1st to us. that's why i listen to their stories. reporter every weekend on d

w. stand for. lawyers and all. the money which courses. video and audio. anytime anywhere. w. me. this is the end of the news africa coming up on the program the fight against continues health workers and government officials are leading the way with a smile that continues you know killing its people with the astros and i come back see also coming up. as i'm bob will grab holes with food shortages we'll meet a group of young agricultural entrepreneurs who are contributing to flick security

to farming.