you. know ed. this is the reduced life from berlin but european union imposes sanctions on china foreign ministers in brussels agreed on penalties for human rights abuses against china's weaker minority on are the blocks 1st sanctions on beijing in more than 3 decades plus a canadian ex diplomat it was the verdict after going on trial in beijing chinese prosecutors say he's a spy canada calls him a hostage beijing for the story also coming up her version sings back to kent to walk down as germany faces the good with the corona virus infections and so on

going medical wants to go back on recently eased restrictions but that could deal a single goal for many small businesses already about to go bust. mark thank you so much for your company everyone well we start in brussels where the european union has imposed sanctions on china over human rights abuses against the country's weaker muslim minority in a foreign minister's agree to blacklist chinese officials in a drop in a raft rather of measures targeting alleged human rights offenders around the world these are the use 1st sanctions against china since the blocs arms embargo in 989 following the time and square crackdown. all right let's bring in. who is

in brussels monitoring these developments for you and following that you foreign ministers are meeting their parents fill us in on the details 1st what exactly are the consequences of these punitive measures well the consequences for the 4 individuals and the one company that are targeted that they cannot travel to the e.u. anymore and that the ss they might have in europe frozen now and the impact on these individuals which of former and current chinese officials in the coming this party would not be that big because people here as human that they don't have these as it's actually in europe but it's a more likely it's a political symbol of course to say this is enough with the human rights violations going on inching jiang and it has to stop here and it's also a symbol because it is now the after 32 years the 1st round of sanctions against china and was not easy for you to agree on this many countries for example germany

that hesitated to punish china welfare's if it is all symbolic as you've been reporting what is the use objective here and are certain member states afraid or concerned rather that china will retaliate. the you want to set a symbol but the u.s. does not want to endanger the economic ties was china there are far. too important for the economies in europe they have to trade and to to deal visit china and so it's also clear that the e.u. is also already fick to ring in the retaliation because it's now clear that there will be a tit for tat and that the chinese will come up with some counter measures and as we hear the foreign ministry and b.g. already issued a list of 10 individuals and 4 companies that will be punished in europe. battery good reporting from brussels thank you so very much and i'd like to take you now to

china to get the perspective from their correspondence but he has been or is in beijing for you. just tell us about who the individuals are that are targeted here . yeah these are individuals who are hiring officials in the regional government off seeing john or in the security of power it is the head of the security forces of the public security bureau is among them the deputy party secretary what is however interesting is that the party secretary the most powerful man in the region is not on this list he is seen as the person the architect behind these policies that are now considered a genocide by many op service he is not on the list. shows that the food the e.u. barking and biting are not the same also on the list is at the security branch the pursuit public security bureau off the. production and construction core this is an

organization that dominates this economy in the region it is like a state inside the state of course controlled by the communist party it runs its own schools and its own prisons and this is again this is a signal at the economic impact off these sanctions but again you're not the whole corps is targeted but only the security branch so for european companies who do business with this powerful economic all going is asians there will be probably little consequence now obviously and the t.s.a. beijing can lose any time they've already retaliated are we expecting more punitive and measures that down the pipeline. well this was a very quick retaliation and it was more it included more individuals than the targeted this shows that beijing is really angry about these sanctions they had

always hoped that they could somehow keep the e.u. out of this when tensions with america arise to have the e.u. . at least staying neutral on these human rights issues. so this shows whether there are more to come i don't know china is definitely going to try to get the sentients lifted mathias i'm going to put you on hold for just a 2nd because pressure from the european union comes just as a diplomatic dispute with canada is heating up while the kinetic canadian a government is accusing a beijing of hostage diplomacy over the trial of a canadian citizen excused of espionage while former diplomat michael covel was arrested back in 2018 and formally charged with spying last year well he's now awaiting a verdict following a short trial it's the 2nd recent spying case against a canadian national canadian diplomats have been refused access to the proceedings

canada maintains both cases are retaliation for its arrest of a senior executive from the telecoms giant huawei. and we can go back now to mathias who's also covering that story for you covered is now the 2nd canadian a to stand trial in china for espionage on espionage charges what is behind these cases. china is accusing him of crossing state secrets to the outside of the country and therefore this is an espionage case but we have not heard any any further details about what they accuse ing him of canada is considering and many of service are considering this as a case of hostage diplomacy these 2 men 2 might the 2 michaels as they're called michael coverage was on trial today and michael specter who was on trial last

friday these 2 men have been arrested immediately after the arrest of among one joe the executive the c.f.o. of huawei in come out on an american extradition request and have ever since been out and the chinese officials have not made a big secret of what is really behind it they have said that canada holds the key to their release which means that they would release them if among one joe would be released and that is that's take let's talk big picture now this all comes as a u.s. president biden continues for president trans confrontational policy when it comes to china the e.u. are now also not shying away from imposing sanctions on some members there this is the best way to deal with china. oh we will see the results probably only in a few years but what we have seen so far is that the. softer policies

that the west has adopted the china in the past 30 years before trump have not used it the result that everybody was hoping for people in the west with thinking that as china develops it would open up but what we have seen in the last 8 years since he's in pain came to power that china has hardened on human rights issues but also diplomatically and militarily to wards other countries so i think there is there has been growing frustration in the west that china is being so assertive and that human rights situation has deteriorated so badly during these past few years that these countries just choose to take a different approach and that there's a growing feeling that the president has not worked did he use it china correspondent might he has been in our reporting from beijing thank you all right

to take a look now at some of the other stories making news around the world a group of $800.00 con pro-democracy activists released from jail in china have been detained on their return home they were arrested at sea last year on charges of illegal border crossing believe they were trying to flee to taiwan to skate prosecution for their involvement in anti-government protests in hong kong. there have been violent clashes in the british city of bristol at a rally against a proposed policing bill at least 20 officers were injured the bill would give police sweeping new powers to clamp down on public protests. the main opposition candidate in elections just held in the republic of congo has died a spokesperson spokesperson said gay bryce. last died as he was being transferred to france for treatment recover 19 he was the main rival of president

denis us who knew so who is expected to extend his 36 year hold on power. europe's biggest economy is poised to reintroduce moderate coronavirus lockdown measures just weeks after easing them german chancellor angela merkel is meeting with regional leaders later to discuss their options on that summit growing evidence that a 3rd wave of the outbreak is underway the country has registered almost 8000 daily new cases while in autumn last year a steep rise in cases were brought under control by a 2nd lockdown mostly targeting schools shops and restaurants but since some restrictions were eased at the start of march there has been another spike scientists fear cases could jump to a new high. well the exponential rise in cases comes amid growing protests against current restrictions the thousands of people rallied in germany and elsewhere in

europe over the weekend police say some 20000 people demonstrated in the german city of castle making it one of the largest rallies over its kind so far in germany this year while scuffles broke out between some of the protesters and police resorted to using batons pepper spray and water cannons to disperse the crowds accused tweeted that there had been repeated attacks by protesters against 1st responders. our political correspondent thomas sparrow is covering those all important talks that are set to get under way momentarily thomas good to see another chance there is meeting with a regional leaders of via video conference a little later on what is the objective of this meeting. the objective is to evaluate exactly what the situation is like in germany and what the next steps will

be to the expected they will pull the handbrake if you will on those reopening steps cautious reopening steps that they had planned a few weeks ago when they had previously met they had actually elaborated on a plan to reopen germany but the situation is now so complicated germany is now seeing again exponential rise in cases and increasing coronavirus hotspots and this is basically leading authorities including german chancellor angela merkel to think about pulling that one break and that the reason behind that is that germany is now beyond a very important threshold the threshold is 100 new infections per 100000 cases in 7 days and germany as i said is now beyond that so that is probably leading authorities to make sure that all those cautious reopening steps are no 9 now being pulled back or vesty as you can imagine not everyone in the country is happy about those steps while that is my next question to you tom is do we expect this meeting to be a contentious wide. normally those meetings are very contentious between regional

leaders who obviously have regional local priorities and the german chancellor who has sort of the big picture of all this and this is something that we expect will take a lot of time those meetings are normally not very quick meetings so they could go into the night they could last several hours and the reason behind that is also because they understand that this has real direct quick impact on the lives of many people here in germany on many businesses here in germany as well in fact the wus visited one of those businesses that has been particularly affected by the coronavirus in recent months to hear what the people working there actually had to say about the current situation here in germany. this homemade chocolate cherry cake is a favorite with customers at the moment they can only serve it to go. but that doesn't cover her costs at all. by now she's accumulated a debt of around $35000.00 euros if germany were to tighten restrictions again

she'd be forced to close them up about a loss of. cuts if this debt if the 3rd lock down is actually put in place then i would definitely have to shut down for good. because i'm taking out 2 loans which i'll have to pay back all turn i just wouldn't know how to go on. many businesses in germany fear for their existence some have already given up meanwhile cases in the country are increasing rapidly just weeks after restrictions were eased and schools and some shops reopened. more people are on the move exposing themselves to the risk of infection researchers warn germany's vaccination rollout has not progressed enough to counteract this. often gets heated even if we've already vaccinated many of the elderly.