this is news coming to you live from berlin germany's chancellor faces lawmakers to explain her pandemic policy and political defends the european union's decision to cure vaccines jointly despite growing frustration over germany's slow rollout and a 3rd wave of the fact. another publication from north korea japan says fired 2 ballistic missiles into the sea the 1st such test since u.s. president joe biden took office also coming up a hotly anticipated eruption and icelandic volcano roars back to life after 900

years flying. locals to the rivers of lava but they've been warned not to get too close. and i'm terry martin welcome to the program german chancellor merkel has defended her handling of the pandemic in a speech in germany's parliament she said that lockdown measures would have been effective but new variants of the credit iris mean infection numbers are rising across europe she said that germany is currently relying on mass testing to try to control its 3rd wave of infections and urged germans to take up the offer of free rapid testing. frustration has been growing over the slow vaccine rollout but said it was wrong. right the e.u.

decided to acquire an authorized back scenes jointly dismantling of my duty because the symbolism drawings through to other peers decides to joint a choir and lies about using the union we see there are some good life differences in there just like relation and that huge debate about this but was going to happen i love it if someone didn't become nice. others did not i cannot imagine it because it would take a very foundation of the union. well joining me now our political correspondent a crane here in the studio our political correspondent thomas sparrow is down at the german bonus talk let's start with you melinda we heard there defending the e.u. joint procurement policy when it deals to vaccines to cheap oil for a convincing defense of what do you make of it i think she's right that had germany gone it alone at that stage it would indeed have shaken europe to its very foundations because we would have seen some powerful countries like germany with

adequate vaccine and then undoubtedly others smaller countries that don't have a lot of our getting power in international pharma markets possibly without vaccine i so i think she's right on that point the problem is brussels did not adequately go into crisis mode when they then began to look at negotiations with the big drug makers they essentially haggled over price over liability rather than seeing that in a crisis time is of the absolute essence and germany also bears some responsibility here because germany as europe's biggest economic power did not throw the full force of its expertise and to go sheeting skills at brussels disposal essentially germany stood back and let brussels handle this in a rather typically brussels bureaucratic fashion and so i think if we look at the procurement process mistakes were made and berlin does ultimately also bear some

responsibility for that and it should be said that the germany had the e.u. presidency when much of this was being negotiated thomas it's the slow rollout of the vaccine is of course an issue but it's not the only thing i'm going to talk about in her in her speech today she's been criticized for the government's handling of the pandemic in general how did she respond to that criticism in her speech. i'm going to medical stressed once again as you did earlier in the week that this is a new kind of pandemic in particular because of the more contagious corona virus variants but at the same time she stressed that germany now has at its disposal other elements to fight that new pandemic as if you compare it with the earlier stages of the corona virus pandemic countries specifically mentioned testing you mentioned that as well terry should mention again germany's vaccine rollout which has been very slow but is progressing should mention the fact that in april germany

will receive a high number of vaccines which will help to speed up the process as well as the inclusion of g.p.'s and family doctors in the whole vaccine distribution i'm she also once again defended the use of the coronavirus warn up which was very useful for germany in the 1st wave of the pandemic in particular for its track and trace policy but which has been criticized in recent months for people who consider it not very useful when it comes to germany's fight against coronavirus i'm going to michael also stressed that it is not possible to simply only highlight the negative aspects of policy and that's why she has to focus on those important issues that germany has at its disposal to fight a coronavirus pandemic did the chancellor offer any new ideas thomas for how to deal with the rising infection numbers. teria no because i don't think this is the venue for under mccall to present new ideas these kinds of government speeches ahead of e.u. summits are normally intended to present broader elements of policy which can then

lead to a discussion here in parliament so as such what we heard today from was some of those key elements that government both regional and federal governments have put in practice in recent months to try and fight the pandemic angela merkel once again stressed that cautious reopening plan that was agreed on earlier this month in one of those $28.00 meetings that have taken place is a coronavirus endemic began at the german chancellor between regional and federal leaders and that culture is reopening plan is one that she again defended as part of germany's overall policy to fight the pandemic thomas thank you very much that was thomas sparrow. again here in the studio our chief political correspondent melinda crane thank you very much. let's catch up on some of the other stories making headlines around the world today a funeral has been held for the youngest victim so far security forces in myanmar the 7 year old girl was sitting on her father's knee when police shot her the

authorities have released hundreds of detainees as opposition grows to last month's military coup. u.s. state the u.s. senate rather has voted to approve president joe biden's choice of rachel by to become assistant u.s. secretary u.s. health secretary she's the 1st openly transgender person to be confirmed by the chamber despite strong opposition from republicans led by was confirmed on a vote of 52 to 48. cuba has begun testing its own covert 19 vaccine on health care workers it's hoped most people in the capital have been a will get the solver into job by may. cuba has been developing vaccines since the 1980 s. because of longstanding u.s. trade embargo against us. now to north korea which has launched 2 ballistic missiles and according to south korea and japan it's believed the 2 short

range missiles flew 450 kilometers before landing in the sea and alist say the country has a history of testing new u.s. administrations with missile launches and other provocations to force americans back to the negotiating table and for more we're joined now by joss smith a reuters correspondent based in seoul good to see you just tell us what are we to make of these missile launches are they a message to the new u.s. administration or something else. well north korea conducts these kinds of tests for multiple reasons not least because it provides them a good practical experience for improving their weapons and also giving same to their troops but it's impossible not to see this on context of the new administration and the review that divided ministration is conducting right now it also comes as you mentioned after north korea had rebuffed biden's ministrations attempts to reach out to them so in many ways this underscores what we heard from

north korea in a statement last week which was that it's not interested in speaking to the united states but that if it does come back to the negotiating table it wants to do so on its own terms on course these missile launches raise alarm bells in the region what can you tell us about how south koreans are responding to this. south korean fischel is here voiced concern they can be in the emergency meetings of national security council and said that they were working closely with u.s. intelligence services and other allies to address this at the same time the moon administration here has been very eager to try to restart. north korea so while they're likely to continue to voice is concerned they in other ways may downplay this in an effort to try to get those talks going again and what are the prospects for getting those talks going again now that we have a new administration in washington. well as we saw during the years under the

trumpet ministration north korea can turn on a dime going from fire fury in 2 major summits with trump so difficult to predict but at the moment many analysts don't expect north korea to return to talks quickly not least because they seem quite focused on issues that hold including economic problems that kind of fighting the ongoing virus problem just thank you so much for filling us in that was correspondent josh smith from reuters news agency in seoul. now to a titanic traffic jam in the suez canal a low tide overnight has slowed efforts to dislodge one of the largest container ships in the world which is currently stuck in the suez canal where it's blocking dozens of cargo vessels and tankers creating the world's largest shipping jam efforts are ongoing to just laws the ever given owned by transport firm evergreen

before it further this robs the global shipping system the suez canal is a choke point for world trade it connects asia and europe and sees 30 percent of the global container shipping volume every day it's also an important transit point for oil and gas one reason why oil prices surged 6 percent on wednesday the question for shippers now is how long will it take to pry out the vessel. more than $100.00 ships are stuck on both sides of the canal after the every give and wedged itself between the eastern and western banks the ship's owner evergreen says a 50 kilometer an hour gust of wind shop the ship into the canal walls the 200000 ton vessel which stretches 400 meters is believed to have partially run aground much smaller attack boats are now trying to keep it free. realistically there's no quick fix here if the ship can be can be are freed up and moved moved around we can

then get good good flowing again the only real realistic long term solution if this does turn to something long term really is to go around the cape and again that's going to add a significant delay to the to the good flowing the current conditions have only added to the walls low tide means the efforts to dislodge the ship will be delayed a couple of days so the world's biggest shipping jam could even get longer. sightseers have been flocking to a spectacular volcanic eruption in iceland has been flowing since the melt 1st started spewing fire a week ago but hikers trying for the perfect selfie are being warned not to get too close. to love above both bits and paws out of the crater of this for ok. it began about thing here on iceland's raking as peninsular last friday the 1st time in around 900 years.

so perhaps it's no surprise that thousands of people have been flocking here to witness this rare event. trying to get as close as they dare. to that perfect picture. i mean these love of you know we just so close to us. haven't seen anything like. we have high kids getting hungry some of us the lava as a giant grill but this does come with a warning. 2 days ago there's a guy that tried to cook eggs and bacon on it and love ate. so stay away from it. there have also been warnings of a comic gas pollution. before the eruption there were more than 50000 lakes here in just 3 rates. they were caused by

a large body of molten rock known as magma which has pushed its way to the south and. it's unclear as to how much longer this folk will continue to erupt and now they're icelanders are enjoying its hypnotic display it's. a digital art work by humanoid robot sophia has been sold at auction for nearly $700000.00 the robot producer art in collaboration with the italian digital artist andrea on a chair. thank you very much for joining. the digital artwork is a 12 2nd m.p. for files showing the evolution of those portraits into sophia's digital painting and it's accompanied by a physical artwork painted by sophia on a printout of her self portrait. the identity of the buyer was not immediately know

. you're watching d.w. news just a reminder of our top story today german chancellor angela merkel has defended her handling of the pandemic in germany's parliament she said the e.u. was right to procure a vaccine strongly despite growing frustration over the slow rollout germany is currently battling a 3rd wave of the crossfire. i'm terry barton thanks for watching. been robbed of their soul that's what are people experiences when their heritage is taken from them countless cultural artifacts were stolen from africa by colonialists can't carted off to europe. what should be done with the stolen art from africa.