do is take a lot of weight off the ends and put a lot of what they call a sagging stress on the vessel you conceivably crack the haul cause an oil spill but worst catastrophic lee fracture the vessel in half which would close the canal for months if not years more than $150.00 ships are caught in the traffic jam each passing day piles on the pressure for global trade route already struggling with the coronavirus pandemic a hick up like this that expects. everyone with a ready to get back to normal and what have been quite strong demand. and yeah and no one need to know that the lay on top of everything out and. just how important and how the whole system is those involved have warned it could be weeks before the vessel is freed bad news for those stuck in the world's longest mada time tailback. for more on this extraordinary story now joined by journalist

rose george she specializes in the shipping industry and actually sailed the suez canal on a cargo ship mr george welcome to d w you say it's no wonder the ever given got stuck why is that. be that definitive it wasn't my headline but i do remember my own trip and i do remember. this pilot and how unimpressive he was he was mostly asleep eating. and every chip in this is canal has to take a serious pilot and i'm sure there are some very good ones but i did not experience that and i have read about the seafarers he did so and i also know that 60 percent american marine accident are attributable to human error so i'm not going to speculate on what caused this perhaps it was a storm. actually sitting in the power on the ship did go out. but it is it is

extraordinary that it has happened. this has never happened before ships have got stuck. come against the banks of the canal but obviously the size of the ship and the fact that it's longer than the canal is wide is the problem walk us through a little bit if you will about how complicated and delicate the process of crossing through that canal can be. it's pretty complicated because when i went through which was in 20 tenement time going to a relatively long time ago it was actually one way. you're putting a kind of holding pattern if you can visualize like an airplane holding patent the ships are in a holding pattern at the north and the south of the canal and then given the green light literally so you like the traffic light there is an actual truck think. and then you trundle down or in a convoy so you spend 14 hours going through what my crew crew of the ditch in the

doesn't. very very slowly it's very sedate. it is complicated in the sense that things can go wrong as we found out but actually i think most seafarers he goes through syria is i'm certainly the cause of my ship war and. you know the owner of the ship says that the wind is to blame for this debacle is that a fairly credible explanation or could there have been other factors at play given your experience again i really wouldn't want to speculate i'm not a marine engineer or not clenched yeah and you don't understand about weight ship freeboard. the number of containers on board all these are factors. yes possibly it could have been blown out by wind if if it had had a power cut out at the same time it could have been human error it happened at 5 in the morning now the danger zone humans tend to be less than $3.00 to 5 in the

morning so that's when a lot of accidents do happen. but again i can't speculate or just i just i'm really pleased so far that no room was injured and and also that there's been no pollution rose george thank you so much for your analysis and appreciate your time. it's around up of other stories making news around the world at least $32.00 people have been killed and dozens injured after 2 passenger trains collided in southern egypt the crash in the province of so hog cause 3 carriages to flip over it's the latest in a series of deadly train wrecks in egypt many of which have been blamed on poor maintenance. ethiopian prime minister ahmed says if you are a trio has agreed to withdraw its troops from the ethiopian region of to grab. ethiopia's military would take over the guarding of border areas amnesty

international has accused your tree and troops of committing atrocities against civilians in the region. officials in bangladesh say at least 4 people have been shot dead during clashes between police and demonstrators many are protesting a visit to bangladesh by indian prime minister and a randy modi to celebrate the country's 50th anniversary of independence critics in bangladesh accuse modi of stoking anti muslim sentiment in india. british prime minister boris johnson has condemned china after its sanctions several british politicians and organizations the measures came in response to criticism by london of china's treatment of its muslim minority beijing said sanctions imposed by the u.k. e.u. us and canada were based on quote lies and deceit information.

in russia the kremlin has been tightening its grip on social media platforms this month the country's media watchdog threatened to block sites like twitter if they fail to remove banned content and now the video sharing platform tick-tock is on the kremlin's radar as well. time could be ticking for these bloggers the unlikely new enemy for the kremlin. the social network is mostly about entertainment with videos of pranks and downs. but this month at a meeting with the police russian president vladimir putin made it clear he wants the authorities to be watching anyway. unfortunately we all know what the internet is and how it is used to promote unacceptable content it's critical for you to unite with other government agencies in order to monitor the web and be more proactive and identifying people who are dragging minors into committing illegal

actions the fact that minors are being dragged into illegal on authorised street protests as well is of course a violation of the law. to talk in particular has been on the authorities radar since the return of opposition politician. to russia his arrest in january caused a wave of opposition protests across the country and a sudden explosion of politics on tick talk. filmed themselves at schools replacing portraits of putin with portraits of. another tick talk trend was videos of teens getting ready to protest and telling their parents they might get arrested. russia's media watchdog responded by calling on tick talk to block videos calling for unauthorized protests and last week threatened to block social networks completely if they don't comply with russian laws. but these moscow

tip talkers want to keep dancing to their own tune without thinking about politics every week the bloggers meet at this so-called to talk house with their producer to consult about their accounts and collaborate with each other to stay on trend talkers. like that i knew of a film 2 to 3 videos a day the 17 year old thinks the videos about politics were just a short lived trend. too much politics on tech talk i went on there during the protests and there was none of the usual content in my field it was all about politics not viney and putin who's for whom it freaked me out i stayed off to talk for a few days. also says she doesn't want to talk to become a political platform. talk is a social media platform for self-expression there's so much negative stuff around us already on state television and so on if that stuff is wanted to talk as well

then we'll just drown in all these problems something has to stay neutral. but being neutral may soon no longer be possible according to my potential he's one of the owners of the p.r. agency promoting these bloggers. most bloggers are not for or against him they're just doing their thing but when they're told they're freaks when they're stigmatized these bloggers start feeling they're outsiders in this country and that's what makes them feel angry at the government. for now these take talkers are steering clear of politics but even they know that the kremlin will be watching closely if they ever get out of step. german health officials are warning that the 3rd wave of covert 19 currently gripping the country could prove deadlier than the previous 2 they're urging the

public to limit social contact over the easter holiday to slow the spread of the virus more than 21000 new cases were reported on friday the head of germany's disease control center says the highly contagious u.k. variant is now the dominant strain of the virus in the country. we are facing some very difficult weeks we are at the beginning of this 3rd wave and it's triggered by the variant b 17. which we know is even more contagious and even more dangerous and therefore it's even more difficult to contain. there are very clear signals that this wave could be worse than the 1st 2 waves our chief political correspondent linda crane is following this story for us melinda greetings why such a strong message from the head of germany's disease control center now because the situation is indeed very serious here as the health minister put it this is like

the last stage in a very long marathon people are tired and yet this stage could be by far the most painful so both he and the head of the center for disease control were encouraging germans to do everything in their power to bend the curve with the head of the center for disease control warning that otherwise we could see the number of new daily infections rise as high as a 100000 cases per day just to put that in perspective we currently have about 22000 new cases a day and at its very highest point the 2nd wave was producing around a little over 30000 cases a day in december so very grave implications especially for the country's health system and therefore this appeal by both speakers today to absolutely take every precaution possible to flatten the curve

a never ending long night here we seeing so many new cases because testing is now free and readily available or of people more seriously ill. this is definitely not simply a statistical phenomenon mr beeler the head of the center for disease control said that in fact they are seeing increasingly serious cases of the new variant in populations that worth formerly thought not to be all that vulnerable so working age people young people children and again that has very serious implications for intensive care units across the country yesterday chancellor merkel called upon germans to be more optimistic how realistic is that. it's difficult to the fact is there's been so much back and forth on how to deal with this pandemic with state federal state and federal government authorities putting into

place one plan then seeming to revise it at the beginning of the week this week they were talking about a hard extended lockdown over easter that has now been rescinded and it's unclear exactly what is supposed to be put in its place and if you look at the surveys people are frustrated both with the politicians we're seeing poll numbers fall for chancellor merkel's christian democratic party and they are also frustrated by the inconsistency on the corona restrictions interestingly enough a declining share see the current restrictions as just about right appropriate but it's not like they all want them to be lifted in fact 36 percent of those answering such surveys say they'd like to see stricter rules put into place so there's definitely confusion fatigue and frustration here. chief political

correspondent melinda crane melinda as always many many thanks. that grim outlook for germany comes as pressure grows on the european commission to step up the distribution of vaccines after a virtual summit on thursday e.u. leaders announced they'd be implementing stricter controls on vaccines leaving the bloc there's been growing acrimony between the u.k. and the e.u. over vaccine supplies the u.k. reports more than 40 percent of its population has had a 1st jab that's compared with just 10 percent here in the e.u. . export controls are prompting cries of vaccine nationalism so what can be done to boost vaccine production not just in the countries currently manufacturing for more i'm joined now by mark boateng he's an member of the political grouping that calls itself the left in the european parliament mr boateng a welcome to d w what exactly are you proposing i think we need to lift right now all

obstacles that are blocking this ramp up in production that we really need to ups the goals we know one of them is peyton so intellectual property rights you know they're basically impeding other companies from producing the vaccine all over the world not just in europe and secondly we need a technology transfer you know we need to be sharing this technology with as many companies as many countries as we can so we can ramp up boost production and get out of this as quickly as possible well let's stay with that train of thought then what's stopping e.u. countries from simply forcing these companies to share their patents. well 1st of all it's import it's not a technical issue let's let's be very clear about that you know we have the technical proposals we've got a proposal of the world trade organization that's being carried by a coalition of $100.00 countries we've got a mechanism at the world health organization as well as a technology access pool so all of these mechanisms exists even inside the european

union there's a european citizens initiative no profit on pandemic asking concrete measures the problem is political and perhaps even ideological the european commission has been seeing these companies as partners not even considering the fact that these companies have their objective which is profit making and they want to make a profit out of the vaccine but this is now in contradiction with the public health imperatives we have to get more vaccines as quickly as possible where you just made the point i mean these are not charity or for profit companies so some people might consider this a cynical question but wouldn't an exemption on patents on vaccines reduce the incentive for pharmaceutical companies to develop them in the 1st place. well i think it's very important here to point out that much of these vaccines and much of the research and innovation has actually been done with public money and true universities think about the entirely new technology of m.r. and a like that the new vaccines right that are the basis of the vaccines of pfizer modern and so on you know this has in large parts been sponsored by public money and when

the european level this is quite interesting in 2017 european commission proposed to put in more in public money into let's say research on pandemics or potential public health crisis many of these companies were actually asked that because of vaccines were not considered profitable enough so i think if we see this if we see that there is this public boost for innovation and then then there should also be and i think public safeguards and secondly let's be honest we've all had so much of our rights so much of our our daily lives. you know troubled and overthrown really by this pandemic is it too much to ask that these big pharmaceutical companies put in the effort as well we only have about half a minute left but i am curious mr bojangles or you optimistic that the e.u. will change course on this issue of intellectual property anytime soon at least for the global good of course. no i am always optimistic because i see that many more

people are mobilizing now for it i've seen that there's been signals from the italian parliament from the polish government and so on so i remember 6 months ago a year ago when we started this battle we were all by ourselves and i'm seeing many more people joining now so i think if we can really change and shift the discourse that we've got to hope to really put public health 1st and not profit. with the left in the european parliament really appreciate your time. thank you very much. the 2021 formula one season starts this weekend with the bahrain grand prix last year saw lewis hamilton win a 7th title tying the record set by german racing great michael schumacher this year hamilton is seeking a record 8th championship but he'll have to get past another schumacher to do it michael son mick is among the competitors. the stage is set in bahrain for the

return to formula one of one of the biggest names in the sports history how was driver make sure america will make his debut this weekend. and i'm happy to be here i'm happy to proud to have brought back the name into formula one you know the see i've done it with championships on my back so you know we've proved that i'm able to drive race car 22 year old schumacher is last year's formula to champion and before that he cut his teeth in formulas 4 and 3 now he's arrived at the highest level of my past and is like you know the proper read of one passes just like you know it's amazing i remember like seeing my dad having one and i was like i was i want to one. get one but anyways i have one now and it's amazing in i'm really looking forward to schumacher cvo was also 22 years old when he made his debut 30

years ago he went on to win a record 7 f one championships a record that was equalled last year by the driver of this car and now lewis hamilton is looking to go clear with an 8th title. and the right have more excited i think then i have in a long time. to sit down and to succeed if we get going we're going to have a real great battle one way or another. that's we're always up but in bahrain this weekend all eyes will be on the heir to the schumacher dennis the as he takes his 1st steps on racing's biggest stage. orlando by virginia woolf is a fantastical piece of literature that sees the hero journey between 3 centuries and 2 genders now a german choreographer has reimagined the work for moscow's bushell by les russia is not known for its tolerance of the l.g.b.

. community and critics are expecting the production to cause quite a stir. her royal highness queen elizabeth the 1st played by a man but this is no campy drag queen playing for laughs in a nightclub this cross-dressing portrayal is serious and dignified it's part of german choreographer cust young books production of virginia woolf's novel orlando book plays around with gender identities and questions the established male and female roles in a playful manner but he's doing it in a country known for its traditional even conservative values is that a deliberate provocation. is kind of it's not a provocation at least that's not my intention rather we take a very poetic approach to having a man play a clean or that the orlando role is danced by a woman. and of. the novel tells the story of the magical transformation of orlando a young nobleman into a woman book has cast that role with

a woman who dances with such lightness and elegance that changing genders seems like the easiest thing on earth the character also lives to be more than 350 years old without ageing the role of 1st an opportunity to delve into a richer a variety of expressive characterizations the story has a decidedly dreamlike quality. than that on monday i didn't understand the strange novel by virginia woolf right away there was a long process of finding our way in the material the choreographer wanted me to stay natural and remember that i'm a woman even when playing a man i kept that in mind despite the challenges and those challenges weren't just inside the theatre russia is in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and has the 4th highest number of covert 1000 infections in the world the capital moscow has the highest number of deaths from covert 1000 in the country nearly all restrictions have been lifted bars clubs and restaurants are open. as our theaters

. and we set about to see a month i got sick during my 3rd week here and had to self isolate for 3 weeks in my hotel room. but now i'm immune are things you should want to conquer it's a strange picture for those of us from europe for all but it's the decision of this country to open things up so i've made my own decision to continue keeping my distance from the team here and being cautious about don't fly on 48. but hiring spoke currently the director of the zurich ballet the bolshoi ballet has been able to mount an international production despite the pandemic for his part the renowned choreographer has enjoyed taking advantage of the bolshoi as an elite training ground for classical ballet my new spot on my language comes out of classical ballet so i respect the tradition of the bolshoi on all levels i mean huge admirer of this company and of this house. but i know it's a story about space and time and that appreciating the here and now is especially

important that's a valuable message for these uncertain pandemic times. you're watching the news is a reminder of our top story at this hour experts say it could take weeks to free a container ship blocking egypt's suez canal over 150 other vessels are waiting to pass through the shipping line. eco india is up next more news at the top of the out for now i'm michael okwu thanks for watching and stay with us.

in. india. the latest chant in here. joe kicking up rabbit ears this is how they put him on bet they want to rid the country of street we want to bomb a cleaning up other people's lit up the coolest thing. thousands of people already

logging on nothing a lot of fun and the phrase that be cool to. totally. blank will be our fighters want to start families to become farmers or engineers every one of them has a plan look into for you soon. so nothing is kiss on the children who have already been this way and that's you and those that will follow are part of a new kind of us. they could be the future of. colombia. granting opportunities for global news that matters d. w. made the minds. of. the little guys this is the 77 percent of the platform for this new to these issues.

you know are the side that we're not afraid to touch on delicate topic africa's population is growing. and young people clearly have the phoenicians the new job. in the 70 percent now. on t.w. no. doubt about that but. the. waste is everywhere in the industrialized world it's a part of our every day life like this plastic bottle in my hand for example hundreds of billions of them are produced from crude oil every year many of them on

more recycled and end up in landfills or in our oceans it takes 400 years for each one.