this is g w news live from berlin efforts to move a stranded container ship blocking the suez canal finally make progress drudgeries and tug boats working around the clock managed to free the stern of the 400 metre long vessel and straight neck brace in hopes the busy waterway will soon reel. also coming up highland park terrace for a wave of refugees fleeing the bloodshed in myanmar thousands are said to across the border and more are on the move after the deadliest weekend since the military coup. dozens of civilians are killed and thousands of actuated as islamist

militants lay siege to a town in mozambique close to a vital gas project. and the formula one season starts also the back as world champion lewis hamilton and the challenger back for stop and battle it out in bahrain. i'm sumi so much kind of good to have you with us a massive container ship has been dislodged from the banks of the suez canal after a vast effort to free up the owner of the ever given says the 400 meter long vessel has been straightened out but it is not yet fully afloat the incidents cause a huge logjam of ships in the canal which is one of the world's busiest shipping routes. and yet sir. after nearly a week of being stuck in one of the world's most important waterways the ever given

is now a step closer to being freed the 220000 ton ship became wedged diagonally across the suez canal last tuesday after heavy winds and a sandstorm that affected visibility. efforts to refloat the ship have made progress the suez canal authority says workers have managed to turn the ship 80 percent in the right direction. in an effort to pull the ship free have been deployed and excavators have been removing sand from the banks of the canal the ever given is 400 maces long the length of about 100 cars in terms of hyatt it's equivalent to $22.00 cars piled on top of each other. the incident has church the waterway creating a traffic jam of hundreds of ships and costing billions of dollars in losses in global trade every day. on his official twitter account

egypt's president abdel fatah el-sisi wrote it and by restoring matters to the normal course with egyptian hands the whole world can be assured of the path of its goods and needs that it carried through this navigational artery. but for the time being it looks like this still a way to go before it's back to smooth sailing for the ever given. let's get some perspective on the story now we can speak to a condom it's been since star from the keel institute for world economy and said thank you for joining us give us some perspective on this why has it taken nearly a week just to get this vessel halfway dislodged. first of all thank you very much for having me. the container ship that is dock and this is can now is absolutely massive it's almost 400 meters long and hence it's so much longer than you know it's why so it is lost and they're quite well on both sides both the stern of the

boat so that response reasons why it has been so difficult to refloat the ship we mentioned that this is one of the busiest trade routes in the world and you're an economist i mean how much damage is caused from having this canal black block for so long. well we at we know that this is canal is absolutely essential to global trade and this holds true especially of the trade between asia and europe so approximately 2 thirds of all the goods between germany and china alone are transported at sea and a lot of that on the suez canal so delays is used to know absolutely damaging to economies around the world. it is yet too early to quantify exactly the damages but we know that every day that ships have been waged has can now means delays for supply chains and potentially means that goods aren't on time what about the egyptian economy how's this been affecting egypt well the digital cami were the

gyptian stage receives a lot of revenue from the suez canal and some of the revenues obviously not generated at the moment. some of the efforts are carried out by the judge and gyptian government themselves so they will do face some costs this will certainly damage their reputation and to some to some extent perhaps but is again you're too early to to quantify exactly the damages with egypt and that's if we look at the bigger picture of shipping here these ships keep getting bigger the canal is not getting lighter as we now are shipping companies going to have to try to rethink the routes that they take. well i think continue shipping companies reevaluate the risk of certain routes every day you know they do there just as weather situations come up and so forth now zoosk you know is a massive shortcut on the trade route between asia and europe so i don't think that

this can all can be placed easily i mean the roads from china to to to europe if we went around africa would be 30 percent longer for example. so it's not easy to replace this is to know who is going to go up actually extended some parts of the can no 2 to 2 thirds why are ships internet easier now then section where the earlier than was dark was actually one of the that is actually that was not extensive or all right economist vincent starr joining us thank you so much for your insights thank you for having me. now thailand's government says it is preparing for an influx of refugees from me in march some 3000 people are reported to have fled the country already and more are on the move it follows a weekend of deadly violence that strong international condemnation and the violence may have reached a new level there are reports that the military has launched air strikes in current

state home to an armed resistance group. these villagers have found refuge in a jungle clearing. they fled their homes at the weekend when they say the military launched aerial attacks on their village. in the. last night we weren't aware that jet fighters were coming and suddenly they randomly bombed and left. late at night the jets came again. and afterwards we heard gunshots. heard that the jets will come again. an activist group the free burma rangers also reported airstrikes saying they were

the 1st in karen state in 20 years in neighboring thailand preparations are being made for an influx of refugees. how many refugees are expected we have prepared an area for them to stay 1st after they cross over we can talk about numbers later. we're not going to talk about a permanent shelter yet this is a matter for the department of national security. it was a weekend of carnage and neon mark the military killed more than 100 people in cities on armed forces day drawing global outrage. while general celebrated with a military parade security forces opened fire seemingly indiscriminately on the streets. it was the deadliest day since the february 1st 2 and still protestors are

returning to the streets the united nations has accused the army of mass murder. we have crimes against humanity being caused and committed way to write it is one of our very eyes and the question right now is what the international community is willing to do it. for those who lost their lives standing up for democracy in me on mar that question comes too late. reporter a nintendo has been covering events in myanmar and joins us now from neighboring thailand welcome to the show or talking about a new level of violence in me and maher and we heard that a lot of people are preparing to flee the country you also fled yourself a few days ago he told us more about why and how he. so i left because quite a number of my family as well as friends l.-a journalist including as well

activists have been arrested. and you know they have been targeting journalists a number of people have been shot who are journalists over it it's nearly 50 journalists have been jailed and they have come for journalists in their offices they've raided the offices as well as people's homes to try and arrest people and i wanted to make sure that i was able to continue doing my work. a lot in the past hour by leaving the country i decided to leave by airplane which you know is still the easiest way out of the country i am a u.s. national which makes it more likely that they want me out of the country rather than one i'm sure arrest me and hassle of that but i do know that there's a number of people who have now escaped into i think our country areas and are trying to cross over into countries like thailand and india doing land border right and what we saw over the weekend is being described as

a massacre how did you feel watching that unfold from thailand. it was very difficult. i was trying to leave before armed forces day i had a. feeling that something big what happened on forces day either from the military side because this that they where they generally celebrate themselves and the protestors they're seeing and the rebellion that they're seeing now from the general public to their eyes and you know would be seen as an affront to them or from the side of the i think our troops or the protesters and unfortunately we saw the massacre that we saw are. and you know my family is from the angle of this from mandalay and that's where the highest number of casualties were recorded and it's very difficult to see you know the neighborhoods i mean being attacked like this. i want to ask you about the reports that we've mentioned that the military has

started conducting air strikes in one part of the country what information do you have about this so as the report was saying earlier this is the 1st strike that this area has seen in 20 years this. clicked we're going to get since then the pendants of the country but they had reached a cease fire agreement in 2 dozen 15 and for the most part this area had while had seen smaller skirmishes hasn't seen any of this so indiscriminate violence against civilians which is really what's the bombings where it's quite likely that the by the jets and the bombings where and that's how he stands for the canyon command national union attacking a military outpost and killing according to the 10 soldiers when they took over this outpost and stole a number of their guns and other weapons we'll have to leave it there reporter him

in time joining us from thailand thank you so much for sharing your perspective with us today. let's get a look now at some other headlines from around the world government data in mexico suggest the coronavirus death toll there is likely at least 60 percent higher than previously reported revised numbers show more than 320000 mexicans have died with cope at 19 the places mexico is the 2nd worst hit country in the world after the u.s. . and international team investigating the origins of the virus says it is extremely unlikely that it leaked out of the lab their report concludes the virus probably passed to humans from a battle through an intermediary animal the researchers visited the chinese cities on earlier this year with the virus was 1st detected. and indonesian authorities say 2 suicide bombers who blew themselves up outside a church over the weekend were a newly married couple with suspected links to the so-called islamic state some 20

people were injured in the attack in south sulawesi province the wounded were attending mass to mark the start of easter. now islamist militants have killed dozens of civilians in northern mozambique an armed group is holding the town of palma under siege the town is a hub for international gas projects worth some $60000000000.00 the mozambique government says hundreds of local people and foreign workers have been rescued and the french energy group has suspended work on a huge construction project mozambique's defense ministry says it is working to restore normality as if there is referred to and security forces reinforced their operational strategy to contain the terrorists criminal attacks and restore normality in palma. then. they have carried out of racial actions in the last 3 days focused primarily on the rescue of hundreds of national and foreign citizens protection of citizens on their property. but this. is.

let's get more on the story now we can go to my put up to speak to the night emma chando from the africa division at human rights watch thanks for joining us what do we know about why this has happened now we don't know much. i think at this stage everybody who would love to hear more from the than men themselves and then does then what. and. and their plans but that being said so. i think what is important also distain just to be sure that those live the main in paloma and they're still facing the danger of being killed or injured or attacked by these gunmen by the not going on. find safety and the government

has not been very good at communicating in the last time. as well as last night after 3 days of silence and there are many people at this stage you don't know the whereabouts of friends and family members or their walk or even and we know that communications with palma have also been down for a day so how is that making things more difficult. it makes things kartik just to give me an example of the government of having as i've been able to do about about 1300 people at least that was the number by yes that the morning if up with them by board outside the port in ben but there were dozens of people waiting for relatives there are still there there's more news today in the morning this afternoon people are still waiting to be and they were hoping and praying that their friends and families had made it to that block in that boat and unfortunately

it wasn't the case and it's not clear where is the government planning to do this to the main in people that stayed in power at this stage i can't really provide the real number of many people were living in power much many there but 1003 and that is way below the number that they have expected to be in the palm of by them remember palmer was also now and have every jannot for years that with. the sounding village so they were moving to promise area of safety and then on top of that they were told zones of. their walkers in the town saw people outside him by an outside power not just in bam by not just in my point but then in south africa have been contacted by people insult after one looking for their woman for example was looking for a sign that people were looking for their clothes or that if they haven't heard from them since wednesday it is extremely troubling what implications do you think

this instability this attack could have for the country. sonata can you hear us right i'd like to hear yes i just want to ask quickly if you can what implications you think this has on mozambique. i think the many implication is that there are questions that were raised at that parliament on whether the country is able not only to look at and but also to make sure. that the country as safe and i think the muslim league and government at these things needs to come need to be forthcoming in explaining i was it was it was what it sounds like from what that was over. that to be a backplate the right thought somebody of the government is able to provide those answers that one can judge whether more than because i've been more than he has the

ability to deceive the mation of the moment but not only that tends also to lead you to protect your own people against the building so you will have to leave it there in the net a much harder from the africa division of human rights watch thank you very much. thank you. now german chancellor angela merkel says regional leaders need to put an end to the chaos plaguing germany's fight against a coronavirus crisis in a virtual summit last week federal and state leaders fail to agree on decisive measures but case numbers are rising sharply and merkel says she'll be forced to take drastic action if states don't backtrack on their decision to start opening parts of the economy. german chancellor angela merkel on wednesday had the awkward task of walking back a government's newly minted pandemic guidelines for the easter break this unexpected u. turn prompted confusion added to criticism of her handling of the current

a great risk crisis but already to peace i deeply regret this and would like to apologize to all german citizens. on sunday americal appeared on one of the country's most popular talk shows to make her case directly to the german people she said germany needs a turning point and criticize federal state leaders that haven't yet grasped the gravity of the situation. when the state leaders conference convenes again which is why i'm not for holding an early conference it has to be clear that we have to achieve a consensus merkel says many federal states are being too lax the small state of zoolander is experimented with easing restrictions and the leader of germany's most populous state north rhine-westphalia has a very lax interpretation of the corona guidelines. the distribution of roles and that's what i meant by turning point it's no good because we've all got the same goal i'm convinced of this and that is to god the country through this pandemic.

currently hundreds if not thousands of german vacationers are taking their easter break in majorca while at home infections continue to rise german health experts are demanding decisive action. busy till now only curfews of effectively stem the spread of the b one month 7 variant in portugal ireland and england i think we also need to take this approach with allchin speaking as a doctor the new data shows that infections are increasing so fast that rates of $100000.00 which our experts predicted seem all too realistic this should be a warning to us to quickly implemented safety measures. medical shares this view and says stricter laws could be necessary possibly including obligatory tests for companies she also floated the idea that germany's lawmakers might pass new legislation faster than the conference of state leaders i intimately but one possibility would be to revisit the infection protection laws and make changes on

a case by case basis we're bound by law to curb the spread and currently that's not happening all nick is the most. this remains the case now as it did a week ago. let's bring in our chief political correspondent linda crane for more on this story hi melinda it's good to see you the chancellor definitely doesn't seem satisfied with the current situation. no absolutely not she made it clear in that conversation that she agrees with those very troubling assessments of a leading edge of the mali it's. just that the case numbers could go up to 100000 new infections a day and she said this is very serious we don't have much time and we need to take this seriously and then she said with characteristic uggla medical understatement that the fact that some regional state leaders are not doing so does not fill her with joy she also went on to say that and we heard that also at the end of the

report that she views the obligation of all political leaders at both the federal government level and at the state level to protect people from infection as a binding obligation and that she is not going to simply sit by and watch as the case numbers go up and regional politicians fail to act on that obligation ok but what does she want to see the states do that they're not doing already. she says that the agreement that the state leaders came to with the federal government on the 3rd of march which includes a phased plan for loosening restrictions but also an emergency break if infection numbers go up that this emergency break already prescribes all of the necessary measures meaning further limitations on contacts between people curfews

during the evening hours and she like some of the as we heard in that report says that in fact curfews in other european countries have proven to be the only effective way to flatten the curve on these massively infectious new mutations of the virus so she says all the measures have been clearly defined and it's simply now up to the states to act and she made it very clear that strategies like that also being followed here in berlin of testing strategies testing and shopping as they call it here the throws do not meet her criterion for serious action and just very quickly melinda did she offer any hope on improving the slow vaccination rollout in germany. as she did last week she said we actually need to be optimistic when we look further into the future because the fact is we will see a lot of deliveries of vaccine coming online ready to be to be

administered in the 2nd quarter in other words starting in april what she didn't do in her remarks was acknowledge any failings on vaccine procurement and and distribution i think a lot of people will have been looking for more from her on that our chief political correspondent linda crane good to talk to you. sports now and formula one fans were treated to a thrilling season opener in bahrain but there was no surprise over the winner defending champion lewis hamilton cannot came out on top a great start for the mercedes driver as he looks for his record breaking 8 world title. lewis hamilton started formula one season opener playing 2nd fiddle to pole sitter much for stop and for the pair took turns but calling to choose in bahrain. hamilton's team mate fell to report to us was also in the mix until up $31.00 when a disastrous pit stop put him out of the running the finn had to be content with

the bonus point for fastest lap. was bought us go on a jewel in the desert was on between hamilton and fished up and. the dutchman went in front with just 3 laps to go. but the street outside truck limits in doing so and had to return the lead to the briton. how milton held on to squeak home by 7 tenths of a 2nd and he sounded like a relieved. pushed up and made a swift exit stage left but it looks like hamilton will face a stiff challenge this year from red cools precocious dutchman. for let's get a reminder of our top story engineers have succeeded in partially reflooding a container ship that's been blocking the suez canal for nearly a week salvage teams have been dredging thousands of tons of sand to try and free

after. coming up next is our environmental eco india looking at how plastic waste ends up waterways a landfill somewhere although the show explore solutions to resolve the problem.

india. the latest trend in him. hello again just picking up the premise this time ok put them on t.v. once you've written a country upstream. you want to go making up other people's little dip to listening to. the people that already plugging the nothing a lot of fun and the phrase that's. often the bush.

personal drama competition wife marketing numbers atmosphere fighting that's right and tradition hates money you know united fans problems via spam and. only. because we love football. and. to golf on you tube joining us. more than a 1000 years ago europe to witness is a huge construction boom. for. christianity for the established itself. both religious and secular leaders or eager to display their power.

to trace began to. create the tallest biggest and the most beautiful structures the space home massive churches are created. conscious to be drolls starts april. on d w. waste is everywhere in the industrialized world it's a part of our everyday 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 to recycle and end up in landfills or in our oceans it takes 400 years for each one to decompose into micro particles and even these micro particles remain on

the planet for ever how do we change these what have you or 200 tips and solutions to this problem that's what we talk about to be alone welcome to equal india i'm sunk that i could. the spike increased involvement. a lot of still ends up in many a time in places where people go for a. relaxing stroll this is where blogging comes in a train that combines collecting garbage and jockey originally from sweden blogging is a new form of equal free and india is not far behind in exploring it for the. leaves on a mission he wants to get in because the streets of little it is a monument to toss. away 25000 pounds of plastic race today but he has been

gathering help for some time now. housing laws across the country for 5 years they have been practicing trash collection is what. a crazy blog it is a new word combining the swedish word lucky. lucky with outdoor running it is catching on across the world in india it is the still early days for the blog movement. when you look at. the sanitation. what do we call them we call them. that but how do you. so why do. we want to. know he seems to be on the right path is now well known as

a success when you go from this person has organized 475 cities since 2019 at the end of the crash speaking to a city collection point. it should be sustained when i would do some good thing so there is one particular. problem our body is going to know morphine i think all day and the morphine you pull up in my body and i am getting very much in order to get this point of pain so i'm feeling really good and i will definitely spread even myself i. do know is one of the city in the state of maharashtra and quite a property of the birthplace of the newest blog moved. river going to founded the movement here and has been with the group of a sense support has grown not with has and 2400 members. a lot of people have. already been a lot of. their job and there could actually be more actually i had to dig up

a personal challenge and we've people that we can begin to so i do not look like it is long challenging recently. the notion of combining environmental activism with fitness to help people who are in very good fight up there on your followers. but the bloggers are ambitious to don't just want to collect crush they want to do something with. a lot of cash which we collect is the 2nd level least so for the next week even if it's anybody's i think. we'll have you know. i didn't i mean a lot of the last words we. use so we'd like to we're going we're doing good and you get out of the great anger in the company you know. you don't really mean it would have been you well let me bring in. selling the bottles opens up a source of income for these women. however

blogging is only one way of getting close to matching. cities researching the healing effect of woodland on the stressed out city dwellers the ecologist organizes food move the strongs through the book. mobiles are switched off no want to speak out in the area of south delhi there is nothing to be heard of the nearby mega city no cars airplanes. not that will make it romanticized which i mean often people would sort of associate the walk to be my attempt was to use the silence and the sounds and just the feeling of being in a forest. that excitement that it gave people the sort of catch that attention and then talk of activism and again to knock it and about the forest and the authorities and to make it fun and i just about. neighbor george i will need to.

rustling leaves. brushing bricks chirping birds knock down the major hikes as mental eco spots for plague city slickers. what. my biggest takeaway has been the silence especially. quite amazing how. you know physical activity learning something new about the d understanding issue and you know all of that in this space so stood in this. just overall. you know. indians are increasingly enthusiastic about environment and they mostly live in cities and crops long ago that something has to be done the plastic all over the

streets has become a simple fact of life which will take at least 450 years to break down the bloggers have no intention of reading that not. just collecting garbage is of course not the only way to solve the waste problem especially plastic waste instead a feasible alternative to plastic bottle plastics seem to be promising for now there are more by would be created than any conventional plastics available today our reporter looked at some of these to find out if they could help sort out one of the biggest problems facing. this is supposed to be there for the future. obviously not specifically in this because it looks like crap. this this this.

this is supposed to be the plastic of the future looks like no more plastic feels like more plastic. acts like almost nothing but is made from plots it pollutes less than conventional petrol based plastics and in some cases is even biodegradable perfect right plastic pollution problems well it's a bit more complicated than that. so bioplastics as you may have seen them in form of biodegradable plastic like this coffee cup so or cutlery but not all bio plastics biodegradable. bioplastics are called that because they're bio based meaning they derive from biomass like sugar cane potatoes. instead of petroleum big companies like coca-cola and done on have already started using.

their functionally identical and indistinguishable from petroleum based bt one of these bottles is bio based one is petroleum based and there's no way i can help it currently bioplastics only make up about one percent of all plastics but the market is growing the demand far exceeds the entire industries ability to supply right now this is really a forward she works for one of the world's biggest bioplastics manufacturers nature works how many is like nature works are growing in large part thanks to consumers like us wanting more eco friendly products and compared to petrochemical based plastics it can be 2 thirds to 3 quarters less carbon per pound at the factory again this can vary depending on how where and what they're made but in general bioplastics production emits less greenhouse gases. making them feel retic lee a more eco friendly alternative making plastic out of biomass isn't

a new idea one of the earliest manmade plastics was a bio plastic called poxon known today as celluloid which derives from stellar lows found in plants 40 even produced as soybean party. made out of you guessed it soybean derived bioplastics but eventually petrol based plastics took over they were easier to produce and more versatile and that demand only kept on growing however bioplastics are experiencing a comeback and production is projected to grow significantly in the next years. but let's get into the tricky bit about bioplastics just because the plastic is bio based doesn't the farrelly mean it turns back into soil. ability comes from the chemistry of the materials you can produce me to yes. they can be biodegradable. they can be. based

plastics this is. a chemist who has studied the biodegrade ability of plastics so let's talk about non-biodegradable plastics quick and easy chemistry explanation this is ethically derived from petrol which is formed into a long chain to become polyethylene or peat this carbon chain makes stable and durable but also really hard to break up making it known biodegradable. this is a bio based material in this case ethanol and alcohol you can make the exact same structure the exact same polyethylene out of it the leftover molecules become simple h 2 o. water there are many different processes but this is how a bio based plastic can be known biodegradable. remember the video from the beginning that was by u.p.c. team also a non biodegradable plastic it acts just like petrol based plastics and just like

them can clog up and accumulate in marine animals actually about 45 percent of bioplastics produce today oh not biodegradable ok so let's talk about the buyer and the grey. it involved plastic. for example this plastic which is poly lactic acid it's designed so that it can almost entirely degrade into c o 2 and water similar to other biodegradable plastic. like this this is made out of pollen lactic acid and it says compost of all calm possible means that it biodegrades in a specific amount of time in a specific condition with this it's 3 months in an industrial composting facility you need to collect them when you need to send it to composting then only to say ok if you don't collect and you just think and then roam around there's. no you

don't you can you could clear the same problem of us all as a base even the converse in facilities depending on where you live are few and far between and many don't even take on possible plastics because they are so hard to distinguish from conventional ones on top of all of this the plants that are growing for bioplastics can have a big land water and carbon footprint diverting crops away from food sources and harming the environment with pesticides. some by a plastics companies are working towards growing and using local sustainable crops or producing plastic from buy a waste instead but the consumer doesn't necessarily know. what we're the improves there from bio plastic so it's really hard to dump it on the consumer this is close who coauthored a study that looked at the land water and carbon footprints of bioplastics. greifeld you couldn't easily replace. the plastic even just for

a way where you want to use plastic because your requirements are also plain juice and water and so a lot of us they calculated that. replace all plastic packaging with bioplastics we need more than half of the world's corn production. it's a. sad but it's true that doesn't mean that using bio plastics never make sense there are a few applications where would be better to switch from petrol based plastics number one being food related plastics for example this teabag back can contain plastic coffee cup saws all food packaging in general because packaging that yeah has food waste inside of it or as touch does not get recycled so the only in the past we didn't handle that type of product is through composting so replacing all of these conventional plastics with easily biodegradable for example or home

compostable bioplastics could be a good idea. other examples are 4 wheels for agricultural use that can be plowed under the ground or fishing equipment which reportedly makes up 10 percent of all marine litter replacing all petro based plastics with bio plastics is just not realistic and to be honest downright unnecessary one study estimates 40 percent of plastic produced is packaging a lot of which is avoidable if you kill those snowshoe book order. to avoid it right i know it's hard sometimes i know it's less convenient sometimes i mess up all the time bioplastics can be better than conventional plastics but it has its costs it is not the perfect solution the only way to.