in. the fight against the corona virus pandemic. has the rate of infection been developing the. measures are being to give. what does the latest research serious. information and context. of our recent data to the co get special monday to friday w. . this is day w news and these are our top stories police in the u.s. city of minneapolis say an officer who shot dead a black man confused her gun with her taser stun weapon relatives have identified the victim as 20 year old dante wright a white minneapolis police officer is currently on trial charged with the murder of

george floyd last year. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu has insisted that iran will never be allowed to develop nuclear weapons tehran has blamed israel for causing a power failure at its biggest nuclear facility media reports have also linked the incident to an israeli cyber attack world leaders are trying to revive a stalled international deal limiting iran's nuclear program. russian prison officials are threatening to force feed jailed opposition leader aleksei in a volley that's according to his lawyers the kremlin critic has lost 8 kilograms since going on hunger strike last month the felony is protesting against what he says is a lack of proper medical treatment he barely survived an assassination attempt last year. this is d w news from berlin you can find more headlines on our web site that's steve w. dot com. or.

in september voters here in germany will go to the polls to elect a new parliament but it is the new chancellor that the world will be interested in after 16 years until america will step down who will step up to replace her among merkel's conservative sister parties it is down to 2 men governors one from the south one from the west one leads in the polls one leads a much larger party but which one is a winner which one can guarantee victory on election day tonight the answer is neither bring coffin berlin this is the day. it's believed there is a lot at stake europe is watching the world especially a stable germany. has been we are in a serious situation as

a country we are all stressed by the coronavirus and it was it's my position is clear and i've held it for many years i want a modern germany. that is completely still for this is not about our personal ambitions it's about the good not just of the party but above all of germany i mean this one thing was apparent today everybody wants a quick decision. and. also coming up a blackout at one of iran's main nuclear sites tehran calls it israeli nuclear terrorism israel saying nothing but it looks like a message meant for those talks that are aimed at saving the iran nuclear deal if it is israel this is skynet a signal to be sent to the rain ians and maybe even to the americans and this is kind of a way by which to me the other understand what you have in hand and how that may

and how serious could be the damage be inflicted on you if you are not taking that into account this is also so. political war and this is why i think at this very important. point to our viewers on p.b.s. in the united states and to all of you around the world welcome we begin the day with the 2 men who would like to fill the shoes of a woman named until a miracle in 5 months germany will hold a national election a new parliament will be the result along with a new chancellor after 16 years in office until america often labelled the most powerful woman in the world well she's calling it quits merkel will leave office just 3 months shy of becoming germany's longest serving chancellor in most of mockers he's holding power uninterrupted for almost 2 decades it seems unthinkable some would say 16 years with no transition at the top is not healthy for democracy they could point to the fact that there is no clear successor to who mare who can

pass the baton and that brings us to these 2 men you see behind me here are mean lush it and mark reuss zuda they are both governors now for our u.s. viewers you can imagine the governors of california and texas vying for the nomination to run for u.s. president that gives you an idea of where these 2 men are tonight but there will only be one conservative candidate for chancellor and in stark contrast to those long u.s. campaigns a decision on who will be the candidate is expected by this friday. i mean lash it versus marcus's the race to be the next conservative candidate to run for german chancellor is turning into an old fashioned power struggle on sunday the 2 men agreed the decision should come soon and to respect it whoever is chosen to lead less than a day later battle lines seem to have been drawn on monday morning at the recently

elected c.d.u. leader held meetings with his party's executive and not really a surprise they backed him to be the candid it the man himself sounded impatient to get out on the campaign trail. and. everyone wants a decision seeing all the facts are on the table the problems we need to solve be that we should no longer be preoccupied with our internal party issues but rather with the major tasks that lie ahead for germany today tomorrow this week and in the coming months. nixon will not lead. by monday afternoon marcus head of the smaller bavarian c.s.u. had the backing of his party leadership he thinks the conservatives should ponder their candidate question a bit longer not only is he personally more popular than lash out he also claims to stand for a style of politics that people want. and the conservatives have never fallen out

of favor with voters so quickly before everything but they're a clear indication of what the public is thinking and we can't cut ourselves off from the majority of people. for dessert or needs now is public support from the white or conservative parties perhaps from members of parliament worried about losing their jobs if the wrong man leads them into the national election in september. if those voices did not materialize it seems very likely christian democrats will be the choice to seize the back home when i'm going to america leads the chancellor later this year. and so among the conservatives it is down to a contest between 2 men let's pull in our cool political correspondent simon young he's covering the story for us tonight good evening to you simon we know that mr zuma he has better poll numbers the public likes him more which in other democracies such as the us it would make him

a clear choice but it's not that way and it's not that clear here in germany is. that's right brant i mean this is just as stupid of background the conservative force in german politics very very least lee you can compare them in policy terms say with the republicans in the us or with the tories in the u.k. just to have an idea of who they are they have an oddity though in germany and that is that most of the country is covered by the christian democrat party angle a man whose party the c.d.u. but in bavaria the law age states in the south. they have their own policy the christian social union all c.s.u. so when when the bavarians have a strong candidate as they do now for a big job in this case the top political job in the country chancellor they speak up and you know they want to get noticed they want to be taken seriously now the

christian democrats and the rest of the country are inclined to say well you know when the the big party in fact we're more important and nobody can become candidate for chancellor without our say so you know we should have priority our man should get it well said a points out that he's a lot more popular in the polls more than twice as popular as in lash it is in fact so you might think that should translate into a choice for him for the bavarian lash it on his side says well you know polls go up and down and it's more than 5 months to the election so this goes both ways it's more complicated than it might seem a bit on the surface definitely and we understand that by this coming friday law should insert a plan to have reached an agreement over which one will be the chancellor candidate do we know what is going to happen between now and friday. yeah well it's the

only way i think for certain marcus or to turn this around in his favor and somehow get the the c.d.u. to change their mind will be if you are some key conservative some big names and quite a lot of names i would have thought come out and say you know i prefer him he's the man of one group he's thinking of there are members of parliament because some of those even in the cd you may need the thinking over but low down on the list we have a proportional representation system with lists so if they might think well lash it's not support that means we won't get so many votes that means there won't be so many c.d.u. people in the next parliament they not being worried that will be losing their jobs in parliament as a result of a kind of the c b i am in last shit so they'd rather vote for sir the pats. is going to speak to a meeting of the c.d.u. c.s.u.

party bloc in paul in the bundestag tomorrow on tuesday and if he does in fact element lash it probably will do the same so both men of battling for support there we know that neither of these men was groomed by merkel to be her successor now if one of them does indeed become the next chancellor will this this distance to uncle americal will it be an asset or liability. yeah i think that there's very little of what you might think of as the sort of magical magic that's left that could rub bar rub off on either of these 2 guys. americal has chosen not to sort of crown anyone as her own via success jaring her 16 years in as chancellor she's tended to sort of brush people aside if they've seemed like they were going to challenge for a job she hasn't kicked the habit even now and so these 2 men have

as you say they've built up their profile as leaders of the regional states to regional states in germany they have their own platform i mean last it was seen as the close of the 2 to angola machall but he's tried to put some daylight between him and the chancellor in recent months particularly for instance i've a corona policy to such an extent that he's sort of fallen out a little bit with angela merkel there mark is coming from the varia well he has the independents in the separation as it were from the berlin political establishment just by being by virtue of being bavarian so i don't think either of them are looking to sort of somehow come up in the shadow of medical and medical remains a very popular politician in germany by some estimates the the most popular but even her star is waning and so i mean if you were a betting chair where would your money be tonight on luscious or.

well i think that has got the clear support of his side that's the biggest side you've got to go with that but as i say if some big names come out and say they want search of a disease the more popular man with the public at large and that could change things in the next few days all right some young political correspondent and our resident gambler who always wins so i mean thank you. iran has never given up its quest for nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them and iran consistently consistently and outrageously calls for israel's annihilation and works towards that goal iran must never possess nuclear weapons my policy as prime minister of israel is clear i will never allow iran to have the nuclear capability to carry out its genocidal goal of eliminating israel that was israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu speaking earlier today after tehran accused israel of nuclear terrorism iran is blaming israel for

a massive power failure at its natanz uranium enrichment nuclear site israel has neither denied nor confirmed involvement but there was no doubt about who netanyahu is message was aimed at today standing in the room with the prime minister was the u.s. defense secretary lloyd austin austin made a point to emphasize that president joe biden is committed to both israeli security and reviving the iran nuclear deal talks in vienna to restart that deal began last week it remains unclear what impact the blackout will have on those talks or on iran's ability to further enrich uranium this is what the head of iran's atomic energy agency said today. god willing we will be able to repair most of the damage caused by the enemy's attempt at sabotage and wrong for what should be in that it did look cool we are building several sophisticated centrifuge who

writes in for the hearts of the mountains. i should add that we have taken very serious security measures that. our security systems have pinpointed the exact cause of a recent incident. ruse today we activated the emergency power system and we will reconnect the main power system in a few days time. vast thought all right let's go now to trita parsi he is the executive vice president of the quincy institute for responsible state craft in washington d.c. he's an authority in america on u.s. iranian relations or trade it's good to have you on the program again i know you tweeted today that the greed of the prospects for a breakthrough in vienna with those talks the more aggressively israel will try to start over was the blackout at the natanz nuclear facility was it an attempt by

israel to provoke a war. i think it was primarily an attempt to provoke a collapse of the talks we have seen this pattern extensively in the past that the now is a very wary not about the talks failing but about the talks succeeding and he has intervened on numerous occasions in the past with assassinations and other things in order to try to do something that would cause the iranians to lash out and the consequences of their lash out will either lead to a collapse of the talks or could escalate into a military confrontation now with the now as in not being washington for quite some time to use military force against iran so the idea that he's looking for some sort of military confrontation a war is clearly not a mystery at this point but i think in this specific case i think he saw a win win situation either it would lead to a situation in which the iranians lash out in a way that a collapse of talks or to iran in response would perhaps even be harsher and as

a result it could lead to a military confrontation which is exactly what he's been working on and as you say timing is very important here president biden's defense secretary lloyd austin he was in israel today he affirmed that it is still washington's aim to return to the iranian nuclear deal take a listen to what he said our efforts to. engage iran in the policy on the k.g.b. a way that it goes to push will continue and i'm very obviously supportive of the president's efforts to. to to negotiate. a way ahead they're. trying to this is a different tone coming from washington than what we're used to hearing from the trumpet ministration so how much pressure do you think this puts then on both israel and iran moving forward. well i think the fact that this was done at

a time when austin was just arriving in israel is hardly motivated by trying to create confusion in iran and get the iranians to be suspicious that perhaps the u.s. was in on it and simultaneously and it's rather embarrassing for the united states united states is going there and it's intensifying its intelligence sharing with the israelis it's done everything it can to kind of bring in these rallies into the conversation and the response of these raids is to do an attack like this at a moment when austin is in or just about to arrive in israel and israel so it doesn't seem to me that the biden administration's strategy of trying to appease netanyahu has been particularly successful in ensuring that he doesn't solve the taj the diplomacy to the by the ministrations as is their number one priority if you if you look at the facts iran's nuclear activities its ballistic missile program it's a it's attempt to destabilize the region they are all 'd worse today many would say because of what the trumpet ministration did the biden ministration sees it that

way so why does the netanyahu see it that way. i think that's an end doesn't see it that way because the biggest fear he has is not that the iranians would be able to have a pathway to nuclear weapon biggest fear the israelis out and this is also shared by the saudis and and moralities is that if the united states and iran manage to come to an agreement on the nuclear issue on the nuclear issue essentially is check this would allow the united states to start checking out of the middle east militarily which is what the biden straightness says that they want to do and this is what trump said that he wanted to do this is what obama said he wanted to do the american public doesn't want to have this heavy military presence in the middle east it's the reason why the u.s. is in d.c. and this wars was from the perspective of netanyahu and the saudis and others this would be quite a problem for them because they enjoy living on the america's security umbrella and they don't want to lose it now if the u.s. now distastes doesn't want to have it any longer seems to be of a lesser concern for nuts and now he's willing to fight to make sure that the

united states remains stuck and then at least through the distance before we run out of time the u.s. and israeli intelligence services they've worked together before in operations against iran do you think that this was an example where the israelis operated on their own without informing the americans. the question is partly as to whether there was cannot gratian and also if the united states was or wasn't informed it appears that collaboration may not have been the case it would be quite problematic for the united states it was doing this while at the same time claiming that they wanted to have diplomacy but the israelis probably did not completely surprised united states with this the question is how much of a heads up were they given was it any option for the united states to intervene to do object to it or not and i think it's also important to keep in mind this is happened several times in the past but none of the sabotage as it was or assassinations have actually had and deep impact on the trajectory of iran's

nuclear program and it may have set it back for a couple of months etc but in the longer scheme of things that really has not done any long term damage to the program it has damaged prospects for diplomacy and the irony or the paradox of all of this is that if the israelis actually were to be really successful and really damaged a program it probably only would lead to an out change in the iranian leadership attitude towards this end which the faction that has been arguing that the u.s. that iran should just pull out of that j.c.a. pull out of the end eugene actually go for a bomb probably will get a stronger arm well it will be interesting to see what effect if any of this has on those talks in vienna we will certainly be watching that as we'll try to parse executive vice president of the quincy institute for responsible state craft joining us from washington d.c. tonight for his always repeated your time in your insights thank you. and here. we are in a critical point of the pandemic right now the trajectory of this pandemic is

growing its 7th week in a row we've had more than 4400000 new cases reported in the last week this is not the situation we want to be in 16 months into a pandemic that's the world health organization there warning that the corona virus pandemic is getting worse in some parts of the world including turkey and india the world's 2nd most populous country here in europe new case numbers remain high in many countries due to the spread of more easily transmissible variants but one country is emerging from the pandemic thanks to its effective vaccination rollout today england began easing its lockdown which was one of the strictest anywhere here in europe pubs with outdoor seating gyms and stores are now reopening much to the relief of most people i think it represents just the start of the end of the whole time it for us in this country anyway is just fantastic. christmas day so

this is my 1st this year it's just the socialising it's being out we have to say outside we went on the last night that's right then we have to decide soon just married things have the same string. of nasty no go around by what you won friends and you know a political game back to the long continents and now they're off and i can hopefully this is lost on them we can they think they will call to say they would not expect to see us a long time that it's on a forever i think it's going to be something else. you know what a relief many people are saying our very own charlotte until she is following this story for us she is in london tonight she joins us from or what do you know a pub right there good evening charlotte so how excited how happy are people with this easing of the restrictions. good evening i have to tell you 1st off it is pretty cold here this evening but that have not stopped huge

numbers of people turning out to enjoy their 1st pint back in the pub i'm sure you can see behind me is still are pretty packed is they have been told they we're hearing from the managers that said today's been fully booked and thing is i guess 3rd piecing across the country at the moment people thrilled to be back inside so back hat pubs are drinking once again and here in england a lot of excitement of course this is such welcome news for people who are very sad it had and enjoyed a very tough look down here in england but the owners of these businesses as well not just pubs and restaurants bars the retail sector is while this is very very welcome news it's been a very challenging year indeed a lot of jobs lost a lot of businesses closing now this is really seen as a as a marker of hope at the moment for celebration the u.k. has suffered one of the worst death tolls in the world from coronavirus aver 127000

people have lost their lives parts with thanks to the vaccine program it seems a corner is being turned cases are way way down on the peak earlier this year as all of the tires even is that plus the hard lockdown that is allowing scenes like this to be taking place across england this evening and surely more restrictions will remain in place. well that's why. tonight there are still a lot of restrictions that are in place for example you can any meeting groups about to stick and these meetings are restricted to outdoor settings say this pub just behind me has a of course as you would expect an indoor bar that is ever structured for people to go into a lot of restrictions as well on meeting all the households in their own home and told say there are limitations in the u.k. in england they are easing the restrictions step by step with every week back in

between they want to kathleen look at the impacts of the easing of these restrictions it's having on case numbers boris johnson the private estate the easing of restrictions cautious but euro bestival and a lot of people here understand that they need to approach this with some caution this is not a moment she put any of the gains made by the vaccine program at risk but to quote 1st johnson again he says that this easing of the lockdown is part of a one way road to freedom rights a very young until the night in london where the pubs are open for business again charlie thank you. for tributes have been pouring in for britain's prince philip who died last week at the age of 99 for a tribal community on a remote island in the pacific his death signals the death not just of

a prince but of they are gone for decades people on the island of tonga in vanuatu have revealed prince philip as a spiritual figure they believe he is the reincarnation of an ancient more your who according to prophecy left the island to marry a powerful woman today the village paid its respects to their deity in a special ceremony prince philip was aware of the tribes reverence for him and sent letters and photographs it's unclear whether the islanders will now worship its. son prince charles is this the future british king. from which the couple. well the day is almost done the conversation continues online you'll find us on twitter either at the w. news or you can follow me at. t.v. every member whatever happens between now and then tomorrow is another day we'll see you then everybody.

can. go a celebration during the common. friend predict the close to see of course for the champions. drama in the relegation zone. in the last 70. 6 point in time for coach to. pick up.

next on d w. by our side when life comes to an. corona has drastically changed death richard. how are people coping with it. is it possible to die with dignity while practicing social distancing. we take a look the coronavirus and its victims close up. in 60 minutes on t.w. . more than a 1000 years ago europe's witness is a huge construction boom. christianity firmly established

itself. both religious and secular leaders or to display their power. to trace began. and create the tallest biggest and the most beautiful structures this is how massive churches were created. conscious the theme drawls starts april 12th on d w.