a discovery of the world around you. subscribe to d w documentary on youtube. ah ah, this is a d w. news live from berlin. is nuclear energy green. a proposal from the european commission could see some atomic power plants labeled environmentally friendly,

making them eligible for green investment. not all e u member states back the plant also coming up. it's usually the other way around, an unidentified person crosses south korea is heavily fortified. border into north korea. we'll look at how they might have done it and what's behind this possible defection? ah, i'm mixed by sir. welcome to the program. the european commission has made public a draft law that would label some nuclear energy and gas energy projects as green investments. nuclear power plants do not admit greenhouse graph gases, and they could be counted as environmentally friendly. if there are detailed plans for disposing of radioactive waste safely, the proposal comes just a day after germany shut down 3 of its 6 nuclear power plants for good. and the

german environment minister steph lumpkin is calling the project a mistake. it's like a welcome gift at the start of france's e u. presidency. the european commission plans to classify investment in natural gas and nuclear energy as climate friendly, under certain conditions to that and a draft law was sent to e u. member states, shortly before the new year, the commission believes gas and nuclear power could help smooth transition into a future based primarily on renewables. france, poland, and the czech republic have been campaigning for more than a year to have nuclear power classified as sustainable. it's no secret that france needs investors to fund renovation to its existing, 56 reactors and to finance new ones. the so called e u. taxonomy is a classification system designed to establish and list of environmentally

sustainable activities worthy of investment. mr. companies will be obliged to report not only their financial status, but their sustainability too. but the debate over nuclear power was green credentials has split the you. germany's economy and climate protection minister, hobbit harbor had strong words of criticism for the new bill. the christian vice receipt of the commission knows what it's doing and in my opinion, it's doing the wrong thing is not a question or forbidding francis use of nuclear power. the french can do that, but this is about creating a financial investment market and declaring it green, sustainable, and ecological language. and that's fraudulent labeling. it comes from austria and luxembourg have already threatened to sue the block if it declares nuclear power sustainable. and for more on this, i'm joined by our correspond back xander in brussels. max as what's the motivation for the commission proposal to, to label nuclear power green energy. right,

so nick, it's probably did not come as a surprise that this proposal was brought out on on new year's eve will everybody was distracted. that being said, on the you, a commission came up with his plan to become climate neutral by by 2050. and for, for this to, to be able to achieve this, of phasing out of fossil fuels will be necessary as well as at the transition to, to clean energy as such as solar energy for example. and that cannot be done overnight, obviously. so nuclear energy kind of is seen as a compromise here, it has relatively to to know, emissions. but at the same time, it's extremely at hazardous, as we've seen in the past decades in journal bill, in ukraine, or if in 2011 and in japan and fukushima when and when something goes wrong in a nuclear reactors can be extremely, it can be detrimental to the environment and the people living around these nuclear

power plants. so critics are now saying that the commission is actually in order to achieve this compromise, to get everybody on board for it to, for climbing the tragedy by using, by, by utilizing a nuclear power is attempting to green wash. and at the same time is also a putting the reputation of the entire you taxonomy system at risk. and, you know, the critics who are speaking of greenwashing in, in, in their formulation are where in europe there's a, a pretty big fault line within the e. u. as is there between various member states. that's right. i mean, probably not as much as you would think of with a issue that seems extremely controversial here. and we have the main main players here at germany and france, the 2 biggest and most influential u member states, a germany itself is against a nuclear power, is facing out nuclear power in germany by the end of 2022. but the german chancellor will or shelter taking more of it seems to be taking more of a conciliatory approach. and some other members of the german government are bit

more outspoken like robot harvick, who just are heard and, and the in the report. but france on the other side is the main driver of a boosting nuclear power with, with it within the block, the country itself is more than 50 nuclear power plants. and they're continuing to building power plants that need money for, for investments, for reform, for maintenance, preferably sustainable money, and france is not alone. the majority of u. member states have nuclear power plants and they want to continue to operate them. poland, for example, is one good example, a country that is heavily dependent on coal and has to phase out is cool, is now looking for at nuclear energy and saying if you take a great quote from us, at least have give us nuclear energy. so there's really just a small number of you countries that are actually really resisting at this move by the commission. yes. as like no easy answers in any case. thanks so much max and for that insight, south korea's military says an unidentified person has crossed the border into north korea. the army detected the person in the demilitarized zone and

surveillance equipment later showed that the person had gone into north korea. the border region between the 2 country contains millions of land mines and is one of the most heavily armed places in the world. more on this we can bring in frank smith, a journalist in sole capitol of south korea. frank, how can someone cross this border, which is as i was just saying, one of the most heavily defended in the world? well, it's very difficult. you can just walk up to the d, m z here in south korea, there's a line of civilian control before you get to the dmc with guard post and checkpoints and fencing and then you have to go through that and then usually a couple of kilometers later. there is more guard posts in the dmc for real so this person had to make it quite a deliberate know, endeavor to get into north korean. we don't have any sort of confirmation that he

made it there. there are, as you mentioned, land mind something like 2000000 land mines scattered across this area of otherwise wilderness that that person would have to traverse to get to north korean. and the north korean guards, you know, have, you know, according to reports, been instructed to, to shoot on site. anybody trying to get into north korea from the outside, especially with the onset of, of covey. 19. and so, you know, it is again, a very deliberate and difficult endeavor to make it to north korea from the south sounds how to get into this dmc, or demilitarized zone and, and survive with minds. it sounds incredible to we do we know how or why the south korean border guards didn't notice this until several hours later while they're conducting an investigation into this, in a preliminary report suggested there was monitoring equipment that found out that saw this were recorded. this person breaking through some fencing at 6 40

pm on saturday evening 3 hours before there were some human intelligence and intervention to go in and look for this person. so that's certainly going to be a point that the south korean officials and government are going to be looking into, you know, it, it reminds one of the challenges facing south korea, the south korean military, it as a mandatory military service. the, the, the spot that the soldiers doing their mandatory military service don't want to go is along the dmc. it's a very stressful area to control and between boredom and stress, it's a difficult deployment certainly. okay, thanks for that. i update on an incredible story. frank smith reported from school and we turn to sports now where more corona virus chaos is threatening. the german boonies sleeva and the already beleaguered english premier league or mendoza serum

d w. sports. welcome mark i. let's talk about buyer munich. first. lead leaders. how many cases to that? well, it says he 5 in total, it's manual lawyer, the captain and goalkeeper. he was coming back from the mold eaves. kinsey common was coming back from dubai. we have content to lee, so he was back in his native france for the holiday period with omar richards, the english defend, and also the assistant coach dino top middle. now the wonders eager has been on a 3 week break. it starts again on friday when by an adieu to face, mentioned glad back. we don't exactly know how many of these players will be out. we assume all of them, but we don't know what states are at with infection and quarantine, obviously by and do have a big squad. so at the moment the game isn't in doubt. but they've moved the start of training back to to morrow from today. and yet a little bit of chaos now in the book. these are, these aren't the 1st buyer cases, right? no, indeed. i mean, before we had the coach eulu now guzman, he missed 2 weeks of the season,

had to do his coaching from home. obviously the most famous cases, you're sure kimmy and he didn't want to get vaccinated. he then got the virus and the actually had a long problem because of corona virus and we don't know if he's going to be fit for friday. we don't know if this is sort of a long covert situation or not. so there's big problems at best buy and, and in the bundles they go wildly. i mean, what is interesting is that these cases are people flying back from holiday? yeah, and i think some buying funds will be saying, was it really a good idea to let these players go off to, you know, wide extremities across the globe when maybe they're sharing planes. we random people oversee. i think last year, most of the infections were within the club and obviously that's how to stop. but now we've got a new element to it. and we've not really heard from many other bundles. they get teams are. they got lots of positive cases flying back as well. could we start to see postponements, right? we've seen in english premier league the bonus, eager actually has a new boss from to morrow. the 1st woman to lead the bone as they could do now to

hoffman. and she's gonna have quite a busy in tray. and briefly you mentioned the english premier league my and goes to liverpool coach. your clock just testing positive is livable even to be able to complete the c. it's going to be a tricky one. i mean, as we know the game against chelsea is happening today. despite positive cases. i think they might have to stop playing games during champions league weeks. which way for hate or even push it into june. we don't have a woke up in june this year, so this house ok w's mark meadows and we w sports. thanks so much. and let's check some of the other latest news on the pandemic. germany has reported more than 12500 new corona virus cases in the last 24 hours. that's over 2400 more than a week ago. actual figures may be much higher as over the holidays. people get tested less frequently. england says new restrictions on socializing and events will only be introduced as a last resort. northern ireland, scotland and wales have all rolled out new rules limiting gatherings as the alma

krohn variant fuels a nationwide surge and europe where the epidemic is currently at its worst pass. the milestone of $100000000.00 cases identified since the virus emerged in december 2019 more than a 3rd of the total cases worldwide. in russia, the new year marks the beginning of the holiday season with christmas coming a week after. and people have been celebrating without major crone of virus restrictions. despite a surgeon case numbers, there are plenty of public attractions to keep the mood positive, including spectacular light installations around moscow. a 17 meter high globe outside moscow state circus. workers put it together weeks ago in the snow and cold, just one of the many light installations that adorned the city in this dark winter season to just cook the new year's decorations offer a breath of fresh air fire right now. and when new corona virus waves keep coming

and people are just tired of it, look, i said resorting, look with the pity. this group. more than 4000 light shows and building decorations will be on display in the coming weeks. transforming the city into a winter fairy tale. christmas hasn't come here yet. russian celebrated on the 7th of january, despite soaring infection numbers, no restrictions on indoor social gatherings have been announced. at the cities biggest skating rink, few seem to follow mask or social distancing. rules who wants to let the corona virus spoil their holiday fun? which will change. of course we want a change. we all know what the situation is neither, but we're trying to find some happiness. this isn't one major attraction, the christmas tree at red square machine, you know, great atmosphere. there's that great feeling of a new year. lots of people come here and do you,

particularly the lights and decorations will stay up until easter a welcome distraction and you're watching d. w. news live from berlin. here's a reminder. the top story we're following. a proposal from the european union could see some nuclear power and natural gas plants labeled as environmentally friendly, making them eligible for green investment, but not christy's facts. a plan with and that's about it for now. coming up the luxury car, the may back in our auto show. rev. stay with us for that and forget our website, d, w dot com. i'll nick spicer, thanks for watching food booth. welcome to the dark side. where intelligence agencies are pulling the strings.

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