itself and, and the u. s. and also with nato setting out very clearly the kind of demands that it's making. the kind of bottom line demands with, with respect to ukraine, are a promise from denito side that ukraine will never joint later. essentially, russia believes that ukraine is moving closer and closer into the western orbit. or russia believes that it's essentially on a kind of slippery slope to nato membership. and this is partly seen through increasing cooperation between the ukrainians and western military's. the russians want that door to potential later. membership to be close to the thing is the nato side say that it's not in rushes. it's no place for russia to decide what any other country should do in terms of its military alliances. that every individual sovereign state has to have the freedom or to join or whatever alliance it chooses . so is pretty difficult to find any kind of agreement on that. but where there is potentially scope for agreement, we hear this from the americans also from,

from the europeans, is, is on matters like the placement of certain types of missiles where those are placed. and that there could be some kind of diplomatic agreements and scope for horse trading on that. also, military exercises, the kinds of locations of military exercises, the transparency of a, what kind of explosive taking place. these will kind of areas where there could be potential or space for agreement. the question is, how big is the real bottom line? how important is that to russia? or is russia prepared to take sort of a lower level agreement on other matters? will it be satisfied by that? we're really not sure. and the scale of the escalation that we've seen from the russian side is not really encouraging on that front. it does imply that russia is after something more profound and right and richard, just to look at what exactly is on the table, we heard the secretary of state emphasize once again that there will be massive economic costs. financial costs, essentially if there were to be a russian incursion. so what are the, the west they, the us and its allies?

what are they considering at the moment yet? well, the kind of sanctions they're talking about would have to go beyond the sanctions that already exist. against russia, which have been placed in place for many years now. really since the annexation of crimea way back in 2013 and the beginning of all of this crisis in easton ukraine around that time and in to 2014, there been sanctions for many years. those sanctions have obviously not prevented you russia from taking these actions now, so they need to be more severe sanctions. the kind of things that have been up for discussion, for instance, mentioned by joe biden in his press conference yesterday would be sanctioned targeting the financial sector. you know, the united states has huge power in the fact that the dollar is used as the main currency in the financial sector. so early any kind of sanctions that target or, or inhibit russia's ability to access financial markets. that could be

a kind of big bazooka type of sanction. and here in germany, this focus on the north string to gas pipeline that we've already talked about the pipeline. it's in a kind of legal limbo at the moment. it is quite hard to see how germany could defend bringing a new pipeline with russia into operation at a time when russia is in a military conflict with ukraine. and that reality has been dawning can more and more clearly recently. and i think attorney blinkers comments just now where he really so openly addressed that in that press conference is further assigned at the united states is confident that job the germans would move ahead with sanctions on board stream to if there are military vision that there's a great, big kind of, but about this whole issue, and that is what if the russians do something that is stopping short of a really major invasion? what of it is something that this is something that joe biden referred to just last night. also in his press conference, if there's something on the level of a smaller scale incursion or cyber attacks,

rather kind of hostile acts that fall under this broader category. high bridge warfare. the kind of thing that is a bit harder to pin down. at what point do you trigger what kind of level of sanctions? and this is something where do vladimir putin certainly has a is a past master if we roof, remember back to the annexation of crimea. the annexation crimea is not something that happened with 11. great, great big sort of explosion. do you remember the, the little green men that was seen around the crimea peninsula? these people who had no insignia with the russians could deny that they had anything to do with them. that kind of was kind of ambiguous action is really a great worry, i think, for the west, because that is something where it makes it much harder for them to say, okay, we're going to take this kind of aggressive action. indeed, richard and just go onto from the russian side. yeah, that's right. richard will be interesting to see where things stand tomorrow after

of your secretary of state's a meeting with his russian counterpart in geneva. but thanks richard for now. we'll of course be coming back to you a little bit later as well, but there just to wrap up our coverage there of that press conference that we just saw. thank you, richard. well again, if you're joining us, your secretary said antony blinking has been holding discussions with allies here in berlin hoping to contain what they see is the threat of the russian invasion of ukraine. the u. s. is top diplomat has met with a german foreign minister analynn, a bare bach along with british and french counterparts. after stopping here on wednesday, blinkin will wrap up his tour by holding talks with the russian foreign minister survey never of in geneva. on friday. it is a meeting widely seen as one of the last attempts to stop russia from launching an attack on neighboring ukraine. and blinking said that he and other european leaders were on the same page and looking for a peaceful solution to the conflict between russia and ukraine. are collected and

the goal that i'm going to be share and was to see in diplomatic their minds on the, to deescalate tensions caused by russia's massing of troops along in cranes borders . to deter and prevent further russian invasion or destabilization of ukraine and to address legitimate security concerns put forward by russia by of the united states by europe through dialogue. not through regression. we have richard back with us now. richard, we did us and yours is joining us at the top of the hour. so we want to recap the story for them. take us through what we heard in the press conference a little bit earlier yet. so we've just been watching a press conference between a secretary of state, tony blink, him and his gem accounts are anna, lena bear, bog, trying to get essentially the, the western ducks in a row. before tony blinking goes to talks in geneva with his russian counterpart, sega level of aimed at trying to find a diplomatic way through this crisis between

a russia and the west, over over ukraine. in terms of interesting things that came out of the press conference just now i think you'll see the main message that the 2 sides had was one of unity that they see. absolutely. i to why on the situation here, that incident, putting all of the blame on russia for creating this escalate re situation with those 100000 troops on the ukrainian border saying that nato and the wester. absolutely, united in pushing back against, sat in rejecting that and saying that there would be very high costs for russia if it went ahead with, with any military action against ukraine. alina bab walker, criticizing russia for further, potentially escalating the situation recent days with, with the signal that it's sending troops into belarus array, raising questions that it might not just invade from its own territory, but potentially invade from, from belarus, which borders ukraine to the north. and interesting comments from tony blinking on

the controversial gas pipeline lord stream to between russia and germany, which is very much in focus as a potential piece of leverage for the germans. if russia go does go ahead with military action and a speculation about whether germany would put a stop to that pipeline if there were military action. tony blinkin, certainly raising very publicly, america's expectations that germany would do exactly that describing the pipeline as leverage for the german side for nato in this situation. now so, so show of unity, richard and certainly a lot of diplomatic activity we've seen now at any blank and we'll go to geneva as we said to meet with as russian counterparts are gay. love. what do you expect to see to come out of those talks? what will blanket perhaps need to get out of them yet? well, really, we will have to wait and see till tomorrow. what might come out of that. obviously,

the hope will be to find a continued diplomatic path forward that this is not that tomorrow does not be become the moment where both sides say were too far apart. there's really nothing doing here. so blinking will be wanting to go there with the kind of a package of what the west might be prepared to discuss with the russians in terms of meeting it half way on. some of its concerns. some of these issues that we were just talking about earlier, where the, the placement of certain types of missiles, in certain regions, the approach to military exercises and the location of military exercises. these are all areas where there could be a potential scope for discussion between the 2 sides and where also the west certainly has things that it would like to request from the russian side. and also to try to make clear as clearly as possible, as clear as possible. what kind of sanctions the west would put on russia if it did go ahead with any kind of military action. and from the russian side,

i think they will be wanting to find out it, are they getting anywhere near the kinds of demands that they have put in writing before the end of last year of the west? it with respect to its own security. archie for that uncle, editor, international inter, an editor, richard walker. thank you very much. all right, you as president joe biden is marking one c one year since he became the president and had a news conference biden feel of questions about the setbacks. he's a countered with key parts of his agenda block by both republican lawmakers and hold out in his own democratic party. but he also defended his achievements for year challenges. but it's also been a year of enormous progress. we went from 2000000 people being vaccinated at the moment i was born in to 210 men and americans being fully vaccinated today. we created 6000000 new jobs war jobs in one year than any time before

to get these washington bureau chief in as paul has this report. now the highs and lows of the 1st 12 months of the bike administration. i joseph robinson biden jr. do solemnly swear. one year ago, large parts of the western world breathed a sigh of really not so much because of the new occupant. a white house president joe biden, a long term figure in washington with almost a half a century of policy making experience. but because they hoped that the chaotic chapter that was the donald trump experiment would soon be at an end. david mariners is an award winning journalist and a presidential biographer, that he was clearly the right person for the job. a year ago, he was probably the one democrat who could get elected and stop the trump descendants. but now a year later, there real questions about that about whether his right person for the next 3 years . to start with the positives in his 1st year in office,

president biden was able to push a one trillion dollar infrastructure package through congress of feet that no president had been able to accomplish in 60 years. but its impact won't be felt for a long time. and people might not reward him with their wont in 2024. what they do feel immediately i'll the increasing prices for basic goods. inflation has risen at its fastest pace in nearly 4 decades, pushing prices up at a 7 percent annual rate for the international community. the chaotic withdrawal from afghanistan raised many questions, especially about how closely the new white house is really willing to work together with its nato partners. one, like most parts of the world, dealing with the co, with 19 pandemic, is a major challenge. the midterm elections coming up in november biden is in danger

of losing his razor thin majority in the senate. and the house biden has to walk a fine line between protecting the american people. and scaring or ignoring the concerns of possible voters. with his approval rating at an all time low with 65 percent of americans, believing his presidency is of failure. what could the next steps be? requires more than just job by to recruit it tired democratic party to get its act together on which it hasn't been able to do in this last year and getting some luck on the pandemic. and some of it is beyond his control. even one of the most powerful politicians in the world phase, the severe limits to pushing through his agenda now to some other stories making headlines around the world. norwegian mass murderer under his breath, vic has arrived in court for the final day of a parole hearing that we'll decide if he should be released after spending more

than a decade behind bars. breville killed 77 people and norway's worst piece time atrocity in 2011. the 42 year old serving norway's maximum sentence of 21 years. the pentagon has released video footage of a botched us drones strike in couple that killed 10 civilians. as u. s. troops were withdrawing from afghanistan, the target of the strike was an extremist who u. s. military thought was about to detonate a bomb near cobble airport. it later admitted the strike was a tragic mistake. the u. s. supreme court has rejected a request by former president donald trump, to block the release of documents related to the storming of the capitol. last year . trump was been accused of stoking the assault on congress. had sought to prevent the records from being given to the panel investigating the events former pope benedict, the 16th has been accused of failing to take action on child abuse cases. the accusations focus on 4 cases in germany. a new report is found that the former head

of the catholic church covered up clerical, sexual abuse between 19771982. at that time, he was cardinal. joseph rossimer, archbishop of munich and sizing. one of the most prominent cases involved a priest known as peter h. in 1080, the priest was transferred to the munich archdiocese where he continued to abuse children. the report was commissioned by the catholic church, but carried out by a german law firm and is highly critical of the former pope's actions. it is getting a total of 4 cases. we've concluded that then archbishop cardinal dancing is to be accused of misconduct in cases of sexual abuse. and our religious affairs correspondent martin gac, is following the latest on this story for us. hi martin. this report makes some pretty serious accusations against the former pope benedict. tell us more. yes indeed. so it's a very large record, a 1000 pages, and it contains over

a 1000 pages and it contains actually a lot of information on a very long sort of trend of abuse in the, of our, in church with the particular case of flood singer either uses him of misconduct ah, in 40 is dealing with sexual abuse and he has been given space to respond to this. so there is in the $82.00 page passage in which a blessing a response in this misses actually the accusations. but what is very, very telling about this report, and i think it's what is found to really, you know, make a mate a that the both married isn't the device he can, has to deal with. this is the fact that there is a, there are minutes from a meeting in a navy, which we refer to during the, during the presentation of the record, in which as a matter of fact seems to address directly case of sexual abuse. so this goes directly against her,

seems to go directly against his claim that he did not know about the case in question, particularly the case of h. so this is really quite a momentous, quite a momentous occasion. i mean, we are dealing now with a direct accusation on the former pope. and then of course, there is a bus set of cases that happened during his tenured and afterwards of course, as well. and these are cases that involve church leaders who are still alive would they have to face criminal prosecution? we do know that a prosecutor or king of people that are still around you know, the question obviously is how far the church is willing to go. and then our german authorities are willing to go in there to actually press press charges and bring these people to justice. the fact is that the report and the authors of the report points, i'll point out that the recent way they have reviewed and actually reassess the

claims concerning red finger in particular have to do with the fact that new evidence or new witnesses, new victims perhaps have come forward, have given new testimony. so this goes to show the importance of, you know, of former victims coming forth and talking to actually set the record straight. right. and one of the cases you referred to involves someone noticed peter age, your former clergyman, who's alleged to have abused numerous boys. and d, w actually spoke to one of his victims. let's take a look. my numbers law, my name is marcus elder. i was abused by a jap, long sick swims growth. marcus, else now grew up opposite a church and but for the rule region of western germany, his mother raised him and his siblings along a young clergyman from the church. peter h took an apparent interest in the family. he invited 12 year old marcus to visit him in the parish house. that is on the bottom under frontier already at his

bathroom on without he didn't have to undress much at all. if he sat down next to me on the couch and after a few dances all the blows started to hold on, it didn't take long, long ago. it's just a few caresses for him to show me how it was done. arden and then i had to do the same to him, so i thought orally, gratifying muscles on what you mouth, malcolm does or not. oh god, with kidding, moister. like under poly, should i started wedding myself again and hiding under the bed? strictly. i also drank a lot at that time because he gave me alcohol at the age of 12 and 13 from 12 quite santiago. the abuse continued and peter h went on to abuse. several other boys as well. a number of cases became public and he was even sentenced, but not dismissed. instead, he was transferred to rural parishes in bavarian. there he was supposed to undergo therapy, but instead continue to abuse boys there as well. only years later did these cases come to light. marcus elson happened to c t v report about the abuse. it was then

he released his tormentor from back, then it continued to abuse boys unchecked. likely, i was actually feeling quite robust and strong that suddenly when i saw him on television, everything collapsed around me. i started having suicidal thoughts. i, i didn't know what to do. i was at work a dog lewis, or somebody provides old wilson what he's martin's reuter joseph. that's in the former archbishop of munich. and later, pope benedict was in charge of the diocese and bavaria at the time. either he knew about the abuse cases and covered them up for peter h, or he violated his duty to oversee the parish. peter h is now retired and lives once again in the rural region, about 10 kilometers from the scene of marcus, else news abuse is thank again. i think of them every night and day and night and the former nightmares oxen during the day that i could run into her somewhere. victims were traumatized for life, were never freely real. that was needed

a loss wolf bought. where was god when this happened? not just to me that to all of us children, why didn't he intervene with whipping? marcus altenor has never wanted to enter a church ever again. in a martin, it has taken such courage for such victims to speak out about what happened to them . what can they expect now beyond an apology? well, i mean the question for redress i think at this point is more or less, you know, and solvable. i mean, these are, these are crimes that really cannot be rejected, and most certainly cannot be undone. just be not only enormous but incredibly widespread at this point. if there reformers within the church it is quite clear that they have not been able to push enough reform fussiness and actually keep track of the people that actually leaving their missed. this means that it is essential for the stay to come in and actually start pushing in matters that has not been done before. it started bringing people to justice. there is resistance in

the church. still, there is obviously a rejection for on the part of benedict and it actually be who everybody to rich to actually produce reform to prevent future victims. not only for redress or religious affairs correspondent martin gac reporting for us. thank you very much. the 1st aircraft carrying humanitarian aid to tonga has arrived. 5 days after the pacific island nation was hit by a volcanic eruption and soon ami. a cargo plane flown by the royal new zealand air force was able to land after a carpet of ash was cleared from the runway. now as basic communication slowly began to be restored, the world was getting a 1st impression of how badly tango was hit. these images provide a glimpse of the devastation left behind. this is tongue is biggest island tongue,

a top who it escaped the worst of his saturday's volcanic eruption and su nami. but it was still badly hit and all around. there is a blanket of volcanic ash. the ash my health cushions, my comp was water, the effects it would have on agriculture and the recovery of livestock and culture and possibly the ecosystem fish stocks. we have to have fresh poison testing, kit, smell, to ensure that people's livelihoods and local food sources. so for, for consumption, the clean up has already started as tongue gardens try to restore a sense of order. knowing the outside world is struggling to get in to help.

but help is finally beginning to arrive. this australian 8 flight is the 1st to land in tonga, boast, new zealand and australia are using then naval ships, as well as their air forces to bring in aid as quickly as possible. despite the difficult logistics, the priorities from b, r, tollen government or what we're are really working to primarily in the 1st uses, the provision of clean water that that's the key priority of at the autonomy government has asked for no range of other stores from shelter. now further communications equipment in the lock to make sure that we arkansas to serge are different. and for tongan, that age effort can't begin soon enough. as this nation made up of around 170 islands,

tries to start rebuilding its life. let's get a reminder of our top story. now. you are secretary of state antony blanket as promised. swift and severe response should russia invade ukraine? lincoln was speaking after meeting foreign ministers from germany, france, and britain in berlin. he went on to say that the u. s. and if ally stood united had a crisis talks with a russian foreign minister in geneva tomorrow. coming up next on d. w. 's asia. why this afghan mother wants her little girl to dress as a boy? and how safety concerns are slowly driving. afghanistan seeks out of the country parish by energy as those stories coming up on d w. 's asia, thanks for watching ah

focus on europe. in 60 minutes on d w.