or a longer healthier and fuller life. one of the most insightful discoveries in the history of mankind. more life starts february 16th on d, w. ah. this is did up in years asia coming up today. the official start to south korea's presidential election campaign. one of the contenders is using deep fake to hammer home of real message that of change, but his main challenger is putting up a fight. we get the latest from soil. and hong kong sees a steep rise in corbett cases despite it's 0 corporate strategy. and the city leader is pledging to stay the course. ah.

i british energy welcome to de dabbler, news asia. glad you could join us. south korea's presidential candidates formerly began their campaigning today. it's set to be the tightest race in 20 years between the 2 main parties with the election due to take place on the 9th of march. the 2 leading candidates have been dogged by scandals and enjoy high disapproval ratings . but voters are reacting favorably to a digital avatar of the conservative people power party candidate, created by his youthful campaign team. the deep fixed humor seems to be cutting through, especially with the younger electorate. e. as on your end, this may look like one of the candidates running to be the next south korean president, but it is in fact a deep fake one room on august. a digital avatar of the conservative opposition

candidate yoon suck hill. this a i version has attracted millions of views since this day be last month and tens of thousands of people have asked questions, often about popular culture instead of politics, e r, use on your i am a i union couldn't thank you for your comment. i really like black pink tundra. do do do do, especially as my favorite song choice, holborn in humans team is trying to make him look cool and accessible and trying to deflect from the damaging political wrangling on the campaign trail. south korea's former prosecutor general units that he all has faced controversy of the merc. he ties to a shaman and corrupt and allegations involving his family. but he's hoping to ride though, to anger over rising house prices and corruption scandals involving the current government jerry would in you have to stop the corrupt an incompetent

ruling forces attempt to extend their term and plunder people mean york potter miranda you're here. we are all the people and forces who agree here should join forces were char, and we have to achieve regime change. revel fungus, she talk one. your charter rhonda from uva on north korea. unit insist slip young young d nuclear eyes before any peace treaty can be signed or economic assistance. granted, his main opponent is lee jame young. the presidential candidate for the ruling democratic policy. lee has been dogged by his own scandals involving a residential development plan and his sons, illegal gambling. but he has risen to prominence with an aggressive pandemic response and a populist economic agenda. okay, are you i'm doing? i'm outside or on the periphery of korean politics. who doesn't have experience as a lawmaker? still?

i li, jim young was given this grieved duty as the ruling parties. presidential candidate october to doesn't. lee is softer on north korea though, and says he wants to reopen stoled de nuclear eyes ation talks between chung and washington is just 3 weeks now before south korea. alexa, new leda and the 2 candidates a doing all they can to win votes for now. polling remains, neck and neck, but with a help of his online avatar, conservative candidate unit, so keel has at least managed to pull ahead of his rival with the young voters on august joining an outage on mr. frank smith from sewell frank. the election comes in the middle of a continuing pandemic. is this impacting the issues candidates, or tackling? absolutely the pandemic is an issue particularly given. so the grease initial

successful response to the pandemic compared to other countries. the number of cases here were relatively low. but now you're seeing a search with the alma kron variant spreading across the country quite quickly, right now with the last 5 days more than $50000.00 cases per day. also the other issues of course, housing, the economy in small businesses having suffered because while people are buying things and many south korean electronics products around the world, the service industry is really suffering. so small businesses want to see some more relief from the government and potentially a lifting of the social distancing measures that are really impacting their businesses in a negative way. are frank of the rest of the world to be watching this election for the direction of, for south korea's policy on north korea? where does the 2 main candidates stand on that?

the 2 candidates are really far apart when it comes to their policies toward north korea. jim young advocates engagement. he's the democratic party leader. he wants to see the 2 korean negotiate. he wants to bring the united states into some negotiation, perhaps, and see some calming of the tension on the korean peninsula. he follows in the footsteps of the current president moon j n, who organized the summits that we saw between north korean leader kim johnson and former u. s. president donald trump. he wants to see things dialed down here and closer relations between north korea. and so korea, you and so you'll, the conservative, he advocates a much stronger alliance with the u. s. a resumption of, you know, periodic joint military exercises here on the korean peninsula. and potentially even a preemptive strike on north korea. should it look like they were going to launch

some type of missile? so again, very different positions of these, of the north korea, from the, to front runners in the, in the election here. and what sort of a campaign has it been so far, frank? well, the campaign, you know, well it officially started today. it has been sort of going on for a couple of weeks. they've already had a debate. they're going to have at least 3 more debates, but official campaigning did start today. i saw some trucks out on the street, and of course, you know, some music. and we're going to see some dancing, of course, with these trucks and, and the candidates up on trucks speaking to, to crowds around the country. they plan on actually traversing the country. all major candidates are, are campaigning, both in soul and then moving out of school right away. also, interesting. today i was at one of the demonstrations. and at that demonstration

there was some, some head shaving. they were small businesses that again, are seeking relief from the devastating effect of the coup at $900.00 pandemic. both the pandemic itself, as well as the social distancing measures that the government has imposed on their business hours and the number of people that they can. they can serve so the campaign started today and we're going to see certainly some more noise between 6 am and 11 pm, at least out on the streets of south korea. bresh frank smith in cheryl, thanks so much for that. the to hong kong next and leader county lamb has vowed not to impose a mainland china style locked um as the city faces its west outbreak of over 19 to date. but lamb has also vowed not to abandon hong kong 0 corporate strategy. and the health care system is very coping the crush over patients. this is the scene

outside one of the cities, hospitals. since the beginning of the pandemic, a combination of closed borders, lindy, quarantines, and contact tre thing has kept the virus largely a b, but last month cases began to serge monday. so more infection than at any other time with more than 2000 reported with the current spike, driven by the owner, kron variant. the familiar sight of crawling qs as thousandths are forced to test every day. this follows the announcement of hong kong, toughest isolation measures, yet including the closure of places of worship and hairdressers. a vaccine path mandate for shops and supermarkets is also been introduced later this month. liter carrie lamb has promised no blanket city locked down. but vowed that hong kong will maintain it 0 co policy. the problem we are phasing is given the magnitude,

the pace off, and the severity of this 5th wave, it has a oh grown i'll capacity. so the immediate response of the hong kong, as al guffman now with the support of the central people's guffman, is to enhance the capacities at various huh. of pots of this antea pedantic effort. vaccination rates are now rising, especially among the elderly, many seniors we're unvaccinated before until now. hong kong had been coping well, but there is growing frustration towards the government's approach. you are chasing that i bought. this is insane, but there is no way to reach 0 cases. debra one, by the time we achieve that every one's wallets will be empty. a lot of people will be out of work and have no income. the restaurants can't do any business. the government is really crazy. gotcha. we're going to see eva, all that account is we've different enough router. so i bought

a li. the situation currently is whether i'm here. it just got worse. empty restaurants and supermarket shelves, hopefully becoming a thing of the past for countries trying to live with the virus. but now commonplace here in hong kong, as the city adjusts to tougher measures. and correspondent if you'd be kong is in hong kong and filed this update on the situation in the city. hong kong is struggling and not yet plunging into panic. however, with all the strength and restrictions imposed for more than 2 years, and now being put a tightened, many people here getting frustrated and exhausted. as a serial cobit fight appears to have no end in sight. and sought to over hong kong feature intensifies massive layoffs and pay cuts. make more people skeptical about how realistic it is to take with us the recovery policy. moreover,

the continuous put sco suppression has already made. many people are testing government. let's prompting create this content to what is handling off the outbreak and for menaces and here the heart like, oh, the policy is like stripping the remaining freedoms. and critics wonder whether it's patient influence rather than what works for hong kong. the has the city governments that came with the theory cove approach and amongst other things that approach involves a longer choose at testing stations. we leave today with the aerial shots of what that looks like on a daily basis in hong kong. in see you here tomorrow or by? ah,

we got some hot tips for your bucket list. ah romantic corner chat. hot spot for food, chair, and some great cultural memorials to brood. d, w, travel. off we go. on the green. do you feel worried about the planet we to i'm neil,

host of the on the grievance on coast and to me it's clear we need to change the solutions or out the join me for a deep dive into the green transformation for me to do with a ah, western economy say they're united on sanctions. should russia invade ukraine? penalties against banks and businesses could hit normal russians hard as well as europeans. we'll look at what's on the table and what the ripple effects might be. also on the show berlin's annual love letter to film the berlin ali is underway. german cinemas themselves are meanwhile struggling to fill seats. and it's a ship of superlatives and it needs

a new buyer. the massive global dree sits on finished on germany's baltic coast. the latest sign of the crews, industries struggles to stay afloat. hello, welcome to the show. i'm seen beardsley in berlin, banks, businesses and investors are keeping a close eye on the russian troop build up on ukraine's borders. a sanctions are a special fear, finance ministers from the g 7 group of industrialized nations saying monday that they were ready to impose massive economic sanctions against russia. in the event of an invasion, targeting banks and individuals, the u. s. has also said it could put an end to the north stream to pipeline. that's intended to be an important new supply route between germany and russia for gas. and that is supposed to be an important income stream for russia. and the u. s. is also considering put a putting russia on its export control as if it did it, it would join cuba, iran, north korea and syria and washington could block rushes access to the dollar by barring u. s. finance.