to a spiral of violence without end, ah, a film about family, face? masculine eye of fathers and starts april 16th. oh d w oh, this is dw news asia coming up today. how long can china maintain a 0 cobra strategy? shanghai is more than 25000000 residents are finding out the hard way as the city endears in extreme lockdown. plus the pandemic in north korea has left the country in a food crisis. we take a closer look at just how bad the situation may be. ah,

i melissa chan, thanks for joining us. shanghai, one of asia's top financial hubs, and a metropolis with more than 25000000 people is under locked down because the communist party is committed to a 0 cobit strategy at all costs. residents had hoped, the city would lift some measures after weeks of disruption, but officials appear to be doubling down. still no end in sight to the lock down in shanghai. but china is making a big show of its full throttle response. use army tens of thousands of health workers on their way to shanghai until the massive feats of testing by 25000000 people within one day or well and cheerful scenes of cooperation for the state tv cameras. to me personally,

having his work as he gave us a sense of security for the hon. you on that to go all trying everything we can to overcome the difficulties with faith to get our task done with the best outcome. to see the i want to help. but cracks and the united front are showing up on mine. this video allegedly shows coven positive toddlers and babies, separated from their parents and put in quarantine. one woman whose 2 year old daughter was taken away, posted this on way. bo, please sent her back to me. she doesn't need any critical treatment for this illness. what she needs is company and being taken care of. thousands of other people have tested positive, have been locked up in central quarantined facilities whether they're symptomatic or not. many have no idea for how long as when ukrainian woman shared in a video with reuters news agency that we'll know when we're going to lose. we also

have no idea how many to us we leave please. hello, so the new on when we're going to have those us. so you know anything the outbreak has stretched shanghai resources to the limit. china's vaccination rate hovers around 90 percent, but still couldn't keep the only crime variant at bay domestically produce jobs haven't been as effective as hoped. despite growing public frustration with its 0 tolerance approach, china says it's sticking to it. and we have correspond at 5 in kashmir in china. he explains why this 0 coven policy is driving, is driven by politics, as much as public health concerns. after another round of mass testing, shanghai remains under locked down. and nobody really knows when the city will open

up again, there's an increasing amount of people getting frustrated about the restriction, and some are even complaining that they're running out of foot supplies. not only that, the economic impact is massive. after all, shanghai is the most important economic half of the country. it's almost contributes 4 percent to the national g d p. still, the chinese government seems committed more than ever to stick to its 0 covert approach. why? i think they're mainly 3 reasons for it. the 1st one being and genuine concern for public health. despite the high vaccination rates, there not enough people among the most vulnerable among the elderly who have received a 3rd job of the domestic vaccines. secondly, i think it has to do also with the propaganda. for basically 2 years, the state media have repeated the claim that the successful 0 covert policy is. and basically a proof that the chinese system works better than the west, whether by ra, spreads out of control. so now it turns out to be very difficult to change their

own path. and thirdly, here in beijing where i'm standing right now, there will be the 20th party congress. that's the most important political event of the year during which state leader leader shooting ping will declare his fir turman office. and the leadership is very committed to not have any huge infection clusters until then. ah, north korean leader kim jong on recently attended a ground breaking ceremony for a new mega farm in the east of the country. he said the aim of the project is to grow more vegetables and to improve people's diet. it comes at a time of worsening food shortages and a report last october, the u. n. it said people's access to food. there is quote, a serious concern and that some children and the elderly are at quote risk of starvation in state run media. however, there's little sign of

a crisis. whatever. yeah, this is a big moment for north korea's leda. estate ra media is to be believed. not only is kim, shoveling the earth himself cheered owned by thousands of soldiers. 3 he also gets to do this with gun edge when the dust has settled, work will start on transforming this fight into the biggest and most modern green house farm in the country came hopes it will give people more access to food by allowing farmers to grow vegetables throughout the winter, then in what is clearly a stage managed event. the soldiers swarm around kim's car to show their appreciation. the scenes appear designed to spread optimism at a time when many north koreans are facing acute shortages of food. and in some

cases, even starvation. with information so tightly controlled and choreographed, it's hard for international groups to ascertain the true scale of the problem. or to what extent north korea is still able to grow crops and feed its people. this is only with young young also frequently accuses the west of exaggerating its problems . but early in february, the countries rob stamp parliament appeared to acknowledge the severity of the crisis. they promised to increase food production and normalize russians. the people hold you don't you? when the speaker said the problems were also created by the pandemic and international sanctions imposed because of the weapons program and the closure of the board in early 2020 to the countries economic lifeline g. china, which it takes you, you turn is really good. yet the regimes main preoccupation seems to be to continue

to focus people's minds on happy events, such as a recent celebrations to mark the late leader kim jong il birthday. and to convince them that there's no need for concern. because in the end, dictator kim jong own will come riding to their rescue. joining us from sol is shadow carol, founder of and can use dot org, a research news and analysis website dedicated to all things north korea. a chad as something is up in north korea, but as always it's a bit tough to find out what exactly is going on there. kim duncan did warn in his annual new year speech, it would be tough times ahead. and i'm curious,

what's your assessment of just how bad the food crisis is there? yeah, well those are the words food cards. this, the north korean state media, very unusually used in june 2021. and that was probably as a result of north korea cove, it shut down, the board has been closed now for almost 2 and a half years. and we've seen barely any import coming in of foreign food stuff. so they really become very self reliant. and we'll know from you and reports of chris and your crop supplies full below the requirements for population of that size, roughly 25000000 people. those are the sort of key facts and we don't really have much detail, much verifiable, reliable data about what the food supply is now besides just a general assumption, that is it's grim all sources in chung and continued to say that there are still no

foreign food so it is just the domestic supply. when you say grammar we were calling something like from the 1900 ninety's or we have the famine level right now or not yet? no, it's not. it's like a to a major food shortage is more like the nutritional value of the food that offers is low. there's not a diverse food supply. so people will be saying they'll have a reliable supply of low quality grains and cereals. but that's a protein which means fresh food vegetables, those are things a bit more gas. and, and we know that oscar has those basic because china, from what understand is being continued to support north korea through this course . this with basically free strategic grain aid. so that north korea doesn't go through where you just described that a famine, like we saw in the mid ninety's. and you alluded to this earlier on china's extreme

0 co with strategy has meant the border between the countries has been mostly shut the last 2 years. but you also say that china has, has helped north korea to some extent. could you explain the, the impact of the border closure and just how serious that is? yes. so the, the key thing is the land border between the chinese port city of dundas and north korean city of synergy that used to have on maybe 2300 trucks crossing the bridge every day in addition to rail freight. and that all basically stopped in the summer of 2020. it just started again now, but all of her has this very elaborate 3 months disinfection process for all inbound goods. so all that means is the 1st few trains we had of going through in january this year. those goods is still going through disinfection and as far as food is concerned, that means that we,

the food coming in will be things like vegetable oil, coffee granular, nothing that can keep very long due to that significant disinfection period. now a lot of international focus has been on pill. yes, miss l test launches, and i wonder whether any of that is driven by things happening domestically? yeah, we believe so. so with what's been going on, the economy is in bad shape. there's no scope for that to improve that foreign relations diplomacy is all on freeze because north korean officials conked out the country to me. anyone. and so faced with this communion, we believe that one of the things that he can definitely show progress on regardless of because this is tracy, is rapid progress on military development goals. kim, young and outlined 12 new types of missile technology and weapon systems that he

wanted to obtain within 5 years. last year is a party congress. and we think the recent tests in part have been to show the population. there is progress amidst all of these humbling economic difficulties shadow. carol, thank you so much for joining us. that set for tuesday. thanks for watching and good bye. ah, with secrets lie behind these will discover new adventures in 360 degrees and explore fascinating world heritage sites d w world heritage. $360.00 get the app now 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 there. join me for a deep dive into the green transformation for me to do full of them. mm hm . mm ah. turning off the tabs easier said than done as pressure as growing our european leaders to boycott russian gas deliveries will talk to an expert on what other sources would be available and how long it would take to taft them. also, the show will go to indonesia to find out whether the world's biggest exporter of thermal coal can profit from buyers, shifting their demand away from russian. i'm chris kolber. welcome to the program.

amid recent escalations and possible russian war crimes and ukraine to use trying to rid itself of russian gas as quickly as possible. also considering that russia has threatened to stop the liver or use a timeline, however, it unclear germany has activated its energy emergency plan in order to be prepared for a possible loss of russian gas supplies. if this were to happen, alternatives would have to quickly be found. 92021. russia supplied the e with 155000000000 cubic meters of gas. so turning up, the tabs means a big shortfall. the united states has committed to an additional 15 building cubic meters of gas. this year supplies could be delivered through europe, through various liquefied natural gas terminals. algeria has also agreed to supply more gas if needed, and creasing its capacity by nearly 3.