ah ah ah ah, this is dw news live from berlin, miss all striking, you cranes odessa region. ukraine says at least 20 people are dead after a russian aircraft fire missiles that hit an apartment building and other targets. the attack comes a day after russia abandons a black sea island that it ceased early in the war or so on. the show china celebrates 25 years since the united kingdom handed back hong kong president. she

didn't pig insists hong kong can maintain its own laws. as a beijing heart winer takes over as the territories new liter plus an emergency for the world's oceans. till i get to the un conference in portugal or calling for an international treaty to protect them or protest her say, world leaders aren't acting fast enough. and owning up to germany's colonial past, or lynn formerly recognized as certain african artifacts looted in the 19th century as the property of nigeria. ah hello, i'm claire richardson. thanks so much for joining us. ukrainian officials say at least 20 people are dead after russian missiles hit. the region of odessa missiles fired from russian aircraft hit apartment building in the town of sac. he is car,

some 70 kilometer south west of odessa. rescuers have been searching for people burried under the rubble. a nother missile hit a near by recreation center. russia has intensified strikes on ukraine in the last 2 weeks. it has also withdrawn from the strategically important snake island in the black sea, which could make it possible to restore c access to odessa sports. in our correspondent manuel charles's covering developments for us from odessa earlier, i asked her about this latest attack. well, claire does misses fell all my residential area in the village or city of car, and at least 20 people died during the shelling of 20 people, including 2 children over 30 people are injured also pregnant women. it was injured. we know at this stage a doctor, for example, one of the victims,

one of the deceased. he's a 6th year old man. he was a or, you know, a, he was a man was his wife and child. none of them survived is just let us show you the tall di swore is taking on and tire of families. first responders have no. andy does search or in the rubble for survivors, they might steal this to one person missing as we are talking. and of course, here in odessa are people are in shock, in fact, in the whole region to morrow. the 2nd of july has been declared a day of morning. it was terrible to hear of those casualties. i wanna ask you, at this stage in the war how well ukraine is able to defend the odessa region. well, you know, clarity odessa region is just by the black sea. in fact, the reason why you don't see to see where we're standing is that we, as journalists are not allowed to fail, made for the simple reason that the ukranian authorities are afraid that we might show something that would give away a strategic position. and that might a,

you know, make it an easy target for a russian for the russian army that just shows you just hold dire. the situation is also the fact that a desa either by does see by the black sea where it makes it more vulnerable to me, solid tax, because most may size are fired by the black sea. does that, that there's also less time for b. bill wants the air read to lads, you know, resume does less time for people to take shelter simply because of me. size are closer. and speaking of the black sea, are russian troops have withdrawn from snake island. a strategic island located south of odessa. how do you think that is going to change the situation in the black sea? i new thing is a game changer, clara, because the snake snake island was up to the seas are captured by 2 russian war ships on the very onset of the war. and it became both a symbolic or ireland and a very strategic one, strategic why?

well, because it's just off the coast here of odessa and it gives control to the entire maritime region. so the fact that ukrainian troops recaptured this island is very important. we know that on this island, they were also me size launchers from russia. so this is also very important and of course, symbolic because remember at the very beginning of the war there were, does border guards have told russian or russian sailors where to go? they did a want to surrender, and these made them a symbol of ukrainian resilience. so both the strategic and a symbolic victory here for ukraine and manuel shes in odessa. thank you so much for your reporting as good as mother news. now, aunt china's president, she didn't ping has concluded a visit to hong kong to mark 25 years since the united kingdom handed over control of the territory. and during the visit, she praised the one country to systems policy,

which has allowed hong kong to have its own laws. he said the policy was a success and would remain in place. but that hong kong must respect a chinese leadership. she oversaw the swearing in of hong kong, new chief executive john lee, a she, loyalist and former security chief who helped crack down on pro democracy protests . of aging security law in hong kong has restricted many of the territories political and press freedoms. earlier i spoke to activist cliche, glacier quang, who now lives in exile and i asked her what today's anniversary means for her was actually born one year before the 1997 handover. so i grew up in hong kong when it was still free. the way that we were allowed to think we're allowed to talk. it's very different from what we're seeing right now in hong kong and the 25th anniversary, marked very disheartening depot all of us because it symbolized how much we have lost in the last 25 years. we have lost our freedom of speech and for him to

conscience in ephito as expression. and beijing will not stop cracking down on us from watch on the has made very clear since he was elected in the sham election, basically selected by beijing saying that's gonna impose a lot of more and more like harsh laws to try to tighten its control over hong kong in and you're one of several high profile activists who have decided to leave hong kong. can you tell me at what point you felt like you could no longer stay? in 2020 i was at the time preparing for a petition in the german parliament. and at that time the national security, lois being announced, may king colluding with foreign forces. a legal meaning got that the thing, the act of just organizing a petition the german columbine is basically legal. so i know if i want to complete the whole thing that i've initiated, i will have to leave hong kong and come back who drew me to finish. my said he's under the same time. do that petition and the hearing that come that came after it . now, china has, of course, accused the pro democracy movement of causing violent social unrest. do you think

that some of the tactics that have been used by protesters in 2019 things like storming the legislative council occupying universities? were they a mistake that then forced beijing to take a more hard line stance against the protests? i do not think you can say those things are a mistake. if you look back into like since 2014, we didn't get universal suffrage. and in 2016 when young my generation tried to enter the legislative council, we're being bought from bunting and elections, and then we will, bard, apple, or disqualified out through some of our colleagues are being elected. and then we try to enter the system. we hi piece will protest and all of these things didn't work out. and a lot of the processor felt like that they have no way out, and that's why they resorted to the use of force and legislative council and all. and all of the things that you talked about actually are symbols, the symbols of the beijing regime. for example, legislative council were never actually fully democratic. so the project started

last year in $2900.00 saw it as a representation of the and just is in all of the it legitimacy that beijing had. and therefore they went to let go. of course, it's not, not be and might not be the ideal solution in any way. but a lot of the protest i felt like they have no choice and being forced into doing that. now you describe what you expect to be a rather bleak future. are you optimistic that it will be possible to, in any way reverse the erosion of democratic freedoms in hong kong? i don't think there is any way of turning back the clock because it had happened. and no matter what to come. the last that a lot of hong kong or is have been suffering through will not be just simply taken away or cannot be undone. i'm not entirely optimistic because any reasonable people person cannot be optimistic to be honest. it's quite grim. but the thing is we are doing the right thing. we are fighting for human rights and democracy, things that we should have. and therefore we're simply doing the right thing and

it's not up to if we're hopeful, we're just going to still do it anyways. i sure clung. is a pleasure speaking with you. thanks again. so much for taking the time. you're watching the w still to come on the show. why are we supposed to condemn issues with the european issues? so please have somebody out of this, mr hunter. our chief international editor speaks with pakistan's defiant former leader in ron hahn about his position on russia's invasion of ukraine. of 1st delegates gathered in the portuguese capital. lisbon have been wrapping up a un conference on protecting the world's oceans. people have been protesting outside the venue, drawing attention to the threats faced by the world's marine ecosystems. at the opening of the conference, un secretary general, antonio guitar hash declared an ocean emergency. some 7000 delegates, including heads of state scientists and

n g 's have been taking part to assess progress and implementing un directive to protect marine life. so what exactly has that conference achieved to help answer that question and more, i'm joined in the studio. i did use environment reporter at gte yet, and john g. welcome. what games. if any, have been agreed to help protect the oceans of the world at this conference so far has been a flurry of voluntary action, voluntary commitments, but really very little in way of kind of binding global treaties or anything. and i mean, that was to be expected to, well, no surprise to anyone. the voluntary commitment in both countries from panama to pakistan, saying that they're going to protect more of their ocean, even declaring parts of their waters as protect areas which prohibit something that stop some type of fishing and so on. and then we've got countries like australia reaffirming commitment to invest more money in protecting the great barrier reef the u. k. along with canada and the u. s. among group of countries really come down

on illegal and report fishing. but the kind of big picture thing, the thing, the environmental groups and marines, scientists really been pushing for these kind of big trenches to protect the entire global oceans. and in particular to have 30 percent of kind of of the water surface protected by the 2030. that's not mature life. and yet the mergers about will be in august, most likely. okay, that's a bring everyone to the table, get a much bigger picture project in place. and can you give us just a general sense of the specific kinds of threats that are facing our oceans? a lot of things. so i mean, the big one that's kind of most pressing will be climate change. the oceans are, i mean, last year even carbon pollution in the atmosphere reached such high levels. but the oceans burg records for being hot for being acidic. the sea levels reach new height, all of the things are making for fish population, for instance, pushing them out the natural habitats, making them harder to live. but that comes on top of all these other kind of human

cause influences of the human cause implant. that is like over fishing and plastic pollution, that kind of destroy ecosystem than other ways. so the connected system, these things building on compounding one another. also today we know that french president and my con has addressed it. delegates at that conference. he's calling for curbs on deep sea mining. can you tell us more about that threat? yes, this is a bit of a tough one because with a lot of effort you can see a very clear one single direction in terms of human beings profiting and the planets offer kind of expense. and then the over the hut, humans later on in the form of climate change and so on. in the case of d t mining, it's a bit more tricky in that one of the kind of key things that humanity would need to do to transition away from fossil fuels, which when you burn them, they really scatter the heat. the planet would be to switch to renewable energy and electricity that's powered by things like wind turbines and solar panels. now, the batteries needed to kind of store this energy and help deal with kind of variation. a lot of the require metal that are seemingly quite abundant in the

bottom, the oceans, but we don't really know what it would do to the oceans into the ecosystem if we were to mind them. so, i mean, a few countries in the pacific ocean violence days are really calling for about on this practice until we know what's going on at least amount on the chronological voice to that is adding, i guess, to this movement away from seeing that as a viable solution to our environment, reporter edge it here and john, i really appreciate you coming into the studio with us. let's bring up to speed now with some other stories making headlines around the worlds in italy. a heat warning has been issued for some 20 cities, with people being urged to avoid the afternoon sun. the heat wave is likely to worse and the countries already severe drought. in rome, the tiber river has fallen to low levels, exposing the remains of a bridge built nearly 2000 years ago. rescuers are searching for survivors of a massive mudslide in northeastern india that killed at least 14 people. it hit

a railway construction site camp while workers there were sleeping. india has seen weeks of heavy downpours, which have seen an estimated 200 people killed in floods and landslides across the country. in russia, a u. s. basketball star has gone on trial for drug trafficking. brittany griner was led into court at the start of the hearing prosecutors, elijah, she was caught with beeping cartridges containing cannabis oil. her wife says griner is a political pond. the u. s. has called for her immediate release to pakistan now, where former prime minister in wrong hon has been contributing to ongoing political instability by refusing to go quietly. instead, he claims to be the victim of a us organized plot to remove him from power and his calling on supporters to help overthrow the new government did up his chief international editor, richard walker, had the chance to ask conn about all of that. as well as his controversial trip to

russia in february, shortly before moscow invaded ukraine. and gonna be speaking to richard in just a moment. but 1st, here's an excerpt from that interview. on february the 22nd, the day before you arrived, there were already columns of russian tanks in done yet that was reported even by reuters. i'm sure your, your staff have access to reuters. and on the very evening when you touched down the very eve of the invasion, when you touched down, you said to one of the people greasing you what a time i have come so much excitement. you clearly knew that we were on the brink of a war well on the eve, even when we heard that there was a jaws of something. we had a consultation. all of us sat together or our foreign office. and they came to the conclusion that if we cancel at this time, this, we will put our relationship with russia and the gold storage. and bearing in mind the future where we need russia,

we'd very need russian oil. and specifically the gas pipeline did, which has been on for 6 years. and we're now gansler visit the country as good as was going to lose a lot. so just like every one else or to live is explained to you. what about dish view though? india has usurped the rights of the, i'm sorry, this a 103 with pakistan and india. it is very important and i don't know, but it's very important a and i do want you to do is sort of watch about and i am time to talking about kashmir. i would just like last one further question about about your visit originally. we moved no record. i will know. i want to mention i 1st want to move on and talk about dish. no, i'm sorry. a question in the matter to us. so what us, you, while hold other people are not wondering about our human rights and what matters

do us. why are we supposed to condemn issues, which are the european issue. so please have somebody under mister hon just it is a, don't just put us at a spot that, you know, you were, you have to because it's your issue. we have to take sides, allow us the luxury to stay neutral as well that we can hook after own people as high as sponsibility. i repeat again, all my 220000000 people. ok, so let's talk to the man who carry out that interview. richard walker is our chief international editor. he joins me now in the studio from war. i'm richard and run con, sounding a quite defensive bear, as he justifies his stance on russia invasion of ukraine. but that is an argument that you do here in other parts of asia yet. yeah, you really do. and i mean the whole interview wasn't that animated i, i should stress that, but it was really a very enlightening, very interesting interview, i think. and that's right. i mean, these arguments were hearing from enron con, there are arguments that you do here around asia, and i was just it back in april. i was in indiana reporting trip for, for

a project there and talking to a lot of people there. and you do here quite similar arguments, you get a, a kind of a blend of things. you get some sort of what about is what we just heard, that kind of classic. what about his miller that focuses on we know the west is asking us to condemn ross's war on ukraine. well, what about the rock? well, what about the afghanistan? well, what about the, the intervention in libya? and it does just go to show how much credibility and kind of how much of its moral place in the world, the west is lost in the last 20 years through these military escapades that have gone so wrong. and so very different ways. so you partly have that you probably have people saying, but don't force us to pick size. your country is very, very wary of ending up, you know, the world slipping into a new cold war, which is obviously a very of live concern that i have for many countries. and then finally, the telling me that countries like they feel they cannot afford to take

a moral stance. and this is what m r one was saying here, the pakistan he's saying his argument is that it depends and it will increasingly depend on russia for gas to be dependent will increasingly do so, depend on russia for we need those things at low prices. so it can't afford to go around kind of complaining about russia. the trouble for the west is with their point is, or the reason why gas and wheat prices and other prices are so high, is because of this war that russia has started. and that to message that you see g 7, other with western groupings really trying to get a message across the country like puck stun richer. there's so much on pack there, but i do want to move on because you also spoke to him about pakistan's relationship to china and his reluctance to condemn beijing's treatment of the weaker muslim minority there on. can you tell us how that went? yeah, i mean that's the kind of mirror really discussion has been going on for longer. the con, face questions about this in the past? because of course, the chinese regional sion janet borders pakistan. it's home to this large

mostly minority. and hon simply will not criticize china for its treatment of, of the week of minority in jin chang. and she really, quite openly does indicate that, well, you know, china is pouring money into pakistan through its bells and rose initiative. he's described china as a model for development in boxed on despite the very obvious concerns about about the totalitarian, authoritarian and surveillance state drift that we see in china. so you really see the sort of, it is great caution about speaking openly about countries. the pakistan is building up a dependency on whether it's russia or china, dr. richard walker or chief international editor. and we will be playing that full interview with emma run con, right here on dw, in about 2 hours time. so stay tuned for the full thing and also on the w news. you tube her coming up, check it out there. richard walker, thanks so much for coming to break that out for us. or for years germany has struggled to reconcile it's colonial history in africa. one aspect of that is

stolen cultural artifacts, such as the been in bronze is on display at several german museums. now though, the power has been cleared for their return to nigeria with the foreign and culture ministers from both countries, signing an agreement at a ceremony just a short time ago. the deal formerly recognizes the pieces as the property of nigeria. at the center of the colonialism debate in germany that benning bruncess in 1897 british forces looted thousands of the art treasures from the royal palace in been modern day nigeria, many ended up in german museums. more than 400 or in berlin's humbled forum. a long battle over the looted art is now ending both germany and nigeria have to carry nigeria, the rightful owner of the plates and sculptures. the breakthrough means the optics

can return to their homeland. it's also a radical change in perspective for germany's museums thus benoit. it is i what does change of ownership means? bowdoin? it? it means that we western museums in the northern hemisphere and cannot simply determine the narrative of these beneath bronzes. any longer rhodesian being owns it belongs to mere attain, couldn't nigeria will decide which artworks will return. the government wants to build a new museum to house the bronzes, partly financed by germany. so us, missouri professionals. it is important for us to discuss on issues and areas of collaboration. so that would be able to benefit from this, you know, of toddler, patricia museums across europe are starting to opt for collaboration after years of confrontation. but the british museum has refused to give back. it's $900.00

bruncess. the issue has also become a baker public debate in farms in germany. negotiations are ongoing to keep at least some of the works in the country on permanent loan. let's get the perspective from nigeria and get straight across to our correspondence flooring shakara flourish. hi. can you tell me how this agreement between nigeria and germany is being received there. 2 this agreement is being received, of course, with a lot of excitement on many people are saying that this is a 1st that this is their 1st that's in healing. the very painful colonial history that nigeria and many of the african countries have. and so many especially being the arts community, i seen this as a very important 1st step as to what could you know, be possibly mending the relationship between africa,

between nigeria onto europe. okay, so a 1st step toward healing. can we take a step back and can you help us understand exactly why it is so important for many nigerians that germany has admitted that these artifacts were stolen in the 1st place? well these artifacts are not just we call them artifacts, but many people would argue that they are not just asi fights. they are the instruments of spirituality for a lot of people in be mean. now those things are, you know, that they are like markers of be mean history of, of that the life of, of the been in mind like he tells the story. one artifact tells so many stories that you know, it goes beyond just admiring the beauty of the art walk, there's a lot that goes behind it. and so a lot of people,

especially from the been in kingdom, have seen this as not just feeling artwork, but also stealing part of the spiritual heritage. and so it goes beyond just just ordinary arts is actually something that has a very deep meaning to a lot of people from be mean. and so germany actually admitting that these artworks west stolen after so many years holds a very, very euro it's, it's very important for nigeria as because it then means that we can again take another step towards restitution. like i said before, this is just a very, very big step, a very huge step in the right direction. it's very much welcome. i'm oak people, especially in the belief kingdom. ok, thank you for helping us understand that emotional and cultural significance as flourish. to clear our correspondent in nigeria. really appreciate your time

before we go. well, let's get a quick look at our top story. at this hour. crane says at least 20 people have been killed in russian missile strikes outside the port city of odessa. it is the latest in a series of intensified a russian attacks across ukraine. coming up next brush, banner g has more on hong kong hand over anniversary. that's on t w's asia. stay tuned for that. i'm clear, richardson, berlin, from the team, thanks so much for joining us with . ah, with

you, a 2016 as like a bunch of the queen casa, wants to see if germany was for me. the last few years have been quite a ride and brilliant touch with averted on the home when it comes to jem

a bit. and of course i always look in the eye for a kid, but perhaps the biggest on the new hobby of mine. i'm no longer approved, i love to be in the new to bear a person, i reckon. but when you're feeling altogether, you'll realize that coach is just another way of living. are you ready to meet the driver and then join me, right? just do it on b, w sometimes a seed is all you need to allow big ideas to grow. we're bringing environmental conservation to life with learning packs like global ideas. we will show you how climate change ended for your mental conservation is taking shape around the world and how we can all make a difference. knowledge grows through sharing. download it now for free. mm hm. mm. leonardo da vinci's, mysterious masterpiece. and it's perhaps the greatest leonardo masterpiece in the collection of the louvre and no,

it is not the mona lisa. it is the virgin of the rocks, 2 versions, multiple copies, and a hidden drawing to search for answers starts july 7th on d, w. 50 dr. nearest aisha, coming up to date 25 years off as human control of hong kong from the british, china takes a victory lap. presidents, eugene been visit the city to oversee celebrations. and the inaugural ation of his chosen man as leda. and he leaves no doubt as to how china thieves the cities future.