is reminder of our top story, this our europe heat wave is setting in new records on the death toll is rising in britain houses are burning as temperatures top 40 celsius for the 1st time since reco it's began dw news, asia with ben facility is next about the back at the top of the hour with more world news have a good day. sometimes books are more exciting than real life. raring to read. ah. what if there's no escape? do w literature list? 100 german ma street. hello guys. this is the

77 percent the platform for africa. you to repeat issues and share ideas. you know, on these channels, we are not afraid to talk to young people clearly have the solution. good future to the 77 percent. every weekend on d w to day on d, w, use asia, the rice narrow says sri lanka, lawmakers prepared to replace their ousted leader who flight the country. time is also taking away for the millions of people going hungry. medicine and fuel are also in short supply, who will rescue sri lanka from economic collapse. and north korea claims. it's nearing the end of its covert 19 crisis. while

a new wave of infections hidden asian neighbors, driven by some variance of ami chronic ah, i've been fas all and thanks for joining us. a shake up in the race for sri lanka, next president. the main opposition leader has dropped out such a prima dancer said he's throwing his support to another contained on making it a 3 way race. on twitter, florida said he was withdrawing his candidacy for the greater good of the country and would work with the opposition for victory. he's throwing his support behind dallas, alabama, a former education minister, and part of a distant wing in the ruling party, acting president around it because i'm a singer, has the backing of the s l p leadership, but faces calls from protest is to resign. the 3rd candidate is left us and nora, the sun, younger,

who brand for president in 2019 and last the winner will take charge of the bankrupt nation that's seeking an international bailout. and while the presidential braces narrowed, it also got more complicated as t w's. i'm re to chamber explains, i'm standing at one of the pill chairs taking place in the city of colombo. this one is called by the teachers union. many trade union have planned to protest a day before the sri lankan parliament votes for the new president. in a surprise development this morning, the leader of the opposition zod you thema dasa, redo his name from the boys to present in there. now 3 people left, john in victor, missing of the acting president, has the support of ousted president dodge up. ok. so spotty, put in another development that file it says has split. and therefore, john in victor missing, i can no longer be sure that he get the numbers to win the presidency when

a vote takes place tomorrow. it's a secret about it. so anything can happen. weekly hill, i shouting, children's against and on his vicar, missing us. they don't want to have a president who has means to have support from the outside president. what am i about jeff buckshot. they want a fresh start for the country. a new dawn for this beleaguered nation which has suffered so much in the past few months. the people who are still struggling is a sure did you feel you shipments have come with a standing a 2 bedroom station olivia today there was a q kilometers long of people waiting to get just a little bit of view. and so they could survive. head announced by the united nation to hescamp for relief as a relief of people here. but for now, for now, all eyes on the presidential election, which mistake this tomorrow. the united nation says over 5 and a half 1000000 sri lankan are in need of life saving assistance. but those fuel shortages, we just thought about main supplies, copy transport, official figures,

show food inflation, has reached 80 percent. milton pereira cannot afford enough food, and it shows at age 74, he keeps his hair neatly combed, but other features bear witness to long waits for the next small meal. i bought it . it's very difficult to live. even a loaf of bread is expensive. we have 6 children in the family, and one we have to get meals. 3 lumpkins are cutting back the world food program says 5 out of every 6 families are skipping meals, eating less or buying worse food inside his kitchen. pereira shows what his family can still put on the table, because in my mom, we can only buy about 250 grams of fish. and sometimes that is only one fish. we have to cut it into many small pieces,

so everyone in the family can eat because we don't have much money. sometimes we give it to the children that can be and we adults only a degree at a nearby vegetable shop. there's no lack of supplies, but customers have to pay twice. what they did just 3 months ago. for many healthy produce is no longer affordable. that means that people are coming to buy food, but they aren't happy because they don't have money. the prices have gone up. the main reason is there's no way to transport those items because there's no fuel to do that, but that's why the prices have gone up again. but at an anti government protest camp, one man is cultivating a different solution. not through buying and selling, but growing his own food and then sharing it with others. free of charge. yeah,

i'm have really happy, really, really, really happy. people are coming very happy. i get to it will thing here 3. i'm not charge. like many reluctance, theodore roger puck sir, blames the country's former leaders for the current crisis. he believes that his work at the protest camp is a positive influence. are not going who these people are kicked out after. i am not going, i'm here. because of did to local people need decent, dare say you really so can hold me. leslie and come in here. my knowledge, i don't of you to people. it's knowledge that many people in sri lanka may need to feed themselves and their families in a crisis that's just been growing and growing. ah,

warnings today of another wave of cove at 19 in parts of asia. there are new clusters of infections in several big chinese cities, including shanghai officials or extending locked downs on millions of residents ad rolling out you've mast testing china, sticking with it 0 covert policy of eliminating outbreaks. as soon as they appear, japan has hit its highest number of new daily cases since february. authorities say the virus is spreading rapidly. the prime minister is calling for special care ahead of school. holidays and infections of surged in south korea. experts predict hundreds of thousands of new cases in the coming weeks. but over the world's most heavily fortified border in north korea. officials say they're at a very different stage in this battle, claiming to have already diffused the crisis. the case cna statement was both celebratory and short on detail work to perfect the state anti epidemic and counter

crisis capacity has intensified. and the anti epidemic campaign improved to finally diffuse the epidemic crisis and restore stability. but pyongyang claims cannot be confirmed because there's no independent data. when the world health organization has pointed this out in the past where people think it'll, north korea only acknowledged it's cove it outbreak in may using that was when leader kim jong on seen wearing a mask for the 1st time since the pandemic started in 2020 declared an emergency and ordered locked downs across the country. but the antivirus push has faced its own challenges due to border closures. north korea has no coven vaccines. instead, state media have emphasized measures like nationwide medical check ups and daily testing of water supplies. here. so we are conducting an examination of

drinks produced in the city somewhat to guarantee the safety and hygiene of drinking water. they don't, we are also testing river water, including the tay dong river and potash river. were also checking the air and waste water to thoroughly prevent the spread of coven 19. whither lucky yet, fowler changed to listener. we heed. north korean authorities have admitted 4700000 corona virus cases. practically all of whom have now allegedly recovered. journalist frank smith joins us from south korea. frank, let's look at the numbers. the north says 99.9 percent of its so called fever patients have fully recovered. i know north korea is extremely isolated, but no other country in the world has got through this pandemic so unscathed. well, actually, then it's 99.98 percent out of 4800000 people.

they've reported just 74 fatalities. if we compare that to south korea, so it's south korea has a fatality rate of about point one percent over the past couple of months where it's north korea is that point 002 percent. if we believe those figures, those are coming from the korea central news agency. one of the problems that we have with north korea is that transparency of media ngos really evacuated north korea after north korea sealed the border in about mid 2020. so the information that we're getting is really controlled by the government. and given what we know about the pandemic, it's, it's introduced a lot of skepticism into how north korea's is fearing with coven 19 been. and if we

look at the timing, it was only 2 months ago. north korea 1st acknowledged an outbreak of covered 192 to 3 years after everyone else. and now it's on top of it on after only a couple months. yes, international health experts are having trouble with these figures. again, if we look at the trajectory of how the pandemic has played out in other countries, how from the 1st case, the development and the peak of a case and, and how it abs? following that peak, it's really difficult to believe that north korea is already down to the low numbers that it is suggesting. one of the things that is telling, though, in north korea, is that they are reporting about coven 19 quite a bit on korea's news agencies to the korean people that indicate certainly that coven 19 is still a problem inside of north korea. and it's,

and it's still affecting a wide number of people there. then what more do you know about these new methods? the note says it's been developing to better detect the virus. well, that's a kind of a difficult question to answer as well. early on in the, in the pandemic. you know, north korea said for 2 years that it didn't have any coven 19, even though. busy north korea didn't accept any vaccines from other countries around the world. there have been reports more recently earlier this year, the north ria accepted some medicine from china. recent pictures in july of political meetings in pyongyang showed some smaller meetings with delegates wearing masks. and then a large meeting with hundreds of delegates in a large auditorium. none of them were married wearing masks. so this suggest to, to some experts that north korea may be distributing some vaccines among certain

members of the population. there are. busy also reports from, from north korea media that they. busy are building p c r labs to, to further test people and get a better understanding of, of how serious, serious, the, so break is there been, i guess the, the big question is whether or not this outbreak is getting worse or getting better . but we'll have to leave with a frank. thank you very much for your analysis and inside. thank you for joining us here on t w. you sage up somebody. ah, i woman with god. margaret was 64 when she passed right. a motorbike and she hasn't stopped since 18000 kilometers 18 countries. the adventure of a lifetime. no limits. nuggets,

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