ah ah ah ah ah, this is dw news live from berlin tonight world leaders paying tribute to mikhail gorbachev, who has died at the age of 91. the last leader of the former soviet union. he is credited with helping to end the cold war. the west saw him as a hero, but inside russia,

opinions are mixed. we'll get reactions to his death. also coming up tonight, a team of you will, experts is on its way to ukraine to separate to nuclear power plant. the head of the mission says that his team plans to stay there and prevent a nuclear catastrophe. and in the united states approval of updated coven 19 vaccines that target the latest strains of the omicron barrier. the tweaked booster shots could be available in the coming day. ah. i'm burned golf, it's good to have you with it's tribute. are being paid to mikhail gorbachev. who has died at the age of 91. the last leader of the soviet union. he helped in the cold war by forging better ties with the west. germany's chance

o shoulds today said that gorbachev had been a courageous reformer who dared to do many things. russian president vladimir putin today held him as an extraordinary global statesman. but the kremlin said gorbachev had been badly wrong about the prospect of a friendly relationship with the i'm quoting here, the blood thirsty west note of that is given a mikhail gorbachev. first speech as leader of the soviet union. it was clear, he was a stark contrast to his predecessors. we thought he was though, all right, i live in peace and freedom is the most important basic right of each individual for our killer yet. gorbachev wanted to change the soviet union to bring it closer to the people. he promoted glass, nest openness, and perestroika reforms to words that will forever be associated with him. his new outlook was popular with many his policies also

applied to the military, despite the resistance of soviet generals issued to us in severe hook on this, i'm convinced that we will also have to reform our military. but he, we have far too many weapons law. certainly, we have to seek dialogue with other superpowers and reduce our arsenals to a reasonable extent in that yourself. as a result of that dialogue gorbachev and you as president reagan find the 1st of many disarmament treaties in 1987. it was the beginning of the end of the cold war in october 1989 when he visited east berlin for the g d r's, 40th anniversary celebrations. gorbachev urged eric hanukkah to implement reforms.

he warned the eastern leader saying, life punishes those who come to late a month after his visit. the berlin wall fell and with it, the iron curtain that had divided europe for decades. it was gorbachev's, reformist, policies that helped unleash a peaceful revolution across eastern europe. in 1990 gorbachev was awarded the nobel peace prize for his key role in bringing about a new peaceful world order. internationally, he was highly regarded but at home he was increasingly under pressure. the economic situation was dire. the soviet union on the verge of falling apart, communists hardliner stage to cool against gorbachev in august 1991. at the end of that year, mikhail gorbachev announced his resignation and the soviet union was dissolved with

many rations holding him responsible for its demise. and my 1st guest tonight is horsed till chic. he was one of the closest advisors of former german chancellor helmut called. he sat at the table when the late german chancellor negotiated germany's re unification with mr. or batch of mr. touching. it's good to have you on the program. you had a front row seat as history was being written in real time. what was that moment like? well, it was an exciting moment. you see her was no taker during this meeting between chancellor mccollugh and secretary to go virtual early february of 1990 in moscow when go watch off

suddenly said it's a, it's the job of both german government to decide whether they wanted they want to be united how they want to be united and how forced. and that moment, i will say where i am witnessing history, real history in europe, and writing gown diverting for general 2nd, which rules are still chancellor. ty, hard, wood, who will the has to repeat the sentence. and in order to avoid any mistake in writing down the exact word and go watch of it, this was a great moment. it a great moment indeed. and,

and was it clear to everyone, particularly you as a german, that you had the leader of the soviet union sitting there who had the power to block any attempt at re unification. but who was choosing not to wield that power? who was choosing to wet germans decide for themselves. what was that reality? was that clear to you at that moment? well at that moment i know it was a clear announcement whether gorbachev would be strong enough to manage it was a different question. and so when i tell you i had laid on me to buy that meeting this foreign secretary. sure. but not,

it was just, it just left his office when i met him in moscow. because we have had a difficult time in january 1990 because the chancellor, him a call was urgently interested in the meeting the school which of the personal meetings and 1st one after the wall had came come down and certainly we had to learn by the media that gorbachev had cancelled all meetings ms for in those in january 19. and i asked her, she was not too late on what was going on in moscow in january because we are waiting for a meeting this go, which he said to me, mr. tell chic, at that time we had that discussion in the leadership in moscow. whether we

should militarily intervene in the g d r one, not. you must. i remind you that about 380000 soviet troops there at that time posted in the t. r. was it would have been an easy effort for them to, to stop and make ation closing the wall again. that's very true. i mean we, we all remember that the tanks, they did not roll well and that is when history was made. mister horst tells you adviser to the late home to call, we appreciate you taking the time to share your memories and your insights tonight . thank you. thank you. we're now we want to take a look at mikhail gorbachev. legacy as seen through the eyes of his fellow russians . now some blame gorbachev for the soviet union's collapse. some even see him as

a traitor, as day broke in moscow. so to did the news of mikhail gorbachev, death russia's news channels reported that president vladimir putin had expressed his deepest condolences, but must device themselves were not united in mourning their former leader, one widow was kaiser with i have a negative view of me shall grab a child's time and power ill, he did a lot of damaging things to our country. we're the one that's facing the consequences on you'll go, i was told, i think he wanted to show all countries and also the western europe. i would say all countries around the world that we are a peaceful country on. if you were miracle gazette that we are ready to disarm last from awesome, we got a lot of those rats of when he introduced ballistic missile reduction, et cetera, et cetera, and move the bank than ever. and gorbachev's, homeland ambivalence reigns, kremlin spokesman dmitri pasco, of hailed him as

a statesman who will go down in history, but dismissed his hopes, of a rapprochement between russia and the west. as romanticism that did not work out was in the face of what he called the bloodthirsty innes of moscow's opponents. we want to go now to our russian affairs analyst konstantin eager. he joins me from vilnius lithuania. it's good to see you. constantine. when boris yeltsin passed away, immediately while m, your putin declared a national day of morning that has not happened for mikhail gorbachev. does that surprise you? no, not at all. and has a very good formal, ah, reason to do not to do her other that not to do to proclaim lashelle morning garage . i was the leader of the soviet union. the country does that doesn't exist. yelton was put his predecessor in the kremlin as present to russia was that's correct. secondly, put in those the majority. i would basically dare say,

probably 90 percent of people that support with him or put him hate me. hell guard which are so of proclaiming a state of national mourning for someone who, who, who's, whom his base hates. that's probably something that he thought very, very, very thoroughly about. although frankly speaking a gorbachev was pretty much supportive of put his policies. and i probably would have hoped that national warming morning would be to plant m n a. how do you explain that? i know that you met gorbachev many times over the years. and i understand gorbachev in putin. they never criticized each other directly publicly. and we're even seeing that now with how putin has handled the passing of gorbachev. but how do you explain the fact that there was no open animosity express between the 2? well, i think because both for their own reasons in

a disliked boris yelton's period, 99 his in russia's history. and gorbachev saw yeltsin, evidently as some one who took away not only his chair and the kremlin, but his country. the soviet union, which she tried to reform and put in of hers hated yeltsin for pro western policies for trying to curtail the parasol the k to be and essentially by basically reducing russia's growth, standing as a great power in the world. so both had their attitudes to yelton, but putin being a politician understood that she cannot avoid declaring national mourning for yeltsin because that's just the protocol. we know that mikhail gorbachev supported the 2014 annexation of crimea. but what happened afterwards? it's not so clear me, do we have an idea of what gorbachev thought about vladimir putin in the invasion of ukraine? you know, brent,

i think that's my impression. gorbachev was always very careful to keep his bill to himself. and although we had some hints that he was disappointed with what happened from the 24th of february, oh, this 8. yes, since put in invaded, he craned 2014. she never said any word of direct criticism. he supported, as you said, the annexation, he supported put his policies that his official, what he thought maybe will know eventually, but not now. his public record remains as such. constant innagot is always with excellent insight. russia and the passing of mikhail gorbachev. constantine, thank you. thank you. experts from the u. n's nuclear watchdog are on their way to these upper region nuclear power plant in ukraine to carry out long awaited inspections. they're not to get there. they'll have to cross the front line

between the city and the upper regia, which is still under ukrainian control. and the russian occupied nuclear power plant. now, the mission follows weeks of growing concern over fighting around the site. arriving to conduct what the head of mission calls a very complex task un inspectors are preparing to visit bizarre parisha power plants from thursday. for now the team remains in ukrainian controlled territory. but the head of the un mission was clear that they are heading to a wall zone, insisting his team house one job to prevent a nucleus accident. you know, we don't carry demi hinton thickly with is a mission that seeks to prevent a nuclear accident. and to preserve as is important, the larger the biggest threat, bowers and in europe, the, the whole of europe, not only in ukraine. so this is what we are concentrating. ukraine and russia had

accused each other of shelling areas near to the facility last week. damage to a transmission line, not the plant off line heightening fears of a radiation leak, or even a react to meltdown. ukraine's energy minister said the visit by the un should drive home the dangers posed by zakiria. the most important at this visit should i underlying the importance of nuclear security and that the russians should understand that they cannot play with this. any games. as combat continues on ukraine's eastern front, all eyes runs up parisha hoping to prevent a disaster that could reach far beyond the countries. boulders are corresponding but he is brilliant. he is in the city of the upper reaches of the he told us what

he has learned about the un nuclear inspectors chances of crossing into russian held territory. we are hearing conflicting signals. russian officials have announced that they will arrive to morrow morning, indicating that it will be a speedy process either. on the other hand, the occupational authorities have said that they will not be handed a pass through the checkpoints and then that they will have to queue up like everybody else, potentially delaying their arrival. it will be very important for them to reach the site and to figure out what's really happening. they are shelling a has occurred today. again, an are, we really don't know how safe the situation is at the moment, but they original plan is that they will travel there to morrow and that they will get access to the plant that was mighty, is filling a reporting there. let's take a look now, some of the other stories that are making headlines this our, the world health organization says more than 50000 cases of monkey pox have been reported globally this year. the health agency has recorded 16 deaths. the majority

of infections are in the united states. the w h o has declared the viral disease, a global health emergency. germany has reached a compensation deal with relatives of his rallies killed in the attack at the munich olympics. in 1972 german media reporting that the families will receive 28000000 euros 11 his rallies and a west german police officer were killed when palestinian militants broke into the olympic village and took hostages. these are images coming to us from the town of bahrain in pakistan's, northern swat valley, where hotels, homes, and roads as you and see have been basically destroyed by unprecedented flooding that the un has described as a climate catastrophe. swat valley is normally a popular tourist destination at this time of year. now it has become

a scene of utter devastation. the overflow from pakistan, swat river, now churns through these city streets. when the flood waters arrived here, they came with unexpected force washing away roads and damaging bridges beyond repair. many of the hotels in this popular tourist region have been destroyed. let us up around 30 to 35 big and small hotels were washed away in the recent flooding. aka, suddenly, today is 6 days in flooding started, but you can still see 20 to 25 feet of water inside the hotels by name of rubio is, is the situation here. now town people here have seen similar devastation before during the last major floods to hit the region in 2010. when local resident says much of the rebuilding done since then has now been lost. i got that biscuit flip.

we were badly affected by the 2010 floods on board, and we rebuilt our houses with a lot of effort and difficulty with glut and sweat at the village. i come from at around 40 to 45 houses that the 140 to 40. they've been completely destroyed the over bud, obey local media, se sum 200000 people, remain stranded in the swat valley, and the worst may not be over with more rain expected. in the coming days, us health officials have approved updates to cobit 19 vaccines that target the latest strains of the oma kron very. the tweet booster shots made by both madonna and pfizer by on tech could be available in a matter of days. they will only be administered to people who have already received their primary vaccinations. we have more now on why covered vaccines

needed an update and how that is being done. to help fight off coven, 19 vaccines induced defensive measures in the body. among them are the production of protective antibodies that can recognise and latch on to the surface of the corona virus. especially it's spike protein that can stop the virus from docking on to cells to infect them and flag it up for destruction by other immune system defenders. but if the structure of the spike protein changes due to mutation, it can have consequences. the immune system might no longer quickly recognize the invader. army kron has over time adapted to become all the more efficient for infecting human cells. there are a number of parameters and characteristics that make it a really difficult virus to deal with. one of which is because it has changed some

of its surface structure by a mutation. and the spike has a number of changes m r n. a vaccines use snippets of genetic code to make the body produced to spike protein to stimulate an immune response to sars covey. to re writing the code is a pretty fast and straightforward process and changing it changes to vaccines associated spike protein. so why have amazon specific vaccines taken so long to arrive? this has a lot to do with 2 factors. factor one, we're not sure that better adapting and refining the vaccine is genuinely going to afford a market improvements in protecting against future infections. and then, of course, at the level of the manufacturer, decisions have to be made. when do we bite the bullet and actually now produce

a new vaccine. experts hope messenger r n a vaccine technology will help us keep pace with new variance of stars covey too. as the virus continues to evolve, we want to pull in l. eric faculty, he's an epidemiologist and co founder of the world health network. there kids good to see you again. you heard that report. we're playing catch up here with the vaccines, and the mutating virus. are we always going to be running behind the vipers? why? i think if we stay ahead of the game with the most current are variance adaptive vaccine. i think we can stay ahead because right now be a 5. is the dominant strain worldwide, and this new booster is for the b 5. so it's perfectly tailored for the virus at the current moment. just like over a year ago, the one point oh,

of back seen was tailored for the vaccine for the virus at that time. but we have to stay ahead of it. and this is for the same reason we have flu vaccine updates every year as well. but again, we cannot just let the virus spread, it's good to reduce both hospitalization, an infection because it's infections of massive number of people though only breed more very and, and i understand that point eric, but this virus has shown us that it can change. you can mutate quickly. how do we know that once we begin the roll out with this tweaked vaccine, that 4 weeks later we're not going to be dealing with lots of new cases of yet a new variable. yeah, that's true. and this is why we need the vaccines plus strategy, not vaccine. only strategy in many countries seem very curly lazy on the other

medication. they only just wanna have the vaccines and be done with it. and i want to emphasize getting the booster of this one is very critical. it's the one i'm really looking for to. but you also how to have other mitigation, such as ventilation, air just infection in 95 mass, especially in doors, especially as winter approaches. and you need them together in synergy cancer at the same time because only together at the same time can you stop transmission infection and therefore a new variance to go. and that's why countries and neglect all 3 pillars and in a way, the vaccines plus the $95.00 mass plus the air disinfection ventilation will be in a world of hurt. once the winter comes, you need all 3 and at the same time. but let me just ask you before we run out of time, what about where you are in the united states? you know, it has been a problem convincing everyone that they should get vaccinated. now we're talking

about not only boosters, we're talking about tweet boosters. moving into the, the alden, how confident are you that enough people are going to get this booster? yeah, that is of course the uptake is a big question and i think in many ways there's a little more eagerness for this booster because it's an updated you know, the new software update as opposed to, you're buying a version that 2 years out of date. i think there will be some of take off for that, but the same time we have to remember the other pillars. and if you don't want to mask, this is why it's really important we put in these air infection, air quality guidelines as well, which let's be honest, is not political or social, logical behavioral in any way. we need all of them together, but this is absolutely critical. to stay up to date and b software updated against

the new virus currently. that's true. i mean if you do it with your i phone, you should do it with your immune system as well as finding as always, we appreciate your time and your insights. thank you. you want to dw news from berlin of next is conflict zone. i will be back at the top of the hour with more world news followed by the day. i hope to see you that ah ah, ah ah ah, with

into the conflict zone with sebastian. as rushing forward is advancing east of

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