ah, new york city is to day the beating heart of global diplomacy after 2 years of zoom meetings because of the pandemic. the un general assembly is back in town, and this time, the only leader allowed to appeared virtually is ukraine's president old. and we are zalinski. meanwhile, vladimir putin's proxy authorities and occupy ukrainian areas have announced referendums on joining russia. ukraine's allies have slammed the move and keep interprets it as a sign that russia has its back against the wall. i'm nichol fairly shin berlin and this is the day. ah, you having rough seats, a wind sort of global vis, gone, then dissolve your eyes. when you set the course for reuniting with russia and we won't turn away from it. then we advocate an immediate cease fire,

the protection of civilians and non combatants, which they can think whatever they want. ukrainian territory doesn't belong to anyone else. there are 40000000 people living in ukraine to occupy them with 100000 soldiers will, to carry out this special military operation is undoubtedly unrealistic to prosecute crumbling inequality is not exploding doth planet. these burden also on the day lights out in puerto rico after a hurricane batter is the island still rebuilding after another devastating hurricane almost 5 years ago to the day we were hoping you wouldn't be so big. oh but well, it was bigger than we expected and i'm good on the real. ah, it was an alarming assessment of the state of affairs inaugurating the un general assembly secretary general antonio good cherish address the leaders of

a world and turmoil, accusing them of being gridlocked in global dysfunction on the world's biggest diplomatic stage. he painted a grim picture of a world in which the international order had broken down one of cascading crises leading to financial meltdowns and social unrest. and he warned of what is still to come. as he put it, we ain't seen nothing yet. out world is even better and better lies. geopolitical divides that and the, reminding the work of the secret if he goes to and the reminding international law and the mining fast and people's facing democratic institutions. and the, reminding all forms of international cooperation. we are in rough seas, a we, instead of global discontent, is on the horizon a winter of global discontent, significantly fueled by russia's war in ukraine and the global fallout it has triggered. now, while world leaders were gathered in new york,

moscow has announced plans to hold referendums on formally annexing parts of ukraine, occupied by its forces and their separate his allies, ukraine's president vladimir zalinski office says any such move would destroy the remaining chances for peace talks. the plan referendums announced to day come after ukrainian forces made sweeping gains on the battlefield in the east of the country, driving back russian troops. ukrainian presidential spokesman henri year mac says russia is showing signs of desperation. writing this on his telegram channel. naive blackmail with threats and horror stories of quote referendums and quote, mobilizations from those who know how to fight only with children and peaceful people. this is what the fear of defeat looks like. the enemy is afraid. and for more on this, i'm now joined by doctor jade mcglynn. she is a senior researcher at the monterey initiative in russian studies,

an author of the upcoming book titled russia's war. she joined us from oxford in england. dr. mcglynn good to have you on the day ukraine says russia is sensing defeat, is out really what's happening. i think so. yes. the counter offensive clearly took the russian by surprise. that inability, eva that failure of intelligence and not expecting it, or they're taking inability to move enough troops around or indeed to have enough to fight back in any way affectively in the counterfeits. in harkey, the region suggests an army that is clearly not performing up to the propaganda propaganda stick on bus, which is locked in and out in russian. what would that station mean for the situation on the ground for the people who could go from living in russian control territory to territory annexed by russia?

this is very worrying because some of the territories, for example, that parisha and hudson suggesting to the next not entirely controlled by russia. i'm fact even doing that. and i think even now do hands on entirely controlled by russian. but we've got parisha, for example, the collaboration is still 40 that has said that the whole of the provision will hopefully join russia after these kind of referendum. but they didn't even control the main city of the regions appreciate itself. so then it beat us into some interesting questions. where will the russian think that ukrainians, occupying russian land, it's just, it's just totally bizarre. and of course, the worrying thing is that it could be used as a way of as an excuse to even more nuclear blackmail, a friend of nuclear attacks because of course, versus that territory as, as russia than any attack on that territory could be used to justify nuclear

strike, or at least the threat of one. yeah, i want to read something to you, the former president dmitri, but met with a road on telegram today. he said, an encroachment on the territory of russia is a crime that warned any means of self defend. so do you believe this move to illegitimately follow up ukrainian territory could lead to an even greater escalation of the war, not, not only in the upper regia and around the nuclear plants, but in general, where we see ukrainian troops trying to regain control of their territories. and russia treating it as an incursion into, into russian territory. i think come, 1st of all, of course, mission and transformation from so the key liberal technocrats of 12 years ago. intensive, terrifying wall longer is if it's been quite the seem to behold,

but i will also recall that he said a similar thing about attack them, crimea, telegram channel, and then when the ukrainians didn't talk, you deleted that telegram voice. so, you know, and similar way, there was quite a lot of talk about what russian would do in sweden and enjoy me too. and that didn't really come to pass. so i definitely think since, because of the gravity and the horror of what we are talking about in terms of a nuclear strike, of course you must tread very cassidy and we must clear, you'll have to be very sensible because even if there's a one percent risk such as such as the har that is, was very, very cautious indeed. however, i don't think we should just sort of bend and buckle to the russian, say the russians are clearly not doing very well in the wall at the moment. clearly it does look like a tight, his time ukrainian on the receiving incredibly, technologically superior weapon. re to that which russia has the russian on the have the version on the lacking the morale,

the russian on these is lacking in it to the nitty to, to get enough men. and so it's kind of natural that they, which of course have recourse or decide to click on that the nuclear supremacy, which is something that they mentioned quite a lot even before, even before the question was, references. because, you know, nuclear weapons is one of the few areas where russia genuinely as a superpower and it can read back it up with the whole thing is the russian parliament voted today to tough and the punishment for desertion and subordination . in times of military mobilization, how big of a problem does that seem to be among russian troops? i think i think it is a problem, but i, you, i personally have interpreted these laws more about the future, more about the possibility of eva eva dangling. the possibility of mobile is ation or because they are preparing for mobilization. and of course, it's always

a full game to make predictions, especially in this world when people are, when everybody has been on that one going to another. but it does look like we find that if not a full blaze ation then perhaps the partial mobilization may be on its way. and in that case, of course, the law would make it very hard for people to surrender. wanted to, to go over to the ukrainian side to join an edge, the russian pro ukrainian brigades. to know if i knew some analysts believe that, that, these referendums that are now on the table or a way of trying to force ukraine to, to the negotiating table. do you think that would work now, mainly because of the, i mean it's that it's the feature that gets forgotten. i think sometimes where you can ukrainian even if you wanted to go to the negotiation tables and i have to say

there's not much even if you did ukraine, i mean sort of what this is all about. your grant is a democracy and i think it's 93 percent of ukrainians are again making any concession, even in crimea in order to secure peace. and i think it would be very hard to convince ukrainians as well that such a piece that you always want to put in, but that such a piece would be enduring. and that would be a piece for them. or would it just be a piece you know, for us in the rest of europe and the russians char? so it's, it's not going well for a potent and the sense among civil society is growing just last week. the local politicians asked in an open letter to resign for the good of the country. what the extent of frustration with flattery. that's of course, quite difficult to judge, and i wouldn't oh, the state that i wouldn't overstate the level of frustration or protest. i mean the

that particular precinct as well was phrased in such a way it's of course it was quite obvious to which they were sorry, but there was an element as deniability, plausible deniability to it. and i think that's kind of what allowed it to happen with them this a long ponder, going on that it more generally in civil society a lot. i mean, there are difficulties of trusting goals at the moment, but i would say is actually a lot of the findings are quite ambiguous and they suggest a social sense of a lot of russians or just shooting off from the war. even we can see this quite literally in terms of the television think as well. let's just stop watching the, the sort of, the more propagandist they can bombastic shows. and there's a genuine feeling of kind of, well, not that they would agree to anything that's certainly not the way to read it, but more than just you said you're going to just get on with it. and i think a general kind of fee and not wanting to take responsibility for what's happening,

but i'd be there, i would certainly caution against any interpretation that this is sort of in the leads or, and, and the russian people, you know, it's kind of being forced on the rushing people, i don't think that that would be correct interpretation. okay, you are writing a book called russia's war without any spoilers. how do you see it in the war or the one thing that i'm going to go to the unit then doesn't it both? if you want it doesn't that to me. you know how to i just submitted the new script last week. but 1st of all, i had a very depressing conclusion, and it was, i just felt like it wasn't the right conclusion. and in the end, i changed it. and ultimately i do think that this will, will end in, in defeat russia, in some form. and i think that defeat will be very quickly to some sort of to some sort of class. now when this will happen, that i do not know,

but i think things will go quite quickly. but the way i do think that i do think that this is russia was, i think that this war resonates with people. and i think that broadly people, if they don't fit on it, then they create to it. they agree to it, they accept it without condemning it. however, i think that a brochure isn't due to be this way. i think that could be, you know, could be a different russia countries change. and i think that in the future with the russia that, that is able to live at peace with itself and with its neighbors. but i don't really see the war ending until until that change until the russians are ready to make that change. and i think needs to be something organic and something that comes from from usher itself. dr. jade mcglenn of the monterey initiative in russian studies. thank you so much for all that key. ah, pet damage is over. we still have

a problem with covered. we're still doing a lot of work on it. so it's what the pandemic is. so if you notice no one's wearing mask, everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. o. s. u. s. presidential vine. they're weighing in on the pandemic and a tv interview that's raised eyebrows in the medical community, both at home and abroad. here in europe, the drugs regulator, the e. m. a. pushed back against the suggestion that coven 19 was no longer a serious menace. we in europe still consider the pandemic as ongoing. that is important, that member states prepare for roll out of the vaccines and especially the adapted vaccines to prevent further spread of this disease in europe. we can now bring and dr. eric bible thing is an epidemiologist and coven task force, chief and co founder of the world health network in washington, dc. dr. fi holding. so good to see you again. first up to you as a medical professional, is the pandemic over?

absolutely not. and we were all exasperated and very frustrated with the president biden's ad libbed comments, which i might add his own whitehouse co, a task board members, and no idea. he said before it aired on tv and was shared on twitter. so this was a very on coordinated ad lib comment, and it is public health nonsense. it is a very dangerous and right now because we're trying to roll out by balance adapted vaccine in the u. s. and in other countries worldwide. and by telling people that dependent, because over there are going to be lulled into complacency and not take the new back in which are absolutely critical to help ward off the winter wave and the winter wave is coming. so this was a horrible message and it's not true considering that in the us alone, 40000 americans have died of code in the last 90 days alone. in the 40500 people

are dying a day, you know, and 911 level of death a week. that's just not acceptable. so i'm really, really started by and why do you think he said it? i think it could be political because, you know, maybe china who some independent voters are ahead of the mid term elections, which is coming up in less than not a month and a half on the could be a wide variety of reasons i think is also that you know, he was at a you know, a business industry auto show. ready are in detroit and was trying to trend gin up and say, you know, how well the economy is doing. but, you know, obviously saying look, look around, there's no one wearing mass with us because you know, your own, you know, administration has dropped mass mandates and i think in certain ways it wants to showcase that economies rubbing up, which is great. but then of course there's the not just the desk also long cove, it actually is hurting us workforce by huge, huge amounts. and i think just trying to sweep it under the rug for political

optics ahead of the election is not a good idea because the virus does not care about politics as we have learned. and just sweeping the rug and low and people and complacency will set us up for even worse disaster when the inevitable winter wave comes. you mentioned that before an average of 400 people are still dying every day in the us because of come at 1000000 suffer from long co read immunocompromised people live in fear of contracting the virus every day. so what is the statement like that from the president mean for them and their families? yeah, it's very disturbing because it's many ways it just ignores the plight of people with immunocompromised disease. with risk factors, it's owned, it's able, isn't it? basically, if you have any of these diseases, you know tough, tough stuff, you know, life sucks for you, but you know, matter, that's what, that's the messages and no one went up. you know, high cdc says

a list of 20 plus high risk factors for cobit, and they say if you have high risk factors, you now talk to your doctor. but this risk factor encompasses anywhere from $230.00 to $3.00 quarters of all adults in the united states. it is in turn in many ways c, c, 's own definition. you know, vast majority of the adults are high risk and to just ignore them and basically say, don't worry about it. you're actually hurting this population even more. and i think this able ism, this type of comment is really, really disturbing for people with risk factors in or trying to protect children as well. just quickly before we'll have to let you go, how can growing apathy, or it or ignorance towards a continuing threat. undo the progress we have achieved since 2020. well, the key thing is if do let the virus spread, it's going to get more mutations that can evade previous existing immunity. so just

because you have pre existing unity does not mean you're going to what prevents the next on the crime and by aladdin. but just saying that the bios dependent is over. you're just going to breathe more transmission and more transmission in more barriers. and we're going to be on this train all over again, and with there are more transmissible bearings out there. this is why getting the b 5 booster right now is really, really key. but when people hear that over, are people going to go out with the same urgency to get coaster? i think not. and that's what really scares me disturb epidemiologist. eric cycle thing always a pleasure. ah, the caribbean island of puerto rico is cleaning up after taking a beating from hurricane fiona and struck the island as a relatively weak category. one storm, but it was a slow moving system that drops huge amounts of rain causing widespread flooding.

it also knocked down the islands power grid just like hurricane maria did. 5 years ago, almost to the day this bridge was installed in recent years at a cost of some $3000000.00. beyond widespread damage to infrastructure. overflowing rivers have also forced cousins of people from the homes. authorities have opened more than a 100 shelters across the island. those will have in fled. their homes have had to travel long distances to get essential supplies. oil that we're looking for gasoline, water, ice, all the supplies necessary for getting through this storm. we were hoping it wouldn't be so big. oh, but well, it was bigger than we expected on the rental. but you have to make,

due with what you have or where i did with such scenes of devastation of familiar input are equal which never fully recovered from hurricane maria. the 2017 storm was the worst recorded on the island. it left about 3000 people dead and forgot the longest bar blackout ever experience in the us. now, many areas in puerto rico are once again in darkness. part of the governor has one that it could take days to get the bar back on. a more just audio in many areas that have never seen flooding are you. there has been an unprecedented accumulation of water in which in fact, in many areas it was greater than what we saw during hurricane maria and maria, the poor d. c. it is due to early to know the full scope of the damage cattle. i mean, it is the journalist and executive director of the center for investigative

journalism in puerto rico and joins me now is not good to see. we're hearing 80 percent of puerto rico is still without power. what more can you tell us about the current situation? hi, good. hi, everyone in the situation is that most of the population does not have electricity or water right now. there's also programs with internet and phone gonna be in some areas this. so part of the i listed hardest, he logs everywhere and and basically what i own a left is a lot of water and flows in the south in florida. he, i'm, you know, we're really glad you could join us with all those problems with connectivity and, and, and power. this is

a painful reminder of the disaster that struck puerto rico on this very day 5 years ago. what has been done since hurricane maria to increase puerto rico's overall resilience ah, the recovery after year again, maria has been very slow. very less than 10 percent of the money has been spent. of the recovery federal money to recover from from maria has been spent. so the main words that have to be done in order to recover you press structure and the most important infrastructure, how things, bridges, and other kinds of important wards have not been done. why have they basically because of the bureaucracy of the federal government and the local

government the, the stafford. that is the one that the federal government follow in order to disperse morning for recovery is very bureaucratic. they experimenting important always new procedures to develop these recovery works. and those experiments have not gone well in terms of the structure on the, on the faces that municipalities mean by that is how to follow in order to do the work. so yes, the, the lack of continually be in government to is also a problem. yeah. and in general, you know, also the inflation and other issues that are out of control. the government have also been a burden sports journalist parliament from puerto rico. thank you so much for your

time and that update from the island. thank you. and that's that for today, but as always, the conversation continues to ah, this is the w news alive from berlin. we are interrupting our regular programming to take you to the 77th session of the united nations general assembly in new york, where we're about here from the german chancellor, olaf shots. let's take you now an adolescent day, both as the newly elected chancellor of germany and as to proud delegate to our united nations. my country and the united nations in device simply linked today's democratic and reunited germany owes its role on the vote stage to you are international friends and partners. you placed your trust in us to become and to

remain the peace loving member of the international community. we know that we owe our freedom of stability and our prosperity to an international order with the united nations at the score. therefore, my current country's commitment to this organization and its noble gold piece, development and equal rights and dignity for every human being will never vain. legged do this, the can't, the slider to an outside. absolutely. and the other one's friends in this good went into time during which we are getting further away from these nova gould is remo. after decades, rush be of the came walls and flocks of the time in which we marked the fall of the iron curtain and german reunification of the june after the technological revolution of the internet and the digital transformation which have made us all interconnected than ever before. we are now facing a new fragmentation of the world. you was in conflicts have emerged which ones are

major global crises of hiding up before i send are combining and reinforcing one another. another. some have even seen this as a harbinger of the world without rooms in robot. it is true that the risks are global, ordered real or companies, and yet tongue. i do not home with the image of a world without royals for to reason. and justin sondra about her 1st legal and our world has clear rules and the rules that we the united nations created together using carter. this charter has breached one's own pharmacies and all of us freedom and peace. her code says tendency up the chart and rule is our collective rejection of a world without rule was eagles up probably are for one level is in the absence of rules are problem is the lack of willingness to abide by them and to enforce them even thought about laws about the image of the world without rules leads as his trade for a 2nd increase in your mind. if we do not defend who can further develop and

strengthen our global award eligible to get there than it is. and k, as without rules that we face, but a world in which the rules are made by their musician who can dictate them to us is to fight dinged of their military, economic or political power. how do you resort legal bugs? both is the alternate. if to my rules based world are, is not allocate, but the dominion of the strong over the week of the semester must have, does come in. however, the vast majority of us cannot be indifferent to whether the rule of power or the power of rulers winds the day. the king christian that we as an international community phase, they still shall we stand helplessly by and watch as some seem to concert hudson back into a global order in which more is common in detriment of lot. it takes in which independent nations have to submit to their stronger naylor's old colonial masters in which prosperity and human right.