understand this new culture. so you are not a visitor, not a guests. you want to become a citizen. in full migrants, your platform for reliable information. ah ah, this is dw news live from berlin on a surprise visit to washington polymers. the landscape urges americans and not to give up on you, cried tamani is not cheery. cheese is an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible weight. but

well, us lawmakers continue to see ada ukraine as a worthwhile investment. also coming up on the show stages, sat for benjamin netanyahu to return to power in israel. he's announced a new government the most right wing coalition, in israel's history and cove at 19 sweeps through china. now that beijing has abandoned a district 0, coven policy infections are surging. as the virus moves for the population largely unchecked. ah. hello, i'm claire richardson, thanks much for joining us. president vladimir zalinski has used a surprise visit to washington to thank americans for their support, calling it crucial in ukraine's fight against russia's invasion in a h t. u. s. lawmakers. zalinski said no country could be a neutral bystander,

and that russia must be defeated. he predicted that next year would be a turning point in the war. it is the landscape 1st now trip abroad. in the nearly 10 months since russia invaded precedence zalinski was given, the red carpet treatment as he arrived at the white house greeted like an old friend. but as you as counterpart joe biden, they've spoken many times on the phone, but this was her 1st face to face meeting since rush and made it ukraine in the oval office flight and granites lensky, another wish high on ukraine's weapons list, continues to strengthen ukraine's ability to defend itself, particularly air defense. and that's why we're going to provide a new credit with patriot missile battery. first lensky. it was an opportunity to pay his respects to ukraine's because back i knew that i want to give you something

. one guy is really the real hero, real kept him and he asked me to pass his award and he asked me to best good work personally by them. you will understand. a said captain fall, hymer battery. yes, he is very brave and he said give it to very brave president, and i want to give you that is a cross cross for military married. that is one god movie. yes. well, on deserve but much appreciated. thank you. thanks for joe biden. it was a chance to send a clear signal to russia that the u. s. is in it to win it. and i stage is committed to ensuring that the brave ukrainian people can continue,

continue to defend their country against russian aggressions. as long as it takes the president of ukraine next, not rooting lensky and heroes. welcome. as he addressed a, we're joint session of the united states congress against all odds and doom and gloom. shenaria c. u grain didn't fall. your green is alive and keegan. our 2 nations are allies in this battle and next year we'll get it done in point. i know it, the boy and when ukrainian courage and american resolve must guarantee the future of our common freedom, the freedom of people who stand for their well use. what

a mere zalinski knows, support like this or washington will be vital in the months or years of fighting ahead. but it's not guaranteed. some republicans are concerned about the billions being giving to ukraine. and when they take control of the house next year, they might trade a title, the purse drinks. so let's dig into that with our d. w correspondence, definite simons in washington, d. c. i stuff in our so after the most recent elections in the us, we have republicans taking charge and january in the house of representatives. can you tell us how much you expect that to impact us? support for ukraine is good. and yeah, there is some expectations that it will because as hinted in the report, republicans have said that they will go with a comb through every spending bill related to helping ukraine even further with security assistance. remember the president biden had just

a days few days before now, and i agreed and, and it would make possible another $2000000000.00 insecurity assistance. and now one sophisticated air defense system patriot air defense system goes to ukraine. so these billions and billions and billions spent by the u. s. president, by this administration, by this country, by the united states. and of course, republicans because they promised that in their constituencies will be more conservative in terms of spending. that's what they said. of course, there's also other precious political pressures to keep helping ukraine on this high level, high financial and material level. oh, it's public opinion like that. and he's when he got a standing ovation from us lawmakers during his visit. but you think the american people share that same sentiment? that's a really tough question to answer because you know, it's depending on who you ask is the american public aware of what's going on in

the ukraine that the ukrainians are suffering and looking at a horrible time just now ahead of christmas in darkness and cold and i'm is america's aware of that. russia is to blame for this. yes, of course there. but of course there's also millions of americans who say, look, this is all good. we help, but it does it have to be do, do americans or does america have to really carry the, the burden s it is a paying the most and giving the most assistance to ukraine? i would say yes, a majority still says, yeah, we need to do what we need to do and it doesn't really matter. or that this is maybe a also a little bit of a strain here on our purse, but it is necessary to stop letting me put his aggression in ukraine. he bought you was his politics and were just, you know, 2 years away from another presidential, the election so rainy and it's going to be interesting to see how this all pans out

for you crate it yet. thanks so much that happens. and whereas in washington dc, we also ask how aren't ukrainians even zalinski us track? i put that question to deities and the latches ah, well people were at 1st surprised that they president went abroad. remember, i've allowed him is the left. he had said a time and again that he wouldn't leave a ukraine until russia who is defeated. and so far it hasn't been defeated. this war is very much still going on. but overall, a people are supportive may be let's listen to what kegan's told me this morning about this presidential visit to the u. s. maria, i'm confident that my president will handle everything and that there will soon, big piece in our country. i'm only thinking positively that everything will be as good as possible and we will be heard no more. so i think that this will increase

our supports in 2023, and i really hope we will get the weapons that will allow us to wind up as war. mom from a from another was blizzard, for it was necessary to go there and talk in person. it was a very good decision in my opinion for another domain though, i think it's very good unless it is especially pleasing that we will be supplied with a large amount of weapons. specifically the fact that the us will give them additional aides for rocket systems. sounds like a relatively positive assessment there. i mean, well this comes as we understand there were new error rate alerts in the key of this morning. can you tell us what the situation is like there in the capital? well indeed there were error, the lads a dis morning there were some strikes across ukraine, not today, not here in the capitol abed elsewhere, but that's a daily reality for people they leave without threats day in a day out. and the result of those tracks that well, those tracks are often hit

a critical infrastructure there, hit a power generating facilities. and that means that most people, in fact, millions of people across ukraine, ah, a living without electricity or that means they don't have heating at a very cold time of the year. they also dont have a water. i often forget about a hot water as well. so it's very, very dire living conditions. most people are from a big cities there would go to what is called here, invincibility center. so those are centers of energy being set up for air does in its emergency fitness center is set out by the government where people can't charge their phones, they can have an internet connection to continue working. they can also simply warm up a little bit and have a cup of tea. so it is very, very tiring for the entire population. and the problem is that it shows no sign of warner, of a winding down. there are asterix every day across the ukraine,

and that's precisely why velocity me zalinski went to visit its close as i lie, the united states and my knowledge has for us in ukraine. thank you so much for your reporting. and we're just hearing that president zalinski has posted on social media saying that he stopped in poland on his return trip from the us to meet with his counterpart there. andre duda, he added that they disgusted the years historic challenge is due to a full scale war. we're going to move now to some other stories that are making headlines around the world. the chinese and russian navies house were gonna join to naval exercise in the east china sea, underlining the deepening military and political ties between the 2 countries known as a joint sea 2022. the exercise will continue until december 27th. and the report from the news agency bloomberg says germany is burning coal at the fastest pace in at least 6 years. levels of pollution from germany's power production are now comparable to those of india and south africa. berlin has turned

to other fossil fuels and a bid to replace russian gas in afghanistan, dozens of women have rallied in the capital kabul to protest a ban on women entering universities, italy bon, announced the measure earlier this week, prompting international condemnation. female students have since been turned away from university campuses across the country or to northern india, including the capital, delhi are shrouded in dense fog as the country's pollution crisis combines with wintery weather to wreak havoc on wednesday, low visibility, lead to a major vehicle pile up here the city of gra, poor well, israel's designated prime minister benjamin netanyahu has succeeded in forming a right wing coalition government. he made the announcement after weeks of negotiations with religious and far right. political partners. netanyahu let his party to win the most seats in israel's november election by needed coalition

partners to govern. the new governments agreement includes plans for judicial and security reforms. and critics of the coalition are worried about via went to rhetoric directed against the countries era minority. benjamin b. b. netanyahu may soon add a new chapter to his memoirs, published during the election campaign. israel's former prime minister is back, but this time netanyahu seated his return with the help of a controversial far right alliance. everything always be pencil, mcdaniel, cuz looked on the old. can be a reasonable prime minister even if you do not vote for him or not like him, he can run these were learned, he can run conflict to couldn't do it. the question is his partners who are his partners and that's the problem. his partner's the openly anti are up and homophobic ultra nationalist villagers, scientism alliance. it's leaders are bits i'll, it's more twitch and it hm. i've been via,

been given here during the election campaign, has been convicted for incitement and bart, for military service because of his extremist views from other blog of death to arabs. no, no, no, no. yoga, whoever wants to live here in peace alone, rosalinda. but whoever is throwing molly chops, whoever is killing children, killing women is a terrorist. miss. so what do we want that to terrorists? critics are concerned about their ultra nationalist religious agenda becoming mainstream and is ready politics. and there were attacks on israel, our minority among them elected members of israel's parliament. the candidate are getting me attacking me in order to attack the whole or a and put a senior community. when he is saying good death though,

terrorist he says this thought ups as he said before, 10 or 5 or 3 years, we are talking about very extreme and racists. a jewish politician party became the 3rd largest political force and the november 1st election. their strong showing has split the country even more, i feel frankly scared and also disappointed. around 400000 people voted for than you been. and these 2 people have, i find no calling opinion. and that's personally also vendor me as a woman, as a leftist in this country and also is and dvd person. i think most people voted for bend his ear because of the security situation in israel. we really want the security to improve push it. i think people are longing for

someone who does act and not only talks, milligram of seem i person you know, ben kabir, initiate. i was working in his law firm when yes, history. earlier i asked either the correspondent rebecca readers and to roost love what to expect from the new government when it must be stated that this isn't the 1st right wing government that the countries are the same, but it is, as you rightly point out the most extreme we're st. parties that are part of this coalition that were once conceded on the fringes, now their front and center and his writing politics. and that is likely to bring about some pretty big changes. and particularly when you look at the big ticket items, let's take, for example, the occupation and people living under it, the palestinians, living in the west bank to at least 2 of the coalition leaders, if you will, the, the leaders of the parties that are making up this coalition pro annexation and their anti to state solution. and so we're likely to see changes there even in the late up to with,

during the negotiations. in the late up to this government formation, we've same promises made more direct control been given to these members of the can i sit in it, especially when it comes to policing, both in israel and in the west bank as well when it comes to the settlement policy, so we are likely to say potentially more violence or more, more uprising will balance and of course expansion of those settlements. now the other things, particularly in israel, we're looking at a law that has been discussed a concerning the supreme court. now the supreme court is one of the only checks and balances on the government. the country doesn't have a constitution, it doesn't have a 2nd house of parliament. so the supreme court is one of the only checks and now the new government are wanting to pass a law that will, is called the override clause. that will mean that the elected government will be able to override supreme court decisions, basically giving it free well to what it's like. some other policy things that are really rustling feathers to do with civil rights. on many of the ultra orthodox parties looking to roll back gay rights, you know, netanyahu for his part has come out and said, you know,

this is just fear mongering. that he is still going to be the hell that he'll be maintaining the status quo. and that this is just as i said, fear mongering and that no one has anything to worry about. but that remains to be seen. let's talk about netanyahu's return to power because it wasn't that long ago that an ideologically diverse coalition teamed up to oust him from power. how to israelis feel about his return to the top, posed to just a about a year and a half later when he's a contentious figure, no doubt. but he always, he does have a lot of support in the country. otherwise, he wouldn't be heading back to the prime minister his chair. however, there is a large number of people in this country that didn't vote for him. and that are concerned about his policies and about the fact that he may not be able to he, for, he seems very confident to be able to keep his coalition partners in check. but many people, he worried that he isn't going to be able to do that when push comes to shove. now it, of course it's not just is riley's that a worry. you've got allies, particularly the you where saying they're concerned. i was speaking to somebody

from the state department last week. there definitely internally very warri publicly though and to the blinking has come out and said that they will be focusing on the policies rather than the personalities of this new government. but that they will be coming down hard on benjamin netanyahu, if he's not able to keep his coalition partners in line whether or not they do do that, whether or not they follow through with anything, of course, remains to be st. claire rebecca, readers for us in jerusalem, thanks, has always been reporting or coven 19 cases are surging across china right now. until recently the country had some of the toughest control measures in the world. but public anger and rare street protests lead to many rules being relaxed. now with export experts warning that hundreds of millions of people could soon be infected. chinese authorities have narrowed the criteria for identifying cova deaths. and that means that despite the jumping cases and overwhelmed funeral homes, there have been no official recorded debts for 2 consecutive days. at times china

0 called it policy looked like this empty streets and some of the world's largest cities like shanghai here, 28000000 people are nowhere to be seen. other times it looked like this with aggressive scenes and supermarkets and people desperate to grab some of the sparse food and supplies. i'm still available to the child walla. there were also containment camps. entire city blocks and neighborhoods locked up and barriers built to prevent free movement. china 0 covet rules were some of the most strictly imposed anywhere. residents were repeatedly told 0 cove. it was the only way to keep them safe. george indian, we each and we must unswerving lea at here to the principle of people 1st and life . first, the trilogy of curbing imported cases and domestic resurgence is and the policy of dynamic 0 cove, it funded. but then this fall cases began to spread rapidly despite the strict

policies many chinese experienced for the 1st time someone close to them getting sick with cove. it and as cases spiraled so did public discontent. in late november, a rare showing of public descent erupted in multiple parts of china. oh, there were street demonstrations and even some called for present teaching ping to resign. c reg, the kind of public outcry, unheard of inside china then 2 weeks later, a change of heart from the government. the health department announced the loosening of 100 covey rules. you don't get holly footer, it just it how so she, our focus will be increasingly science based and targeted lucia, we should firmly correct oversimplification or a one size fits all approach and avoid taking excessive policy steps. even gamma on december 7th, china loosened measures, allowing home quarantine, reduce testing,

making it easier to travel. chinese authorities and state media largely ignored the protests and accusations that 0 cove it failed. instead, they've been insisting the relax policies are due to a weakened corona virus. but weakened or not, the infections have been spreading rapidly, creating fear and anxiety, and further disrupting an already fragile economy. experts warn china could soon be facing a peak of up to 800000000 cases in the country, which they say could mean as many as one to 2000000 deaths in the coming year. well then, cowling is to have academia ology at hong kong universities. school of public health, we earlier asked him if china has the necessary help infrastructure to cope with its new policies. i is clear that it does not, and something i'm very worried about is that there's no effort to slow the spread

of infections and to flatten the curve a month ago, there were a lot of measures to keep cases at a minimum, those have been relaxed because we have a new strategy now of, of allowing the virus to circulate, but there is no attempt at the moment to slow things down. and in beijing they're dealing with a lot of very severe cases. all at the same time. if those could be at least spread out over 2 weeks or 3 weeks or 4 weeks instead of one week, that would make a difference. so i really hope that we'll, we'll have about some mitigation measures which the rest of the world was doing one year, 2 years ago. and as has moved on since then, china still has to go through this phase. that was been calling tara, of epidemiology, hong kong university school of public health. speaking to us earlier, we can take a look now at some other world use headlines. alleged boss of asia's biggest crime, cindy had dubbed asia's l. chapo has been extradited to australia. chinese born

canadian c t lot faces drug trafficking charges and as it is suspected of leading one of the world's biggest suppliers of illegal methamphetamines, spain's famous christmas lottery known as l gordo began on thursday with a prize pot of more than 2500000000 euros up for grabs. alberto means the fat one and has been running since $1812.00 with millions of people taking part each year. many germans are also a getting in the christmas spirit ahead of the holidays. but this year there is also a lot to worry about. effects of the war in ukraine are being felt with higher living and energy costs. and as not to mention a surgeon illnesses like coven 19 and the flu. but one bright spot are germany's christmas markets open. now without any of last year's pandemic restrictions. mold wine, twinkling lights, and seasonal cheer for many germans,

a visit to the annual christmas market like this one here in berlin. off as well can relief after a year of unsettling news. he pleasant ovens, coin we're meeting up with friends to drink some spiced wine together. it's something of a tradition for us at the cartoon by orders in speaking of yard by a sway albany. i haven't been here for 2 years. if i lost him, i came, was 2019 and now it's already 20. 22. francis relief to 4 fair ground operator tommy arbor, who was forced to cancel the market for 2 consecutive years during pandemic lock downs. i live off loggins are for the one of the lockdown restrictions band, the sale of alcohol on parking lots and in recreational parks damage. but a christmas market without mold wine is pointless to gov in law now. food and drink at once again on offer it. germany is roughly $3000.00 christmas markets, but prices are noticeably higher. inflation is dampening the festive spirit

and vendors income. not all the regulars managed to return this year in the might of i, system kill him. and honestly, someone else operated the stall before as well as the one over there, but they didn't survive the 2 year break. so i said, okay, i'll jump in and run boat stalls. one man's joy is another sorrow, unfortunately. ah, the students from ukraine and making the rounds as christmas angels at the charlotte in both parties, market collecting donations for children often by rushes war on their country as an ends of human sports. or there are ambassadors of peace, symbolic. he flying over to the palace every day and bringing light the light of christmas time to foster understanding reconciliation and solidarity. right now that's more important than ever before. geopolitical turbulence in economic uncertainty, not even holiday music and energy saving lights can keep them entirely at bay. from

this year's christmas markets. ah, that is your news update. coming up next is focused on europe, looking at why a growing number of british children are drifting into poverty. stay tuned for that or check out our website, d, w dot com for more. i thought watching with

who ah, daniel burnside will do anything to prevent his children from going hungry. but in britain that's not easy at the moment. the country that's actually rich food distribution help the poorest. but the number of people in need is exceeding capacity. when robot government and talent focus on europe next on the d. w. o.

oh. be your own health advocate. by turning into your own expert queen or your coach. without any fiction and lots of facts. be active in a clever way. with on d w. o. o people and trucks injured when trying to flee the city center and more refugees are being turned away. and the board families flane's bomb attacks in syria. these credit don't in this way, not against administrative people fleeing extreme around. so rough to getting 200 people has sunk in the gmc around the world,

more than 300000000 people are seeking refuge. we ask why? because no one should have to flee. to make up your own mind. d. w. for mines. with . hello and welcome to focus on europe. it's good to have you about christmas is around the corner for those will celebrate. it's time for you to spend time.