with animals? no, i think i will live long enough to witness the factory farming. the great debate this week on d. w or ah ah, this is dw news life in berlin. a breakthrough on protecting the world's oceans. after a decade of discussions, more than a 100 nations agreed to a treaty safeguarding marine nature. environmental groups say it will also help reverse biodiversity losses. also in the show, estonians go to the polls to elect

a new government. the war and ukraine is a major topic, but so to our ramp inflation and surging energy cost plus china's cheating, paying moves that tightened his grip on power at the communist party congress. beijing says it was peaceful relations with taiwan, but that its armed forces must train harder for combat. ah, marian, i haven't seen welcome more than 100 countries have agreed on a united nations treaty to protect the world's oceans. the landmark deal aims to conserve marine life and biodiversity in international waters. it's seen as crucial to bringing 30 percent of the world's land and sea under protection. by the end of the decade. the ship has reached the shore,

close and relief of to some 15 years of tubes. a deal to protect the world's high seas is finally agreed by more than a 100 countries. i can safely say that this has been the learning journey of a lifetime. so thank you very much. every where the oceans are our life support system. they provide us with food and transport routes. they regulate the climate and they offer a range of valuable raw materials. but nearly 2 thirds lie outside national boundaries, making them hard to protect. now the u. n. high seas treaty will help conserve marine diversity in international waters. it's the largest

habitat for life on earth is vast. there is on average for kilometers deep. and until yesterday there was no international law. no treaty, that guided conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in this area. it's a big deal physically in terms of the size of the earth. but also in terms of multilateralism, a sign that countries can play nicely together and still get big stuff done. it's a good day for us. the world's oceans are under threat from plastic waste, climate change, and over fishing. now it's hoped this new deal will at last start to turn the tide. i spoke a short time ago to jessica battle, she's a senior expert of the world wildlife fund, and i asked her about the importance of this deal. yes, it's hugely thing that again, this is the introduction said

a multilateral deal between many countries that between countries, have coastlines come to the have industries that traverse and use the high seas that but it was a landlord countries, countries far away. but really interesting about the high seas. that is, this is an area of the planet that is true global comments. it belongs to everyone that is for everyone responsibility to make sure that we do not deplete the resources that they can provide for us into the future. so it's a huge deal to get this collaboration done. well, that said, we do have to remember that policing international waters is very challenging and has been almost impossible to guarantee in the past. so how can this treaty ensure that, let's say something like, over fishing is prevented. so this tree through look at by the rest of the as a whole is look at the fish though we eat the planted can in the water that gives

us oxygen. the coil read and the deep sea in terms of, of how to collaborate and how to monitor the activities under the treaty. they do, they do not get on the life in the ocean. it has to be through collaboration and will be treat. this is a place, a conference of the coffee for all government members call to, to the treaty, to meet every year to talk about what they do to see with the regional fisher management organizations who deal with fisheries on the high seas. what they do in order to protect by the recipe and to discuss this more needed. if they haven't done enough, would you like to have seen something more added to this treaty? could you have seen some improvement to it? they could have been improvements to the treaty 20 years ago when we decided that this was needed. and then, you know, it's taken 20 to get where we are today. we were hoping for stronger measures. but

regarding what a state, what issues are included in this, treat the text to get the north and the south degree on money and to get fishing nation, i agree with those are more interested in both of us. the protection is a huge deal. so if the street is 7 out of 10 is a good deal. ok, 7 out of 10, definitely room for improvement. you mention nearly 20 years of, of this treat has been in the making. why did it take this long? it took a long time for the workers to convince global community of states meeting in new york under the discussion that was set up 1520 years ago to to come to to the point where they wanted to go see. but they agreed that actually they were going to set up and they go station for the treaty that happened about 5 years ago. the time them make this delayed it

a bit more. and then because this different issues under this tracy, including how to share money, how to, how do you share money between the rich and those who have left and how to make sure that all activities on the high seas are included in this tracy? it took a long time to get, get the consensus that coleman agreement, that this is, this is needed and this, all of this needs to be part of the treaty. that was jessica battle senior global ocean governance and policy expert at the w w. f. thank you so much. holes have now closed in a stony as parliamentary election. the vote will decide whether prime minister kaya carlos stays in office. nearly a 3rd of the voters cast their ballots online ahead of the election on sunday. it's been dominated by the war and ukraine. public support for key of is overwhelming, but estonians are also struggling with problems closer to home. the baltic state

has one of the highest inflation rates in the european union. let's bring in the w correspondent, jennifer parker, who joins us now from the eastern and capital tiling jennifer, good to see you. so we know of course that the income and estonian prime minister kayak hollis, is a very vocal supporter of ukraine. but what about her opponents? what is their stance? yeah, exactly. kaya colors, the prime minister is very, very much set on eating ukraine. but the far right opposition party eta, is against it. is tonja is a country that borders on russian in the east, and is also part of nato. while talking to some people's here in estonia and talent on the street. the majority of them supported the government's aid of ukraine. but some actually said that they would prefer the government to turn to internal struggles like the very high inflation rate. and this is exactly the issue that the far right opposition party acura,

used to gather much support in the country and much strengths. so she, it became the 2nd strongest party right now. an exit stand on estonia on on ukraine is actually that they don't want to send any weapons to ukraine and also kept the number of ukrainian migrants and refugees here in estonia. all right, so very different position among the opposition far right party. now jennifer, we know that polls have already closed, but we did hear reports that the russian speaking population of estonia was expected to stay away from participating in these elections. did that happen and why? if it did exactly, that is what was supposed to happen and we don't, we're not really sure if it happened, but about a quarter of estonia population, our russian speakers and i had of the election. 35 percent of them weren't really sure if they would vote in these elections or not. and there are couple of reasons

for that. the 1st of reason was that many of the russians speakers here in estonia had very strong ties to russia still. and also to russian culture and the current estonian government's response and stands towards russia. pains them very much. the 2nd reason is that recently soviet era, monuments where we moved here in estonia and that heard a lot of russian speaking people and also sparked fear that they would lose their identity here in estonia. but the last reason would be that almost all parties here in estonia, except for the far right opposition party exit support. the government stands on russia and then would leave the russian speaking minority with almost no other possibility than not to vote at all. jennifer, thank you. for that, that was d, w, correspond, and jennifer palka in talon. we appreciate it. let's get a check now of some of the other stories making news around the world. newly

released drone footage shows the damage from rush has been barman to the eastern ukrainian city of buff. mood pressure is mounting on ukrainian troops who are holding out their intelligence. analysts say key of may be considering controlled, pull out, but mood is seen as a key staging ground for further russian advances. a fire has broken out at a refugee camp and cox's bizarre bangladesh. it hosts thousands of ro hanger, refugees who had fled persecution and neighbouring me and mar in 2016. please say the blaze which is now under control, destroyed thousands of homes, but that no casualties have been reported so far. police and pakistan say they've tried to arrest former prime minister him and con, at his home. in the horror they tweeted that they were unable to find him, but were instead meant by hundreds of his supporters. con has been accused of failing to declare gifts received while in office. he denies the charges.

china is a rubber stamp parliament, the national people's congress has begun its annual meeting in beijing outgoing premier lee k chan, who's 2nd in command after leadership. ping says china's armed forces should be more prepared for combat in the face of what he called. escalating threats from abroad. aging says is cranking up military spending, but at the same time it was to promote peaceful relations with taiwan, which it claims as its own territory. on the economy, china's leadership has set a 5 percent economic growth target, one of the lowest in decades. she, jim ping and the really communist party elise arrive in beijing's great whole of the people for the biggest asian, china's political calendar, the national people's congress, is more of a political pageant than a policy setting. parliament. it largely serves to rubber stamp decisions already made behind closed doors by the leadership. much of the n p. c will focus on

communist ritual and slogans. however, china watchers carefully comb over proceedings every year for clues on china's future direction. in october, she cemented his unprecedented 3rd term as the general secretary of the party. now he will introduce a major shake up of personnel and institutions to help consolidate his power base. she is set to unveil a new premier ne chung who oversaw controversial pandemic locked downs as parties secretary of shanghai. the congress is closely watched for insights into how china plants to revive its economy. the world's 2nd biggest, which has been hard hit by lock downs. the government to set a modest target for economic growth this year, around 5 percent. the party plans to get more involved in private businesses. top tech type kuhns, like ali baba founder jack mar, and by dues robin lee have been left off the list of delegates

instead, the congress is expected to focus on scientific research to boost domestic production of micro chips. and the backdrop to the congress is growing tensions between china and the u. s. washington fears that beijing could start to supply russia with weapons in ukraine. earlier we started to w correspondent william young and type hey and we asked him if he thinks that china's 5 percent growth target was modest. yes, a most economist describe this as somewhat of a conservative as a result and eat go that the chinese government has laid out. but most of them, oh so said that this is somewhat actually a positive sickness because it shows that the chinese government is raining in their desire. and also they are urged to try to boost and find different ways to really trigger and push their chinese economic growth. and rather focusing more on the possibility of economic reform in giving their chinese economy more breathing

room rather than using many different ways to try to maintain and focusing too much on the actual number a mess the latest on the w news this our up next is shift with its international women's day edition a mary evans team. i'll be back at the top of the hour with more headlines for you . in the meantime, you can get lots more news and information on our website. just go to d, w dot com. you can also, of course, check out our social media channels. the handle you need there is at dw news for me and the entire team in berlin. thanks for watching. german award winning offer is over in forth every language learning german has never been so driven to go.