>> this is dw news, life from berlin. germany's new top diplomat gets to work and get stuff on russia. the new foreign minister travel to russia on her first day on the job. she has promised to push back against a put in. change at the helm of -- vladmir putin.

refugees suing facebook for allowing hate speech to spread. a campaign tells us how the social media platform to stop calls for ethnic violence in myanmar with horrific consequences. ♪ brent: i am brent goff. welcome. germany's new foreign minister used her first day to reach out to european allies and push back against an aggressive russia. she said she will prioritize the fight against climate change and take a tougher stance against autocrats.

>> a trip to paris for annalena baerbock. in her inaugural speech alongside her french counterpart, she called for a stronger european union foreign policy and spoke about the boycott of the winter olympics in china. >> i hold a big space in my heart for athletes. we in the german government need to decide how we deal with the games but that must be in accordance with our european friends. next stop, brussels. there, annalena baerbock stressed the importance of the eu in germany. it is not just about the military but also a question of diplomacy, the rule of law and a

strong, shared economy in the eu. music to the ears of the eu's foreign policy chief. >> congratulations annalena. your efforts to promote european action and values is certainly very much needed. >>, baerbock met with the nato attorney general for speaking with john kerry. brent: let's start with the end of today. baerbock meeting the u.s. climate envoy, john kerry. this is an example of two meetings of the minds with these two. >> it is.

an establishment figure like john kerry in brussels on the same day as the first ever job to talk about climate change. annalena baerbock has made it clear that while she is foreign minister, as a green elected politician, part of her foreign policy is going to be about dealing with the climate crisis. there is no question that john kerry's place as special envoy from the white house on this issue that that is an important meeting for her to have had. brent: she also had meetings today with the head of nato and the european union foreign policy chief. what does this tell us about the imprinted that she hopes to make on the european stage -- imprint that she hopes to make on the european stage? >> it is telling that she had all of these senior meetings on defense policy.

that is a big part of her job as the foreign minister of germany. these questions surrounding who would take over in the post angela merkel era. annalena baerbock has been keen to show continuity. she is obvious a from a different party but she tried to say listen, on the issues of belarus and the stuff going on at the border, we still want to put pressure on the government in minsk. the troop buildup russia on ukraine's border, she continued to condemn that and say nato and the european union need to act together on those issues. she was there to show some continuity to the u.s. government. it is quite new to her on her first day. brent: we know what she is trying to project but what about

the people she was meeting today? do we know how she was received? >> pretty warmly to be honest. she was all smiles and interacting with all these people she was meeting from the head of nato, the foreign policy chief, everybody else that she has met. it is important to state that none of the very key is personal relationships. they spent a lot of time together. she will be seeing him in liverpool. they spent a lot of time together. they deal with pretty tricky issues. it is clear -- not she spoke in a couple of press conferences in english here in brussels.

>> it was the first full day on the job for germany's new chancellor, olaf scholz. there will be no honeymoon for chancellor schultz to settling. jared reed followed the new chancellor today. >> germans have a new chancellor. olaf scholz's first day in office here began with some fresh snow. he has to attend to all of the new government formalities and handovers that are still taking place. first up, a trip to his old office, the powerful finance ministry. scholz has handed it over to

the business friendly free democrats. olaf scholz says that germany needs to build up its reserves for the next crisis. he could and probably will make things rather tricky at times for the chancellor's agenda. that is the mission for the time being, to make sure that we managed to create the reserves to organize these stability areas that we need so we can act whenever we need to and at the same time, managed to shore up the future. that means managing climate change and modernizing the entry. it is straight back here to his new office at the chance three.

when it comes to relations with allies, olaf scholz's foreign minister, annalena baerbock has already been laying some of the groundwork. book for the new government, all of that really takes second place to the biggest problem right now. that is covid-19. the end of the first full day as chancellor has been taken up with the leaders of germany's 16 states. whenever measures come next will be here shortly. a big vaccine push is on the cards as our mandatory vaccines next year, at least for some professions. brent: the french president has unveiled his agenda for the upcoming union residency.

macron spoke today at the presidential palace to lay out his plans. france will take the reins of the european council on january 1, the start of its six month rotating presidency. it comes as france prepares for a presidential election in april. macron is expected to run for a second term. >> if i had to sum up in one sentence the objective of this presidency from january 1 to june 30, i would say that we must move from a europe of cooperation within our borders to a powerful europe in the world. free, sovereign, free to make its own choices and the master of its own destiny. that is the objective we must pursue. we are facing existential questions on the climate as well as on technical and geopolitical levels. this requires us to profoundly

transform our organization. we have been preparing for several years to reach these ambitious goals. >> >> good evening to you, barbara. this be interesting. we have france running the eu. the french president is running for reelection. >>'s day must have -- his day must have 45 hours. when you listen to the initiatives, his headline is european sovereignty. that is the direction that he wants to go in but then he talked about absolutely

everything he wants to take up. all of the intrinsic problems of the eu. the lagging european defense policy. the policy with africa that never really got off the ground, simply everything. another unresolved problem of the year. it goes on and on until june 30. >> that is the big expectation and we have this presidency of the european council, france in charge. do you see it having an impact on the presidential campaign? will it be the other way around? >> it will have an impact. it is difficult for macron to

ride. on one side, as was reaffirmed, there is a big majority of french people being pro-european. many are skeptical. it is not working well enough for them. he has to be very careful to navigate that part and promise people that yes, things will get better if i take them in hand and i am your president, i will work for you. this is the very strong right-wing movement in the country that is attracting a sizable amount of voters. it gives them a chance to show themselves as the international statesman on the stage. he does not have to pay for it, it comes naturally.

brent: let's look at some of the other stories making headlines. alexi navalny has appeared via video link. navalny is suing the prison for classifying him an extremist threat. he was treated for nerve agent poisoning which he blames on the kremlin. china committed suicide in crimes against humanity. there were many allegations of torture and rape in the chinese detention centers. italy's antitrust watchdog has

find amazon more than a billion euros for allegedly abusing its dominance in the market. it is one of the biggest penalties imposed on u.s. tech giant in europe. amazon says plans to appeal. lawyers are suing facebook for failing to stop page -- hate speech against this minority ethnic group. the social media platform allowed the spread of misinformation. they say content shared including direct calls for violence which help to promote atrocities against the rohingyas. atrocities that even amounted to suicide. more than 25,000 people have died. more than 700,000 have fled myanmar. the lawyers are seeking 150

billion u.s. dollars in damages. >> moving again. these rohingyas in bandla -- have not been able to call any place on since they were brutally driven out of myanmar. some say facebook is partly responsible for their fate. on behalf of some survivors o the violence, u.s. law firm has filed a complaint accusing facebook of contributing to hate speech and misinformation against the bravinder. they say facebook failed to restrict the spread of hateful content against the ranger. -- rohingyas. they said that we must fight them the way that hitler's did to the juice. -- hitler did th -- did to the jews. their houses were truly set on

fire. as a result, hundreds of thousands began fleeing myanmar. the u.n. went on to describe this as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. facebook's direct role in fanning extreme behavior was pointed out by frances haugen. >> those are the opening chapters because engagement based ranking does two things. it prioritizes and amplifies divisive and polarizing extreme content and that it concentrates it. the algorithms take people who have very mainstream interest and they push them toward extreme interests. >> in 2018, facebook admitted it was being used to incite violence but it was not until wednesday that its parent company released a statement saying that it banned accounts connected to that military.

we have built a dedicated team of fermi's speakers bent on disrupting networks and manipulating public debate and taking action on misinformation to help keep people safe. but nothing will be able to bring back the homes these rohingyas used to have. brent: unicef is warning of a lost ticket for children as the covid-19 pandemic drags on, keeping schools closed and widening the gap between rich and poor countries. 100 million more children have fallen into poverty in the last two years. nutrition has risen as well as child labor. over 400 million children have been able to access remote learning with many more missing 24 -- 2 full years of school. we are joined by the unicef spokesperson in geneva.

covid-19, you say it is the biggest global crisis for children in the 75 year history of unicef. >> at think what should be done an understanding and acknowledgment of how bad things are for children. we are not just talking the developing world but we are talking from berlin to boston. we are talking about those children, the margins of society. they have been ableo fall through the crack. even though everyone has been doing it have, there are people in corners of the globe who have not seen any government handouts or any online learning or any wi-fi. they have seen increased stress, more violence and i think there are things we can do that come around social welfare and better

education and so on. it is an acknowledgment of what is happening to children right now. in fact, it is happening to our younge citizens at a time when we are also asking them to look after the planet. >> it is hard to imagine a crisis that could be worse. how do you ever recruit- recoup from the? -- recoup from that? >> moms and dads around the world in the last decade have done everything they can to get their children to school. we have seen incredible historic numbers in terms of children from south africa to san miguel going to school. this is on the back of governments like germany and on the backs of moms and dads. a lot of that is being undone right now.

are seeing children out of school. we are seeing malnutrition increase. we need to make sure that the vaccine is getting around the world and that people just remember that little bit of generosity. right now, there are kids who are doing it tougher than they had ever done before. they are resilient, they do tend to find a plan. at the moment, they are out of options and they need the -- the support that unicef seems to provide. >> how real is this risk of us all suffering from a lost generation because of what has happened in the past two years? >> i think it is very real. when you look at the mental health of children, unicef ha done that.

this is from being restricted to home, the lost education if you can't get them access online and remembering that there is a climate crisis that young people are very much aware of. these are the issues. we also know that things like social welfare, social grants, investing so that children can get access to online work, even turning around so we get more water and sanitation to children is pulls because that helps prevent covid, we do ow the soluons to this. but unfortunately, the solutions were our money. we know that when we educate a child, there is no better vestment. i mean that as a practical economic investment. it is still time to buckle down and realize that we need to

invest in those younger citizens who bear no-fault for this or any other crisis. >> if you have a lot of money, you can't buy back all the time that you lost. james elder, we appreciate your time and what you're doing. thank you. as the new omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads around the world, the country to first sound the alarm is struggling with rising case numbers. south africa is the latest epicenter of infections and it is near johannesburg. a city that just elected its first black female mayor who happens to be a medical doctor. >> johannesburg at night is a party town, there is no social distancing, no masks, no registering of guests.

they are taking part in a police raid. >> there is a looming fourth wave of covid. our numbers are shooting up. we are very concerned about compliance. >> the music has turned off. for these guests, the party was over long before the midnight curfew. but their job is just getting started. she is just -- she is the first black female mayor in johannesburg. many residents say that johannesbu is a city indicate. the infrastructure has been crumbling for years with constant water and electricity cuts. >> they want to stop this trend but now the pandemic is causing her further concern. she has to prepare the city for a fourth covid wave.

quite a lot of systems ar already in place. we have to make sure that service delivery continues in the covid era. we have to strengthen performance management. i have heard rumors of people working from home. there is no real means of seeing if people are delivering on what they have been employed to do. such things need to be given attention. >> she is trying to convince people to get vaccinated. only one in four south africans is fully vaccinated. although there is enough vaccine available. the vaccination rate is particularly low. >> we get some diseases like covid-19 here.

>> the uptake is very low. in terms of cases that are hospitalized, a lot of them are unvaccinated. >> this is a single mother and a doctor. she fears that the pandemic will take up much of her time. >> bayern munich's joshua kimes will be off the field because of a covid-19 infection. formula one racing driver was in abu dhabi for the final race of the season, he decided to let his wild side out with some drifting. shredding tires and bashing limiters.

this sent a car into a controlled sideways skid. whatever makes you happy. and here is some festive cheer from down under with christmas installations lining up the city of sydney. projections featured the scene of entity -- nativity. residents have come out to get into the christmas. . you can understand that. after a short break, we will take you back to talk about u.s. president biden's summit for democracy. we will be right back.

>> hello, everyone. you are watching "live from paris" on france 24. the french president outlines his plans for the eu just three weeks before taking over the rotating presidency of the council of the european union. france's socialist candidate tells her other rivals should hold a primary to unite the left, but the answer was a resounding no. and joe biden calls the rise of authoritarianism the challenge of our time as the u.s. president holds a two-day virtual