anchor: this is dw news. live from berlin tonight, a title wave headed for europe. the world health organization predicting that half of europe's population could become infected with the contagious coronavirus variant by the end of the winter. i'll ask the who zero rector, how alarmed -- who's europe director, how alarmed should we be? climate scientists say the past seven years were the warmest on

record. there morning we should plan for the worst. plus, the u.n. calling to help the people of afghanistan.never before has the u.n. asked for so much money. never before has the threat for humanitarian disaster been so great. and a special report on the u.s. military's notorious guantanamo bay prison 20 years after the first prisoner arrived promises to shut the camp down are still being broken. ♪ i'm brent goff. to our reviewers watching and all of you around the world, welcome. we start this tuesday with a dire warning from the world health organization in europe's pandemic future. the who makes nearly half of all europeans will become infected with the omicron variant by the end of this winter.

here's what the who's europe director just said. >> 50 of the countries in europe and central asia have not reported cases of omicron. it is quickly becoming the dominant virus in western europe and is now spreading into the balkans. at this rate, the institute for health metrics and evaluation forecasts that more than 50% of the population of the region will be infected with omicron in the next six to eight weeks. brent: earlier, i spoke with the doctor and asked him, how alarmed should we really be here in europe? >> well, we are at the crossroads. so tactics change from preventing transmission to preventing disruption it's true that at the individual

level, the omicron variant may be more mild, particularly in the people who are boosted. but because of the sheer numbers, because it still a large share of the population are unvaccinated, the threat is that hospitals will get overwhelmed and critically short of health workers who are becoming more and more infected. brent: and that's what we're seeing. we're hearing more and more about hospitals and clinics being understaffed, people calling in sick. how worried are you that we're going to begin seeing health care systems collapse here in europe? >> well, we know wt to do. it's true for any variant. we call it the five panmic stabilizers. number one, full vaccination. number two, boost, bst, boost. number three, increase the use of masks, including high-quality

masks like respirato, in high-risk settings. number four, ventilation, particularly in classrooms. and number five, new treatment protocol, because the good news is also that new drugs are coming onto the market. the key issue is there is no one single measure. it's a vaccination plus approach. brent: and the omicron variant spreading so quickly, is everything that we've grown accustomed to in the past two years -- what you just mentioned, these five things -- a lot of people are wondering, is this no longer working? we all know people who have been vaccinated, who have been boosted, and yet they still tested positive. >> right. we have to remember what the vaccines are made for. it's to prevent severe disease and death, and treby preventing hospitals to collapse. for the number of countries have high vaccination rates, but they're not implementing the

public health measures because someone who is vaccinated can still submit -- transmit the disease. so it's a package. brent: and what about the people who are asymptomatic? there's a big discussion about whether schools should be kept open right now. let's say that we have students, we have teachers who may be positive, but they are a symptom at. is the -- asymptomatic. is this a reason to shut the schools down? or should we be telling these people to stay home and keep the schools open? >> the schools have to be the last ones to close and the first ones to reopen, because it's not only education, but a very important place for education, mental health, and also to protect from domestic violence. we know what we need to d the children needs to be vaccinated. it needs to be well vtilated. teachers need to be first in line to make a boost. but you make a good point that when societiesan no longer

cope with testin and contact tracing, then countries may revise these policies for testing and quarantine. brent: we hear people talking now about coronavirus fatigue and wanting to return to normal, which you can understand. but are we contributing to that by always talking about the number of cases instead of the number of severe cases? because every year, we have the threat of the flu but we are not talking about the number of flu cases really because the flu is endemic. are we headed to coronavirus being an dem big? and should we be talking about the virus as a result? >>efinitely should change from looking at the absolute number of infections towards not only hospitalizations buteople in the icu.

because as we see in a number of countries is that the percentage of so-called incidental infections, meets people who go to the hospital not for covid, but diagnosed with testing, that fraction is increasing. but it's too early to say it's endemic. basically what we see from omicron is that everyone is going to get some kind of imnity, either from the vaccine or throughhe natural infection. but the infection still has a lot of surprises. for example, every individual needs to take responsibility, self testing, self-isolating, and try to prevent to become infected. brent: yeah, that's very wise, excellent insight. there's still time to get vaccinated and to get boosted. there is no need to play russian roulette with your health, that's for sure. dr. kruger, we appreciate your time tonight. thank you. >> my pleasure. brent: israel is among the

places that is seeing new cases, record numbers of covid-19. residents there are also getting a fourth vaccination. the fast spreading omicron variant appears to be outpacing the government's strategy. tania kramer reports tonight from tel aviv. tania: the line for a covid-19 test is long in tel aviv with the omicron variant spreading fast, free pcr tests are not reserved for people over 60 and under high-risk groups. everyone else is required to take an antigen test first. with ever-changing rules, patience is running low. >> basically, the rules change on a daily basis. there's a joke that if you refresh the news page, you get different restrictions and different rules. tania: it feels like the circus.

if they cancel or pcr tests, they do the antigen test at home. now we have to stand here. we can't work. we have to just stay at home. israel made an earlier bet on its vaccination campaign. in october, it successfully slowed down the delta waived by administering a third booster shot. but now the country is struggling with the omicron variant. >> the variant is spreading very fast. and commission period is about two days, not seven days as it used to be. that's why many of the measures, especially testing and transmission are much less efficient. right now. tania: much of israel's covid strategy has been focused on vaccination. over 4.3 million israelis have taken the third booster shot. less than half of the population of roughly 9.4 million. since last week, the country has

begun to roll out the fourth booster for people over 60, medical staff, and other high-risk groups. >> each time we boost, we fortify our immune response. we deepen the immune memory and enhance our ability to cope more efficiently with the variants that are already challenging us and those that will unfortunately will emerge. tania: it's still unclear how hospitals will cope during this fifth wave. at a hospital in tel aviv, this family doctor takes us to the covid-19 board. -- ward. not every bed is occupied right now, but numbers of severely ill patients are increasing daily. a majority are unvaccinated or have underlying health conditions. at the moment, some of our

patients are vaccinated. some are not. everyone hospitalized has underlying health conditions. heart, kidney conditions, or diabetes. but again, the vaccinations are very important and very effective. after so many waves of this disease, there's a sense of experienced routine on this ward. and now newly authorized drugs can be given to patients early on. still, after two years, it's not just hard for doctors and nurses to keep up, but for everyone struggling to keep up with uncertainty that's replicating along with this latest variant. brent: let's get around up of some of the other headlines we're following this our. kazakhstan's president says russian led troops will leave his country within the next 10 days. he called for foreign military support last week after days of vient unrest accordg to the interior

ministry, people have been detained throughout the country. dozens have died. a man accused of setting fire to south africa's parliament link has been charged with terrorism. officials say the suspect was arrested at the scene with explosives. he has denied the charges. critics claim he is being made a scapegoat to cover security failures. the fire on january 2 caused extensive damage to the parliament. the late american author and civil rights activist maya angelou has become the first black woman to be featured on a u.s. coin. the new quarter dollar depicts angelou with her arms raised and a bird in flight behind her. these are images that were inspired by her poetry. maya angelou died in 2014 at the age of 86. the european union's climate monitoring agency released a harrowing new report showing just how much global temperatures have risen in the past seven years. last year was the fifth warmest

on record and extreme weather events hit every continent on the planet. scientists are warning that we have to prepare for the worst. >> the last seven years were the world's hottest on record. and by a substantial margin, according to the copernicus climate change service. in 2021, global levels of co2 and methane reached record highs. while in the same year, wildfires devastated parts of greece, north america, and siberia. floods ripped through towns in western germany. and droughts across africa led to what was called the first ever climate induced famine in madagascar. but as the climate changes, so too does scientists' ability

to track and predict it. >> thanks to most advanced modeling, we are able to, with more precision, to detmine emissions what would be the outcome for the atmosphere. the good news is because of that, we can show that if measures are taken, we expect the atmosphere not to go too far into uncharted territory. reporter: drastically reducing greenhouse gas emissions is widely agreed to be the best defense against further human induced warming. along with protecting and habilitating key ecosysts. but with extreme weather events already heading, adapting -- hitting, adaptinis vital to protect life. >> climate change is happening. we're seeing more extreme weather. we're not prepared for various

increased severity and extremity of extreme weather, so we need to be better prepared. reporter: last year, global temperatures were more than one degree celsius above preindustrial levels, leaving only a tiny margin to avoid two degrees or more of warming, and the catastrophic effect scientists say that would have on the planet. brent: the united nations has asked the international community for almost $4.5 billion to help afghanistan. this is the u.n.'s largest ever humanitarian appeal for any country. but it comes with a dire warning, as well. >> this is a stopgap, an absolutely essential stopgap measure that we are putting in front of the international community today. without this being funded, there will be a future. we need this to be done, otherwise there will be outflow. there will be suffering. brent: but in truth, the

suffering is already there. more than half of afghanistan's nearly 40 million people are facing acute hunger in places like in northwestern afghanistan's bodies province, years of drought added to food shortages. also, people have no cash to carry out their daily activities. and as we see in the day's report, this has forced some to consider the unthinkable, selling off their own children to survive. >> a farmer walks across his parched land. these once for tile fields are now -- fertile fields are now dry. two years of drought have left farmers destitute and forced many to abandon the region. there's no rain. there's drought. i'd say almost everyone in this village has left.

for those who remain, limited aid from the red crescent is a vital lifeline. locals speak of times when there was ample rain and snow here. but ever frequenter dry spells have made water a scarce commodity. the economic crisis following the taliban takeover has only worsened the already dire situation. and the new provincial rulers say there's no money to help. we weren't prepared for this situation because the previous government left us with nothing. and from an economic perspective, we have nothing to offer either. so, we're trying to help through aid groups. we've had meetings with them and told them about the problems here. many people now live in camps for the internally displaced,

like this one outside the provincial capital. homeless and pushed to the edge of starvation, some here are turning to desperate measures. these parents say they're at the point of selling their eight-year-old son for food. the children one bread don't have any. i'm helpless and have no option other than to sell him to someone else. it's a bleak choice now facing this poverty-stricken family who,, like many others have become casualties of drought and conflict. brent: selling their own children. 20 years ago today, the first president arrived in guantanamo bay, the detention camp following the 9/11 cams and the ensuing invasion of afghanistan. in a clear breach of human rights, most prisoners were held indefinitely without trial. dw's oliver sallet went to the u.s. naval base and the camp

that has some bless onef the biggest u.s. moral failings in the war on terror. oliver: guantanamo, located in a tropical paradise, but the u.s. naval base in cuba stands for human rights abuses and torture. mohamed atta was held here for 14 years, suspected of involvement in the 9/11 attacks but never charged for a crime. he was brutally tortured and shoppers from posttraumatic stress disorder until today. >> i was woken up and i was taken because i saw my jacket and i thought it was someone coming to get me. sometimes i wake up and i cannot breathe. oliver: the defense counsel represents an alleged al qaeda terrorist who arrived here in 2006 and since then, has been waiting for his trial.

guantanamo has been seen internationally as a stain on u.s. history. >> we are ashamed that everything that made this country, one that we can say was a free country, that had equal justice for all, has abandoned all of that. and that's sad. it said. i don't know how -- it's said. i don't ow how we're going to be able to recover. oliver: the u.s. government named for a forceful and rapid response. >> the united states will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts. oliver: in the war on terror, america and its allies invaded afghanistan. the u.s. naval base at guantanamo served as a prison for alleged war criminals and terrorist suspects, a place where the constitution of the united states does not exist. ever since it was open, human

rights activists argued guantanamo is where the united states lost its moral authority, a place of torture and double standards. there's also another side of guantanamo, a place were 6000 inhabitants tried to go about their everyday lives in a bizarre contrast to the infamous prison. residential areas resemble small town america, some normalcy in a place full of contradictions. radio gitmo delivers the soundtrack for guantanamo. and she is gitmo's voice. >> hello, hello. welcome to your morning show -- oliver: court trials in the prison are not part of their coverage. >> it's not really part of, like, the culture here. that's another side of the base. here on this side, we have a whole different type of operationsoing here. oliver: the new school allows its students somewhat of a

normal childhood five kilometers from the notorious torture prison. >> good. what are some other things that you know -- >> that's actually the message that guantanamo bay sent to the whole rld. they saidhere a two kinds of people in this world, people who don't observe the rule of law, and people who observe the rule of law. oliver: of the almost 800 detainees, 39 are still incarcerated in guantanamo. only two have been convicted of a crime. brent: my next guest is cliff stone, an attorney an american diplomat to serve as a special envoy for guantanamo's closer under former president obama. it's good to have you on the program, mr. sloan. we wanted to talk to you today because you were put in charge of closing guantanamo back in 2013. you quit the job after 18 months. talk to us about your experience. what was the biggest obstacle

then in shutting down the prison? cliff: well, the obstacles that have come up with guantanamo closure our politil opposition that is irrational and not bas on fact, and some legal obstacles based on laws unwisely passed by congress. but having said that, theres no reason that we cannot move forward with closing guantanamo. and actually, it's important to note that we made a lot of progress. when i became special envoy for guantanamo closure, there were 166 people remaining akron,. when president -- remaining at guantanamo. when president obama left, there's 39 now. sometimes there's fatalism and a sense of defeat, and we absolutely can and must move forward aggressively and move the remaining people out of guantanamo.

it can be done. brent: where would they be sent? where would you send them? cliff: ok, so of the 39, 12 are facing charges in the military commissions process, including two who were convicted. 27 have never facedharges. those 27, unfortunately there's ill a lot they can't to the united states. but they can either be repatriated to their country of origin. or if that's not possible for national security or human rights reasons, they can be resettled in third countries, has been done with other detainees. and when i say transfer them, and not sayi transfeto incarceratn. i'm saying transfer to freedom. those 27 should be transferred to other countries. it's difficult to work that out, but it is something that is very important. it can be done. in the first year of the biden administration, there's only one person that has moved from guantanamo, and that is far too slow apace.

brent: i just want to be sure, though. of the people you would like to see transferred, do we know how many could not go back to their home countries because their home countries simply refused to take them? cliff: no. i mean, those numbers are not a matter of public record. but that sometimes is used as an excuse. it sometimes is said the reason they're sll at guantana is there's no place for them to go. in my experience, that simply is not correct. as i was saying, it takes a lot of work. the other countries, including countries in europe and countries elsewhere in the world, who recognize that guantanamo needs to be closed and that these people need a place to go to, have provided resettlement opportunities so it can be done. is line that you hear sometimes that they're there beuse the have no place else to go is simply wrong. homes can be found for them.

brent: i've got 30 seconds now. people around the world are saying you've got these people there 20 years after setting up this prison. why haven't you brought them to the u.s., charged them with a crime, and tried them like you're supposed to do when you're respect in the rule of law? cliff: well, in terms of bringing them to the u.s., unfortunately congress passed a law that they cannot be brought to the u.s. for any purpose, including prosecution. there is this military commission process, and 12 of them have faced charges there. that process has had many, many problems itself. the reason the others han't been brought to trial there is there simply is not the evidence to do so. and that is why they need to be transferred out of guantanamo immediately. brent: it's unbelievable we're still talking about this situation 20 years later. cliff sloan, obama's former envoy, joining us from washington. good talki with you.

thank you. cliff: thank you for having me. i appreciate it. brent: you're watching dw news and here's a reminder of the top stories we're following for you. the world health organization's europe director issuing a strong warning of the spread of the omicron coronavirus variant, which has become dominant here in europe. he says nearly half of all europeans will likely become infected by the end of the winter if tighter measures are not put in place. you're watching dw news. after a short break, i'll be back to take you through the heart of the pig that could save the life of a man. we'll be right back. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

■úoggcccccg''' >> france posts a fresh record

since the start of the pandemic, with more than 368,000 new covid-19 actions registered through the last 24 hours. kazakhstan's psident says russian-led forces deployed in response to last week's deadly unrest and must leave his country within 10 days. also, the latest action from the africa cup of nations. the reigning champion's have been playing sierra leone. nigeria faced off against egypt. all the results, coming.