>> hello and welcome to "focus on europe." it's great to have you with us. the massive protests in georgia have highlighted a divide between the state and the wider population. thousands took to the streets of the capital, tbilisi to protest the controversial "foreign agents" bill proposed by the ruling party. riot police used a water cannon and pepper spray, while protestors shouted "down with the russian law." the bill has now been dropped. but the mistrust remains.

most georgians want to to see their country in the e.u. and nato. but they doubt whether their government can or even wants to lead them there. and the protestors fear that moscow's influence will hamper their chances of getting into the european union. >> a group of radical pro-russia protestors remove the european union flag just outside the georgian parliament, and set it on fire. the scene shows the political pressure the small country has been under since russia invaded ukraine. many georgians fear their country could slip into russia's orbit of control. so they have been pushing back. >> we students will fight for european values till the end. [cheering] >> giorgi pachuashvili and thousands of others took to the streets to fight for their future. and for a future where georgia joins the e.u.

>> we are natural, historic members of european society and we wish to integrate into the european union. that's written in our constitution and that's agreed in our society. >> things escalated after georgia's ruling party submitted a so-called "foreign agent" draft bill in early march. giorgi and thousands of others saw the bill as an attack on democracy. they protested in tbilisi and faced tear gas and water cannons. the bill echoes a russian law allowing the government to target critical media and ngos. this could jeopardise georgia's long-awaited e.u. candidacy, but was backed by the prime minister. >> the future of our country doesn't belong to foreign agents and people who serve them. the future of this country

belongs to patriots. >> such anti-western rhetoric reminds the students of moscow's narrative. one of the bill's drafters is actually a professor of giorgi's, who taught him why e.u. membership is important for georgia before he changed his mind in parliament. >> we saw the bill that he supported and we were pretty disappointed with that. and that is the reason our protest was sparked. this moral dilemma is the reason we refuse to attend his class. >> giorgi used facebook to alert his fellow students. together they boycotted the professor's classes. they say georgia's european aspirations are included in the country's constitution and they've piled copies of it in front of his office as a reminder. after three days of protest the government finally withdrew the

bill. giorgi was tired and relieved. >> this is our joint victory as a society because we stood together. families, friends, colleagues, and we achieved it together. >> the students are proud, but know their country remains in a difficult situation. the war in ukraine is a daily reminder of georgia's complicated past with russia. 15 years ago, when georgia was moving closer to the e.u., russia occupied the region of south ossetia after a five-day-war. russian forces are still there. >> georgians remember the war of 2008 and remember their history of more than 200 years of subjugation under moscow. >> but in this country there are also supporters of anti-western policies.

>> georgia is full of foreign agents, not just from ngos but from secret services. >> back at the parliament, giorgi says the government is failing the majority of the population. polls show that more than 80% of geormembership. >> we also must mind our future battles and we must always be ready and keep on alert so that these freedoms are never taken away from us. >> the e.u. flag is flying again outside of georgia's parliament. but giorgi pachuashvili knows the fight for his future inside europe is far from over. >> people in ukraine are also fighting for their future. even as russian president vladimir putin continues his war. he recently visited the occupied city of mariupol. the released video showed him driving and talking to residents in a newly constructed district. it was an attempt to present life as back to normal in

mariupol, but this is far from the truth. the city was devasted after russian troops bombarded it for more than 80 days last year. and for many people in ukraine, the fear of russian bombs remains. >> we are on the road with ukrainian explosives experts in the devastated villages around kharkiv. the russian border is less than 30 kilometers away. nadezhda eduardovna called the emergency services after she came home and found rocket remnants stuck in the middle of her flat. >> when we came home after the russians had been pushed back, i saw the nice thing they left for us. i was scared to touch it. the boys will remove it, but i had such a fright. i thought it might explode. >> the explosives experts quickly give the all-clear. there are no explosives left in the rocket nose.

this team faces such dangers every day. >>i really wanted to work here. my family accepts that, although they are very worried. >> many residents are still afraid the russian soldiers might come back. but nadezhda eduardovna refuses to be driven away by the terrible memories of the last year. >> it's all still very fresh in my mind. i worry about it. but that's life, we have to calm down, keep on and keep living. i will leave. my mother, my father, my husband are buried here. it's our home. >> the teams also quickly checks the garden, where they find just scrap metal, nothing explosive. they say that's not always the case. >> many residents have found themselves in places littered with mines or other explosives, often with fatal results.

the people who don't die are often seriously injured, losing their arms or legs. >> one year ago, a bomb destroyed several houses in the next village. svitlana was less than a hundred meters away at the time. >> the woman in one house was injured, her husband escaped with a scare. next door, a house wall collapsed and killed the woman living there. >> in kharkiv, people seek shelter in the subway stations during the daily air raid warnings. some have been living here for a year in fear of the missiles. >> i've gotten used to it. i feel fine here. the only bad thing is that you can't do your laundry or cook.

>> when the night-time shelling became heavier as well, i couldn't bear it any longer. so i came back here to calm down, because i can't stand it up top anymore. >> this is a secret place in kharkiv with thousands of rocket and shell pieces. the army has various places where it collects what russia has been raining down on the city for months. dmytro chubenko from the public attorney's office shows us the evidence of the inhumane war, including internationally banned weapons. >> we keep finding cluster bombs in kharkiv that fell on soft ground and didn't explode. we discover one or two cluster bombs in the city every week. >> back in the villages near kharkiv, the emergency service team finds explosive material everywhere, like this grenade.

they assure the residents that it's no longer dangerous, but the team has to be very careful with every find. >> there are accidents, sadly. there are sometimes accidental explosions in areas densely packed with munitions. >> thankfully, there are none today. the team collects some shells and hopes that it remains quiet at the nearby front. >> have you ever written something so beautiful you wished you could preserve it -- not just for yourself but also for future generations? well, then martin kunze is the guy for you. he is creating a time capsule so that our descendants can have details about us and the era we lived in. he's set up a storage facility deep in one of the world's oldest salt mines, near hallstatt in austria. except the data for this project isn't being stored digitally, but on ceramic tiles. >> martin kunze is on his way to his treasure trove.

located deep in a mountain in austria, it's a vault of stone and salt. he's given the project the name "the memory of mankind." >> we're in the "salzberg" of hallstatt, the world's oldest salt mine. we're going to take this old mining train around 500 meters into the mountain. >> this group of mountains in upper austria is called hirlatz. the region is famous for its rock salt, extracted here for centuries. the old pits and shafts provide ideal protection for martin kunze's archive project. the data is inside these boxes of fired clay. but here, data isn't being stored digitally. it's on ceramic tiles, not unlike those you can buy. kunze burns texts and images into the tiles. what gets stored is selected according to his own criteria.

we've brought another handful of tiles into the mountain and will now put them into this box here. >> this is part of a locksmith's training journal from the 1950s. things were done differently back then, which is why i think it's worth preserving. >> besides his own selections, kunze will also store private texts and images for anyone in exchange for a small fee -- stories about the covid lockdown, for example. or the doctoral thesis of a pakistani antiquities researcher, who doesn't want to only rely on digital clouds and servers. >> our internet and information storage isn't as long-lasting as we think. that's one of the reasons why i

decided to set up this archive. so that information can be stored for the long-term, for future generations, so that they can gain some insight into their own past. >> around 2% of the electricity world-wide is already being consumed to store data. and digital storage systems don't last forever. they could be deleted at any time or become unreadable. on the other hand, kunze says his tiles are indestructible. and the vienna native knows what he's talking about. he's a trained ceramics specialist and well-versed in these materials. he even developed a special process for burning high-resolution images and texts onto the tiles in his workshop at home. it can take hours or even days. >> this white glaze of the tile bonds with the color grains,

then it cools. after that it's a smooth surface. that's why it's so durable. whenever a batch of tiles is finished, martin kunze heads for the salt mine and hallstatt. the picturesque location attracts many tourists, and has been used as a film-location. visitors from around the world come to hallstatt, but few know that deep in a mountain above them, a time-capsule archive has been growing for a decade, tile by tile. this tile is particularly important to martin kunze. it shows how a glacier has melted in just a few decades. >> that's a central element of the archive - documenting climate change. because if we don't safely preserve the raw climate observation data, future generations might not understand that climate change took place, and certainly not to what extent. >> the project won't be limited to just tiles.

scientists are working with martin kunze on new data storage materials to fit more data on smaller spaces, because there's plenty of demand. even the university of vienna has tiles here. the project "memory of mankind" is to last forever for everyone. >> you wouldn't expect europe's largest shanty town to lie just outside of madrid. but that is where you'll find cañada real, a 14 kilometer-long illegal settlement. about 30,000 people live in cañada real whose origins date back more than half a century. many live in shacks or tents but others have built permanents houses. for years, the local government has struggled to deal with this settlement. now the region of madrid plans to tear everything down, while

offering the residents a permanent home elsewhere, complete with running water and electricity. an offer the local administration thinks no one would like to miss. >> this key opens a new chapter in augustina and her family's lives. >> there's water? i've got to see that. we have hot water. to shower with! >> the family will soon have hot running water. for now, they still live here. together with thousands of others along an old cattle path called cañada real believed to be the biggest illegal settlement in europe. here, a fire on the street indicates a drug selling point. power lines are tapped everywhere. and in the southern part, some residents also grow marijuana. the police recently published footage of a raid.

growing marijuana requires a lot of energy, enough to have maybe caused the local power grid to collapse. many cañada real residents came decades ago from southern spain or abroad. augustina lives with her parents-in-law and children. they haven't had power for two years. manolo, augustina's husband, wants to show us something. >> so when the generator is running, we have light! more or less. >> of it anyway -- a bit anyway. >> we need power for at least a few hours for the refrigerator. but now the gas is empty. >> pricey? >> definitely. 500 euros a month! for gas for the generator. >> enough space for animals and a little scrap market:

manolo's parents built this house and farm decades ago. back then no one seemed to care about the settlement east of madrid. but now everything here is to be torn down. be the e.u. sent a letter calling the widespread lack of power unacceptable, demanding spain take action. but madrid's regional government didn't repair the power grid. instead, the settlement's commissioner offered people one of the over 400 rental apartments city bought in exchange for their homes. but not everyone wants to leave. like sara, who lives at the southern end. most of her neighbors and their homes are gone. >> the house is ours. we've always paid taxes. we don't want someone else to decide where we get to live.

>> she shows us documents that show they paid property taxes up until 2011, when the authorities suddenly stopped collecting them. sara's neighbor elena doesn't want to vacate either. she's been living here for 30 years and recently had solar panels installed on the roof of her house. now she has power, even without a generator. >> it cost me a lot of money. i have all the bills. if the authorities reimburse me for all of that i'll leave. the property isn't mine, but the house is. >> i was at the town hall, over 20 years ago. they didn't agree to let me build. but they didn't prohibit it either. they said nothing. >> the commissioner shows us satellite images to explain why things are complicated. cañada real forms a strip around 14-kilometers long. since 1940, houses have been built here illegally. responsible authorities include the regional government and three local town halls. and there's a nature reserve. an urban planning nightmare. but everyone has now agreed that the south sector of the settlement is to be torn down. with no compensation.

>> these people are going to receive eviction notices. they had the chance to request to move and didn't. the next step is eviction. >> manolo and augustina decided to leave the illegal settlement. before the excavators arrive, manolo tears out anything he can sell at the scrap market. after that, they'll move to into town. to this apartment provided by the city. this was the moment when they first saw it. >> it's so emotional. it's beautiful, just look at this kitchen!

>> their monthly rent will be 50 euros for the first three months, and then rise to around 200 euros. that's the deal for them to leave their illegally built house. their son is excited they won't have to freeze anymore. and now they can just flip a switch and turn on the lights. >> it is the only capital in europe that remains divided: nicosia in cyprus. since turkish troops invaded the island in the mediterranean in 1974, cyprus has been divided between the greek republic and the turkish-occupied north. many political attempts to reunite the island have failed. but citizens continue to do their bit to bring cyprus and its people together, including yorgos and mustafa. >> roadblocks, walls and barbed wire have been part of nicosia for more than 48 years. the capital remains divided to

this day, split into a greek and a turkish part, just like the rest of cyprus. the greek-cypriot yorgos spyrou finds it difficult to accept the political deadlock, and that there's no perspective of reunification. he looks over to the turkish side. the retiree says the reconciliation should no longer be left to the politicians. >> i see and i realize that if they left us on our own, i mean, citizens, we could have had a great life together. ♪ >> yorgos spyrou experiences just how great this could be in the bicommunal choir for peace-lena melanidou. greek and turkish cypriots sing together in the name of peace and reconciliation in this choir, where music surmounts political and linguistic borders.

mustafa ersalci has been in the choir for a year and a half. the architect from the turkish north meets his choral colleague yorgos before the concert. the border can still only be crossed via checkpoints. mustafa is used to this. he grew up with the division, just like his turkish friends. >> when i participate to the choir, i tell them that i am doing this and they are a bit surprised. but i think that you feel you are doing something for your own country, for peace, for reunification. >> it shows, from the time they see us on stage with our white clothes like that, and the color of peace and they cannot ever understand who is greek and who is turkish. the same habits, the same songs, the same attitudes. so step-by-step, i think we are influencing everyone.

>> who is turkish and who is greek? none of that matters when the choir gets together, as can be seen at this peace concert in the greek part of the capital. proponents of reunification are now a minority in cyprus. but the choir won't give up. and it's a full house at the auditorium. before the concert, two survivors the civil war i 1974 are honored -- one greek and one turkish. both survived massacres as children. today, they both promote reconciliation. ♪ [singing] >> together with the whole choir, yorgos and mustafa perform the song "sorry." the turkish choir members ask for forgiveness in greek; and the greek members do the same in turkish. they understand that one

requirement for reconciliation is recognizing the other side's suffering. >> we should have more and more like this, and this will bring people closer to each other in appreciating peace and forgiveness. >> at the end of the concert, they sing the song, "my homeland has been split in two - which of the two sides shall i love?" "both" is the answer given by yorgos, mustafa and the other singers in the peace choir of cyprus. [applause] >> what an uplifting note to end on! that's all from us at "focus on your of." -- on europe." if you have enjoyed watching today's show, you can share it via our homepage. just search for focus on europe at dw.com. until next time, goodbye and thanks for watching. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute,

which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

from berlin. tonight in the u.s., the fbi has arrested the suspect alleged to be at the center of a massive intelligence leak. u.s. investigators say a 21-year-old air national guardsmen is now in custody. he is believed to have shared classified documents connected to u.s. spies and the war in ukraine. also coming up, more fighter jets for ukraine. germany approves poll as you crest --