>> senior citizens on tiktok - in china, grandparents are dazzling the internet sterilization on the up - in the usa, more and more men are taking responsibility for contraception and: tanks but no soldiers? why japan is running out of recruits.

kharkiv >> batra, reporting for duty! his real name is mizuho kobayashi, but batra fits better with his online persona. he creates video blogs. the 31 year old previously served in the japanese armed forces, or the self-defense forces as they're known here. he still feels a connection with the military and is voluntarily seeking to recruit more young people. his sign reads: would you go to the self-defense forces? >> what have you heard about what it's like in the army? it's really strict. i'm not a morning person. i don't want to get up so early. >> it's hard work. they even have to go out when it snows, and sleep in a tent. >> the training is really tough. people rarely say yes.

>> young people often don't know much about the self-defense forces. and they're not interested. they're mostly indifferent, neither positive nor negative. >> at the headquarters of the army's first division in tokyo, new recruits come to swear an oath of allegiance. but the chairs are largely empty. the army is especially short of ground troops. the defense force holds an open day to advertise for new recruits. but most of those who come are relatives of people who've already signed up. there are jobs going for all the family. in the past, the authorities were focused on disaster response units.

now the government needs armed forces. so they're doing all they can to win over the country's disinterested young people. >> anyone who even just tries on a helmet, like school student makoto nagatani, is immediately invited for a careers talk. makoto mentioned that he's into martial arts. >> you could join the army. think about it, with us you could become the number one in karate. maybe you could even reach world class. that's quite possible. >> anything to win a new recruit. sociologist fumika sato has investigated the personnel shortages faced by the self-defense forces. japan's falling birth rate is a huge problem. the lower ranks have seen personnel numbers drop 20 percent. at the same time, national

defense is increasingly in focus. >> the security situation has changed. the self-defense forces now have a new job description. in future, people in the services will face a higher personal risk. many people used to just see the self-defense forces as a stable job. these days, that wouldn't necessarily be the right career choice if that's what you're looking for. we're at a turning point. militarily, japan has indeed turned a corner. while the constitution still renounces the state's right to go to war, many politicians are speaking a different language. the government is now partnering with other countries to develop new fighter jets. the defense industry sees japan as the growth market in east asia. the country's defense budget is set to double. but solving the personnel problem remains difficult.

>> we need to think about how we can do missions with fewer people. the use of artificial intelligence and technical innovation could certainly help us here. but even that has its limits. >> who will drive the tanks when the number of people of prime recruiting age continues to fall? in just 5 years, japan will only have 1 million eighteen-year-olds. and almost no one here is as keen as batra. >> that was a whopper! >> the latest generation of young people in japan will continue to choose their own profession. unlike student makoto, few are open to serving in the armed forces. >> of course, the best thing is if the self-defense forces aren't needed in the first place.

but if something happens and they are needed, then you have to be prepared. >> the self-defense forces are supposed to be a deterrent to would-be enemies. but right now, they're not exactly intimidating. they're more like their mascot in tokyo - a friendly seagull. >> is your family planning complete - or maybe you don't want kids? a vasectomy male sterilization could be the answer. it's one of the safest contraceptive methods of them all. 'honk if you had your vasectomy!' is the message on the back of the vehicle. and every few minutes, someone does. it makes esgar guarin smile every time.

the 45-year-old physician is the proud owner of the only mobile vasectomy clinic in the us. once a month he takes it across iowa - providing minimally invasive, affordable vasectomies that take less than fifteen minutes. it's a pretty lucrative business - but the doctor is also keen to change approaches to contraception. >> women, female individuals, are fertile from the time they hit puberty to the time they are menopausal which is around 50 years old. and their fertility is only one day every month. instead of focusing on the individual who is fertile every single day of his life, from the moment we hit puberty until he time we die. so it seems like there's an awakening... >> an awakening he wants to encourage. that's why he visits remote parts of the state where education levels tend to be low and where men would have trouble accessing the surgery. guarin's mobile clinic divides opinion.

many in the us don't think contraception is a man's responsibility. but then there are many who think women shouldn't have to deal with the risks associated with hormonal birth control. and crucially: abortion is now banned in a number of states. guarin has arrived in the small town of waterloo. he usually parks in the center of town - the clinic is perfectly legal and local authorities don't (generally) mind. the main problem is making sure the trailer doesn't wobble. >> you want me to be steady right?! all those things i never thought about, having an rv, i had to learn these things. >> demand for his services is growing in the wake of last year's supreme court decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion. it's now banned in fourteen states. many health care providers are reporting a rising number of

patients seeking a vasectomy. according to the ngo planned parenthood, there's been an increase of over 30 percent. >> i think that, going back to what i admire about the united states, in terms of defending and promoting personal rights ... i think that's the reason why that became the most important thing in the mid-term elections. because it was affecting a very basic right. for an individual to choose about something as basic as their fertility. >> it's a debate that andrew and kristin kahler have been following for some time. they agree that it's a woman's right to decide for herself. the couple have three children - including twins - and don't want any more. that's why 35-year-old andrew is getting a vasectomy. >> men do see this as more of their responsibility.

my father had one done...a long time ago now. we've always been pretty progressive thinking in that regard and hopefully more men will start to see things that way. dr. guarin uses a no-scalpel technique and simply blocks the vas tubes. it takes just a matter of minutes. kristin, meanwhile, is glad that she'll no longer have to take the pill. she was on it for eighteen years and struggled with the side effects. >> so it'll be nice to reregulate my own body. that'll be nice. which he was very ...i think he's excited about that as well. >> patients arrive at the mobile clinic every half hour. doctor guarin charges $599 for the procedure - about half the national average cost of a vasectomy. it's estimated that several hundred thousand men in the us undergo sterilization

each year. ashlinn and jacob barber's decision to come here today had a lot to do with the new abortion regulations. >> i think my views of all that have changed, personally for myself i guess, especially now as you said, roe v wade, and really made you think about it. whereas before i didn't put so much thought into it. and now being like: oh my gosh, that could be a real issue...it definitely did but now just more recently. >> guarin's clinic has been affectionately dubbed 'the nutcracker'. but he worries that the name might put some men off. >> which is cute but it's very deceptive. because that's not what we do. we don't crack anything here. you know instead i like to call it the 'myth cracker'. you know, the mobile vasectomy clinic is a way to crack some of those myths around

vasectomies. >> the tough new abortion rules in the us are leading to a rethink about men's responsibility for contraception. a vasectomy was long seen as somehow emasculating. but attitudes are starting to change, and men are increasingly taking charge of their reproductive health. >> climate change is causing water scarcity. entire regions are drying out. but there are lots of ideas about how to address the problem. how to tackle the growing problem of water scarcity in >> the heat has exacerbated an ongoing crisis in the us -- water scarcity.. >> water shortage has become a never-ending issue.. >> an approaching global water crisis the lack of fresh water is not a problem for future generations--it's already a concern. half of the global population faces water scarcity for at least part of the year.

too much consumption, climate change and poor management mean there is less and less water available. by 2050, one in two countries will struggle with limited access to water. that's why we need to act now--and learn to manage it better, reuse it, and find ways to use less. but that alone might not be enough. scientists say we'll need more than just rain, snow and groundwater.. the ice sheets in antarctica hold around 70 %of all freshwater resources world wide. thousands of square kilometers of ice break off each year and melt -- fresh water that is wasted. >> research has shown that this option has the potential to bring water from the northern hemisphere; where it's abundant

to those areas where it is needed. >> manzoor qadir is senior researcher at the united nations university. technically, icebergs are already being towed--for example, to protect oil rigs. but to supply a city like cape town for 10 weeks with fresh water, you'd need an iceberg of much larger proportions: about 125 million tons! by comparison, a large freighter weighs around 200,000 tons. and instead of just moving it a few hundred meters, it would need to to be towed thousands of kilometers. that's a huge undertaking. but computer simulations from 2011 have shown that it is possible. at least in theory.. it's still a long way from 3d animation to reality.

a company from the united arab emirates has patented the technology. but the money is still lacking for a pilot phase. the iceberg idea is too big a challenge to solve today's water problems.. so let's turn to something lighter---that exists everywhere. air! in the morning, if everything is covered in water droplets or dew, then that is because of the process of condensation. moisture in the air become liquid when it cools. that explains why a cold beer glass is wet on the outside. in nature, it usually occurs at night when the temperature drops. this phenomena can be taken advantage of: water vapor in the atmosphere can be harvested >> so fog harvesting has been done by indigenous peoples on virtually every continent. >> rebecca farnum is a researcher at one of the most successful fog harvesting operations worldwide >> you've got some kind of material. this one is 3d with lots of

surfaces where the water collects. as the fog passes through here, then you can kind of see a spray... and then it gets caught on this net. >> this is what it looks like in practice: the semi-arid region of aït baamrane in morocco borders on the sahara and there is very little rain. but for 6 months each year, a heavy fog descends over the area. the fog is blown through a 1,700 square-meter mesh, currently the largest fog collection facility in the world. the fog condenses, drips down into tanks and is piped to homes. the nets collect around 35,000 liters of water a day, which meets the needs of over 1000 people and even can be used for watering plants. today there are huge fog collection facilities in chile, morocco, ghana, eritrea, ethiopia and south africa. there are suitable sites almost

everywhere. a 40-square-meter net which collects around 200 liters a day costs some 1,500 us dollars. >> so the community who would most benefit from this technology are also those who are most marginalized. so getting the attention there is difficult..to get the necessary start-up capital. >> fog harvesting is relatively cheap, scalable, and a great solution for people in remote areas. but it's not an option for big cities. there just isn't enough fog to meet the huge demand. our last solution doesn't seem all that spectacular. but it is astounding how much water could actually be saved: we lose 30 %of almost all fresh water worldwide through leaky pipes--that amounts to a staggering 346 billion liters of water a day! that's 30 times more than all germans households use per day!

water that we could use to for drinking, washing, cleaning, and growing food with. >> my son calls me the plumber from outer space. so we're basically plumbers. >> lauren guy is co-founder of the tech start-up asterra. 'plumber' isn't quite the word. asterra discovers leaky pipes---from space. they make satellite photos with the help of microwaves. the microwaves reflect differently, depending on what medium they hit. >> from space, we can scan the city--under the asphalt, in the ground, the piping system. our algorithm is actually focused on drinking water. we can tell from space whether the water is this bottle is coming from the tap, for example or from rain, or from somewhere else. >> they check the composition of the water. if its drinking water, they assume it came from a leak

somewhere. and usually they're right. every mark on this city map locates a leak. like here: a leak of over 120 liters of water per minute in prato, italy. or in bangkok..or chinese cities. asterra sells these maps to distribution utilities all over the world, so that they know where to fix leaks, and save money. localizing the leak is just the first step. replacing the pipes is the key to saving water--and the nearly 40 billion dollars worldwide that, year after year, go down the drain. >> tiktok is just for the younger generation! or is it? in china, senior influencers are proving quite the opposite!

>> meet the stylish grannies of beijing. these elegant elderly ladies are between 68 and 77 years old. they're being filmed by one of their daughters-in-law for a live stream on a video sharing platform. >> they advertise fashion, beauty products and even books. they don't personally spend much time staring at their phones - but they are interested in users' opinions. the best comment was i'd like to be your age - and have your kind of life! >> one user said: you're too thin, it doesn't look good. let's ignore that comment! >> 68-year-old lin wei is a former nurse. in china, the retirement age for women is 55. the ladies now known as the beijing glammas are upper

middle class and met at an evening class for older amateur models. their fans love them for their head-to-toe style. on chinese tiktok alone, they have more than 2 million followers - whose average age is 50. china's social media platforms are full of lifestyle content - anything political wouldn't make it past the censors. this influencer is an 86 year old former professor - with six million followers. china is an increasingly aging society. one person in every five is over 60. social media is a place the population turns to for a bit of harmless fun. >> we visit some dance-crazy, very active senior citizens in the countryside.... this town around 700 kilometers

south of beijing is home to some 3600 residents. many young people have moved away. these senior citizens meet up almost every day - at mingle's place. he's 28 years old and a sort of private geriatric nurse. his home doubles as a village café. important gossip is exchanged here. and whatever they get up to - whether it's dancing or baking - mingle posts it online. wang ruizhi can't wait to get moving. she's 85 years old and has hip problems. but here at mingle's she can forget about them. dancing, she tells us, does her a world of good. many here live alone. mingle began organizing these meet-ups three years ago, shortly after his mother died.

>> my life felt meaningless. i wanted to do something for my late mother. i have so much grief... and doing this helps me overcome it. his guests affectionately call him their 'managing director'. wang ruizhe and her husband are farmers. they barely manage to make ends meet. they both could do with a new set of teeth - which is simply unaffordable. but they say its fine. >> i can chew and bite. my daughter gave me money, but i don't want it. i'm too old, i don't have many years left. i don't need it. we had planned to meet some other social media stars in another village. but they came under pressure from the authorities, even though they're not doing

anything political. back in beijing, in the privileged world of the beijing glammas. the authorities don't mind them in the least. >> this dinner at the home of sun's son is being live streamed. >> young people think old ladies are good for nothing. that they have no place in society anymore. >> but we can still contribute. >> these elderly people in the countryside aren't making flatbread as a lifestyle statement. this is their reality. but coming together is a welcome distraction from the monotony of everyday life. >> here we can chat together and do a little work. the day goes by faster that way. >> many of them only use their

phones to make calls. they're not interested in tiktok. what happens in the real world is what matters to them. >> and now for our global ideas social media star...of a rather different kind! meet runa, the rat inspector? >> yup, this african giant pouched rat is being trained in the us to clamp down on wildlife smuggling. for example, to smell when a shipment contains hardwood timber or pangolin. these so-called hero rats can also find people in collapsed buildings and detect diseases in lab samples. but they're most famous for sniffing out landmines and explosive materials. besides their keen sense of smell, their size makes them ideal. they are small, light and can fit into tight spaces easily. and they live twice as long as other rodents. so would you trust runa to run inspections at your airport?

>> this is dw news live from berlin. west africa is ecowas comes up with a plan. the block says it has sorted out how and when it could deploy forces in niger if coup leaders do not resist or -- do not return power to mohamed bazoum. a 19 year sentence to alexei navalny. a russian court convicts him of extremism and extends the opposition leaders time behind