there's i'm sure business i'll see you there. germany starts a cautious a lifting of its month long lockdown after a sharp drop in infection rates but many people are saying the government should move quicker and open up the economy. so the french government's under pressure for failing to cancel local elections in march after several officials involved in the ballot died of curve in 19. and i think it builds in the us against the government's response to the pandemic is the death toll there passes 40000. blaming gone from all of this point the finger at me as an governess for a series of missteps.

this is joining us here with your global news update this is r.t. . let's begin with the latest figures on the covert 900 pandemic there are now more than 2400000 confirmed cases worldwide 166000 people have lost their lives the majority in europe and the united states and 636000 people have recovered from the virus. let's turn 1st to germany which is starting to lift its month long lockdown after declaring the corona virus outbreak under control but the economy minister has warned that the measures could be reinstated if the situation deteriorates starting monday shops in some regions are allowed to open schools and restaurants remain closed in berlin the restrictions of course widespread frustration with some people taking to the streets into all of it has more. germany's minister for economic affairs coming out and saying that showed people stick to those social distancing

protocols that are still in place even if they are being eased then germany could well perhaps avoid a 2nd lockdown he said essentially as long as people don't go running around like headless chickens and immediately back out onto the streets trying to live their lives as they were and things would be ok that's not washing with some on saturday here in berlin we saw a group of well around 250 people demonstrating against what the current measures that have been put in place and where they see the government here in germany taking us as we try and battle against coronavirus without a year i'm here to stand up for my fundamental rights guaranteed by the constitution and when a right to demonstrate is taken away and we cannot raise our voices against justice that makes us take to the streets out of those of you just to the spread of the virus isn't that bad the measures that have been introduced aren't reasonably good still are politicians go down the same route and say look down remains in place

perhaps right until they have a vaccine the monitoring app is voluntary but we'll see how it goes of the spike those people being unhappy with what's being done we are seeing an easing of some of the restrictions here in germany from monday some shops that are under 800 square meters will be allowed to gradually reach open that will be with restrictions on how many people can enter the store there will also be hygiene standards that need to be met when looking to schools well we're looking at the 4th of may for the moment that is under constant review and could well be changed in the future some states though have said they may be on a different timetable in no way is this going to be a national. timetable that's laid out for when germany will be reopened market soda who's the head of the state of bavaria has said this his state may well work on a diff. timeline the message from the government though from the central government

here in berlin is that this isn't the return to how things were that germans will have to adhere to some more restrictions some more social distancing some more anti corona measures otherwise well things could go right back to square one kind we've got and that's to inflict their new guarantees of the infection could keep happening out there also risks and when we take the small steps towards opening up we must keep an eye on the impacts and more the means for the whole system and almost for matters of health the statistics we're looking at here in germany is around 150000 confirmed cases of corona virus with around 5000 people sadly having died from the virus it's a much better ratio than most other european nations it's a much better ratio than much of the comparable nations of a similar socio economic background what that's been put down to

a lot of is the amount of hospitals in germany the amount of hospital beds available the amount of protective equipment available for those working in those hospital environment and the amount of testing that has been carried out here in germany when it comes to the economy though while some are a little more concerned we are expecting perhaps a contract ssion of around 10 percent in the german economy for the 2nd quarter of 2020 what we're hearing from the finance minister all af scholtz though is that perhaps things could be a little bit improved and couldn't be it could be a little better than that should the economy kick on in the 2nd half of 2020 however the minister for economic affairs peter out myers a little less optimistic than his coalition colleague saying that times are tough and people need to be prepared for that the. german economy's. a more serious situation than anything we've seen since the war including any financial crisis not

only are companies suffering losses they're fighting for survival our hope is that with the help that we've provided we will be able to get through the toughest period of the damage so that we can avoid job losses and bankruptcies all the latest from the world health organization is to those countries like germany that are starting to lift some of their coronavirus restrictions saying that people shouldn't think of this as a end to this situation that they should think of this as the next phase of what's happening in that pretty much echoes what we heard from chancellor angela merkel when she addressed the german people on t.v. earlier this month when she said essentially there won't be an end to this or return to normality until we have a vaccine that works this isn't the end of the story when it comes to corona it's certainly not even the beginning of the end of the story it could well be the

beginning of the next chapter when it comes to how to germany deals with it. we spoke with neurosurgeon mohammed a roof's who said that most european countries are not yet ready to lift their containment measures. i don't think the majority of countries in europe have peaked regarding the spread of the infection of course we should continue being disciplined in every single country in order to be able to achieve positive results all over europe the most important thing in our life is health and only then follows the economy and other things however every single case should be looked at individually if the infection rate continues to decrease we can slowly carefully start launching the economy step by step of course it makes sense to take necessary precautionary measures in those federal states that are affected the most for example in bavaria the movement restrictions have been extended taking into account the infection rate there it makes total sense to me. the french government faces some tough questions as to why it allowed last month's local elections to go ahead

despite the pandemic around that time several elderly regional officials including tom as contracted the virus passed away and the council official in a suburb of paris is now accusing the government of putting people at risk. dot com what you will starve caught the virus 69 and was taken to hospital for 10 days because of the contagion that most likely took place on election day the government is responsible putting so many people in so many cities at risk with restaurants and facilities be close shortly before election day is something i can hardly understand why did they send us to vote just days before the national lockdown. the 1st round of local elections was held on march 15th about 7 weeks after the 1st covert 19 case was detected in france by that time schools and restaurants had already been closed as part of containment measures the 2nd round of voting was later postponed and no new data has been out so far and the new micron admit is

that allowing the vote to go ahead in march was the wrong decision. if the science counsellor told me that keeping municipal elections would endanger french people's health i would not have kept them i take full responsibility for the decision i had no one the country to think that there was manipulation that people could say i had found an excuse not to organize and. johnno a person here again believes that the safety rules on election day were widely disregard it. about children so to nearly gone some of the polling stations had no medical gloves there was sanitized a job the rules were often ignored there were a lot of people particularly during the vote count 2 people sitting on each side of the table when they should be just one social distancing was less than a meter that led to a lot of stuff constructing the virus in vineyard and across the country and we also learned to protect ourselves we felt that we were risk of being the 1st to contract with lawyers. the u.s.

death toll from covert 19 is sought by almost 2000 in the past 24 hours to reach a total of $40000.00 it is by far the highest figure in the world and public opinion is divided over president donald trump's handling of the crisis in new york a group of protesters dumped fake body bags outside trump tower holding placards with the message trump calls death the city has borne the brunt of the pandemic with nearly 14000 fatalities in america's south the midwest in shows of support for the president and his demands to reopen the economy with more details his artesian well in vogue. all americans just like everyone else in the world are facing an indiscriminate and powerful enemy is invisible enemy is tough and it's march and it's a vicious but true to form the only thing uniting people in the us is disagreeing on how to handle this threat trump and co have a task force churning out daily briefings which people either love or hate to pen's

on who you ask and the country split about 5050 when it comes to the administration's overall handling of the outbreak will come as little surprise to many that those numbers fall pretty neatly along party lines you know while all the top brass in d.c. keep repeating that this is no time for politics and name calling before doing just that lives are at stake this is not a time for name calling or playing politics i want to remind everyone here in our nation's capital especially in congress. but this is not the time for politics and less politics and investigations have already done extraordinary damage to our country in recent years by clashes are confined to capitol hill in new york city the place hit hardest by the pandemic doctors nurses and ordinary citizens have been protesting against trump's policies is completely incompetent at his job he tries to pretend like it's a 1980 s. boardroom and it's not you do not gamble with people's lives that is morally bankrupt all of these things that lead to more darkness here and more illnesses and

more economic damage if it wasn't for the truck that's breaking it wouldn't be anywhere near this bad so for many of the president's not done enough but on the other side of that coin are the hundreds of people protesting in states like nevada wisconsin and minnesota calling for an end to stay at home orders and giving trump a gold star already when he said we're standing we have right where her have a party responsibility for iraq no need to tell us how to take a quick break right here in rome right now are very much rather. than using our constitutional rights and we're falling under a dictatorship and that's not harassment trump being trump he went ahead and tweeted out a rallying cry of a liberation from lockdowns and a number of those states that had already seen protests and that led to a slew of criticism that the president is fanning the flames of unrest in his own country not that they needed any help trump defended himself saying particular

states have gone too far and then threw in some comments about the 2nd amendment for good measure because a gun debate was what this pandemic was really missing but i think some things are too tough and if you look at some of the states you just mentioned it it's too tough not only relative to this but what they've done in virginia with respect to the 2nd amendment is just a horrible thing they do a horrible 'd thing the governor and all of that only further ruffled the feathers of a number of governors. you are already pushing back against trump the president of the united states has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do which is very powerful he does not have told to a 3rd his proclamation is that he would be killed that's what a king is a king has told to authority that statement cannot stand a tweet coming from our president to liberate virginia i would just simply say that as the governor of the commonwealth of virginia along with his staff is fighting

a biological war do not have time to involve myself in twitter or to have an american president to encourage people to violate the law i can't remember any time during my time in america where we have seen such a thing this is a such as schizophrenia so everyone continues to become even more diehard and their opinions like the government should be handling it but without taking away our freedoms there's on the federal aid being sent to states that need it but how dare you cut back on help to foreign countries we should all stay inside and less we don't want to send out free money but not before trump's name is on it and then there's those carefree floridians who couldn't care less about any of that as long as they can finally hit the beach again which they did in massive crowds the 2nd they were reopened so much for social distancing eyes it seems to have become political because of the contradiction you know any time president takes a certain course of action the political left wants to basically stand opposed to

it in that creates and festers you know these sort of divisions in america well i hope that it does in time to unite the nation it would be nice to finally see that but unfortunately i think the united states to that point right now because of their so much of mr rection in so much bad information this disseminated by the mainstream media that is going to be next to impossible to ever own. really have 6 a country that united in that way i think that the 2 party system has really polarized of the country in terms of politics and it's going to take a long series of political margaret coming out in taking power before we ever really see a united little cold room america. in brazil the cove in 1000 death toll is now approaching 2 and a half 1000 the highest figure in latin america the president's handling of the outbreak has proved highly controversial but over the weekend major cities saw

protests in support of sonora and against local curfews sweet months an hour and sacked his health minister for demanding tougher lockdown measures the president himself has resisted any form of shutdown and repeatedly downplayed the dangers of the virus so we strictures on movement in brazil have been enforced at a local level the firing of the health minister prompted a mixed reaction. working to care for them so i see this is an ordinary process in government the health minister was out of step with the policies being led by the president and i think he got caught up in all the hype as a minister he has to be accountable for his actions and the same goes for anyone in public office or things just don't work with a couple of young we still trust the outgoing health minister and we hope that the new minister can build on what is done. when you look at the situation the government is in now it's going to be difficult to change anything or make any progress i don't see that this move will make any difference because of all the

corruption in the government most narrow said ministration is corrupt. in the brazilian city of man hours hospitals have been overloaded with covert 900 patients bill years have been posted online and broadcast on national t.v. showing dead bodies in hospital wards alongside living patients still fighting for their survival and those images of calls widespread shock and anger but a spy the rising death toll in brazil president wilson says that the country must push to reopen its economy. i know life is priceless but the economy and employment must return to normal. brazilian journalists plain old man says that president johnson are always prioritizing the interests of big business over those of public health. those 2 letter e's subordinate to the financier lol these we have to pull the things the beginning those groups are

against silvio isolation because they don't once i did we stop the abuse was. all of his that count visions measures to fanatic also makes when we go out towns and believe that criticizing social isolation he's going to be held by do who had fear to get without joe and in common he wants to take these a blue tint with the current i was trying to use to balance self he's not worried about people's lives he's not worried about them going to go to hell this. is a come scientists in the u.k. have question towards the corona virus originated from the chinese city of who has more on the after the break.

colby 19 pandemic only sees much of the world. but it is also devastating than

demi has been painful recovery from it maybe even more is it of asia's fox. welcome back a team of researchers led by a cambridge university geneticist is claiming that the covert 19 outbreak did not start in the chinese city of as is widely believed the scientists lies the genetic material of the corona virus and traced its mutations and they found 3 distinct variants of covert 19 the final one of them being its final human efficient 4 we spoke to the geneticist behind the research we have identified 3

major variants of the corona virus and the original type according to a comparison with the bat corona virus is the 8 time that is found in china moderate frequencies but surprisingly not at high frequency and will be the major and then you have a c. type which then occurs outside china mainly so the 8 hope is more common at the early stage of the outbreak in other parts of china but not not in hand which was a bit of a surprise to us since the virus appeared various conspiracy theories have been circulating online and in the media one popular version is that the virus was produced in a lab the will hand institute a viral logy trump of self recently said the idea quote makes sense after months of accusations the lab has broken its silence and responded to the collapse. there's people who carry out viral studies we clearly know what kind of research is going

on in the institute and how the institute manages viruses and samples there is no way this virus came from us i think the picture up to now has seen that the fish market in or the wildlife market in was the source of the pandemic and this is based on the observation of the 1st 42 patients i think nearly half had had contact with these fish market but it's not the earliest patients i think our results could be taken to imply that we might have to look further than for the source of the hour or so for the outside in china that would be what i would look for the start of the spread. so the world views in brief in our government disguised as a police officer is killed 16 people in canada the country's worst ever mass shooting massacre occurred in a small town in nova scotia on sunday police initially announced that they've arrested

a 51 year old male suspect but later said that he died the motive for the shooting is not known. israelis have held a rally against prime minister benjamin netanyahu while observing social distancing and yahoo is under criminal indictment on 3 corruption cases 2000 activists in facemask standing at least 2 metres apart call for his resignation accuse the prime minister of using the pandemic and the law down to strengthen his power. and italy's registered 433 deaths from covert 19 in the past 24 hours the country has europe's highest death toll the figures have been in steady decline for several weeks and officials believe the outbreak has now peaked some italian cities are even starting to plan for life after the lockdown venice is considering whether to permanently restrict visitor numbers to allow the city to be better maintained. so stay with r.t. as we keep you up to date on the coronavirus pandemic for a website r.t. dot com social media channels are live broadcasts from studios in moscow london and

washington d.c. indeed it is now time to hand over to r.t. u.k. they'll be here with the latest for you in half an hour. the world is driven by a dream shaped by phone person. who dares thinks. we dare to ask.

this is a story about what happens austria stray bullets kills a young girl in the streets. what happens to her family and daughters in florida another mother daughter is buried in a cemetery it really messes with your head what happens to the community the public was screaming for a scapegoat the police needed a scapegoat so why not choose a 19 year old black kid with a criminal record who better to pin this on than him and what happens in courts be . shot after shot as far as we feel. we don't know childress from. the end of this trial unfortunately due to the will still not know what childress.

it's. i'm action returns and you're watching going underground the whole team here hope you're all safe we're away until wednesday the 22nd of april but in the meantime we're screening some of our favorite episodes of the so far coming up in this show are you comfortably numb close to 10 years since collateral murder revealed nato nations indiscriminate targeting of journalists and civilians former pink floyd front man was just slamming the british government for persecuting wiki leaks founder julian assange plus greed in an industry exposed by wiki leaks as london

fashion week shuts down its glamorous facade we talked to steve coogan and michael winterbottom about their satire on capitalism featuring the last ever on screen performance of u.k. celebrity caroline flack all this of all coming up in today's going underground but 1st ahead of next week's hearings on the trial of julian assange we've still heard nothing from u.k. labor leadership contenders in defense of the wiki leaks publisher but one candidate for deputy richard bergen has been speaking out going underground firearm it caught up with him. and it's important that we speak out against the actual vission of julian assange who could end up in prison in the united states america 375 years people have got to look at what's is given reason was given rise to this situation you've got to look at the. crimes that we. exposed the truth. spoken for example look at the cut from murder video

which came out in 2010 a video which went around the world and horrified people showing innocent civilians in iraq being gunned down that wouldn't have been seen by the world if it hadn't been we can simulate the wall all. yes in relation to iraq and afghanistan and similarly the treatment of people in guantanamo bay it is because if we can only see the world knows about these things because they were killing us the world is seeing the evidence of these things quietly hopefully in a democracy the. truth is known that we know what the powerful do in our name in the name of every citizen in this country so we need to speak up for what we believe is don't need to depend defend press freedom we need to speak out against the extradition of jews in the united states america through feeling these atrocities for revealing these crimes or even revealing these horrors of war and do

you fair with boris johnson now with a large majority in parliament where the journal and genocides does get exercise the united states do you fear bars johnson to stop cracking down on press freedoms head. i think one of the great problems with this situation is that it's almost giving a warning to all the journalists don't expose war crimes don't expose the truth don't expose the horrors of war because this may happen to you as well just imagine what would have happened when you look at the vietnam war and the trust that is committed by the united states of america that if the journalists who expose those atrocities were prosecuted afterwards it's important that the world knows the truth and horror of war and we must carry on speaking out about this and just finally of course now john magaw and yourself have a pedal savannah's for joining us on but i wasn't as much what i was as much vocal support during the riots of the general election so will the labor party be more in

full force sporting events on from now on well before the general election jeremy crowe been down our butts and myself and others spoke out against the extradition of jeannie the sound show leadership part said it was clear on these matters of course the labor party itself now has to decide whether it wants a leadership going forward to be clear in these matters but it's a matter for labor members to decide. labor leadership candidate richard burr going to join me now is someone who refuses to be silent of a journey and songe things like co-founder roger waters roger thanks for coming in the studio at last a sign of the finally exactly you've been campaigning for julie as songe eloquently they have talked about them i read your book and you know that the british guardian newspaper maybe channel 4 news if you watch that you could be forgiven for thinking you and rich a bug in another.