welcome to. join us continue to underestimate his force in countries around it to take notice some members of this also years ago southeast asian nations are now looking at ways in which they could calm the situation. as a member of this 10 nation grouping and other countries such as indonesia and singapore on now making their voices. in the grip of an wrist the military coup on february 1st unleashed a wave of protest across the country and a chorus of international condemnation now there's a growing expectation that when my. be reined in by its neighbors. 7 united kingdom supports the role of regional organizations in particular as in resolving the crisis the of this so forth it's a view shared by washington and beijing but just how much leverage does ozzy and have the association of southeast asian nations over its 54 years 3 has kept each other's politics off limits well they very often use the us and countries sort of very carefully imagining each other not really interfering if they charge them as the fs. but there are signs the coup and the crackdown on protesters is shaking vet tradition. and ozzy and meeting just this month heard blunt criticism of me a muslim military most notably from indonesia. there's no doubt see democracy we must pursue the restoration of democracy. indonesia underlines that the will of the interest and the voices of the people of myanmar must be respected. on. indonesia has taken a leading role in the regional response foreign minister written i must rudi was the 1st to hold face to face talks with the junta top diplomat in a meeting at bangkok's airport but beyond calling for restraint and members have shown little appetite for sanctions against the military. question is what can make a difference to them and if you do impose sanctions who will hurt and it will not be the military or the generals who will hurt. it would be the myanmar population who. myanmar is proving a test for as younes regional diplomacy and any peaceful solution comes of the dilemma and we can gauge meum us generals without condoning the coup. and for more i'm joined by michael vick your vatican altars he should director of the center for humanitarian dialogue and is based in singapore welcome mr irvine to hear what is does a regional grouping like ossie on hold the key to a peaceful resolution of the situation in myanmar i doubt it holds the key but i think that it should keep looking for the key and i being i mean by that that i think it's very much the responsibility of the neighboring states of the 10 member association of southeast asian nations. to remain engaged to sustain that engagement to continue to send messages. the use of non-lethal force restraints. making sure that people are not being shot and also calling for dialogue i think that's the role that asin is playing for now in other words it's not the key but they have to remain engaged and they have to keep trying to look for a way to prevents further violence and bloodshed and how would you judge that in gauge when so far mean we know that the austrian foreign minister has for example have met and the issued a statement that statement was the most of nearly as strong enough as perhaps expected how do you think this a good man has progressed so far. well i think the public statement that was made is not necessary reflection of what was said in the meeting and i think unusually i think some member states not meeting sent very direct messages to the representative of the military that came to the meeting or you know it was a virtual meeting that attended the meeting and i think that's quite unusual as well that very direct messages were sent now i do know also that there was no real response from the myanmar side to those messages restrains urging dialogue expressing concern so i think the public statement was very much meant to sort of preserve. a sort of sense of calm but inside that meeting i think there were very direct messages sent and that was the right thing to do the problem is that not all the countries were doing that so that the 10 member grouping is now fairly divided . amongst those who feel that it's the internal of fats of now monch they shouldn't interfere and those that feel that they owe it to the citizens to back constituency and also to the myanmar people to say something more direct why is there this division and that's the thing that i want to sort of get out why oh why is there a division like on these 10 nations speak with one voice on something that is clearly a violation of democratic principles. well i think they short answer is that not all the countries of a firmly wedded and committed to democracy. you know in the same way so in thailand you have a military government for all intents and purposes vietnam is a communist state cambodia is run by a fairly undemocratic strongman laos is a communist state and so the you know you immediately rule out some of those countries and i think for the rest of them lazy internees singapore i think also feel that because of their semi or mostly democratic systems they there is a responsibility and more importantly i think there's a sense in which this time around there's a sense in which there's a feeling they should really adhere to a set of norms that are a captured in a in a charter that was frightened some years ago particularly with respect to human rights and preservation of life how do you see response tripping up in the coming weeks given this division and given the role that key players as you pointed out might have to play. well i think that those countries that feel that they should remain engaged and actively engaged will continue to do so either together as a small a grouping or as individual countries and leave seen indonesia very much take the lead and i think that's very much for historical reasons and the media has always been active on important regional issues conducting shuttle diplomacy as the biggest country and now of course as the as the one country but as more or less firmly democratic i feel that there is also a moral obligation on the part of indonesia to push for a peaceful outcome right we leave it there for the time even thank you so much for joining us michael of articulate his asia director of the center for humanitarian dialogue in singapore thank you farai. millions are unable to travel due to the pandemic the tourism sector has been below par around the world but some countries are having a swing. by thailand offering golf i could just during mandatory quarantine to visit a. life in isolation doesn't have to be hard it provided enough entertainment people may even enjoy the time in quarantine just like. the 66 year old belongs to the 1st group of south koreans who are spending 2 weeks in bangkok confined to a result. by military guards you can call think of 41 koreans golfing as you roam around the field served by over 100 employees as like. the businessman sas the pandemic has made playing the sport at home nearly impossible so many south korean golf lovers are heading to thailand for a get away package devised by the thai government to boost is failing to resume sakta the resort promise is top notch health care and hygiene for the price of $18000.00 euros. or aboard the go for into an office and 3 safe coronavirus tests and a time to enjoy golfing. run tommy doctors provide daily health checkups it for the guests too while they're staying here. and it's not an expensive program son. plans to spend another month in thailand once to 14 days are over he says other countries should also adopt similar campaigns so travel is one feel like they're in coron teen but in paradise instead. and there is now also war yat from the burner. the government has announced people can spend. on a yacht in kept. 300 year old is spending how magic on the ubiquitous the up to 9 metre long cloth most indian woman has become a canvas for. and also welcome source of additional income. or is hard it work every day she paints saris india's traditional female garment even though she is well beyond retirement age she recently turned 100. me about a month to paint a sari i only work for a few hours every day any more would tire me out i start every day at $1030.00 and work until one. after that she takes a break. she enjoys listening to hip hop music on her smartphone source and terry and he is incredibly tech savvy this year she couldn't have a big birthday celebration today carona some instead she organized a video conference call. 100th birthday was in the middle of the pandemic. so we had a video call right. for padmavati family is the most important thing in life she play scrabble with her grandchildren. and to make sure they will benefit from her labor. day in the money i earn stays in the bank all of that will go to my grandchildren. and i never thought i was living your. dream short i. like things the way they are and has no plans to stop working any time soon showers popping up. now. elsewhere. as to the. rights leader with images of some of those monsters. the fight against the corona virus pandemic. has the rate of infection been developing what does the latest research say. information and contacts the coronavirus update coming. on t w. many push cold blood. right now climate change the koppel story. faces watch closely when for just one week. how much oil. we still have time. to subscribe to like. putting shops and not that many mosques sweetens approach to cope at 19 is radically different relied on people taking personal responsibility to contain the virus instead of strict lockdowns. but sweden now has one of the highest transmission rates in europe only its well funded health care system and spanish population have stopped its rocketing to the levels of italy or britain. now still comb has become a haven for young people from other countries as scaping lockdowns. is there anything we can learn from the swedish way. that's a question i lost a doctor of one of europe's largest university hospitals in stockholm in a moment 1st let's take a closer look at how the relaxed swedes have been approaching the pandemic the government has drawn both international praise and criticism for its decision to stay open during the crisis and not all swedes are convinced the country took the right path. at 1st glance this looks like life before the pandemic friends hugging each other and going on a shopping spree in stockholm here lot to do this sweet and hasn't imposed a lockdown instead authorities rely on people to use common sense and these young people see this as an invitation to come visit corey mar says he came from ireland 2 months ago to enjoy life and quickly found like minded people. feels good to get a coffee of. jam in a field. to train without being accosted by possible police members or possible security teams it feels good to be a lot of other feels good to be like existing a young person should be existing many of the other guests in the stockholm hostel agree they've come here from across europe from italy france and germany many are fleeing the covert 1000 restrictions in their homelands. right here as we discovered that he was full of other ones like me but there was here where the same results will simply continue to be alive but they live in rooms like this with 8 beds and no windows for weeks at a time linda came here after graduating from high school. when i came here a week and a half ago and saw people in restaurants talking and eating together normally without masks i thought i was dreaming on the other hand i can't forget what it's like in germany right now. sweden has both mandatory and voluntary restrictions residents who can are asked to stay home there's a ban on serving alcohol in the evening and masks are only recommended during rush hour there have been more than 12000 covert 19 deaths in a population of 10000000 this is left some doubtful when 82 year old krista anderson fell ill doctors refused to give him intensive medical care but after pressure from his daughter he received treatment ok. i was angry and i wondered if this really is the right way to go why are we doing this it's not working. we know that young people can spread this disease and the whole thing is far from over it will keep us busy for some time to come but corey mars enjoying the freedom of the swedish way like going to a cafe or a bar it's something the irishman no longer wants to do without so he can't imagine returning home anymore instead he's looking for a job that will allow him to extend his stay in sweden collin school university hospitals dr marie hall and chris joins us from stockholm sweden as we heard in that report it came down to the door his decision as to her father's treatment but you say it should be a medical decision not to the relatives. well yeah well 1st of all i would like to say that i'm very happy that everything ended well with this family and it's very difficult for me to comment on the specific case like this but there are some general aspects of intensive care that i would like to comment on with respect to problems that have occurred during the pandemic as you alluded to in your questions deciding on who are treated in what level of care in sweden this based on medical come to durations of course usually in the decisions are made on you know multidisciplinary team or several decisions together decide what's best in terms of treatment for the specific patient the question that we're trying to address and when discussing this is what will benefit the patient the most and sometimes suggesting an individual to intensive care is considered worth a try in meaning that the expected outcome will outweigh the risk that the treatment will expose them to in the context of intensive care this means that. they have a good chance of surviving intensive care and returning to life with a reasonable quality of life if the team reaches that conclusion. that subjecting the patient to intensive care will increase suffering and not have the sought after consequence meaning survival they will decide not to move the patients to intensive care primarily because it would be unethical to increase suffering without without any hope of survival so as you understand these decisions are extremely difficult and we include relatives in this discussion to make sure that they understand the reasoning behind the decisions but we never ask them to make these decisions since that cycle stress of having to do so and if it would be to have a so yes it's a medical decision aiming to do what's best for the patient in the long run so tell me how are things going in sweden with this 3rd wave now hitting. well where it varies a lot throughout freedom in some regions the spread is increasing while in others the situation is under control here in stockholm where i am right now we're seeing an increase in the larger proportion of tests positive of all test during the last 2 weeks and we see a worrying influx of patients to the hospital but we are nowhere near the levels of hospitalized patients that we saw during the 1st and 2nd wave and we also are beginning to see a positive effect of the vaccinations mortality from confidence definitely decreasing among those who have been most severely history ring the 1st and 2nd wave that is individuals who are older and live an elderly care facility 'd for nomics really happy about that but at the same time i worry about the pressure on the health care system building up again so tell me did sweden take the right approach in your opinion so what we did was in line with the swedish preparedness plan for influenza pandemics that we had in place before the pandemic the current pandemic and it was approved by our parliament some time before the congress pandemic and it kind of sets the basis for how to deal with this situation and we never enforce oppression. from the start we've approached a virus with efforts to mitigate its effect for sexing risk groups and making sure that the health care system would suffice and be able to function as accessible levels for all have care needs including cancer and my colleague or function as well so the 2nd thing to understand this i feel sorry to say since day one emphasized the need for public health interventions that are sustainable. and we need to induce changes in behavior in public in the public that people would be able to keep up for a long long time just to briefly answer the question if i believe we have approached a pandemic correctly i was yes i don't think suppression would have been say simple given the fact that the interventions needed to reach suppression would have been associated with too high risks for us as individuals and for society overall marie just briefly what can other countries learn from sweden do you think. i wouldn't even think about extending recommendations to any other nation we all do what we can to deal with this extremely difficult situation i'm not you wish and hope that we all will be able to look back on this awful time extract what we need to be better prepared and i hope that we together. can form a plan on how to deal with pandemics in the future and that we do so with a more global perspective and come passing you know all parts of the world and the response to the real increase thank you very much for being on the show today joining us there from still have sweden. italy was home to a critical hot spot at the height of the pandemic 1st wave a year on and despite strict lock downs over $100000.00 people have now died from coated across the country the british variant of the very virus is spreading there at what doctors call an alarming rate the mutation now accounts for nearly 18 percent of all cases and could soon become dominant experts say italy's hospitals could be overwhelmed again. let's get you over to our science correspondent there aquariums he's been fielding your questions on the corona virus. why is the mortality rate for europe and north america so much higher than in asia . after the 1st few months of 2020 most east asian countries got their pandemic problems pretty well under control and they've largely stayed that way to try to answer this i 1st checked the numbers which even if you take into account a lot of unknowns and discrepancies are quite striking there really are huge differences between continents all told there have been around 10 times more deaths in europe and the americas that in asia although more than 3 times as many people live on the world's largest continent him we don't know why but as always there are some interesting theories east asian countries in particular have largely avoided the worst ravages i think there's no question that that success is due at least in part to wide acceptance of strict social measures when necessary but but some researchers think that can't explain all of the disparity one intriguing hypothesis is that historically east asia might simply be an error. of the world where respiratory viruses like sars could be 2 are more common in the environment so so spillover and minor outbreaks with novel pathogens like it happen they are more often but go unnoticed those events would however according to the theory lead to higher levels of resistance and populations against those kinds of pathogens in general lowering disease severity for many people when a big outbreak event occurs that idea is pretty controversial and it's really really hard to prove and since we know that mass wearing contacts racing in and target hard lockdowns work many experts still give most of the credit for the lower death tolls in east asia in particular to those kinds of measures. there are koreans there i'm bent as all one thanks for watching stay safe and secure against a. kick off. tom atmosphere above means listless play far from the. lips of guns and the mentalist fights obsessive the be nonstop 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a better. life for. frank's food to help international gateway into the best connection self road and rail. located in the heart of europe you are connected to the whole world. experience outstanding shopping and dining office and try our services. be our guest at frankfurt airport city managed by from a bought. a look up the. this is from defiance in the face of. this extraordinary. police to shoot. peaceful protesters in the program beijing's gift of millions of doses of coronavirus vaccine. is be confused with a mixture of. a gesture of goodwill part of china's. interview i've been shown in buckingham palace. but the pressure for a response is growing. and the. national team coach has to step down after the european championships. we get in 1000000 more where the standoff between the military rulers and protesters demanding i return to democracy shows no sign of ending of forces of shut down several local media outlets to suppress reports of protest united nations says at least 50 people have been killed since the army seized power last month dozens more government opponents have been arrested in these latest confrontations . a moment of peaceful defiance sister and rose a new tone knelt in front of riot police in her hometown in myanmar's north saying she was prepared to die to save protesters. but minutes later protests turned violent as police attempted to disperse crowds protesting has become increasingly dangerous as police and soldiers have used tear gas rubber bullets and live rounds on crowds. last night in yangon residents defied an 8 pm curfew taking to the streets to show solidarity with hundreds of protesters trapped by a foreign cheese police fired stun grenades at the gathering supporters finally the trapped protesters were allowed to leave 6. when the sun rose protesters marched once again in mandalay they carried makeshift shields but stayed for only a few minutes a change in tactics to avoid another violent reaction from the earth or she's. more of the way. at night we couldn't sleep actually we don't want to go out but we're going out anyway. so we've been going out for 22 days and we haven't rested yet we are going out every day we keep fighting for the fallen heroes we will fight until we win. the military also attempted to suppress the spread of information revoking licenses from media outlets and detaining journalists from that there were military. build up a lot of. territory of progress is doubt but we managed to report back on satellite and on social media. about that we already got journalists. you know when you meet one in just now and you know. that it's got arrested again most recently protesters say they will continue to gather across the country daily acts of defiance in the face of mounting risks to their lives and freedom. straight to young gone then joined by journalists aiming found welcome to d.w. let's let's start with those protests and arrests in yangon we heard from some activists that some of those who were being pursued by the police have been allowed to leave wondering what's happened to the office. so we've seen this a number of activists have been arrested as well as party leaders and just anyone who is very openly gay leading the movement of the cents against a military coup we've also seen that members of the national league for democracy party that won the election in 2020 have been pursued more rigorously and in fact we saw one official who was actually detained by police and has died in their custody the police are claiming that he died a heart problem that he had but you know upon examination of his body his family has been able to see that he looked like he had sustained quite a number of groups and showed signs and he was essentially beaten to death right the military power the start of last month of being in charge now more than a month the protests have continued but the military response has become more deadly is there any indication of the protests are actually having any effect. so i think an important thing to remember about the civil disobedience movement that's happening here in myanmar right now is that it's not just a protest movement that's in the streets it is also paired with a sense the campaign and sanctions on the military infrastructure in the country so there are protesters out on the streets who are demonstrating their dissent as well as showing that the military won lot on the streets of myanmar but you also have a movement in which civil servants are leaving their jobs in the hundreds and in fact even this week we heard that over 200 members of the ministry of information have left the ministry and are now joining the civil disobedience movement and there's also generally a country right that's happening of military own or military operated brands you know even if they're not owned by the military are behaving in a way that is beneficial to military rule such as paying taxes or simply not saying it in the face of the right so given all these different what's the military response is it purely what we've seen in the you very violent crackdown in the streets or is there an attempt to sort of win people over of a talk to talk people and explain to us why this might be a good thing. yes so you definitely do see that in state run media so miller has a number of outlets television a number of radio as well as a few state run newspapers that are essentially acting as propaganda arms for the military regime you have military officials coming out giving statements writing stories essentially talking about why the protestors are wrong the benefits of military rule and. evidence or you know what evidence that they can show about election fraud which is how they have claimed legitimacy for conducting the coup in the 1st place. i say thank you so much for bringing that to. young go. thank you. and now to china where dozens of countries are looking to beijing to lift them out of the pandemic or china says it will give away daily half a 1000000000 doses of vaccine around the world after being widely blamed for the 1st outbreak of corona virus it's killing to repair its image but critics say a vaccine diplomacy shouldn't be mistaken for good will the w.c. for international editor richard walker reports. in a europe ravaged by covert 19 this is what hope looks like belgrade serbia waiting in line for liberation from the pandemic but these injections are about more than public health they were flown in from china to a presidential welcome chinese state t.v. on hand to capture the moment just the latest part of a massive pandemic rebranding exercise that mixes medical assistance with decision from asian. quite sustain afterwards also to try to spin the debate in a way that many look like a star in china and china was you know the 1st country to report that what's happening here is something that goes well beyond the pandemic and far exceeds the scope of china's official diplomatic missions like here and. it's a much bigger campaign photo lobel influence has been building up the years now will continue long after the pandemic is over. the most visible driver of this is the belton road initiative a project spanning more than 100 countries that is redrawing the map of china's economic power in a single region in europe chinese funds of poor ring into highway bridges in montenegro a coal fired power plant in bosnia and a giant seaport in greece that may yet become the largest in europe. and you can see signs that these investments can translate into political. influence like at the united nations human rights council where china won a show of support last year for its controversial suppression of freedoms in hong kong 4 out of 5 countries backing china had signed up to belton wrote. these efforts to shape global perceptions come right from the very top china's president xi jinping was the opening speaker at this year's virtual davus meeting exuding confidence and positioning beijing as the world's greatest champion of global cooperation there is a strong desire to show us up here already are you a chinese those 2 said to give. examples that show why perhaps i'm a 20 year sentry democracies were huge and useful and good but now for the 21st century be only systems that are really suitable to face the challengers of the century are systems that are closer to the chinese. u.s. president joe biden has made his debut on the world stage for him to push back at that idea saying democracy will and must prevail and germany's angela merkel says that the west must now engage in this unfolding competition. that's up to somebody it's important that it's not only china and russia that are delivering vaccines to developing countries the and fix them stand there isn't 50 it might seem like madness that lining up for a vaccine can mean picking sides in a geo political battle. but that is shaping up to be our new reality a battle for influence and even ideas about nothing less than how to run the world . i spoke about the idea of vaccine diplomacy with quarterly chad chad there was a hug area the european parliament for the reason you euro group she also sits on the parliament's of foreign affairs committee welcome to the don't you hungary so far is there a new country that's accepted china's assign a farm foxing is rich right to go it alone this way. well richter are indeed administered many many doses of the chinese that seem a bit out of the e m e approval but let's not forget that so many others are due to the fact scenes are . granted to hungary as a result of the health of the european union says of course vaccine diplomacy is useful for china but let's not forget our own efforts as the european union and i think we have to make a better job of branding our efforts both within the union and. as part of the global vaccine corporation that the e.u. is contributing hundreds of millions of euros to we will address that single day in the course of the next few minutes but sticking with that was he right to defy brussels and accept china sign a farm foxey. i think is always a gamble to pursue back scenes and administered them to the population before they received the m.e. approval sue i think it would have been wiser for mr oregon to wait until the end to have all these is granted by d.m.a. because in the case of the. chinese vaccination program but also when it comes to the russians. is your concern about the use of the chinese vaccine purely on medical grounds or do you do fear the idea that china is using. vaccine as a sort of lever for influence around the world. well i think the the general population is is a generally concerned about the the whole situation about the unfolding of this new disease which is still very new to many many of us and also the trust in these new vaccines that still has to be gained and i think in the face of such a difficult road to walk down a set of additions i think the best way to establish this trust is to rely on scientists rely on experts rely on the european medicines agency so that everybody can say that the vaccine that is administered is safe and has the has the approval of the european authorities off i'm not saying that the chinese vaccine is bad and the same dispute is bad i'm just saying that we should have waited until the prince's approval do you believe the public across europe house faith and confidence in the european union to administer this of oxidation rollout. well. it's very important to pronounce the many european countries the small countries in particular just like my country hungary is in a much better situation as a member of the you as a member of the common procurement as they would be without the european union so it's very important to know that however there were of course many problematic points during the contracting and administration of the vaccines and i dearly hope that the european commission will take seriously the the legal requirements said that in a contracted astra zeneca for instance and claim the vaccines for the population that it has the right to do so based on the contract we always demanded greater transparency as parliaments and we need that. i'll ask you the question here do you believe that people have. been. to administer this vaccine a rollout well because it has done particularly bad things so far. it's just a bit noisy here so i think the people do not specifically trust the e.u. ordinary governments or the local authorities they just want help and i think the e.u. still can't be of help office systems and we need to build.