Countries. For fifth which are seeking openly or secretly to influence the democratic choices of european. As was the case with break. Across europe. And to get that case with the repeal elections in may. Also on the day a breakthrough in the treatment of h. I. V. Spocks new hope in the search for a cure for aids. Its too early to say as to whether this is a cure but its been very useful for science and for giving hope to q. A. To be prodded people. To People Living with aids. Frances president Emanuel Mccraw has called for a far reaching a u. Reforms and warned against the dangers of populism three months ahead of european parliamentary elections heres some of what the french president is proposing a new European Agency for the protection of democracies would help shield Member States in their elections against Cyber Attacks and manipulation is also proposed banning foreign funding of european Political Parties and other hot button issue with migration the french president wants to reform the shang and border free area to set up a common border force under European Asylum Office it would give all the e. U. States a say acceptance and refusal rules for refugees so that also proposes a social shield for the blocks were guaranteeing the same play in the same workplace and a minimum european wage appropriate for each country. President of macro laid out his vision in an open letter published in twenty eight newspapers in all twenty eight Member States and addressed to the citizens of europe it he said we are at a Pivotal Moment for our continent a moment when together we need to politically and culturally reinvent the shape of a civilization in a changing world it is the moment for european renewal. This is on the european Identity Program of the policy one eighty think tank welcome to the. Whats president macro trying to achieve with his latest big visions you have it is of course a move which hes done prior to an election he has lately been under a lot of pressure in france itself and now he has. Slowly at the time again to focus more on europe and has come out with a big call to european citizens wishing to perhaps also a restart debate a public debate on european politics and on reforms especially but he did this merely to two years ago the so bought into the seventeen that was is his first big vision for europe is that much difference between vision and valid vision theres a difference first of all we can see that he focuses less on economic and social conversions and more on for example protection and border controls and also it is less of a federal europe vision than a governmental one. So it maybe has become a little bit more realistic and also shifted in its topics. Yet of course hes already proposed to two years ago but many of the topics which he addressed have not been solved so there was also a need to be looking at these topics again so do you think hes he has changed his mind from from the last time because as you say very little has been achieved. Particular agenda he got very little support nobody seemed to be listening is he likely to be more successful this time while perhaps it is necessary to work close and cooperation with other Member States governments in order to achieve those thats not what he has done he has. Proposed these reforms by himself he has already been supportive of a governments today in calling for these reforms. In the past germany and france have always tried to make such proposals together which he has not done and this has been a successful way of of reforming you. Bringing about change in europe so i am actually doubtful as to whether this is the best way off actually achieving those reforms however what he has done is he has made those topics more visible in the public debate all across europe again yeah i think support is is putting a bit strong the best ive been able to see from world european leaders today is that they talk about it being a great opportunity to talk about the issue rather than supporting the point that he raises very little ghosts and well have a look at a couple that the Czech Republic for instance is not a fan of these proposals the Prime Minister under a bob is quoted to say i have noticed that when france says more of europe she in fact means more of france but that is not the way we are all equals in europe and then he is the coleader of Germanys Green Party im only in a book one of the you will move the German Government must finally wake up from its hibernation and european politics at the moment its busy trying to shoot down european projects such as introducing it digital tax or whistleblower protection law is there was a blow our shows. So. How hard the sell do you think this is going to be for the french president the special issue of migration on the issue of migration weve seen in the past that there was no. No move by many Member States on finding a common line on how to deal with not only Border Protection but also assume securest and this would probably be one of the issues where we still need a lot more talks before we can see a common solution however such a move of proposing it and demanding it again is necessary and that is of course some countries which will oppose it but theres also support for example by germany in such initiatives defense comes up again this is been much talked about over the last couple of years he uses this letter to talk about to. A european talking about i mean increase defense spending a truly what he called a truly operational mutual defense close to the European Council with the u. K. When you listen to that one wonders why talk about all that when you already have that in nato. Well we have seen that to nato even though it is a very essential part of defense for europe is because of the president and the u. S. Trump. Become a little bit less something that europeans want to rely on at least we have had a debate in the past about how. We have our own defense or security interests which we also need to be capable of achieving by ourselves what is the European Defense interest of outside of nato well we have a much closer. Border for to russia for example so we when we look at defense we of course needs to think about. How will we be able to protect ourselves even if the u. S. Were to decide for example to leave nato this is not something that im expecting however this is something that trump has already raced in the past that this is an option. How do you think this is going to go down with what you want call the squad youre hungary poland Czech Republic slovakia he speaks a lot in this letter about how we need to protect our values and this is when i hear him addressing especially those countries. I think it is very necessary to find mechanisms of how we can ensure that European Values are being followed by all european members this is been raised by many across europe and not specifically in those countries of course but also in germany and there is a lot of support for finding binding mechanisms he also speaks of changing the treaties in order to do anything about those issues we knew just need to change treaties so yes i think this is also. Shooting at those countries that have been undermining European Values such as rule of law good talking to you thank you so much for joining us. From europe from the polish or one eighty think and thank you. China has begun its annual National Peoples congress which this year comes amid growing uncertainty in the worlds second biggest economy some three thousand delegates are in beijing for a two week session most of the bills they will vote on have already been decided by communist Party Leaders to advance a Chinese Premier League announced the go to risk i think its a growth targets a bit low is for maybe three decades but he said that there would still be a rise in military spending. She are facing profound changes in our x. Journal environment. Backs in the Global Economy challenges to multilateralism and shocks to the International Financial market but most of all the u. S. China trade friction has had an adverse effect on production and operations at some companies and on market expectations. Lets get more now from what the curtain that tatel oh a journalist who specializes in china and reported from the country for more than a decade before moving here to berlin welcome to d w i mean weve been hearing one of the big headlines to come out of the congress the first day it is about the slowdown in chinese Economic Growth six point four percent in december in the december quarter of last year but its still vastly outperforming most western economy so why are people worried good question it is vastly outperforming other western economies and its also this is a comet growth is also happening off an ever bigger base if you like so a drop in percentage doesnt necessarily mean that things are packing in that they kept him dramatically worse so theres that to think about you know how realistic is this negative. View on the other hand we are seeing quite rapidly shrinking growth and there are systemic problems so and for example debt which has been rising very fast in recent years so theyre off things that people are worried about ok but china grows at six point four percent i think of the projection today was for six point five percent while the us is at Something Like to point to four and. With that continued growth who suffers who outside of china suffers from from from chinas growth not being as high this year as it was previously well i think German Growth is already slipping possibly thats you know thats one reason why germany is at this point but you really dont need dependent on china with you know cost sales on these these Major Industries thats thats a problem. The other thing i wanted to say was that a growth in china is expected so call that six to six point five percent growth will there how you can really expect gross i mean its kind of a moot point but. These figures are all abstracts that theyre kind of guesswork theyre series made up from a series i dont know what the we dont really know what the chinese economy is how big it is its. One of the other big headlines as well for today defense spending an extra seven point five percent of defense spending in order to achieve what. China is quite rapidly. Expanding in several places the South China Sea is one that immediately springs to mind youve seen a huge militarization there it now has about i think three thousand two Hundred Acres of terra she which has been somehow shipped to miniaturize well built upon far more than any other country with similar claim to that territory. So thats thats one thing another thing is that simply china really does see itself as the us a world power after america so its you know wants to catch up to america once just a pos america perhaps even. Another of the economic announcers that became much as i was it was the stimulus package that when i was listening to that and it seemed reminiscent of sort of western center right democracies that talk about lowering taxes and social insurance contributions reduced fees streamlining streamlining red tape bringing down manufacturers the sales taxes. What does this tell us. Tells us that i think that theyre trying to shift to whats more classic kind of. Their liberal it economys style as you say you know tax cuts tax cuts for businesses above all to try and stimulate the economy in a different way from the stimuluses all the stimuli even that theyve been trying to employ over the last few years because the returns on the stimulus is that weve been seeing these huge injections of money so that means a lot of infrastructure building and that sort of thing but so is that if they will tax a lesson. And hope that people will spend the ball thats right just like a complete its like a different approach to trying to stimulate the economy because the Infrastructure Spending first of all of course creates enormous debt second of all theyve done so much of it for so many years now that almost youre missing the point where you kind of want to well while story spend you know do we stimulate infrastructure all there is a little bit of that sounds good talking to thank you for joining us i did accustomed you. Now to a breakthrough in the treatment of hiv only the second time ever doctors say that an hiv positive patient has been cleared of the virus that causes aids is new case raises the hope that a cure for the disease which affects over thirty seven Million People worldwide might one day be found its the second time someone has been shown to be free of the virus after stem cell treatment but is transplant therapy a cure for the pathogen that can cause aids researchers are urging caution. And so we are now eighteen months in and were confident that this mission but its too early to say as to whether this is a cure. The treatment works by transplanting cells from people who was never actually immune to age of the two infected patients but finding a donor who has a gene that makes them immune is like finding a needle in a haystack. More than ten years ago Timothy Brown also know when a bone Marrow Transplant and was cleared of hiv yes im advised im going public. I would say take your time if you if you want to become public do it its very useful for science and for giving hope to. Positive people. To people would be with a t. V. Some research and have held a new development i just emphasize that the procedure has little to offer to the almost forty million People Living with hiv that in itself is it is not a treatment that one would want to give to somebody who is living with hiv on the current medicines and is very healthy patients have a normal Life Expectancy and we would never want to give somebody treatment that could potentially threaten for now drawbacks of the treatment mean the search for a cure to hiv is set to continue. Well theres all this very hopeful lets get more from top of the bowl is a very all the just from nothing and University Welcome to day w. How much of this breakthrough was deliberate and how much coincidental i mean which condition was the cancer or the h i v that was the doctors principal focus. The principal focus would undoubtedly have been the cancer but what theyve done is take advantage if thats the right word that comes to try and also the same time as cure in the concept to try and rid the body rid the patient hiv and as you recall this is the second sign in a nice within ten years that weve seen such a potential cure hiv individual and the danger of this hoax is that im told its a particularly aggressive treatment so that theres no talk yet of sort of rolling this. Under the thousands of people. No its not feasible to to roll it out to the wider public i think this was as much proof of principle just to show that if you could strands plants these resistant. Into an individual and remove their own small sensitive blood cells then you could try and then generic yo for hate hiv and its an important print proof of principle because last nobody would advocate widespread treatment like this stem cell transplants individuals because it is a very aggressive disease it renders your own immune system and ineffective and its got quite a high fatality rate so was nobody would say that this is feasible for rollout what it does show is that in principle you could engineer patients. To make them resistant by removing the same gene from those cells and therefore hopefully give them long term protection from the effects of hey chad of you without having to undergo lifelong treatment and so in terms of the technology where are we now given that we have identified the gene mutation that confers they say hiv immunity do we have the technology to placate or indeed manufacture these genes. In principle we have the same knowledge and i think the biggest advance in recent years and some of the o. Viewers may have heard of the technology is called chris because and this is incredibly powerful gene Editing Gene Editing tool which can be used in the of archery so that any facts what you can do is remove hiv infected patients you can add this magic potion code chris because which will knock out the the gene hiv uses to gain entry into the cell and then when you read certain cells into the patient you hope that most of the cells that the patient then produces are resistant to hiv as we think has happened with the berlin patient and also the recent reports in london patient but but these arent trivial things and i think the reality is that standard therapy is guns and remain the main regimen the main protection against the ill effects of page of infection is that because of cost. It is because of cost and also still very much experimental we really dont know what proportion of cells we need to get with it with the genetics into how easy it is you know you cant remove every cell from the body the genetic modify them and then return them so what percentage of cells would you need to add it to effect what we call a functional cure in other words something that will render the individual resistant to the adverse effects hiv infections i think the reality is that standard treatments will remain the main tool and the main weapon against hiv infection and i think one of the biggest positive story the sort of blew my mind was the idea of people Walking Around who are genetically immune to each i. V. Haha did we discover this. Well this was discovered way back in the ninetys esse