Page 5 - Ben Wideman News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Many thanks for that report. appreciate it. well, vaccine misinformation is taking a tragic toll in much of eastern europe. this map gives you a sense of the difference. the darker a country is shaded, the more people that are vaccinated. it's especially acute in romania. that country has among the lowest vaccination rates in europe, with just over 36% fully vaccinated, and one of the highest mortality rates in the world. something sadly evident in the hospitals and the morgues across the country. so, let's bring cnn ben wideman back in here. he yojoins us from bucharest, romania, as we ment...

Die. but that message just doesn't seem to be getting through. now, the numbers are starting to go down here, but doctors and medical personnel say they are bracing for a fifth wave of the disease, isa. >> you can only imagine how frustrated those doctors must be. ben wideman in bucharest. thanks very much, ben. in jerusalem, a recent uptick in transmission rate, that might mean a new spike really on infections. help us make sense of why we're seeing this, why we're seeing a rise in the r rate here. >> reporter: yeah, isa, israel is often seen as a glimpse into the future of coronavirus beca...

>> you're going to be busy the next several days. thank you very, very much. in a few hours, the presidents of france and the united states will sit down together here in rome. it will be the first time that joe biden and emanuel macron have spoken face to face since they had a serious falling out in september over a canceled submarine deal. paris is still furious over what it calls america's betrayal for leaving it completely in the dark. secretly negotiated security agreement between australia, the u.s. and the uk, cost france a multi-billion dollar contract, tens of billions of dollars we a...

Towards a more engaging position vis-a-vis china. we are now seeing angela merkel stepping out of the chancellory after 16 years. interesting also bringing her successor, likely successor who is currently her finance minister, even though he's not from the same party to the same table to the same room to meet with other g20 leaders. we'll have to see what his policy is going to be on china and also the french president emanuel macron, you know he's a very critical -- vocal proponent of strategic autonomy which means having eu's own policy on china. slightly different from washington's. so we'l...

Touch with you as usual. thank you very, very much. i want to bring in our senior international correspondent ben wideman he is here in rome watching this unfold. set the scene for us on what's expected to emerge from the world leaders who have gathered here in rome. >> reporter: well, there are sort of muted expectations from the g20 given that several of the major leaders will not be here. among them, the leaders of russia, china, japan and mexico for a variety of reasons. for instance, vladimir putin apparently is somewhat distracted by the fact that the pandemic is surging in russia. but b...