And i hope there will be enough profit from society that people wont necessarily want to end their lives and. Also coming up at the Berlin Film Festival will screen 2 movies transporting us across the borders of time space and a place in society. From the 1000000000. 00 red carpet weve got a modern day adaptation of the german literary classic berlin alexanderplatz but what really brought the crowds out tonight was to see sam hyatt and Javier Bardem here for the World Premiere of sally potters new film the road not taken thats coming up on the day. Our viewers watching on p. B. S. In the United States and all around the world welcome we begin the day with the right to determine the answer to one of the most fundamental questions of life when and how do we die. Today germanys highest court handed down a ruling that reverses a ban on assisted suicide the courts decision was based on the german basic wall but the issues before the court they have jurisdiction in every country every home every life who determines when your life or my wife should end theologians have spent more than a millennium scientists centuries pondering an answer or today here in germany delivering an answer was the job of judges their conclusion clearing the way for assisted suicide brings germany in line with its european neighbors but it was not the ruling that everyone expected the decision by the German Constitutional Court took many by surprise. The ruling means assisted suicide by soon legally take place in germany. I dont mind to presume the cuts they come and rights of the individual allow the right to a self determined death. That right includes the freedom to take ones own life. Also to seek help from a 3rd party as long as its all fit. Into that. One of the people who brought the case to court was how. He has a terminal illness and once the right to end his life when its no longer worth living. I dont want it to reach that stage the difficulty breathing. Perhaps i wont be able to communicate with my quality of life will have reached its limits. And i wont want to go on and on. But not everyone welcomed the courts ruling at a Catholic Charity hospice in berlin many see things differently. Smart and for so long as it was simply concerned that there will now suddenly just be a really lousy way thats quicker and also cheaper thats not something i want in our society which has many forms i want to be certain that Everything Possible is done so that people can live with dignity until the last moment so. There are various opinions on the high courts ruling also out on the street yavin as that is a good point if everything is done according to the rulers and all the paperwork is there and the family agrees and i think its a good thing. To school. I think that people should always give life a chance among all the time is a terrible misery something good can happen i find it hard to then get a doctor involved its students its all that bonus if its about someone who is terminally ill and has decided they dont want to live anymore then they should also have the possibility that someone can help them. From. The courts decision now puts pressure on the government lawmakers will soon have to establish regulations for medication and procedures. Ever more on this landmark decision im joined here at the big table by our very own ethics correspondent martin get martin its good to see you good to see you too weve been talking about this all day and we all know someone an elderly person someone who was ill who possibly could face this situation needing assisted suicide there is concern that by having this freedom that the commercialization effect could take place do you see that as a threat here in germany i certainly think it is a threat overall so the fact is that in so far a something because of all then the possibility of essential extending the Business Opportunities there and in this case would be talking about death so that means that actually in order to produce profit you would need to kill essentially more people however the point to be made in so far the rules are stringent enough and then there is enough vigilance in the forests mint off those rules we essentially as a society and certainly this is seems to be the position of the chords this is a risk that were willing to take so we actually look at this we assess the possibility of things happening and then we the plough the rules in order to see if we can actually curb unmodulated the risk would you say that there is still enough. Of a taboo attached to assisted suicide that it will ensure that each case will be handled responsibly i mean will it make us behave i think that we have very good precedents right i mean both switzerland and holland i mean then the netherlands have actually a very well regulated i mean one must assume that there are some excesses even those systems but actually its a very tightly regulated system so that is a model that is sort of on the table and im sure its the one that germany is looking at at the very same time its also true that people do not like to talk about death they actually have an understandable resistance to the very idea of their own death and one of the things i think that we encounter is that. When were dealing with issues of assisted suicide we have a society that by and large is not willing to talk about death with people that are in a situation in which they feel the absolute sort of immediate need to discuss their own death and i really here isnt there i mean our societies are getting older getting grayer and yet our pop culture still celebrates youth. And it doesnt give any attention sometimes to to the last part of life what about what about this decision today we know that 70 percent or so of germans say that they are for assistance suicide having that right was this decision today the Legal Community catching up with public certainly very much so very much so i mean i think that it is very clear from pretty much every poll pretty much across europe. General societal said and him and is with assisted suicide and i think that we should be very careful here i mean the point is not that people should be allowed to kill themselves the point is that people should have the choice should the situation arise to actually take that step none the less obviously the general and the competing element is that what were trying to do us a site in the what the Scientific Community trying to do is for a close that i mean when we had to that point thats a choice that we hope we dont have to make i think that the point that the courts recognize is that it might be necessary to make that choice and the state of science is such that that choice in many cases must be made and we have to give people that are going to end by more and more people do with demographics and you know the way that they are lets talk a little bit about where this court case came from the meat comes from a position where just 5 years ago a law was passed that said assisted suicide was banned and again it was attached to this fear of commercialization as society the legal system and weve seen a 180 in just the span of 5 years that would be very quick i dont think we have seen him. Massive shift in the sense that there was enough permissibility before 2015 and then when the 2015 came around it is understood that there was still a certain amount of leeway i mean we very often do not know what happened in the final hours we have between a physician and the patient and the german system in many cases was lets say elegant enough not to go digging into those places where there were situations of great need and this was see in the century they leave enough great suffering none the less it is clear that thats not amount to the Legal Framework that is necessary for a doctor to be able to intervene in a way that is clean and clear and i think that what this ruling does is precisely give that chance its not only really about like the right to die but its also producing the legal injurious Prudential Security for Health Professionals to be able to be you know of assistance and actually help the long. Time what was your take on what the court said today the court basically said that the freedoms that are guaranteed by the constitution extend to what could be the final decision a person makes in that decision is having the freedom to his or her life i mean my philosophical same a philosophical position is that if we have recent and the recent star given and we have a law or we have a political system that gives essentially a premium to the idea of free will and rational free will then we have to accept that thats actually a rational choice whether we like it or not thats a completely different question but thats a rational choice. I think its correspondent martin is always going to get your insights thank you thank you very much. Still ahead on the day of sports star accepting her own mortality of tennis great Maria Sharapova is retiring at the age of 32 ending a career of dominating the court and courting controversy the only thing i can control is what i do out there and what i have and those are my words ive always you know ive always preferred to walk the walk and i have and ive done that by winning 5 grand slams and being number one in the world. For your secrets may not be as secret as you think if you use whats app a d w news investigation has discovered that private group chants on once are often private in name only now heres whats happened d. W. Found that links inviting others to join a private Whatsapp Group may also be a door for anyone in the public to come in what set groups were easily accessible through specific google searches the links to the groups have now been removed by google but they remain visible we understand in several public internet archives. For more on this we want to bring in the man who broke the story my colleague jordan willed in jordan its good to see you so good work here i want you to help me connect these dots how does a link inviting me to join a private Whats App Group become an entryway into that group via google so essentially and the employer some point here is that any link that sheds anywhere on the internet can be indexed on google whats up ive been very clear about this as well that its an intentional product decision to sensi to make easy a few seconds groups feel friends and family if i showed any google done can see its so in other words this is i guess this is a back door that was built in knowingly. To a certain extent yes but not in such a nefarious kind of way it was that basically just to make it easier for people to access all their friends mostly and what kinds of groups are we talking about here so we found all sorts of things we found things that friends and family groups we found some school study groups weve also found businesses but there are a few more things that are a little bit more concerning for example theres been groups of sex workers thats been groups sharing illegal porn on top of that we found a group which was listed as essential a support group algy bt people in latin American Country see when you join these groups whats concerning about this is it lists all of the phone numbers of people and in many latin american countries it merges about c. Very high thats quite scary and somewhat threatening we know that whatsapp is owned by facebook and im wondering how have whatsapp and google how they responded to this because the dangers you talk about you know theyre real these are peoples lives who may be in danger yes so well googles responded essentially saying that this is intended behavior look at the link is public then it will be stored on google whats up however i have had sort of a flip flop way of describing it at 1st they said it was an intentional Product Design so making it easy theyve done go back on that and theyve removed the line of code which allows google to index things by adding Something Else to the stop sets so theyve now removed all of these links and i wont comment any further on why thats happened and you know its interesting you know joined the c. E. O. Of Facebook Mark zuckerberg he has been traveling around the world recently asking governments you know to please regulate his industry thats what he wants now would regulations they prevent these privacy cracks like the ones that you have discovered do you think it would make a difference. Regulations can help but theres also a certain level of responsibility and theres always going to be a blame between policy and regulation and the c. E. O. s of Companies Like this idea whos responsible for privacy ultimately if we using a service then the creators of the should be aware of why needs on be more. Of a privacy and fun question jordan do you use whatsapp i do though every time of it now im feeling just a little less you know thats your work there young man all right jordan will do it as always or we appreciate your reporting thank you thank you. Both the 70th brylin international Film Festival is screening the british film the robes not take it by the director sally potter now the film which is showing in competition explores a daughters love for her ailing father. Selma high act and l. Found the dollars of the red carpet at the premiere of the roads not taken the cost of sally port his new film was happy to be at the ballot nala. Future stitchers a great opportunity to show their work also within the 70th ever surreal Berlin Film Festival which is a big thing its a big deal. In the film daughter molly is constantly troubled her father leo suffers from Mental Illness and hallucinations. Sally potters film makes leos mental world visible taking the viewer inside and sealed off self memories pos by feelings from long gone times come back to life. When one wants to feel that kind of illness or perhaps other kinds of Mental Illness are not always a disability sometimes hidden inside what seems something very tragic might be the capacity for a kind of time travel space travel memory travel all all kinds of interesting states of mind i was warry to get into a place where i cannot control myself thats the whole thing and i dont know whats going to help sally was so generous and brave in the lonely nights and i love we need to go where i needed to go to return to see the film also deals with the difficulties families have dealing with a mentally ill loved one life health founding plays molly with deep sensitivity showing how her fathers state keeps pushing her to her limits. My character is also really about making choices in her life so for me i was kind of always in the middle of something the roads not taken is a moving father daughter tale featuring extraordinary. But its not just a story of loving someone afflicted with illness its just that what we call normal life is just one possibility among many. All right lets take this now to my colleagues i mean yes if. Youre on the red carpet at the Berlin Film Festival good evening to you gentleman so the roads not taken after watching it was a road that youre glad you took. Thats a very good question you know this was a big night here on the red carpet Javier Bardem is an oscar winning actor and i think this film allowed him to show off his acting prowess you know to get into the role of a man who is completely absent. Suffering from early onset dementia but i think one of the problems with the film is that it wanted to make every scene an oscar winning scene and i know youve got some yeah i would i would say that the seeds were oscar winning seeds as ive been a huge fan of them but this was an interesting story but as with a lot of helicopters films it didnt really pull it off i mean in the end you got an hour and a half of Javier Bardem wandering around mumbling and l. Fanning looking sad and it doesnt really it doesnt really work i mean. This is a film about alternative realities and past not taken the path that they shouldve probably taken is take care of our times character 1st 50 minutes send them into a street hit by a car that would have been a much better film ive been on think theres a single road that this film can take that will lead to a golden bear all right well that sounds like a Traffic Violation there. Lets go into the next film that is in the running for the golden bear a classic 1920 s. Novel remade the centuries since he later im talking about berlin alexanderplatz so compare today to the 1920 s. What parallels are they drawing in this film. Yet i. Was able to interview the director and i asked him specifically that question and he said that when he was reading the novel he saw great parallels because of the the great income disparity that was exist in the 120 s. And the growing in time disparity now in berlin in the 2020 and so when he decided to adapt this this book instead of taking that for the main character france bieber cop of course in the original is a german he decides if you want to represent the sort of lower rung of society that he should take a completely different figure and so he took any heat made him an african refugee to better illustrate the sort of an underclass that exists now in religion a i thought it really really worked i thought that that twist really a made the the story up to date and gave it a real current relevance that makes this story that offer really come alive i mean when i think yeah i think that the novel really broke ground i dont know if the film was able to do that but still an epic tale of biblical proportions and i think its definitely worth seeing visually unbelievable visually stunning definitely and we know we dont have the image further until saturday when the your words are going to be announced you know of all the films that you have seen which ones do you think are the strongest contenders. Yet were talking about this just before the show and i think its a good chance an american film could win this should 1st time in 20 years maybe never or rarely sometimes always american but a girl trying to get an abortion i think thats probably the best chance of very bare big critical reviews for me it was 1st cow another american film personal favor and i think its a strong contender all right gentlemen thank you very much i mean thats if its got. On the red carpet at the Berlin Film Festival thank you. 5 time grand slam champion Maria Sharapova is retiring from tennis at the tender age of 32 a teenage prodigy she won her 1st grand slam at wimbledon in 2004 at the age of 17 and completed a career slam all 4 majors. By winning different open in 2012 the russian who moved to florida as a child was banned from the sport for 15 months after failing a doping test back in 2016 persistent shoulder injuries meant that she played only 2 matches in 2020 and she lost both of. Our to talk about his career of Maria Sharapova im going to hear at the big table by my colleague Anthony Howard from b. W. Sports all right 32 years old i mean for me in you that is you know shes still young but we have to remember shes been playing a long time and she says that her bodys is just not what it used to be right so you think that as long as her professional career but she also came along why were living in the shadow of chernobyl before she was born to move out of harms way to sochi she was discovered at the tennis camp at the edge of 6 by this point shes playing every day so we think about it all the bodies so theres been no chernobyl there would be no shower poco thats where shes discovered she goes to the bella tele terry rather tennis camp in florida way andre agassi came out of signed as a signed to a deal at the edge of 11 indian wells 6 things you might say the blue wins wimbledon 17 so you think full time a nice but really on the tennis convey a bill as a serious occupation with a father is trying to her mother is home school a sudden waste no time on anything other than tennis amazing 28 years on that production line so the body is broken down and thats why you had the chance to meet and interview her when she was what at the peak of her career or inter power came to melbourne before the strike you know open as world number one and also the worlds number one in a for fame on and off the court she would do that for the next 11 knees classic sponsorship opportunity that you get the chance to speak to her with the brand name of a his shoulder you must ask one question about the brand and youve got 7 minutes walk in the media present says his she is nourish of her. Yes anthony have place to make nothing get absolutely nothing back just a pair of hazel eyes looking back at me and watching me i look at the media person to say whats happening here any sort of help and shes like now youve got 6 and a half this is it this is really happening buddy turnaround of the camera and say hey lets we need to get moving here really quickly and turn around were rolling a camera and im greeted by the human billboard that is switched on when i am or is which strong and i dont say this to belittle her like a machine though in a way that is totally like him saying there are 2 things she was interested in winning tennis matches bryant and winning indorsements if you werent helping with either of those 2 things you just wasting your time but of course shes also going to be known for the doping. Scandal is that going to overshadow her legacy and how her career will be remembered it will to some degree because the career has come to an end so soon after that kind of question the hot medication was put on the banned list and she had to put a hand up for 4 weeks later and tested positive to that drug its going to be in the minds of some but really as to her potential and how hard she would she won a major on all of the surfaces she won wimbledon the u. S. And then these threaten she was never going to win the french she said that she. Was like a cow skating on the bench she won 2 of them she was able to overcome it yes the drugs thing is there arent computation a way but nor can you take away the top to do we know what shes going to do now means she still is she is young 32 shes been interning in the knock marketing headquarters shes building her own brand new sugar sugar pogo spending more time on that i like and whatever she turns a hand to it tends to succeed so were going to his some sugar poker that works all right Anthony Howard we appreciate it sugar prover thats going to be everyones here for the rest of the night thank you all right the day is always done with a conversation it continues online to find us on twitter either d. W. News you can follow me a break. Even there for good use the hash tag of the day and remember whatever happens between now and then tomorrow is another day well see then at the bottom. Half. Of our heroes are unlikely. Firefighting here it is a bit unusual. Forest fires have been increasing in the past years in portugal and so locals are turning to gold and cows to graze firebreaks their owners think their livestock could help solve a huge problem so how helpful are these 4 legged firefighters. Who are up. Next. They were forced into a nameless mass of their bodies mere tools of. The history of the slave trade is africas history. It describes how the greed for power and profit plummeted and entire continent into chaos and violence the slave system created the greatest player and accumulation of wealth the world had ever seen up to that moment to. From its very beginnings until this very day schuman traffic has shaped the law. This is the journey back into the history of slavery i think will truly be making progress when we all accept the history of slavery as all of our history. Our documentary series slavery routes starts march 9th on d w. Look up. Hello and welcome to focus on europe im laura glad you could join us today racism is poison those were the words of germanys chancellor Angela Merkel after a gunman shot 10 people dead in the city of hama now questions are now being asked if if