i'm told me he could join us the nation of accra turtle guinea is still struggling to come to terms with the devastation from the weekend's deadly explosions in the city of battle the military said a fire at a weapons depos sparked off the massive blasts a sense shock waves across the city the official death toll stands at $105.00 but human rights activists say the true number is far higher. state t.v. on sunday just moments after the catastrophe struck still living flee the towering cloud cast up by the blast the injured you can still limping to safety. because in fact. people left to tend to each other. the vice president who is the son of the stake president visited the same day shell shocked residents who are still trying to save their loved ones. on tuesday he returned with his father president they had the accounts of families rich apart. and lives destroyed and. my father left the house after the 1st blast 10 o'clock hits his head we tried to rescue him but he died at it and. satellite images show the destructive force of the detonation this is a military base before the explosions and this is the scene afterwards the barracks blasted into nothingness. the base was in the suburbs of batter equitorial get its largest city with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants. president teodoro obiang nowhere much has blamed the tragedy on fires started by local farmers and negligent handling of munitions only those who left the dynamites near an ammunitions warehouse. those are the ones that we need to accuse. he also said that the blast a damaged almost all of the buildings in batter thousands of residents have fled to the surrounding countryside. still in the city left with the grim task of pulling the dead from the rubble. the government has appealed for international help and spain the former colonial power alongside the u.s. and the u.n. are responding. but there are also warnings of the dangers that may remain concerns are rising over the response by unexploded ordinances including explosives rockets and other munitions that remain at the site. as the days pass more and more questions remain unanswered what caused the blast how many lives did they destroy and who is responsible for the tragedy that shattered and entire city. that's now here from 2 to alec and a human rights lawyer activist and the founder of equitorial guinea justice souter's good to have you on the program 1st of all what it devastates in it and why do you question the death toll. well we question the oil because witness accounts come from people there were at the scene. and lead us to believe that you know what's significant here and that is accounts from people including members of the military members of the unit in charge of rescuing people who are on blind war. in much higher numbers than one who got me reported so it is not only a man lying in his side if you look at this site the late images this year were not you will see that not given to a station over here the damage has been marched much higher here we know that in addition to the soldiers there is a nice military bericht their families live there so and most of these military barracks have more than $100.00 sort of sleeping in there so there's not only on mine the numbers are much much higher and why do you think the government would want to downplay the numbers. when we should not have the government of ecuador again it has never ever been transparent this is not a government not for in transparency quite the opposite it isn't gone and it's not for ease of for ease in the belief that their citizens the truth about election results they're about resources that we can see how about just just in you know so we do not expect any government to comment because they know that the damage done here is is unsurmountable and it's psychological them into libya it's huge you know so that they have no interest in doing that it will deter. and your calling for an investigation. well one would hope that following blast lead this there'd be a military of defense or someone with common save clear we know from census data for military census data then we have x. amount of people in the year when it's family members in this is war and we fear this is how many people feel we have lost that one would hope that somebody would come and say not the sort of. artillery that went off here in this x. and the lingering effect is why so you hope that the information is forthcoming from the government one would hope to go and say ok we know x. amount of families lost and just this morning i was looking at pictures of kids joint training that ended up in. the ground by catholic priests and nuns then end up in. kindergartens and hopeless and because they have lost their parents or somebody needs to be accounting for that and it's not happening so we definitely an investigation the notes on one should investigate in the other the other theories. carry a year the amount of prayer they have indulged in people's lands and peoples houses then the government is now finally going around it call it doing what i believe. just from a sit com but there's a couple things that you know you need to know not i'm is there a danger of any of these prayers my spirits blood and any lingering effects from the dust settling from the blast there when all of what you see is an expect right to l.a. county and human rights lawyer thank you for speaking to us. let's now check in on some other stories making news across the continent now. u.s. secretary of state anthony blinken has described the violence in ethiopia as tea growing region as ethnic cleansing and called for the withdrawal of eritrean troops washington's most senior diplomat calls for a reconciliation process to restore peace thousands of civilians have been killed since war broke out in november. ivory coast is mourning the death of its prime minister who died in a hospital in germany after a battle with cancer amid buckeye yoko played a key role as a mediator during the country's civil war in the early 2000 he was considered a possible successor to president alassane ouattara. one of guinea b. cells most prominent journalists says he was abducted and beaten by 4 unknown attackers on tuesday until a new alley silva who's a regular critic of the government revealed his injuries after being given medical treatment human rights campaigners are calling for an investigation into his assault. now where is he it's been nearly 2 weeks since tanzania's president john mughal foley was last seen in public his absence has prompted speculation both at whole and abroad opposition politicians are demanding the government lift the lid on the president's condition and this suggesting mughal fully might not even be in the country. let's go to our correspondent edith kemeny in nairobi kenya it is good to see you what are activists and the media reporting about mr magoo foley's whereabouts and his well being. well i wouldn't exactly call it reporting i would say basically speculating and all of this really started with to do so the opposition leader when he went on twitter and demanded really to know where the president has been because he hasn't been cited publicly since february 27th now that's on its own is not unusual but because he also missed some critical meetings such as heads of state east african community meeting the questions were being raised also noting that he wasn't present during his sunday services which as we know is a very devout christian people started asking a lot of questions and it's because to do so now suggested that he might be ill and in nairobi that's where the flowery or room was erupted from with some suggesting that yes he might be actually in a will be secondly that it could be because of complications due to kovi and. so if people are speculating what then is tanzania and government response or as you say they're saying he could be in kenya or was kenya also saying surprisingly there hasn't been any statement either refuting or acknowledging this that he's not an official one from the tanzania government the closest we've come to a quote official communication was the minister of information mr you know sent. and he basically was urging members of the public as well as the media to not listen to rumors this is what he was saying that any official communication will come from official parties which have of these words these are we still don't know yet but still no clear what or whether or not this is true or false and why is this causing such a frenzy. well for starters if you have huge implications for president ma good for you particularly among his loyalists because he has insisted from the very beginning of this pandemic that carbon simply doesn't exist in tanzania and for the large part his supporters have believed him in fact they've been through things like scenes made out of herbes in order to prevent this they've also gone for prayers and even recently mobile fully appeared in public together with some of his officials holding a drink which reported could cure this virus but of course in neighboring zanzibar which is a semi autonomous state they're saying that the story is completely different to the 1st vice president's there passed away with what appears to be covert related complications on the party insists that there is covert diskin money our correspondent speaking to us from nairobi thank you. well that's it for now be sure to check out all the stories on t w dot com ford slash africa or on facebook and twitter we'll leave you with these images from south africa health workers on the front line against covert 19 a yet since the world health organization declared a global pandemic we'll see you next time i phone now. how does a virus spread. why do we panic and when we'll. just through the tactics and our weekly radio program. if you like and the information on the coronavirus or any other science topic we should really check out our podcast you can get it wherever you get your podcast you can also find us at dot com slash. what secrets lie behind. discover new adventures. in the 360 degree. and explore fascinating world heritage sites. e.w. world heritage 360 getting up now. going inside protests against a man called europe's last dictator a new documentary film shows the courage of a group of actors risking their freedom to speak out against fellow says leader alexander. that story later arts and culture and. why filmmakers around the world want to work with lebanese born cinematographer christopher. but 1st an exhibition years in the making and months in waiting finally opens the works by artist are monumental both in size and in subjects kiefer often deals with the dark chapters of german history as critics like to say his work is too dramatic even to big well now people can judge for themselves the exhibition in the city of mana is now open by appointment under germany's newly eased coronavirus restrictions. 60000000 piece pressed into lead a play on the german term for been counting this was a key 1st reaction to germany census in the late 1980 s. it's a protest against the collection and storage of people's personal information a topic that's still timely. for the past 4 months an exhibition of kiefer's art has been installed here in manheim now it's finally being opened to the public it includes uprooted palm trees headless women. books made of lead. and paintings as tall as house it's as so often with anson q. for the viewers 1st reaction is to be overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the works that scale was a consideration when the museum's new extension was planned and i thought this was not what it does seem as if these large light filled rooms in this new building were made for key 1st work and that during the building it did become clear that the rooms weren't going to be large enough for this collection for instance this painting behind me would not have fit downstairs on the ground floor so this room was made bigger during the design process with 6 metre high walls so key 1st works could be displayed here before he presents you want to come so the const hella mannheim built higher ceilings just for uncertainty for. another place at another time a visit to keep our refuge in the south of france 2 years ago he calls this 50 hectare large expanse lightly bought it's where many of his artworks were created and still remain not for the public but only for him so why does he make art in the 1st place. i make art because i believe the world doesn't exist i think it is all an illusion but it only becomes real when a new connection is made when i join up. that are otherwise far apart i link up all things in new so i make art in order to be real. what is it about this place that is so special to him. this month you put it it's my playground when we work we always go back to our experiences of childhood and i play here like a child i grew up and don't know it and when i was born my family home was destroyed in a bombing raid that night. and then i had the best playground wonderful bombed out ruins. and i picked up the bricks and built houses with them those were my only toys we didn't have anything else from and i think. the. back of the can stop key 1st fascination with ruins can be seen again and again. grappling with the 2nd world war with the holocaust with religion history and mythology it all gives rise to un's and monumental art and. more art news now new york's museum of modern art is honoring the late self-taught sculptor nikki dissatisfied with the 1st major exhibition of her work in the united states was born in france in 1930 but grew up and new york she was one of the 20th century's relatively few women artists to find fame during her own life time. in russia a ballerina is going viral with this video shot at minus 15 degrees celsius as you know by go do you know if i took to the frozen gulf of finland dancing a scene from swan lake she posted it in protests against plans to build a port because she says the construction would destroy a v h popular with people. and with swartz. pretty brave and speaking of bravery a new documentary just premiered called courage the film goes inside the protests in belarus last year against the country's rigged elections when hundreds of thousands of people stood up against strongman leader alexander lukashenko despite violent crackdowns now director alexey apollo jaan shows us what it was like for a group of dissident theater actors. play opposing dictatorship what's being performed here is strictly forbidden the actors have all been banned from performing they are poverty. and marina members of an underground theater who are fighting for freedom they're part of a massive opposition movement but they're in constant danger. you'll see that. generation of young people go on the street but at the same time all of those people right now look all time maybe somebody her or separate people you know and it's not possible to leave and says so. specially for the art. director and lexie paolo yun observed the protests in belo roost last summer he's convinced that when winter is over people will take to the streets once again. many demonstrators have ended up in this prison despite their peaceful protests their families wait in front of the building for a new. i some protesters are eventually released i. repeat you know. they want limits on what this is this. so much i'm going to get really scared yes right now 272 person in prison and and for sure is this person will not see in. their homes next to us where yes it must include haven't i during protests in front of the parliament building a young soldier attaches flowers from the demonstrators to his shield it's a moment that inspires hope i the crowd congratulates i was easier if you saw it as the said you understood that also young people most of them. didn't want to do is its. policy on is convinced that the young soldiers are on the side of the people but their commanders remain loyal to leader alexander lukashenko i. know. the film courage shifts between resignation and pathos it shows convincingly that the vast majority in dello russo rejects the man known as europe's last dictator. still has the security forces behind him but the protests will surely continue. for years now we've been meeting up and coming filmmakers at the berlin international film festival the festivals bellino the talents programme brings together young creatives from around the world like lebanese born director of photography christopher variety magazine called him one of the world's 10 cinematographers to watch and that's what we've been doing rechecked in with him again to see what he's up to. we 1st met beirut born christopher at the $2900.00 talents program was the cinematographer on the visually stunning capernaum the film which worked with real refugee kids tells the story of zane a child living on the streets of beirut for that film on the $29000.00 german cinematography award the movie also won the jury prize a con and was nominated for an oscar which gave a huge boost to the cinematography his career. so i get scripts. from across the world at the moment. which which is what they. were last summer own worked on the international coproduction the man who sold his skin it's tunisia's oscar in tree for best foreign film this year and it's made the short list. it's a love story that begins in syria. have . a beer and sam ali are in love it was never about them. as i look at what. how did. i not how they are bought and britney said to look. good you were the eyes and we left that just saying i was naive colfer revolution will be has i'm doing the police hunt him down and forcing him to flee to lebanon i appears stays behind marries a diplomat and moves to belgium. will sam ever see her again an artist offers a promising solution and sam becomes a living canvas. to a poor soul. i watch your back york during the body and what it means to the person. to become abusive and that's going to be just. a deceitful art world staged with lush visuals with. the critically acclaimed film premiered at the venice film festival. and travel around the world it earned our own another german cinematography award nomination this work. of the. own slate a stillness copilot directed by underdog are better shape it follows a young couple as lee and say you eat when saeed suddenly disappears his family comes after as lee but the couple swore to keep their secrets. when was the best possible site. i think twice in the. cameramen yorkies you kind of dancing with the actors it's kind are. they need to grow up to get american or. this is do they know that this is for about that was nobody as to who goes from here. christopher nolan's camera work captures the sense of mountain claustrophobia copilot just premiered at the berlin international film festival this is for by you finished my phenomenal. gives. me his plight be here. with my ideas i. that's it for this edition of arts and culture thanks for watching i'll leave you now with the latest designs from paris fashion week where a veto unveiled its new collection at the louvre turning the greek and roman sculpture gallery into a catwalk check it out. to the point strong opinions clear positions international perspectives. u.s. president joe biden wants to reform america's immigration system to make it more compassionate to main these are you a cool to the sentiment but it's sticking to its own policy of full truce you are all keeping a difference so who's minus 2 point. 89 minutes on d w. seconds to go. as we take on the world. we're all about the stories that matter to. whatever it takes eastman. to be on fire made for nothing. more than a 1000 years ago europe witnesses a huge construction boom. christianity islam established itself. both religious and secular leaders are eager to display their power. to trace began. who can create the tallest biggest and most beautiful structure. and. stone masons builders and architects compete with each other. this is how massive churches are created the book. the contest of the cathedrals flaming liberal 12th on d w. this is d w news live from the. expos a man calls for sanctions against the military regime. in the military led by the same. point gauging inclined. here and says it may 70 people have been killed during the violent crackdown. on protests against last month's can also on the program europe gets another vaccine the european medicines i do see approved the johnson and johnson single shot drugs are used in the e.u. so will it help speed up the blocks lacking vaccine rollout. i feel gail welcome to the program. the un's human rights investigator i'm in mass says the new military regime is likely committing crimes against humanity with its deadly crackdown on people protesting against last month's coup special rapporteur tom andrews told the un human rights council that the military john tower had murdered at least 70 people but more than 2000 had been unlawfully detained he's calling for sanctions against the country's ministry leaders here's more of what he said as of this moment credible reports indicate that mean more security forces had murdered at least 70 people that are president those murders fathers sons mothers daughters husbands and wives it were educators they were engineers they were students they were many ages look we're going to half of those were members of generation c. or young people under the age of 20. better president their country only and more is being controlled by a murderous illegal regime its current leadership propecia away to the atrocity crimes that are the focus of the charge of genocide before the international criminal court of justice. through an special report on me in matam unders his comments followed news that more protesters have been killed and spread security forces opened fire on demonstrators on thursday including in the country's largest city young gone leaving more families mourning the loss of loved ones. she has a son is 2 months pregnant and a husband who is determined to join protesters on the streets of me and i don't know on the one. he goes to the protest every day even though i ask him not to go. i told him that there would be trouble if something happens to him because we have a child and another baby on the way but i can't stop him. now thought it knew that . foo's children would be raised without a father husband chipman food shot dead by security forces at a yangon protest. you know january he said it's worth dying for he is worried about people not joining the protest if so democracy will not return to the country he's worried about democracy now what we get is that he passed away . have the violence isn't slowing down and me and my. peaceful protests are met with the fishes for oppression rights group amnesty international is calling a killing spree. protesters were killed across the country on thursday the bloodshed not intimidating at the demonstrations. my lot when you are protest peacefully but they crack down on us violently it's ok the crackdown the stronger the revolution is we will continue until we win. 7 the protests started last month in response to the military seizing power and detaining civilian leader aung sun suu kyi. the ruling you into made their most serious allegations against her to date without evidence they claim suit she took illegal payments of $600000.00 u.s. dollars and gold and pay from her party denied the allegations. the military also reiterated that they will remain in power until the new elections are held haven't offered a date that isn't good enough for the protesters who are valid to continue their demonstrations matter the cost. biggest city. thursday's deadly protests. yeah well so we've heard that there have been protests in. plenty of time since the coup this is the 1st time that we know that they've opened fire with deadly force there's obviously been other deaths and yeah go on before but it all feels kind of random like he could just on some days tells curity forces that they can go out and kill people and i guess the intention is to give all protesters the impression that any day they go out they could be killed and the military says only he was use force when necessary and as far as we can see watching the they t.v. clips the protesters all peaceful so what's your assessment yeah i i think that's just flatly not true like you said the overwhelming majority of the protesters have been totally peaceful and are we have seen you know teenagers young women shot in the head it really doesn't reflect what the tatmadaw is saying about only using force when necessary they seem to use force totally indiscriminately i was on the country's former civilian leader she's facing new allegations that seem much more significant than the 2 shot you see face before yeah the these are the big charges she had been charged for some kind of kind of silly things before violent nights here her strict gins illegally importing walkie talkies i think these were kind of placeholder charges while they tried to dig up something a little more serious corruption charges of seeing people sentenced to prison for as long as 30 years so i think these are the charges that they're really hoping are going to permanently sidelined on some suchi from politics right i'm one of a saying that she has done. well like you said they haven't offered as a ton of details they said she accepted illegal payments $600000.00 in cash and gold. that information came from the l d e's chief minister and yang. but all we've got so far is the military's word thanks for joining us and your neck i'm certain and younger. we're talking some more stories making news around the world starting in japan which is marking the 10th anniversary of the massive earthquake and tsunami that destroyed towns ensure that the fukushima nuclear disaster minute's silence was observed across the country tokyo and proud naruhito and led a ceremony to pay tribute to the more than 18000 people who lost their lives. at least 20 people have been killed in a massive fire in a garment factory north of the egyptian capital cairo 24 others were injured and they and the blaze at the plant a bore the cause hasn't been identified. us companies and web sites in france continue to suffer outages and disruptions to services as a result of a blaze in a cloud computing facility some plants fear that data has been lost permanently in a father destroyed one of the forward data centers run by french internet storage company over the edge cloud in strasburg. these drugs regulators approve the use of the johnson and johnson single shot covert vaccine the american drug is the 4th to get the go ahead from the european medicines agency it's hope this will help speed up the heavily criticised slow vaccine rollout in may said the johnson and johnson shot is 67 percent effective 2 weeks after inoculation was already being widely used in the united states and the news comes as several countries announce that they have stopped using some batches of the astra zeneca coded 19 vaccine after reports of some people suffering blood clots denmark has suspended all use of the vaccine until the matter is cleared up has danish prime minister better fredrickson. that for she said to the us army i think it's the right decision to put the astra zeneca vaccines on hold for the time being until we have enough medical reasoning for continuing the vaccination and of course i'm as upset as everyone else about this and the potential consequences but it's probably too soon to conclude on this matter when it has a risk of course it has to be uncovered and put in there saying not i am a basic was just getting from the outrageous professor lawrence yahoo news from the university of warwick and england to a coed leads the health global research priorities program is internationally recognized for his work in virus infection and i asked him if deadlock was right to suspend the use of this vaccine. i think where you find any serious adverse events to any medicine that it is beholden on the regulators to stop the use of that but medicine or vaccine and do a full investigation so it's right to just have a look at what's going on. and has a connection between these blood clots and they use the vaccine been determined. no and one of the problems of course is that as you roll out a vaccine across millions of people you're going to see effects because that's what happens in the general population anyway in the u.k. more than 11000000 doses of the astra zeneca vaccine have been administered and there's not been any reports of excess blood clots amongst those receiving the vaccine compared with the expected rate of blood clots in the normal general population right the answer is that intervention has been dogged by rumors about its safety and efficacy why is that. i honestly don't know because if you look at the data that has been published all the way through the development of the vaccine and i have to say the group of being very transparent all the data is looked fine early on there was data demonstrating that the immune response was just as effective in those individuals over 70 as below 70 so aside from a political a political issue no idea but it's a very very good vaccine i mean while the johnson and johnson vaccine has just received approval from the a.m.a. be sounds like good news how do you think this american company can our avoid the sort of production problems that have so be said astra zeneca in europe. this is the biggest single problem in the way we've raced into the development and testing of these vaccines but i think we knew that because these are biological vaccines manufacture was always going to be a bottleneck so the hope is that johnson and johnson. and scale up their manufacturing capacity as quickly as possible but they also have a vaccine that only requires one jab and can be stored for up to 3 months in a refrigerator so it's going to make life a lot more easier in terms of the rollout of vaccination and the fact that you don't have to give 2 jabs and other still more to come i think that's that's that's the 3 of 4 that europe has now. has now given the green light to other still more in the pipeline. there certainly are i mean there are different platforms of course the nova vax vaccine has been very successful which is a subunit protein vaccine and of calls there all the are in a vaccines which we know of also been very successful including the the pfizer bio and tech as well as madonna and in fact those are in a vaccines are now being modified to account for some of the more difficult infections variants that we've seen arising in south africa or in the in in in brazil so i think there are a lot more of these they're all more or less effective to the same degree i think the unique thing with the johnson and johnson vaccine is that you just need a single jab on this all sounds like good great news thanks very much for joining us professor professor lawrence young from the university of warwick well there today actually marks a year since the world health organization declared a covert 19th pandemic the 1st cases appeared in the chinese city who had were officials identified a seafood market as the source of the outbreak the virus quickly spread across the world with europe becoming the new epicenter lockdowns of border closures didn't contain it and before long almost every part of the world had become affected. so let's take a look at some more developments in this pandemic the international olympics committee says it will offer chinese vaccines to athletes and teams for pairing for the summer games in tokyo and the winter games in beijing the news drugs regulator is reviewing an antibody therapy to treat covert 19 the european medicines agency's evaluating 2 substances being developed by u.s. pharmaceutical company eli lilly and richer members of the world trade organization have blocked a push by more than 80 developing nations to waive patent rights in an effort to boost the production of vaccines for poor countries. before go it's want to show you some images of the world's largest religious gathering which is taking place in india hindu pilgrims from across the country have taken to any ganges which is held to be sacred to mark the most auspicious day of the festival under the thousands gathered at the riverbank and not at dawn to take the plunge in one of several days over the next month authorities are expected to know half a 1000000 people to gap. that's it you're up to date so more world news of the top of the hour in the meantime. has your business update in just a moment and of course as always the website don't come out of the desk. got some hot tips for your bucket list. corners check. out support for food. and some great cultural memorials to boot.