Massacre, but the campaign for tighter gun control grows. Plus the students who divide hitlers. Hans and Sophie Scholl were part of a nazi Resistance Group and paid for it with their lives 75 years ago today. We will visit an exhibition that examines their legacy. In a movie about an art heist premieres at the berlin festival. Museum is an agreement that went wrong. We will go down to the red carpet. Sarah i am sarah kelly. Welcome to the program. We begin with reports that russia is blocking a you and Security Council resolution u. N. Security Council Resolution bringing a ceasefire to the eastern edge of damascus. Government forces are bombarding the suburb, and you and chief the u. N. Chief has called this hell on earth. Human rights monitor has warner shelley has killed 400 people since sunday including children, and a quick warning, the next report contains exterminate deserving images. Reporter even for those surrounded by death it is a crushing moment. He hugs his child one last time. For serious victims, there is no dignity in dying. Syrias victims there is no dignity in dying, and for the government there is no relenting. Every minute bombs are dropped. Monitor groups say more than 400 men, women, and children have been killed since sunday, homes and hospitals obliterated leaving doctors to handle matters of life and death amid the ruins. We had to conduct one of the surgeries under the rubble. We could not evacuate, so we did it under the rubble. Reporter the Syrian Regime said rebel extremist groups who control eastern areas using humans as shields. You and Security Council has been the uns Security Council has been debating a ceasefire. These are not terrorists showing up. These are civilians. They are ordinary people under attack by a barbaric assad regime bent on leaving the city level to the ground with no regard to the 400,000 men, women, and children who lived there. Reporter but it was met with resistance, russia blocking the resolution. But hope still locks within the besieged concrete canyons. For these young men it is in the shape of this. They are digging their way to safety. The only escape route from a torrent of bombs must be underground. Sarah and earlier today german chancellor Angela Merkel called on the European Union to step up pressure on russia and iran to end the violence in the city. Both countries are allies of president assad. In address to the german parliament, merkel addressed the bombing campaign. Here is what she had to say. We are currently seeing terrible events in syria. The regime, fighting out against terrorists, but against its own people. The killing of children, the destruction of hospitals. All of that is a massacre that deserves to be condemned. And which must be opposed by us with a clear note. But it calls on us to play a larger role so we can stop massacres like this. Sarah and earlier we spoke with martin my list from the Aid Organization care in amman, georgia. He talked about the situation. We hear from our partners, and it has been desperate, desperate for help. It has been really devastating in the last five days, and even today at lunchtime we already had dozens of casualties reported throughout, artillery and the departments bombardments. It is sad, similar to what we had seen last year with the targeting of many facilities, bakeries, markets, water infrastructure. The roads are empty and no one can go out, people are sheltering in their basements, afraid for their lives. This morning a 12yearold girl saying, i dont want to die. I still have dreams. It is really desperate. Sarah that was martin miley from the organization care speaking about him on speaking from oman. And the united states, donald trump has said he will be strongly pushing for comprehensive background checks with an emphasis on Mental Health for anyone buying guns there this statement follows an emotional meeting he had with students and parents who had survived gun attacks and in the wake of the massacre at eight school in florida last week. At a school in florida last week. Reporter this is the coffin of a person hailed a hero for trying to stop the shooter at the school he worked at. He was given full military honors as a veteran. The latest shooting has led to a raging debate on gun control. The National Rifle association, the nra, offered its solution to ending good violence. To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun. School districts, pta, teachers unions, local law enforcement, moms and dads, they all must come together to implement the very best strategy to harden their schools, including a effective effective, trained, Armed Security that will absolutely protect every innocent child in this country. Reporter advocates of further gun control are demanding action be taken. Students protesting outside this week said they were angry School Massacres have become commonplace, and little has been done to stop them. According to a gun control advocacy group, there have been 18 School Shootings since the beginning of the year. President trump met with students and parents affected by School Shootings. He vowed to improve background checks and raise the minimum age for buying highpowered weapons. Trump also wanted the idea of Arming Teachers and school staff , which was criticized by opponents to gun violence. He later clarified his comments on twitter said he never said give teachers guns but instead he was looking at the possibility of getting concealed guns to gun adept teachers. Back in florida, the family of chris hixon, like thousands of others in the united states, is coming to terms with the consequences of gun violence in their society. Sarah nigerian Authorities Say the school of girls who were unaccounted for following a boko haram attack monday are still missing. This comes after early reports suggested some of them had been rescued. Dozens of girls from a state run boarding school in one city are thought to have been adopted. Abducted. This sparks fears of a repeat of the mass kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls from another city. Our africa correspondent followed this report filed this report from the capital of yohji state. Although the attack happened already, up until now there is still a lot of unanswered questions. On wednesday the Nigerian Military claimed some of the girls were rescued, but today the governor of the state went to the village and visited the school as well to meet the parents but told them he did not hear any news of students being rescued. So some of the parents became angry and boot after governor. When they booed at the governor, some smashing the car windows and turned quite violence. But to many this is understandable because there has not been an appropriate reaction so. Even the number of students missing, it is not clear up until now. We have numbers from 50 to 111 who are missing. Different authorities give different numbers. The parents gave the governor a list with 101 names of missing students, so that is the number we got from the parent so far. The key question is right now still, where are those girls . Rj, as the authorities try to explain, still on the run are they still on the run . They could be in the bush hiding somewhere, or are they in the hands of boko haram . What we know is the terrorist group has not cleared any responsibility for the attack. Sarah that was a reporter in nigeria. You are watching dw news. Still to come, berlins red carpet for the premiere of a new film. It is about a real art heist in mexico that with horribly wrong. We will have a preview with our ndents who are standing by. In the meantime our very own reporter is standing by at the business desk. We have an update on the dieselgate schedule. Reporter german prosecutors have raided the homes of two for me former members of audi. These are part of the dieselgate investigation. They are expected of suspected of complicity bringing cars with unencrypted diesel engines into the market. Audi stands accused of selling 200,000 cars to cheat exhaust testing. Meanwhile germanys administrator of the court has pushed back a rolling ruling until next week. We spoke to someone from a group asking if diesel is on its way out. I continue to be firmly of reliever diesel will a believer is a will disappear. It is only a european technology. We were worth reese we were used to 50 but it is now above 30 . It is not a small death of diesel. It is a quick death of the engine. The German Court Decision was postponed to the they of the 27th of february. I can see driving bans in cities becoming illegal action to protect the air quality in cities that will only accelerate the transition away from diesel powertrains to electrified powertrains especially hybrids. In one of those cases will which will be affected by the verdict, environmental activists have taken the Southern City of stuttgart to court over its failure to respect legal limits for toxic air pollution linked to thousands of premature deaths every year. Here is our environmental correspondent with more. It is the busiest time of day at this familyrun bakery in stuttgart. Dozens of people throughout the city are waiting for their morning deliveries. Like many Small Businesses in germany, it is invested in diesel powered delivery vehicles which are cheaper to run because of years of tax breaks for diesel. A ban on their use would hit the company hard. If a ban on diesel powered vehicles covers the whole city, then we have a problem. We would have to shut down. We cant deliver our products with open transport, so we would have nowhere to go. He blames the sheer traffic of volume and german cities, and stuttgart has some of the worst. It has over 400,000 commuters every day. This busy stretch of road in central stuttgart is something of a household name in germany. That is because with an average of almost 70,000 vehicles passing through in both directions every single day, it is one of the absolute hotspots for air pollution. Last year the monitoring station at the crossing measured an average of 73 micrograms of nitrogen dioxide per cubic meter, almost double the legal limit which is why activists are calling for stuff tough measures. A lot of people suffer from respiratory diseases, old people in particular and also children. People move out of this area as soon as they can afford to. That is why we urgently need a diesel ban here. It would have an immediate effect. Stuttgart is keen to avoid diesel bands, so it has introduced traffic reduction schemes and Public Awareness campaigns encouraging people to cycle to work or use public transport. Policymakers have been progressively reducing the cost of public transport. The city is also hosting this pioneering project, using a wall of moss to suck car pollution out of the atmosphere. The wall is about 100 meters long, three meters high. Whether it works is not fully clear yet. Germanys powerful carmakers are also firmly against driving bans , but in the wake of the emissions trading scandal, they are tightlipped at the moment. Europes top court has failed to implement recommendations to curb air pollution. The court of justice ruling that the amount of harmful pollutants in the air went over at legal daily limits in most parts of poland. Recently european authorities have been cracking down on countries exceeding air pollution target levels. They are threatening to take nine other countries to court including germany and the u. K. Speaking of polluted air, thats persecutors on thursday rejected calls to open a criminal investigation into four major Tobacco Companies and charges including attempted murder or manslaughter, saying such a case would be unlikely to lead to a conviction. In 2016 to former smokers in the netherlands filed what they called a world first complaint. Other groups later joined, but prosecutors say they see no prospect of a conviction within current laws. People have the choice to buy cigarettes. People have the choice to start smoking cigarettes. That means with regards to addiction or serious bodily harm , it cannot be blamed solely on secure it manufacturers. Cigarette manufacturers. This is a blow to the dutch smoking organizations. They hoped to fight the tobacco industry. Smoking has declined dramatically in many large western markets since the 1990s. The industry responded with consolidation. Today the few major Tobacco Companies left have raised prices to compensate for lower volumes. Their shares are still rising. An amsterdam hospital was among those calling for the prosecution. After the decision it vowed not to give up the legal fight and might ask for an appeal. Back to sarah and a very important anniversary. Sarah we are going back in time because 75 years ago today, germanyss nazi regime executed two siblings part of the white rose, one of the countrys very few Resistance Groups. Them and four other members paid with their lives for standing up against a brutal regime. Our reporter went to munich to see whether their legacy lives on. Munichs Maximilian University looks like a typical campus with students hurrying to libraries and lectures. Look closer, and you see this is one of those places where germanys 20thcentury history resonates and gives us a glimpse of a different path it might have taken. For a few months in 1942 and 1943, students of this university were the core of the white rose, one of the very few Resistance Groups inside nazi germany which managed to organize and actually do something against the regime. Its bestknown members are haunts and his sister sophie, students and their 20s. They were intellectuals interested in philosophy and religion, but as they learned about the nazis crimes, it was time to act. They typed appeals, printed them on a secret press and distributed them around the country. In these leaflets, they and the other activists called on germanys germans to look at their moral duty and overthrow the system by passive resistance and then by sabotage. Spreading ideas like those at the height of the Second World War was very dangerous and courageous. On the 18th of february 1943, they came here to the Main University building, armed with copies of their latest flyer. What happened next was one of the tenses scenes in the movie the final days, which made the white rose better known internationally. Filmed partly at the original locations, it showed how determined that they were to wake others up to the evil of the not these the nazis. They left leaflets, knowing they would be found when students came out from lectures. In germany almost every young person has heard this story. Today there are probably different circumstances, but if Something Like this would happen again, people would stand up against such a regime. What would i have done if i were in that situation. I dont know actually. I think it is very good what they did, and they should be a role model, but if i am honest, i dont think i would have done that because i would be scared to get in trouble. Reporter they did get into trouble. They were arrested by hitlers secret police, the gestapo, and along with other students who helped write the pamphlets, given a show trial before the infamous peoples court. On the 22nd of february, they were executed. More than 600 streets and squares all over germany are named for them and other members of the white rose. Reminders that only a few people were willing to risk their lives for freedom. 75 years on, the sacrifice of these young people seems extraordinary and has the power to inspire. The white rose wrote if we dont have the courage to demand what is right, we deserve to be scattered like dust on the wind. Sarah the Berlin InternationalFilm Festival is in its final days ahead of the films being awarded. That is the top honors. My colleagues here are going to the movies for us. Thank you so much, guys. What would we do without you . What has been going on at the red carpet . Right behind us is the premier for the movie museum happening right now. It is a movie based on true events set in mexico. It is about two young friends who break into the national museum. They break in, they share a lot of get a lot of heart attacks steal a lot of artifacts. The whole nation turns against them. They are seen as unpatriotic, enemies of the state, something they do not expect and struggle with. They have a bad conscience, somewhat surprising, isnt it . And we had the star of the film actually showed up at the press conference. We were not expecting him, and we got a lot of interesting insight during the press conference. The director said when he approached the families of the real people involved in the real heist in the mid80s, they said they wanted nothing to do with the film, and please dont make this. The director said this freed him up to tell the story he wanted to tell. One thing he said that was funny was, while at the truth get in the way of a good story . Not sure what to make about that one, but maybe that wasnt the only film that was being shown. What else did you see . One film we saw this morning was the new documentary by the legendary swiss documentarian marcus imhoff called el dorado. It is about the process of becoming a refugee in europe. What got some unprecedented if not impressive access to every single step of the bureaucratic process that it takes to become a refugee from being dragged out of the waters of the mediterranean to sitting in an office waiting to be rejected essentially for your asylum claim. And he was telling us in the press conference that his main aim was really to show the critical, very critical way why there is this machinery, the aide machinery. He wanted to show that and how the refugees are being voided in the country exploited in the country. He feels passionately about that, and the reason he does this is because of his own personal history. Him and his family took in a refugee during the Second World War. We have more on that. Take a look. Swiss director marcus imhoffs First Experience was with a child refugees was with a child in world war ii. His memory of plenty of on a leads him of jovana, leads him to look at the plight of todays refugees. His film el dorado takes us on a rescue mission in the mediterranean. The documentary takes a critical view of european asylum policies and the organizations that try to help migrants. As well as the industries that exploit them. It is a quiet film about about dashed hopes and that a reminder of what mostly goes unseen. So another film we saw today was a film called touch me not by the bulgarian director sorry, a romanian director. This was a film very close, emotional, what is the word i am looking for . Explicit look at human sexuality. There is a lot of nudity and a lot of explicit sex scenes as well. What makes it interesting is it is not about the intimacy of heterosexual couples. There are other couples and transgender people, people speaking out about intimacy and problems. It is interesting. There are blurred lines between the documentary and fiction. What we should mention is this person is only one of four women directors whose fields are in the competition sector of the Film Festival. The other sections have 40 of female directors, but they got were so on competition. We are pulling for a woman with best director. Sarah four out of 19 i understand. Thank you so much. Both of you there at the red carpet, we appreciate it. With that you are uptodate on dw news. I am sarah kelly in berlin. You can follow us on social media where the conversation continues. Thank you for watching. Hope to see you again soon. Take care. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] this week on wealthtrack, Robert Kessler takes on critics and owning u. S. Government debt. Hes next on Consuelo Mack wealthtrack