to the bad weather conditions. also on the program, a war of words between serbia and neighboring kosovo, intensifies ethnic tensions. threatening to break out into open conflict will have the details at china and 0 covey policy. the people breathed a sigh of relief, but with her immunity still far off. dangerous from the virus remind. ah, i'm anthony howard. welcome to the program. many parts of the united states are grappling with rescue and recovery efforts. after a snow storm lift, dozens of people did. over 50 people died because of the extreme weather conditions that figure is expected to rise according to officials in the us. new york state has been hit hard. the area around a buffalo in western new york has struggled with a weather phenomenon known as like a faked snow. that's when cold air is over the warmer waters of the great lakes. bringing the region huge amounts of snow fall and that's what buffalo is experiencing right now. along with heavy winds, an arctic cult mm. a lighthouse encased in ice in across the continent. winter storm elliotts has left striking scenes of beauty in its wake and frightening scenes of devastation, radio state and military police have been called into the hard hit city of buffalo, twin shore drivers keep off the roads. a driving ban had been issued earlier, but some was still found dead in their cars. so i won't be boiler standards like roads that are completely blocked right now that have no access whatsoever. and people are trying to drive into on these roads or tried to get into these neighborhoods and they have, please, please, you heard the mayor bag, i'm begging stay. all the storm has also cause chaos for travelers during the holiday season. popular budget carriers, southwest airlines cancelled more than 10000 scheduled flight, leaving passengers surrounded and scrambling to find lots luggage to 4 airports, 2 or one or 3 days late as residence. try and dig their homes out from the snow or story. it is a warning that more bad weather may be on its way rain and a rapid rising temperature or in the forecast which could cause flooding. it's been called the blizzard of the century and will certainly be remembered here for a long time. earlier we spoke to bruce, andrea chase, the assistant managing editor of the buffalo news, the major newspaper in the buffalo niagara falls area. we asked him how the city is coping. things are still not good. the worst snowfall has passed our airport, which is about 8 miles from where i'm sitting. no, i received 50 inches of snow and you know, the region itself is, is buried. we have, we've never seen anything like this. i'm, i'm old enough to remember a storm that hit buffalo 45 years ago. that's always been known as the blizzard of 77. those of us to are old enough to remember it. never thought we would see anything like it again. it also buried the city. i was 12 years old at the time, co school for a week, which was on a herd of i can tell you now that having lived through this past weekend, this storm that we're experiencing now is worse. well, we had be the people in the equipment here, morrow before the 1st. the 1st snow fell. i believe it would have been friday morning. we were prepared. the precision of the forecast was such that we knew this was coming. we knew it was going to be a blizzard. we knew how bad it was going to be. or rather we knew that it would be bad. i think that by friday afternoon, as you said, even those of us who are winter veterans were stunned. just how ferocious the store was used to and i heard. ready porter say that we're used to lake effect storm here, which just last month dumped more than 7 feet us know 80 inches, which i guess would be almost double what we've seen at the airport. and that's not unheard of what is on a hurdle for buffalo. the western new york is to have sustained snowfall and wins about 40 miles an hour for 48 hours or more in some areas. so even though we had the people, we had the equipment here, there was no way for it to move forward. just as one example. the governor said that let's say that you had a plow that was able to navigate the street. you wouldn't be able to drive more than a little bit before the white out conditions were such. you couldn't see in front of you and suddenly a car or another vehicle that had been stranded would be in front of you. and then that would've been out of action. they had to wait for the storm to less than a little bit before they could attack. and that proved to be a deadly combination as we've seen now. or that's kind of round up of some other nice headlines. now. nicole, leader of a plot to kidnap michigan governor governor rabbit gretchen whitman, has been sentenced to 16 years in prison. prosecutors described adam fox as the mastermind of the plan to a duck whitman at gunpoint ahead of the 2020 presidential election. he friends foreign minister has floated the idea of an international summit when the war in his country. me trick labor said ukraine wants to pay summit within 2 months with un secretary general antonio gutierrez, acting as mediator, belabor added. he doesn't think russia, which in, by the d current in months ago, would take part. russian president vladimir putin assigned a decree banning oil exports to countries that have imposed a price cap on russian oil. the band comes into effect from february 2023 and will last 45 months. western nations have set a price cap for russian petroleum products as they try to limit moscow's ability to finance. it's more in ukraine. tensions are growing between the balkan states of serbia and kosovo, with concerns about the possibility of armed conflict. breaking out, sir b has put its military on high alert and erected road blocks along the border casa versus serbia is preparing a pretext for military operation. negotiations with the e. u and usaa ongoing. in a, a hope of avoiding renewed fighting in the balkans. vacant blocked a route from kosovo to serbia. at the clubs living and not possible accused the government of discriminating against them and have barricaded the roads in protest . visa, selby, as president faith, he is ever ready to defend them. so luther would be a sober soliciting. john, i wish to inform you that we are indeed in a difficult situation, but we will give our utmost to preserve peace and stability. not only that we will protect our people in the not, of course, of all. i will take all measures necessary to protect on washington on monday. so we are put at military on high alert, the interior minister with the troops and ordered the fist and ready for combat. this, in spite of nato forces being in kosovo, and calling to calm the situation. tensions are often high between the 2 countries . but this is the strange situation was triggered by crossville decision to scrap old license plates from serbia that come from prewar times. local soaps saw that as an attack on their identity and autonomy, especially as the observer minority group making up only 6 percent of customers population. they protested enlarged numbers with another point. now the situation has worsened due to rumors that kosovo was planning an attack against its sub community. cause of those leaders say otherwise the whole world, the situation in the not, of course of all is becoming more and more serious and complicated with the war mongering perform a fortune and his men installed in the north is crossing the red lines that the right he must urgently withdraw his one from the north and order. the removal of the battery gets and returned to the negotiating table or so. he can not challenge causal which is set for peace to legal for our customer when phobia fought a war from 1998 to 1999, after which constable unilaterally declared its independence. sylvia does not recognize that status until today. neither do sober living in cluster members of germany's coalition. government are debating when to declare an end to the pandemic and dropped the last of the restrictions. public health officials say heard immunity may be close thanks to widespread vaccination and natural immunity. the german justice minister is calling for an end to restrictions all of them, but the health minister has urged caution. meanwhile, china's pandemic restrictions are set to ways further. even though the country is far from her immunity and cases appear to be soaring by aging, has announced its ending almost 3 years of border controls on january 8th. when covered 19 is downgraded to an infectious disease that may put the country's old and sick populations in particular danger. the end of visa restrictions for chinese wanting to travel abroad, has sparked a surge in flight bookings from china. people there has spent 3 years putting up with travel restrictions locked downs, mass testing, and other tough measures. the sudden lifting of these has caught people by surprise . the official reason, the army con variance is not as dangerous as 1st thought. bunker. we'll go you to function at the moment the pandemic response measures have entered a new phase in our country were faced by a new situation and new challenges. oh jim, come with pivoting, from preventing infection to protecting health and preventing severe illness. so hooking will build, obey the policy changed, has been welcomed by some people, at least that's the road. i mean, of course i, some people prefer control measures and i which boy incentive cases are isolated in a centralized way. not only got flat at all. so we know anyone outside is clear what, what we need now is heard immunity. so the government is quite right to do what is doing under the current circumstances. what you're looking at, i, i think mentality is very important. there's no need to worry about it too much. if the government is allowing things to open up again, that means it can't be that bad, right? if the virus is highly infectious in everyone's life is in danger. the government wouldn't be easing up. well, yeah, i believe i'm head, but crone of virus infections have skyrocketed since the u. turn by china's leaders at the start of december. older people up in hard hit as vaccination rates among them are low, many hospitals overstretched. and it's estimated that coven 19 could claim a 1000000 lives in the coming months. the exact scale of the outbreak is hard to judge, as china has not published, official covered 19 figures since sunday. and as a result of those developments, japan has announced it will require a negative covey 19 test from visitors from china. emergency measures come into effect on friday. and earlier the w spoke to the molecular biologist, a manual wheeler. we asked him for his opinion on just how severe the covered situation is in china. so basically with the situation, china as far as we can touch it from here, a quite worrying there seem to be massive number of infections to solve them means thousands, tens of thousands of people are going to die or experience severe disease. digital also put extreme strain on like logistics on supply chains. so one of the things that we have to foresee is that a lot of trucks are being made in china and lack of supply chain. this option of supply chains might also mean that we see and even more and larger lack of certain drugs you in europe, for example. and, and beyond that, of course, what we know is that every infection is specific or certain, but small risk that the new but are in can emerge. which can eventual suppose a certain threat to us. this is not something that generally speaking, expected at the moment because there is not so much immunity around in china at the moment. so it's not so like for example, new immune s k, parents will emerge. this is what we are seen one year ago with the emergence of mac on barron in the south african botswana. this is not the same situation as then . so even though there is a threat, the completely new baron of source called to can emerge from china right now. this is not being generally considered as a major issue. and finally, for many of us winter is an excuse to curl up, stay home and keep warm. not so for these giant tanis, the colder it gets, the more active they are. they fir provides a natural protection against the cold so they don't feel the chill. so my here at the cleaning giant panda research center in central china. i certainly appear to be pretty chill with the whole situation. and that is all the news for now. don't forget there's more to be found at our breaking news and on social media to handle the need for instagram and twitter is at the w's. i'm anthony. how'd, wherever you're watching. a good time. with dish.