the, the business, the, the we news line from berlin, china leader warrants germany against protectionism. president, she tells chancellor shows the 2 countries depend on free trade show isn't showing up for the 1st time since germany said it aim to reduce dependence on its biggest trading partner. also coming up, israel considers it's next step. it's military chief says iran will face consequences or it's reprisal attack against without clarifying what form that may take the

article for leach, welcome the shelf terminates chancellor. off shots is in china sitting down with his leaders at a time when economic and diplomatic relations between europe and beijing are increasingly strained. following a meeting between schultz and chinese premier lead to young lead sets that economic interest of both countries remain deeply entered. fine. presidents, aging, ping worn schultz against the resorting to protectionist economic measures, saying the 2 countries depend on free trade. last year in germany launched a strategy to avoid over dependence on china. now she says relations between the 2 will continue to grow as long as both sides respect each other. emails will show you trying to let y'all do shows only the 2 countries for view and develop a bilateral relations from a long term and strategic perspective. and they should work together to inject more

stability and certainty into the world of thinking. but i'm doing now while i d. w. 's chief international editor richard walker here in the studio and fabia and catch man who joins us from beijing. richard, let's start with you. we heard presidency, they're saying that he wants to inject more stability and certainty into the world . and cancer schultz who's on a visit to beijing. he has some thoughts on how to get there. yeah, i mean, i, i think, you know, a statement like that i think, to germany is, and to the is the german delegation is going to sound pretty hollow. and it really does kind of reveal that there's some chasm between the 2 sides in terms of the use of what's going on right now. and really for the jam inside when they hear that, you know, inject most ability. and so, since you in the world facing what you could stop by stopping, supporting russia and it's more against you train and, and this is

a major part of schultz is kind of mission to badging is to try to find some sort of ways of getting china from a government perspective, to be more constructive and with, with a view to this war, to reduce its support for russia's war, which is not necessarily in terms of providing weapons like it. ronnie is doing with drones all over like north korea is doing with myself and i munition but, but there was diplomatic support. there was, i cannot make support. there is support in, in the form of dual use goods, the kind of goods that can be used in direct me to support a war effort. and from a dentist perspective, this is enabling vladimir putin to, um, to attempt to use his complete takeover of ukraine. and that this is something that puts all of your up in danger so, so this is very much, i think the a concern of the jam inside the question is, can they really get any concessions after the chinese on that?

and if we look at what the chinese is saying so far, it doesn't really sound like much. well, let's take that question and take it over to basing 5. you can schultz get any concessions out of c and lee on his visit to time as well, according to the public statements of, from seating thing and also a prime minister at each young. they were not many concessions. and the biggest political topic was ukraine, and the statement that i see gave was really very way he said that, um, china is not directly involved in this war and that you know, all sides. so it's looked for some opportunity to look for peace. but i mean that's if there was no concessions, such as, for example, that a china would participate in the upcoming peace conference that will be held in and in switzerland. no, no such concession am. and basically i don't see much progress on that front. and also when you look at the economic issues, the, it basically trade that from the german point of view is increasingly unfair.

seating ping basically dismissed all those points. he said that the over capacity is that uh, threatened to destroy, you know, the drum and the economy is basically the germany should be happy about it because, you know, the, the is cheap, e v costs and a solar panels, etc, will help germany get it's, you know energy transition done and also he said that the strong experts of a china will help ease global inflation. and if you look even close to his rhetoric, then it basically also has a hidden a threat. and then he basically says that he's wanting against protection isn't and says that, okay, we can continue all trades of the count can continue the state as cool. but if you don't play a by our roots, then we can also, um, yeah, have some retaliation. richard, germany is in an uncomfortable position here because they need china a lot more than china needs germany. so what leverage does berlin have over a patient? well i, i think there is certainly

a perception within germany that it doesn't have much leverage. um and i think, i mean just to pick up like one more point on ukraine where you can actually see that maybe she's was today or even a less encouraging than they were the last time the celts went to to badging. it was november 2022, so it was less than a year off to the invasion that happened. a few crane shots went to to the aging. i was on that trip and schultz made a big thing out of being able to extract from the chinese side weddings in the so called readouts to come off to these meetings. and saying that the to lead as opposed the use of nuclear weapons. but also the threat of nuclear weapons. yeah. so this was very much kind of aimed at, it's letting me a present, of course, is backs up his war and ukraine with the threats of using new to weapons along the read out the we have this year from the chinese side does not include this idea that it opposes the threat of nuclear weapons, just the use of nuclear weapons. so that appears to be c jumping, watering down we coming,

whose position on vitamin pollutants nucleus rest. that if that really is borne out, then that really has to be a step backwards. not forward. yeah. 5 yet. we only have time for one more question . but um, if it is something that is being talked about, a lot in germany that i've ever since the chancellor announced that he wanted to de risk from china rather than the couple of germany set out on a new strategy. has that changed anything from beijing's preset? in perspective, so the main things position is that the risk is only another word for the coupling, but in my opinion, um that is quite a dis honest position. because if you look at the speeches and also at the 5 year plans of china than it was seizing, paying himself was the 1st who the risk of his economy who pledged to make china and more autonomy is basically since 2015 even going back before the tray, 12 with the u. s. and when you mentioned that, you know, germany does not have so much leverettes over china. i think that is

a little bit of wrong perception. right now actually, china is in a weak spot. america, close of its market, implemented terrace in europe in itself is the biggest trading partner of a china and the biggest import of goods. so i think right now it is actually a sweet spot to have some leverage, especially for germany being one of the most important trading partners for china, probably and such. but in beijing and our chief international editor, richard walker. thank you so much for coming in today. and here are some other stories making use around the world today. a fire and copenhagen has torn through the old stock exchange. the flames destroyed the 17th century buildings spire. the storage site is the headquarters of the danish chamber of commerce, and was being renovated because of the fire does not yet know. floods in pakistan have claimed 50 lives and inflicted injuries to many more people. the torrential

rains destroyed dozens of houses. lance lives blocked several roads. scientists say climate change is causing extreme weather in pockets on the 2022 floods submerged. 2 thirds of the country. scientists have confirmed global heating has caused the latest mass bleaching. that's killing off corals is on track to be the most extensive on record. half of all ocean waters with reese have experienced overly high temperatures. it's a raining president room, right. you see has warrant israel, of a painful response if it retaliates against iran attack over the weekend. he is really foreign minister is rel, costs says he has launched a diplomatic offensive against iran. he wrote on social media that he sent letters to 32 countries and it's called 4 sections on iran, miss alt project. our correspondence in east of in jerusalem said this diplomatic

offensive doesn't mean military responses are off the table as well. i'm sure that dozens of people who are tagged in this tweet, dozens of foreign ministers, that is, would be happy if it was an alternative. but if you see in that tweedy also said that this would be, in addition to a military response. now the sanctions are already on the table for a lot of the foreign ministers that you mentioned. you have u k, the us, germany and india, which is hasn't really made up its mind how to respond to this escalation, the middle east, but at least for the us. uh, some sanctions already being put up for a vote in the house of representatives there. so this is not a controversial shop subject for israel's allies, and it seems that we're trying to build momentum here to get a diplomatic offensive. but a lot of these allies that you paid us in germany have urge is real to make that the alternative to military attack because they see any military attack as being an

escalation. now the is where the war cabinet has converged a couple of times now. and they have said that they are going to try to avoid a regional war, that their response would be calculated and not from the god. but listen to ron this so that any military response to the strikes over the weekend would be met with a even a harsher attack. and that's because the ron sees their strike as retaliatory strike. where is allegedly, israel's strike on an embassy complex in syria that belong to your ron. so escalation is not out of the question. even if a israel's response is, is light and is calculated. now i'm in the war cabinet got together for the 1st time after um, october 7th of last year. and right now it seems to be focusing on a response to a ron. this, this shifted focus have consequences on the military operation and gaza. so

certainly does the focus is largely on iran and as they weren't golf has been put on the back burner, at least in the media here. it's not what is really they're talking about at the moment. um, but uh, cnn has reported. that's the ground offensive. in roswell, we're about a 1000000 palestinians are sheltering has been postponed. they were supposed to start evacuating people out of there, at least dropping leaflets to get people to move out of the area before a scheduled ground. offensive, but that seems to have been postponed on the other hand, biden and a lot of other international partners don't have the same ability to put pressure on israel because they need to stand with israel in the face of a threats from iran. as dw correspondent, i'm in the east of interest while i'm thank you so much. now we're to cause ex darnell, were flooding as far as the evacuation of nearly 115000 people with a president calling of the nation's worst natural disaster. in a decades the waters of all says immersed homes in russia,

southern regions. the rural rivers travels both countries and water levels are rising rapidly. as spring floods are a regular occurrence, but heavy rain fall and melting ice have made them more severe than usual. this is the worst flooding to had kaplacks down in decades. here in the north close to russia, hundreds of houses are submerged, cutting power and leading people homeless residents feel let down, and say that helps did not come in time. most of the city could have been saved since i believe t for 76 years. and i've never seen a flood like a basic addition. yeah. but the all far to solve the water coming in and they could have reinforced the time, do it that, that is to dump my house is mostly under water. we want to save our pets, but we're unable to. we've been waiting for 3 hours, but there aren't enough rescuers or equipment. the cadillac authorities say around

a 115000 people have been evacuated. melting snow caused by high temperatures and heavy rainfall have made the flooding severe. the state of emergency has been declared in several regions in neighboring russia. authorities are warning that colossal amounts of water are still to come. rescuers are building up defenses in an effort to minimize the damage. mass evacuations have been ordered that officials say the flooding could persist for weeks to come. and finally, the torch for the 2024 summer games has been lived at an event in greece. it took place in ancient olympia, the birthplace of the games. the flame will stay in line throughout the competition which will be held in france this year. during proceedings and olympic flame dance was performed, the torch will be carried through several countries on

a 100 stage journey until it arrives in paris for the opening ceremony in july. and that's our show. thank you so much for your company. by the you'll see about the video that goes in the media and they google, google, i've got it done by get, i will stop into that and i'll give you the order. would you be able to order that up? joe? made any a dog color and key move people in the world wide in search of a drum. you ever use minute, they can't mess with the audio. get find out about on the story and from icons. the .