into phones that matter to. al-jazeera. al-jazeera. with every you know. this is zero. hello i'm arianna mozzie this is the news hour live from london coming up in the next sixty minutes amassed signals it's ready to end a longstanding feud with its palestinian rival fatah agreeing to talks and

elections. overwhelmed and struggling to cope bangladesh imposes restrictions on where hanjour refugees who are poor and in for me on long. iran threatens a border shutdown as pressure on mouse on kurds in northern iraq not to hold a referendum on independence. is in doha with today's sports news including smash and grab a huge crush knocks taught to consider sebastian vettel out of the singapore grand prix allowing chair but you be the lewis hamilton to cruise to victory. are we beginning goals are in a major breakthrough what's been a long and dispute between rival palestinian movements hamas and fatah hamas which israel gaza for ten years has released a statement saying it's willing to. and this feud with which controls the occupied

west bank and that is agreed to dismantle the administrative committee that runs the strip and to hold elections from gaza harri force it reports. the pressure has been mounting on hamas the results of ten years of israeli and egyptian blockade have been intensified this year by rival palestinian faction fatah the fatah leader palestinian president mahmoud abbas has cut salary payments and electricity supplies attempting to pressurise hamas into giving up its sole control of gaza hamas turn to egypt which pushed the palestinian reconciliation. we responded to these efforts and made a brave decision to dissolve the administrative committee and now there are no excuses for a bass and a bass has one choice only to respond positively to achieve the palestinian national unity. that dream was written by gunfire in two thousand and seven when

hamas prevailed in street battles and the political division between gaza and the occupied west bank began repeated attempts to reconcile have collapsed this time for tire says it's ready to send its officials to gaza that plans are in place for the unity government to get to work its no matter of details. we now look positively on this but we need clarifications and the clarifications should come from the guarantor and the mediator which is egypt some of those who potentially have the most to gain from any deal between hamas and fatah and the hundreds of thousands of gazans who live in refugee camps like this one but over ten years of separation economic blockade they become used to being let down. they certainly borne the brunt of the palestinian authorities recent pressure tactics for hours electricity a day has become the norm this on top of a crippled economy which is left mahmoud and his four sons among so many others in gaza without jobs. reconciliation could solve the power

problem it could solve the water problem the markets are empty because people have no money no regular salaries people live without being able to plan. their remains much to resolve such as who has all to make control over the armed wing of hamas what happens to the tens of thousands of hamas employees who to now have been working in a parallel administration to the palestinian authority is in that the. both of us and for their sit down together and try to figure out the issue of future palestinian distance in gaza are the issue of how last forty five forty three thousand employees and. other minor issues that might be a big problem other issues loom not least how mahmoud abbas handles relations with the u.s. and israel both of which describe as a terrorist group gazans though are more interested in decision could make any time now to lift the recent restrictions and make their lives a little better original six al-jazeera gaza let's take

a look at the background to these developments today how mass took over guards or in two thousand and seven after a war with fatah and fighting a lot of followed parliamentary elections which have mass one the two parties could not agree on how to share power the conflict weaken the palestinian authority leaving it only in charge of palestinian territories in the west bank which is occupied by israel since march last year hamas is wrong gaza under an administrative committee which is seen as a rival government of the fatah dominated palestinian authority in the west bank but of course the important thing now is that hamas has said it's does all this administration to allow a unity government led by mahmoud abbas to reassume responsibility in gaza and that is also going to hold general elections now bill shaath an advisor to the palestinian president mahmoud abbas says elections are important for a future unified government. we are very optimistic but we would like to see that

first step takes place we are ready the consensus government is here and it got draggle quickly to gaza after a long and long period of saying and not doing the only thing is that step which might take place to morrow i mean it is to them up talking about weeks there we're talking about something that could happen very very soon once it happens once the consensus government a government that has mass had accepted every one of its ministers it's been chaperoned by egypt also what's this government really starts ruling gaza and the west bank and start developing problem. canonically start solving the economic problems of the gazans and that that first step will set real optimism for the second step which is the elections a step that we have called for for a very long time and now from us except that legislative and presidential elections

will bring back our elective democracy and will bring back more support from the people to a unified government and outliving to our other top story this hour in bangladesh the government has announced controversial restrictions on the movement of ranger refugees crossing over from myanmar setting up new camps to house the more than four hundred thousand refugees who fled ethnic violence in iraq einstein eight according to state media the ranger a barred from using public transport and looking for accommodation outside these refugee camps bangladesh's prime minister sheikh hasina is traveling to the united nations general assembly to ask for more help to deal with the crisis the un is wrong about sixty percent of those who fled the children and they're facing serious health risks. well i mean monsoon rains in bangladesh have added to the misery of hundreds of thousands of russian just stuck in makeshift camps. living in conditions almost eight centimeters of rain fell in twenty four hours and more rain

is expected over the next two days are also food and water. ports. every day. trying to get relief to growing i refuse every day like. the red cross. and the local agencies everybody is working very hard. with this private trucks trying to deliver. people died in the. children at the same time government in a controversial move told the police to arrest the movement of the rowing across the country. and all the. other parts of the country have started the biometric registration process that started several days ago they want to register each and every rowing fled from bangladesh so they can keep an account

where they are who they are and they want to confine them wood in the. areas they don't want them to move around the country they wonder eventually able to send them back to me and this is a proof to show that these are me on my record during our refuges who have crossed over to bangladesh and the mayor in marseilles i don't want. to cross the border in this drawing the refugees will be stateless people stuck between the two countries . to honor her son as the crisis response director amnesty international she joins me now via skype from geneva and sadly the numbers are staggering we're talking about hundreds of thousands of refugees who have fled. for bangladesh is any aid getting to them you're very right it's for it's over four hundred thousand now and we could imagine that it could be more because the registration process thus far has been absolutely chaotic and trying to have

a humanitarian response for four hundred thousand plus people that have flooded across the border in less than three weeks is an extraordinary task and so there were a handful of agencies humanitarian agencies operating in the area around cops is busy. at the time of the crisis but there is also to be absolutely stretched and exhausted at this point so what we need to see is a robust coordinated humanitarian response this is certainly something that the validity of the release of indicated they're prepared to to engage in but it will require the support of the national community there is no way to bangladesh can do this on their own and we need to start sort of moving on from the shock and the horror and seeing the international community actually begin to fund many of the requests that have been put out by the united nations and other humanitarian agencies so who then needs to coordinate this robust response that you describe we

know that the bangladesh prime minister shaker scenery is going to be in new york this week and she wants the international community to do more to help those refugees in her country do you anticipate that she will get that type of help. well i mean i think the situation is desperate i mean the images that you see on your screens doesn't really capture what it's like when you're there is really it's a sea of people you know i was there i was on the border area on the bangladesh side for over ten days and each day you could see the situation degenerating and that was before these heavy rains that came the last twenty four hours so you know i think that it's now time for you know the u.n. agencies what they're up prepared to step in but there needs to be some response not only some commitment from the bangladeshi authorities to allow the agencies to do everything that they can do and not limit their response but it really will take

dollars at the end of the day and that's where major donors are going to come into play and you know in the last year we've seen many humanitarian responses and requests for funding to crises like yemen and other places fall very short in terms of what is required we hope that that is not going to happen here and that the international donor community will step up to the plate because actually falling short on this one is that the consequences are going to be dire conditions in the camp already very grim. and we're definitely getting some idea of those conditions the pictures that we're looking at we're seeing men women but most importantly children drenched from the rains and not even really in any proper shelter or camp just standing under you know whatever top all in they have what sort of health risks does this throw up especially for the children. well without

shelter without proper medical sort of medical services. it's going to be the children are going to be at risk of a multitude of diseases. but what's actually more worrying is that the children that are there now are sixty percent what we do know is that villages are still burning inside me and so more people are actually going to come so you know these are people who not only are they going to face a dire situation when they get to the caps but they already come fragile and that in a fragile sort of state because the northern rakhine state area where the refugees coming from has been basically denied humanitarian aid since this crisis actually began on the twenty fifth of august but even prior to that this is been an area where access to basic services for the reading the population has been incredibly

limited so you know this is being a situation that has claimed their community for a very long time so imagine then that you were driven from your home you spent ten days walking across a mountain range with no food by the time the children are getting the they are in a very weak position in this very weak state aid agencies have talked about you know children are arriving dehydrated children are already being nourished and that was primarily because the context that they came from was already dying. thank you very much for giving us an idea of what the situation is like there appreciate it we have much more to bring you on this news hour from london a senior war crimes prosecutor describes the sexual violence committed by both sides in south sudan's civil war as the worst he's ever seen. well in indian administered kashmir where conservationists are trying to save what was once asia's biggest freshwater lake. and then later in. through to the davis cup finals

will be here with that story and much more. iran's government is threatening to end all border and security arrangements with the kodesh regional authority in northern iraq if it's planned independence folk ahead it's the latest country in the region to condemn the referendum scheduled for september twenty fifth turkish nationalists have marched through istanbul to protest against the vote president. urged the kodesh leadership to cancel it calling it a matter of national security on the abdel-hamid is life or is now an air bill the capital of the kurdish region in northern iraq and how do we just mentioning the opposition to this referendum is there a continuing sense of defiance among among the kurds. well at the moment we haven't heard any reaction to the statements coming out of there ron but i don't

think it comes as a surprise to the kurdish authorities and maybe probably also to the kurdish people iran has made it very clear since a very long time as much as turkey did that it was against any kind of move towards independence by the kurdish region and i think this is this is because of several reasons mainly and ask any courage here that the answer you would give you is that iran itself has a large kurdish population estimated at around ten percent of the you are new in population a lot of the kurdish opposition parties are based here in northern iraq and probably is a bit worried that if this referendum goes ahead it might boost also the aspirations of the iranian kurds a second reason would be probably that of the political and military ties that iran has was back that those are much stronger than the ones it has with the leadership

here in the kurdish region baghdad has been very vocal against this referendum even though it's a non-binding referendum however the parliament has voted against it it had asked. prime minister body to act against it so certainly this doesn't come as a surprise when we spoke to some officials the men they had that's in the north east of the kurdish region and that's where iran has its. influence and at the moment at least publicly they brushed away those threats they said actually iran has a lot to lose if it closes those borders you have to bear in mind that is about it is the second trading partner of this region and that is estimated at around four billion dollars and ken is quickly about the immediate obstacles to the vote. well there certainly there's

a lot of obstacles to this vote on the international arena. when you listen to the kurdish president mustard barzani he is very defiant he says it's going ahead because. i have been put forward so far including this alternative given by the u.s. the u.k. and by the u.n. are not very detailed at the moment and do not put anything new on the table now the obstacles are certainly regional they are also on the international level there is a fear for example in the western capitals in washington mainly that this vote will actually hinder the war against isis that is ongoing in this country and also in neighboring syria the regional countries turkey for example is also very much afraid i mean the. the bigger kurdish population is inside turkey there's been already very troubled relations between the kurds there and the

government in ankara and certainly this vote if it goes ahead is worrying all of these sort of neighboring countries of the kurdish region thank you very much and abdel-hamid with the latest from there bill that sounds speak to buy and sami abdel rahman the representative of the kurdistan regional government mission in the u.s. she joins us live now from washington thank you very much for speaking to us is there any possibility of. no there isn't a president barzani has been clear that so far we haven't had an off or let's say an alternative that is as good or better than having a referendum it is the right of people like the right of peoples around the world to have self-determination let's hear what the people of kurdistan have to say why

is the world so afraid. to hear the voice of five to seven million people let's hear what they want to say we are asking to go about this process in a highly skilled and democratic way but i suppose that the concern on the part of the international community particularly the u.s. is that with all the challenges iraq is facing right now especially when the battle continues to wrest a territory from my sil that now is just not the right time for a referendum like this. i would disagree with that at all people disagree with it is the right time first of all we are committed to defeating isis fighting isis and the successor of isis whether it's al qaida or another formation we will continue to fight isis america didn't ask us to fight isis we fought isis our peshmerga fought isis of course where extremely grateful for all the assistance we

are getting to fight isis but it is our fight and we will continue there is no destruction second we have not said we will unilaterally declare independence we have said we will have a referendum so that the will of the people of kurdistan can be expressed this will give folly to ship the mandate to negotiate with the fact that we are heading towards negotiations i don't know why that is so scary for everyone we want to talk to baghdad we want to be partners and good neighbors to iraq so let's have the negotiations. and a lot of that you know it's off to the referendum dropped on you but if negotiations are what you want why have a referendum that is seen as well provocative and could cause even more days to destabilization in the country why go ahead with this vote why not have those negotiations with baghdad now. while we have given our best

shot to be paul to be or. i'm sure you know in your view is no the top dog history of the people of color the stone at iraq under saddam we had chemical bombardment. and fall genocide and so on off the two thousand and three we thought this is our opportunity to peapod to but iraq a partnership of federal and democratic iraq that is what we signed up for that is what the constitution of iraq sets out we did all best we can you top best but over the years all that we have seen from baghdad is a reversal of those promises undermining of the constitution fifty five opticals of the constitution have been violated the disputed territories groups and thought other areas have not been resolved despite a specific call to come in the constitution setting this out how much longer should we negotiate with baghdad the old basis the basis of the constitution debate excuse

me the basis of what we agreed to in two thousand and five we want the dynamics to change and our people have the right to self-determination let them express their will in a referendum and let the negotiations begin and we offer the united states and all of our friends in the region to support the negotiation process don't get in the way of the negotiations by taking one side over the other support both sides support that well i love this is certainly there are a great many issues that the remains unresolved ahead of this vote but we do appreciate you coming to share your view beyond the rom on that from washington d.c. . human rights groups say thousands of women have been raped and sexually assaulted during the foil a war in south sudan and those are just the ones they know about they blame the abuses on government troops of president salva care and opposition forces loyal to form a vice president. many civilians have fled to seek safety in neighboring uganda from

web reports. florence walked through the bush for two days in south sudan the sandals to get to the safety of this refugee camp in uganda she told us that was after five government soldiers gang raped her along with four other women with change her name and hidden her face. my husband was following the shot distance behind us when he came and found these men on me he told them to stop they grabbed him immediately and killed him with a knife we had many similar stories from the people in the camps men tortured or killed the women gang raped by government soldiers he told them all ethnic groups others and theirs should leave south sudan people in this tent is all arrive within the last couple of days there waiting to be registered the u.n. says more than a million of arrived here in uganda since the conflict began and health workers here say they think there are very many among them who survived sexual violence but

i think just a fraction of them are coming forward. a lot in recent weeks opposition troops have fought government forces near the border with uganda but ever since the conflict began in twenty thirteen rights groups say sexual violence has been a widely used weapon by both sides. unless the international says thousands of women girls and some men are victims a un report last year said seventy percent of women in the camps around the capital juba have been raped the spokesman for the government forces told us soldiers who rape a punished and he question what we've been told in the camps. those claims to know for sure that. without someone coming forward all part of these are claims that are being made in that every day you come out. being told to say weird things about this family opposition forces have been accused of sexual violence too the majority of allegations have been of sexual violence by government soldiers can scot's

a war crimes prosecutor who's worked on tribunals for many conflicts he investigated south sudan's conflict for the u.n. he says the sexual violence is the worst he's ever known it's such a high level of events that it's widespread. being going on for a substantial period of time not as isolated incidents. you know one can only. work crimes involving sexual violence are taking place. in the camps mary not her real name says she wants justice but doesn't expect it she says she was raped by three soldiers they found her fleeing with her husband killed him and threw her baby in a bush. may tied up blindfold on my face they took all my positions and stripped me three all on me after i grabbed my baby and left i was naked now i have no. malcolm

where al-jazeera west nile uganda. still ahead for you this hour. maternal mortality on the rise why new mothers a dying at a higher right in the us than anywhere else in the western world i'm going to muggles issued with an ultimatum from a potential coalition partner just a week out from germany's election. and the fight described as the biggest of the year by fans and in a controversial draw. will have that. welcome back well here we are in mid september i'm still getting temperatures into the mid forty's across parts of iraq and iran and down through into kuwait through into

tuesday forty four for kuwait city otherwise we've got find additions around the caspian sea nice tame back on there with a maximum of thirty and around the eastern side of mediterranean looking fine with temperatures there around about thirty mark. is really all of the day for the gulf states that doha my sort of fourteen again very humid no changes there really on the other side the plane it's looking fine and dry with much lower humidity temperature forty three expected in medina let's head across into southern parts of africa it's looking largely fine but we have got this disturbance towards the eastern cape and i think over the coming days we could find for northern parts of south africa into mozambique the threat of some showers could be some localized quite heavy showers housewares all looking find. plenty of sunshine lusaka there thirty two degrees celsius for central parts of africa we have got some fairly hefty storms across parts of south sudan central from republic upon nigeria picking

up some storms across west africa in general looking pretty unsettled here but for mali we're going to see some decrease in charlotte seventy or lazy temperature thirty three in bamako. with its economy mexico's president implemented drastic and controversial energy reforms mexico's border by the mexican people for seventy five years is being sold to private international companies. and as with the country's agricultural sector it's exposed to exploitation by profit driven multinational corporations crude harvest at this time on al-jazeera. from the icy mountain steps of mingling to the flooded low limbs of south america. the high stakes series returns. following the daring journey both ordinary people

from around the globe who take extraordinary risks to work their lives. risking it all coming soon on al-jazeera. and back watching the news out quick recap of the top stories a mass which israel gaza for ten years says it's willing to end its feud with fatah which controls the occupied west bank and major breakthrough in what's been a long running and bitter dispute. the government in bangladesh which is struggling to cope with an influx of range of refugees is imposing restrictions on them and

barring them from using public transport and from looking for accommodation outside the refugee camps and iran is threatening to close all borders with the kurdish region of northern iraq if the semi autonomous area goes ahead with a referendum on independence. council's foreign minister says the international community isn't doing enough to combat what he calls terrorism shaikh mohammad been . called on world leaders to do more it was speaking to an event in new york organized by the u.s. think tank the brookings institute. but have on about that it must the terrorism is quite a frightening phenomenon and i'd like to say that violence and hatred in regions of attention has helped a lot in the creation of these terrorist organizations the international community and the world in general hasn't done enough to address this phenomenon and i regret to say that the more conflicts disputes and suffering that exist the harder it has the international community to solve the problem of terrorism the international

community must adopt all necessary procedures to fight this phenomenon because it's a threat to individuals and societies countries and it's a threat to the human rights. in jordan is following all this for us from new york and what was the puppets of this speech today particularly ahead of the united nations general assembly. well it really wasn't a whole to arms from the qatari foreign minister asking the international community to redouble its efforts to deal with terrorism or with violent extremism whichever turning want to use and that's because the foreign minister mr on sunday said that this is a situation where people are perverting islam for their own political purposes and then they were using violence to i try to exact their political aims he says muslims are being injured perhaps most seriously by this files but clearly

communities around the world are also suffering from the effects of not confronting terrorism one other point that time the foreign minister made was that what has to happen is an addressing of the root causes but that leads people to take up arms against civil society and against sitting governments he said that you have to deal with poverty you have to confront bigotry and prejudice and you have to look at some of the ongoing our political problems that may inspire people to take up arms be meant. by name the israeli palestinian conflict and he said that. welcomed the u.s. efforts to once again try to broker peace between the two peoples he said it's even more important than ever that this situation will be resolved because that will take away an argument for why groups such as diet and al-qaeda exist of course they're also looking at other ways of trying to make the world safe from zero

terrorism and violent extremism going on behind me right now merriam is a rather vigorous debate about the role of secularism liberalism and religion in the poor context of the middle east very vigorous lots of good questions from the audience a very nuanced debate but this is the kind of discussion that this particular forum is trying to promote. as everyone gets ready to meet at the united nations for the start of the seventy second general assembly thank you very much in life for staring. a number of deaths of new mothers is on the rise in the united states the right has now higher than in any other major industrialized country john hendren is in chicago to find out why in the third and final part of our series on maternal mortality around the well. fermat local and the joy of childbirth lasted a day as their daughter madeline took her first breath as his wife liz died hours

later of a pulmonary embolism the sudden blockage in her lung made her one of more than seven hundred women in the u.s. who die each year during or shortly after childbirth two things that are guaranteed to every single one of us are birth and death that's it there's nothing else that's guaranteed right and so i experience both of those things in twenty seven hours it's an increasingly common story in the united states even as maternal mortality falls elsewhere around the globe more american mothers die in the first year of their child's life than in any other industrialized nation a study published in the lancet medical journal says the u.s. ranks forty six in the world in terms of maternal mortality with twenty six women for each hundred thousand live births that's more than three times the rate of neighboring canada due to the longstanding inability for women to access free or low cost health care in the united states women in the united states tend to enter pregnancy much sicker than counterparts in other developing nations so women enter

pregnancy with medical issues such as obesity diabetes hypertension kidney problems the list goes on and on the problem here is growing the u.s. is one of just thirteen countries where the rate is worse than it was fifteen years ago everyone is about average among american states when it comes to maternal mortality in two thousand and seven five point eight mothers died for every hundred thousand live births according to a group called the march of dimes by two thousand and sixteen according to another study that number had nearly tripled to sixteen for black women in the u.s. it's far worse one reason the stress of being black in america stressing out about not having a job or money coming to the father of this either is no. well or not consistent in their life the family members left behind never get the chance to offer that support is more american mothers die in the year after childbirth infant

mortality in the u.s. is at its lowest level in history researchers say the two facts might well be related just six percent of the money the u.s. government gives to states to lower mortality birth is devoted to mothers john hendren al jazeera chicago. lena lawson is a journalist who has covered the issue of maternal mortality for us nonprofit organization pre-publication she joins us via skype from back pain california thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us. now we've been doing a special series on this issue from different parts of the globe but in the context of the western world i think many people would be surprised that. more tallahassee is is a problem in the united states in fact the widest in the industrialized world yes i think that's right i think most people assume that the u.s. has the best health care system in the world. one of the most if not the most

affluent countries in the world and that maternal mortality is very much a thing of the past it's something new or something that you are seeing on television shows like grey's anatomy or downton abbey not something that happens two to three times a day in hospitals and across the u.s. so which women i'm most at risk. well so. as your reporter said. women who tend to be most at risk i would say are women who come into pregnancy with very little health care. in there previously so women who are low income african-american women. have a rate that is three to four times higher than white women women who don't have access to health care basically in the u.s. nearly half of births and are paid for by medicaid which is the state insurance

company system the low income system and in states that. did not elect to take the medicaid expansion as part of the portable care act under obama. that means got women don't lower income women typically don't have access to health care until they get pregnant so they often you know a young woman or even a woman who just doesn't have good access to care. will never see a doctor except when she's pregnant and then in the u.s. medicaid ends or these women six weeks to two months after they get birth and we know that many many many deaths and complications actually occur in the postpartum period so. i just want to ask you. is it is it mainly an issue of access to health care or is it the way the system is structured. both i

mean the lack of access to health care of course is that is is the way the system is structured in this country we everything tends to be fragmented and our health care system is a reflection of all the different ways that we tend to greg mentioned in this country for women though who are affluent and who have access to see me go to insurance there's they also there's a there's still privatization because very often there's there's not much coordination of care between their their creed conception care and then their dot their prenatal care and their postpartum care so there's all different ways that that that get there's a lack of coordination and people fall in the gaps and then for women who have access to care there tends to be. actually poor women as well once they get in the system there tends to be an overuse of certain kinds of interventions that have

appeared to lead to complications so starting with inductions and then c. sections which you know dramatically raise the risks of. life threatening complications but the other really huge problem that is systemic is that as we have this you know hospitals are also fragmented and doctors and nurses in terms of their the ways they train and the ways that they are prepared to deal with emergencies so there are no there's no system or national system or even state wide systems of protocols and guidelines in place for doctors and nurses to follow when they encounter an emergency and you know where the problem is that but certainly maternal deaths although they are on the rise and have been on the rise in the us are still pretty rare that seven to nine hundred women a year is is you know just a fraction of the number of women who were shot in chicago you have people who were shot in chicago for example so many different factors in play and thank you for

explaining it so while fastening a lot and joining us there from california thank you mike. british police are searching a property in sorry after they arrested a second person in connection with friday's bomb attack on an underground train the twenty one year old man was detained in the west london suburb of hounslow on saturday night earlier an eighteen year old man was arrested at the port of dover maine ferry link to france in attack on the london tube engines thirty people. philippines president or go to territories launched an attack on the head of the country's human rights commission to today asked chito gascón if he was a paedophile after gascón expressed concern about the killings of teenagers in the ongoing violent drugs crackdown the human rights commission has repeatedly clashed with the president over his war on drugs last week will make his reduce the commission's budget to just twenty dollars while.

young people. voice are you be due for a while moving to germany where the free democrats have ruled out joining a post-election coalition with chancellor angela merkel if she supports french plans to further integrate the eurozone economies merkel spent sunday answering questions from the children on have policies and use conference and in a christian democrat party is expected to win enough votes to govern alone in a free democrats are usually seen as a natural coalition partners well after twelve years in power luckily is already one of germany's longest serving chancellors and as we head into the last week of campaigning eve barker takes a look at her leadership and the people who shaped her rise to power. angela merkel weighed history when she became germany's first female chancellor. forty eight years earlier with german city still in ruins after the defeat of the nazi regime the country's first post-war chancellor conrad adenauer signed the treaty of rome

that led to the creation of the european union european integration was designed to contain germany's power it would turn the country into the most powerful economy in europe your chance falling from the second world war and continuing with anglo-american have had this trend where they want to protect german interests through the vehicle of the e.u. and focus on trade and also on kind of democratic liberal principles that you see almost become the beacon of germany so-called economic miracle began under chancellor ludwig erhard he forged ties with the us a soviet russia tightened its grip on communist east germany. later chancellors willy brandt and helmut schmidt try to improve ties with east germany in the soviet union while supporting nato and the european community. as the cold war thought the burning wall dividing west and east germany. merkel

entered politics later joining the christian democrats she seemed became chancellor helmut kohl protege a woman and former east german she symbolized a new united country in two thousand and five she won a narrow victory over gary hart schroeder becoming chancellor of a grand coalition during her twelve years in office angela merkel has drawn some key lessons from her previous cessna's she's remain flexible during the refugee crisis an open door policy has allowed the country to bolster its plummeting population and in the same way the previous chancellor sort of tried to balance both eastern and western powers so she has struggled to overcome rival political impulses within her own country and abroad she has played a pivotal role in balancing western interests with those of putin's russia and increasingly confrontational turkey and the present. heritage policy traditions but she's maintained a very pro european policy and

a sense that germany should talk to both east and west and try to find a peaceful solution when possible one of her biggest achievements is in balancing germany's national budget but the austerity measures that benefited europe's largest exporter have crippled others for many greeks she's a symbol of a divided europe however for.