ask w. your questions about germany. write to us on facebook we'll answer your questions. this is the news live from berlin ahead of sunday's german elections a final page to win over undecided voters with just two days to go can chancellor merkel and her main rival martin schultz prevent a late surge from the far right alternative in germany we'll have coverage for you

that last minute push for votes also on the program may be leaving the european union but we are not leaving the euro britain's prime minister setting out her vision of future relations with the european union it was a speech long on rhetoric but short on detail will it be enough to revive stalled brags that negotiations. hello and welcome my name's christopher spring eight good to have you with us now. voters here in germany. gearing up for federal elections on sunday both candidates for the post of chancellor have been making a final push for votes today the latest polls. courage ng for martin schulz and his center left social democrats they are trailing chancellor angela merkel's christian democrats by a wide. margin surveys suggesting her conservative block is likely to take about

thirty six percent of sunday's vote. and as the campaigning draws to a close the w.'s michela coup has been monitoring events in munich in southern germany where chancellor merkel has been delivering a speech earlier today we asked her about the choice of venue. well this isn't to decide between the c.d.u. c.s.u. other conservatives. you see the german sponsors even though what is very unusual to get me to say these protests. does that there are several thousand people turning out to support the german sausage the same time we see people chanting. when with we see that whistling not happening that is. what all of this campaign that is. of the time and song mean the recent weeks these are very few people i'm also saying just a couple of dozen of you would whistles who are clearly identifiable as honestly.

as you can or must say. not also you know it was then i got to see you soon paul to the part of the magazine brings us a couple of minutes ago. said that this is about democratic debate the sudden be about the south. but. once again the dimension of this is basically one of you know is trying to get across have a message went over this many undecided voters this year and i'm less than twenty four we actually know how this election played out. you know these michela cusco they're reporting from munich now in the run up to sunday's vote there has been much discussion about the prospect of illegal foreign interference in the election against that backdrop facebook has been stepping up its efforts to boost transparency in the area of paid political advertising this comes after the company

revealed it to carry thousands of political ads during last year's u.s. election believed to have originated in russia here's what facebook's chief executive mark zuckerberg had to say. i wish i could tell you that we're going to stop all interference but that just wouldn't be realistic there will always be bad actors in the world and we can't prevent all governments from all interference but we can make it harder we can make it much harder we've been working to ensure the integrity of the german elections this weekend from taking action against thousands of fake accounts to partnering with public authorities like the federal office for information security to sharing security practices with the candidates and parties . we're also examining the activity of accounts we've removed and we have not yet found a similar type of interference effort in germany now this is incredibly important and we've been focused on talk about the chief executive facebook talking early on

a social media desk has been looking into this story for his calm has been with me now the good news from what he was saying there has been practically no outside interference in the german election campaign that's what i think is pretty much right as specially when you compare this with the election france the election in the u.s. we just haven't seen that big wide scale effort to disrupt the german election but that doesn't mean there isn't any interference we've seen some smaller efforts especially from the global far right community and we want to show you just a few examples here this is from an online bulletin board called four chan and here there's a large group of right wing activists and they are trying to boost germany's far right party the a f d this thread features an arsenal of weapons that could potentially influence the election there's links to videos and means that are meant to spread online attacks against the rival parties there's tips for creating a fake social media profile even a link you see here to donate money directly to the f d a we've heard so much talk

of course about a potential russian link some russian meddling we even heard about a big hack of the buddhist tog computer system back in twenty fifteen we haven't seen any e-mails released we haven't seen any documents in fact according to many experts most of the online meddling so far in germany has not come from russia it's actually come from the u.s. and far right groups there having said that there is a different kind of russian connection. has been raising eyebrows isn't yes interesting germany actually has a large community of russian speakers around four million people and these german russian speakers are really being targeted actually by political parties here in germany especially by the deeds. a look at what i mean here there are many fan groups like this one of russian speaking a.f.p. supporters this is a twitter account it's not run by the a.f.p. but it is followed by the party's top candid alice abidal not only that but the f.t. even appears to be running ads on russian television take

a look at this this comes from journalist sergey soon then he took this picture of his t.v. screen and you see there at the bottom there's an election banner it says choose a f.t. for your and our future that was aired on russian state t.v. but it was broadcast to russian speakers here in germany and the f.t. they're not the only ones targeting russian speakers the cd use sr party the c. s. who has a campaign there a ming a russian language ads a potential voters you can see here the party head. he's speaking out against left wing politics and multiculturalism but it's in russian this could make a difference as many as one point five million russian speakers are eligible to vote here in germany so you never know what effect that could have on sunday. to do social media many thanks for that background. now as the year of campaigning draws to a close ahead of sunday's elections why not join the conversation online that we're having you can get all our coverage on our web site that's w dot com there's also

plenty of content on on do you know you know details when using facebook page and on twitter just look out for our hash tag germany decides and as i said get involved tell us what you think. turning to other news now britain's prime minister has delivered a major policy speech in italy in an attempt to give fresh impetus to briggs that negotiations which the e.u. is describing is stalled speaking in florence to reason may said the european union and the united kingdom are moving through a critical period in their relationship and that she looked ahead to break with ultimatum prime minister also stressed that london wants to be a strong friend and partner for brussels. decision to leave the european union is in no way a repudiation at this longstanding commitment we may be leaving the european union but we are not leaving europe all resolve to draw on the full weight of our

military intelligence diplomatic and development resources to lead international action with our partners on the issues that affect the security and prosperity of our peoples is unchanged the european union never felt to us like an integral part of our national story in the way it does to so many elsewhere in europe. ok we're going to get both the british and the european perspectives on this our london correspondent get mass with those answers are brussels correspondent barbara ves or good evening to you ladies any response from brussels yet barbara on this idea of a two year transition of roughly two year transition after bragg's it how is that going down in brussels. the e.u. chief negotiator reacted to that and said ok the european union would consider the demand so that is not like throwing the towel in and saying oh wonderful

we're going to start was this immediately but we know that michel barnier he wants to settle the divorce obligations first and that he still does not see enough progress in those questions his reaction is definitely muted if we look to the european parliament the leader of the parliamentary of rexx a group there you felt that he said ok so at least chose a sense of realism that to reason may now says we need a break sit transition period because otherwise we will just not get finished those talks however again he also does not see enough progress in what reason may says so mainly the reactions are muted to that verging on the negative ok well let's go to book it in london how is the speech going down back in london especially this talk of the transitional period.

well many people are also complaining that it's not enough detail as far as the long term deal is concerned as far as the transition. period is concerned for example the labor party is saying well she's basically adopted labor's policy also to reason they will be very happy that have brought her cabinet color colleagues for example boris johnson has been gushing about the speech and has really come behind which is something that she will be very happy about because. of a few days ago there was talk that he might resign over breakfast and for example he was for a much shorter transition period not as much as these are two year that she has decided so then again we have brics it tears and they think that's an absolute catastrophe that she's pandering to the brussels elites and it's basically a fog and that maybe breck said will never happen so you have a bunch of reactions many people who are hoping that it won't be

a hard bricks it are still puzzled and they don't know what is actually going to happen after this transition period so a lot of people are not happy with the speech or are waiting for more concrete proposals and one of the areas where tourism i appeared to be conciliatory she was saying the british courts will be guaranteeing the rights of citizens who live in the u.k. is that going to ease their concerns. well e.u. citizens in the u.k. are generally very nervous they don't know what's going to happen will they be x.'s able to access health care what about schools what about universities what about family members that they might want to have in the country and get put into the country for example older relatives so all this is still is the worry for them and we've had on twitter we've got we've had representatives of these of these groups

and they still don't know what does she mean it's a concern or a tone but are really all right it's going to be guaranteed and then who's going to look after them many people are hoping that it's not the u.k. courts but that the european courts will play play a bigger role so again also here people are waiting for more concrete proposals and just quickly back to brussels barbara another very hot issue the exit bill that britain is going to have to pay before it leaves the e.u. theresa may saying britain will honor the commitments it has made what are people in brussels reading into that it's unclear because she said that she would fill the gap in the european budget however if she wants a transition period she has to pay for that anyway so this might be a is zero sum game apart from from that we don't know anything and their action in poland is really interesting because the polish european minister came out and your minister came out and said risk britain will not get anything no transition deal if

they don't pay their full obligations so the first country is starting to play hardball over money and becoming negotiations may be tougher and harder than we have seen them till now ok barbara visible in brussels back at last in london many thanks to both of you. north korean leader kim jong un has lobbed a string of insults at his u.s. counterpart donald trump this is the first time a north korean leader has expressed such direct criticism of a u.s. president hinting at a test of a hydrogen bomb kim said trump would quote pay dearly for a u.n. speech where he threatened to totally destroy the north trump responded by referring to kim as a mad man who doesn't mind starving or killing his people. a regional judge in the spanish province of catalonia has ordered the release of officials to changing a crackdown by national authorities they arrested for their role in organizing an

independence referendum deemed illegal by central government in madrid hundreds of pro independence supporters gathering outside the courthouse in barcelona sleep autonomous regions capital to demond that these people be set free tensions between spanish and catalan officials are ratcheting up as the planned oct first ballot draws near. and watching to dublin news in berlin more from us at the top of the hour in the meantime feel free to get the latest updates from our website that's w dot com thanks for being with us. nationalists are on the rise with morning light to make your country great again is their slogan their focus put your nation first i am taking you in a long story to highlights different shades of nationalism and.