are meant for the better and it's up to us to make a difference let's destroy each other. be good whatever go the informant magazine. long d.w. . this is e w news the live from berlin and will it be four times in a row for and the america germany's electing a new government and merkel's poised to become chancellor for a nother term her main challenger martine scholtz of started out riding high in the polls we look at how his campaign lost its early momentum. and what about the

a.f.d. the far right parties on course to enter parliament for the first time look at this mean for german politics we will have all of the analysis. plus in other news north korea ups the ante against the united states pyongyang's foreign minister tells the un that an attack on the u.s. mainland is now inevitable this after u.s. fighter jets fly near north korea in an unprecedented show of force. and fortress dortmund undefeated at home for more than two years and yet to concede a goal this season it topped the table as they hosted which. did the foals maintain their unbeaten run. i'm sorry kelly welcome to our special. verge of the german elections the polling

stations are open and germans are deciding whether angola merkel serves a fourth term as chancellor or polling in the capital berlin got off to a slow start with poor weather possibly putting some off many streets are also closed for the annual marathon in the capital chancellor merkel's main challenger the social democrat leader martin schultz has already cast his vote in his home town on the dutch and belgian border expressed hope that his party could still sway some of those undecided voters who we know are going to be especially important in this election in particular. i think there are still people who are wondering who to vote for on election day. i hope many will choose to cost their vote for me until my party. i'm sure the other parties feel the same way. to go with me but i'm optimistic that the results will be good for the s.p.d.

is marcom follows from that as he has been speaking a short while ago just after voting speaking of voting that connelly our correspondent is standing by out in the field where many berliners are voting at the city's polling stations good morning to you nick how's the turnout looking so far well good morning sara it's a damp and windy morning here in a residential part of central berlin just a few kilometers away from our studios it was a very slow start polls open to date but things are slowly picking up having said that the weather and as you mentioned maybe the marathon with lots of streets shots of possibly being feared is a reason to bring down that turnout having said that germany does traditionally have very high turnout in comparison with other countries it's never been below seventy percent in a federal election so there's still quite a lot to hope for and polls all slope until six pm local time here. meantime nick i mean we saw martine charles

a little bit earlier the main challenger of chancellor angela merkel he of course with the s.p.d. just cast his ballot you're of a traditional s.p.v. constituency how do people there explain losing that initial swell of support over recent months. it's a real it's a real conundrum for this p.d. i think there was a real yes as you say swell of enthusiasm for him as a new challenge i think the merkel he being in brussels as the head of european parliament for many years so he wasn't associated with the day to day german politics but having said that now in this election campaign he's had to admit that his policy s.p.d. has been in coalition with angela merkel's conservatives so they do also bear responsibility for angela merkel's government's results of the last four years it's very difficult to present themselves as a fresh challenger given their involvement in this coalition government absolutely with so much at stake there we just saw him basically placed

a paper ballot and of the box nick is that how the majority of germans are going to be voting today. indeed this is the traditional routine on election day in germany which is always on a sunday going to a school community center to your house and putting that paper ballot in the ballot box having said that postal votes are becoming a lot more popular it's estimated him bilin about a quarter of voters have applied for them so it's still overwhelmingly the traditional type of voting that predominates him nick what is on voters' minds as they head to the polls today the country facing a number of challenges on a number of fronts just walk us through some of them. so we've been talking to voters here out on the streets this is a very affluent middle class part of berlin and they were talking to us about climate change about european cohesion. issues like the economy which probably would feature more highly on people's minds and less prosperous but city haven't been mentioned that much but it is true that employment is at

a record high unemployment is a record low so those issues the traditional economy issues are maybe less relevant than in previous elections oversee immigration asylum those big issues and that's an issue that the far right germany is trying to capitalize on we spoke to the f.t.'s one of their leaders bitters from stuart who lives near here and she says she's confident that this policy this new policy will make it into the bonus talk for the first time and get over the five percent barrier into parliament and that would be a historic moment indeed if that far right party enters the german parliament nick connelly with the latest on the ground as the german voters have their say today thanks for your reporting. well the conservative c.d.u. c.s.u. led by angela merkel and the social democrats led by martine schultz are widely predicted to be the two largest parties in parliament they may be in election mode now but both have been in a coalition since two thousand and thirteen what does that mean while it's been

difficult to tell them apart when it comes to their stand on some major issues. two parties to many festivals at least in theory because in fact the conservative c.d.u. c.s.u. and the social democrat party have more common ground than differences. one of the most pressing issues in german foreign policy is their relationship with turkey both parties agree on a tougher stance against turkish president. at the t.v. duel the two candidates had only slightly differing standpoint so in turkey. while s.p.d. front runner martin schulz called for ending economic and financial relations the customs union and e.u. accession talks see deals and supports freezing accession talks but stresses that diplomatic relations need to continue. the differences between the

parties are slim in many areas but not when it comes to defense. c.d.u. agrees with the us president and nato who want to race defense spending to two percent of gross domestic product the social democrats are opposing such plans by saying that will not happen with the s.p.d. . after years of crisis and political turmoil things are looking up in europe but you reforms are urgently needed and expectations are high for germany to take the lead. the s.p.d. has a progressive stance on europe and calls for a european constitution the c.d.u. states rather vague by calling for further development of the euro zone. it's hard to find real differences on key issues like the migration crisis but both s.p.d. and cd you agree that it was right to open the borders in two thousand and fifteen

and that migrants should be redistributed within the e.u. . the speedy made a broad statement distribution has to happen in a coordinated way the conservatives agree but in directly appealed to eastern european countries to fulfill their responsibility. four years in government have led to the cd un s.p.d. closing their ranks if surveys proved to be right they might soon govern again in yet another grand coalition. so let's get more now on the prospects for that grand coalition because with the c.d.u. and c.s.u. and the social democrats slated to be the two largest parties the race is really on now for third place the latest opinion polls indicate that the opposition could go to the far right alternative for germany or a day it is on course to become the first far right party voted into german parliament since world war two and it's likely to shake up the political consensus

with its opposition to migrants and islam. a.f.d. election posters leave little to the imagination new germans will make those ourselves reads this one because past this slogan we're into bikini's if there were any tyrants about the alternative on offer it's islamophobia and anti immigrant stop islamification vote you have to be reads this poster to suppose a threat posed by islam in migrants has been a key campaign message for the have to use lead candidates. politicked often and by the policy of open borders the indiscriminate admission of people from other religions and cultures poses a grave threat to my civil liberties to the civil liberties of homosexuals and above all to the civil liberties of our still free society. vitalism economist who lives with a lesbian partner

a swiss woman of sri lankan origin together they've adopted two children although i have to the policy clearly states that a family needs a mother and a father vital even criticized the german government for introducing same sex marriage. running mate alexander garland is a founding f.t. member he's drawn condemnation for racist statements about what tank a black soccer player who helped clinch the twenty fourteen world cup for germany people think he's a good footballer allen said last year but they don't want to what tang as a neighbor. the a.s.d. hasn't always been a far right populist party and you come into the german political scene it was founded just four years ago back then it was a single issue set up campaigning against the euro and germany's contribution to the e.u. bailout fund for greece it's almost got elected to the bundestag in twenty thirteen it ended up just shy of the five percent needed. but the f.t.c.

electoral fortunes changed when chancellor merkel declared germany's borders open at the height of the migration crisis. the party has transformed itself at an incredible speed into a right wing extremist party with nationalist elements so in that respect it's a challenge for all democrats for the fall of democrat. wherever merkel went during the campaign she was booed by f.t. hecklers with the party in the bundestag she'd be facing vocal far right opponents from the opposition benches. so so how are germans deciding who to vote for in this context us bring into our great from our social media task because jerry we know that recent polling it suggests that more than a quarter of voters still do not know who they're going to pick at this point so some incredible figures there and that's really a lot of undecided voters especially young people what is around on social media to

help them make up their minds well if that's exactly right and that's one thing i've heard time and time again in this campaign and from my friends to hear a german i just don't know who to vote for and there's a pretty good reason for that there are lots of different parties trying to get into the bonus tog the lower house of parliament not all of them are going to of course clear that all important five percent hurdle to get in but still they're there and people are wondering who am i going to vote for well that's what we can turn to social media social media companies that go to bunch of different ways like facebook they've got this page dedicated to the elections telling everyone that they're on september twenty fourth which is today and also what the requirements are to voters if we scroll down a b.s. facebook users can see each of the party's main positions on various important issues like business and finance in aid of innovation migration social rights health and digitalisation so we can get out of that and scroll back up and we can see all the major parties there and find out what they're standing for we can also

look at google they've got a bunch of tools i'm going to focus on one showing voters who the candidates in the electorate are so i put in the choice of illicit code and we get a list of who's representing which party and how to get and how to contact them we can also go a little bit further and we can see a list of all the leading party candidates we can see people like on girl americal . wagner and all the rest so they're just two tools there that are out there for social media users to work out where the votes today are going to guard and definitely not a short. of research resources for the voters i think rightly there but how about the bottom line i mean does this actually impact the way that people make their decisions gerard well if we compare this election that's happening today to some of the more recent ones like the u.s. and the u.k. elections we saw that social media played probably a bigger pot there than it is hiya for a lot of different reasons but one of them is where people turn to for their main

source of news and here in germany it's not social media it's not print it's not online it's still t.v. unbelievably and we can look at this graph here from the reuters institute and the university of oxford i'm not going to go into too much of the details but if we look at that grass we can see quite clearly that a really big number of germans of all ages still tend to their t.v.'s as their main source of news and surprisingly few they turn to social media as their main source of news now there are a couple of good reasons for this it's the older generation in germany the people who are more focused on their t.v.'s less on social media that really decide who the governments are in two thousand and thirteen we saw that more than fifty percent of aged over the age of fifty and around fifteen less than fifteen percent of voters were under the age of thirty so it's going to be really interesting to see this year four years later if those numbers will change absolutely and we'll be

able to determine if those numbers change in just a matter of hours voters right now having their say jared reed from our social media task thank you so much. and please do not forget we are live throughout the day jared and i we are here bringing you the latest developments as they happen you can of course also follow them online on our website t w dot com there's also plenty of content on our facebook page and on twitter of course just use the hash tag germany decides. to get involved and tell us what you think. let's turn now to some other stories making news around the world because north korea's foreign minister has said that an attack on the u.s. mainland is inevitable just hours after the u.s. flew bombers close to north korea's east coast both sides have been increasing the tensions over pianka nuclear program this week using the u.n. general assembly in new york to deliver some remarkable verbal blows earlier this

week u.s. president donald trump took to the podium and threaten to destroy in north korea and now pyongyang has addressed the gathering of world leaders to warn of for the second time this week the united nations podium was used to ratchet up the rhetoric between the u.s. and north korea young young's top diplomat really young who slammed the u.s. president as a mentally deranged megalomaniac. money president trump himself is the one on a suicide mission. in the case that innocent u.s. lives are lost because of this suicide attack through trauma will be held totally responsible. just hours earlier u.s. air force b. one b. bombers flew further north along the korean coast than ever before this century the pentagon described the flight in international airspace as

a show of resolve and the military options at hand. for north korea all the more reason to pursue its nuclear program at the un foreign minister read defended it as the necessary answer to us aggression. the only response to violence is violence we will oppose the nuclear weapons of terror any with a nuclear weapons of justice. president trump took to twitter in response to raise address writing that really a north korean leader kim jong un whom trump calls little rocket man won't be around much longer trump didn't spell out the substance of this threat at the u.n. really also had harsh words for china and russia he accused the nuclear powers of offering irresponsible support for the u.s. with their economic sanctions hitting ordinary north koreans hard. these powers only want to defend their monopoly on nuclear weapons. meanwhile up to one hundred

thousand people joined an anti american rally in the north korean capital on their banners a pledge to defend their leader with their lives. and for more on the situation on the korean peninsula let's bring in jason strother correspondent in the south korean capital seoul good morning to you jason harsh words there from both sides that we've just heard how is the growing tension perceived there in the region. well as south korea has condemned north korea's foreign minister re young ho's words at the u.n. . both opposition and ruling parties here in seoul have said that his words were only lead to more tensions and that north korea essentially needs to return to dialogue. meanwhile the south korean government has reaffirmed its commitment to defend. to defend itself with the help of the united states you have to remember south korea is in a difficult position if there were hostilities to break out here the u.s.

takes control of the south's military so south korea is going along with what washington has done flying these bombers nearby north korea i want to talk a little bit more about those bombers of course on u.s. president donald trump given the order to send those bombers flying close to north korea territory just how big a deal is this move really. it is something different off even you know under the administration of barack obama the u.s. would fly fighter jets stealth bombers over south korean territory toward the d.m.z. the demilitarized zone that the border between north and south korea but to fly these jets in international waters but that far north of the d.m.z. that's unprecedented and many decades jason strother putting it all into context for us from the south korean capital seoul thank you so much for your reporting.

let's get a quick check of some other stories making news around the world in new zealand's general election no party has secured enough votes to form a government alone the vote was one of the closest in recent history with the governing national party securing forty six percent and the opposition labor party almost thirty six both parties are reportedly considering coalition talks with the controversial anti immigration new zealand first party which won seven point five percent authorities on the indonesian island of bali are warning that an active volcano could erupt at any time ten thousand people have already evacuated areas near mount on tourists have been told to avoid camping or hiking within a nine kilometer radius of its crater after tremors were detected in surrounding areas. in mexico at least one person has been killed after another earthquake struck the south of the country the magnitude six point one quake struck near the

region very close to an area battered by an earlier quake on september seventh. rescue workers posting their search for victims in mexico city. a fresh earthquake sent shock waves throughout southern mexico on saturday causing a temporary halt in rescue efforts emergency crews were soon back to work. but tensions are still running high. in mexico city saw a series of small protests after rumors spread online that rescue workers were calling off their search for the hundreds of victims still feared trapped in the rubble. i meet a man that yeah you know my sisters inside there they have not told us anything they come up with the same thing patients patients patients for how long do we have to be patient. the government has assured its citizens that the search will continue thousands of engineers and architects are currently inspecting some four

thousand reports of damaged buildings in the capital alone but that's left thousands in the lurch as authorities assess the damage is. this idea that nobody must feel we had meant we don't know if our building really has structural damage or if it doesn't. but what we know right now is that at this moment we can't live there no paul there with the authorities are giving us the chance to go up into us . so that we can take our belongings. but as i got it was the last bit of the news you have came out of them to believe that. and the aftershocks keep coming leaving many here on the street with only what they can carry. some sports news for you now in u.s. basketball superstar le bron james has lashed out at president donald trump's decision to disinvite the n.b.a. champions of golden state warriors from visiting the white house in a tweet le bron james labeled the us president

a bum saying that it was no longer an honor to visit the white house during his presidency the clash between the president and top athletes was sparked when trump slammed several national football league players and used a derogatory term after they protested during the national anthem against racial injustice when warriors player steph curry declines the annual white house invite for the n.b.a. champions the team invitation was revoked by president trump will now curry's coach has spoken out have a listen. we want normal time very easily be able to set aside local and some don't have time and. also these are not ordinary times. in the most place divisive times in my life i thought yesterday his comments about the n.f.l. players. and now does anything it's awful to talk about. young men who are peacefully protesting tony. and racism.

well thousands of athletes are out on the streets of germany's capital berlin for the marathon today and the elite men's runners have just crossed the finish line we know that. choke a of kenya was the winner he pulled away in the last few kilometers but just missed the world record good for him a very big congratulations to him meantime in the bundesliga dortmund face off against munchen gladbach in saturday's late late game dortmund have been flying high at the top of the standings almost scoring will glad back meanwhile have also had a respectable start to the campaign and have yet to lose on the road so could they put an end to dortmund standing for have a look. the stage was set for the big show in dortmund but it took the home team a while to get their game on track. back loaded up the back and dortmund had to

wait for them to slip up. coach payton bush urged his troops on through to be a emerick obama young who finds maximillian philip to make it one nil in the twenty eighth minute and a milestone for dortmund there eighteen hundred one just a good goal. then down the left jeremy told young philip again in position to nail a but buck's defense look to shambles after thirty eight minutes. then it was obama turn first he made it three nil before the break then he added two more after the restart bringing his total for the season to eight goals in six games the but meanwhile at a loss up front but finally they hit the target making it five one. hardly cause to celebrate. then dortmund were back at it again.

by goal rounded out the half dozen minutes but could only stand by and watch. six one the final score and life is good for dortmund fans young and old. a quick reminder now of the top stories that we have been following for you here. voting is underway in germany's parliamentary elections with incumbents. poised to win a fourth term as chancellor her main challenger martine schultz has already cast his ballot although he is unlikely to win he can still end up in government as matthew coalition partner. up to date. forget our coverage of the german elections continues all day today join me again at the top of the hour we will have the very latest you're watching c.-span.

democracy day on d. w. a reporter has been in solitary confinement. with no charges filed and no sign of release. and if he has become a symbol of press freedom under fire but the turkish president ever to want he's

a political bargaining chip. how his friends and family are trying to secure his release hash tag. next on. your all max democracy day. places of power the political stage as photo our. origins of power journeying to the hometowns of the candidates for tesla. stagings up our photographers and their takes on politicians. bureaucrats in sixty minutes d.w. . we take personally. with the wonderful people in stories. make the game so special. for all true fans far. more than football.

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