asked d.-w. your questions about germany. and america they would. write to us on facebook we'll answer your questions. this is david lean years live from berlin will it be four times in a row for angela merkel the german chancellor has not cast her vote in the country's national elections opinion polls she's asked to show she's likely to remain in office main challenger martin schulz started off the campaign riding high but has gone into today trailing badly. and loss of the day the nationalist party

is on course to have the palmach for the first time so what would that mean for german politics. and other news north korea ups the ante against the united states pyongyang's foreign minister tells the you as little as an attack on america's mainland is not inevitable this after u.s. bombs fly close to north korea in an unprecedented show of force. not content with north korea u.s. president donald trump also picks a fight with some of his own country's biggest sports stuff. i'm phil guy welcome to the program the germans are voting in national elections today more than sixty one million people eligible to vote the chance that i'm going to cast her ballot this afternoon she's wife expected to win a fourth term but polls giving arkansas. it's

a comfortable lead but it is likely she will have to form a coalition a main challenger social democrat leader martin schultz is behind but hoping for an upset polls going into the election show that many voters were still undecided. doubly phylicia is at a polling station in burdens noyon that district an area with a large population of people with an immigrant background welcome funny what has turnout been like so far. have full well there are no official numbers yet as far as the voter turning out is concerned so far in berlin but if you just look behind me in this polling station is a long line forming people are eager to cast their ballot in fact just a few minutes ago there was a long line from the door of this polling station all the way to the street to this elementary school where this polling station is located when i talk to people a lot of them are saying this election is very special to them they say this is this is something where you shouldn't take democracy for granted you shouldn't take

it for granted that you have certain parties this in the parliament but rather he should go out and cast your ballot today it's really important they say to avoid the attorney for germany party the far right fredricka party from entering the problem and however at the same time most people here have no doubt that the alternative for germany party is going to add to the problem and whatever they want to avoid the number of seats that they're going to get so there really is a dynamic here when you talk to people that they say this election is really important so you should get out there get out and cast your ballot and make use of your duty as they say as a citizen of germany ok so you've got from what you say to the people you're spoken so it's not so much we are for this part of our party but we're against that one of the most pressing issues that really what i've been telling. but as you just mentioned before we are in a borel with the large number of immigrants people of turkish descent russian

descent but of course also of there are a lot of recent refugees from syria here for example and their different opinions some people say here this bar or should be german again and more german now that doesn't necessarily mean that they are going to vote for the far right tragical party but they're asking the big parties to to have a immigration policy that helps to integrate people not to get rid of them as they say but to help integrate people so immigration policy is one of the most pressing issues here in north korea but a way not just you know a current in berlin but through our germany and the second most important topic that i've heard here is about pensions retirement making sure that people who are getting old have something to live from now this could be easily explained of course by the fact that at least half of the voting population is alder than fifty two years old now of course i've been talking also to a lot of young people and they say that they are main topics we are largely

unnoticed by the main parties they are disappointed and they say that people in the parties should rather focus on education and digitalisation or on average things like affordable living like here in berlin for example a lot of young people are seeing that they cannot even afford a one bedroom a bed a bedroom apartment so depending on the generation of course that you ask you will get different answers however the bottom line is immigration policy is one of the most pressing issues here in our current. noise so much for joining us. i was going to merkel's conservatives and the social democrats slated to be the two largest part is the rise for third place is on latest opinion polls indicate that is likely to be the far right a half day or alternative for that prediction becomes reality after he will be the first a far right party to answer germany's parliament for decades its opposition to migrants and islam would shake up the political consensus. a.f.d.

election posters leave little to be imagination new germans will make those ourselves read this one burkas as this slogan we're into bikini's if there were any doubts about the alternative on offer it's islamophobia and anti immigrant stop islamification photo you have to be reads this poster to suppose that threat posed by islam in migrants has been a key campaign message for the lead candidates. politicked often an 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 few ones are not fired as aircraft pilots 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 criticised 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 down and set last year but they don't want to what tang as a neighbor. the f.t. 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 a fellow democrat. wherever merkel went during the campaign she was booed by f.t. hecklers with the party in the bundestag should be facing vocal far right opponents from the opposition benches. well as well as they have the likely making its debut in the bundestag today sees three million new young voters exercising their franchise for the first time they w. political correspondent hans brandt is here and joshua who's a first time voter and a children's rights campaigner welcome both of us are with you hans brant if reality reflects the polls and the fifty becomes the third strongest party in the bundestag what's that like it's mean for german politics it's changed german politics already of course it's become more or cause raucous and substance more vicious than that. form that form of the bed is going to. moving to parliament

there is a further question there if the grand coalition the coalition between the christian democrats the conservatives and the social democrats continues then the if tea the alternative for germany would be the largest opposition party and that in turn would give it formal influence in the running of parliament in. voting. speaking times in parliament and so on that would increase its influence increase its disruptive possibilities within the parliament to i sure hope that as this surge in support for the f.t. as has this had much of an effect on younger voters well i mean people have realised that the f.t. is gaining popularity but i think that a lot of the things young people wonder if you can sort of sum it up in a way is that they they don't want to discriminate against against other young people coming from other cultures they don't ones that instead of phobia and they

sort of vote maybe not not only left but strangely conservative and a lot of the young voters agree that we cannot agree with the rationale that the a fifty is running at this point and the way that germany's voting system works means that it is unlikely as you say that any party will have a majority so let's presume i'm going to work all of witnesses as the polls say she's likely where is she likely to look for i partner well the most obvious partner is the same partner she has at the moment that is the social democrats the second largest party unless the social democrats do very very badly in this election that will be a secure majority and they could possibly continue the so-called grand coalition just it to sort of interrupt you and i just wonder how popular that would be amongst social democrats who they'd want to be to again know the social democrats who do not want it to feel that in the last four years they may have put push

through quite a number of their policies but they're. political profile has not really increased as a result in fact people attribute these things progress on things like minimum wages and so on to angela merkel rather than the social democrats that are in this coalition so there are many social democrats say it would be better for the party to go into opposition it would then be the largest opposition party and to reestablish its profile as a strong force in politics through that ok just your whole foot. since a three a what to two or three american presidencies ago so woods was starting with a bomber who made the first big push for younger voters through social media in the u.k. in the vote social media also played a great part amongst younger voters on both sides i wonder how parties

here how if they have tailored their policies towards younger voters what are they done to sort of bring them into the fold well if they everyone tries to regain the support or to gain the support of young voters because we have as you said in the beginning three million young voters this year voting for the first time so it's a huge potential and they try to to have catchy slogans but if we look at them from from a really content point of view then we don't see anything everything got to to to the issues that are important for young people let's for example climate environment but also education something really advocate for as a child rights organization for example to to stop the export of arms of armed weapons of weapons and this is something none of the parties really addresses in in the election campaigns on which makes it difficult to sort of see them apart from each other and briefly if you wouldn't mind do you see much difference in the sorts

of policies that younger voters and older voters find attractive. yeah i mean i think that what we've seen with with with all the polls going on with young people we don't see that there's a large difference in the perception that young people have for example of chancellor merkel they see she's very strong on foreign policy for example but they do see and maybe this is a difference to the older generation that she is not that strong in achieving social cohesion in achieving sustainable development not only for germany but for the entire world as she's seen as the leader of the free world in a way sometimes right thank you thank you three. polls close at six are saving german time and d.-w. will of course bring you full coverage throughout the day with the latest developments as they happen you also find us on live course at the w dot com we hope you get into a lot of social media as well we have lots of content on our facebook page and on

twitter just look for the hash tag germany decides to get involved and tell us what you. are following the revelations of russian interference in the twenty sixteen u.s. election many experts had expected germany to become the kremlin's next target they've been keeping a close eye on social media expecting a flood of inflammatory fake news from russia instead the armament of soldiers come from under the book unexpected front agreed joins me now with us to welcome jared what's going on well phil surprisingly one of the biggest threats to the german election online hasn't come from russia as you said it's come from the united states and i'm talking specifically about right wing activists we've seen examples of people posting on forums like four chan four chan is a forum that's popular with conspiracy theorists and people with more extreme views let's take a look at one of those examples on four chan this thread is dedicated to boosting the far right alternative to germany or i.f.t.

we can see a bunch of tools here for influencing the election like links to videos talking points and names attacking rival parties there are also links to things like how to create fake profiles to infiltrate other parties and even a link to donate money directly to the i s d but still this push to prop up the i.f.t. hasn't just come from these dot com as of the internet we're seeing more whale oiled machines getting behind them as well institutes like the american gates stone institute which is a right wing think tank we can take a look at their website which is more nine sr you can see is about migration with articles like this one try. slated from german kind claiming that german authorities confiscated apartments to make room for migrants on several occasions these have been picked up and shared by members of the alternative to germany like thomas woody who is a member of parliament in the german state of the ring so we're seeing

a really concerted if it from people across the atlantic to try and mobilize german far right verges just to be clear that those headlines were false that's right ok thank you so much. now let's take a look at some other stories making news around the world kurds in iraq are preparing to vote in an independence referendum polling stations in arabic are reading their ballot boxes for monday's vote your bill is the capital of iraq semi autonomous kurdish region results expected to be overwhelmingly in favor of independence but iraq's government in baghdad considers the referendum illegal. brinsmade opposition leader jeremy corbyn says his labor party will challenge the government over its bragg's it policies especially those relating to trade access and workers' rights mr coburn was speaking i had of his party's annual conference his comments follow a major breakthrough speech by prime minister theresa may that extra out of talks on britain's departure from the e.u. begins on monday. in new zealand's general election no party has secured sufficient

votes to form a government the vote was one of the closest in recent history with the governing national party taking forty six percent and the opposition labor party nearly thirty six both parties are reportedly considering coalition talks with the controversial anti immigration new zealand first party which took seven point five percent of the. north korea's foreign minister has said that an attack on the united states mainland is inevitable just hours after u.s. bombers flew close to the north's coast both sides of increased tensions over pyongyang's nuclear program this week using speeches at the un general assembly to deliver some remarkable verbal blows earlier in the week us president donald trump took to the podium and threaten to destroy north korea for an 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 pyongyang's top diplomat ri young who slammed the u.s.

president as a mentally deranged megalomaniac that are you will learn who was in charge of 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 trump 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 u.n. 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

reserve dress 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. let's get more from our correspondent jason strother who joins us from the south korean capital seoul welcome jason so we've had north korean missile launches over japan now u.s. bombers close to north korea this is gone from rhetoric to signs of action how is

that tension being perceived there. all right phil well the south korean government is standing behind the u.s. is a fly over. in international waters off north korea's east coast of course south korea and the u.s. . have been allies for many decades ever since the korean war and. while i'm sure the fly over has not gone over well in beijing i believe here in seoul as well as in tokyo it's been welcomed just give us an idea of how big a daily it is as you say in international waters. right phil according to the pentagon this is the first time this century that new u.s. military aircraft fighter jets bombers have flown that north of the d.m.z.

even a broch obama flew stealth bombers here to south korea but they always stayed below the intercranial border but this is something different yesterday we had reports of a minor quake near north korea's nuclear test site. being confirmed as a nuclear explosion or a natural event. it would appear according to south korea's meteorological so that these were aftershocks tremors caused by the september third nuclear explosion that did trigger an earthquake now according to the meterological association here there are actually two tremors reported on saturday night there's been no detection of any sort of radioactive gases or under other indicators that this might have been another nuclear test jason strother in seoul thank you. thank you maybe america's president is also engaged in

a war of words with some of his own country's biggest sports star startled began by lashing out at football players who refused to stand during the national anthem a gesture of protest against police violence against african-americans would you love to see one of these. when somebody this respects. you say get that. right. that's right. the president also took aim at one of the world's biggest basketball players stephan curry of the golden state warriors mr curry hinted that he would pass on a time honored tradition of visiting the white house to celebrate his team's championship title in protest at mr trump donald trump fired back tweeting going to the white house is considered a great honor for a championship team stephan curry is hesitating therefore invitation is withdrawn but the president may have picked a fight he can't win with several n.b.a. stars jumping to currys defense the broad james of the cleveland cavaliers hit back using twitter to describe the president as

a bum and saying that he was no longer an honor to visit with this president in the white house and los angeles lakers let into kobe bryant resurfaced for retirement with this president whose name alone creates division and anger whose words inspired dissension and hatred can't possibly make america great again let's get more on this from entertainment journalist. a do a logo who joins us from los angeles welcome to the double you should go and the president's got comments of course quite a media storm on the social media a top athletes now united against him. well i feel and that's a very difficult question to answer i think that there are a lot of high profile athletes that are using their platform on twitter to lash back out at the president or speak to their dismay and disapproval of his statements to say all of the athletes are i think we'd have to call all of them but

you're seeing more demonstrations just last night there with the demonstration by an oakland a's rookie catcher the first major league baseball player to kneel during the national anthem and there's a hash tag on social media take a need for n.f.l. players to take a lead this sunday and we shall see if more teams more players start protesting in this nonviolent way so this this latest arrival as about the president withdrawing an invitation that he hadn't actually extended yet explain to us how big a deal is this tradition of inviting and their champions to the white house it will it's a very large deal and it's more than just the n.b.a. champion every american sports team college little league world series regardless of gender all of them pick athletes and be a stars they all are typically invited to go white house so for the president to rescind and offer because he felt that he was being disrespected when stepan curry

said that he was not going to go to quote one of the n.b.a. players how can you rescind and offer when the person already said they weren't going to show up it is a big deal but now it's pitted both the n.b.a. and its star players. opposition with the presidency le bron james said it best used to be an honor to go to the white house not anymore shouldn't is the american public presumably bad as a split on this issue as well. well absolutely and it's a it's a bit of a frightening time because sports is supposed to be a great unifier it is a meritocracy where the best play and the score determines who want to or not and now you have people who watch sports having to pick sides whether or not they want to support their local team of certain players are nearly you cannot put your

finger directly on the pulse of what you or your neighbor feels about this protest some say it's nonviolent some say it's anti-patriotic whatever the case may be many eyeballs are going to be watching the n.f.l. and sporting contest to follow this entire year and during the president's reign should go to a low in los angeles thank you. and the forty four thousand competitors at the straits of germany's capital for the bold in math and today with kenyans winning that they would men's and women's rights athletes were up against a foggy conditions which made it tough for the top male athletes so i mean to break the world record of just under two hours and three minutes and he would get won the men's rights for the second time in his career mr knew the hole by more than thirty seconds was compassionate to. chad chad oh no i won the women's rights in just over

two hours and twenty seconds. this is data live from here's our top story this hour germany is voting in a general election expected to hand a fourth term the chance i'm going to back she went into today with a double digit lead over her brain challenge at martin shoals of the social democrats and while the far right after the party is tipped to make history by winning its first seats in the german. polls close in an hour and a half hour in just half an hour the w. bush special program bringing you a full results of exit polls have published projected results as well as the results come in three of them will be live at the main party headquarters results come in full results of analysis of course in half an hour here on day w. hosted by want to get. out of the.

all germans enjoy the same rights except perhaps those eighty thousand people who have disabilities yulian pieces is not allowed to vote because he has down syndrome that seems unbelievable in a modern democracy. and has demanded the cartesians explained to him why he's not

allowed to voters. next r d w. welcome to quadriga. if. there's music are you ready for this political visionary and she women's talk long w. smart women. smart talk say that we broke the record about smart staking fans cheer the most in the next report you'll find out just how this what about the. d w four mines. the media center see it find it here it discover. video and audio podcast and language courses in the media center at

media center dot dot com. climate change. waste. pollution. isn't it time for good news go at africa people and projects that are changing fire meant for the better it's up to us to make a difference let's inspire others. to go and look up the farming magazine. d.w. . a very warm welcome to focus on europe i'm michelle henery and one of the biggest topics in germany right now is the election so.