this is the w. news live from berlin the german parliament is holding its first session since elections last month now it is the biggest and most right wing in post-war history

taking a seat in the chambers for the first time the far right alternative for germany its promise to shake up the bonus dog also coming up. chinese president xi jinping makes his move and communist party delegates back his vision for the future will the g. era see china become a global superpower. plus the last russians are pursues forbidden love putting his throne at risk to sell here for the matilda the pics sorry nicholas the seconds of fair with a ballerina will tell you why there are fears that this movie could spark a violent reaction. i'm brian thomas a warm welcome to the show well it has been a month now since germany voted in a new parliament and today lawmakers will come to. other for their first session in

these chambers we're still waiting for all american to form a new government coalition talks about that started just last week here in berlin so what can we expect though in the bundestag today well first of all we're talking about the biggest parliament ever in germany a number of lawmakers rising to seven hundred nine s. because of the country's electoral system now that makes it more than ten percent bigger than the last parliament now the other major difference is the number of parliamentary groups last time there were just for this time around there are six s. because the free democrats are over here in yellow are back they failed to make it into the last parliament and the far right e.f.t. the alternative for germany well they're represented now they're in the blue in the bundestag for the first time and they are the country's third biggest political party well for more on all this let's cross over live to our political correspondent thomas sparrow thomas this is the first time in post-war germany we're seeing a right wing party of this size this seriousness in parliament walkaway expect.

well brian we're standing here at the german parliament not far away from the members of parliament meeting and that is indeed a question that many people here have asked what can we expect when it comes to to this group the a.f.d. in parliament and how the other parties also will react to their presence here the traditional parties if you will are facing a very big dilemma and that is well on the one hand they can't ignore the a f t after all they got twelve point six percent of the vote in the german election there's a third biggest force here in the german parliament on the other hand they also can't react to every single provocation by the way if these are trying to for to find that middle point will be the big challenge for the parties here there's obviously there's been a lot of comment here about the possibility that debates will be shifted to the right of the political spectrum and that's obviously something that some of the

traditional parties here want to avoid ok there's also going to be many more voices in this debate this is the largest parliament in german history seven hundred nine members that's a big group is there a concern out there that this could become unwieldy even dysfunctional certainly there is a concern but there are two sides of the core and obviously some people do recognise the back would be the case on the other hand if you look for example at the previous parliament you had four parliamentary groups that the two that formed the grand coalition two smaller ones in the opposition the grand coalition had a very large majority and some analysts have said that that made debates here rather dull so on the one hand over the people say the parliament now could be dysfunctional on the other hand there are those who say that debates will be much more interesting and they will represent much wider spectrum of the german society ok we're expecting the session to get underway at the top of the hour we covering

that live what's on the agenda. well the most important aspect will be the election of the president of the german parliament is expected that that will be blair the finance minister and obviously something else that will be elected as his vice presidents and there's one particular point that will very well be very interesting then namely whether the candidate of the alternative for germany will get the necessary majority to also become a vice president of the german parliament that seems unclear because although the vote is not public in other words although the m.p.'s do not have to say whether they are whether they will vote for him or not it is expected that they will vote against that candidate of the. ok thomas sparrow with us as parliament prepares to get together for the first time for the new session here in berlin thomas will be with us at the top of the hour for more thanks very much for now. while hollywood's culture of sexual harassment and the cover up of it are finding

an echo in european politics the swedish foreign minister margot also was one of the first to speak out telling a newspaper that she was groped by an unnamed top level european union politician so the quality minister has made similar allegations while female staff of the european parliament have also been reporting being sexually harassed by lawmakers there that parliament is due to discuss the issue in a special session tomorrow. well just like this hard the harvey weinstein scandal the debate about sexual harassment in europe and european parliament politics is raging on social media the e.u.'s agency for fundamental rights tweeted that forty two thousand women were surveyed across the e.u. and that fifty five percent that's one hundred two million women have soccer suffered sexual harassment many of them like the swedish foreign minister margot balls from are talking about have been taken to social media to share their

experiences using the hash tag me to now the need to stories quickly lead to the discussion where does actual harassment begin and which stories are worthy of being discussed these female twitter user writing not every male proposition is sexual harassment not every male touch is assault while many men are taking these reports of sexual harassment seriously the australian writer benjamin law even start a call for action tweeting guys it's our turn after yesterday's endless me two stories of women being abused assaulted harassed today we say how i will change the response to that has been overwhelming it's to china now the chinese communist party has officially elevated the status of president xi jinping by adding his name to the country's constitution the announcement came on the closing day of the party's twice a decade national conference the move makes the one of the most powerful chinese

leaders in history placing him on par with mo. g.'s expected to use his new status to influence foreign policy and push for further military expansion. will he be a success in those efforts to talk about that we're joined now by bernard barge asian affairs expert of the barrel's one foundation thanks so much for being with us this morning let's start off with looking at she having the same title in the constitution as ma just how powerful is it right now well he can ping now is definitely as powerful as he could wish to be in a system where his pretty says his ruling as first among equals hitting ping is not first among equals he is first ok now he's also signaled a new push to make china first to make china a super power do you think he's going to succeed does he have the backing to do

that i think he has the backing at home but claiming superpower status and actually gaining superpower status the two very different things. china's neighbors are very very very suspicious of china's intentions of course china is trying to push back u.s. influence in its neighborhood i would guess that it's going to have some successes the in the next coming and in the next couple of years but it's far from gaining a global superpower status ok she has been working very closely with america spratly south china sea conflict has been toned down there is cooperation on north korea will china be cooperating with america moving forward or will it be more of a contender. i think china is a contender but china doesn't want any big conflict right now china won stability because he didn't things main battles other battles that he fights at home it's the

economy it's consolidating his power at home so he doesn't want any external conflicts and i think that's what he's doing in the north korea. affair he wants to to contain this crisis and that's how far he is going to work with the u.s. ok now at home he's been fighting corruption that's been his banner cause has been he's been effective there has he reigned then china's endemic corruption well he's definitely been very successful at using this anti-corruption campaign as a means to consolidate his own power and push out all his his rivals what the anti-corruption campaign has not done is to promote the rule of law and build a more transparent system that actually we've seen a lot of. return to to previous much more authoritarian

areas ok so you have concerns about transparency in china right now definitely ok bernard barge asian affairs expert isabelle's min foundation thanks very much for that thank you sports now in football's world governing body fever has held its annual awards ceremony in longdon the portuguese star and aldo was named player of the year after winning the spanish league champions league and world cup world cup in with of course real madrid dutch forward leader martin's receive the women's player of the year after leading home to victory in euro twenty seventeen real madrid's indians that dan was chosen as best coach and event is legend luigi befall picked up best goalkeeper. well controversial film about the last russians are has seen its premiere in the movie tells a story of tsar nicholas and his affair with a ballerina but the tales angered hardline nationalists and orthodox christians who view this are as a saint a series of violent incidents surrounding that film has russia on edge. a roman

of family secret a story of forbidden passion when son nicholas the second fell in love with a ballerina a film premiere that's made many russians nervous. with the good news is the premiere of matilda was held peacefully here as a very family mary. spirit and these despite the fact that this film a lot of controversy in the russian. tension was high on opening night one hundred police officers got of the select audience security measures more typical of an airport where a place many feared an attack director alexey tell had received multiple threats but he remained defiant. yeah i'm not afraid i hope good sense triumphs and the uproar subsides. the uproar mainly has to do with a few sex scenes that depict

a week. who's about to lose his throne over matilda a simple dancer. that was too much for russia's powerful orthodox church which canonized nicholas the second after his murder nine hundred seventeen betraying him this way is an offense to the religious sensibilities of the faithful that's according to russia's parliament the duma. natalya proclaimed skya a duma lawmakers start their campaign against matilda. what do you have against this film that is installed saints who embody a healthy family a proper family relationship in our family values. in the order not to cause offense one must be able to strike a balance between artistic freedom and the rights of our citizens to their religious feelings. some of these offended citizens seem to take inspiration from his campaign they torched movie theaters like here in the city of you catherine

virg a car belonging to the director's lawyer was set on fire in moscow. initially the church didn't comment on the violence. german actor. who plays nicholas the second avoided the premiere after a hate campaign by religious extremists. he sent this video message instead. decided to come to the. group on. so you're allowed. to us. the film's success remains to be seen but it's already gained plenty of notoriety from politicians and the church critics of the mighty russian orthodox church say the church is trying to act as a moral sense and is further infringing on social life in russia a life in

a beach bland theater productions sometimes disappear from the program and entire exhibitions are closed they say it's almost impossible to stage cultural events without cries from people claiming to be insulted and enraged. state your mind or of our top story this hour germany's parliament has gathered for the first time since national elections were held last month. can expect fierce debate from the new parliament in the form of the far right now the nation's third biggest party these are live images from that gathering set to kick off any moment now. this is the interview it is a live from berlin we're back with more of the top of the. stories that people of the world over in.