bating its culture its words and language and brought forth a ripple said nationalism. the soviet union's heritage where does russia stand today and moscow's empire our series starting november fifth on g.w. . this is the w. news live from berlin in kenya the polls are closed and votes are being counted in that country's presidential election rerun president kenyatta wants voters to give him another term but take two of this contested election has been marred by clashes

and a lower turnout with the opposition calling for a boycott will have the latest from families communities and citizens or close a country are currently dealing with the worst drug crisis in american history u.s. president donald trump declares a national public health emergency over addiction to opioids. and confusion in catalonia the region's leader rules out snap elections that could have staved off the record move by madrid comes a day before spanish lawmakers are set to decide on the un president and move will take you barcelona or the latest. be a really great tool. for everybody who supported us legally. in an emotional reunion german human rights organizer paid her. it is free on bail from

a turkish prison he and other activists on trial for jarrett related charges are seen as being politically motivated. it's good to have you with we begin tonight in kenya where vote counting is underway after a disputed rerun of a contested presidential election the opposition has urged voters to boycott the election and as a result turnout was low even in some areas that are considered strongholds of president kenyatta holding was pushed back to saturday in four counties where clashes broke out the violence left at least three people dead dozens wounded. police with water cannons vs opposition supporters with stones they were boycotting

the election in a slum area of kenya's capital nairobi polling stations in many areas failed to open because of security concerns several deaths and many injuries must the proceedings. kenya's president or hurricane yeah to cost his vote in upbeat mood his jubilee party's election victory back in august was cancelled because of irregularities leaving kenya in the grip of its worst political crisis in a decade. we're happy and. all we're asking is that kenyans turn out. requesting them humbly that they should turn out in the large numbers. make their decision true their leader. for our country to move on. the opposition leader raul loading gas seen here before the vote urged his super alliance supporters to boycott the proceedings. many went further than

that intimidating both election volunteers and voters to keep them away from polling stations. here and on enough to be here in. support of. violence also fled in the city of kisumu casualties were ferried to hospital the governor a hard liner during the supporter accused the authorities of punishing the opposition right. now or on saturday's remaining polling kenyatta's probable victory with

a low turnout in the rerun is unlikely to end the violence. in spain has been a. day of twists and turns that after the separatist leader of the region of catalonia said that he will not call snap elections elections that may have defused tensions with the spanish government over catalan independence karla's put him on says it is now up to catalonia as regional parliament to decide whether or not to hold elections of the spanish government plans to strip poor judgment of his powers and impose direct rule on catalonia possibly beginning tomorrow thousands of probes epper his supporters waited outside the regional government headquarters today hoping that would declare independence now kind of only as leader did just that after a referendum at the beginning of this month he immediately suspended its implementation

however. correspondent charlet tells until joins us from the kettle on capital barcelona she's on that story for us tonight good evening to you charlotte so we're not we're not going to get a snap election we're not getting a declaration of independence the ball seems to be back in the central government's court in madrid tonight doesn't. it certainly does appear that way that's because we know tomorrow or the senate in madrid is planning on voting on whether to impose article one five five that would impose direct rule on catalonia it would mean removing those in the regional government from power will also mean taking control of its finances and its police force as well as we have known for some time that that was likely to happen tomorrow and all indications point to the fact that they will vote in favor first of all because prime minister marianna or hoy's party is pushing for this it has

a majority in the senate and secondly because we've heard from it's nights that he in a tweet that he wants to quote rescue castle anya's so it does indeed seem that all eyes are going to be on madrid tomorrow and we know that he wants to rescue catalonia implying that he wants to rescue it from its president mr hu jim on that he did not mr goodman did not give the announcement that people were expecting today so how do people in catalonia feel now. i think it's fair to say that both those who are in favor of independence and those who are against it actually have something in common today both a walking away from today's developments feeling probably slightly disappointed pro independence supporters who had really expected to declare independence today there were thousands of people on the streets in the square behind me saying that they wanted just that the mood was was really quite bitter among the people son who was

standing behind me some were even chanting traitor referring to preach among some real anger on the other side those who are against independence may well have been hoping that he would call regional elections today the hope being that it would deescalate what is becoming an increasingly tense situation an increasingly tense situation and that leads us then to tomorrow and the weekend the central government says it's prepared to it's ready to impose direct rule will it and will it be peaceful. that's certainly looks highly likely whether or not it will be peaceful is anyone's guess at this point there were some rumors that some of the very pro independence factions in the catalan government which try and prevent it happening there were even reports on social media that

they were giving people tips on how to stop some of the practical elements of direct rule being imposed sort of taking guardian government buildings for example to make sure that madrid cannot take charge we have already seen some violence on the streets of bonsa lona that was on october first the day of the referendum which essentially kicked off this entire crisis the day that it was claimed by the catalan government that the people voted in favor of independence. then on the streets we saw the police say reach trying to prevent not referendum from taking by some really violent scenes so you there's a there's hope here wanting to send about but the potential is very real our correspondent charlotte chosen field on the story for us tonight in barcelona charlie thank you very much. here are some of the other stories now that are making headlines around the world u.s. secretary of state rex tillerson has renewed calls for syrian president bashar al assad to step down his comments came after a meeting in geneva with you in syria envoy staffan de mistura said un mediated

syrian peace talks would resume at the end of november new security measures applying to all passengers flying into the u.s. have come into effect the enhanced screening will affect some two thousand flights a day and may include interviews and questionnaire measures replaced an earlier trunk ruling banning laptops on flights from several muslim countries venezuela's former national assembly speaker henry ramos and the country's democratic opposition have been awarded the european union's soccer role prize for human rights the european parliament said it wanted to reward the courage of politicians and students fighting for freedom in the face of the country's repressive government. of the german national papers and seven other human rights activists have been released on bail after spending three months in

a more amnesty international is once again a free man after his release from prison his comments on what happened made his ordeal clear i am really grateful and they can say we are really grateful. for everybody who supported us legally. diplomatically and with solidarity. and we know it's going on but we do it together. diagnose case and those of other german citizens arrested by turkey have severely strained relations between the two countries in berlin there is palpable relief over his release from prison. we were very pleased when the news came yesterday that peter was to be freed wrongly imprisoned in turkey for three months but now is the time to bear in mind that there are still german citizens being unlawfully held in prison in turkey.

if it does then that this is sensational and we should encourage turkey to take more of these steps to release the other prisoners especially the journalists where the accusations were made up out of thin air from this former german chancellor played a decisive role and now it's release. media reports saying chancellor merkel knew about churches mediation efforts this was confirmed by his social democratic party colleague foreign minister. one german citizen may have survived a hard time in a turkish prison but others still behind bars are waiting to see what german diplomacy can do for them this week chancellor merkel met the wife of imprisoned german journalist uneasy a clear show of solidarity by the german government with those being held illegally in turkey's prisons. are going to delve

a little bit deeper in this subject with our political correspondent brady kate what stands out in the report is the role that the former chancellor gerhard schroeder played in securing the release of peter starting or tell us little bit more about that what we know so far and this is being confirmed by the by the foreign ministry and by germany's foreign minister sigma governor. get out should a went to take a just about a week after the german elections or within the last month. where he actually then spoke to president but what everyone is asking now is at what price was the release of pitch. we don't actually know the details of this deal which has been made yet and that's something that's going to be of interest obviously in the clean weeks and what's also interesting of course is to see how this develops. of course everyone's going to be happy that he's been involved in diplomatic work for the

german government while he's of course now receiving a paycheck from vladimir putin now that he's on the barge of rosneft oil company so he's a complex figure in all of this but of course happy days for family start or begs the question why peter stuart and why not the other very prominent person in jail dennis you chel and all the other german citizens why has a new not been able to secure their release well from the information that we had confirmed so far did they ask for. no dennis you chose and told you all to be released obviously that's certainly something that will see whether that was really the case or whether that is part of the deal that turkey is yet to fulfill that something will only see in the coming weeks but of course as released yesterday it's by no means an also matic indication that all of the other german nationals detained in turkey will also be released i'm

going to personally just thirty seconds left what does this say about bilateral relations between berlin and on which plunged to historic lows well they've still got a long long way to go the foreign ministers of my gabriela said you know it's a moment for a ease tensions but of course there is a long long way to go many more issues to be resolved kate really reporting on that thank you so very much. and that was recorded a little bit earlier there with my colleague obviously that was. all right let's go to the united states now u.s. president donald trump has declared opioid drug addiction a national public health crisis opioid drugs have become the main cause of death among americans under the age of fifty more than ninety people die every day in the u.s. from opioid drug overdoses and the development of course is staggering in two thousand and fifteen the death toll was more than thirty three thousand that's

a four fold increase in deaths since the well basically the end of the last century there nine hundred ninety nine most people start with pain relief pills prescribe by their doctor these are the biggest killers by overdose and those who can no longer afford these pills they turn to cheaper opioid drugs like heroin unfitness which are shipped illegally from mexico and china significant increases in overdose death rates were primarily seen in the eastern part of the united states from airlie in four states as you see right here in new hampshire ohio west virginia and kentucky a president trump address the severity of the opioid crisis in a white house speech earlier today this is part of what he had to say as you well know from personal experience families communities and citizens across our country are currently dealing with the worst drug crisis in american history and even if

you really think about it world history drug overdoses are now the leading cause of unintentional death and the united states by far more people are dying from drug overdoses today than from gun homicides and motor vehicles combined. are there was the u.s. president there donald trump i'm joined now by dr matthew kendra a clinical psychologist at stanford university specializes in the treatment of substance use disorders doctors good to have you on the show you know for our viewers around the world they this may actually be the first time that many people have even heard about opioids tell us a little bit about the why are they so would dictate and why are they so dangerous . be oh it's our very addictive medications this is been long known by the medical community and prior to the one nine hundred eighty s. many physicians are not prescribe these types of medications because they're known

addictive potential. and they're similar in chemical structure to other substances many people know like heroin and fit know which are also highly addictive so they're all within the same class of medications and drugs more broadly and it wasn't until you know pharmaceutical companies came around in the one nine hundred ninety s. we had a big push in america also from the joint commission to treat me more aggressively and combined with factors in our health care system this really produced an epidemic of massive proportions i mean it is an epidemic right you've got ninety americans dying every day on average from some type of who'd be oid abuser or overdose i mean how does how does that happen it does it is it so bad in the us that that physicians are willing to prescribe these risky drugs to people knowing that you know the chances are fairly high that they could become

addicted to me are the doctors are they actually where this problem begins. well i'm not sure it's where it begins but i think certainly over prescribe me of medications by doctors recently even the focus has been on dental professions. prescribing medications i think that does play an important factor in this problem and it really is kind of a combination of all resources that's leading to the epidemic i think most importantly that addiction treatment in america is very hard to access and we don't have universal coverage through addiction treatment it's not funded very well and when it's done it's not done well so there's a numbers out there showing that only one in ten americans with an opiate use disorder get treatment that actually works and yet that type of treatment is the combination sure psychedelics will treatments things that i do talk there

a group there in communities but medication assisted treatment is very necessary and i feel ation that includes medications like north or methadone and these are overlook what's your take on what the u.s. president said today when he declared this public. health emergency i also heard the u.s. attorney general. mr sessions saying today i mean it sounded something like we would have heard of the one nine hundred eighty s. with nancy reagan just say no i mean that doesn't work you know that. now i'm not really sure about the efficacy of that i don't think that's going to work to solve our problems you know i think about some of my facial is talking about their addiction to opioids and they liken it to not drinking water for days and you would do a lot against your moral code if if you were suffering in that way and so i think

we have to see people with addictions in that manner as as for trump's comments it sounded like he declared this a quote public health emergency instead of a national emergency that's correct and that distinction is. because the public health emergency allows tens of thousands to be accessed whereas a national emergency would allow a million and simply not enough funding for this for the scope of the problem it's all right well unfortunately we're out of time dr matthew can't read stanford university but it can do thank you very much a fascinating discussion and we appreciate your insights thank you of course have to. you're watching the w. news live from berlin and still to come a royal farewell tyreese pay their last respects to the late he will name paul thousands turned out in bangkok for the lavish cremation ceremony which comes after

a year of mourning for the longest reigning monarch story coming up in just a month. all right the stock exchange here in germany is said to be in new hands after a fairly dramatic turn of events well that's right the current c.e.o. coulson can't get to has announced that he is stepping down off to as you say a rather dramatic turn of events and he is the c.e.o. of the company that operates the frankfurt stock exchange and he came under fire for going for the hoff million euros worth of shares in his own company shortly before announcing it was looking at merging with the london stock exchange that new sense that these shares rather. should searching the merger never happen but can get to is being investigated the company has repeatedly denied that the chief executive did anything wrong so we asked to correspond in frankfurt daniel cope how can get explained his departure. well there is of course this or fisher

wording where he's saying now you know i really want to make sure their daughter bertha gets out of this you know bad headlines and that you know now they can focus again on the business but pretty much he probably at the end didn't have any choice it was just he was just under two big pressure also after we have the court in frankfurt saying this week that they don't agree on this settlement that he wanted to or arrange by a paying five hundred thousand euros and then dodger burrs another ten million euros so basically you have the option to just say i'm gonna resign by the end of the year otherwise he probably would not even gotten a new contract because his contract was due in march two thousand and eighteen. time to check in with wall street our financial correspondent yes quarter is with us in new york yet as those third quarter earnings keep coming in twitch of the

wants looks like it might turn a profit but it's not all good news that is it. well twitter actually announced that for the past three years they overstated some of the numbers for the monthly the user growth but here on wall street people are not interested in the past they're looking at the future so the news that they overstated the numbers did not play a big role here quite the contrary the stock gained by a good eighteen and a half per cent and what will the wall street is focusing on is that for the first time since twitter went public about four years ago in this current quarter now actually twitter might report a profit and they tried to achieve that with a personalizing the feeds and much more was algorithms was artificial intelligence and that seems to attract users the overall figure for monthly users stands at about three hundred thirty million we're talking about

a quarterly numbers then who else has been reporting well overall the numbers we got on thursday were better than expected we had for example ford coming out was numbers the second biggest car manufacturer in the united states they chief to increase prices specially for pickup trucks and that gave them a profit boost of a good sixty percent so that stock traded to the upside but talking about yesterday's news center morrow's news well after hours we got numbers from amazon and from the google mother alphabet both companies beating analyst expectations easy leave and both stocks see a big boost in an initial after our reaction bostock so from amazon and from alphabet surpassing the one thousand dollars mark per share so that could be a promising sign for sector oid stock trading on friday all right then quarter in

new york thanks for that. back over to brant now for some extraordinary scenes from bangkok all right thank you very much thailand staged a lavish ceremony to bid a final public farewell to former king who. his body was cremated on thursday as part of five days of official funeral proceedings the beloved monarch died last year after seven decades on the throne thousands of ordinary thais as well as dignitaries from around the world traveled to bangkok to witness the royal sandal. the end of a long year of sorrow hundreds of thousands of thais citizens lined the streets in bangkok to witness the third day of the elaborate five day funeral and cremation ceremony. king told me paul it was a father figure to many thais. i want to

stay here in this area even after the cremation because i want to hold every piece of the ceremony in my memory everything i see and every feeling from today as much as possible. ninety five percent of the current time population was born during the late king's reign royals and dignitaries from forty two countries arrived in bangkok to pay their respects to the king and the royal family thailand has we'll be right back. with.

quadriga international talk show four journalists discuss the topic of the week. revelations a sexual harassment by a powerful hollywood producer has sparked an international outcry protesting a worldwide pattern but will anything change that's our topic on quadriga. quadriga in sixty minutes on. every journey begins with the first step and every language with the first word american. rico is in germany

to learn german why not learn a simple online on your mobile and free stuff from d w z learning course nikos german made easy. way to elephants. does a plastic model turn into a paving stone why do algae make it clear. the good idea can work anywhere and there are people developing smart solutions everywhere. let's inspire each other to go into africa vitamin e. is in on d w. sustainable protection for the earth ideas designed to preserve our ecosystems they exist around the world. global ideas takes the next step protection for our planet's biological diversity trailblazing projects.

t w dot com slash global i do yes. eight human rights activists on trial in turkey for allegedly helping terrorists while they walked out of in istanbul prison thursday freed on bail tonight we're learning that this was made possible by one of the biggest names in german polish.