and the refugee crisis inside its own nukes until the past. week on. this is news live from berlin gunmen at tac a church and southwestern pakistan killing at least five and moving more than a dozen to attack first target a methodist church and with hundreds of worshippers inside we'll go live to islamabad for more also coming up. corruption and scandal have plagued me and sees current leader a south african president jacob zuma now the contest to select his successor

threatens to split the party will get the latest. and in the book is legal find out why shell car getting a reputation as the comeback kings of the week. and have you called us and welcome to the program we begin in pakistan where a suicide attack on a church service has left at least five people dead and more than a dozen wounded the two gunmen targeted a methodist church in quite that in the southwest of the country more than two hundred worshippers were gathered in the church at the time of the attack police and army troops around at the church and exchanged fire with the heavily armed militants before one of the attackers blew himself up. joining us now on the line from islamabad is journalist aside his shame aside the details are

not entirely clear at the moment what's the latest. well yes as you say it's still developing situation with the fire to figure out exactly what happened that the methodist church and quite what we do know is that the death toll has now risen to at least eight people killed with more than thirty three wounded that's according to all sort of official at the nearby civil hospital in question just updated those figures recently as you say there were two attackers both armed with suicide vests it seems that their intention was to storm into the inside the inner chamber or the of the church and to blow themselves up their. challenge at the gate that's what police officials say that they were shouting at the gate by the security cordon that was established there for the sunday services one of them was shot dead at the gate of the other one was able to explode a suicide vest and that's what seems to have caused many of the casualties. the police are saying that. because the explosion occurred at the gate itself or not within the church premises a higher death toll was avoided as you say there were about four hundred people who

were attending church services obviously where in the run up to christmas now we have about a week to go and those sunday services today were quite jam packed in this one of the larger churches. and how common are the attacks on christian targets in the country. well we have seen quite a number of these attacks happen obviously violence in general and plus one has been down and you saw a couple of years so it has come down from the fico for around two thousand and nine and two thousand and ten when churches were regularly and minorities were regularly targeted by the sun last year we thought actually one of the largest bombings to occur in a long time was in twenty six theme park warming in the eastern city of lahore that targeted christians were celebrating easter at the time killing at least seventy five people many of whom were christians and many of whom were muslims as well and others were just at the park celebrating and taking part in a festival which actually exists unfortunately do occur from time to time and it is something that armed groups in bugs bunny is taken to doing as a form also as

a way to perhaps cause high casualty attacks because obviously many people congregate together the. you mentioned the attack in lahore last year and there have also been several large attacks in the country in recent weeks what does this tell us about the security situation. well i think it's a very worrying what we've seen is over the last three years plus of undertaken a major military operation which started in the tribal areas and then expanded to the rest of the country in order to try and be nice based on groups such as the three kg of them on budgets on now in large part they have managed to do so they have actually displaced them from places that were otherwise know well areas like north with the sun but what we have seen is that this hasn't stopped the frequency of attacks that might be over the smaller scale every now and then such as such as this one but again this one has the potential to be to be huge and that's what we've seen is that the pattern now in dollars in regular attacks we're seeing many sort of high casualty attacks happening more sporadically that seems to be the way that the militants are now strategizing assad regime in islamabad thank you.

in south africa delegates from the ruling african national congress are meeting to elect a new party leader with national polls in two thousand and nineteen the gathering is being closely watched for signs of the direction the party will take of deep divisions over who should take over incumbent leader and south african president jacob zuma has acknowledged the party is fighting for its future. i want to power to the people south africa's president jacob zuma trying to conjure up some of the former spirit of his party the african national congress led the fight against apartheid demanding justice and equality for all. for some it almost sounds like mockery president zuma faces dozens of allegations of corruption blackmail fraud and money laundering for years he has used his presidential immunity to protect him from prosecution. though the mood at this party gathering

seemed beat divisions run deep but the party leader puts forward a more optimistic view of the a and sees future. is one. of experience. this peace which is in. truth. we must leave it. you can see that. with. search and drew her and able. to conduct its organization free the. observers say the party is in danger of splitting into into camps headed by the two main candidates looking to succeed zuma as party leader. poza zuma as current deputy and one of south africa's richest men is battling causes on adela many zuma the president's ex-wife. emma poses seen as someone who could revive the party and

its fortunes he has repeatedly spoken out against corruption in the country he also pledges to bring south africa's flagging economy back on track. still mean izumo was for many years head of the african union if she's elected her ex-husband jacob zuma might enjoy continuing immunity from prosecution observers say zuma might stand down early and not wait until the next elections due in twenty nineteen if his ex-wife does take over the party helm many in south africa would like to see zuma go. looking at looking at him as a sister look at newton as a lie and all those names that has been painted with. it's like the people that are supposed to be protecting the company don't keep. so it's about time that it's. zuma is rule coming to an end his legacy is

a fractured party with an uncertain future. for more on this we're joined by w's christine wa christine will we know today who will be the next party leader and likely the next president must actually appear on the i just got a notification moments before we came on saying the credentials process has been adopted. essentially there were issues around bogus candidates having been accredited in the process of the. congress and so that has been taken out of the way now means voting can commence ok and we've heard about the divisions was mentioned in the report within the party is this potentially the beginning of the end of it and see you know a few years ago that might have been a very sensational statement but there is the threat of spitting has never been more real going into this that there's been much consolidation now going into this there were eight candidates vying for the job of president the secretary general of the party himself said this showed the extent of how deeply rooted the divisions

within the party are if you look for example at the relationship the a.n.c. now has with its alliance partners it's at an all time low one of the partners said that they would even accept president jacob zuma addressing it's congress's so there is a lot of division within the a.n.c. at the moment and you can see even now by the procedures that have been delayed you know the fact that they can be accusation of bogus candidates that could potentially cause was one or the other candidate that just shows you how hotly contested this particular congress is it's never been like this in the history of this party you mentioned multiple candidates but there's two that are in the lead but more about them all right. who is an astute politician in her own right so she has held big portfolios in south africa. she's been interior minister recently she came from the african union where she was the chairperson she has her struggle credentials she is a woman she embodies the perfect politician in many ways her problem is an affiliation with the outgoing soon to be outgoing president of the jacob zuma the

fact that he endorsed it people see her taking over as merely an extension of the party that has been leading over the past couple of good people worried about that people are also worried about the fact that he is somebody that has reached the constitution and should face charges for that people think that she would shield him from that then you've got sorer who actually was meant to succeed president mandela and then things changed at the very last minute but he is now back in that he's has come back one of south africa's richest men he is a good in the street the issues of the problem with that is that he is tainted as one who is too closely affiliated with white monopoly capital race is still very sensitive in south africa and the idea that you have a black man in the bed with white people so to say really makes a lot of black south africans an easy but he is the frontrunner in the street as of last night even this morning he's also received a massive backing by the party a senior figure in the party. it looks like this is his race to be ok you mentioned

a little bit earlier about president zuma he gave a speech earlier how was that received well it was not received very well by a lot of people including the partners who felt that he distanced himself from a lot of problems that they see as having when you talked about the issue of corruption which has been plaguing them dogging this party you know he seemed to blame everybody else but himself he talked about the policy needing to be united and some of the alliance partners and some members of the a.n.c. felt like he played an instrumental part in the divisions in the way of affection affection ism that's taking place in the party right now so people felt that there was a man who who could have taken the opportunity to say as a leader i failed you here and there but instead went to all other avenues and put the blame if we were else in terms of you know the voting. he went on to say that external faxes. change the way we do things in the a.n.c. we shouldn't have any other voices influencing these decisions essentially what he was hitting out at is much of the economist in the end this who have been saying

that he's the candidate of his former wife is not the candidate that should be elected ok so not taking much responsibility for his own actions there. joining us in studio thanks for walking us through that christine right. now to some of the other stories making news around the world police in australia have arrested a man for allegedly acting as an economic agent for north korea south korean born chen hunch ojt is accused of attempting to broker sales worth tens of millions of dollars in missile technology and coal to third parties in indonesia and vietnam. chile has declared a disaster zone at the site of a village destroyed by a mudslide heavy rain caused a river to overflow and the side of a hill to collapse killing at least five people rescue workers are searching through the debris for about a dozen missing people. a team of astronauts have laughed that off for the international space station on the baikonur cosmodrome in kazakhstan three crew

members making the journey are from japan russia and the united states their mission is to set set to last six months. in the bundesliga frankfurt welcomed a shock aside in scintillating form the royal blues coach by dominico to disco are unbeaten in ten matches their longest run in over a decade meanwhile the home side have struggled in their own stadium this season with a record of just to win so far but it was far from easy for the visitors. i. shall because team spirit has played a large part in less excess so far this season but it was the stooge of giving evidence at the start of them match against eintracht they were less than two minutes on the clock when you could use it started home christmas come early for the benfica loney. but i'm tracked has struggled at home this season and the visit has gradually got back into the match you kashrut ski the hero here his fingertips save in short i'm tracked went into the break

a goal to the goods. and they will move goodies in store after half time me out catchin of it spurs into the box and sebastian allan app pulls this out of his christmas stocking. more generous defending from the visitors but how about that for interviews ation. erath home when looked on the constant sound of a comeback kings had other ideas sub brilliant polo picked the perfect time to score his first of the season with eight minutes to go shock at the net just rewards for some excellent build up play. he desperately tried to get the message out to his team. but it was all in vain five minutes into injury time now so who else pops up with the equaliser i this takes turned out to be the last of the match. we are at him that like to play football to play possession and with this pitch today was very hauled very sleepy so we try our best and at the end i think

this roy it's like a victory for us. that's now eleven games without defeat for me wonder they were singing jingle bells to desk all the way. it watching the news live from berlin and don't forget you can get all the latest news and information around the clock on our website at www dot com thanks for watching. every journey begins with the first step and every language but the first word published in the. nico is in germany to learn german why not learn a little simple online on your mobile and free.