let's push each other. to let her be apartment manager. do you w. b. b a and. this is d w news live from berlin and lebanon goes to the polls for the first parliamentary election in nearly a decade security fears and a tug of war over election reform delayed voting for years now an unprecedented number of independent candidates hoping to shake up lebanon's political establishment under prime minister saad hariri also coming up. turkey's president out on kicks off his election campaign everyone moves the polls up to next month

and now faces a credible threat to his power from an opposition alliance will go live to istanbul . the long fall from grace for the man who was once germany's highest paid blue chip c.e.o. u.s. prosecutors have indicted the former volkswagen boss as german prosecutors examine his case what's ahead from off inventor connie. play. thanks for joining us. voters in lebanon are heading to the polls today to elect a new parliament for the first time in almost ten years sunni prime minister saad hariri and his future movement party are expected to retain power but this election will be the first under the country's new electoral laws replace to the previous winner takes all system with proportional representation which has brought the country's sectarian power struggle into sharp focus and among those hoping to make

gains in the country is hezbollah the islamist political and militant groups financed by iran hezbollah supports syrian president bashar assad and most major western powers also consider it to be a terrorist group let's take a look at the patchwork of parties and religions vying for power in lebanon. graves of lebanese hezbollah fighters who died in neighboring syria. the iran funded parties militias are revered by many shiites in lebannon. in syria the militias fight alongside the troops of president bashar al assad and ally of iran. hezbollah under its secretary general has announced ra is not only a military organization but also an influential political force it's represented in the lebanese parliament alongside with other muslim and christian parties and it's part of the national unity government shiite and sunni muslims and christians are

sharing power there lebanon is a diverse country almost twenty religious communities live here but has been as involvement in the war in syria is creating tension between them it undermines lebanon's policy of not interfering in other countries it's a principle all parties agree to the objective was avoiding entanglement with the region's interest groups this country of four million has taken in some one and a half million syrian refugees since then poverty and unemployment have risen sharply and growth has fallen to one percent from eight percent before the syrian war in addition there are the hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled the palestinian territories decades ago lebanon is formally at war with israel beirut demands the establishment of a palestinian state and a return of refugees as conditions for a peace agreement lebanon maintains close relations with israel's main critic iran

mainly through hezbollah the shiite group is predicted to make gains in the election but western backed prime minister saad hariri is widely expected to head the next cabinet. whatever the outcome of the vote parliamentary seat and key political offices will continue to be divided proportionally among religious groups . let's go to our own data is correspondent who's following the story from beirut so until the elections are underway let's talk about prime minister saad hariri are we expecting these elections to confirm the status quo or has he lost the confidence of his supporters well i'm right now in beirut to this is the district where fighting off to the episode last year when he resigned from riyadh even though subsequently upon his return to lebanon even to the resignation his popularity has climbed it's gone up and people in lebanon have blamed saudi arabia for that incident timing set that house on the future movement party of palms is an

open question because hizbollah has cracked never mind says and many of the sunni candidates opposing zawahiri these party have a very decent terms with. so saw the movie is going to perform when or whether it's going to be future movement that's going to the leading party or whether they'll be sunni candidates that saudi arabia i mean look at as an option to sovereignty is a question that's still unanswered but these are the first elections that happened since two thousand and nine a lot has changed in the past nine years what are some of the issues that voters have on their mind today. well you know this is actually the first election of this generation of levanon the last election was centrally about the generation that either participated in the civil war was subjected to the crimes that took place during the civil war so this election is about these young stars and hundreds and thousands of young waters of come in and they see our issues are civic issues garbage prices electricity crisis but also

a sectarian politics that continues to have a huge grip over levanon they don't want foreign meddling either they say as long as iran and saudi arabia and other powers do not stop meddling in the affairs of levanon lebanon will not be a functioning democracy having said that they do like the fact that levanon among all the countries in the middle east is that he's going ahead with these elections and that at least it's a step forward when it comes to levanon being a democracy in the middle east now you mentioned foreign influence are we seeing any foreign powers like saudi arabia or iran trying to exert themselves on the outcome here. but i have to lahore many of the spiritual leader of iran so to say has come out in the open and back to his will and his will has several alliances including with the leading christian parties so that is clear as far as the saudis are concerned it's known that saudis back sunni candidates the saudis have backed saad hariri and his father in the past but this time around there's a bit of a doubt whether saudi arabia's who him to continue to back saddam he after the

elections it all depends on what the result of the elections is going to be remember i earlier mentioned there are several contenders giving competition to solidarity and it remains to be seen what does ofter the results come out remember levanon is a very important it's a tiny country but a very important country when it comes to the battle over dominance over these wall between saudi arabia and iran did of his and show her parting for us from beirut thank you very much. now to some of the other stories making news around the world an explosion at a mosque in afghanistan has killed at least twelve people and wounded many more local police say the mosque mosque in haast was also being used as a voter registration center for elections later this year no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack iran's president hassan rouhani has warned u.s. president donald trump that dismantling the twenty fifteen nuclear deal would be a quote historic regret trump has long criticized the agreement and he faces

a self-imposed deadline of may twelfth to decide whether to stick with it or pull out assured iranians that regardless of trump's decision quote no change will occur in our lives next week. russian opposition leader aleck son of ali says he has been released from custody after he was detained at an anti putin rally in moscow yesterday the valley had called for a nationwide protest against president putin's inauguration on monday for a fourth term as president some one thousand six hundred activists were also arrested in other demonstrations across the country. but a rental flood has swept through a district in the turkish capital ankara injuring six people the powerful water sent cars floating through the streets and they also flooded dozens of homes and offices. and staying in turkey president recha type everyone has launched his campaign for a snap general election that he called for june twenty fourth he's been addressing

crowds of thousands gathered in istanbul told them opposition parties are trying to divide the country and he vowed to resist their efforts there is much on the line for the upcoming ballot winning will secure winning it would secure him sweeping new presidential powers narrowly of proved last year. for more about the start of the election campaign in turkey from our correspondent let's go to julia hahn in istanbul how did president present himself today and what did he say. while he spoke in front of thousands tens of thousands of supporters waving turkish flags and flags bearing the symbol of the islamic group to this to add once party he gave a fierce speech since there is a lot indeed at stake for him he doesn't only want to be reelected as president he

is also running as the head of the party leading the party into paul you mentary elections exactly the same day so what the t.s.a. he talks a lot about enemies inside and outside of the country trying to divide the nation suggesting that he is the only one who can keep things together who can prevent turkey from falling apart so to say he also talks about turkey's military intervention in north and syria saying turkey's military breached a terrel corydoras these are his words saying more than four thousand terrorists have been eliminated here he's clearly appealing to nationalist voters as well not only to his own conservative base he also said the economy economy will be doing much better off for this election the election of course will transform turkey into a full presidential system and i think this is his main argument here turkey is now on its way to this presidential system and only after this transformation has been

made turkey will be a global player it will be a strong country not only nationally but on the international level as well so his slogan for this election is resurrection and determination but you know in the past the opposition in turkey has been very divided and we see these four opposition parties now coming together to form a coalition are they actually a threat to our daughter we expecting him to maintain power the way he has. well a few weeks ago a few days ago even many here would have said well this election is already decided it will be missed out on winning this election since he has all the necessary power but now after this a lion's has been announced and this alliance includes lyft parties as well as right wing nationalist parties at there there is some movement and many people are actually excited that this election could indeed be a little bit more interesting the goal is on the presidential level to force miss

out on into a second round of voting in the second round an opposition candidate would have much better chances to actually challenge mr add on and on the poly mentary level these posses this the lion's once to dilute the ruling aka party's majority and this indeed can pose a huge challenge and did obvious yulia han for us in istanbul thank you very much the scandal that refuses to die in the latest twist in volkswagen diesel emission fraud case u.s. authorities have issued an arrest warrant for former c.e.o. martin venter karna. this is the village in munich where martin van to court has been living since he left fox falcon in twenty fifteen his v.w. c.e.o. he was the highest paid executive in germany not only has he been indicted in the united states there's also a warrant out for his arrest now under german law however he can't be extradited

still he is at risk in a new was the u.s. he faces a rest before travelling to other countries he'd have to check carefully whether they could detain him and extradite him to the u.s. . he's put the world's biggest carmaker back in the headlines car sales are strong despite the diesel emissions scandal p.w. has a large pile of cash despite billions in penalties but the risk is of intercon could drag him down again american allegations of systematic deception at the highest level of g.w. have not gone unnoticed by politicians in germany. it's not for me to decide if he's guilty or not that's the job was the courts but it's interesting that in the us they're not afraid to tackle executives. for me top managers who've been earning top salaries can simply claim they knew nothing they must take responsibility. the key question is what did winterkorn know and when did he know it. although he told

a parliamentary investigation that he had not known about the intentional cheating and deception there is mounting evidence that he did know about it before the scandal broke in september twenty fifteen. so it's only in july two thousand and fifteen a senior executive is said to have spoken to him to call him on the phone and told him we've been cheating in the u.s. the same month a lawyer for the company says he talked of into cohen about the cheat software and how best to pursue damage control even than the current public prosecutors in germany are also investigating him to call on suspicion of fraud and market manipulation and a major sunday newspaper is reporting that v.w. is considering suing him for damages under german law executives can be held responsible for losses whether they knew about misconduct at the time or not if oversight was unduly lax. and in formula one driver for

a nano alonso has again proved his versatility by winning in a different serious this time in the world and durant championship the spaniard triumphed in a toyota on his debut in the sports car series in belgium was also impressed when he rest for the first time at the indianapolis five hundred last year double f one world champion will return to formula one next weekend for his home spanish grand prix. you're watching news bundesliga coming up after the break don't go away. the whole d w one. w. made for mines. placing. curse. the force of nature and in this scheme the.

monster. the tropical force might feel. there's a song on the song.