we also heard toughest year at the top migration is likely to lead the agenda at her annual summit news conference which begins later this hour just weeks ago it almost toppled a fragile coalition government but after more than twelve years in charge merkel has again shown her staying power will have a preview for you and bring you live coverage of the news conference. also on the program sweden struggles to contain dozens of wildfires the flames have forced villages across the country to be evacuated. and. these young chinese women were jailed three years ago for the sexual harassment we'll be finding out about the situation today and also about the country's growing need to campaign. and team sky tightens its grip on is used to it of course but it's great thomas in the yellow jersey rather than team leader chris froome that's after a long busting victory over the legendary to its right. hello

and welcome my name's christopher spring a good to have you with us it's been the toughest of years for german chancellor angela merkel after painfully long coalition negotiations she's now just emerged from weeks of bitter infighting with hardliners in her own conservative alliance infighting that brought her administration to the brink of collapse radical survives of course but she has been seriously weakened so when she faces the media here in berlin for annual summit news conference in about half an hour's time there will be a great deal of anticipation about the vexed issue of migration is expected to top the agenda as it continues to exercise the minds of politicians both here in germany and elsewhere in europe relations with the u.s. president almost trump in the prospect of a global trade conflict. also likely to feature prominently. and for more on

all that let's bring in one of our political correspondents now hans brandt good morning hans migration continues to haunt chancellor merkel what might her message be on that issue today. well yes indeed and it's quite surprising in some sense that migration is still sort of still such a central issue because the number of migrants reaching germany and even reaching europe has gone down drastically since its peak in late two thousand and fifteen and the restrictive policies that are going to marcos government has been implementing in the last months and years have also led to a much much more severe dealing with asylum seekers refugees and migrants in germany so in a sense many of the demands that the opposition has made have been a factor max made by an article about the agenda is driven mainly by the right wing populist alternative for germany party which is now the biggest opposition party in

parliament and also obviously within nuckols own government there are conservative coalition partners from bavaria including the interior minister horse there who far who have also been pushing her on that agenda on the migration issue and in fact that dispute is what led to an almost led to a collapse of marcos government just a couple of weeks ago so migration indeed is a central issue merkel i suspect will be saying look many of the demands have been matched the number of refugees is being reduced there is not really much to discuss on that matter any more than seen in recent days we've actually seen the chancellor trying to shift the focus away from migration to other pressing issues are we likely to see more of that. yes of course she will do that and if we look at the other issues that are in the offing or that are not in the offing that are on her agenda things such as the transatlantic relationship with the united states would tween germany the european union and the united states under president donald trump

which is often obviously become very tense very fractious very acrimonious and it seems that trump has in fact taken a particular dislike to ungar machall herself and to germany so there she's been facing quite a lot of quite a lot of attacks in fact direct attacks from donald trump and these are issues of foreign policy the issues of trade involved there are issues of defense policy involved so all of these major areas they are major decisions to be taken very quickly. who really has a very full agenda and i haven't even mentioned all the domestic policy issues that she's also discussing at the moment and very briefly michael is of course a consummate political survivor do you see her eventually regaining some of her last or thirty what we've seen in this dispute within her coalition most recently with her interior minister that she came out on top and in fact that the interior minister came out we can go out of this dispute so that was another demonstration

of mao calls survival tactics of national survival instinct but we have to say it's very likely to be her last term in office so everyone knows that she will eventually at the latest in three to four years time hand of office to somebody else at the moment she's still managing to manage that process in the way that she wants to do it always good to talk to hunter brant one of our political correspondents. and as mentioned live coverage of chancellor merkel's much anticipated and you'll film a press conference here on news in about twenty five minutes time. we're going to stay in germany prosecutors here in berlin have ceased seventy seven. properties they say are linked to a suspected organized crime clan the seizure is part of an investigation triggered by a spectacular bank robbery back in twenty fourteen official say sixteen people are under investigation but there are likely to press charges soon. a spectacular bank

robbery and berlin in two thousand and fourteen perpetrators opened more than one hundred safe deposit boxes and stole more than one million euros then they set the bank on fire and explosion rocked the building and the neighborhood the burglars were soon caught and convicted but the loot has never been recovered but now police have a clue as to its whereabouts. and they became clear to his during the investigations into the location of the stolen goods one of the churches have the money to. question where did he get the money but i did not before. the police follow the money trail and in doing so i came across the names of sixteen members of a large arab family living in berlin and the families real estate was already seen last week seventy seven parcels buildings and apartments the family was also connected with one of the most spectacular series of robberies in recent years this

gold coin known as the big maple leaf was stolen from berlin's buddha museum in two thousand and seventeen several suspects may be in prison but the gold is still missing now thanks to a new law authorities have been able to take action against the family since last year it's easier to confiscate assets of dubious origin this is. aimed at organized crime so we will also try to freeze phones or ideally extract the order to simply show you the crime would no longer be lucrative enough in germany and this is a signal. but confiscating the real estate was just the first step now investigators still have to prove that it had indeed been illegally financed. large parts of europe. at the moment with little regions near the arctic circle feeling for instance is currently fighting around fourteen separate why. fires which are

threatening villages and causing big problems in a country more accustomed with the battle against fellow climate change means this extraordinary weather event could soon become the norm. inferno near the arctic circle. four days firefighters have been struggling to contain a rash of wildfires scattered over a vast expanse of sweden from north of stockholm all the way to the arctic forests . this sense of it feels like we were in vain it just burns and burns at the end we had to back off three kilometers because it became too dangerous. it. multiple villages have been evacuated and officials estimate the fire damage at around seventy million euro so far at fault as an extraordinary heat wave that has turned much of the evergreen landscape into kindling. temperatures have climbed to thirty three degrees celsius in recent days

conditions befitting italy more than sweden and so the italian government has sent help. biggest lead in the work we have ninety. six thousand feet of water about one second. in fact the effort to extinguish the nordic blaze has become a european task with further personnel and air support sent in from france germany and neighboring norway. sweden has dealt with wildfires before but rarely over such a large area now meteorologists are warning that with global temperatures on the rise fighting fire in the arctic could become an annual battle. ok time to catch up with some of the other stories making news around the world at the moment in the u.s. eleven people have died after a tourist boat capsized on a lake in the state of missouri several more were injured officials say more than thirty people were on the boat when it went over and stormy weather divers are

still searching for other victims. the white house says u.s. president donald trump will invite his russian counterpart vladimir putin to washington in the autumn the invitation comes four days after the summit in hell thinking the meeting that provoked an uproar in the u.s. over trump's failure to publicly confront putin over moscow's alleged meddling in the twenty sixteen presidential election. said a south korean court has sentenced former president park geun he to eight more years in prison she was convicted of illegally receiving funds from the country's intelligence agency and also for interfering in parliamentary elections has already received a twenty four year jail sentence on separate corruption charges. to china now where the courage of a handful of young women is galvanizing the country's fledgling me to movement they call themselves silence break because in their campaigning against widespread

sexual harassment in chinese society particularly in universities and on public transport it's an uphill battle as they come from china's male dominated culture and also communist authorities trying to sweep the problem under the carpet. young educated and a little bit funky. this is what feminism looks like in china. she is a ph d. student in gender studies at hang joey university. taking inspiration from the me too movement that began in the united states she's launched a campaign to combat sexual harassment including on public transport that. i'd like to see my auntie's sexual harassment stickers all over the subway system. ideally there would also be loudspeaker announcements and ads on the screens. as allies. is trying to get permission for this from the transportation authorities

in eleven major cities a bureaucratic ordeal but in china it seems to be the only way to get the message out. was a way to end this protest took place three years ago and ended with prison sentences for the activists the women sing a song against the notorious gropers on public transport they were jailed for thirty seven days. me too in the us it's been championed by celebrities in china it's a fledgling movement led mainly by university students. it began with a viral garnering millions of views and shares many described going through similar experiences but for china's censors it went too far. we took to the belgium. they blocked our me too micro blog so we changed the name to the chinese

words for rice which is me and bunny which is to raise bunny meat to me. it's a clever way to avoid powerful government censors this is me too in china the rise bunny on the internet it looks cute but behind it is a powerful network of strong women all linked to one another. in shanghai joy lynn is an advocate for victims of sexual violence she has an internet platform where she offers advice and publishes articles but even the small scale events she organizes are viewed with suspicion by police just because they're for women. for screening like iran ten people came and and talk about certain gender issues. and they thought well is this why i wouldn't be it would be

for the authorities but still i got called and tase also in beijing me too in action feminist documentary nice case her ex-boyfriend trying to rape her in the underground garage of another university she went to the police but they didn't want to take the case renee's university even put pressure on her parents so she wouldn't go public. trying to drown a reporter my father said to me come home and listen to your university otherwise they'll expel you. i asked him why should they expel me i've done nothing wrong. he had no answer to that he only repeated that i should listen to the university. britney's consultation with her attorney is sobering there is no national legal

framework for dealing with cases of sexual harassment in schools or the workplace. loucheux chen is one of the few attorneys who take on these types of cases he explains to renee that there is no legal definition of sexual harassment but he promises he'll support her in her lawsuit against the police who fail to help her at the time. so for a woman need to know a feminist movement that doesn't have it easy in china she the doctoral student from hang joe continues her work despite the challenges and she inspires others from inside the student dorm room new feminist campaigns are springing up all the time. people in northwestern nigeria are clearing up after devastating floods that left around fifty people dead in the district of juba just three hours of torrential rain this week cause the dam to overflow and rivers to bank hundreds

of houses have been destroyed and thousands are home this report now from west africa correspondent. amidst the rubble of his how was he brought him l.b. is trying to find things that might still hold some value of the roof a couple of old nails the truck driver didn't just lose material things in the floods he also lost his daughter musina. the water was up to her neck and kept rising. she looked over at her mother and said please forgive me. when she went under and part of the building collapsed on her. i really don't know what i should say i had twenty two children and now one of them is simply no longer here her school was right over there she was only just

starting great sex like you should. at least fifty people died in the flats and another twenty are still missing. lived here with his family the past thirty years but he had never before seen the kind of downpour that happened on sunday. and within minutes the water level reached about two metres it is still visible on the wall so year many including thirteen year olds were not able to reach a safe place before. people here say the rainy season has dramatically changed in the past few years rainfall has become more. and much more intense no one here doubts that climate change is real the country's drainage system has made the situation worse the drains are too

small to handle the amount of rain and some a clock to his garbage this day.