news line from. the united states. to a new york city post office where suspicious package was addressed to former intelligence chief james clapper investigations also search. for clues to the. correspondent. a turkish called sentences a german man to over six years in prison for membership in the kurdish militia his family says he was in turkey.

irish voters decide whether time soft on religious. there's no need for such a role. doesn't mean to. hold a referendum on a law that even the catholic church says is obsolete. welcome to the program when he's in the u.s. have found two more suspicious packages as a nationwide search to find the puppetry to intensify the latest fossils was sent to a u.s. senator and the former director of national security both prominent critics of president. this morning and these discoveries take the number of bombs intercepted this week to twelve no one has claimed

responsibility. let's go now to do a correspondent who's in washington for the latest so my what do we know about the explosive devices discovered today. well you know if we actually just recently had some breaking news according to u.s. media reports police have actually made an arrest one man who has been arrested and we don't know much more than that as this investigation is open and ongoing but the packages that were sent out the new york police department had a press conference just a few moments ago saying that the packages that were sent today were consistent with the ones that we saw being sent out in previous days that been sent to other high profile democratic political figures around the country so all of these packages are rather small they're about six inches that's fifteen centimeters long and apparently according to the x. rays that the f.b.i. took contain. triggering device powder and broken glass stuffed into

p.v.c. pipes these things are so small that while it could kill or injure you if it was right in front of you and it went off they are not large enough to bring down an entire building or block or anything nearly that big that so the f.b.i. said that they are taking this seriously that they are assuming that these are not hoaxes that they are live bombs and that they are still investigating but as we have just seen there has been at least one person one man arrested. can you tell us more about the apparent targets of these devices the new jersey senate to cory booker for maintenance chief james kopp a do they fit the pattern we've seen so far. well james clapper was director of national intelligence under obama and has been a very outspoken trump critic especially in regards to russia and the allegations of russian meddling in the u.s. elections as trump is trying to push his view that this is all just

a witch hunt and that there's nothing to this russian meddling story clapper has been on the other side of that and we can see why clapper would have drawn the president's ire new jersey senator cory booker has been a leading progressive voice in the past several years we saw him be a very strong force of opposition against the nomination of brett kavanaugh to the supreme court and he is also considered a front runner for a twenty twenty democratic presidential nomination so again another high profile democratic figure very much consistent with the other people who've been targeted in recent days. very quickly if you can has this story sort of changed american politics given that we're so close to the midterm elections. well it's definitely gotten voters riled the democrats now have a narrative that they can push that they're being targeted that their victims may be of some sort of right wing or we don't know yet what all we know is that

there's been this one arrest but we also know that the president himself today was saying that he is regretting that this is happening now because it's slowing down the momentum for the republicans. in washington thank you. well a turkish court has sentenced a german man to six years in prison on terrorists charges patrick was arrested on the turkish syrian border in march prosecutors accuse the twenty nine year old of being a member of the you should group known as white a group which describes as a terrorist. partly because a twenty nine year old carpenter from the south and german town of geese and he claims he was just a tourist hiking near the syrian border it's an area in which the turkish military is fighting a war against kurdish militia groups turkish security police also say that cricut had written an email offering his services as

a fighter to the syrian kurdish militia y p g kike admitted writing the email but claims not to have known that turkey considers the y.p. g a terrorist organization the news comes just as the german economy minister peter is in turkey trying to improve relations between the two countries the focus of the visit is on business deals but i'd also raise the issue of german nationals and took his presence thus far he hasn't commented on the kind of verdict that the german foreign ministry in berlin was tightlipped. and this is a decision of the turkish judiciary and of course our embassy is in contact with mr crocker and also we assured him that he will file an appeal under talking with the help of his legal counsel. that. you have this week the foreign ministry stepped up its trouble mourning for german nationals going to turkey since a failed coup d'etat in two thousand and sixteen the turkish government has imprisoned thousands of critics among them both several german nationals including

journalists. and misawa told to both have since been released but at least five germans including caica are still in prison in turkey. time now for some of the other stories making news around the world. dozens of migrants including families with young children are still camping near bosnia's border with croatia passage into the e.u. have to authorities close previous balkan routes to western europe was in police say they expect to persuade the migrants to leave the border area by end of the day . india's opposition congress party has held a protest in the capital delhi over allegations of corruption and bribery linked to the government the issue has plunged the country's chief investigative agency the c.b.i. into a collision course with the government india supreme court has called for a swift investigation to resolve the dispute. around fifty thousand military

personnel from thirty one nato allies are engaging the largest war game exercises in decades the various when movers will take place over the course of nearly three weeks stretching from the baltic sea to iceland critics say the war games could increase tensions between russia and its nordic neighbors. france's oldest zoo has welcomed a new arrival a baby born in an orangutan called java she is the first one to be born of the zoo in more than ten years the world wildlife and fund says the species is critically endangered with orangutan habitats reduced by half in the last two decades now an island blasphemy is still a serious crime that carries heavy penalties but like many of the country's religious traditions that may change soon irish voters are heading to the polls today to elect a new president and they're also being asked to decide whether blasphemy laws should be removed from the constitution the issue is uniting both catholics and

atheists one man has been fighting the laws for years. the christian god is an evil maniac for giving babies bone cancer jews are of there for the devil all i said was that peace of halliburton was good enough for jehovah blasphemous statements like peace could come at a high cost literally up to twenty five thousand euros to be precise michael nugent head of atheist island is complaining that dublin shopping zone he's informing irish voters about a long standing law that could soon be history if you say anything that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by only religion and cause by doing so then that's a criminal offense the native dublin there has been fighting the paragraph and islands constitution for years. he thinks it should have been removed a long time ago. it's a mediæval crime it's been added into our constitution in nineteen thirty seven

when i was a very catholic country. and it was programmed into our laws just ten years ago so it's a mess for any number of reasons and the sooner that we got rid of it the better. but since the law was implemented no one has ever been convicted of blasphemy even the catholic church called the law or daters. an audience church in dublin sees one simple reason for that. there's no need for such a goal god doesn't need to. god is not mocked. not everyone agrees. the islamic cultural center thinks throwing out the blasphemy cloth will threaten the freedom of all irish people. we have a wide diversity of various communities residing in. this kind of. references in our legislation is not to defend

religion but it is to defend respect among people of all face and people of no faith still it looks likely that my community and his group will finally get their way recent polls show that just twenty percent of likely voters i favor of keeping audience blasphemy law. well did of these religious affairs analyst is here with me in studio for more on this story thanks for joining us so much and we rarely talk about blasphemy laws in the context of europe so do they exist in ireland or do they exist else when you hear all over europe you really can find just about everywhere the more surprising places would be places like germany or austria austria sort of in the last twenty four hours have fergie prominent case of a woman that insulted prophet muhammad calling him a pedophile and this way and actually all the way to the european court of human rights so you know this is something that is actually really quite common even

though most people wouldn't know about it and what is the contents of this case in austria this would happen is that somebody in the lectures or woman that is actually a diplomat associated with extreme right. went into a lecture hall and explained that according to granny text actually have married at the age of five or six and consummated the marriage at the age of nine and then she went ahead and asked what the status if not by the feel this was reported. and cords find the woman the lawyers argue that this. it's a matter of freedom of expression and this went all the way up the european system into the european human rights court which actually sided with the austrian government saying that in fact the freedom of expression did not protect this which was essentially an attack were to it as attack on the prophet i want to say not to take a closer look at the human rights courts exact justification and this is what they

say that the court found that the domestic quote carefully balanced her right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected and serve the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in austria and i think anyone listening to this will agree that it sounds reasonable you have freedom of expression but only to a certain point but the question here is where do you draw the line i think that's really sort of the very question where do you draw the line i think it's not self-evident if you've been looking at questions of freedom of expression especially say between europe and the us. the question of religious freedom and freedom and freedom from offense are actually actually simple to unser of course when we say something like you know the prophet or somebody that is holy to a particular religion is a pedophile or something that has very clear negative connotations we might think well ok this is actually a very simple things to adjudicate but we need to keep in mind number one that criticize some interpretation of sacred text did bible koran etc has actually been

a recent for burning people alive and the reason for executive people so i mean we should not sort of undermine or this regard the degree of bloodshed that really just mere interpretation or sexual orientation women having access to education all of these things at one time or another had been taken to be forms of offense not to mention humor i mean we have seen very recently it's kind of things so these are not evident things to adjudicate data is religious affairs analyst thank you my pleasure. well let's still have a look at one headline most suspected letter bombs have turned up in the united states a suspicious package was found at a new york post office and nationwide hunt is currently underway to track down those responsible for sending explosive devices to prominent democrats and critics of president trying. to have more coming up the top of the hour and don't forget

you can get old the latest news and information along the call on our website about dot com thank you for watching. what we were. when we. do you perceive americans in some point in our lives will experience hardship.