this is the w. news live from berlin rallies taking place across venezuela both for and against the country's embattled president nicolas maduro opponents are calling on him to resign and call fresh elections the high ranking venezuelan general denounces material and defect to the opposition we'll go live to caracas also coming up. russian president vladimir putin says his country will follow washington's lead in suspending a landmark nuclear arms control could this be the start of

a new arms race. comic spicer welcome to the program tens of thousands of protesters are taking part in rival rallies across venezuela both for and against president nicolas maduro the self declared interim president joins supporters in the capital caracas he told protesters that change in venezuela is very close and his supporters are calling for fresh presidential elections to be held in the country elsewhere the duros backers held rallies marking twenty years since the rise to power of the late leader hugo chavez addressed the rally and suggested possibly holding congressional elections earlier than planned. earlier today a high ranking air force general declared allegiance to opposition leader. it's

a major victory for glyde zero who has been working hard to persuade venezuela's armed forces to abandon president nicolas maduro let's hear a bit what the general had to say. i'm addressing you today to say that i reject the illegitimate and dictatorial authority of mr nicolas maduro and except one quite do as the president in charge of the boulevard republic of venezuela ninety percent of the armed forces oppose the dictator and support the venezuelan people. let's go straight out to the venezuelan capital caracas where did you correspondent oscar schlanger is standing by for us an oscar can you tell us a bit more about this general statement could this be the beginning of the end for president. well that's what many opposition thanks so he can this will be the domino effect on the armed forces he cares if there are serious allegations that is general in the aviation division sense including that ninety percent of the

military is against the dictatorship of nicolas mahut as he said now the commander in chief of the aviation department has said that this general has absolutely no leadership with interest or has any leadership in the aviation department but it is obvious that he is one of the leading generals in plan if occasion with the aviation so it definitely puts a question mark on the that loyalty that that might who are out of government the government is saying that they have from the military in fact today's slogan for them is no no more traitors and all to loyalty so we're seeing some of that in the demonstrations in favor of my will today but woodrow seemed to give up a little ground and proposing to hold congressional not presidential elections earlier than planned is that enough to satisfy his critics absolutely no not his

critics are in the congress and holding congressional elections it is an attack a frontal attack against that. power that is the only one that's being recognized as democratic internationally so if in fact this is put in bold and. it has congressman here in venezuela against michael don't not favor them at all you are out today with the protesters what were you hearing from them. well i was with the opposition protesters today and a lot of them were very hopeful that this is the beginning of the end of what they say is a battle of twenty years of protest against this revolution now many of them came from a bit of the small and have turned their backs on mother we don't they are saying a lot of them were saying that they cannot find any medicines that food is very

expensive that they cannot find a lot of the things that they could find before and that's why they were protesting today in order to ask the government to allow this humanitarian aid to enter the country ok. or in caracas thanks for that. now russia has pulled out of a key nuclear arms control treaty one day after the u.s. did the same russian president vladimir putin an ounce to moscow would begin developing a new weapon systems and ordered his ministers not to initiate any new disarmament talks with washington here's a little more of what putin had to say because keeping our american partners have announced they are suspending their participation in the deal and we are also suspending our participation but. we will wait until our partners have mature enough to conduct an equal meaningful dialogue with us on this important topic and you know. and putin was responding to the u.s.

decision to pull out of the cold war era i.n.f. treaty secretary of state might pump aoe said washington was suspending its compliance because moscow wasn't respecting the arms control agreement u.s. says is weapons like these the s.s.c. eight cruise missiles with a range of more than five hundred kilometers which show russia has violated the treaty. for more on saving for more on this we're joined now from moscow by defense analyst pavel felgenhauer mr felgenhauer now the treaty appears to be officially dead and moscow is saying it will work on a range of new types of what weapons what can we expect oh right she has actually building new weapons for some time at least in one sense the war with georgia no eight when russia began a massive three arment program so right now it's not so much new weapons there have been demo intervened developed it's

a big campaign began in the booth and began last march to promote these weapons and for the west to change its policy stores right yet because russia is so strong and so powerful in times old those very very deadly weapons so the kremlin strategic aim is to get the west of washington namely here to change its policy how so. well the russian act to do has meaning for a long time that they had the west should recognize russia as an equal i mean not so much here in the west the united states recognizes russia as an equal and europe should recognize russian military dominance and act accordingly to that and so russia has not being changing that policy much at all and it believes and puts in the not least the league said no no maintenance like maybe wrongly that

russia has a rig achieve military superiority that it is ready one of the arms race and that the west should recognize that and take russian well but russia wants and give russia what russia believes is due a dominance at least in the eastern parts of the continent but we were just listening to president putin pst speak and he said he would wait until quoting him his partners had mature enough to conduct an equal meaningful dialogue what's the point of adopting what sounds like a really just disrespectful tone in addressing washington well back to you mr adams from the your understanding in the kremlin you know believe that that has been promoted by the russian generals that russia through this program through classes where at least ten years of rearmament cause a gene for military superiority and then that's a fact and the west should recognize that fact and made political concessions stop

the sanctions recognized raney recognized russian dominance in the ukraine and remove forces from the baltics and from poland and that there's a long list of what russia wants ok defense analysts pavel felgenhauer in moscow thank you for those insights thank you. and now to some of the other stories making news around the world the central african republic has reached a peace deal with fourteen armed groups after several days of talks the first ever direct dialogue between the parties was aimed at ending years of conflict that has killed thousands of people displaced hundreds of thousands more. police in paris have clashed with so-called yellow best protesters this is the twelfth consecutive weekend the protesters have taken to the streets on friday a court ruled the police could eat continue to use rubber bullets gets riders

despite the public outcry. and in the united states the democrats in virginia say governor ralph northam will not step down despite party pressure to do so on friday northam apologize for appearing in a racist photo in his nineteen eighty-four medical school yearbook now us media are reporting that north and believes he is not one of the two people in the photo. have you ever wished you could join a famous band on an iconic album cover one young russian hasn't she just that with the help of photoshop and thanks to instagram he's fast becoming a major hit himself our reporter emily sure when paid a visit. madonna burying her next tune. and what is david bowie up to here. the russian

instagram or equal of chance he gives famous album covers a new backstory and gives himself a role in music history. from one of the in thing for me is to make people laugh and sometimes i think i managed to do that and that is the purpose of a common stop people right and sometimes people take a joke even further wonderful or joke about what they see and that's the best feedback i can get. out. creativity and a willingness to improvise a key during photo shoots philip chance discovers. today the idea is to turn the band queen into a forehead a giant holding him in its hand. the twenty four year old poses in front of the green screen that makes it easy to insert his photo into the covers later university student pillai you have helped him get the idea shaped.

the two friends usually edit the photos together. they try to match the details to the original and to get the proportions just right they only take about an hour to work on each cover live chance he started this project almost two years ago now loads a new photo every few weeks he has nearly twenty seven thousand followers on instagram already. the chance he is always hoping for a reaction to his album parodies most of all from the musicians themselves if you text them in his posts and has even gotten a few likes from the stars for him cover art isn't just something for vinyl collectors from the age of the internets. covers are still very important because they are the face of elton is the first thing that a listener comes across even before they've listened to the music and even if they've streamed online it's off to move an edited compass is still enjoying his

project just as much as when he started. the instagram out already has a lot of ideas to his page the next one is to try and edges himself into music videos one thing is clear chance he's creativity music always remain a jumping off point. it is a crucial weekend in the bundesliga title race with challengers byron and dortmund both facing tough away battles league leaders dortmund went in front in frankfurt but failed to get a second goal and ended up with a one all draw fortunately for dortmund fired munich slip up was even worse they took the lead in liver queues and but were overwhelmed in the second half laver cusins lucas a la rose scored his side's third gold in a memorable home victory against the champions. league a soccer hanover's new coach started with high hopes of his first match ended in

disappointment thomas stall and his team suffered a three nil loss at home to rb leipsic captain willie or been scored twice for the bulls after their fourth loss in a row hannover stay at the very end of the table. now they're usually in church giving sermons on the weekend but right now in poland priests are on pieced participating in the annual john paul the second skiing competition clergymen from around the country traveled to wish well to take part in the tournament many of them took on the eight hundred meter race wearing their casts the event which has been going on for more than twenty years is named after the polish pope who was an avid skier so. if you're watching news don't forget you can get all the latest news and information around the clock on our website and steve dot com on

a spice or thanks for joining. us. here what's coming up for book honestly you have plenty to talk about here on. the monitors lisa every weekend here on.