that is n.c. democracy. to our viewers on p.b.s. in the united states and all around the world welcome but we begin the day watching iran do what it can really only do today a year after the u.s. withdrew from the iran nuclear deal iran announced that it may do the same now this comes as no surprise it has been a year of nonstop efforts by washington to squeeze the economic life out of tehran sanctions now threaten to cripple iran's entire economy observers say iran has always respected its obligations under the nuclear deal and even with today's announcement iranian president rouhani said that the plan remains to save the deal not destroy all that will depend a lot on europe on whether it can come up with the money and the means to keep the deal intact minus the u.s. well today u.s. secretary of state might pump aoe was in london meeting with british foreign

secretary jeremy hunt the two men standing beside each other praising shared values and interests and at the same time standing at opposite poles on the iran nuclear deal on the iran deal. it is a very important achievement of weston diplomacy that despite all the problems that we have in the middle east today iran does not have nuclear weapons and its neighbors have not responded by getting their own nuclear weapons and. section pompei and i are one in agreeing that it will be a massive step back for that region if it became nuclearized we've made a decision different than the united kingdom has with respect to the chase e.p.o. way and so. iran's decision to depart from the j.c.b. for us mostly is about their decision to work on their nuclear program and i'm confident that as we watch iran's activity that the united kingdom and our european

partners will move forward together to ensure that iran has no pathway for a nuclear weapon system now is the us secretary my company were there speaking in london earlier today i want to bring in our chief political correspondent belinda crane she is on the story for us tonight here in berlin good evening to you melinda i mean what we sold there today we talked to me a little bit about that we had the u.k. and the u.s. trying to show a united front on iran when really there isn't one. no absolutely you heard some very diplomatic language there but it absolutely cannot hide the fact that the u.s. is charting a direct confrontation course not only against iran but against its closest allies in the world and i refer there not only to the u.k. but to germany and france who are also signatories to the iran agreement and who are on the exact same wavelength as the u.k. or what we're seeing is the u.s.

taking a bet with some very very long odds the bet is that maximum pressure against iran will cause the regime to buckle in one of two ways either that it will concede on the points that the u.s. has been objecting to namely its missile program and also its support for groups that the u.s. labels as terrorist or that popular discontent in the face of increasing economic hardship due to the now blanket sanctions will lead the people to rise up and to topple the regime the european allies definitely do not agree that those are good odds and this is a bet they are not going to take the results of the u.s. action quite possibly either nuclear proliferation in the middle east or war in the middle east clearly two options that none of the european countries wants to see what we're witnessing is the u.s. isolating itself completely and that of course is probably the most

grievous and grave example of trumps a unilateral make america first in us that i think we've seen since he's been in office you know it's very good point and it leaves european powers trying to react the best way they can and i want you to listen to what the german foreign minister just said today about the iran nuclear deal. has issues and remains we want to preserve the a green. in particular to prevent iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. we do not need an escalation in the region the point now is that all steps must be avoided that could endanger regional stability and security. in melinda we've heard those lines before what can germany or the european union for that matter do differently now to save this deal. well first of all to maintain a very clear had to stay the course to stand by their position that this agreement

is better than no agreement the european countries the european partners to the agreement have said all along that it is keeping iran at the moment contained in the sense that iran has not continued to pursue a nuclear weapon and in that sense the agreement is working so the first thing to note is that this isn't only about europe we heard very clear pronouncements today as well from russia and from china so one of the interesting side effects of the u.s. action is to essentially solidify agreement amongst those five another. breach essentially in that transatlantic bond so the question is how can the european countries now work together with russia and china to ensure that trade with iran does continue because essentially that is the only incentive that will keep iran in this agreement now and now the european allies have taken steps in that direction

but they're limited so far the question is can they expand or expedite for example their system of trying to ensure back channels for payments that would not involve transactions flowing through the u.s. and thereby becoming susceptible either to the u.s. . sanctions or to some form of the u.s. . taking. the money that flows through the u.s. system that is very complicated and very difficult but that's where the european countries need to be going now together with china and russia yet at the same time we have the arena president today very critical of europe accusing it of not doing enough to save this deal accusing it of you know not cleaning up the mess that the u.s. has created is that a fear assessment. not entirely the fact that france germany and the u.k. actually took measures in february to set up

a separate payment system that would bypass the u.s. that is quite a fascinating move in itself and quite a drastic one now as i said the question will be can they expand that at the moment this in sticks payment system is only limited to certain humanitarian goods could they possibly expand it in order to cover more of the trade with iran it will be very very difficult indeed most companies in the world and it's the companies that do the trading do not want to risk losing their hold in the u.s. market nonetheless that is the direction that one would need to go in now in order to keep iran in the deal and you've already intimated visible john you know what does this mean for the future of transatlantic toys and in the air what about the prospects of a military conflict erupting between the u.s. and iran it absolutely looks like that is where the u.s. is not unwilling to go the fact that they have now sent an aircraft carrier to the

region the fact that secretary of state pompei o flew to iraq to talk about iranian threats which the u.s. has yet to show evidence for but to talk about that rather than give me the chance of a guest or day of his planned all of this indicates i think there is a certain drumbeat of militarism that we're seeing but we're a long way off from that and let us hope that something that now occurs in this dynamic of how the european countries work together can possibly keep that option at bay you know it's a very good point argy political correspondent melinda crane as always linda thank you. south africans went to the polls today just as they did twenty five years ago when the country held its first post apartheid election memories of that first free election and memories of the broken promises that followed or they've haunted politicians

and unnerved voters today president cyril ramaphosa and his ruling a.n.c. party have watched their approval ratings plummet the party is struggling to make good on promises to fight corruption and revive the economy the a.n.c. has won every election since the country emerged from white minority rule twenty five years ago this year is expected to be no different with one important exception the agency's margin of victory may be the smallest in its history this time around. well we sent our very own christine. to find out what issues matter most to voters. so i'm outside a polling station in so way to about four thousand people are expected to vote here today and these are some of the the early risers that you're seeing behind me a few people of course the folks have told us all process takes about ten minutes once you're actually inside the classrooms where the voting is taking place a lot at stake in this election and of course these are the people who are going to

be deciding south africa's future want to have a chat to tending to hear she's in the queue waiting a turn she's actually very close to the cue so says time data what are you hoping you'll vote would do if it wins the election what would you like to see them do for you did a very pleased let's go to all this especially local clinics local public schools. around the areas mostly in so with all of us live as fight crime so with the whole south africa as a whole has a problem with criminals hi jake king and all those things to once a better country is to hold please whoever that is going to really make a change make south africa south africa a little bit there are forty eight parties on the ballot paper that's almost double the amount it was in the last election so a lot for south africans to choose from but it really comes down to the three main parties in this election that will be the african national congress this is the

a.n.c. the party that has led south africa in the twenty five years post democracy you have the economic freedom fighters arena you have a new player on the scene but has gained a lot of traction in the few years that they've been on the sea that you've got the democratic alliance a lot is at stake in this election the two big parties being the a.n.c. and the da are expected to have snoozed votes and not even grow the only party that people are really confident about the fact that they will grow it's of course is the economic freedom fighters a lot is at stake particularly for the african national congress the a.n.c. the message it's been wanting to see. and add to villages that it's still relevant to south africa and to take south africa to the future twenty five he is into democracy. all right and christine joins me from johannesburg she's moved from so whether johannesburg good evening to you christine you were in so whether as we saw there earlier today and we know that's what is considered the cradle of the anti-apartheid movement that to voters they are today.

that's right brant i mean we're talking about the place that's home to the likes of nelson mandela and desmond tutu the landmarks that are in some way to the churches they were told black people congregated and prostitutes how they would overthrow oppressive regime that was the apartheid government this is the place we so much of this struggle as you say history is is in and when we were at the polling station this morning i met a lot of old men and women these are the people who would have remembered voting twenty five years ago in these very pays it was the first time they were voting democratic hope but there were as we stand here today twenty five years post of parties a lot of people have been recalling that ninety ninety four election got up was to oppose the president of the a.n.c. and self saying he feels exactly how you fellows in one thousand nine hundred four so certainly so which is a very important place very symbolic and there is the sense in this country of

print that things are changing perhaps that's how people felt twenty five years ago that change was was on the brink and a lot has changed since then brant people are now having a conversation about yes we have been liberated politically but we need to be liberated economically and is it the african national congress that's going to do that for us is very good point because they had twenty five years of democracy elections partisan politics we know there's a lot of disillusionment now some observers say that this is simply the normative state of western democracies in south africa a full fledged member others say that this is the result of gross incompetence and corruption at the hands of the a.n.c. based on what you had seen and heard which is the better as. brant most probably the latter we're talking about a country that is you know coming out of you know it's only been twenty five years i mean if you look at the number of years that it was rife inequality in this

country you are going over a hundred years so people do accept the fact that the a.n.c. cannot have turned everything around in the space of two decades going on to three but the problem is you have black south africans living in squalid conditions in dire poverty and not necessarily because they are no resources in the country or the turnaround strategy just isn't happening fast enough but really because there's been mismanagement at the hands of government officials so it is becoming difficult to go to south africans and make the case that the n.c.s. be making that we need more time because people have looked at the last two decades for example and seen the levels of corruption in government and so it doesn't make sense anymore to somebody who is living in dire poverty to say give us more time when these very corrupt very poor politicians are living lives of opulence so people are frustrated with a government that has been breaking promises and this is where this country is today people accept the fact that it's not going to change overnight and that twenty five he has barely is enough time to address all the inequality that is rife

in this country this is one of the most unequal societies in the world but when we see officials mismanaging and when we see people stealing and that's what's been happening it officials have been stealing from state coffers money that's been meant for service delivery has been pocketed by politicians so it's difficult to make the cases i have against to keep waiting yeah that's a very very good point why other western democracies and south african politics have made room for populism nativism. there have been attacks on foreigners in the country how responsible are politicians for this increase in violence are these scapegoating foreigners to distract from their own bad politics. brant that's a fair assessment to be made in fact some of the violent attacks on foreigners and most of these are foreign and foreign nationals from the african countries that we've seen happened in the poorest of south africa's communities it also just

happens that sometimes you can trace these violent acts back to words by certain politicians for example the health care system in south africa is in dire straits we've heard the minister of health talk about the state resources being overburdened by foreign nationals if you look at those numbers you can make the case we've also heard surgeon officials talk about the fact that foreign nationals are stealing jobs so these are the things that rile people up in the poorest communities who are looking for any reason to make sense of why their lives are still not changing twenty five years into a democracy that was supposed to deliver bread water salt and food for all quickly before we run out of time. and how much of this explains the rise and success of this radical left. of the economic freedom fighter. grant you have julius malema talking about taking back the land from the white man or to talking about the arable land here the prime land in this country giving it back to black south africans without compensating the white people he's talking

about everything is going to change instantly that message is resonating with the young people in this country who are actually tired of the agency's broken promises these people appreciate that democracy but the idea of saying to these people all you this is what we've done we've liberated you politically so accept that things will take time in terms of the economics they don't have that patience all they've ever known is a democratic south africa and so they don't understand why society is still as an equal as it is today so julius malema is talking about leveling the playing field and as you can imagine for a society like this one of the most equal in the world that message is resonating with a lot of young people and if you look at his rallies if you look at those crowds those are young south africans desperate for change in their lives change they've been promised but hasn't come to them do it that's right generational change makes a big difference christine manuel in johannesburg tonight excellent analysis of this election christine thank you.