but you know. this is day 2 of the news live from berlin european democracy gets ready for a major stress test will take a look at brussels efforts to boost to turnout in next week's european elections and to fight outside meddling and the spread of this information also on the program a nervous wait for taiwan's algy p.t. community is parliament passed a vote tomorrow on same sex marriage if approved taiwan would become the 1st

nations date to support such huge. chinese dissident artist ai weiwei right side saw from germany with the biggest show of his book ever seen in europe we'll take you for a preview. i'm from gail welcome to the program. the universe of the polls next week out of the european union is behind a massive push to encourage people to vote 400000000 people in 28 countries will happen chance to choose their representatives that european parliament for the next 5 years let's take a look at how it works but amber a very precise given to each country is roughly proportional to its population so with more than 80000000 people europe's most populous country germany gets 96 the e.u. smallest come tree gets just 6 to represent it's just under half a 1000000 people so once elected m.e.p. . he's joined transnational groups with similar political leanings at the moment

there are 7 of these representing the center right socialists greens euro skeptics and others every piece votes on new laws and to prove the e.u. budget they also help choose the president of the european commission the current president of course is that this man this is young claudie younger the favorite to replace him are german conservative m.e.p. a man fred vapor who will appear as if by magic very very sir there is. well worth waiting for and let's see him as a dutch politician from stimulus of the european socialists but in the countdown to next week's vote the e.u. is on its guard after the brits it shock and because of growing your of skepticism across the bloc that's before we get to the disinformation campaigns trying to influence voters with lies and half truths last year the e.u. commission set up a task force to deal with this threat but critics say its efforts may well be too

little too late they don't believe teri schultz has this. whoever you are wherever you are you can get involved european union institutions have poured enormous resources in to get out the vote campaign but have they invested enough in stay out of the vote efforts in ways to prevent malicious meddling it's not like there was no warning 5 years ago the kremlin's internet research agency in st petersburg was revealed estimated to spend more than a $1000000.00 a month pumping out anti western spin 3 years ago u.s. elections were the target of that russian troll farm yet the european commission waited until just 6 months before the european parliament elections to launch its action plan against this information we should have been doing much more kalinski spent 3 years in the european commission's struck on task force a communications unit created in 2015 to counter russian efforts to smear the e.u.

now with an independent think tank kalinski says brussels is way behind expecting that we will solve the problem in the last 2 months before the elections or even in the last month of the elections when the russians have been working on it for the past 5 years i think it's very naive to facebook google and twitter have a role in the commission's plan pressed to better verify users' identities and remove fake accounts faster and to make clear who's paying for advertising and content facebook has just opened its own war room in dublin to target in authentic activity ahead of elections let's go in or from the e.u. is external action service says there has been progress it's not as much as we would have liked to but we have seen in terms of transparency things are really moving and i think the platforms understood that they also need to take a much closer look at what is happening there but not everyone is counting on bureaucrats and big tech to lead the battle out in the quiet flemish countryside is

what you might call an anti troll farm with a staff of one. they wrote almost every inside martin shank it debunks false online stories on his own website lead stories dot com and also as part of fact check e.u. a collaboration of european media outlets working to keep the record straight ahead of the elections anything that looks suspicious that we take a closer look at that. smells funny. especially the kind of story that makes people angry or upset or. firms people in their bias like a new muslims this or a new throne but they're after shank brand speak content with a big red banner on his website he also formally notifies dece book which immediately reduces the items visibility in its news feeds shank is convinced even small doses of dissent from asian can be dangerous for democracy if you can swing

a few 100 votes in a certain district or in a certain state. that might tip the balance and you cannot make this coalition or that coalition because of one seat move. so it will undoubtedly have an influence with so much at stake across $28.00 countries experts say we're likely to see intense disinformation campaigns right up until the final votes are cast. dr rasmussen nielsen is from the reuters institute for the study of journalism at the university of oxford he also advises the e.u. commission on this information welcome to you we hear a lot these days about to descend from asian and russian troll farms is it just russia doing this. no not at all i mean i think it's very clear that there are a number of. operations. and they are probably the most the games in the sense of ones but there has been

a number of incidents in which other forms they shown to be acts of around the world trying to sow confusion and increases trucks in the political process and it is it's just vegan if i can put it that way away at it as well as the west that it. i think it's clear that the line between information operations and sometimes a bit hot to draw on and there are probably instances in which western governments are accepted is that other governments might think of as interference i think what we need to give in mind is that the majority of misinformation and sometimes it is a nation are you can mistaken or profit from international actors and this will be the case across europe as well during the elections we see many examples of the mastic actors easy to fall off little political purposes finalist the it is so when you talk about the domestic matters you are not talking about government you are talking about the pressure groups or even political ad campaigns. i'm sure though

he's on examples of governments doing this to unfortunately or he's going to ari's yes i mean we see examples of the mystical political him as a political parties and politicians for storms of various forms of misinformation we see a well organized and highly motivated often very partisan activist groups trying to exploit sanctions decided by who flame these tensions and we see what is probably the hardest part of we see individual user sometimes in good faith sharing information that is in fact false and misleading so how should we the public can decide who's telling us the truth how can we tell. there's no simple way really i mean i think we have to start. in building strong institutions and ensuring that everybody has reliable sources they can they can trust so this isn't part of media literacy that people are it look making informed decisions it's in part about the

importance of independent professional journalism so that everybody has access to a bias range of different sources of credible and trustworthy information and then it's about ways in which you know you companies like facebook or google need to do much much more to help people see the origins and problems of the information advertising holes and hell independent 3rd parties including both researchers spectators and journalists analyze and research what's actually going on in these models. it was also ross was close to nielsen from the russians institute for the study of journalism now for some of the other stories making news around the world german chancellor angela merkel has that cost speculation that she might see a top job in the aid you after standing down as germany's leader last year the chancellor gave up her ladyship sensorites of party and said she would not seek a 5th term as chancellor. has approved a law banning headscarves in primary schools that into existing restrictions on

veils the measure bans the wearing of ideologically or religiously characterized clothing that covers the head islamic organizations are threatening legal action. the u.s. state of missouri is republican led senate has passed a bill to ban abortions that 8 weeks of pregnancy legislation makes accent exceptions for medical emergencies but not pregnancies resulting from rape or incest abortion opponents in the u.s. hoping the new restrictions will lead to the supreme court overturning a historic ruling which legalized abortion. clashes have broken out in indian controlled kashmir the day after a gun battle between security forces and separatists killed 5 people in the town of pul juana presence at the funeral of one of the dead rebels confronted the indian troops with stones and barricades. taiwan is often considered a bastion of liberalism in asia and that liberalism is to be tested on friday when

parliament votes on 3 bills to legalize same sex marriage for the islands l g b t community the road to this photo has been difficult back in 2070 because the island's top court ruled that a ban on same sex unions was actually unconstitutional but last year taiwanese voters rejected that decision in a series of referendums. shane lane and mark yuan have spent the last 2 years planning their wedding in fine detail the cake shop owners from taipei have been dreaming of their special day ever since taiwan's top court ruled same sex couples should be allowed to marry a 1st for asia. so. high 1 may often be overlooked internationally and all of the things we have done are visionaries that we can be proud of their it. but on top of the usual wedding stresses

shane mark and other taiwanese same sex couples have a bigger problem and it's divided the island's. i i same sex couples wanting to wear it still don't know what their marriage will look like that's because the courts didn't specify how its ruling should be applied so parliament votes on 3 options one put forward by the government is just about satisfactory for these rights campaigners and to others tabled by lawmakers which don't use the word marriage and provide much less protection for couples. we don't know what these lawmakers want maybe they want to force us down a dead end but we won't accept that we'll fight. but not everyone on this relatively liberal island shares these people's desire for equality in a series of referendums last year more than 2 thirds of voters decided marriage should only be defined as being between a man and

a woman friday's ruling will be closely watched and it may not be the last word on the matter. artist ira way has called bergen home for the last 3 years having left house arrest and forced censorship in china it recently and knows that he's leaving germany but he signed off with the largest european exhibition of his work . as ever the show mixes human rights advocacy with the unexpected. the artist and activist by way way opens his largest european show ever into sort of germany and he's in an expectedly unpredictable mood. the show comprises a huge range of his work some not so well known. and some now famous in their own right. he's lived and worked from berlin since he fled china in 2015 i think. i knew for sure.

this is the last. office. and he's maintained his provocative style. and his most recent work focuses on the plight and experience of migrants from refugees exhibiting all the clothes left at a greek refugee camp before it was cleared by the authorities so i know life. one. is going to see more of you never settle for you why you're not. sold us clear. on this. i know all i do for you i mean maybe. if not only we were many but human rights. anybody who has no freedom of speech or be

free before if somebody else quiet a window was closed in. the exhibition reflects the artist uncompromising and unapologetic. it's just a wus a liar from w. business south africa with monica johns who's up next more world news at the top of the hour good day. we're not here to judge but to eliminate prejudices. we're not here to change your opinion but to open some space for different points of view we're not here to speak on behalf of anybody but to let everybody speak for themselves. not

here to give you the right answers but to ask the right questions.