the transition of power unlike indeed has ever seen before 2 of its most important institutions its executive and its interests will most likely be led for the 1st time ever by a new madam president make that to madame president's to a new chapter in european history written with a familiar political balancing act one job goes to germany the other goes to free i'm bored golf in berlin this is the day. yes proposed so sort of phone that that's the next president of the european commission. and eliminate that christine legarde to cultivate for president of the central but it's before the empowerment to come. from the lion for the commission president. if elected she would be defense storm and through the day you of the

commission it would be happy about it after all europe is a woman. also coming up tonight u.s. lawmakers shocked and angry after seeing for themselves how migrants at the border with mexico are being treated. these women were being told by c.b.p. officers to drink out of the toilets they were drinking water out of the toilet and that was them knowing with a congressional visit was coming that was this is c.b.p. on their best behavior telling people to drink out of the toilet. to our viewers on p.b.s. in the united states and all around the world welcome we begin the day with history in the making here in europe for the 1st time ever a woman has been nominated for the top job in the european union tonight in new leaders after days of exhausting negotiations agreed to support ursula fund

a lion as the new european commission president for the lion is currently germany's defense minister and is a member of german chancellor angela merkel's conservative c.d.u. party of her nomination now goes before the european parliament for final approval but there is no guarantee of that approval and it is important to note that funded lion was not a candidate and she was not the 1st she was not the 2nd choice here is what the german chancellor angela merkel said busy this evening about the nomination. some yes madame to the office of the president of the commission we have nominated for the very 1st time a woman tied to a select funday line come into place and one abstention the others were in unanimity from young to some to the extension came from germany from me and we agreed amongst the german governing coalition a t.v. don't reach agreement amongst the coalition you abstain we have been able to pass

this without any negative. that was the german chancellor angela merkel speaking earlier this evening we have team coverage of history in the making here this history making nomination a european politics i'm joined now by correspondent terry scholtz from the european council in brussels and our political correspondent thomas sparrow he is at our parliamentary bureau here in berlin to both of you good evening terry let me start with you we have to history making nominations to women for the jobs of european commission president and president of the european central bank 1st and foremost to remind everyone why are these jobs so crucial and so coveted. the president of the european commission is the most visible person in all of the blocks of jobs not only that but the person in this position gets to decide which countries get which commission jobs so she she if it's are still of on the line

will be handing out you know who's in charge of agriculture or who's in charge of the digital agenda who's in charge of energy and for some countries these are very very crucial positions because their interests are tied up in what policy is being made for the next 5 years that this commission will preside so this is a very influential job and everybody wanted it that's why it took 33 different summits to come to agreement on this no one was willing to back down on their candidate and president of the european central bank you've got 19 of the 28 countries using the euro the president of the european central bank has a huge influence over what kind of policy is made mario draghi in the job at the moment they get to decide on inflation rates whether to raise or lower them this is a really key position and i think that christine lagarde is is really a strong candidate people have a lot of confidence in her having seen her as head of the i.m.f. for all these years until now as the german defense minister if the world is not

familiar with her that could soon change. and do we know why she was nominated. she was essentially nominated because she pleased most if not all european leaders obviously i'm going to call she also pleased to call my own sort of funny and i and speaks french she was born in belgium grew up in belgium so is also staunchly european she also pleased some of the eastern european countries mr obama's spokes person specifically said that earlier today so that's what probably the reason why she was nominated for these very important posts and when you ask who she is she's obviously germany's defense minister and that is a very difficult position a very controversial position here as well because the german forces have been criticized time and time again for its for their readiness for their capability and also i found that i know the german defense minister has had to deal with that

problem they were not a problem she created it was a problem she inherited but depending on how you view what she has done you would consider whether she did a good job or not but no it was not a good job as well that essentially depends on what view you have on her role but she's someone who's seen as a very close ally of anger that merkel in fact she's described as the only minister that has been with. all along since i'm gonna call became german chancellor in 2005 the important point to bring up there but we'll come back to that in just a moment but let me pick up with christine legarde who's head of the argument for you know nominated to be of the european central bank her nomination is less of a surprise would you agree. well i think some people may have been surprised by it because christine legarde has never been the head of a central bank and i think that most people who would have been considered for the position in the 1st place for example vitamin a the german of the german central

bank would have been would have held this job in the past that said having steered the i.m.f. through some very rocky waters i don't think anybody is really worried about her or worried that she will face opposition in the european parliament when when the nominations come up for a vote in a couple of weeks time you know i said terry that these nominations are a balancing act or maybe because even discovered as a juggling act to me what factors into these nominations. yeah i think of it more like like a chess board brant because every time you move one piece you've got to look at where the other pieces are going to move when the leaders are looking at who they're going to name to these jobs they're trying to balance not only gender which has been done very successfully now but also geography the north and the south east and the west all of them want to hold these jobs you've got to balance political idiology and the european parliamentary elections in may caused

a lot of complications because it used to be that the center right in the center left the p.p. and the social democrats got to get together to to basically choose who would get these jobs they had enough votes that's no longer the case with some of the other parties becoming stronger with the last election so things have gotten a lot more complicated and there are a lot of factors that need to be balanced and you might notice there hasn't been an east european nominated to any of the top jobs so we may see that coming up in the european parliament election for its president it is a very good point as well as a list of actors on the line we understand she was not the 1st or the 2nd choice put forward by germany in fact we understand that it was the french president mr mccrone who suggested the line for this position how do you read that. that it may have been proposed somewhat differently but the fact that. the lion as you say was not the 1st not the 2nd not the 3rd choice does indicate to what extent

european leaders actually struggled with this decision and it also reveals to what extent or sort of on the line may be a good candidate for this job after all as i said earlier she did please not only germany and france but some of the eastern european countries as well and that has to do probably it with the fact that she's one of the most well known german ministers of all internally here in germany she may have had to deal with all these blunders of problems but she has also been someone who in different international venue's has called for a bigger role for germany internationally for a big european role in terms of security and defense someone who has called for germany to lead from the center something she mentioned also a few years ago so would those are probably reasons why was a lot on the line was also well known well known not to european level though not

only here in germany where her role is extremely controversial there are those who say she has done a very good job considering how difficult it was there are others who have criticized outright who have criticized her a lot and in fact the social democrats of course coalition partners have said outright that they're not going to vote for that they don't support her nomination a road of political response to the spirit here in berlin and are very going to revolt in brussels to both of you thank you. in the united states democratic members of congress who visited centers in texas housing migrants say they were shocked by what they saw all they were not allowed to take pictures inside but congressman you walk in castro was able to secretly film these images which he posted to twitter he says they show women some of them grandmothers sitting on concrete floors crammed into a cell with just one toilet and no running water to drink or water for washing

their hands castro said the women asked lawmakers for help but that they feared it retribution. when new york democrat alexandria cortez also visited detention centers in texas on monday and said that the conditions were horrified. there's accused societies there's this is that on their best behavior and they put them in room with no running water and these women were being told by c.b.p. officers to drink out of the toilet they were drinking water out of the toilet and that was them knowing with a congressional visit was coming that was this is their best behavior telling people to drink out of the toilet. well this comes as the u.s. a nonprofit news site pro publica has published a report exposing what it says is

a secret facebook group for current and former border patrol agents now according to probe publica the secret group has more than $9000.00 members whose posts include the recent photo of the bodies of a father and his 23 month old daughter floating in the rio grande you remember that image we have blurred the image of the person who posted the photo in the group asked if it could have been faked because the bodies were so quote clean of the picture was taken by an associated press photographer and there is no indication that it was staged or manipulated the u.s. customs and border protection agency has opened an investigation into that facebook group well today amnesty international released a report accusing the u.s. government of a campaign of intimidation and harassment against people who defend the rights of migrants on the us mexico border brian griffin is the author of that report he's

the north american regional researcher and advisor at amnesty international he joins us tonight he is and the us mexico border of the san diego side brian it's good to have you on the show. you may have just heard in our in our program representative alexander your posse of cortez saying that she did not feel safe in the presence of u.s. border guards when she was visiting those detention facilities does that fit with the findings in your report what we found in our report which we released today right here at the us mexico border. is across this border wall behind me is that the u.s. government has waged a deliberate and concerted campaign of intimidation threats harassment and in some cases criminal investigations and prosecutions to target exactly the human rights

defenders and by that we mean activists and journalists lawyers humanitarian volunteers. in order to deter them prevent them and punish them for defending the human rights of migrants and asylum seekers on the us mexico border that includes those who are in detention facilities like you were talking about just now as well as those who are stranded by the thousands on the mexico side of the border behind me who are seeking to exercise their human rights to claim asylum protections from u.s. authorities in order to flee persecution or other targeted a serious human rights violations against them friend told me a little bit about how you put this report together me how many people did you talk to and it can you how representative is is you know the interviews that you conducted how representative is it of the entire situation. right well you know in the cover of darkness a lot of is where a lot of this abuse is happening and we spoke with about 2 dozen human rights

defenders primarily humanitarian aid providers immigration lawyers in some cases some journalists and others about their experiences and what we saw was that customs and border protection the same border officials who were featured in the in your in a previous part of the segment have been essentially utilizing the us mexico border as a criminal dragnet the try to entrap activists and lawyers among others with serious criminal allegations of human smuggling sometimes for doing as little as informing asylum seekers of their rights to seek asylum under u.s. law at the us mexico border what we saw today also today at the same time as our news conference just a couple of hours ago here we learned that u.s. federal prosecutors are going to be. retrying under smuggling laws a humanitarian volunteer with the organization no more deaths in arizona who was

looking at 20 years for in federal prison for providing thirsty migrants in the desert with water food and medical attention. as well as a place to stay for a couple of nights now they dropped the conspiracy charges against them and want to retry him for 2 of those charges where he would still face 10 years in prison so this is the type of high stakes that we're looking at and not just in order to deter people from assisting him i think when you know the border but also this is at a moment when president trump in the last of the last 2 weeks has been threatening to arrest detain and a 4th millions of people residing in the united states let me let you know the status of here let me ask you this that what you're saying that what you're saying here i mean you're describing entrapment you're also describing a legal system that that sounds like it's in cahoots with the with this campaign to . intimidation but certainly if he if it gets to the point that you're sitting in front of a judge certainly the judge is going to see that this is entrapment and that these

people were just trying to be you know human beings in and offer someone water to drink but are you saying in your report that the legal system that the judges are also culpable in this campaign. well there's 2 problems here one is that the law enforcement agents who are in the border of floridians are misusing the criminal justice system in order to target people in violation of the civil rights that are protected under the u.s. constitution u.s. law a federal court last december already struck down the main provision being applied by u.s. authorities which is now on its way to the supreme court but in the interim the u.s. government has ramped up its application of those very same provisions that a federal court found were unconstitutional and made her bones from court in addition to that the case against dr scott war and we mentioned the humanitarian volunteer who was face intent and continues to face than 20 years if convict them

are all charges against them this was heard by a jury of his own peers in open court and his trial ended not a mistrial just a few weeks ago 2 thirds of the jurors finding him innocent and wanting to acquit him on all charges nonetheless the federal prosecutors are seeking to apply the stretches again and finally the last thing which is true both in the united states and in europe ok is that the human smuggling charges are overly broad and are being applied in situations that do not represent special interest is no money exchanged and center it's a limitation of people's freedom of expression and it has to stop now all right brian griffin north american regional researcher and advisor at amnesty international for joining us giving us the latest with this report that just came out today from we appreciate you sharing your story with us tonight thank you thanks for having me. a day after violent

demonstrations in hong kong beijing is telling other countries not to meddle in its domestic affairs china is condemning what it's calling gross interference by outside countries in hong kong's government yesterday the city's legislative council building was stormed by pro-democracy demonstrators in unprecedented scenes hundreds of protesters smashed glass broke through steel barriers and occupied and ransacked the main assembly chamber they were eventually cleared by police but not before leaving behind in a mistake of message of defiance aimed at chinese rule a tense calm has resumed in hong kong but china has voiced quote resolute opposition to statements by the us britain and the european union in support of the demonstrators. even if the violent attack on the legislative council in hong kong occurred in the u.s. or in europe what would they do would they just let it happen.

when that same thing happened in hong kong they didn't oppose it and condemn it you tell but instead made irresponsible comments and lectured us about peaceful protest and the prevention of violence. this is a total double standard an ugly act of hypocrisy. all right of 203 table now by karen chang she is studying political theory here in berlin and she's been researching the political protests in hong kong it's good to have you on the show and when i ask you is he correct there in saying that the european union the us britain have been lecturing china about how it should respect free speech is that true. i'm not sure if they really did it in the meeting. maybe during some conversation at that meeting so we never know. how to. perceive what happened yesterday i mean did you see this as an act of

what we heard from for example that this was you know. violence to the extreme is that what you saw no i'll say 1st of all that it was the government who leads to demonstrators doing this because before that the demonstrator tried different ways to protest in hong kong like. demonstrating was 2000000 people on the street and also the civil disobedience but then. the government turned a deaf ear and it leased them to do. this and also desperation even 3 demonstrated chose to commit suicide to warn the government that not to do that and asked people to really focus on the bill the government still are not responding any request to protest so you're saying that the ransacking of the

legislative council building using that was an act of desperation yes and also we can see that even though the protests have broke into the parliament legislative council they still remain disciplined inside for example they didn't hurt anyone they didn't destroy any antic or historical cabs and also day even put them on the side vending machine the fish after the tough to drink so i don't see any value and i'm wondering are they really at the end of the day are they protesting this extradition bill or are they protesting something much bigger than that and that is are they protesting the reality that could be in the year 2047 yes i think so. because now for the younger generation this you know hold because the government is not listening even though we deserve again and we're saying that we don't want to do anything with that extradition bill. de de did not respond anything upon

request so now we're thinking the 3rd as the thing that the government is doing this because we do not have a very democratic system and legislative council and we cannot choose our own chief executives and these delays today protests. we've seen their courage and we appreciate you coming in and sharing your insights on the situation in hong kong as it is right now thank you. well the day is nearly done but the conversation continues online you'll find us on twitter either d.w. news or you can follow me apart go to t.v. don't forget to use the hash tag to date and remember whatever happens between now and then tomorrow is another day we'll see you than ever.

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