this is d. w.'s live from berlin on the eve of presidential elections in afghanistan of picture of polling stations and suicide bombings across the country they're sending out the ballot boxes for saturday's presidential election but taliban extremists are threatening to bomb voters and polling places also coming up tonight president donald trump lashes out at the whistleblower whose report includes allegations of a president abusing his power and the white house covering it up for the democrats the case for impeachment is clear. that whistleblower by their very act.

as shown more dedication to country. and understanding of the president's oath of office. than the president himself. and it children in chains a shocking discovery at a boarding school in one jury a police rescue hundreds of boys and young men shackled and physically assaulted in what's said to be an islamic school. i'm bringing off to our viewers on p.b.s. in the united states and all around the world welcome tonight the people of afghanistan are looking forward with hope and trepidation after months of delays and uncertainty they're set to vote in the nation's 4th presidential election tomorrow saturday but taliban extremists arthur. to disrupt the vote with suicide

bombings and rocket attacks and there are fears that violence during the election could deepen the country's political instability. it's scenes like this that the afghan government is desperate to avoid on election day the security plan to protect voters at polling stations was 8 months in the making but violence is just one of the challenges facing the officials organizing the elections 5 years ago allegations of systematic fraud marred the last one abdullah abdullah the man who lost to the current president ashraf ghani then is still his main contender now but . with all our strength we will prevent any kind of fraud in the selection at the last election i said we won't accept any government based on fraud but it happened because afghanistan was facing multiple threats time at the start of withdrawal of foreign troops the rise of islamic states and also the taliban have an upper hand.

to fight electoral fraud around a 100000 election observers will monitor the nearly $5000.00 polling stations across the country but they will be allowed to come to that. one 3rd of the afghan defense forces will be on hand but that is still not enough some polling stations will stay shot because the army cannot protect them coaches are worried both about their personal safety and fair elections without that we will put his head in the elections and large numbers that iraq is a government that it will provide us with security and show us the terms parents of the election was. actually. threatening us all the time to stop us from participating in these elections they frighten us every day but despite this i believe most people will fights in the elections to defend democracy. and a couple of the mic women protecting both voters lives and democracy is

a tall order for a government in a country where violent militants control or are active in almost half of the territory. oh my colleague is under paid as one joins me now and she has reported extensively from afghanistan it's good to see you again former president army karzai has more on that holding the election now in afghanistan is like asking a heart patient to run a marathon i mean it's just the responsible thing to do he does have point because one thing is for sure and there are no 2 ways about it voters going out tomorrow and that's the to cast their votes are under threat i mean the taliban have made crystal clear that anyone who participates in these elections who facilitates them is a legit target to them so as we have seen in the 2014 elections i was on the ground to cover them it was really a very messy affair messy because the elections were manipulated there was ballot

stuffing all of that but also because see. charity couldn't be granted and a lot of voters who lost their lives or their fingers because you know they use this indelible in their prime get it off so it stays with you for days and the taliban use that to identify voters and to chop off the finances of war i mean considering all of this which candidate is in the best position then to try to reach some kind of a peace agreement with the taliban we only have 2 candidates really who have a chance of winning tomorrow's poets and they were potus and government for the past 5 years that this president colony and his chief executive officer. both say they want peace for afghanistan how to go about it is an entirely different question because yes it needs the afghan government but it also needs the f.k.n. opposition it needs this civil society representatives it needs the youth and it needs the international community and in saying that i mean more than just the united states because there are a lot of international players active on the afghan battlefield and we know that

there's this threat you know i guess a mortal threat for people going to vote what's the appetite among afghans then for this weekend's election depends on who you are as if you are young people who are part of the liberate young educated elite they see it as a sign of protest they will go out and vote because they think this is our right and now we can and we want to cost a vote but if you go to the countryside and we hardly ever get access there millions of people will be disfranchised and for them it's how do i survive the next day how do i get the next nea from my family for them it's bread and butter issues and those weren't addressed in this election campaign that we saw and we know the taliban is very good at making threats but what about curing curing of these threats i mean how strong is the telly but right now in afghanistan well evidence suggests that they either control or contest top of the country and what we see is basically a back and forth so they. kind of manage to. district stay for

a few days and then special forces move and drive them out but what you don't have is the key of frontlines that civilians get stuck in the middle of that a lot of militias on the ground that is why we see this ever growing number of civilian casualties and it still is the world's deadliest conflict so underpaid has been as always we appreciate your insights and your reporting it's good to have your thank you. of the u.s. campaign against the taliban is the longest in american military history the core goal ballot in eastern afghanistan was one of the most lethal battlegrounds u.s. forces named it the valley of death e.w. news met one infantry man who survived the fight. right. under fire. and returning fire. tracking down the enemy that was sergeant brandon no burns life for 15 months his unit's deployment

was the subject of the acclaimed 2010 documentary restrepo o'byrne returned to civilian life 11 years ago but sometimes he still finds it difficult to leave the war behind him. i loved running and that before the military i loved running inside the military but now every time i ran outside the military every time i would get started get winded i would get really start having panic attacks and like a whole going on and then the oh yeah of course like think about if you're in your ass afghanistan you're walking up a mountain or winded and you can't get out of the way you can't you know physically get to the next like cover and concealment spot that would be a problem when. you burn was 22 when he was sent to fight the taliban his mission he believed was to make afghanistan and the world a safer place but on the ground the reality was different. you can't defeat

an ideology with violence you kill 'd someone and they have family and now they have a. now you've created 2 more terrorists in stead of the one and that's you know ad infinitum right like that you can you can do that forever that that's what you know fighting this kind of war is after returning home from the conflict o'byrne battled for several years to overcome psychological problems and alcoholism with his life back on track he's now studying to become a high school english teacher and lives in a quiet neighborhood in wilmington north carolina he thinks the u.s. government should withdraw troops from afghanistan as quickly as possible. we haven't figured out in 18 years what to do with the taliban. and make them more peaceful or or defeat them now they're more possession of more

land territory now so we haven't figured it out. we were lost. in a small workshop in his back garden o'byrne works on sculptures it's his own retreat from the war and a way of remaining calm it also helps him process everything he's experienced worth it is a hard hard thing to say. i like who i am as a person today i don't think i could got there any other way. i wouldn't do it twice maybe that's the best way i wouldn't go again o'byrne continues to work to leave his experiences of the war behind him in the meantime america debates whether it can do the same and. we're now into that rapidly moving story of the whistleblower report alleging abuse of power and a cover up in the trunk white house us president donald trump has gone on the attack against the unnamed whistleblower who reported him for soliciting

interference in next year's presidential election during a phone conversation with ukraine's president zelinsky trump says the whistleblowers claims are inaccurate but has provided no evidence to support his claim he also blames the democrats accusing them of instigating a witch hunt and says spies were behind the revelations from insinuated harsh treatment for the spy which critics say amounts to witness intimidation. or let's discuss where things stand right now with my colleague public he's in our washington bureau good evening to you pablo it has been quite a week hasn't it so where do things stand on this friday evening. hi brad well you mentioned it yourself it's a roughly moving story and just in the past few minutes us media is reporting that the secretary of state the state mike pompei o has actually received his subpoena to appear before 3 of the committees that are

invested that are involved in this impeachment inquiry now we also know that the chair of the house intelligence committee adam schiff has said that we could see those hearings beginning next week at the end of next week in fact he said and amongst those who are expected to appear in fact are the attorney general and william barr and. a personal attorney of president trump. rudy giuliani so it's you know incredibly fast moving this story at the moment of just got kind of one eye on seeing what's happening there with regards to mike pompei oh but of course once we see how quickly this is moving and this is appears to be one of the issues that the democrats have been focusing on that they want this to move quickly they don't want to stall and there's talk as well that you know we could be seeing these hearings they're hoping hopefully wrapping up in the

next couple of months that's what the democrats in fact have been saying today the target is to keep this investigation a. few rigs leaves are targeted in a nutshell do what is the case of the democrats are trying to make. they want to focus of course on these ukraine and that's where their focus their focus on the fact that there's an abuse of power and they're also looking at exactly you know what president trump did they're seeking the fact that they're claiming that he was seeking dirt on his political opponent from a foreign leader of course being a presidential democrat present one of the presidential candidates from that them apart democratic party joe biden and also the president trump was essentially using aid to ukraine as a bargaining tool just going out of total care you know president trump was sort of asking for a favor a favor for a favor and this is what they're referring to and also the focus has been very much

as well why it took so long for this complaint from the whistleblower to actually see the light of day why it took so long for them to be able to see it and how the process was worked why was the cole logged in a separate system computer system than the one that it should have been logged in according to the democrats so many questions are being posed in fact there are more and more questions by the day more and more questions. from doing the president to push back how was all of this playing with with. with the general public in the u.s. . you're absolutely right in fact in just the last few minutes we've heard from president trump. just posted a tweet of course defending himself once again saying that it's fake news saying that the democrats are trying to steal the 2020 alexion the video is quite ominous and also the word here's say it's being used by many people within the republican

side who were defending president trump there saying that the whistleblower you know didn't actually directly hear or witness a lot of the claims that he's made or she has made in their complaint and also like i said they've been going after certain people focusing in for example on the adam schiff from the house intelligence committee so you know they are defending themselves president trump is defending himself and using you know tactics which we've seen before like we saw in the russian vested claiming that a lot of it is down to fake news. of the week or. the. show of a good weekend. well here's some of the other stories now that are making headlines around the world the british oil tankers seized by iran in the strait of hormuz 2 months ago has left the iranian port where it was being detained the stand the imperiled was taken by iran's revolutionary guard 2 weeks after an iranian tanker

was seized by britain that ship was released in august hundreds of south african government employees have protested in pretoria against violence targeting women and children the rally followed a call from president ramaphosa for all members of society to work together to prevent gender based violence france is paying respects to former president jacques chirac who died on thursday at the age of 86 people have been coming to the presidential palace to onto the center right politician who dominated french politics for decades his later years were marred by scandal and a corruption conviction. now to a disturbing discovery in nigeria police in the northern city of could do not have rescued hundreds of boys and young men many of whom were found shackled in chains some had been tortured physically assaulted their all said to have been attending

an islamic boarding school in the building where they were being held in our next report d.w. news has chosen not to show the faces of the rescued. these boys were sent to boarding school for a religious education. instead they were starved chained and whipped. somebody external scars of the physical suffering they enjoyed. one. mile or. 2 that if you fear that if this city is out of the country studying this is my last ellis' of the existence of the islamic way of life that's all i understand it was for and look at the future of the with. swatches one look at me or is. it. access to a lot of. the police say it's not clear how long the children were held there.

not all of them came from nigeria but this place is not a hub or an islamic school because you have small children some of them are brought for in our neighboring countries but you know fossil miley ghana and the rest. fall all over the country across all over the country they were here some of them why even 10 there why use human eyes because. there are many islamic schools across the northern parts of the muslim region of nigeria. the piece of a stick 7 people including the teaches running the school the children are now staying it's temporary camp in the city while police contacts that parents. in egypt security forces have sealed off cairo's tahrir square the epicenter of the arab spring uprising back in 2011 allegedly to prevent more protests against

president bill fatah el-sisi the clampdown comes amid harsh security measures following rare demonstrations in several cities last weekend all of which were broken up by police attorneys say more than 2000 people have been arrested since last weekend egypt's general prosecutor has disputed that number. the streets of cairo for the police especially around the prominent tahrir square the site of major protests in the past access has been closed off and strict controls are in place. the state has moved quickly to quell any demonstrations assist secretly recorded video shows. returning from new york president sisi portrays himself as a man of the people rejected criticism and scorning the media. with the image they portray is full of lies and slander to deceive people gyptian is all wise enough not to believe it. but last friday hundreds of people in cairo and

other cities called to c.c.'s resignation there were the 1st protests in years. security forces responded with tear gas and rubber bullets according to human rights organizations almost 2000 people have been arrested in the past week. internet videos from an exiled building contractor mohammed ali triggered the protests from his home in spain he accuses sisi of corruption and mismanagement he's calling for new mass protests. and this is. said the helicopter strong egyptians this man is using you and deceiving you. the state broadcaster gives no air time of government critics until now a show is only pictures of sisi supporters sharing at a rally in cairo. over millions of people around the world fridays are nelson on amiss with climate strikes and more of them have taken place

today the day started with tens of thousands of students gathering at public spaces in new zealand they demanded world leaders take immediate action to deal with the climate crisis. they marched in new zealand. in taiwan. i was and didn't. it's silly to all over the world the climate to protest a new thing none of that urgency instead the calls for world leaders to take stronger action against climate change are echoing even in more remote regions like here in nepal where rising temperatures are eating away at places in the himalayas. we are the future generation the future of the earth is in our hands we have to capture it and have to be aware from now. these people are convinced of the threat posed by global warming but the war it's their

representatives on doing enough to stop it's home from the facts here in washington as elsewhere they fear economic interests are taking priority over climate policy is. in berlin crowds was smaller than last week but still many praise the rein to voice their disappointments for the government's latest package of climate's measures all right . but i remember connect climate packages and insights for us young people standing here on a day like this it's like a slap in the face largely because we did our homework and we know that we have to acknowledge and we know that we are in the middle of a climate crisis but it's a tune burge the swedish team who sponsored the fridays for future movement marched alongside indigenous activists in the canadian city of montreal she's increasingly

been the target of blowback but she says this only serves to spur her on. the people who want to silence they become too loud people handles the jury sides. so we should take that as a comedian. kinda showing no signs of slowing down despite the fact that real political change has so far inducive the protest to say they'll keep on shouting until the world's politicians hear them and of the what. were german police have smashed an influential criminal cyber network it happened in a raid in the west of the country 7 people were arrested on suspicion of trafficking weapons drugs and child sex abuse images the raid follows 5 years of investigations

that involve more than $600.00 police officers it looks like the set of a hollywood movie a former nato bunker converted into a dark arts center 500 square meters of service exclusively used for a multi-million euro criminal enterprise police seized $200.00 service here in a major operation the bunker was hidden 5 stories below ground in the small town of tub and in germany southwest munitions it wasn't just that we had to secure the physical location we also had to crack the digital storage at the data center. the solution turned to mark it was likely from this location that an attack on a telecom customers routers was carried out in 2016 this was also the home of illegal online stores like wall street market selling millions of euros worth of drugs illegal documents and even todd pornography the investigation was complex and

lengthy lasting more than 4 years. at the. data center like place in germany isn't illegal to say. you have to prove that online crimes are being committed by 3rd parties then you have to prove that the people running the center and you have outed and supported it. the main suspect is a 59 year old dutch man the investigation and analysis of the data which could include customer data could take months if not years. for fans of german football there's a bumper bundesliga weekend ahead leipzig are the surprise leaders at this stage with by are not surprisingly in hot pursuit but this could be a crucial match day for dortmund title ambitions after disappointment last week questions are being asked if they have what it takes to make it to the top. dormand back at home this weekend against better brain men looking to get their

season back on track after dropping points at frank french captain michael royce was hot and bothered when asked if the club's mentality was in question royce refused to acknowledge that their mindset was to blame thomas delay in his own goal against frankfurt seem to sum up the drama mood of late the club's top brass don't know what all the fuss is about. fundamentally i don't think we're in such bad shape so i don't know where these huge problems that you are seeing problema by wednesday and i am fine munich have an easier task this day had to promote its side part of born on saturday you come a senior who scored his 1st born this league goals the defending champions last time out and their victory as a club they trailed table leaders all the like 6 by a mere 2 points or and a new manager yuliya now those men like sick have been stellar through their 1st 5 matches. i. put hosting shouter was surely put light 6 under

featured raechel to the test the royal blues a having a rebirth and a new coach david van and a determined to stay in the top half of the table. you're watching d.w. lose live from berlin after a short break i'll be back to take you through the day tonight we're looking at the week of the whistle blower.

1st day of school and the. first clean lesson. and then doris grand moment arrives join the arena tango on her journey back. in our interactive documentary dora entering into returns home. closely.

carefully. the soon. to be a good. match. discovered. subscribe to a documentary on to. the fall of the berlin wall began long before november 989. visit the heroes of eastern europe we talked to those who began the struggle for freedom and those who showed personal courage. oil bubbles or glow gold telephone pole promo school you

know you think of this because we have put it all didn't surprise me i saw it coming 10 years before that before true and. what does it take to change the course of history. raising the iron curtain start september 30th on d w. 2 years of the russia investigation convictions prison sentences and a final bestselling report by robert muller none of it was able to shake the foundation of the trump white house like one person did this week with a 9 page whistleblower complaint tonight the week that suddenly put everything into question about the presidency of don what's wrong what we are about to discover could end up meaning relatively little or it could mean the end of a president i'm burnt off in berlin this is the day.