do the ends justify the means. to tim's witnesses starts december 13th on d w. this is d w news live from berlin hong kong prepares for local elections on sunday but authorities warn don't call off the boats if violence breaks out again democracy demonstrators want citizens to send beijing a message at the ballot box also coming up people in paris and around france take to the streets to avenge their anger as the mystic abuse reaches unprecedented

levels in europe we take a look at what the french government plans to do about it. welcome to the program we start in hong kong where polls will open in just a matter of hours in the city's municipal elections the vote is being seen as a test of kerry lam's pro beijing government and a referendum on the pro-democracy movement that has rocked the city for months authorities in hong kong of threatened to call off the elections if violence breaks out campaigners hope the election can send a peaceful signal about the direction of the city. kris chan is back out on the street. the pro-democracy campaigner hopes he can persuade people to give him their protest vote. well. after a massive moment i think an election can reflect public opinion to some extent

another point is it's time for us to calm down and tell the government in a civilized way what we want to do. hong kong has been rocked by almost 6 months of under arrest some of it violent protesters have been calling on the probe aging government for more democracy many here fear their legal and political ptolemy is under threat from china student chowpatty was shot by police during one demonstration he's now calling on people to use their vote. i hope the people of hong kong can cast their ballots and achieve more democracy in a peaceful way please cherish your vote i hope everyone can come out and vote tomorrow and. meanwhile the siege at hong kong polytechnic university continues the scene of some of the most violent intense clashes with police in recent days is

still the site where a small group of protesters holed up they've been there for a week determined not to become one of the 1000 or so who've been arrested for taking part in a siege that turned violent. those running for election say they want to pursue a peaceful route forward but everyone knows that these local elections won't change policy all the pro-choice on attitude at the top of honeycombs government. let's bring in clifford conan who has covered that region extensively 1st of all in terms of these elections these are local district elections how much can the results on sunday really shape the future of hong kong well it's ironic in a way because these elections were traditionally about you know getting their garbage collected and putting a park bench in and they've taken on this huge significance because until now we've had no indication really beyond these pictures of mass demonstrations and counter protests and police violence and all of the things that we've seen we've no indication of how people feel on the ground in hong kong so they take on

a new significance in that case because people actually go to the ballot box which as we know is also a limited thing that you can do in hong kong right now and should give us an indication that way or these demonstrations are the big issue hovering over these election i mean how have these protests factored into campaigning heading up to the vote well in the companies i notice that some some of the protest protest. independents are pro-democracy candidates have been putting information on the handouts and things that they've very much into the camps that we see on the streets of hong kong but the probation side you've got the pro-democracy side and basically we're going to get an indication what they're expecting is that people will possibly make their feelings known that but i'm going with the government who dared they're holding responsible for causing this chaos in the city so it could be . a slap in the face for the government i think i mean really hong kong of course is a mixture of democracy and also some direct rule from china this is one of the few

chances that hong kong gets you to really practice democracy in full this is a direct democratic vote absolutely the other main votes like such as the vote for chief executive are largely wage skewed in favor of beijing and this is a direct vote so it is going to be a very democratic vote i think will give us an indication no and everyone's worried about calling it because we literally have had no idea until now how these mass demonstrations will translate into people exercising their vote now we heard about those threats that this vote could be suspended if there's any more violence is that an empty threat or could that actually happen well i was talking to people in the run up and they were saying that they could very well suspend this because how much worse can things get you know short of beijing actually intervening but i think the government is also perhaps indication that it could be ready for a compromise by allowing these to go ahead and they're prepared to show that they're that they it's the 1st time they've actually made any kind of concession so

maybe this could be the start of something you could be an indication that we could see perhaps a road to dialogue ok and that vote taking place in a few hours sunday in hong kong. thank you very much. well activists in paris are demanding the french government take stronger steps to combat deadly domestic violence but more than $130.00 women killed so far this year by their partner france is one of the worst countries for deadly domestic violence in europe. was. put pressure on politics and solidarity with the women there loud and determined to be heard thousands of demonstrators gathered in paris to vent their anger france has been discussing the issue of violence against women for months. so that's a trick us term interests we fight for all the women everyone knows at least one person who is affected. we're going to just take action she says here for now here in memory of my mother who was murdered before my eyes in 1982 when i was 1300

it doesn't look of fear in march our daughter was murdered on corsica by her ex partner was 1. $121.00 women were killed in france last year alone by their partner or their ex partner according to the ministry of the interior. worldwide the u.n. says that 137 women a murdered every day peace activists are calling for an end to violence against women demanding decisive political action. on the top we demand a rethink in politics as part of the fight against this violence the moment the government must put more money on the table to end sexist and sexual violence be active you know 66 years and their demands are specific better policing judicial protection harsher penalties and an additional 1000000000 euros for assistance and violence prevention. here's

a check now of some of the other stories making news around the world in western kenya 34 people have been killed in flooding caused by heavy rains most of the deaths occurred when homes were swept away by landslides the rains are battering parts. tanzania as well where 10 people have drowned in a swollen river. ukrainian authorities evacuated the 3 crewmembers of an oil tanker that ran aground off the city of odessa the moldova vessel broke free of its anchoring during a storm authorities say there was a risk it could leak some of the petroleum that it was carrying. american led forces and their syrian kurdish allies have carried out a large joint operation capturing dozens of so-called i asked militants the operation was revealed while u.s. vice president mike pence was in iraq on a previously unannounced visit pence's shirred iraqi kurdish leaders that the u.s. would stand with its kurdish elements. now in the us you worship numbers for the

impeachment hearings against president donald trump are out some 12000000 people per day in line to watch the proceedings on t.v. rivaling the audience for prime time n.f.l. football of course democrats were hoping for high levels of interest as they build their case for impeachment but t.v. ratings may not tell the full picture to explain is william no a good kroft i mean look i guess in the days of twitter it's about more than just t.v. i mean viewership online matters to churn these things are interrelated i mean t.v. viewership peaked at about 14000000 on the 1st day it declined steadily but not not by much over the coming days so a lot of republicans saying the show wasn't successful for democrats the so-called show is like to say really isn't true there was actually a high amount of viewership on television and it stayed fairly steady but the on the online side is a completely different story we can actually have a graph to show you put out by a platform called news where they calculated this kind of thing looking at facebook

and twitter interactions it fluctuates quite wildly from witness to witness and we see that maria von of it is the former ambassador to ukraine is way out in front with 6000000 interactions on the day. a of her testimony that's posed it's likes it's comments it's read tweets it's these kinds of things there's a few witnesses i haven't even put up on this on this graph because they're only in the few hundreds of thousands so really quite a huge fluctuation when it come when it comes to the witnesses themselves every day so looking at those numbers you see a big difference by candidates in terms of who is being discussed online but when you look at t.v. mostly the same viewership numbers day to day so how do we explain those differences i mean each witness kind of brought to the table their own quality their own reason to kind of bring users in you know 11 aspect might be that you had a very personal and heartbreaking story where this professional who is has years of service was yanked from her post without real cause and then dragged through the

mud by some of legibly by some of trump's associates where which which you know audiences really saw as quite unfair or might have been able to relate to her but on the other side people spinning more right wing ideas were seeing her as not credible because because she was young so early for was ition actually wasn't around for any 1st to be a 1st witness 1st hand eyewitness to anything that trump or his associates might have done in ukraine. and then we see elsewhere like for example zaandam people were very interested in clothes trump ally who is the one that said quote yes there was a quid pro quo and then later said well maybe there wasn't and that was that was taken as each side wanted wanted to see it of course viewership numbers aside social media numbers aside what really matters in the end is if the american public is informed do you think that happened i mean i think you know as well as i do that social media is not exactly a place where where truth lives it's where lies

a conspiracy theories and preconceived notions are are fed and spread quite wildly we see of course strong leanings towards the left and towards the right we see this in polls where most. people already have made up their minds and they're seeing they're seeing these impeachment proceedings through the prism that they want to see that said one point thing is of course the left is cherry picking like the right is but the left is cherry picking within the lines of the current narrative and the right as we've seen by all these witnesses is spinning our complete counter narrative a complete alternate narrative of what intelligence officials are saying are lies missing and information from russia w.'s william no group off thank you. germany has recently marked the 30th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall much of the actual wall was destroyed in 1909 but pieces of it are still being found all of the world including down under there's more. how

to cut off loosely translated everyone is powerful 30 years ago people power helped bring down the building wall and these piece of it ended up in sydney but few decades it sat forgotten in a warehouse the german businessmen who rented space for it he disappeared leaving his 3 ton memento behind warehouse manager raymond couldn't track him down old find anyone else who wanted to take it. but you know i just had a very simple stipulation you can have it free of charge just type of transport yeah people seem interested i can see. here there but then when it came to it just no one seemed to be interested in going through and taking it but earlier this year a new i know was found online a logistics firm with german times then the move the war for free to its new home in a park outside the sydney office of the german cultural logon eyes ation go to institute a reminder now of peace and human rights i think it's the most important is that we

i remember that freedom and human rights and peace they are not for granted so we really have to remember what history and we have to think about like. yeah and ultimately it's the fall of the wall was i mean everyone thought the military would go in but it was a peaceful revolution that brought it out and people have the power the ministry of the walls original or no has also been solved jennifer kubiak recognize the wall in a recent media report she posed in front of it as a child it belonged to her late father peter 30 jennifer says when he died in 2013 so too did the exact story of the wall and why he left it. finally out in the open again the wall stands as a permanent memorial to the end of division half a world away in berlin. well for some people here in the northern hemisphere the

start of winter season means more than just having to face i see whether some hardy muscovites are taking a spin in subzero temperatures and europe's largest rink as the typical eyes drink the unique away outlets zip through a park a listening to music and soaking in a bit of a with a cheap. this is the news live from berlin and up next is shifts and we'll have more news for you at the top of the hour thanks for watching. i'm secure in the volume or that's hard and in the end this is a me you're not allowed to stay here anymore we will send you back. are you familiar with this. new smugglers would lie and say. what's your story.

'd and what numbers and women especially in victims of violence. take part.