the as. this is the deal when you slide from berlin croatia's opposition candidate leads his country's a presidential race preliminary results show you left wing former prime minister zoran milanovic winning the 1st round of voting but a with a runoff ahead all eyes are on the 2 right wing candidates behind the 2nd place also coming up australia's prime minister is forced to apologize for vacationing in hawaii while devolves to areas of his country but thousands of firefighters

struggle to contain catastrophic blazes across several states. and afghanistan's president ashraf ghani appears to have been reelected by a narrow margin in the home delayed results from september's election but his rival loved all i do know ones he won't concede our correspondent has the details. on how in a home 3 glad you could join me polls have closed in croatia's presidential election in preliminary results show a tight race between 3 candidates now none of them look like they will gain an overall majority so the top 2 will be heading into a runoff just that country assumes an important international responsibility. it's an election that's being watched closely in european capitals. is due to take

over the e.u. council presidency on january 1st so the women will have a role in setting the tone in brussels for the next 6 months it's been a close 3 way race the incumbent conservative kaliningrad bachata which looks to be travelling slightly after losing support during the campaign result shows social democrats are on milan of each piece to put ahead of her and nationalist miroslav she choro is a close to has elsewhere in europe immigration has been a big issue in the camp i sure has promised to dispatch the army to protect crisis border as the leftist milan of rich says he disagrees crisis prime minister has also got involved in the election if. loses it will be huge blood to him and to a successful crisis in a presidency said the prime minister has been out on the hustings on behalf of his fellow conservatives. we have confidence in the wise judgment of the croatian

people and the electorate we believe president grab our qatar of which will win a majority of the votes. but instead could tear of each is facing a tough battle to win re-election early results show the country looks headed for a runoff on january 5th it. before i'm joined by john this fight has a profound he's monitoring the vote from neighboring city had joined us from beyond the now the results indicate that the incumbent president is in 2nd place behind social democrat and innovates why did so many croatians decide to punish the conservative government. well there are a lot of reasons for that 1st and foremost the economy is fairly slow except in a very few sectors sectors like for example the tourism. economy is doing badly and is doing so since a long time which results also in a relatively high unemployment rate hand in hand with that goes

a dramatic brain drain a lot of people leave the country it's mostly the young and felt educated to leave the country you have in some areas of the country and i can eastern slow on your entire villages that have been deserted in the last in the last years and dead or to a certain mood in the country that the creation government they're willing each he said controls the public life since a long time in this country could have done much more in terms of the needs of the people it also you have a widespread unhappiness for example with the health sector a very lot of hospitals in the country that don't have enough budget to pay their staff or by even the most necessary medicaments any indication he might win that 2nd round of voting come january. that is very hard to say of course ex-pro ministers are in milan which from the social democrats he managed to

to move allies the left wing specter political specter in creation but gravity terror which an incoming president is not too far away from him and not to forget the 3rd candidate he nearest rushmore oh he's an extreme hard right wing nationalist and him dead let kalinda gravity perry which also to conduct a complaint it was very much right wing leaning with a lot of nationalist topics she brought into her campaign and turner she might collect quite some votes from and from him in the 2nd round so it's an quite open race i would say she probably might be the next president elect again but that will cast a shadow on her presidency being elected with the votes of the extreme right wing well croatia is taking over the council presidency of the european union next year

how could the shifting croatia's politics affect the country's role in the. well it will certainly not affect the presidency directly because in the e.u. presidency usually usually is are dominated by issues that 90 percent of those political topics the presidency just inherits from the previous presidency so there is an agenda the christian government real work on creation president however is a mostly representative function that has no direct influence on the government's agenda also concerning the e.u. presidency but of course it would give a strong signal if krishna is shifting in his public opinion tower's right wing popular isn't even more than it has been so far it is a development they do seem risk with concern not only in brussels or in the rest of the e.u. but also among its neighbors with whom creation has

a lot of unsolved issues for example a lot of unsold borders is journalist fight or do they plough thanks a lot when australia's prime minister scott morrison has been forced to apologize for taking a holiday at the height of the devastating bushfire crisis and merchants he crease are struggling to contain hundreds of blazes around sydney now combination of record temperatures drought and powerful winds is fueling the inferno and at least 9 people have been killed since the fires began but there is now some hope at last of a break in the weather. the air is acrid the dense smoke is causing serious health problems i'm laid waste in the town of lythgoe 80 kilometers west of sydney. dad out of a. lot of. logs lost a lot of about this new. the

firestorm all but wiped the village of balmoral southwest of sydney off the map the flames came so fast that steve harrison had no time to escape. the day before i had actually built myself a small cool down the back. into something. bigger for me to cool and threw it in there for half an hour. saturday was catastrophic sunday. it was cooler and firefighters could make some progress in containing the flames but the crisis is far from over. we've got to keep in mind that we're not expecting any rainfall to mike any meaningful difference for those 4 hours until january january february that's the way to go i was still talking 4 to 6 weeks at best before we start to see a meaningful reprieve in the weather going to him if he. has already been fighting

wildfires for months extreme heat and drought gave this year's fire season an early start. prime minister scott morrison returned from a vacation in hawaii after widespread public criticism earning the nickname smoke for not being present during the country's worst ever fired in the agency he said he was sorry if his absence it caused offense a response many have branded as inadequate you start challenging weeks still lie ahead for the public and the firefighters who are battling not only the flames but also extreme exhaustion. let's take a look now at some the other stories making news around the world the self-styled libyan national army says it seized a ship with takesh crew members and forced it to a libyan port for inspection now the vessel was flying a grenada flag the l n a wants to bring down libya's u.n. backed government in tripoli and rejects a merits. i'm bored

a deal made between that government and turkey. protesters across iraq have taken to the streets to oppose the nomination of education minister who sing as a healey to the post of prime minister now they accuse him of having close ties to iran the previous prime minister resigned last month and a constitutional deadline to find a replacement has already passed. indian prime minister narendra modi has defended a new citizenship rule that critics say discriminates against muslims addressing his supporters in new delhi he said there was no need to worry for muslims born in india or to indian parents at least 23 people have been killed in violent protests against the rule. bad weather conditions of cool state cargo ship to strand off the italian island of sardinia the vessel was on its way to spain when strong winds pushed it against the rocky coastline now rescue workers managed

to evacuate the crew of 12 people and no injuries have been reported so far. well afghan president ashraf ghani appears to be heading for a 2nd term military results released a short while ago show that he won september's election with just over 50 percent now the announcement had been delayed because irregularities and a recount turnout was under 30 percent and a 3rd of the votes cast were declared invalid counties closest rival abdullah abdullah who currently shares power with him as the country's chief executive says he does not accept the result and wants an investigation. well earlier we spoke to journalist and he let a few in kabul then ask him what people are making of the prospect of another 10 for president ashraf ghani i think people are very tired of this election process you know they just wanted to be over it's been through 3 months since the election took place and people have been waiting for results and now we're seeing again that

there are questions of legitimacy were seeing that doctor of the law is refusing to accept the results saying that the clean votes were not counted that fraudulent voter counted those widespread fraud was committed that fraud in the election leaves as much damage as a suicide bombing would so really you know it's not resolving very much because it just seems to be leading to more electoral tension and more political drama for the people that was generous and unity in kabul where hong kong police have broken up a sit in protesting china's treatment of its weak ethnic minority the demonstrators accused beijing of abusing over 1000000 of the weekend muslims held in camps something beijing denies though it is the latest violence and more than 6 months of protests in hong kong. a rally for freedom of speech that ended like this. anger and violence between activists and place.

bottles flies protesters respond furiously to the police action. amidst the scuffles and office appointees gon have demonstrated is. this is what activists are complaining about they say china is threatening the liberties the people of hong kong still have. but i think that basically we're all fighting against it's a totalitarian regime more or we don't want. china. to become this. defeats a bull. stance and. the rally started peacefully in hong kong's financial district hundreds of democracy activists staged a cd and to show support of mainland chinese ethnic wages some will masts with the flag of pro independence activists in the way his program cian jiang on the dice say beijing wants to silence by shin jang and hong kong. they know about the site

called re-education camps where of a 1000000 wages are being kept and they feel something like that could also happen here. i come here today to support their you because they face. to face to. question from their communist government in china after months of protests for more democracy in hong kong some feel on the independence will guarantee they liberties otherwise i wore the sheen jeong of today could be the hong kong of tomorrow. well several 1000 people gathered at berlin's brandenburg gate to mark the start of the jewish holiday of light hanukkah lighting the 1st candle on a 10 meter high menorah was the head of germany's central council of cheers yours of shuster the ceremony cavers the jewish community around the world recognized international holocaust survivors night.

he or she did over news from berlin up next it is world stories reporting on the melting ice in the russian arctic that's releasing dangerous bacteria don't forget you can always get the latest news on our web site that is d w dot com i'm headed home for a c.d.c. . what secrets lie behind. discover new adventures in 360 degree. and explore fascinating world heritage sites. p.w. world heritage 360.