this is d.w. news live from berlin pope francis leads christmas eve mass as christians around the world celebrate the birth of jesus after a year that seeing the catholic church rocked by scandals francis uses his address at the vatican to urge christians not to lose faith also coming up protesters face off with police in hong kong after a violent christmas eve clashes between the 2 sides we'll go live to our correspondent for the latest and a wildfire destroys dozens of homes in chile in the forty's evacuated thousands of

people from the city of you so as the blaze spreads through residential areas. i'm married to evanston it's good to have you with us. christians around the world are a celebrating christmas marking the birth of jesus more than 2000 years ago at the vatican pope francis led the midnight mass at st peter's basilica his blessing emphasized forgiveness not just for sinners but for the church itself after a difficult year in which sexual abuse scandals continue to rock the catholic church francis urged christians to keep the faith.

it is a ritual that dates back to the 1st centuries of the catholic church was the midnight mass at some pages is a spiritual gathering there the pope is said to confide the word of god to the faith. of. god it was the. god who by the incarnation brought together the earth and the heavenly realm fill you with the gift of his peace and favor and may you share it with the church in heaven this was. for the pontiff and followers of the catholic faith it has been a trying. scandal has reached the very top of the church in many places. so in his sermon the pope appealed for believers to maintain the faith. may we not wait for our neighbors to be good before we do good to them let us not wait for the church to be perfect before we love her let us begin with us so is and

receive the gift of grace and have. have. have celebrating the belief of the fight for was also one of the themes of the midnight mass in bethlehem. they're pilgrims a boy ship is gathered at the church of the nativity. it's a site where jesus is believed to have been born the service was led by the archbishop of jerusalem in the presence of palestinian president mahmoud abbas in his homily the archbishop appealed for believe is to overcome hatred. to be something to good to overcome to understand those who do not share for income to in peace. it was an appeal for unity and fraternity for the archbishop said he hoped to resign will be on the christian faithful in a region where fights mix and we believe to often causes conflict.

to hong kong now where demonstrators clashed with police on christmas eve the standoff has continued into christmas day with protesters occupying an upscale shopping mall this comes after riot police fired tear gas as a demonstration swept through a major retail district activist blank streets and smashed with windows the anti-government protests in hong kong are now in their 7th month. well for more let's go straight to hong kong now where due to be a correspondent t.v. kong is standing by hello to you phebe so after the clashes last night we're seeing more protests underway today what have you been seeing. to face mock the 200th day off the movement since it seems to movement started from

so many of the protesters they call for another round of demonstrations a shopping mall say gangs today i'm so they started it in the afternoon in hong kong local time they chant the socan say they have a small scale a mosque. inside the shopping centers across the city but then 9 shortly the senate intel little chaos because some of the riot police say they entered the shopping centers and they have precious with some of the protesters and the shoppers as well so police are ready if you floyd pepper spray to some of the demonstrators and some others people are standing on the street so where i'm standing right now i'm standing me up by one of the b.b.c.'s shopping this just in hong kong so there's a big shopping mall on my back and but the houses are also police vans apart talking me up by and it's heavy caught up by riot police officers at the entrance so the atmosphere here is definitely very intense in contrast what was supposed to

be a festive season on today on the christmas day. you say that riot police have been using pepper spray against demonstrators to day last night there was tear gas used now this is the 1st time that riot police used tear gas in about a month it seemed like there was a period of relative calm so is all of this showing that there is a new escalation underway. here tear gas has returned to the streets of hong kong so many of the chaotic scenes which many of us familiar with it's now like back to hong kong and as you said the situation in hong kong has been calm for our few weeks in recent weeks after the local elections where the pro-democracy cammo one us are sweeping factory in that election and other reason is that many of the radical protesters were arrested over

the past 2 weeks so the the the demonstrations has been calmed down a little bit but recent days has says they are outraged again because the police crackdown on the one of the largest crowd funding platforms among the poll. has that so there now that's to some of the members of that fundraiser and they're seeking to freeze across some of the $9000000.00 us dollars off the donations so this pretty trick the ngo off the post has to so and also for you to prose has throughout the. christmas holidays. kong bringing us up to date on developments in hong kong we thank you very much. all right let's get a check now of some of the other stories making news around the world thousands of people in bangalore in southern india have held a candlelight vigil to protest a controversial citizenship law the legislation speeds up indian citizenship for

people from several asian countries but not if they're muslim india's government rejects accusations that the law is discriminatory. over $100.00 families have been left homeless in the central philippines after a typhoon found phone battered the island with heavy rains and destructive winds thousands more have been forced to evacuate their homes spending christmas day in shelters. a wildfire in the chilean city of el potties so has damaged or destroyed more than $100.00 homes several districts in the western part of the city had to be evacuated is not known what triggered the blaze but hot temperatures and strong winds helped the flames to spread. fleeing the flames with pets. and household possessions. the fire started in the woody hilly area on valspar esau's outskirts and quickly spread. it

consumed dozens of homes in its path. under huge boulder thick black smoke rose above the city. as the flames crept closer residents tried in vain to stop them advancing. annoyed with it but i feel powerless because all the houses are burning and now the fire is coming here extra fire fighting reinforcements had to be called in to help local residents joined in the effort to douse the flames as well as move any timber and wooden walling that mike turned out of the way. wildfires are not unusual in chile this year is very warm weather helped the flames to spread but this was fire came as about power you so celebrated christmas eve and also as chile is steeped in political crisis after months of antigovernment protests. now to syria where there

is no end in sight to the misery inflicted on civilians in the besieged province of lib the last major rebel stronghold russian airstrikes supporting the assad regime killed at least 8 people 5 of them children who were sheltering in a school house the united nations is warning of a humanitarian catastrophe. multitool now i'm in egypt has become a ghost town people living here have fled the government offensive against rebels. shabab people are fed up fled to live on the leaf trees this is a vegetable market there's no one here i haven't seen anyone other than journalists taking pictures of me and. most of those fleeing are heading north towards the turkish border. and they did not we run away from the rockets out of the barrel and explosive shells. we were asking for allows mercy and for the united

nations to see what happened to us because of bashar al assad and the russian army . they are killing us. with heavy shelling. and a strikes. syrian troops have been pushing into it live. and identified syrian criminal saved the offensive is to clear the province of terrorism. they do have saw i left the syrian army cares about civilians lives what that. the military calls upon them to leave the areas where the terrorists are. that should go to the areas under the control of the syrian army it's come to save them from terrorists and terrorism and i've been with more than $40000.00 people have been displaced by the time in sindh recent weeks. while

christmas is a holiday celebrated around the world and depending where you are people mark this season and all sorts of different ways the w. reporter and children is here in the studio with me for a look at some of the more colorful christmas traditions hello to you erin so what have you got well and you know it. tis the season to get a little bit silly and there's no wrong way to celebrate christmas so the 1st video we have is from cocoa beach in florida where hundreds of surfboard riding santas have taken to the waves now it's a charity event that's held on every christmas eve and this year it featured some $600.00 surfing sanna's who hang 10 and raise some $40000.00 for nonprofits this year. all right so surfing santa that looks very nice they have christmas under palm trees where do we go next and when next we're going to mexico and where they're asking the question what does

a radish have to do with christmas if you asked me not a lot i mean it's red and it's white but of course i'm not from mexico where they're celebrating their annual radish christmas festival now the festival features hundreds of art is sculpt teena christmas directions from radishes you know it's a 122 year old tradition that started as a way for farmers to raise a little bit of the festive spirit and also sell more radishes so some festive vegetables sculptures but it is red and why is that but what about the most famous red and white figure of christmas santa claus i mean he death seemed to be popular in many places of the world sure he is but we're in a state in north america right now where the u.s. and canadian militaries are actually getting men on the festive spirit now they're tracking santa as progress or around the world as he delivers presents to good little boys and girls i know my kids are very interested in that oh i'm sure they would be actually if this is one of my favorite traditions growing up and basically what we're talking about is norad which is the american in north american nuclear

commandos in each year they track the progress of santa as he's traveling around the world now. the information is then published online and also on t.v. and radio and i believe we have some video of there there as we're seeing right now they have hundreds of people actually on hand to answer phone calls from children in north america as to where santa is actually around the world now this actually has one of the best traditions or one of the best modern stories for why it developed started back in 1900 $55.00 and you have to imagine we're in the height of the cold war and america's secret nuclear bunker and the phone rings on the other end it's not actually the president's not the joint chiefs of staff it's a little girl actually looking for santa claus and you know the nuclear commandos they decided to play along they pretended they were santa is else and let her know where santa was currently in since then it's become. massive tradition you know i grew up with this and i actually have to say it's one i think it's one of the best traditions when it comes to christmas and really expresses that christmas spirit and you get to find out how far away santa is from your home indeed. thank you so

very much indeed thank you you're up to date on d. w. news up next in the business but even here in plain american edelstein and to all our viewers celebrating today we wish you a merry christmas. and could be pretty. never defeated in the. church or your backyard or for them.