freedom of speech and freedom of press. giving freedom for global news that matters. made for minds. this is the line from the u.s.s. truxtun iraq provoked angry reactions in baghdad an attack from american warplanes are targets for a long run supported militia that works closely with iraqi forces could these retaliatory raids provoke more violence will bring your analysis from washington also on the program of thousands are told to leave their homes as flames close in

on australia's 2nd largest city lightning strikes and extreme heat a big night in more than a dozen fires emergency services are struggling to contain blazes. libya's embattled government could soon receive military help from turkey is lining up support to send troops into the north into the north african countries that are warnings of such a move could further stabilize the region. and 3 years in prison for the scientist who claims to have created the world's 1st genetically edited babies caught in china accuses the professor of disrupting the medical. to the program. ron have condemned u.s.

airstrikes against an iraqi militia supported by iran iran says the strikes violated sovereignty and that it will not review relations with washington u.s. forces hit 5 targets belonging to a group called hezbollah as retaliation for a rocket attack that killed a u.s. civilian contractor at an american base. this has been a base near the border between iraq and syria was one of 5 targets of u.s. fighter jets they destroyed the iran backed militias weapon caches and command and control centers in iraq and syria the strikes are brutality ation for friday's killing of a u.s. civilian contractor near the northern iraqi city of kirkuk. iran's foreign minister condemned the u.s. airstrikes during a visit to moscow he said the targeted qatar you've hezbollah was part of an alliance against the so-called islamic state terror group officially the iran backed militia is under the command of the iraqi army. but hello from because at

the recent actions by americans in iraq are unacceptable while the u.s. does this iran and russia are making efforts to establish peace both in syria and in iraq i mean it will check it but the u.s. defense secretary views the operation as a success and hopes to discourage further attacks and i would note also that we will take additional actions as necessary to ensure that we act in self-defense and we deter further bad behavior from militia groups or from. u.s. soldiers and pro iranian fighters are in close proximity and politically unstable iraq. there are reported to be about 150000 pro iranian militiamen in iraq while the us has about 5000 soldiers deployed in the country. the iraqi prime minister has warned that a dangerous escalation could follow the most recent reprisal. militia has vowed to

retaliate. straight to washington then we'll rejoin the job of washington bureau chief alexander welcome. so how is this u.s. strike likely then to affect the regional security. well 1st of all i think we have to say that a u.s. response to an attack that killed americans it's not unusual however. sunday it's retaliation involves direct strikes on the iranian proxies and that makes it very dangerous grounds we just saw it in the reports that the situation in iraq is very on stable there are many different for iranian forces operating there and they seem to be trying to take advantage of this unstable situation and they have increased their attacks on you as forces in iraq so i asked state department official if they are not concerned concerned that the earth strikes can leave

or escalation and they told me that the u.s. is not looking for any conflict but that it was necessary and important to conduct those strikes to protect you as personnel and they want to send a clear message to the iranian regime and one official told me that he thinks that the iranian regime understands the message so we know that the uber has received financial and military support from iran what's iran suspected of doing in iraq. so from the you ass perspective iran is using its proxies in iraq to expand or contract to continue its milan activities the trump administration puts the trump administration has accused iran of trying to destabilize iraq of supporting terrorist groups there

and what is clear is that iran is seeing itself as the middle east's new superpower that is trying to expand its footprint across the region i mean while foreign ministers from iran and russia met in moscow on monday for talks on iraq's internal conflict what do we know of those discussions well here again we have to keep in mind that russia views in self as a polar full player in the region and that it wants to have a say in what is happening there russia just a few days ago conducted joint military drills with iran and china and now those talks in the most co of those ministers appearance to have talked about the situation in iraq as you said also about the iranian nuclear deal that the u.s.

has withdrawn from and russia has condemned you as strikes in iraq as saying they were unacceptable and counterproductive i also talked to a 2 state department official officials about those talks in moscow and they told me that they would expect any nation to try to isolate iran not to support the regime in tehran because any support of the regime is against the iranian people. to feel normal in washington thank you. now to australia where 100000 people have been told to leave melbourne's suburbs as the new heat wave ignites more bushfires this time in the state of victoria volunteer firefighter was killed battling a separate fire in the countryside the victim of the blazes that began in new south wales the fires have led to the cancellation of hundreds of new year's fireworks displays. if there's one thing that's considered

a given at the end of each year it's the images from around the world of flashy new year's celebrations. and there's pride in being the ones to kick off the annual event. and you know our new save the world looks at city every single year and i look at our vibrancy if i look at our passion i look at our success. but for the last 3 months australia has been battling some of the worst bushfires in decades the blazes are predicted to peak on new year's eve. despite the grim forecast the city of sydney confirmed on monday it would go ahead with this year's fireworks show as planned but remember a time when we've had total fall bans in place in the greater sunni region where we haven't been i would accommodate the risk elements for conducting the new year's a far worse in the in the sydney harbor area particularly we just thought now level of of coverage to ensure a safe and effective new year's eve function the announcement that sydney's

fireworks display would still take place despite the bushfires has sparked outrage a quarter of a 1000000 people signed a petition to scrap the celebration plans. i think they should spend up to speed this is here this is all happening but this is the 1st time. that it's been like this in sydney it's not going to be like the next 2 years so you know what does labor day here and do it again next year well bickering over sydney's fireworks continues volunteer firefighters are battling the blaze with little success. journalist raja main audience sydney has been telling us more about the debate around whether the city's world famous new year's fireworks display should take place well there's little or to it. because you know it's not really a good look at a lot smoke it's been playing a lot of new south worlds and sitting alone. but at the same time the full works

display also. a key major tourist event for australia a 1000000 people real the 4 shorts if you know what to watch that was the flower. themselves and also the forwards are seen by an estimated 1000000000 until it isn't around the world is a very very important occasion you know the same time little people feel that it's insensitive these fireworks at the moment and you know even the deputy premier. tweeted today that the we shouldn't take the risk that these fires fireworks this flow is displayed should simply be cancelled on the structure of may not in sydney a german is also debating what it's about new year's eve fireworks buying them is allowed for 3 days following the christmas holidays and cities around the country met up with pyrotechnics on the big nights critics argue they cause serious

injuries and air pollution and harm wildlife the berlin night sky lit up by cascades of fireworks over the brandenburg gate the new year's eve display has drawn legions of locals and visitors for decades some wonder if fireworks are still appropriate but many want to keep their tradition. this is if they say we have to wait until 10 pm that might help a lot but if they limit or ban the whole thing that's wrong. that's finished and he said mr thought i don't think the environmental harm is severe enough to ban the fireworks from force it's terrible i don't care if i can't see the stars i'd rather look at the sky some other day when there is no fireworks so i'm against the ban. fireworks in germany are big business at new years 100000000 euros worth. some people like these fireworks fans near cologne are so passionate about them that

they camp out the night before to make sure they can buy the biggest and the best but this year in germany over 30 cities have placed either a partial or a total ban on new year's fireworks. health experts warn that fire crackers and rockets release over 4500 tonnes of fine particle emissions on a single night. fine particles are extremely harmful to the lungs especially for small children and people with lung problems asthma patients and the elderly they can experience acute shortness of breath. but for the foreseeable future fireworks will continue to pollute the air while they dazzle the eyes it's no use holding one's breath until eco friendly rockets and firecrackers are available. all right let's take a look now at some of the other stories making news around the world a islamist militant group al-shabaab says it was responsible for a deadly bombing in the somali capital mogadishu at least 90 people were killed in

the explosion at a busy intersection authorities believe the attackers were helped by as yet unnamed country. a court in sudan has sentenced 27 members of the country's national intelligence services to death for torturing them. the protest this year it's the 1st time sudanese court has 100 down convictions related to the crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators this year. the family of the man accused of stabbing 5 people in a rabbi's home in new york say he has a long history of mental illness in a statement issued by their lawyer grafton thomas' family also maintains he had not expressed any anti-semitism. the turkish government is rushing a bill through parliament that would approve the deployment of troops to libya turkish foreign minister. match with the opposition to discuss the legislation

which is expected to pass without difficulty the government says it is answering every quest for military assistance from libya's un recognized government in tripoli libya pro-government forces seen here are struggling to fend off an offensive from rival forces in the east of the country led by a militia leader khalifa haftar. is going to correspondent dorian jones in a stumble welcome dorian what's behind this turkish move. well turkish president type herd one says turkey has in a store called a link with libya given it was part of turkey's then ottoman empire and president one says that they are committed to supporting the internationally recognized libyan government of national of called and that government is feeling face for the prospect of being overrun by forces of fatah and turkey says they are committed to

prevent that from happening but there is also a strategic interest in support of this government because in november chris sign an agreement with the government government of national called they gave it control of a large swathe of the eastern mediterranean a part of an area that is being contested by several countries in a competition to find hydrocarbons and that area is also seen as key to any future pipelines from already discovered gas fields in eastern mediterranean so turkey's intervention is many ways is seen as securing a key strategic interests and so how would a turkish deployment affect this conflict in libya. well there is a growing concern at the prospect of any major deployment by turkey all of turkey's opposition parties are opposed to such a move saying that turkey risk getting called in talk one could even escalate the conflict and that is a concern being voiced by many regional countries saying that any significant deployment by turkish forces in support of the government government of national

called could see reciprocation all countries supporting. forces notably moscow if it already has deployed russian mercenaries there egypt is also wanted he could possibly step up its intervention if turkey intervenes and the fear is that turkey's intervention could spark a major escalation and broadening of the conflict among critics dismissing those concerns saying it's within its rights to support the internationally recognized government and it's promising that it will not step back and next month's meeting between earth one and the russian president vladimir putin is expected to see the future of libya being discussed and that could be key to turning turkey's final decision on whether deploys or not into libya thank you for that dorian jones and istanbul. to china where a quarter is jailed the scientists who claim to have god created the world's 1st gene edited babies to weather research is involved in the project received lesser sentences and fines last year who jan quite shocked the international science

community by announcing he had used gene editing technology to alter the genes of 3 babies in claims of manipulating their data to stop them from contracting hiv the move was widely condemned in china and around the world. we get more on this from 5 in schmidt from d.w. science department welcome. what was the principal objection to who john. work. basically the point is is that he intervened in the what's called. the basically it's a genetic make up of the babies and he he did to kind of. design a baby creation and that is something that is considered an absolute no no and among bio physicists and medics and so on because it basically what open a pandora's box full of designing your baby was genetic engineering and you never

know what's going to come out of it also one has to consider that the genetic changes that one does in these embryos and these babies and these later adult humans will be passed on to future generations so as i understand it he was trying to make these children immune to hiv did he actually achieve that. there is some question about it there was a study published since then in summer that actually said that it's not certain that these kids are now all these once they are adults that they will actually be immune to age. is immune to each of the one also has to understand that nowadays with and to retroviral medicine it is possible to actually prove and children born to parents who had h i.v. from actually contracting hiv so the point is are other medical ways around it so.

basically interfering was the. genetic makeup as most of the interesting thing now we are where we are is that he has undertaken this unethical and banned research what are scientists and do with it do they look at the at this what do they try and build on it or do they just leave it alone. oh i think that basically it's a question of what the chinese are going to do with it they want to i think get out of the headlines as soon as possible with this story they're probably going to look at housing these. people these children develop over time there was some research suggesting that they have a lesser life expectancies then than they would otherwise have but this is based on. on basically a producer epidemiology call studies on the basis of data of british. patients 400000 british patients and they looked at who had these kind of genetic

defect differences and what that means now if one doesn't really know how healthy these people will be in the long run but obviously the sentencing of says by a physicist what he is. means that the chinese authorities are interested in getting out of the headlines as soon as possible i don't think that we're going to see more research being done or much more research being done in this case we're talking to thank you for joining us adventure yet from the w science. an ambitious project to preserve the memory of holocaust victims has reached a milestone saltbush dyna german for stumbling stones in place all over europe the newest brass plaques in the southern german town of miming bring their number to 75000 so far. house number 11 was home to the jewish married couple the rosenbaum's until it was seized by the nazis in 1038. fled with her husband to

live in exile he later committed suicide the family's fate was long forgotten now to stop a diner or stumbling stones have been laid in their memory the latest installation brings the number of stopper steiner to $75000.00 the projects founder going to deming laid the stone sim self each marker is crafted by hand they are now found in $26.00 countries visible reminders of the crimes of the nazi regime and the families and everything else that took place that never stops being shocking things that happened which are just unbelievable. but the project is not without controversy in munich the city council chose a different type of memorial in response to criticism. here. here in munich some of the names have been deliberately smeared with dirt and dog feces. and that's why we decided to place the memorials and eye level.

but munich is an exception for many people the stumbling stones are a suitable form of memorial. they were jewish neighbors as well we need to memorialize them that is where they lived in the heart of our community. then miming in an independent association cast for the still push time keeping the memory of these tragedies alive so something like this never happens again. there she is behind me probably the most recognizable prime minister new zealand has ever howard but a new campaign urging kiwis to turn the page on just. she should be spending more time on issues and less on photo shoots debates a spillover from social media to the magazine island. welcome call where's all this criticism coming from well i mean she's 39 years old not even 40 yet she's been in office a couple of years but really just in our journey is the face of new zealand and her

face has been on all over the media recently we're talking dozens of magazines international t.v. appearances there are a couple of biographies now actually already about her some new zealanders say they are fed up with all the media coverage and they've started a campaign against the prime minister it is called turn our dern involves just that's turning our dern you see it here books magazines with her face on the cover people are flipping them over one person here saying on twitter i just did my 1st turn are done at a local supermarket i wasn't going to but there she was all teeth and tinsel on the front of yet another women's magazine. this started as a relatively small movement fill mostly people kind of fed up saying get back to work stop posing for all these photo shoots it's generating a very passionate discussion there in new zealand. and so one of the prime minister's supporters say she has many supporters and many of them love her stance on women's rights she was one of the few leaders to actually give birth in office

she has a strong environmental credentials people love the way that she handled as well the mosque shootings and in christchurch they've launched a counter campaign its numbers are actually much bigger phil and it is called return our journey you see what they're doing they're they're doing the opposite they're flipping those covers back the right way around you see here those magazines coming back around and one of their arguments is that the anti are durn campaign it's sexist one person here saying just imagine what superhuman effort it would take to turn around all those trump or puton magazines and interest them on the cover but their main argument is a you know a leader is capable of doing 2 things at once just send our dern can quote run the country and pose for a couple of photos because presumably this this company and that there is no. they're not actually saying she's doing a bad job well that's hard to say i mean of course she has her supporters and her detractors if you look at the polling numbers you can get a sense maybe of how she and her party are doing in new zealand what people would

voters think about them and that's been a bit of a roller coaster so when her party and our journey took office in 2017 they were actually behind their rival national party you see the numbers there this summer though a huge climb labor way ahead in the polls 51 to 37 a big surge but this winter in november tanking back to its lowest polling number since 27 teen her critics say the economy in new zealand is slowing her party has failed to deal with the sexual assault scandal within within its own ranks her personal rating also taking a bit of a dip but still just by far and away the most popular candidate for prime minister that the country has so looking ahead to the election 2020 she may return or she may be turned out of office while the election. on to sports and germany's ponders legal training for the 2nd half of the season has begun before has a bad there and a recently appointed coach you can klinsmann wants

a few days head start before sign lease for its training camp in florida on thursday there's talk of a number of changes to the team with possible new signings and departures host to byron munich on the 19th of january. australia has won the hobart yacht race the world's most grueling ocean challenge the boat set off from sydney harbor covered almost 630 inaudible miles around 1200 kilometers down australia's east coast obasi on the island of tasmania it's about to come to the coast in just over 2 days but also one back in $27.00 c. . officials in indonesia have captured a crocodile believed to have eaten local residents of subtle ways the province of 5 metre long reptile this sort of killed 2 villages on the riverbank wildlife experts a bloody changing weather patterns and humans from moving into the reptiles natural habitat. the move was secured with net sags big move to

a conservation center. and i was reminded of our top story at this hour u.s. airstrikes in iraq and for that i think the main reactions in baghdad and around american warplanes hit targets belonging to iran supported militia the works closely with iraqi forces. and 100000 people have been urged to flee new suburbs in melbourne so close in on australia's 2nd largest city but try but travelers further east in the state of victoria have been told it's not too dangerous to meet. a coming up next year on a d.w.i. look at the big picture global 3000 i'll be back at the top of the hour i'm good.

oh. the world is getting more soon. force catastrophe a lot of problems. the global 3000 talks with a team of british researchers who take a more optimistic view. while it is not always a good question but it's much much better than it was

a hot guess the world really getting better. global 3000 next on d w. a i. think. and knocked me out. to me. called the promise. never to defeated me past the past apart from. the them. if. you come back down to the dark for. a for.

a minute the whole. conflict in the public perception africa is now assuming the position to which i was always entitled. to their views of it is that we don't. have. something to say. welcome to global street sounds and this week's program highlights the sunny side of life it's nice and encouraging we set out to reveal the.