this is d.w. news live from berlin the russian president alexander lukashenko rallies his supporters after a week of protests that followed last weekend's contested election the all thora tarion leader asks regime loyalists to defend the country and its independence but the opposition is keeping up the pressure holding the biggest demonstration yet in the capital minsk also coming up. could a presidential pardon be on the cards for one of america's most high profile leakers of government secrets donald trump says he's weighing up

a reprieve for former intelligence contractor edward snowden. and the informant one racing world champion lewis hamilton has won the spanish from free and broken how schumacher is correct word for career podium finish. on pablo foley s welcome to the program but a recent president alexander lukashenko has rejected calls to hold a new election and says moscow is ready to step in to quote save the country speaking to supporters in minsk go also accused nato of deploying military forces near the country's border the alliance has dismissed stuck claim but says it's closely monitoring the situation opposition protests have been growing in strength since last week's disputed election and they took to the streets in their biggest numbers yet on sunday. opposing demonstrations in the streets of

central minsk. with this man at the heart of both embattled by the russian president alexander lukashenko. dear friends i didn't just call you here to defend me you came here to defend your country your independence your families for the 1st time in a quarter of a century. lucas shankar dressed thousands of loyal supporters on sunday after days of protest put belorussian domestic politics in the international spotlight he accused foreign powers of organizing the opposition against him forever the opposition has all paid off their provocateurs who went into the crowd where are the parents of the children who went to the protest it's criminals who are committing these violent acts against our riot police here and that narrative our kids lucas shankar has ruled the former soviet state since 1904 and after his

disputed reelection victory last week he is determined to stay in power moscow says it's ready to help militarily after the crushing reached out to russian president vladimir putin twice in recent days. but just 2 and a half kilometers away from the main government building in midst an entirely different sentiment as a much larger crowd of tens of thousands poured into or rally at victory park organizers called a march for freedom. to continue we want changes and not just in the political sense we want human life to be valued in our country and that's the main demand the current authorities are in no way of supporting this if they're only making it worse. they say for all of this to happen look as she go has to go they reject official results that say the president won his 6th term with 80 percent of the vote and are demanding a new election and

a new beginning for the people of color. yes. well we can now go to w.'s moscow correspondent and be sure when he's following the developments in better for us hi emily i mean what do you make of the president goes accusations against nato while nato is firmly denied that they're placing troops at the belarusian borders but we have heard from the belarus in the valorization army that they will be holding military drills in the coming days it seems to me that look a shame to wants to turn this internal political crisis into some kind of a geo political conflict that he's kind of inflating it giving it more importance and that's a strategy that we've sort of seen in the past few days as well when he accused the protestors of being controlled from abroad he called them cheap but when you actually look at the protests that we're seeing they don't seem to have anything to do with geopolitics people are demanding regime change and it's important to know

that we don't see any e.u. flags on the streets of cities across bella ruse unlike in ukraine a few years ago when people were kind of demanding closer ties to the e.u. this is really not about that and the belarus in a condom me strongly depends on russia it's an important partner for the country and that will be the case going forward even if there is an office dition government subsidy close ties there live to go spoke to the russian president vladimir putin on saturday and again today sunday so what can we expect from russia in this situation. well it's kind of hard to know at the moment but in recent days up until today russia has been rather quiet about what's going on in its neighboring country today we then had the russian side talking about external

pressure on bella reuss and saying that it would be willing if necessary to provide assistance under an existing military agreement with bella ruse so that could mean either russian troops or peacekeepers but it seems unlikely to me that that will happen at the moment it seems more like this announcement that we've seen from putin today is kind of a warning sign to the west that they shouldn't meddle in what's happening in fellow after all russia sees deleuze as firmly part of its influence as an important kind of buffer zone between russia and nato but the kremlin surely knows that lucas shango has lost legitimacy in the last few days and that even if you stayed he would be kind of a weak leader and that's not in their interest either. one who's keeping a close. to going for reporting from moscow thank you so much.

well edward snowden has been living in exile in russia for the past 7 years after leaking u.s. intelligence documents now u.s. president donald trump says he's considering pardoning the world famous fugitive supporters view snowden as a whistleblower who revealed the extent of u.s. government surveillance but he's charged with violating the u.s. espionage act here's what trungpa to say when he was asked about a potential pardon i mean i'm not that aware of the snowden situation but i'm going to look you know there are many many people it seems to be a split decision that many people think that he should be somehow created differently and other people think he did very bad things and i'm going to take a very good look at it ok i mean i've i've seen people that are very conservative and very liberal in their agree on the same issue they agree both was i'm going to take a look at that very strongly well for more on this let's cross over to our correspondents carla bleicher she's covering the story for us from washington hi carla it's

a big shift from president trump what's behind this move. while on the one hand it's a welcome distraction for president from the whole vote by mail disaster that a stunning 8 at the conversation in recent days and that saw accusations against him that he's trying to sabotage the postal service and its meddling in the election but on the other hand he is falling behind in the hole so this out of the box could also be seen as just throwing ever again throwing everything against the wall and trying to see what sticks so. we've seen plenty of times from president but what an amnesty put pressure on joe biden who always took a tough stance on snowden. yes absolutely that is another reason for president trump to bring this issue up now to make biden look bad after all

snowden was was exposing these far reaching practices of surveillance under the obama administration when biden was vice president for it of course and biden back then was in charge of convincing other countries not to grant snowden asylum so this could be a move to just remind liberal americans who were appalled by the government's actions back then that maybe they don't want to vote for biden after all of course it is that the political campaigns in full swing but what do americans think about edward snowden and his revelations carla. this is where it gets interesting you have as the president mentioned really varying opinions on both sides of the aisle so among people who are in favor of a pardon for snowden are on the one hand liberals like for example press freedom activists who are saying that snowden is a whistleblower and shouldn't have been prosecuted in the 1st place but you also

have conservatives who believe that the obama administration spied on then candidates trump and that snowden might have evidence for that that's why they want him to be able to come back to the u.s. but you also have americans both liberals and conservatives who still view snowden as a traitor for exposure exposing national security secrets and interestingly enough trump used to be among these people back and when these 13 he tweeted that snowden was quote a spy who should be executed. to washington correspondent karl a blogger thanks for all your analysis. well let's take a look at some of the other stories making news around the world somali security forces say they've ended a siege in a beachfront hotel in the capital mogadishu at least 15 people were killed one minute and stagnated

a car bomb outside the elite hotel and gunmen stormed the building taking several hostages islamist group al-shabaab has claimed responsibility for the attack. thousands of protesters have rallied in bangkok to demand political change tensions in thailand have been rising after the arrest of 3 leading pro-democracy activists the demonstrations come after years of political turmoil and failed promises to restore democracy following a 24 team military coup. a professional israeli ice hockey player has raised eyebrows after signing with a polish team that plays for the same city where the auschwitz concentration camp was located. says he'll play in honor of the jews who were murdered there by german nazis during the holocaust. is a city that cannot escape its past even if it wanted to this is where the infamous

auschwitz concentration camp is located and where joining the 2nd world war the nazis murdered well over a 1000000 people most of them jews. and this is ice hockey player at least your shutoffs who says he wants to look to the future the israeli learned his hockey in montreal canada where he grew up he's also the captain of the israeli national team now he's playing for. that's the reason why i'm here is to be so jewish people that even after 75 years that the holocaust happened we can succeed i cross the world and with. time zone in auschwitz him and from poland will cheerfully and obviously i'm disappointed in some criticism but i cannot blame him because every single jewish person lived all across in different ways. one of the critics is american rabbi kohl who wrote on his twitter

page that it's a patrol for share of a top to play for a team located so close to the former concentration camp i knew i was going to make a kind of walking round the world and. it's your motivation for me. i just can't wait so. that season starts on september 8th for when he or she and shem will play at home against visitors cutover it's a shepherd of hopes to make a good impression knowing a lot of eyes will be focused on him and on the city. and formula one motor racing world champion lewis hamilton won the spanish grand prix for the 4th straight year on sunday the result was the british drivers 100 and 56th podium finish breaking a record long held by german racing legend he has schumacher. some of the drivers took a knee on the track before the race to show their support for the black lives matter of movement. and then they were off with world champion lewis hamilton

starting from pole position and his mercedes teammate valtteri bottas also in the front row. and in a masterful performance hamilton managed to hang on to the lead throughout the race on a sweltering afternoon outside boston with very little drama or suspense hamilton cruise to victory 24 seconds ahead of his closest title rival max 1st stop in a red bow tie us finishing 3rd. but that today is a real surprise because we had this problem with the ties. management was. was very very good at this understanding of what happened nothing that would interest me then. it was really they would have to do it today hamilton celebrated his 156th podium finish surpassing the record held by the great michael schumacher.

the win increases his lead in the title race to 37 points ahead of her stop and. you're watching news i'll be back at the top of the next hour and if he can't wait until then you can always find more news and information on all our stories on our web site www dot com or you can follow us on twitter and instagram. sleep. carefully. to the.