this is news coming to you live from the u.s. presidential candidates square off from a distance that separate televised events joe biden and donald trump revealed their very different views on issues from the pandemic to racial justice. also coming up the european commission she. leaves the e.u. summit in brussels and goes into self isolation after a staff member attests calls for corona virus it comes as covert cases surged across the ball. i.

5 government ban on demonstrations pro-democracy protesters rally again pressing for reforms to the government and the monarchy. follow up terry martin good to have you with us u.s. president donald trump and his democratic challenger joe biden have been answering questions from voters at separate televised events held at the same time but on different channels the t.v. town hall meeting says they are known replaced the 2nd presidential debate which was canceled after trump was diagnosed with copd 19 and then refused to conduct the debate online as we report the 2 rivals showed they have very different approaches in both style and substance. always confident at times defensive

as the incumbent u.s. president donald trump now has a record to pick apart and he got a grilling starting out with the nation's biggest crisis a coronavirus. i knew it was a big threat at the same time i don't want to panic this country i don't want to go out and say everybody is going to die everybody is going to air it over after you know how it misleading but you can't you know no there's not a little bit and more contentious exchanges as trump made exaggerated claims about voter fraud and deflected criticism over his tax returns and his position on white supremacy rush into it you've done this why is everybody seem like i do it's white supremacy if you don't see that as a white supremacy for years my position at the same time on a different channel a different tone chimes challenger joe biden offered a forceful rebuke trumps pandemic response is the president's responsibility to lead and he didn't do that he didn't talk about what needed to be done because he

kept worrying in my view about the stock market we make up 4 percent of the world's population we have 20 percent of the world's deaths were in a situation where we have $210.00 plus 1000 people dead and what's he doing nothing he still would not worry mask and so on because at times biden leander did but he did deliver clear punch lines on a number of issues including foreign policy if they will and before the election you are open greeba most effective as a world leader in my humble opinion not just by the exercise of our power most powerful nation in the world but the power of our example that's what's led the rest of the world to follow us calling factor trading blows remotely the 2 candidates will again face off at the final election debate next week about making . our washington correspondent of our solve it head what i each of benton joins us now all of it what stood out for you in these parallel the parents of. it

was a lot more sophisticated terry than the 1st presidential debate and it seemed like this new format the town hall works better for joe biden so trump in turn has he made a lot of false claims during this conversation. and the host there at the network that broadcast this town hall n.b.c. challenge president trump grilled him essentially over a variety of questions and topics and simply did he did not look good defending himself he did no good debating certain points he didn't want to remember or didn't know certain details so biden in turn had a rather solid appearance then come across a lot more presidential as someone who is really willing and able also to heal the nation that is very divided right now of course and he was able to deliver his points much better. during the 1st debate that ended in chaos but the original plan

all over was for the 2 candidates to have another face to face debate how did things end this way. well 1st of all as you remember president trump tested positive on covert 90 in and then the pres commission on presidential debates that's usually in charge of organizing these debates then decided to hold a virtual debate so both candidates in different locations in order to avoid the risk or to reduce the risk of infection now president trump backed out saying he was not willing to participate at a virtual debate then the debate was canceled and then the biden campaign moved forward scheduling this town hall event it was just one day earlier so on wednesday that president trump and n.b.c. the network decided or a nonce they would hold a dueling events just at the same time and of course both receiving lots of

criticism for that move because again it left the voters here in limbo they had to decide if they either wanted to see president trump or joe biden offer thanks very much the w.'s all or some of it there in washington. it's just more analysis now peter from our us elections teams with this good morning to morning so what have we learned from all of this well i think if anything this as really illustrated you know how deep the division america is it does feel sometimes like this election is felt like you know parents going through a really ugly divorce and now they're you know arguing over who's the worst parent and who gets to keep their kids in front of their children i mean this essentially what this is felt like a lot you know there's a complete absence of willingness to even engage in a meaningful in civilized dialogue with the other side and i think having these 2 parallel dueling debates really i think a discourse that you know i will say though before the debate there was obviously

a lot of criticism of especially n.b.c.'s decision to run the debate at the same time that we saw the the biden debate but i think a lot of that christmas justified it also felt like. in a sense worked a bit like a microscope it really magnified the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate bitin felt calm empathetic mostly self with facts he was a bit meandering even a bit rambling at times but you know for those longing for you know the old school type of politics you know pretty trump i think they will probably left feeling a bit warm and fuzzy after seeing this trump at the same time also really show why his supporters love him i mean he's testy he fights back he may have a loose relationship with truth but you know he's a master of making everything happen on his terms the problem with that is just to get to the final point though is to you know

a lot of americans won't have the chance to look through that proverbial microscope they don't have the time they're busy worrying about the economy their business warn about how to put their kids through school how to stay safe during a pandemic where nearly 8000000 americans have been affected 220000 almost have been killed. and so this town hall felt you know supposed to be the essence of democratic debate in a really felt undemocratic in the sense that it was a disservice to the american voter i think do you think these appearances were debates even matter in this particular election given the large number of early voters and the small number of undecided voters yeah historically debates have been when most americans really start paying attention to the election mentioned there were we're seeing huge numbers of early voting. quiney 1000000 is a number of yeah i think 2718 it's in the high double digits and

so. you know at the same time we're seeing fairly low levels of undecided voters so it's suggest that after 4 years of trying to get a lot of americans have made up their minds how they feel about him the reality is also though i mean think back to 2016 the election is not decided by the popular vote it really comes down to college the 270 votes that you need to get there and specially we're looking at about 8 key swing states by this leading in almost all of them he has a double digit lead nationally and he's leading among every demographic group. peter thanks so much people for us elections to thank you. second look at some of the other stories making headlines around the world today u.s. social media platform twitter says it's investigating a global outage the company says it has no evidence of a security breach or a hack and it's working to get the service up and running again. human rights watch says russian and syrian air strikes on syria's rebel held city of last year may

constitute crimes against humanity the global rights group has released a report that looks into dozens of what it said were unlawful strikes on civilian targets over a period of 12 months it says the strikes were deliberate. israel's parliament the knesset has ratified the u.s. brokered agreement establishing relations with the united arab emirates prime minister benjamin netanyahu said the deal moved israel closer to peace agreements with other countries in the middle east 80 lawmakers supported the measure with 13 against. europe scrambling to bring a resurgence of the coronavirus under control as infections reach levels not seen since the beginning of the pandemic now some of that is due to more testing then back then but it's clear the virus remains a serious threat even at the highest levels of european politics were disrupted the 1st days of the e.u.

leaders summit. we may never find out what prompted angela merkel to make this gesture when talking to french president in man women across mosques make it impossible to read lips but it's not only the modest that are a reminder that their coronaviruses casting a shadow at this meeting in brussels you commission chief fund a line left the talks early one of her staffers tested positive for covert 19 and found a lie and chose to self isolate a supreme caution so she was no longer present when the leaders discussed how to better coordinate their pandemic response to the question of how we can get out of this pandemic is of course on all of our own minds most of the time the health of a great many people hinges on this question it will determine how many must die in our economic future. e.u. leaders also talked about the props climate goals for now they fail to agree on

a more ambitious emission reduction targets when it comes to post breck's it relations with the u k e o leaders speak with one voice for them it's clear that the e.u. and the u.k. must compromise we are determined to reach a deal through the u.k. . we will do everything we can. but not at any price the u.k. says it's disappointed with the outcome so once more your leaders concluded a summit day without getting much closer to a trade deal. thailand's prime minister. says he will not resign despite calls from tens of thousands of pro-democracy activists for him to stand down the demonstrators the fire the government ban on gatherings to take their grievances to the streets on thursday they're expected to turn out again today to calling for changes to the constitution and an overhaul of the monarchy.

i in defiance of an emergency decree tens of thousands of demonstrators packed the streets of central bangkok there demand a democratic thailand complete with a new election and a new constitution but the government is focused on quelling protest banning groups of more than 5 so far that hasn't worked. out this is what sparked the ban in an unprecedented move on wednesday protesters crowded around the royal motorcade while raising the 3 finger gesture of defiance just a month ago this act would have been unthinkable in thailand you can face up to 15 years in jail for insulting the monarchy. scuffles between protesters and police also broke out and phone the prime minister's office prior to nocera took power doing a military coup now the people want him gone it took over the power over 6 years you know it's not really fair if you're talking about like the provos everything

you know or your lectures there is no forever in the beginning so far for me you know it's about that are we we need to show the power that we will not it's an hour oh no we cannot take it anymore i want to my body my freezer i want to pipe up my fridge i want to buy pot i can operate in my country. not me in my briefing. but it's not just democracy they want many young thais also want to see reforms of the monarchy because hope that the student led rallies will bring new rights and freedoms to a generation desperate for change. italy's sports minister has said that costello rinaldo who tested positive for corona virus in portugal this week may have broken italian health protocol portuguese international travel to his home country even though his team event is was isolating after 2 staff members tested positive for 19. eventis president said he had all of the rules and all

the has since returned to italy on a private jet where he's at home. you're watching news from berlin coming up next it's business news with kris kobach martin thanks watch. heats up session for spectacular pictures. it's their passion for nature. it's their complete devotion that makes the wildlife photographer in the world. this amazing and. confrontational and story. 5 adventures. one goal.