this is news coming to you live from the u.s. presidential candidates square off from a distance that's separate televised events joe biden and donald trump reveal their very different views on issues from the pandemic to racial justice also coming up difficult in brussels european union negotiators say they are determined to agree a post trade deal with the u.k.

but not at any price. and 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 on different channels the t.v. town hall meetings as they're known replaced the 2nd presidential debate which was canceled after trump was diagnosed with coke at 19 and then refused to conduct the debate to a line as we reported 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 the coronavirus. 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's going to die everybody's got their it over our you know i mean it's not easy but you can you know no it's not going to get 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 in the rush into it you've done this lying to everybody seem like i do now it's white supremacy if you don't see that as a white supremacy. my position at the same time on a different channel a different tone thomas challenger joe biden offered a forceful rebuke of trump's pandemic response it was 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 and 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's still not worry mask and so on because at times bite and he entered 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 factor trading blows remotely the 2 candidates will again face off at the final election debate next week about making. us more analysis now peter from our us elections team is with us good morning to. well so what have we learned from all of this well i think if anything this has 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 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 quantum 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 of really felt up. democratic 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 yet 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. quite a 1000000 there's a number of yeah i think 20 or 1718 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 just 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 misleading in almost all of them he has a double digit lead nationally and he's leading among every demographic group. peter thanks so much from our u.s.

elections to thank you. thanks let's turn now to some other stories making headlines around the world today new zealand's prime minister just into a down has hit the streets for the last day of campaigning ahead of parliamentary elections this weekend a labor party comfortable to you in the polls are conservative opponent judith collins was also campaigning saying her party is best placed to handle the post pandemic a commie. us social media platform twitter says it's investigating a global altitude show the company says it has no evidence of a security breach war on iraq users in many countries reported not being able to use the platform for more than an hour. and 13 bodies have been recovered from a landslide in central vietnam triggered by torrential rains nearly all of the victims were army officers on a mission to rescue workers buried in another landslide flooding across the country has killed at least 36 people since last weekend. british prime minister boris

johnson is due to respond to demands put forward by the european union on the 2nd day of a key bragg's a talk in brussels the 2 sides have been haggling over a trade deal to prevent a new deal brags that at the end of the transition period on january 1st the e.u. has called on the u.k. to give more concessions in the negotiations the new has agreed to continue talks until the possible. is at that summit in brussels high georg so still no progress on bragg's it at this late stage does anybody there think the deal can still be salvaged. terry at least that is what both sides have been saying so far all eyes will be today on london because the deadline that boris johnson has set for a deal to be at least to be able to be seen on the horizon has passed at midnight

and he has made very clear that if that deadline passes lund would be prepared to move on without a deal now yesterday a german chancellor angela merkel said there is light and there is a shadow what that exactly means from the european perspective michel been able to date to try to clarify it traveling to london meeting is kind of odd david frost the so the 2 chief negotiators will sit down in london today one thing is clear that u.s. made clear yesterday that they are not the ones who want to walk away from negotiations . europe is getting pounded by the coronavirus pandemic right now is anything substantial being done at level georg to deal with it or is it really just every country for itself. mark i'll read you this part of the council conclusion where it says they want to continue over all coordination efforts and that is directed mainly at travel restrictions that is a from where the e.u.

so far has been making some progress they have developed a map that points out in different colors in green red and orange where there are areas that are free for that are exempt from travel restrictions so you can travel from the green area to a green area or what happens if you are in a red area or that member states still need to clarify they also want to work on the mutual recognition of testing so there is some some progress happening here and all the others agree that they need progress on that front in order to stop the pandemic. now infection rates in europe are surging the e.u. commission president had to leave the summit early and go into quarantine are people there wondering out loud whether this summit holding the so many person was maybe a bad idea while the danish prime minister of the finnish prime minister they both came forward already at the beginning of the meeting and said look we're

a bit skeptical whether we always have to meet in person on the other hand a number of leaders have said look those personal meetings a really crucial there are the only way to move things really forward and i think there's another aspect to it and that is the aspect of confidentiality because in a video conference obviously there's a lot of people sitting in on those video conferences with the different leaders now yesterday when they talk directed off to the conclusions we're already signed they took all the mobile phones all the tablets and moved them out of the room where they were eating so that this could really be a confidential discussion and that of course you can only have in person thank you so much that was de correspondent at the e.u. headquarters in brussels. let me bring you up to date on a few developments in the coronavirus pandemic a new study has found rendez of beer a drug now widely used to treat covert 19 does not lower the mortality rate of patients new zealanders can now travel to australia without quarantining under

a new one way travel bubble arrangement but for now anyone arriving in new zealand will still be required to quarantine israel is relaxing a new lockdown that has been in place for the past month daycare and preschools will open again from sunday as will national parks and beaches thailand's prime minister prior to china not just says he will not resign despite calls from tens of thousands of pro-democracy activists for him to do so the demonstrators defied a government ban on gatherings to take their grievances to the streets of bangkok on thursday they're expected to turn out again today to calling for changes to the constitution and an overhaul of the monarchy. 5 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 protestors 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 we're talking about like the provos everything you know or your lectures it is not fair for the victims or for me it's about that are we we we need to show the power that we were not it's an hour well when i we cannot

take it anymore i want to live on my feet or now if i put my friend i want to fight bought my game up regime my country. not me him appraising. but it's not just democracy they want many young thais also want to see reforms of the monarchy it is hoped that the student led rallies would bring new rights and freedoms to a generation desperate for change. in sports american tennis player sam querrey is accused of fleeing russia 2 days after testing positive for the crowd of iris at the st petersburg open the former wimbledon semifinalist along with his wife and baby son were placed in self isolation by the russian authorities but the family left the country all. private jet to an undisclosed location instead tennis organizers have said it's a serious breach of protocol and are investigating the incident. and in cycling

a leading team in the sport's 2nd largest race the road to talia wants the race to end early and made in crease in the coronavirus cases among the athletes. pro cycling has called on organizers to end the race this sunday 2 teams have already pulled out after testing positive the sport's governing body the u.c.i. has denied the request you're watching news from berlin coming up next thousands of ducks one palmer and a single goal are watching the news. tonight which of course the. video. anytime anywhere. w.