pope francis delivers a message of unity on the 2nd day of his iraq visit the pontiff is attending an interfaith meeting this hour is a minister a. muslim and christian communities to work together for peace also coming up more . security forces fire tear gas and stun grenades. the deadliest day since a military coup began and the. against. all.

tensions threatening to undermine the deal and there could disrupt the balance of peace on the island of. welcome on day 2 of his visit to iraq pope francis has held talks with the country's influential shiite muslim cleric the grand ayatollah. a historic meeting took place at home in the holy city. for the talks. around 40 minutes but a few white doves were released. underscoring his message of peaceful coexistence between. the. there has dwindled after years of war and persecution

the christians remain hopeful a show of solidarity from sistan e could help secure their place in iraq. for more on this i'm joined by religious affairs correspondent martin gak martin what's the pope's schedule for the rest of the day. today the pope will be flying to the city of the site of the ancient city for which according to the bible it's the birthplace of abraham prophet you are the 3 major monotheistic religions and you will be holding. into religious ceremony there. so leading to tomorrow's mass in the north of the country which is expected to gather a few 1000 people. martin as we mentioned earlier the pope had a meeting with the grand ayatollah ali al sistani give us

a sense of why this meeting was so significant. i think that to think through said about the meeting he said the 1st one there's been a very long term attempt by the vatican to reach you know prominent figures and this is one of the most prominent if not the most prominent fear inside the shia community dane roads to the sunni community in the conversations with sunni for years has been actually fostered for years bed these has proved the shia community has proven much more inclusive that in the one hand and the other hand i mean you know the shia community of iraq and particularly. the more important few years constitute something of a failure. of a soft issue in the connection to iran which of course looms large in question suffer geopolitics in relation to the christian community of course a lot of the buy it and so against christians in iraq and syria now comes from.

from shia militants so this is sort of the few year that it's understood to be could become a very important if not critical ally in trying to fend off violence against christian communities you know the optics of this it is it obviously remarkable but what can the pope realistically achieve as far as real interfaith dialogue. i think that by and large these vatican functions being a fairly regular fairly read with a fairly regular method which is to both arrives puts. on the table it highlights the issue for public opinion it's across really across the world and then there isa large body off you know taken diplomats and people on the ground that and sort of taking care of the details and of course you know both god and the devil are in the

details so i think that a lot of what will come out of this is not something that we will see immediately after the meeting but it's something that will sort of progress simply be unrolled over the months to come and it will be reflected of course in what the situation for the christian community and there are yes thanks to safe we see fewer attacks and we really see a push to reconstitute the community off of iraq which as you have said in the report points out the task to england then we can assume that actually to to some degree the strip has been successful martin again religious affairs correspondent much thanks you're welcome to me in mar now where the un special envoy there has called for a robust international response after this week's violence against protesters she made the remarks during a closed door meeting of the un security council in new york but the council is

unlikely to pass a resolution on miramar because of china and russia's detail wilderness seats or than 50 people have been killed over the past 7 days as protesters keep up their calls for a return to democracy. the march for democracy perseverance in me and mar despite brutal crackdowns by the military authorities. demonstrations are regularly dispersed by tear gas the violence has escalated in the last week. with radio free asia published this c.c.t.v. footage it allegedly shows authorities beating up medical volunteers in yangon on wednesday the broadcaster says they were then taken to prison the video follows reports that police opened fire on medical workers in the city where several protesters died it was their self-styled front line protesters keep the

demonstrations going they equip themselves with shields helmets and gas masks and it's their job to assist anyone injured. in what their routine or rules to those who died in the revolution had families of the original where they had their whole lives ahead of them join the police some of them were younger than me it makes me very angry but we can't do anything so we are protesting peacefully and have to fight until the end goldenberg an old body was. hundreds of mourners attended the funeral of 25 year old our carmo he was one of many who died on with stay. the revolution must prevail the mourners chant together was.

a people are back on the streets today after tough crackdowns from the military this week do you think it will get even worse this weekend. it's quite possible there's quite a number of sort of confluence ing offense that are happening right now the committee representing elected officials have made an announcement that government workers have until the 7 midnight to join the civil disobedience to put or face essentially sanctions from the public and the government the military has also ordered all thanks to open. and you know they're in a sense losing control of government workers as well as institutions with over 600 police who have now left military controlled ministries as well as over 10 diplomats or at least 10 diplomats who have publicly stated that they will not obey orders from the hunt so it's quite likely that you will see further escalations as the military loses more control well clearly the military has exhibited no signs of

backing down if anything they're showing even firmer hand do protesters believe they have a chance of making any difference. yes so if you listen to any of the protests are happening or watch what's happening by chance are still very aggressive about what they think they're very optimistic about the chances of winning almost all the chances are about how they will not lose how this is the last fight and in fact the songs that people are singing are about the sort of final battle so i think we're in a situation in which protesters out the side that that you know there's no future except the democratic one. well according to reports the military has jailed many journalists how do you and your fellow colleagues manage she would continue working . so most of the journalists who happen the rest of have been taken while they are working so what number of journalists have started doing is not identified

themselves as press and then the sort of visible way while they're doing their work to my helmet right now doesn't say press and this jacket while it does say press i do take it off if i feel like i'm in danger of being targeted as a member of the press and also one journalist was taken from his home and one thing that many journalists are doing right now is not sleeping in their homes to ensure that they stay at least half a step ahead of security officials came in saying journalists and young gun thanks so much. some other stories making news around the world now protesters and police have clashed in violent protests in paraguay anger is mounting in the country over the government's handling of the. infections have recently hit record levels security forces fired rubber bullets and tear gas at demonstrators and barricades and threw stones at the police. u.s. aviation authorities say they will investigate an emergency on

a boeing 737 match plane the aircraft landed safely on friday after the captain shut down an engine american airlines said the issue was not related to the computer systems blamed for 2 fatal crashes that resulted in the world wide grounding of 737 match planes the european union has promised legal action after the british government unilaterally extended a grace period for checks on food imports to northern ireland it's a move that russell says breaches the terms of the divorce deal the u.k. says it's taking steps to fix the trade issues but there are growing fears that this latest fork in the road over breck's a trade could threaten peace. these trucks carrying goods from england scotland and wales on to ships that cross the irish sea to northern ireland here in belfast products arriving from the rest of britain a subject to import rules from the e.u.

under briggs's northern ireland has remained part of the e.u. single market for goods checks aren't fully applied yet but the u.k. has decided to extend this transition period for some products without asking the e.u. 1st that's illegal brussels says and undermines the brig's that deal the european commission will respond to these developments in accordance with the legal means established by the withdrawal agreement. but britain a says breaks that supply checks are causing huge disruption and delay it says will give businesses more time to get used to the new rules. we're taking some temporary technical measures to ensure that there are no barriers in the. make sure that things flow freely from g b to n.o.i. and that's what you'd expect the tensions on just affecting trade paramilitary

groups on happy with the breaks a disruption have temporarily abandoned to northern island historic 998 peace deal 9 is the good friday agreement the group signed they're not planning a return to violence but it's heightening fears that northern ireland's delicate balance of peace is being destabilized. by munich host bursa dortmund in one of the biggest fixtures in the past year as the 2 titans have been closer in the standings and they are now league leaders vying are facing a dortmund side at risk of missing out on next season's champions league. one of the bonus league is biggest attractions also features the league's top strikers byron's robert levin dusky and dog means elin how it both scored a goal when they met earlier this season but it was by or was that left the

pitch with 3.5 the speedo. it is fair game again storm and it's always special for us that's been shown in recent years the games are on a high level. byron haven't lost a dog men in the bundesliga since 2018 and dog men are in need of a win now more than ever with champions league contention hanging in the balance dortmund will need to bring their a game. we just have to hold on to the things that we do well and accept there will be phases where we have to suffer and that's simply part of football when you claim you never need missions but that doesn't mean that you can't be brave and still be dangerous we've shown that in the past and be good sized enough again hite. a few seasons back captain marco royce netted 2 goals in dorman's last win over buyers in the league. but that was endorsement. for them to

get one step closer to the champions league will need to defeat fire in munich domains last visit didn't go so well in 2019. byron berry dormant for me. that's all for now up next it's our technology show shift to stay with us. for 2015 more than half the world will be living with limited water resources we haven't had to think about our water or worry about. i think that era is over this is the crisis of our time it's a financial like any other financial.