the, the, this is dw news line from berlin. have opened entry lancaster presidential election . some 17000000 eligible voters will decide who will manage the country's recovery from its worst ever economic crisis. these, the subsequent social upheaval also coming now is really striking. they were killed, top has the commander of these officials, seeing it was 14 people were killed and looked intently, some tax capital and decking the

. i'm aaron to them berlin, thank you very much for tuning and free. lumpkins are heading to the poles for the 1st presidential election since the countries crippling financial crisis. in 2022 voters makes a choice between 3 candidates for the presidency or the ranks look set to come down to just 3 candidates. current president, run, you know, with, from us thing is seeking a 2nd term, but he's facing strong challenges from the leader of the opposition, as well as a socialist lawmaker. joining us from sri lanka is capital colombo is dw correspondence, shallow yada. so voting has begun. what's most important tree lumpkins as the heads of the pulling stations of the oh yes, iron of voters have started coming in at the forwarding station. so just in the last hour as the pulling began at 7 am, look at the memories of 2022 are still fresh in people's minds here. that was the

time before the was a few and got a few of your cooking, get tardies of medicines and electricity. and the entire sort of light came together in their collective suffering. and over to the last government whom they blamed for driving the country to bounce up the no contract today. even though some things look good on the people that completion has come down off to the i'm a theme for the results are getting stronger. but qualitative means high in the country. the cost of living remains high and so does the unemployment situation. so at the end of the day, it's all about, uh, you know, economy for the people. it's all about what they can put on the plate a 3 times a day, or whether they can afford those tvs a day in the 1st place. the economy is this thing. the largest issue issue on the mind today as a building in the, under the elections in the country. they've seen religion and reese and even more to be the top pack. those when people voted. but all that is history now, and because they've been french so hard because of the allegedly economy, blunders of the previous government, the confidence in politics and politicians is that an old time know of many local

sippy spoke to in the last few days. if you've been here, i've had been telling us that they don't even want to vote because though they don't see much of changing for the the ground. so economic issues weight on the voters minds in sri lanka. so the election will be decided between the incoming president, the main opposition leader and a 3rd party candidate. can you walk us through who they are and what they stand for the same with us. so he's just on a former president, quite a season politician. he is promising a lot of subsidies for the pool. i like the fisherman, the farmer, and the took to drive most of the country and it also says that he's going to tweak some of the, uh, you know, the, the provisions. hopefully, i'm at the end to make it more a pro pool. so the search candidate is a mox, sleep on your welcome out of this a nike and you have to keep us, keep an eye out for this guy because he is so turning out to be really popular. and the fact that he doesn't have much government in 6 feet and seems to be working in favor of him. because the sentiment on the ground is uh, so strongly, uh,

anti establishment. that he is. he's sort of the most at this as this new face. but there's a history that his body has worked hard because they were behind this. so moscow test that took place in 2022. so they've been working hard ever since then. and i'll just come to a point where they seem to have people's confidence. he's very popular amongst the youth and the women as well as the protest, those who came out. so they said that's the fact that people are so fed up with the establishment. it should vote in their favor, and now i'm told that it's going to be a very tight race ahead. people because people are keeping the card so close to the chest. we've been though of only under the we will not know to the last minute who is going to be elected. and this election comes at a time when um, india and china irvine working full of the pacific region. now, how will this election likely affect for long is released from shipped to both india and china?

india and china. i have always had a close eye on too long ago because you know, they are the big sort of, of the giants neighbors of the island nation. and they both have been sort of buying for the influence in the country for the obvious reason because of the geopolitical, you know, the strategic location of this country in the pacific of the previous government of the garage at both sides was not they, uh, india friendly because it allowed a lot of for chinese investment to happen in the country. so in years obviously, you know, keeping of a close eye on who because the next the there will be a towards that the india is likely to o. c. a. so i'll just say i'm with us, i'll come to follow because he's been traditionally a pro india in his policy. so and you know, thinks that he's started full in the last of the time that he's been in the opposition. but if out of the commodity, somebody comes to bowers, he is seemingly more full china and during his campaign, he's also talked about the fact that of cub, uh, indian investment of the

a donnie's, a donnie is a big uh, indian. uh uh, businessman, who has investments in the neighboring countries as long as the asian, sri lanka. and so it's, it's going to determine whoever comes to follow uh, in this selection is going to determine a mass chunk of where the foreign policy of the country goes towards. i'm afraid we have to leave it there. that was dw correspondents shalumi out of thank you very much for your reporting. no less than guns. hezbollah has confirmed that one of its top commanders was killed. name is rarely striking. the route the militia said that you bring him a keel, a leader, and it's a lead rock. one unit had died. israel's, the air strike was one of the definitely is attached to the 11 east capital in decades. authorities there say at least 14 before killed, with dozens more wounded to apartment building through and in this densely populated neighborhood in the route. the strike happened during rush

hour as people were leaving work and children heading home from school was late to rescue teams. we're still on the scene looking for a new one still tripped onto the rubble. i thought he's real says civilians being used as a human shield, but has bullied us and the cold into israel come on to a brushing my to. one of the most amounts of man on the planet had gathered here on the ground was all the has the operative on the residential building. if he's the bottom, you've not to push back from the little bottle to north of the lead time. either. will the blow magic efforts as well, would it be left with no choice, but to use any means within our rights to defend? i will see them and enable the back of use of the nose,

the withdrawn to their homes in a corner of the policies to act. now, black now before it's too late, because we don't want to see escalation in the region. we have no intention to enter, well, we'd see by that and live on on. but we cannot continue with the way these people 11 on the lines between what is bull and what isn't becoming increasingly blood war. i don't know if it started or not, but the nice thing is the reassuring. it is clear that the 2 sides on that stuff i'm not afraid for myself. i just want the country to get better. but it's not the boy just keeps going. i don't know where we're hitting for bucks, watson. and the fierce of not knowing with this flurry of to protect tax having a rising by the date was before israel's, the root strike has bull upon to know them. israel with thousands of rockets. and

this came up to the deadly explosions of hezbollah pages and all the communication devices. earlier this week, israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement in the bluffs of the devices. the united nations high commission to for human rights, has condemned to devise explosions in lebanon as violation of international law. the un spokesperson into in those old punch, is to de escalate immediately. saying that the region is on the brink of like a test or fee. earlier i spoke with and i'm been taught color blue, he's a senior fellow at the foundation for defensive democracies in washington, dc. it always, if it is real, is working an escalation with a run and it's proxies with the latest strikes as well. actually, i think there has been a change in his really national security doctorate, perhaps not officially, but philosophically since october 70. whereas when you looked at the way his real sales with many of these groups and even dealt with their patrons on like

a public of a ron, it was more about managing the situation now i think post october 7, given issues your faces on many fronts. now i think it's quite keen to solve some of these problems, and militarily is really, is indeed doubling down it's added, for example, to it's war aims by the war cabinet. they're bringing back of the 628-0000, internally displaced persons, which requires a measure of peace and calm and quiet on the northern border. and israel appears united in the sense of achieving that means using the military option more frequently and with greater vigor and trying to get as many mid to high level hezbollah commanders as possible. so israel is indeed engaging in some short term escalade toward the steps, with the hopes of restoring insurance for a longer period of time. is brief like now with some other stories making headlines around the world vacancy cruise in northeastern that, you know, we are helping clear areas flooded by the residence of storm boris. that was $1000.00 residents, had to spend the night with shelters after being evacuated from the worst effected

areas in the media, romani, or region. cuba has dressed experiences from worst black out of the year, leaving nearly half of the island dark for hours. 40 say m l function internal electric and from electric plant, a lack of parts to repair them was responsible for the outage. the cuban government, however, has been committed scheduled blackouts, due to severe electricity storage shortages. the 1st point in places opened in the us presidential election. virginia was a for state to offer in person early holding on friday, followed by minnesota. and south dakota, for voters can hand an absentee ballots in person, instead of mailing of thousands of active as here in germany have stage protest calling attention to the climate crisis. the crowns are noisily smaller this year. activists say the eyes of the world are fixed on other crises, but they insist their message as urgent as ever. crowds matched through central

berlin with a familiar cooling to action. it's a key message from climate activists, but at a p is few a training out. so here is in 2019 climate protest, crowd sizes were estimated to be more than 200000 these days, those numbers are in the low, thousands or any people are worried because they because everything keeps getting more expensive and people don't know how to parents pay their bill, so of course, they might feel overwhelmed and not be able to attend every protest. however, the most important thing is that we have the awareness in society. while the economy and inflation consumes. the effects of climate change are impossible to ignore the role of gym and these neighboring countries of this week mopping up of

to devastating floods by those given that there is hit the, there are of costs of the political problems that we didn't have a few years ago, i think on the war and ukraine provides inflation, etc. but then again by i can only say itself, we just have massive floods eyes. so the topic of climate change is actually very presence of his consequences. a here already the on the some off as they say that that's, that's the fucking i'll get some 1000. sometimes you know, clement kind of falls on the wayside is obviously a lot going on the world. but of course, it's important to keep climate really at the forefront of the conversation so so, so as i am very happy that we have these kind of demonstrations and that's fridays for future exist on all. and i lost the to this, the do themselves to the road to wild crowd sizes may be shrinking, protest, and save the urgency needed to manage the climate crisis is only growing and they

have no plans to stop pushing for change or and with add, you're up to date, but to stick around coming up next. youtube are ava to back shows us some of the control highlights in critical pulling that's on our travel channel. check in an air until from berlin. thank you very much for joining us. my name is elizabeth. i'm the coles bag saved. now. thank you so much for joining in. welcome to don't hold bad. a lot of people do that. it's all about saying it loud things. what of being nosy? they like good everyone to ok. so to be turning into the microphone, sorry about the award winning outcome don't hold back the welcomes or cannot go visit as

poland.