brent: this is "dw news," live from berlin. germany's government in crisis as party leaders decide whether the country's spy chief should stay or go. hans-georg maassen was forced to explain himself following controversialrecent far-right pn eastern germany. he has become a divisive figure in the government with some party leaders demanding the chancellor fire him. also coming up, the southeast of ththe uneded states gets ready r hurricane florenence.

forecasters say the monster storm poses a threat to millions of people. we will bring you an update from the state of north carolina. plus, is this the end of a long-running environmental battle? please remove -- police remove activists from a forest that is due to be cleared for coal mining. protesters say they are not giving up. brent: i'm brent goff. it's good to have you with us. tonight, the fate of germany's intelligence chief is straining the governing coalition. party leaders held a crisis meeting aimed at resolving the dispute over hans-georg maassen. angela merkel's coalition partners want maassen to resign following controversy comments that he made about recent far-right protests in the city of chemnitz.

reporter: could the president of germany's domestic secret service bring down the government? that is what the papers are asking. sosocial dememocrats say conservatitive hans-georg maasan must go. if not, they could leave angela merkel's governing coalition. "anyone at the head of securityy inststitution of our country has to be trustworthy, and it is obvious this trust no longer exists. there must be consequences." for now conservatives are backing maassen. he is accused of passing on sensitive information to germany's far right populist party the afd. the data was contained in an unreleased government report. "we spoke with mr. maassen about the e report. it wasn't available in printnted form yet. we talked about various numbers and figures such as right-wing extremism, left-wing extremism, and islamist threats." spd chairwoman met for crisis

talks with merkel and conservatives on thursday, but there was no breakthrough. talks will continue next tuesday. brent: i'm joined by my colleague who has been covering the story for us in berlin. good evening to you. how likely is it that maassen will be out of a job? reporter: well, the interesting thing is that last night he looked as though he was going to survive this crisis. but the tide seems to have turned either during the night or this morning. in particular, the social democrats from the junior coalition partners, chancellor merkel's coalition, their stance stiffened quite considerably, and they are fairly category in their domains for his resignation. the opposition liberal free democrats were also dillydallying last night, but they have stiffened their stance as well. i would say there is a very big

question mark on how long hans-georg maassen is going to survive in his post. there is one persistent rumor going around berlin this evening, which is that the three leaders who are talking to each other, coalition leaders talking to each other in the chancellor's office today, the best solution to this most elegant solution to this, would be if hans-georg maassen himself decided to step down, thereby freeing them from the responsibility of a firing him. brent: i want you to take a look at this tweet that was posted today. the general secretary of the social democrats, he tweeted, "it's completely clear to the spd party leadership that maassen has to go. merkel must act now." customer, -- christopher, how politically explosive is the decision surrounding maassen? how explosive is it for the survival of this government? christopher: that tweet we just

saw there is exactly what i was saying, the way the social democrats have stiffened their stance in this crisis will i don't think, though, that chancellor merkel's coalition is going to crumble over this. quizzically because the social democrat leadership, i understand, had a telephone conference during which they decided to stiffen their stance but not at the cost of leaving the coalition. they seem to be in agreement that that would not be a clever political move at this moment. brent: our correspondent christopher springate on the story for us in berlin. christopher, thank you. christopher: you're welcome. brent: here are some of the other stories making headlines around the world. two men have appeared on russian state television claiming to be the man that british prosecutors have accused of poisoning former spy sergei skrkripal and hisis daughter. the men say they did visit the

english city of salisbury, where thekripals wewere poisonened, but they were just tourists. the british government has called the interview "an insult to the public's intelligence." russian protest group pussy riot says one of its members is in a grave condition due to possible poisoning. he was hospitalized inin moscow after losing h eyesight and the ability to spe.. thee group last made headlines y disrupting all caps off perfect. that the world cup soccer final. many wororld leaders and dignitarieies have attenended te funeneral of formerr u.n. secretary-general kofi a annan. they held the veteran diplomat's record as an advocate for humanity and world peace. annan died in a swiss hospital last month at the age of 80. evacuations have begun in the northern philippines ahead of typhoon which is expected to

make landfall on saturday. the philippines weather bureau says the storm is 900 kilometers wide and is packing maximum sustained winds of 205 kilometers per hour. more than four noted people live in its path. from the pacific to the atlantic, the u.s. eastern seaboard is also bracing itself, this time for the arrival of hurricane florence. the category 2 storm is expected to make landfall late this evening or early tomorrow morning. officials s are warning t that florencece will probably be the most dangerous hurricane to hit the region in the generation. 10 million people live in the storm's passion and 2 million from virginia, the carolinas, andeorgia, have e been told to leave low-lying g coastal areas. the storm surge and heavy rain could cause widespread floloodi. our correspondent my slalater joins me- minus waitete --

maya shwayayr joins m me from izababeth city.. what i is the latestst t there? maya: we are actually here already feeling the first tendrils of the edge of the storm brushing us. much windier, grayer day that it was, and we have gotten rain already. you can see we are standing on the river thahat leads out t toe atlantntic o ocecean. it has b been extremelely choppl day. there are houses on the water that are in severe danger of flooding. there is this park, and there are people out enjoying t t day. it is a warm d day today. this is only a few feet above the water and it would not take much more than the storm surge to flood the whole area. i talked to one young man who said he was here in this countering hurricane matthew, and he was walking through his

neighborhood in land waste-deep in water. we are expecting a stronger punch from florence starting this evening and tomorrow. brent: looooking at the water, e differencece from when we spokeo you u sterday isis like night td day. what a are authoritieses tellinu they are m most concerned about right now? maya: the biggest concern right now is the risk of flooding, because florence is a huge storm and it is slowing down and is expected to stall as soon as it properly hits land from hits the u.s. coast from meaning that it will dump its entire weight of water on the south and north carolina crystals of north carolina alone is expected to get a trillion gallons of water -- that is trillion with a t. a lot of these houses do not have sandbags around them. we drove through a few trailer parks where it looks like there are no fortificacations for strg winds flooding. isis is what concerns authorities the m most.

brent: are people heeding official advice anand leavingng? what are they telling? maya: so that is the thing right now. speaking with people in elizabeth city, they say they have heard nothing from their local government in relation to where possible evacuation route might be if they need to evacuate. nothing about whether they need to start protecting their homes. they say they had no contact from no texts, no e-mails from nothing about what they should do to prepare. these people have been through hurricanes before so they know where to get water and hungry down in their own homes. the official line has been nothing. in virginia, where we were yesterday, officials have been more communicative, telling people where shelters are, handing out sand or sandbags, communicating with people. virginia is expecting far less of a gale force and it is expected to miss most of virginia at this point. brent: we will be checking in

with you over the course of the evening. maya shwayder in elizabeth city in north carolina. thank you. the catholic church here in germany says it is distressed and ashamed by the findings of a new report into the sexual abuse of children by priests. the independent report, which was commissioned by the church itself, found that clergymen abuse or rape to 4000 children over 70 years starting at the end of the second world war. most of the victims were boys under age 13. one of them spoke to dw about the violence he endured as a young choirboy. reporter: when he was eight years old, he was one of the world renown catholic choirboys in the southern german city. he lived in a boarding school, where he was sexually abused by priests for several years. two years ago, he shared the painful memories that still haunt him. >> into the prefect's room, down

with my pajama bottoms. head into his lap. and that he thrashed me and groaned loudly.y. i only r realized later that he pleasure himself by rubbing's genitals on the back of my head. reporter: in the study, the catholic church noted 3,676 victims of sexual violence over a period of seven years. victims were mostly male and mostly children. 1,670 priests are accused of committing the crimes. observers complained that the church did not release all its documents of the investigation, and abuse survivors were not given a chance to be hurtful to be heard. the authors of the study pointed out that the number of victims has probably been greatly underestimated. during the study, they examined 40,000 files and they found that every third reported case was

dealt with by the church itself, and 40% of reported cases were brought to court. the study says perpetrators were often transferred to other parishes without the community's knowledge of what they had done. udo received a one-time payment of 2500 euros for his suffering. he and many others are demanding that the catholic church confront it sexual abuse crisis with more transparency. brent: i am joined at the table by a founding member of snap, the survivors network of those abused by priests, the world's oldest organization of survivors of childhood rape and sexual assault by clergy, with over 18,000 survivors and hundreds of chapters. it is good to have you here on the show. we have germany that has been added to this list alongside australia, ireland, what we've seen in south america, the u.s.

state of pennsylvania. are we talking about a global crisis in the catholic church? >> there has been a global crisis in the catholic church about this for a very long time, probably centuries. when we are seeing in germany's is the exact same widespread systematic pattern of the sexual abuse and rape and molestation of children, the cover-up of those crimes, and a system that covers it up, and unfortunately continues to cover it up. there has been some changes that have been made, but globally, the changes that need to be made, that the public needs to make in the church needs to make, which actually lives within their own laws -- people need to understand that globally, you can rate and sexual assault a and child as a priest and remain a priest working with children and families. brent: that in itself is an indictment against the church. another indictment would be to

say that the canon of confessional confidentiality of the church has to be changed. you try suggesting that, and a lot of people will say no. isn't that part of the problem, that priests may know about sex offenses, but it has been confessed and they cannot tell anyone? peter: that is one of the things that is beginning to change. australia has had a five-year governmental commission. that result is the gold standard of how this should be done. the church should not be investigating themselves. they should not be determining what it is that happened or didn't happen. that is the problem with this. why would you allow them to do it? \ i'm not questioning the people they hire, but this particular study is extremely limited. there are real problems with the results of the study, although it does give us s something. in ausustralia, yoyou have the government, the justice department, doing the

investigation, as you did in pennsylvania. brent: when you look of germany, the church today says it is distressed and ashamed by the report. it commissioned the report itself. when you compare that to what we saw in pennsylvania in the u.s. what do you say? peter: in the united states they allow them to do their own commissions, ok. but once the justice department finally got involved -- pennsylvania come that was not the only grand jury. there has been 10 or 11 grand juries in the united states will you will see a magnitude of difference. the percentage of abusive priests under the church's on percentage was like 4%, and when the grand jury's around the country looked at it, it was 10%. when you see revealed in the grand jury reports is the systematic, widespread, as was talked about in pennsylvania, sophisticated -- that is a sophisticated cover-up.

you cannot cover this up for decades without sophisticated operation that involves the entire senior management, the clerical senior management of every diocese and archdiocese around the world. the other thing is that it costs a tremendous amount of money to do it. brent: when you say it involves the upper levels of the clergy, does that include the pope and passed -- past popes? peter: of course it does. brent: what does that mean for pope francis? he met with bishops and he says he wants to change things. is he a co-perpetrator who we are expected to be part of the solution? peter: i'm saying this is about pope francis and this is what makes things difficult and confusing about this. it was kind of two pope francises. there is the one that exposes professional remorse. he clearly feels personally horrible about this. yes expect that. but then there is the other pope francis that has delayed -- she

set up a big commission to deal with this, papal commission. they have had four years and they have achieved nothing. brent: why do you think he is delaying it? what is in his interest to have this delayed? peter: two things. one is what i talked about -- in order to reform this, they will have to make two major changes in their own laws. if you have real zero-tolerance -- because there isn't a zero-tolerance -- in their law, under their law, when you sexually abuse of child, you will no longer be a priest, that would change the definition of priesthood. that will change the power of ordination. that will change what the structure of the churches. in zero-tolerance won't work unless you also have a law that makes bishops accountable for it. zero-tolerance for bishops who have covered a child sex crimes. the problem is so many have done that. the other thing about pope francis we don't know about his own record. he was a jesuit professional, he

ran and archdiocese himself. is inconceivable that he didn't handle these cases the lebanese to come clean about his own experience himself with these cases. brent: we will pick up our conversation later on the day. we appreciate you coming on the show to share your thoughts and insights. thank you. peter: sure. brent: here with business news, good news -- can't believe it, the turkish lira. christoph: it surged after a decision by the central bank to raise the interest rate. authorities met on thursday in a last-ditch effort to halt the lira's dramatic to send more at least slow it down. the current value has pledged 40% against the u.s. dollar this year. analysts have argued for address a great height to keep prices from skyrocketing -- a drastic rate hike to keep prices from skyrocketing, but erdogan

opposes move, saying that the higher adjust rates would worsen economic problems. regulators have decided toto ban all real eststate bususinesses n foreign currencies. all transactions will be handled in lira. 10 years on since the global financial crisis hit, ecb president mario draghi says there is no room for complacency, calling for stronger galatian to avert another crisis. the bank trimmed its growth forecast while announcing it is set to wind back economic stimulus. government bonds are going to be cut in half to 15 billion euros. these purchases are executed to keep trouble the european economies afloat. but they did leave the key interest rate untouched at the all-time low of 0 -- .0%. so much for the banks. now for a look at stocks and our wall street correspondent sophie

scimansky is standing by in new york. how is wall street reacting to apple's latest iphones? sophie: we did see some positive movement of the stock on thursday, but on the day of the event is off, it opened at $220 and that is exactly where it closed. for investors, does not matter how cool the new iphone is and how good the new apple watch looks like, not as much as it matters that these products are going to sell. they are going to pay attention to the next quarterly earnings and to the earnings after the holiday, the most important season, of course. maybe some guys on the floor work live-streaming the event, but just because they are thinking of getting their mother the apple watch for christmas so she can check her pulse. christoph: looks like big tobacco is out to get us all stone. what is happening there? sophie: yeah, fascinating market

not only for consumers but for investors. you don't see growth rates like that anywhere else. estimates are that the global market is going to grow at a 230% rate until 2020 to $32 billion in spendining. here in the united states, it makes sense for investors to get ready for the nationwide stimulus. nationstates are working hard on that. trump needs to find a source of income because he is cutting taxes. he is a businessman who needs to take advantage of the market. someone just told me that these investors want to buy an old stock before best buy and will start before these investors come in and make it -- buy and hold these stocks before the investors come in and make the prices up. they are invested with billions of dollars. shares of cannabis companies in

august alone gained 96.5%. christoph: sophie scimansky in new york, thank you. talks between french fishermen and british rivals for a new deal on access to scallop-rich waters in the english channel have broken down. last month, french confronted english votes. the french were upset about rules allowing english votes to fish in their waters year-round while their boats were forced to stay home. now it looks like scenes like these could soon return to the high seas. reporter: a spat over seafood boiled over last month as french fishining boats blocked u.k. colleagues frorom dropping their next. currently, boats from the u.k. are allowed to harvest scallops year-round, while their french counterparts are banned from fishing in n the summer, , leava babad taste in many aailor's momouth. >> the british cut these scallops, shelled them commensal

them back to hustle to but it's ok, after brexit they won't -- sold them back k to us. but it's ok -- after visiting they won't come back. reporter: there is likely to be rough waters ahead. christoph: and what looks like what could be the end of a long-running environmental battle. brent: police in western germany are facing fierce resistance as they attempt to remove dozens of protesters in a forced to do to be cut down to make way for a coal mine. any of the activists have been living in treehouses to prevent the forest's instruction. despite being forcibly removed, they say o more protests are on the way. reporter: this is the escalation of a long-running environmental conflict -- police dragging activists out of the hambach forest. the wooded area has been fiercely contested for six years.

activists have occupied the forest illegally. now the police are sending in a large number of officers to evict them. >> we are committed to not injuring people, to making everything as nonviolent as possible. we have a monopoly on the use of force. they won't come down on their own, so we have set up a so-called high-the two -- high-all the two intervention team which goes up there and tries to convince them to come down. if not, they are brought down using physical force. reporter: a few weeks before the escalation can we meet noah, who wants to remain unidentified. she lives in a treehouse in the hambach forest. >> i don't know if it is too much to say i want to save the planet, but i am concerned about whether future generations will still see trees, for example. reporter: 90% of the forest has already disappeared.

for 40 years, the energy group rwe has been clearing the forest toto extract brorown coal. it is the largest open-cast mine in europe. >> unfortunately, the hambach forest is located right in the way of the bulldozers, so you cannot dig under it or around it. that is just not possible. reporter: still, the activists are committed to their values from an challenge the energy company with their lifestyle of absolutely no consumption. noah and the up to 100 activists want to survive self-sufficiently in the fourth, if possible without money. eviction has been a constant threat for years. there have often been clashes. >> for me, what rwe is doing here is incredibly violent. they are relocating entire villages. they want to clear this forest.

they are destroying our climate. i don't approve violence against people from the side, but when you are standing up for your planet, i don't consider sabotage violence. reporter: it is unlikely the activists will give up the treehouses they have lived for years. they are called for nationwide demonstrations. and some do not even shy away from violence. the eviction that began today is far from over. brent: you are watching "dw news ," live from berlin. after a short break, i will be back to take you through the day. stick around for that. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

makes?

sense and french transaction costs only. twenty four twenty twenty thank you. for the headlines on is our our even the littlest. because they're they're called [inaudible] i don't. he says. he can get a get a big ship. from brothers until he sees [inaudible] the case