♪ brent: this is dw live from berlin. tonight, the mayor who will not be president. the mayor of istanbul sentenced to nearly three years in prison. he is seen as a major challenger to president erdogan but now can be banned from running for public office after being found guilty of insulting public officials. also coming up tonight, ukraine says it thwarted a russian drone attack on its capital of kyiv,

shooting down 13 iranian made drones targeting the city center today. sulli metta for inciting violence. a lawsuit against facebook owner saying the other rhythms promote aggression and hatred in ethiopia civil war that ethiopia civil war -- ethiopia's civil war. ♪ brent: i am brent goff. to our viewers around the world, welcome. tonight, a turkish court has sentenced the mayor of istanbul to newly three years in prison. that effectively banned him from running again for political office. the centerleft mayor is a popular opposition leader who is seen as a major challenger to tukey's conservative incumbent president. the court today found him guilty

of insulting public officials. he criticized officers over the results of istanbul's local election in 2019. he denies the charges and says he plans to appeal. our correspondent in istanbul told me what is behind this sentence. >> well, the government insists the mayor insulted an official, a public official, and that is against the law in turkey. he was convicted and has been sentenced now. the opposition, they totally discredit this argument, saying this is purely political. they say the fact that he is seen as a potential challenger to erdogan in next year's presidential elections underscores that this is an attempt to remove him from the political field. he called a public official

schools for overturning his official victory in istanbul in 2019 and banning political officials from courts is nothing unusual. he was the architect of his victory -- the architect of his victory has been imprisoned for a tweet against erdogan. the leader of the country's second largest opposition party has been in jail under a case which the european court calls politically motivated. brent: so how much power did the mayor have vis-a-vis erdogan? how much of a threat is he really to the president? dorian: you have to understand he is -- to understand his victory in 2019 was a political earthquake. for 25 years, erdogan's party had an iron grip on the city. it was impregnable.

nobody thought it could ever be taken, but he successfully united a divided opposition, the conservatives, the left, kurdish parties. he brought together in a successful coalition that defeated erdogan. that in many ways has shaken the opposition and turned it into a powerful force. e in many ways is seen as the architect of that and has seen such a rise in scoring opinion polls. he is appealing the conviction and that could take two years so he has a possibility, but if it is expedited, there are other challenges. the opposition believe they have a chance. it all goes back to the victory in istanbul. brent: the opposition, will they continue to feel they have a chance after what happened today?

is this decision going to have a chilling effect? dorian: on the contrary. at the moment, it is galvanizing the opposition. there was a mass rally following the verdict. many of the coalition of opposition parties, including the leader of the powerful party which is a partner of the chp, she delivered a speech to a large crowd saying that in the 1990's erdogan was removed from office as mayor after reciting an reciting -- reciting a poem. she said turkey heard that song and it is again playing to roars of applause. this can be seen as a springboard for the opposition to bring down erdogan in general elections next year. brent: you will be following the story for us. thank you. in ukraine come authorities say

they thwarted a russian drone attack today on the capital kyiv . forces shot down all 13 iranian made drones targeting the city center. missile attacks were also reported in the cities of kharki v and don't ask -- and donetsk. >> this resident clears the broken glass from her windows. many homes were shaken this morning. their windows shattered as cold winds brought freezing temperatures. >> winter is coming. how can people survive?what do they want from us ? they will not let ukrainians live. >> let the russians know that putin died. i did not do anything to him but he does this to me. >> a nearby building has been badly hit.

and cars crushed. ukraine sees the damage as ukrainian air defenses shot down iran made russian drones. >> the terrorists to begin with a lot of 13 drones. all 13 were shot down by ukrainian air defense. well done. i am proud of you. >> pressure has recently been using long-range missile attacks -- russia has been recently using long-range missile attacks on residential areas. kyiv called the russian strikes war crimes, saying moscow is intentionally targeting civilians. brent: our correspondent in kyiv told me more about these drone attacks. >> this was a surprisingly small attack compared to the last humans. 13 drones downed. that is significantly short of what we have seen in previous weeks. the expectation or hope in

ukraine is that russia is just running out of these drones, running out of missiles. these drones themselves are fairly cheap weapons, $20,000 each. their only hope of success is by overwhelming ukraine's defenses through sheer number. it does not seem like they are able to do that. largely, kyiv went about another day during wartime without much of a difference. the power and water stayed on. there was no noticeable impact on people's everyday lives here in kyiv. this is a country that is getting used to these attacks it is getting increasingly better at dealing with them. brent: it is a country that would like to have patriot air defense systems to defend itself with. we know the u.s. as it plans to send patriot air defenses to ukraine -- says it plans to send patriot air defenses to ukraine. how would that change ukraine's air defense capability? nick: ukrainian politicians and societal thinkers have been

asking, begging, praying for it since the beginning of the work, especially the first month where the clamor from ukraine was to close the ukrainian skies and protect us from the air. with the patriot would allow ukraine to do is deal with ballistic missiles. all the systems ukraine has, they are aimed at dealing with drones and cruise missiles that the ballistic missiles that go hike to the ground and fall to the earth with you speed are halted to deal with that are hard to deal with -- are harder to deal with. they did not have the capacity to learn with the patriot in a hurry, but i think ukraine has no proved that wrong and has proven it is good at dealing with these complex challenges in a hurry. brent: let's talk about money. this week, there was a donor held in paris. more than one billion euros in financial aid has been pledged for ukraine to help it rebuild once this war is over. what has been the response

there? is there a feeling that it is nice but this is a little bit of putting the cart before the horse? nick: these funds are aimed at first to do with this winter, basically get the country through the winter. it is slightly more than the ukrainians asked for, but there is the question of delivery. is this going to arrive in the current timeframe? there is a bad track record with foreign politicians turning up in kyiv. nice words in front of the cameras but then the realization that it takes months. there is a growing understanding of how pressing this is and that people are getting their act together about sending money. rebuilding after the war, that will be a question of hundreds of billions of euros, and people in ukraine are helping a lot of that will come from russia's assets that are frozen. there is not the willingness or capacity from foreign countries to hand the money over. brent: very good point. nick with the latest from kyiv.

thank you. the united states is using a summit in washington, d.c., to work on its image as a crucial ally to africa. almost 50 african heads of state and government are attending the summit. u.s. companies have announced more than $2 billion worth of technology deals for a continent where china has become a top player. u.s. president biden is excited to announce billions more in support of africa. >> shared success and opportunity because when africa succeeds, the united states succeeds. quite frankly, the whole world succeeds as well. brent: at that u.s.-africa summit is our very own reporter. we just heard u.s. president biden saying if africa succeeds, the whole world succeeds. is there a long-term strategy, long-term commitment to african nations here?

>> there is. that is what the current president says. but african leaders gathered here and heard that before eight years ago when barack obama held the first u.s. africa leaders summit. in between was donald trump. so there is a reservation among african leaders weather policy could be overturned. and when joe biden went off air, there was a song playing on the internal tv. it went "when we get together, there are going to be good vibes." i think that is exactly what the state department and u.s. president want to create here because in the background, there is of course china and russia. we heard the defense secretary speak of pressure trying to destabilize the continent. that is something you will not hear from the president, that this is all about strategic interest. it isn't. it is a lot about business. there was an announcement that there should be a memorandum of

understanding for a joint trade area. for now, that is a pie in the sky. brent: what is certain is what china has been doing, pushing its ties with africa, offering investments with no strings attached. is the u.s. in a power struggle right now for natural resources on the african continent? >> yes, it is. but that is not what the american side wants to talk about. i spoke for instance to the president of tanzania here earlier. he told me that they don't want to be exactly that, just a place where the rest gets their resources. they want to be partners at eye level. that is exactly what u.s. president biden is promising here. the fulfillment is a host of agreements. many bilateral agreements that were signed here to paper. if you take it altogether, it amounts to hundreds of billions

although it remained unclear until the last moment how much of that is actual government money. that is more around 50 billion u.s. dollars but it is not about money. that is what both sides are saying. it is about long-term investments, about creating jobs, and creating something that will actually return on investment for many years to come for both sides. this is a very big promise. it is also financial commitment from the u.s. side with africa becoming more aware of its power in this shifting power political geostrategic game we are seeing now. last but not least every fifth person living on the planet in less than 20 years time is actually going to be from africa , so it is to be taken seriously. that is exactly what the u.s. government is trying to protect. brent: that's right. lots of business opportunities there for clever entrepreneurs, that is for sure. at the u.s. africa summit in washington, thank you.

let's take a look now at some other stories making headlines this hour. floods and landslides have killed more than 120 people in and around the congolese capital. days of heavy rains have left people and homes buried. officials say much of the destruction hit houses that were built without official permission. four people died when a boat carrying migrants got into difficulties in freezing temperatures off the south coast of england. dozens more were rescued. more than 40,000 migrants have made the journey across the english channel so far this year. that is more than ever before. investigators in belgium have seized 1.5 million euros in cash in a series of raids linked to a corruption scandal linking qatar and the european parliament. the greek socialist mep right there is one of four people

arrested over alleged payments received from qatar. they have been charged with accepting bribes in exchange for eu favors for the gulf state. she has been stripped of her role as vice president of the european parliament. she as well as qatari officials are denying any wrongdoing. a group of ethiopians are suing facebook owner meta for allegedly promoting violence in ethiopia's civil war. the case includes the sun of an ethnic professor who faced repeated death threats on the platform. the lawsuit says that facebook ignored requests to remove the violent content and that the company is "directly responsible for his death." >> a respected chemistry professor shot down outside his home in ethiopia. he was allegedly targeted after several posts on facebook called for his death.

in a lawsuit against meta, the parent company of facebook, the son of the professor says facebook did not honor a request to take down the post. now they hold facebook responsible for his father's death. >> why did it take over a month to take down a post that called for the murder of somebody? why was the post left up for over a year? something is wrong with the way it monitors the content. the case is a lack of investment in content moderation, especially for african countries. when you compare it to other regions, we are getting the second-rate treatment. >> the professor's son says facebook connection amounted to racism. >> also to stand up to say african lives matter.

they are promoting racism by their lack of responses. that is also my concern. i hold facebook directly responsible for my father's murder. >> meta has responded with a statement saying the company is working with experts in ethiopia to find and delete hate speech there. they did not say why their system appears to have failed the professor. brent: rosa is the director of a company that monitors tech giants. i asked her who is to blame here, the creator of hate speech for the platforms that give hate speech a home? >> yes, that's right, this case is challenging, the viral hate being spread across facebook, which leads to people dying. the content moderation decisions

that are being taken by facebook are matters of life and death. as you just heard from abraham, that was tragically the case to his family and his father, who was brutally killed after two posts were placed on facebook. although abraham repeatedly reported them, they were not taken down. we are demanding that changes are made to the way facebook deals with content moderation in part to deal with the software design, requesting changes are made to stop promoting viral hate and to demote the violent incitement happening across the facebook platform, but also to staff and value content motivators. about 500 million users in africa. it is crucial that the content moderation individuals who are doing this work are properly

paid and there is a vast increase in number. for the european market, which the country has 117 million people, facebook currently employs 25 content moderators. that is woefully inadequate. brent: the numbers are striking, but i wonder how you are going to get facebook to change when it just announced it is laying off 10,000 people worldwide. it is saying it is doing that as a business decision. what you are calling for would require more, not fewer people. >> and absolutely would, and this is an incredibly wealthy company that can absolutely afford to employ more people. the two demands we are making, one is about amending the software design because at the moment, facebook is a curated space and viral hate is being promoted by the company. we are asking them to stop that

and also to employ vast numbers of additional content moderators . the 25 content moderators i just mentioned with relation to ethiopia, they only speak three of the 85 languages currently spoken in ethiopia. this is completely unacceptable. it is leading to deaths in ethiopia and has to be stopped. we very much hope the courts will step in and do that. brent: it is good to have you with us, and it is good to get your perspective on this story. i don't think this is the last time we will be talking. thank you. >> thank you. brent: it has been more than a ticket avatar"/box -- more than a decade since "avatar" smash box office records. >> it has been nearly 14 years.

the two main characters are now parents. but when their home is again threatened by humans, the family flees to an underwater refuge and must learn new skills to survive. >> brothers and sisters, teach them our ways. >> in "avatar: the way of water," the two actors reprise their roles as the main characters. >> jake's journey in this movie as he is still a warrior and a dad so he is still reckless but has responsibility now. >> stepping back into play the character is something really special to me. this character is a character i feel a kindred with in so many ways. i learned so much about her. i gave so much of myself to her, so getting to revisit her, it feels like it is the gift that keeps on giving. >> fans have waited 13 years for the sequel.

the first film used pioneering motion capture technology to reproduce the actors's every movement. the follow-up does that underwater, a feat of engineering that took years to develop. the cast even learned diving for their underwater scenes. it was a huge technical challenge for writer/director james cameron. >> more complicated with more characters but we had tools that make it easier in some regards and had to figure out how to do with water. the movie is called the way of water but we had to figure out the way of water for performance capture and cg to make it absolutely seamless, which i think we accomplished, and that is part of the dreamlike wonder. >> the cast again includes sigourney weaver. this time, she plays their adopted daughter. >> i feel her. >> family is such a universal theme, so relatable. and you become part of this family and you go with us

through all of these different challenges and different high points. it is incredible. >> it is also one of hollywood's most expensive films ever. the first film was the highest grossing of all time, but the pandemic has changed the moviegoing landscape. and the movie will need to be a mammoth hit just to break even. brent: i asked dw's movie group whether the film lives up to the hype. >> well, i think in terms of the visual spectacle, it definitely does live up to the hype some critics have complained to use a bad water pond that the story is a little bit shallow. but my argument against that is you do not get on a roller coaster for the dialogue. james cameron does not do ambiguity. what he does is visual

spectacle. on that level, the movie just delivers. it provides unbelievable immersive cinematic experience, probably the most immersive experience i have had in the theater since the first "avatar ." brent: if you are going to see the way of water, you are not going to see the way of wagoner. the first was ground breaking. how sophisticated are the special effects in this new sequence? >> is interesting because the first 20 to 30 minutes of this film is more or less the same world we know from the first "avatar," sort of this rain forest on this alien planet of pandora. it is visually impressive but nothing new, nothing we have not seen before. when the film shifts and means underwater, that is what comes into its own, and that is where you see this new technology that cameron has talked about that he used on this film. it pays off that he waited so long for the technology to catch up to his vision.

it is an incredible visual experience. it is probably not going to have the same sort of impact on the whole cinema industry like the first "avatar" did, which set off this wave of 3d movies. but i think it shows this technology when used by a master like james cameron creates a visual experience almost unlike anything else. brent: is it going to get people to go to the movies? coming out of the pandemic, everybody would like their film to be the next "top gun 2." is that what this is going to be able to be? >> it has to be a lot more than "top gun 2" if it wants to make its money back to get this film set the bar so high, costing $400 million at least to make. it has to make $1 billion or more worldwide to breakeven. to make a profit, it has to make over $2 billion worldwide. that is a huge ask, but if i

have learned anything from being in this business, never bet against james cameron. i remember people saying the first "avatar" would feel miserable. james cameron has proven people wrong again and again. this might be the third time. brent: he definitely has the cinematic midas touch. as always, thank you. here is a recap now of our top story we are following the sour. a turkish court has sentenced the mayor of istanbul to three years in prison. he was found guilty of insulting public officials. you are watching dw news. after a short break, i will be back to take you through "the day." stick around. we will be right back. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

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>> 10:00, here are the stories making headlines. france will defend its ground as world cup champions after a victory over morocco. the blues were too tough to beat, dashing rocco's hopes of being the first african national to win the title. joe biden making his case to african leaders in washington that the u.s. can be an ally to the continent. the president is hosting 50 african leaders for a three-day summit.