you know, years chief international editor, richard walker. richard, thank you. and now to some of the other business stories making news, dodge of on is on track for a record loss this year. as the 2nd wave of covert 19 puts pressure on the german rail operator, a leading german newspaper reported the dacha bomb is braced for a loss of 5600000000 euros this year. space x. launched another 60 starlink broadband satellites form florida's cape canaveral on tuesday of march. the hundreds launch for the falcon 9 rocket as space experts to build a constellation of orbiting satellites to provide global internet service space x. founded by tesla's you know, musk plans to launch thousands more. this board over the next efficient and high speed testing is key to getting the coronavirus under control. but how best to transport the kids between places california company matter now believes drones are the answer here and is testing out the tech right here in berlin. it's the perfect job for a drone. shuttling coronavirus tests 11 kilometers across germany's capital from a ho

richard walker. richard, thanks for coming in. what kind of reactions have we seen from around the world? you know, we're seeing reactions coming in from, from most parts of the world now and here in europe, the responses came pretty quickly after the race was called on saturday, evening, european time. so let's take a look at a few. we can bring some up on the screen here is or perhaps starting with angela merkel here in germany. obviously, she put out a statement saying, congratulations, the american people have made their decision. i wish him the best of luck in every success. and in the german original, used expressions of heartfelt wishes of success and lot, which i think is quite striking when you compare it to the statement that she made 4 years ago when donald trump was elected, which was very frosty and was a taste of the bad relationship to come between them and manuel mccall, the french president here, also very quick out with congratulations to joe biden and talking about all the work that they have to do together. and in the united kingdom, boris johnson prime minister, that also was quick out with a kind graduations. this is quite interesting because boris johnson is perhaps the only kind of really prominent european leader who had quite a lot invested in a good relationship with donald trump. they were seen as kind of rather ideologically close, you know, with britain leaving the european union also kind of like a form of populist sort of nationalist tone that you often get from boris johnson. so that he came out with this so quickly. i'm sure will have rankled with donald trump, but this is specially we'll have got donald trump see the i think from the render a moment, the prime minister of india saying, congratulations to joe biden on your spectacular victory. now, doesn't think it was fair. this is, but this is a very, very kind of a warm message of congratulations. now at the beginning of this year, i was in delhi when donald trump was visiting modi. modi put on a show huge, showed in this ideologically very close, really examples of the kind of lay of the populous nationalism been going around the world here trying to have seen this in seen, something that would have come across as quite a snub to him. i think and of course in india there's another aspect to this because carla harris, her mother came from a village in south india and this been celebrations there. images of people coming out in the village in these days was humble not to celebrate. you know, what is that of c. a momentous achievement by somebody with roots that most of voices of pleasure with anyone, not as happy with the announcement. well, it's quite instance you can read between the lines of the statements from benyamin netanyahu, the prime minister of israel, a very close ally of donald trump. he waited until this morning to put out his congratulations to joe biden, and then quickly followed with a tweet of thanks to donald trump. really trying to sort of soften the blow. but i think the sign that you know, even someone as close to trump as mess and yahoo is seeing the writing on the wall is a sign of donald trump's power of being away. right, richard walker, thanks very much for that. as we just heard here in europe, many leaders are hoping joe biden will help repair transatlantic ties that have been strained under the trump presidency. so what would a biden presidency look like for europe is more terms of america. 1st policy translated into a poor back from its position as a world power willing to work with others is a rhotic policy. so it's taken many long standing allies to call 1st and foremost, the european union. now european capitals are hoping for some kind of return to normality, american security prosperity and a way of life require the strong possible network of partners and one choose working alone died. one longchamps brand of american 1st has to often lead to america along this sitcom nerves and bolan, of brussels, as well as tokyo and elsewhere that have been dangling over this past 4 years. trump broke a host wall, typically by sowing downs over u.s. commitment to nato, telling allies to pay up or else by then on t

richard walker richard to trump supporters seem desperate have we heard any reaction from the trump campaign itself you know all the time campaign is sticking to its message that they want to challenge in the courts what has been going on in many of these states where they they claim that there are a irregularities but they haven't really saval produced any evidence to that extent i think is particularly interesting is look what they're communicating under the radar to trump's kind of most loyal supporters now since covering the last u.s. election in 2016 i've been on the mailing list for trump supporters in the u.s. so i received these e-mails that are going out to his bosses all over the country and overnight in european time from loss yesterday to today i counted in the space of 9 hours 14 e-mails coming through so essentially kind of spamming people at the moment with this kind of thing we've got a few examples here so here for example subject line we need to keep pushing a fair official election defense fund you know trying to raise money for these these legal challenges that they want to push up we bring up the next one here senda trump trump trump i mean there's no doubt about who this is coming from. let's keep going is the message this or no sense of kind of standing down if we bring up the next one. now. it's time to fight back now what are people spilling onto the streets when they're receiving this kind of e-mail from the campaign and a final one here to have a look at do you believe democrats are trying to steal the election yes or no like encouraging people to click through on that to kind of you know kind of whip people up into this mindset that there is that there are irregularities going on so from this kind of positioning it's a long step of we kind of think forwards who are at a point where victory may be out of trump's reach for sure how does he climb down from this is definitely a few steps from this to a possible concession clearly a dynamic situation can't see it it can't wait to see how this is all resolved and it's clear at this point that this election is going to be won or lost by a very small margin in a few states give us a sense of how close this election has actually been overall yeah i mean of course the reason we're still sitting here discussing this is that these states close and some of them could be down to you know a percentage point or less but if you look at the overall picture of the national popular vote there is definitely a bigger gaps or joe biden according to the latest numbers is more than $4000000.00 votes ahead and if that holds to the to the end of the count then that would be a difference of roughly 3 percentage points which is well short of the landslide that they were looking for but that's not a particularly close margin of victory got it richard walker chief international editor for did you have a really appreciate your time richard. germany has set a new daily record with the number of new coronavirus cases exceeding 23000 for the 1st time 130 people have died over the last 24 hours these numbers come after the 1st weekend of germany's partial lockdown hundreds of people have gathered in the eastern german city of light sick to protest the new restrictions a court ruled that they could hold the demonstration in the city center provided the protesters observe strict security measures like wearing masks and keeping social distance. ease and leipsic for us. who are these protesters exactly. it's is a very mixed crowd you have to say the entire city of leipzig is full of demonstrates is today there are $27.00 demonstrations that have been registered all over the city and of course the biggest one is the one used by a movement that calls itself they are doing and they are against the coronavirus measures that are no bigger incide

richard walker richard hi thanks for coming and as we just saw there trump support of getting someone desperate has there been any reaction from the trump campaign and yet more publicly the drum campaign is saying that it's pushing ahead with these multiple on these multiple levels you know a recount taking place in georgia legal challenges taking place potentially in a number of states but i think it's quite interesting to see what the campaign is also saying a little bit more under the radar to its own supporters the kind of message that is is bringing people out on the streets as we've just heard so i'm on the mailing list in fact for the campaign and in the course of 9 hours over the over the night here european time 14 emails came from the trunk campaign with messages such as we need to keep pushing illegal ballots will not be counted this is no longer about any single election your support is critical we have to fight harder than ever don't let them get away with it they will steal the election if we don't stop them so this is poor ring into the in boxes of millions of trump supporters around the country it's not just what we're seeing in public on television on social media this is coming directly to donald trump's followers so it's no wonder that we're seeing some spilling out onto the streets and you know unless the tide kind of take their foot off the gas here and we're going to continue you know really stoking that divisiveness which i wanted to talk about next whatever the eventual outcome this election has shown real disunity across the country tell us a bit about that yeah i mean this obviously this deep part is an ideological really divides in the united states goes back quite a long time and you can trace it back to the 990 s. in some ways but it's obviously intensified. 2016 election when donald trump got elected and since then. through the course of the trump presidency he's obviously a divisive figure he has really kind of stoked up his own supporters to kind of fight the fight with him and that's where we are now and joe biden who is not a figure like he's very much more of a center is try to you know kind of figure with a you know let's unite the country kind of message it's very uncertain whether he's going to be able to do that though. he's not going to win this and it looks like so the democrats are going to not have a majority there they've also lost their lead in the house of representatives has been drunk so his ability to steer the agenda is going to be quite compromised he's going to have a very tough time and potentially face a very hostile opposition in congress or i did of his chief international editor richard walker thanks very much for coming. let's turn to some of the other developments in the pandemic president trams top adviser white house chief of staff mark meadows has contracted covert 19 reports say he tested positive a day after the election this comes amid record numbers of new infections in the u.s. germany has also set a new daily record with a number of new cases exceeding 23000 for the 1st time and argentina's president alberta finance says his country could receive 750000 doses of vaccine from the drug maker pfizer by that simba if it's ready and approved by regulators. let's take a look at some other stories making news around the world if the o.p.'s prime minister says his air force has bombed oms depos and destroyed military hardware belonging to his former coalition allies in the 2 great region tensions rise in september went to gray held an election against the prime minister as well experts fear the latest escalation could trigger a civil war. police have killed at lea

richard walker richard house the international community reacting so for to joe biden's what we've had statements from many leaders around the world now here in europe the statements came in very quickly actually off the cool was announced last evening european time let's bring up a few on the screen just to have a quick look sir i'm going to machall she was among the 1st to give her congratulations to joe biden saying kind of wishing the best of luck in every success and indeed in the german original she even used words like heartfelt which was kind of striking because if you remember back 4 years ago when donald trump one statement off of that was very very frosty and that was a bit of a taste of the rather poor relationship to come between the 2 of them if we move forward perhaps a man who i might call also offering congratulations so you know getting this from a lot of european leaders really seeing joe biden someone who's much more on that wavelengths in terms of values than donald trump boris johnson the u.k. interesting case here 1st answer among the really prominent european leaders is the one who is probably closer. donald trump you know bracks it was something that trump was very supportive of you know the departure of the u.k. from the european union but even johnson was quick out of the gate with congratulations to joe biden but i think this one from india to render modi the prime minister of india this is really going to rankle with donald trump because he gives congratulations to joe biden he also kind of came out with this pretty soon after the result came through and took us tackle a victory and then with this photograph of the 2 men close and that's really going to rank with trump because he thought in modi he had an ideological soul mate in fact you know he was a populist nationalist trump was in india earlier this year i was there at the time and got a huge amount of fanfare on his visit to india to. promote his hometown even and that all seems to be forgotten now and of course is another aspect to indian relations with this with this new administration incoming administration eskom laris of course her mother came from a small village in tamil nadu in the south of india and people have been out in that village celebrating. their motives language is certainly not muted is it. i'm curious as i talk to you. are there international leaders who are not happy with the outcome of this election what there are some leaders who are really pretty heavily invested with donald trump and one who definitely comes to minds benjamin netanyahu and his response was distinctly late see he did not jump out of the gate so quickly he waited till sunday morning local time to offer his congratulations to joe biden and immediately followed up with a tweet kind of giving his thanks to donald trump in this apparent effort to sort of soften the blow of his could graduations to joe biden but i think you know the fact that a leader so close to donald trump sees the writing on the wall is just a sign. that his power is ebbing away even if he hasn't quite accepted that himself . richard walker really appreciate that perspective much thanks. joe biden's victory crowns a long career in politics one that includes 2 previous failed presidential beds and 8 years as brock obama's 2nd in command here's a closer look at the man who will run the white house for the next 4 years it began half a century ago at 29 joseph biden was one of the youngest candidates ever elected to the u.s. senate his success though laced with sadness when just weeks later his wife and daughter died in a car accident he remarried and made his 1st presidential bed in 1908 and again 20 years later my grandmother would yell out spread the faith. he was chosen to be barack obama's running mate. the best vice president barack has ever had mr joe biden. and he was resigned to never quite reaching the nation's highest office until donald trump came along that's why today i'm announcing my candidacy for president of the united states. and we have to with this decades of experience biden said he was the man t

richard walker richard good to see you again you were in the u.s. covering the election 4 years ago what's different about it this time yeah well i mean i think there are 2 main things that i would pull out there terry the 1st of all is the obvious one that is in effect in the entire planet at the moment that is of course the pandemic and this is had a massive impact on both the nature of the campaign you know i mean to american election campaigns usually this kind of traveling circus with 2 rival traveling circus is huge numbers of a vent in person offense where people want to go and meet the candidate and really almost like a kind of a celebration of the atmosphere on both sides obviously that's been massively toned down you know the number of real in person events taking place particularly on the democratic side on the scale of them has been really scaled back but also in the aspect of the coronavirus kind of putting into even sharper relief the fact that this election is a referendum on the presidency of donald trump which it was inevitably going to be off to 4 years of this kind of president but it puts that really interests up or leave because his handling of the pandemic has been so controversial so there's the pandemic on the other one side and then on the other side you just briefly referred to it in the introduction there is this sense about the integrity of the result on certainty about the result now there is a good chance that this time tomorrow we're not going to go know the results of this election a lot of very important states a very close. there's been a large amount of early voting by post a lot of those votes will not be counted by this time tomorrow morning and this opens up the possibility of there being a legal challenges to kind of a long drawn out count in key states like. sylvania for example that could mean that we have a couple of weeks or even longer of not knowing the result next week really destabilizing 4 years ago the us was already polarized you could see it in the election but now things are off the stale did you see coming 4 years ago i think unfortunately you could only anticipate that really and if you look at this polarization it's a trend that goes back quite a long way really i mean you could chart it back at least to the 1990 say the period where you have bill clinton in the white house newt gingrich in congress that began this really kind of deep phase of polarization eyes think we're still in now and 2016 sort of felt like it had a new low for that obviously with the arrival of a very polarizing figure donald trump i remember many of the rallies that i went to you know the trump supporters in the crowd chanting look her up talking about hillary clinton as is the rival. so that was very deep but of course what we've got on top of that now is that we've had 4 years of trump in the presidency which means that the 2 sides everyone is even more entrenched in the positions that they were in then trump supporters feel like they fought every fight with him and trump's bitterest opponents really feel like this is an absolutely crucial moment for the country to get rid of someone who they've grown to despise it's. what's quite interesting is in the middle of all of this you have joe biden who is in himself he's not really a particularly polarizing figure which you see in the nature of the attacks coming from the trump side they're often not actually directed at him they directed his son or at the left of the democratic party he himself is not a polarizing figure so i think what's going to be crucial to this result is whether biden's own lack of polarizing character isn't a. to him because it helps him draw in kind of support votes is from the middle what remains of the middle independent voters or whether it may weaken him by lacking that total mobilization of the left that donald trump has a right richard thank you so much for your insights search chief international editor richard walker this is news coming to you live from berlin just reminder the top stories we're following for you today 4 people have been killed in the end in what the austrian government is calling an islamist terrorist attack attack by standards at 6 locations in the city center on monday evening police then also shot dead one of the assailants one of more attackers are thought to still be laura bush . and in person voting has begun in the u.s. election where in a new hampshire town cast their ballots after midnight it comes after a last day of campaigning for dull trawled through seeking a 2nd term in office as president and his democratic challenger joe biden. you're watching d.w. news coming up next we've got a documentary film for you on boeing called boeing a deadly assumptions focusing on the ill fated 737 max i'm terry martin thanks for . this presidential election is a crucial why not just for the united s

going to deal with trump $2.00 if that's what's going to happen richard thanks so much our chief international editor richard walker. richard was saying we do have some reaction here from some german politicians urging caution over the u.s. election the economy minister here in germany says it's important for the contestants to accept the results once every vote has been counted earlier we spoke to schmidt of the s.p.d. partners in germany's ruling coalition he dismissed president trump's claim to have one. statement. even no been counted yet and a good democrat needs to wait for the final tally before declaring themselves the victor of an election it clearly shows president trump's deep disdain of democracy and democratic procedures. after 4 years of america 1st many here in europe had hoped to wake up to a different and clearer outcome germany's know what can of the bonus talks foreign affairs committee with this reaction germany he says is not prepared for 4 more years of working with trump a 2nd election victory would challenge us fundamentally in a way in which we are not prepared. and in scotland the 1st minister ther

richard walker, whose report you just saw there. richard. good to see you. now we've heard about the concerns that german experts have when it comes to holloway concerns about the concerns that the u.s. government obviously has obvious concerns shared by other countries around the world. yeah, they absolutely are chris. i mean, you've had more and more members of what you might call the western alliance, pulling the plug on 5 g. on hallways involvement in their 5 g. rollouts over the last couple of years. you know, because of those concerns. and because of mounting pressure from the united states, so australia, for instance, way back in 2018. and this year you seen the u.k. and france each in a slightly different way, basically following suit. so i think that's a sign that this year in 2020, the mood has really kind of turned increasingly against, well way in germany, the government is split on how to position itself when it comes to holly. what's the latest there? that's right. i mean, germany has been wrangling with this issue for a very long time. and that reflects the very high stakes. i think of the way that germany sort of feels torn about this perhaps more than other countries do. and that, of course, relates to germany's enormous trading relationship with china. i mean, just look at the figures last year, germany exported more than $100000000000.00 euros worth of goods to china. so it is concerned about chinese potential retaliation against its companies doing business there. but at the same time, it faces the geopolitical and security concerns that other countries have been looking at and that division is reflected right to the top of government. government has been divided for a long time. and what we're expecting to see soon from the government is a new security law, which will at least sort of set the ground rules for how to decide these sorts of things. process is for making decisions and include introducing for the 1st time a political test of trustworthiness of providers. and that is a hurdle that huawei could fall at a merger. what sort of impact would a decision for or against where have for the global economy? what we could be a kind of turning point here, chris, because if you think about what is the story of the 21st century so far economically, it's really incorporating china into the world economy. what we could be seeing here is the beginning of a process of what's called decoupling of reducing the links between western countries and the chinese economy. not just relating to this kind of high tech communications technology, but also medical supplies and other kind of dependencies that of really been highlighted this year during the coronavirus pandemic. so which way germany goes will be an interesting litmus test for the future of the world economy. if you don't lose chief international editor, richard walker. richard, thank you. and finally, james bond's gone is going up for auction next month in los angeles. the walter pistol was used by the late sean connery in the 1st ever bond movie, 960 to use dr. no, it is expected to go for up to $200000.00. the film was told by a british secret service to trade in his old, misfiring baretta gun for the wall turned $25.00 bond films. later. versions of the walter remain double 7, its signature weapon and my guess a glass of martini probably was equally important to him. that's all show. thanks for watching. every so often success against the coronavirus pandemic has the rate of infection in developing the latest research information and contacts virus spragg. why do we panic? when we'll introduce through the tactics and weekly radio show is called spectrum. if you would like any information on the crawler laroche or any other science topic, you should really check out our podcast wherever you get your podcast. you can also find us at slash s

richard walker richard to trump supporters seem desperate have we heard any reaction from the trump campaign itself you know all the time campaign is sticking to its message that they want to challenge in the courts what has been going on in many of the states where they they claim that there are irregularities but they haven't really so far produced any evidence to that extent i think is particularly interesting is look what they're communicating under the radar to trump's kind of most loyal supporters now since covering the now last u.s. election in 2016 i've been on the mailing list for trump support is in the u.s. so i received these e-mails that are going out to his supporters all over the country and overnight in european time from last yesterday to today i counted in the space of 9 hours 14 e-mails coming through so it's actually kind of spamming people at the moment with this kind of thing we've got a few examples here so here for example subject life we need to keep pushing a fair official election defense fund you know trying to raise money for these legal challenges that they want to push up we bring up the next one here send trump trump trump i mean there's no doubt about who this is coming from. let's keep going is the message this or no sense of kind of standing down if we bring up the next one. now it's time to fight back now what are people spilling onto the streets when they're receiving this kind of e-mail from the campaign and the final one here to have a look at do you believe democrats are trying to steal the election. yes or no like encouraging people to click through on that to kind of you know kind of whip people up into this mindset that there is that there are irregularities going on so from this kind of positioning it's a long step of we've kind of think forward to it a point where victory may be out of trump's reach for sure how does he climb down from this is definitely a few steps from this to a possible concessions and clearly a dynamic situation can't see to can't wait to see how this is all resolved and it's clear at this point that this election is going to be won or lost by a very small margin in a few states give us a sense of how close this election has actually been overall yeah i mean of course the reason we're still sitting here discussing this is that these states close and some of them could be down to you know a percentage point or less but if you look at the overall picture of the national popular vote there is definitely a bigger gap sort of joe biden according to the latest numbers is more than $4000000.00 votes ahead and if that holds to the end of the count then that would be a difference of roughly 3 percentage points which is well short of the landslide that they were looking for but that's not a particularly close margin of victory got it richard walker chief international editor for d.o.b. really appreciate your time richard. let's take a look now at some other stories making news around the world at this hour ethiopia's prime minister says his air force has bombed arms depots and destroyed military hardware belonging to his former coalition allies in the to gray region tensions rose in september when held an election against the prime minister's will experts fear the latest escalation could trigger a civil war. almost 200 people are dead or missing after hurricane swept across central america the storm have the biggest impact in guatemala where the army is still rescuing people stranded by floodwaters and landslides at a has now been downgraded but forecasters expect it to regain strength as it crosses the caribbean this weekend. a pilot scheme in liverpool aims to mass test the northern english cities population for corona virus to control the spread of the disease residents are being encouraged to take a rapid results test

richard walker. richard house, the international community, reacting so for to joe biden's. richard, what we've had statements from many leagues around the world. now here in europe, the statements came in very quickly, actually off the cool was announced yesterday evening european time. let's bring up a few on the screen. let's just have a quick look so cool. she was among the 1st to give her congratulations to joe biden's and kind of wishing the best of luck and every success and in the german original. she even used words like heartfelt which was kind of striking because if you remember back 4 years ago when donald trump won her statement, also that was very, very frosty. and that was a bit of a taste of the rather poor relationship to come between the 2 of them. if we move forward, perhaps a man who i might call also offering congratulations also, you know, getting this from a lot of european leaders who really see in joe biden, someone who's much more on their wavelength in terms of values than donald trump. boris johnson, the u.k. interesting case here. 1st answer among the re

richard walker richard thanks for coming in from supporters seem to be getting quite worried now what has the latest word been from the trunk campaign itself well the campaign is saying that they're going to keep up the pressure threatening lawsuits already in lawsuits in the in a number of states where very likely to see a recount taking place for instance in the state of georgia is possible that there could be recounts in other states too if they really close but what's also particular in seeing is to see what is the message coming from the trunk campaign to trump's own supporters themselves and i'm actually on one of the trump campaign mailing lists and i've brought some mails along because during the course of the night here european time i received 14 e-mails in the space of 9 hours from the campaign with this kind of message if you can see here saying we need to keep pushing in the subject line official defense election defense funds are trying to raise money for some of these legal battles that we may be moving into where we can cue up the next one and take a look here we have like the senders here listed truck truck truck i mean there's no doubt this is coming from let's keep going really kind of getting that message to the kind of people we just saw in the report. that get out on to the streets give me support we have one more to show here as well maybe we can bring that one up yeah it's time to fight back can present from accounts on you no wonder people are coming out on the streets you know with this number of e-mails coming through not just to me 40 nails in my inbox in 9 hours but millions of trump supporters who may have been to a trump rally before just registered on the website this is pouring in and some of the also with a message like another one here joe biden wants to count illegal ballots and that's misleading joe biden has never said anything of the sort and you know they're throwing into question ballots that were cast perfectly legally what about the broader republican party what's transport looking like within the party itself well this is going to be something that's really important to what of the coming days because. trump needs support from senior people within the within the republican party to kind of stay in that you know if the picture becomes bleaker for him in terms of whether any of these lawsuits are challenging and if these results to come through now many senior republicans are staying very loyal but it's quite interesting to see quotes of numbers beginning to hedge their bets publicly in their statements on twitter and so on some of the people for instance who are hoping to run for president in 2024 the sort of people like marco rubio the florida senator nikki haley who was donald trump's ambassador to the united nations these are people who are looking to the next election and they're trying to walk a line where they're sort of publicly sort of supportive of what donald trump is trying to do but also kind of implying that you know they may see the writing is on the wall also it's interesting to see what the news outlets of. rupert murdoch controlled news corp is saying to things like fox news very influential in the u.s. public the wall street journal also more aimed at kind of the republican intelligentsia both. those some messaging beginnings that comes through this are indicating and sort of messaging to trump you know if the writing is eventually on the wall that he's going to have to accept and concede we're running out of time but i did want to ask you just a little bit this is of course taking place amidst a pandemic how big a role did the pandemic play in this i think it did for a very big role certainly i mean some of the exit polling of votes is suggested that essentially if you were more worried about the pandemic you voted for joe biden if you were more worried about the economy you voted for donald trump go all right richard walker thank you very much for coming at sandown some other stories making news around the world if the o.p.'s prime minister says his air force has bombed and destroyed military hardware belonging to his former coalition allies in the tigre a region tensions rose in september when to grey held an election against the prime ministers will experts fear the latest escalation could trigger a civil war. police have killed at least one person during a protest in the iraqi city of bass for more than 40 people were wounded when police opened fire on the protesters security forces have killed more than $500.00 people since protests against the government against government corruption and a stagnating economy iraq did last year. germany has also set a new daily record for corona virus cases with the number now exceeding 23000 for the 1st time and 130 people have died over the last 24 hours that's despite strict new measures that took effect this week. i'm to slow the rapid growth in infections

richard walker richard good to see you again you were in the u.s. covering the election 4 years ago what's different about it this time yeah well i mean i think there are 2 main things that i would pull out there terry the 1st of all is the obvious one is the affecting the entire planet at the moment that is of course the pandemic and this is had a massive impact on both the nature of the campaign you know i mean to american election campaigns usually this kind of traveling circus with 2 rival traveling circus is huge numbers of events in past an offense where people want to go and meet the candidate and really almost like a kind of a celebrate every atmosphere on both sides of a seat that's been massively toned down you know the number of real impose new events taking place particularly on the democratic side on the scale of them has been really scaled back but also in the aspects of the coronavirus kind of putting into even sharper relief the fact that this election is a referendum on the presidency of donald trump which it was inevitably going to be off to 4 years of this kind of president but it puts that really into sharper relief because his handling of the pandemic has been so controversial so there's the pandemic on the other one side and then on the other side you just briefly referred to it in the introduction that. the sense about the. of the result about the results now there is a good chance that this time tomorrow we're not going to know the results of this election a lot of very important states a very close. there's been a large amount of early voting city by post a lot of those votes will not be counted by this time tomorrow morning and this opens up the possibility of there being a legal challenges to kind of a long drawn out count in key states like pennsylvania for example that could mean that we have a couple of weeks or even longer of not knowing the result next week really destabilizing 4 years ago the u.s. was already polarized you could see it in the election the but now things are off the scale did you see at calming 4 years ago i think unfortunately you could only anticipate that really and if you look at this polarization it's a trend that goes back quite a long way really i mean you could chart it back at least to the 1990 s. say the period where you have bill clinton in the white house you can bridge in congress that began this really kind of deep phase of polarization i think we're still in now and 2016 sort of felt like it had of a new low for that obviously with the arrival of a very polarizing figure donald trump i remember many of the rallies that i went to the trump supporters in the crowd chanting look her up talking about hillary clinton as is the rival. that was very deep but of course what we've got on top of that now is that we've had 4 years of trump in the presidency which means that the 2 sides everyone is even more entrenched in the positions that they were in then trump supporters feel like they fought every fight with him and trumps bitterest opponents really feel like this is absolutely crucial moment for the country to get rid of some. one who they've grown to despise it's. what's quite interesting is in the middle of all of this you have joe biden who is in himself he's not really a particularly polarizing figure which you see in the nature of the attacks coming from the trump side and often not actually directed at him directed his son or at the left of the democratic party he himself is not a polarizing figure so i think what's going to be crucial to this result is whether . only lack of polarizing character is an advantage to him because it helps him draw in kind of support votes is from the middle what remains of the middle independent voters or whether it may weaken him by lacking that total mobilization of the left that donald trump has a right richard thank you so much for your insights search chief international editor richard walk well u.s. elections being closely followed here in germany course for decades berlin and washington shared relatively warm relations but a number of events have shaken that relationship including revelations and 2013 of american surveillance of chancellor in america but don't trump's time as president has deepened divisions and left germany leading calls for a stronger e.u. saying the days of relying on the u.s. are over. germany and the usa were best friends for decades in the early sixty's a wall was built dividing both germany and berlin in 2 east and west then u.s. president john f. kennedy conquered the germans hearts. eighty's was the era of the arms race. many germans disagreed with the politics of president ronald reagan but in the end his contribution to germany's reunification put him in the history books is rather strong. in the 2000 barack obama's cult status was merely that of a pop star so

richard walker richard the trump supporters seem desperate have we heard any reaction from the trump campaign itself be able to trump campaign is sticking to its message that they want to challenge in the courts what has been going on in many of these states where they they claim that there are irregularities but they haven't really so far produced any evidence to that extent i think it's particularly interesting is look what they're communicating under the radar to trump's kind of most loyal supporters now since covering the last u.s. election in 2016 i've been on the mailing list for trump supporters in the u.s. so i received these e-mails that are going out to his supporters all over the country and overnight in european time from last yesterday to today i counted in the space of 9 hours 14 e-mails coming through so essentially kind of spamming people at the moment with this kind of thing we've got a few examples here so here for example subject line we need to keep pushing a fair official election defense fund you know trying to raise money for these these legal challenges that they want to push up we can bring up the next one here send trump trump trump i mean there's no doubt about who this is coming from the important enough let's keep going is the message this or no sense of kind of standing down if we bring up the next one. now it's time to fight back now what do you see people spilling onto the streets when they're receiving this kind of e-mail from the campaign and a final one here to have a look at do you believe democrats are trying to steal the election yes or no like encouraging people to click through on that to kind of you know kind of whip people up into this mindset that there is that there are irregularities going on so from this kind of positioning it's a long step of we've kind of think forward to a point where victory may be out of transfer. reach for sure how does he climb down from this is definitely a few steps from this to a possible concession isn't it clearly a dynamic situation can't see it it can't wait to see how this is all resolved and it's clear at this point that this election is going to be won or lost by a very small margin in a few states give us a sense of how close this election has actually been overall yeah i mean of course the reason we're still sitting here discussing this is that these states close and some of them could be down to you know a percentage point or less but if you look at the overall picture of the national popular vote there is definitely a bigger gaps or joe biden according to the latest numbers is more than 4000000 votes ahead and if that holds to be the end of the count then that would be a difference of roughly 3 percentage points which is well short of the landslide that they were looking for but that's not a particularly close margin of victory got it richard walker chief international editor for do you have a really appreciate your time richard if you hope is prime minister ahmed says his air force has bombed military assets in the northern tikrit region tensions have been high since the region held elections without the approval of the central government observers fear the latest escalation could trigger a full scale civil war. these fight loyal to the t.p.i. left party that governs the to grey region the national government accuses them of attacking in a theater on the base prompting a military response. and a political one no make as an address of a have now voted to scrap to graze current government prime minister b. ack man defended the s strikes that began pounding the region on thursday. during the process of law enforcement they could be asked strikes. the strikes were not target civilians. they will target the capacities of these dangerous forces. but nonetheless in order to avoid unexpected. advice that you limit group movements

richard walker richard good to see you from supporters seem desperate any reaction from the trump campaign itself well the time campaign is maintaining its position that it stands ready and has already begun with legal action in some states and you know we could be in reach out territories in the state of georgia and some others but it was quite don't also interesting is to is to look at what they are saying more under the radar to their own supporters now after covering the last election in the u.s. i'm registered for the campaign mails trump supporters receive and overnight from last night to today european time i received in the space of 9 hours 14 e-mails we can take a look at a few of these e-mails perhaps on the on the wall right here a look at this one in the subject line we need to keep pushing you know trying to raise money here for what they call the official election defense fund and there's a money that they are claiming here that they want to put into legal challenges by him bring up the next one here. there it is sent by truck from trump this is coming with a message let's keep going really tight of riling up trumps the potency and we have one more to show in just a moment see if we get that one up yeah it's time to fight back so there's a wonder what we just saw in the report that you've got so many trump supporters coming out onto the streets and many of these e-mails also kind of fueling this suggestion that illegal votes being counted this misleading suggest where there's been no evidence presented whatsoever and bear in mind this is not just coming to my inbox it's going to millions of trump supporters around the country no doubt it's a full court press it appears that this election is going to be won or lost by a razor thin margin in a small handful of states could you sort of do a sort of 360 degree here look at. just how close this election has actually been yeah i mean. and it obviously it is close in these states otherwise we wouldn't still be talking about it now you know some of these states could be you know won by less than there's a single percentage point but if you pull out and look at the popular vote overall the margin is largest. at the current tally joe biden seems to have never wanted something like $4000000.00 plus votes over donald trump. which in percentage terms would be about 3 percentage points if that's where that hold that he's certainly not the landslide many democrats were hoping for in this election but it's also not a particularly close election that the many close ones in some people might be surprised to hear that georgia is sort of conservative reliable republican state is actually in play year in the democrats might actually win it how did this state become part of the democratic plan yeah i mean that is definitely remarkable if if that does indeed happen to be the last time that georgia version for a democratic presidential candidate was way back in 1902 when bill clinton a fellow southerner from arkansas a won by razor thin margin. over george bush sr if the democrats do manage to flip that state this year you can expect a lot of the credit to go to stacy abrams she is a former state politician she narrowly lost her race for governor in 2018 and there were allegations of voter suppression in that election that targeted minority communities basically the black community which is more than 30 percent of the population in georgia so off that election stacey abrams made a personal mission to start a real voter registration drive in georgia registering reportedly about 800000 new voters so if the democrats win that state that could be down to richard walker thank you so much for that perspective. now let's take a look at some other stories making news around the world almost 200 people are dead or missing after. the storm. the rescuing people stranded by floodwaters and landslides has now been downgraded but forecasters expect it to regain strength as it crosses the caribbean this weekend. water cannon the demonstration. the latest in an ongoing social unrest movement has been demanding reforms that the pension health care and education system. forces military assets in the northern region tensions have been high since the region held elections without the approval of the central government observers few the latest escalation could trigger a full scale civil war. these fight to the left party that governs the to gray region the national government accuses them of attacking and. prompting a military response and a political one. have now voted to scrap to graze current government prime minister defended the s. strikes that began po

richard walker richard i'll turn to you 1st we just saw michael illustrates you know the states that are part of that so-called blue wall the states that the democrats were really hoping to win in this election one of them really stood out to me and that is the state of wisconsin where we have 94 percent of the vote counted and it looks like a pretty clear lead for us president donald trump in fact he has he seems to have a lead but they amounts that are counted right now in all of them just walk us through what this could mean for the election is it still too early to give an assessment of what might happen there yeah i think it's too early because you know these are the states that we were just saying earlier that. there's been a lot of early voting in this election as mike was just saying is sometimes called absentee ballots so these these votes come in and these 3 states does happen to be states where those votes only start getting counted on election day so you have this huge stash of votes many of which are postal votes as well which have a different process for count for counting them you also have to check signatures often so it's a much more laborious process that could take time and the assumption is that. a preponderance of those votes have gone to abide rather than to trump so i think that's why a lot of the networks that may be ordinarily might be calling a state like that with 94 percent of the votes already tallied holding off to see like what is the weighting within within those postal votes. and of course you know one reason why people have been voting by postal voting early is because of the pandemic specially vulnerable older people and it has to be said for democrats who may be more inclined to kind of follow the scientific guidance as we've seen in a lot. polling to see is that this bit of a kind of partisan split in your attitude significant part is that space in your attitude to how to handle the pandemic these are the people who have been voting early so that's why. the a lot of the. networks and a.p. and so on her have been pretty cautious about calling out these states where they count of these early votes still is really underway. ok. phil i'd like to ask for your reaction to what we have just heard from richard and perhaps you can also we can react to what the president has to say. you know within the past hour he has said frankly we did win this election he said that you know there has been a fraud on the american public he said he's going to bring this now to the supreme court that he wants to stop the voting tell what this a little bit about the message that he is sending out there and whether the party is behind him now on this yeah absolutely i mean i think the message is is completely unacceptable the united states sends you know as part of its democracy pro promotion sends a poll watchers around the world to prevent exactly statements like that from happening and to prevent. votes from not being counted so i think that. these statements are attracting attention also from you know obviously from democrats but also from members of the republican party that are distancing themselves from them we've seen that with you know rick santorum for example republican lawyer ben ben ginsburg even

diplomacy expert and us political expert welcome to the program richard walker is with us richard is our chief international editor and richard i'd like to turn to you and 1st ask for your reaction to what we just heard the u.s. president saying also your reaction to the results that michael has been presenting if you look at both of those messages it appears it appears as if the republicans might be busting through without blue wall those key states of pennsylvania wisconsin and michigan can we assume that or is that still too early. too early to say i mean those crucial states that we've been talking about tonight really do seem to hold the key to this election and what makes it particularly. particularly kind of tense situation is that. the voting a lot of the voting particularly on the democratic side it is assumed took place in the form of voting in the weeks leading up to the election even either by post or in person and donald trump here is essentially trying to stop the vote count in those states because he sees that in the vote tally on the day it looks like he's ahead but those states all have a process where they o

richard thank you very much richard walker philip you good to have you both with us terry martin you've been watching special coverage of the u.s. election we'll be back again at the top of the next hour with more meanwhile to the point coming up next thank you for being with us. good. thing. to the point sean opinions of your position on the international perspective some of. it's tense it's exciting and it's disturbing america has voted in a momentous presidential election just because you don't trump against job i trump already declared victory and once the supreme court to stop counting. to the point that i'm going to come up next a lot of d.w.i. because. i'm not thinking out of the jam well enough sometimes i am but i stand up and whip it up and read the job and think the printer jemma called. looking at the stereotype in here think the future of the country that i not. yet needed seem ridiculous drama day out to me it's all about. bob i might go join me to meet the gentleman from p.w. . post. again. he should learn his respect. the e.c.u. team. the bull dog the dog mob. good schoo

richard walker and phil i you richard i'll turn to you because we've been talking about the challenge of the situation you know having this major election amid a pandemic but there hasn't always been the silver lining that has emerged an incredible turnout among u.s. voters what does that say about the you know the state of democracy and the hope in the process among among american citizens. what we know about the time there is that there was a very high tide as we've said a 100000000 also people voted already before election day which is definitely quite striking and yeah i mean cause you can see that as a sign of encouragement or you could maybe flip it around and see it the other way . that it is a sign of exactly this polarization that we are seeing us seeing intense motivations on both sides 2. sides of the country that. are really motivated by the desire to stop the other. so i know we don't want to necessarily sit here and talking about doom and gloom. which we've been kind of doing is watching the world's oldest democracy you know go through what could turn into a crisis but yeah i think high turnout is not necessarily something. is entirely 100 percent encouraging i wonder if you share that view fellow and then also to throw in the polarization that richard has also highlighted tell us a little bit about you know this is a long term trend in the united states it has been exacerbated in the past 4 years but what would a win by either candidate do to that trend you think of the you. are we simply on this road for the future can anyone bring the country together well let me start 1st with the turnout question because the prevailing wisdom in political science is usually than the u.s. trying out spells good news for democrats you know the more for the democratic party the more turnout you have the better the party does but we have seen in other countries you know that populist presidents on or part populist leaders on the right also get good news from high turnout sometimes and this might be something we're seeing in the us that might change the way we think about. what happens when we have high turnout there in terms of the polarization i mean i yes it has been going on for a while but i have not experiences like this before you know i have

richard walker we also have standing by philip associate professor at occidental college in the united states specializing in diplomacy and world affairs welcome to both of you richard i'll turn to you 1st and perhaps you can pick up a little bit on what mckayla was saying in terms of where this race stands right now especially in these key battleground states yeah i mean we face a period of uncertainty i mean we can probably expect some of these states to announce results within the next day perhaps was the end of the week but that's not necessarily the end of the story they could be pushes for recounts from the republican side particularly if they. if if the results in any given states a very close and also we have this track of legal challenges to the process is the way the votes have been performed this year joe biden pulling ahead in the popular vote does it even matter well yeah i mean it's interesting to kind of pull back from because we have very rightly focused on the electoral college is this very unusual structure of the united states has for electing its presidents but we should pull back from that for a moment and look at the popular vote does have a 2000000 illegals 6866000000 approximately. and that was of course reflected back in $26.00 to me what we could have this year if trump does pull through if he wins he's very unlikely to win the popular vote so this would cost another poll over this electoral see color system which happened 4 years ago when hillary clinton i think from memory about 2 and a half 1000000 votes ahead. so that will kind of fuel calls for changes to the electoral college system but if biden wins well what we've seen from donald trump today is an attempt to deal with just my eyes the result and so if a president biden did come in you would have substantial proportion of the pie. elation believing that he's not legitimate tell us a little bit about the process fill if you will because you know we mentioned the electoral college we mention the fact that you can win the popular vote and you could lose the electoral college you could lose the election that happened with clinton that also happened with gore back in 2000 as well there have been calls to reform that system what are the main problems well so the idea behind the electoral college originally was that it would compel a presidential candidate to speak to the whole country so you would have to go to low urban low population states and you couldn't just campaign in new york in california or texas 2 to win a popular vote and you have to move you have to battle for those what's what's in your country what is in each state what has happened however in recent years i mean you know richard pointed this out which if you think about the last 20 years. a republican president has held office for 12 of those 20 years and they've only won the popular vote one time which was george w. bush in 2004 and so this is raising serious questions about the electoral college and what it means for democracy of course it has an important purpose which you know which i outlined but this is becoming a consistent pattern given that the republican and democratic parties which used to have strong urban and rural bases have shifted in recent years and the electoral college is clearly benefiting the republican candidate over and over again and to the point where even if you're winning with one or 2 percent most forecasts show a democratic challenger of losing the election electrical phil richards stand by we're going to discuss more about this but 1st i'd just like to highlight that president trump's claim that he has won the election and has vowed to contest the counting of votes has raised the

richard walker with us as well richard i'll turn to you 1st the democrats were hoping for a statement election that is not what we are seeing this morning that's right i mean i think to an extent they got the their hopes got a little ahead of them maybe substantially ahead of them i mean it's early days we have to stress but what many democrats were hoping for was to win florida for instance and if they had won florida tonight then that would probably have put the presidency within biden's crossed that. has not happened. in fact the only state that it looks like so far that biden has managed to flip over from what hillary clinton got 4 years ago is arizona and. not everyone is calling that race yet and they could even be a legal challenge kind of lining up there if that legal challenges could be the world that we're going to be in in the next couple of weeks but yeah i think it's essentially so far it's looking kind of disappointing compared to the hopes the democrats had and also even if biden doesn't up winning. it's an extraordinary achievement for donald trump given the the situation in the united states at the moment of the battle to make and you know really really chaos a year on so many levels that trump support base is so strong that he's even managed to build on victories in states like florida this is not the kind of major repudiation of trouble his opponents were hoping for absolutely and we've actually heard from both of the candidates in the past hour or so we've heard joe biden speaking jessica and we heard very very shortly thereafter from donald trump on twitter 2 very different messages joe biden calling for patience donald trump saying the democrats are trying to steal the election what does this say to you about the difference between these 2 candidates the state of polarization in the country what polarization is pretty clear it adds up to what we just heard richard. but this would have been the moment in a normal election right remember like the ones that we used to know where one candidate would have accepted and the other one would have conceded that's just not happening anymore but there are these millions voters out there who want some sort of statement and that's precisely what we saw but what we also saw was a sharp difference in language once again i think this reconfirms how different these 2 candidates also see their functions as leaders when i say president because who knows who's going to be. but they see their way of communicating with the public in very different ways and here i think it's safe to say that trump once again showed that polarization is really what he's very good at and what he wants to do while biden is trying to project himself at least still as the candidate of compromise of building bridges of be patient let's wait and so on and so forth so we see 2 very different interpretations really of what these protected lead