now earlier journalist sami sokol in jerusalem gave us a snapshot of the christmas celebrations in bethlehem. we've seen a record number of tourists and pinworms visiting both best and jerusalem this year and what is added to the festive atmosphere is the fact that the pope francis has given a relic this size a fragment of wood that has been in rome for nearly 1400 years and this is believed to have been part of the major part of the career with jesus christ late so it was received you with great. ness and the belief here is that it will draw more tourists to visit the city on the other how israeli authorities have prevented yet again gazans from leaving and visiting the west bank visiting beslan and visiting jerusalem and even though last year they get a commission for 700 palestinian christians to leave the gaza strip and this is this year the number was only 300 so the disappointment in gaza was very high amidst very strong condemnations from the various churches. semi-circle speaking asked to us from jerusalem let's take a look at some of the other stories making news around the world 2

has made sweeping changes to the way the catholic church deals with child sex abuse the pontiff sees sokol people secrecy will be abolished critics have accused the church of using the rules to avoid reporting abuse cases to. a court in pakistan has sentenced the former military ruler. to death on charges of high treason musharraf was tried in his absence for suspending the constitution and imposing a state of emergency in 2007. thousands of people have rallied in the czech capital prague to demand the resignation of the prime minister and. opponents say the billionaire leader should give up his business interests or step down reject allegations of a conflict of interest. romania is marking 30 years since the revolution which ended its communist regime facing rebellion dictator nicolae ceausescu ordered troops to fire on protesters in the town of. 60 people were killed but the revolt spread to the capital bucharest school was overthrown and executed. riot police have fired tear gas in norms and paris as a major labor unions hold a day of strikes across the country the strikes come on the 1

ok reporter do you know you sokol reporting for us from bethlehem. the leaders of china japan and south korea have agreed to work together to promote dialogue between the united states and north korea chinese premier league japanese premier shinzo of a south korean president in held a summit in chengdu china against the backdrop backdrop pardon me of increasing threats from pyongyang north korea has said it will take unspecified action if sanctions against it are not lifted by the end of the year. they called it the 3 kingdoms police of china japan and south korea met for talks but the only just setting the agenda at the summit was not at the table. north korea's kim jong il after the latest tests that when this earlier this month regional powers are concerned appearing young is supposed to do efforts to ease tensions. we agreed that peace on the korean peninsula was in the common interest of the 3 countries we also agreed to make efforts together to help promote north korea u.s. dialogue for denuclearization and peace. the possibility of north korea

president jose maria vas who failed to get through the 1st round last month one of the candidates says sokol barlow has accused the interior ministry of stuffing ballot boxes. taiwan's president says that china is the biggest threat to the island sovereignty and democracy sighing when made the comments during a televised debate ahead of next month's election her main challenger called for closer ties with beijing alexy o'brien reports. relations with china dominated the heated t.v. debate between the 3 candidates vying for taiwan's top job as she bids to secure a 2nd 4 year term president sighing winces beijing is the biggest threat to taiwan's free and democratic way of life has it out the window my rival hong hesitates when asked which country he thinks would harm the well being of taiwan the most let me tell you now that country is china. from the chinese nationalist party or k. m. ting is widely seen as sys main challenger he favors kosar ties with beijing and accuses sigh of exploiting the protests in hong kong to bolster her case. hong kong people are bleeding from fighting against chi

jose mario vos who failed to get through the 1st round last month one of the candidates in maurice's sokol and has already accused the interior ministry of stuffing ballot boxes it's hoped the result will help the west african nation and its long running political turmoil. the u.s. military and somali forces have hit 2 our targets with airstrikes somalia's government says a senior member was killed well it comes a day after a truck bomb attack blamed on the armed. when 18 people were killed her religious reports right will be in neighboring kenya. they survived saturday's truck bomb blast it mother dishes but sustained some of the worst injuries now some victims have been airlifted to better equipped hospitals in turkey clinics and hospitals in mogadishu are struggling to cope with the dozens of wounded while going to have responded all from the time the explosion occurred up until now the government leaders have been working hard to provide the services needed by those injured in the explosion it's now possible for us to airlift 16 of some of the seriously injured in the attack to our bro

hasn't happened but i have to say on the fringes of this protest was there on the other from line sokol sunline activists who are gathering so i think it's possible that after this particular model has ended probably in a few hours' time we might well see trouble later on because there is a familiar pattern to these protests they begin peacefully and then descend into disorder but this demonstration is once again a reminder that the voice of protest in hong kong is far from undiminished. it began peacefully on june the 9th with a march against a bill for an extradition deal with china and the protest movement might well have ended then if hong kong's chief executive kerry lamb had heeded their demaio. absolutely found a man had succeeded with the withdrawal of the bill to saif got our freedom nothing would have happened. benson haute never saw him self as a front line activist but that's what he's become he's been arrested and forced to leave home. i told my dad we're going out to fight for the rights we deserve we had a big fight and after that he said move out move out if you don't wa

and close smoke filled rooms make these decisions and then just go to parliament for a perfunctory sokol consultation which is really not a consultation at all they've already made the decisions this is different and this is really the significance of what's going on now we don't know how it's going to end there may be more violence against the protesters as there has been on and off in the last few days you may have the police on the army protecting the demonstrators you may have them driving them out of the public squares as happened once or twice there's all kinds of new elements on the street it would ing so that's by some of the political groups what the political role of the army and security will be in terms of protecting the protesters or not how the protesters will need the old guard halfway in accepting a peep prime minister who's not a technocrat but is except about the old guard these are all new elements and they really were seeing that history in the making rami khouri thank you very much and if you have time thank you. and it is attorney general has ordered the arrest of f