international three months ago they're accused of aiding terrorism the case is expected to test the already strained relations between the two countries joining with skinny never had a good night for a bundesliga teams of the season long german cup tournaments for dortmund a seventeen year old leads the way is the club advance in defense of their time. and reports of sexual assault in europe's halls of power revelations of abuse in hollywood that started with harvey weinstein trigger more records this time stories of assault and harassment from people who work at the e.u. headquarters in brussels. i'm brian thomas a very warm welcome to the show the strained relations between germany and turkey will be tested further today with the trial now underway for a german human rights activists arrested in istanbul. is one of a number of germans currently imprisoned in turkey berlin says he had been wrongfully detained and has been campaigning strongly for his release he was arrested more than three months ago while giving a workshop to other human rights activists in istanbul he's being tried along with those activists including the director of amnesty international in turkey. floyd now stands accused of links to an armed terrorist group and of having ties to the man allegedly behind last year's fails to the islamic cleric to a good now if convicted strike now faces up to fifteen years in prison trials putting relations between germany and turkey to the test the german foreign minister said margarito has called the threat of a long prison sentence quote in comprehensible and unacceptable or earlier i spoke with our correspondent dorian jones at the courthouse in his bowl i began by asking what evidence there is against it a story. well very little impact that's why there is so much outrage over this case prosecutors claim that along with eleven of the defendants were part of a conspiracy to create civic on breast across turkey that would aim to unseat the turkish president type earth one but the evidence in the seventeen page indictment appears to be very little it relies heavily on publications made by amnesty international put into the public domain even they've used the tweet which said enjoy the boat right to the island where this meeting was going to it was attending to enjoy their rights so there is outrage at this case because there is absolutely very little evidence although prosecutors can under emergency rule piles introduce new evidence in today's hearings so everyone is waiting whether the prosecutors have anything to add to it but for now at least there is very little ok well if the evidence proves to continue to be so flimsy does the defense have a good chance of getting this case this mess. well if it was a normal judicial system then alt definitely yes but turkey's under emergency rule is a lot of criticism of the judicial system is very arbitrary increasingly linked to the political whims and wishes in her but speaking to amnesty and fishel as their contacts with her officials do indicate that there possibly they could be some of those defendants relief at least from pretrial detention but having said that the turkish president yesterday gave a very tough speech against europe accusing them of meddling in turkey's affairs and that could cause a shadow over those hopes ok what's the endgame for turkey with this trial what does it want to achieve with it well that is a big question and there isn't growing suspicion in particular that the tension of peter storrie and the swedish league are r.v. that they are become pawns in negotiations with its european partners or is calling for german to extradite a number of people it claims were involved in last year's coup and there's a suspicion that could be part of some bargain there is growing outrage particularly also in the us that turkey turkey of using similar tactics with american citizens to taint in turkey strongly denies this they insist that the judiciary is independent but as the as the attention of story continues along with a number of other german citizens the suspicion is that they are pawns in this growing tension between. dorian jones following the story for us at turkey supreme court in istanbul thanks very much for that dora. now for some of the other stories making the news the chinese president xi jinping has been confirmed for a second term as the country's leader he was selected as secretary general of the communist party's ruling council six others were also named to that decision making body but a successor to she was not named that is a clear break with tradition. day funeral ceremony has started for king kong tens of thousands of mourners filing into the historic quarter of thailand's capital to bid farewell to the monarch his body has been lying in state since he died last october to gauge of eighty eight. the u.s. ban on all refugees has ended after one hundred twenty days but nationals from eleven countries believed to pose a high risk to the u.s. will face even tougher scrutiny officials have not named those countries but say people will be judged on a case by case basis all the sexual harassment assault and rape allegations aimed at hollywood film producer harvey weinstein have triggered a flood of similar reports around the world one example the news website politico has published disclose complaints by eighty seven women and six men working at the e.u. headquarters in brussels some women like it become a hotton tweeted their stories of how men harassed them using the hash tag me too she says when it came to furthering my career in brussels but seeing and working for him every day i chose to leave. other allegations include people being offered e.u. employment in exchange for sex young women being sent to bars to trade sexual favors for legislative outcomes and of men being bullied as well well the european parliament is holding an emergency session on sexual harassment at this very moment earlier i spoke with terry she's a german member of the european parliament for the greens in strasbourg. you yourself have reported an experience of sexual harassment not in the parliament but out on the streets of germany you reported it to the police also spoke about the incident in parliament now hearing the only allegations coming out of straws berg. what are your feelings about that how do you see that what i must say that it confirms my view that sexual harassment is still a widespread problem in our society and it also confirms my determination that we have to fight against this now don't you know society's but also very specifically here in the european parliament and today we are discussing what measures we have to take in order to prevent things like this happening in the future ok well the parliament has in fact taken steps to do that and signed on to the convention it has its own in-house methods and even an office for dealing with sexual harassment why have these measures failed. what we see is that we have an anterior restaurant committee and harassment has been reported to this committee but not specifically sexual harassment because we live in a society where sexual harassment is still specifically stigmatized so we want to look at these mechanisms and see how we can improve them so that we have a climate of openness so that women who are affected by these kind of cases that they can come up to committees are different bodies in this parliament get help and support and of course that there will be consequences for the perpetrator is ok you want to improve the mechanisms already in place you think would help to bring in an independent investigation into what exactly happened at the parliament. indeed because we would like to also get extra expertise about what are the things that we are doing at the moment and how could we improve this but we also believe that training for example of staff members is of great importance because many of the women who have reported in media outlets they said that they didn't even know that there were committees so there were bodies that they could have reported to in the european parliament so we also need to improve the knowledge about the existing mechanisms that are already in place ok what do you expect to come out of the debate on this issue in the e.u. parliament. what i hope that we will have a very determined cause for action in the parliament but i also hope that we will bring this from the european parliament to the parliaments and to other parts of society to fight against any form of sexual harassment and we believe that not only the full accession to the symbol convention is important for this but also a directive on the european level that goes against sexual harassment by the against any form of science against women because in hollywood but also in so many of the parts of our societies this is still so common and so except that obviously we would also need legislative steps in order to fight against it that was terry ryan a member of the greens in the european parliament we're turning now to madagascar where the plague has killed dozens of people over the past two months this disease is not new to the island which sees hundreds of cases each and every year but this outbreak has been especially severe infecting more than one thousand people united nations has delivered a million doses of antibiotics to help those who are sick or are also shunned as they struggle to recover. this young boy is infected with the plague first he got a shot and now he has to keep a distance of two meters from his own mother. the outlook is good for many who have made it to this clinic in eastern madagascar. like sylviana and her child. i think i got the plague in my lungs when we came into the hospital i was very afraid for my daughter and my family i had a fever and my lungs hurt. the plague can be treated if people receive antibiotics early enough but the outbreak of this disease in madagascar is not uncommon. mostly it's the plague but this time around it's the extremely dangerous pneumonic plague which spreads through the air for. plague outbreaks often start when rats transmit the disease to humans via fleas unsanitary conditions make the spread more likely. to be places like this one look at how we live isn't it filthy people like us have to be better protected. the sick are afraid to tell others they have the disease because they are scared of being ostracized stigma associated with. times creates rumors which make it difficult for us to actually get the truth about playing out into the community and when the people have a misconception of what the. plague really is then it makes it much more difficult for us to actually cut the chain of transmission and to help. this outbreak has infected about twelve hundred people about seven hundred have now recovered. adriano yaka is one of them but it's not easy to convince people at work that he's healthy again so he brings an aid worker in. you don't have to be afraid of him. just talk normally with him. he's just like he used to be i'll stop i'm happy to be back the doctor says i'm will again and the disease won't come back. this morning. the plague has been stamped out in most of the world but it remains a fact of life for people here in madagascar. sports now and the german cup football fans were closely following the action as top of the table dortmund travel to third division magdeburg a team known for its upsets dortmund came mentally prepared for that. mark de burgh fans made every effort including that huge terrifying monster graphic in the stands to try to intimidate the big name club but the big name club was having none of it starting with skinny number fourteen in the middle seventeen year old alexander easy in his competitive debut for dortmund ease uk set up in salo castro for the opening goal a nice knock down header making it easy the swedish forward helped himself just after the break guiding the ball through goalkeeper alexander brown's slags to make it to no penalty made it three and then dortmund thanks to shinji kagawa added two more to complete the route the guy was cross to mark bartra made it a four goal difference. then he added his own go off of a pass from maximillian philip. to. dortmund desert albeit against third division competition. the. let's get you a quick reminder of our top story this hour the trial for the german human rights activists say their story has started in turkey he was arrested in istanbul last july on terrorism related charges this case has become a flashpoint in the already tense relations between germany and turkey. this is the news live from berlin don't forget you can always get more at our website e.w. dot com for now though for me brian thomas in the entire team thanks so much for being with us i'm rita will join you again at the top of the hour by the. new on d w a make or eve's famous stars emmy and now. the beantown came in vegas house of music your phone close to me they. love me and unplugged.