focus is on the election results and just how difficult it's going to be for chancellor merkel to cobble together a coalition but there are other stories going on in the world it's come on it has a few of them for us well thank you very much terry and iraq's autonomous kurdish region is due to hold an independence referendum in the coming hours more than five million voters are registered to take part in the nonbinding in spite of condemnation from baghdad. and other regional powers for kurds it's a chance to say they want to live under a single centralized government of their own making. the kurdish city of how the sight of a poison gas attack by saddam hussein's forces that killed thousands almost thirty years ago a symbol of why many here want to break away from iraqi control and create their own state. again. we support the referendum if it's in the interest of the