any job prospects has been clashing with security forces they're seeking out confrontation by attacking police stations and ripping up posters of iran's supreme religious leader on tuesday the supreme leader spoke out about the protests for the first time and he blamed foreign elements that that's. but iran's enemies have conspired together and are using various means such as money weapons politics and intelligence services to sow unrest in the islamic republic. groups the population is divided some worry about further restrictions in the wake of the protests others are sympathetic to the young people and their anger and corruption and nepotism higher salaries for politicians these are not crimes a simple worker who doesn't even get his minimum wage and is now defending himself this is a crime. going to have. the protests carry on and the warning from the red. illusionary guard still applies if the unrest doesn't stop they will intervene and put an end to the uprising once and for all. and for more we're joined now by a.f.p. correspondent eric randolph was joining us with the latest from tehran welcome to you eric pro-government demonstrations that we saw last night is this a sign of a changing tide in favor of the regime or is it propaganda. it's hard to say exactly what's happening outside in the provinces protests to go protest always happening in smaller towns and cities that are in tear up but we can all see your force of violence out night that is that this morning we've seen a very impressive show strength from the regime tens of thousands of people who take pro-government runways and several ages it's not yet in tehran that it's coming from. so it does appear that the government. when the top is yet and when we look at the causes for example of these anti-government protests we know that for example the uprising has been the biggest since two thousand and nine but with that crackdown underway as you mentioned and hundreds already arrested how strong would you say is the will for those protesters to continue and how big a threat are they posing to the regime at this point. we're better than two thousand and nine these protests have been much smaller really don't how can i do the figures we're talking in the silence wrote them in the hundreds of thousands which you saw back in two thousand not. the fact that they went by the fight for their attacks on government buildings. setting fire to places and so on time off quite a few people talking to terrorize in the street a lot of people don't like that kind of violence and they worry about it and they worry about a crackdown that's not to say that there isn't a genuine sense of frustration over the economy lots of people who are serious problems making ends meet and those issues are going to continue see through it in society for a long time to come regardless of what happens with these protests this week eric tell us a little bit more about the background behind that frustration because you know many of the protesters boy saying that frustrated but tehran has accused foreign powers of being behind the address is there any evidence for that. show and they point to social media accounts but is saudi arabia in europe and america to choose facts all opposition groups behind the fomenting the unrest and a lot of people on the street actually do see question about interference from abroad the. the real issues of brought about to things like unemployment which is r.'s forty percent for young people in fact this came just after a budget by the government which cost well. raise fuel prices that was a deeply important measures so it got us what's happening outside the country iranians. ranges of focus on what's happening in lives and that's not going to change overnight although the government is going to have to show some responsiveness to those grievances eric randolph in tehran thank you thanks. north korea is reopening a suspended communications line with south korea in what may be a sign of thawing tensions north korean leader kim jong un ordered that the hotline of the country's border be reconnected the two koreas have been making overtures to improving ties since new years that is when kim signaled that he wanted to see north korean athletes cross the border to join next month's winter olympics in the south. of get a quick check now of some other stories that have been making news around the world the roman catholic church in congo has condemned a crackdown on protests against president joseph kabila as quote barbarism security forces killed at least seven people and used tear gas during demonstrations on sunday in the capital kinshasa catholic activists have organized protests over could be lives refusal to leave office. a canadian man who was held hostage by taliban linked militants for five years has been arrested in ottawa joshua boyle is facing fifteen charges including assault and making death threats the alleged offenses took place between october and december just after the thirty four year old and his wife and three children were rescued. the president of the mormon church thomas monson has died in a statement officials say that the ninety year old succumbed to causes incident to age he led the church of jesus christ of latter day saints for ten years sixteen million people belong to the mormon faith one of the world's fastest growing and most affluent religions a successor will be announced after his funeral. in peru at least forty eight people have been killed after a bus plunged over a cliff edge and onto a beach the accident happened on a particularly dangerous section of the highway known as devil's curve with rescue services struggling to reach victims on the remote beach. this is devil's curve a treacherous stretch of road around seventy kilometers north of produce capital lima. on tuesday it's not all mist shrouded tons caused another fatal accident when a bus carrying fifty seven passengers tumbled eighty meters on to a rocky beach rescuers find their efforts to reach victims hampered by a lack of direct routes to the beach the police and firefighters did manage to transport some survivors to nearby hospitals via helicopter. but the majority of passengers weren't so lucky to ease agoa lost his niece in the tragedy she was travelling with her boyfriend the two of them were in the same seat with you. the road conditions have been improving in peru in recent years the death toll from traffic accidents is still depressingly high two thousand six hundred people were killed in peru's highways and twenty sixteen and there have already been coals from road safety experts to re-examine the notorious stretch of highway at devil's curve . and u.s. president donald trump has started the new year with a flurry of tweets directed at america's adversaries and partners he says need to toe the line for north korea's leader he had this i too have a nuclear button but it is much bigger and more powerful one than his and my button works trump also threatened to cut aid to the palestinian authority saying that after paying hundreds of millions of dollars the us wasn't getting any respect he added with the palestinians no longer willing to talk peace why should we make any of these massive future payments to them and the us president also addressed the protests in iraq he had this to say the people of iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt iranian regime all of the money that president obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their pockets. well iran north korea and the middle east peace process are among the many challenges that the president will have on his plate and twenty eighteen and at home investigations into alleged links between russia and trump's campaign remain open our washington correspondent carson phenomena sent us this report on what lies ahead if u.s. politics this year. there is little doubt who will dominate the headlines in the united states this year once again donald trump like a day in addition to speeches and other statements trump rants against what he calls fake news parents conspiracy theories and so its opponents celebrities and even members of its own party and praises himself for his real or imagined achievements like ending the alleged war on christmas i told you that we would be saying merry christmas again i by and donald trump certainly isn't done yet his next big project is infrastructure the united states might be the world's only remaining global superpower at least for now but back home much of its infrastructure is crumbling like this hybrid just outside washington. i'm the president hopes that his new initiative will for a change be popular across party lines but there are still many open questions like what kind of infrastructure projects you'll bridges and airports or well equipped schools and hospitals and who's going to pay for that donald trump's tax reform already blows a big coal into the federal budget and then infrastructure package for a come on top of that now some republicans want to cut welfare programs to plug that hole but that's a no go for the democratic party especially in an election year and in fact the democrats stand a good chance to win a majority in both chambers of congress in autumn. after all trump's approval ratings are at a record low for any u.s. president in modern history of to a year in office they hope for at around thirty five percent so his biggest hope for a boost in popularity is continued economic growth or perhaps the outbreak of a major international crisis. nothing makes americans rally behind their president like the threat of war and in particular when it comes to north korea and its nuclear program trump hasn't been holding back they will be met with fire fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before and there are quite a few people here in washington who fear that trump might follow through on his threats this year the rhetoric of trump and some of his supporters on north korea shows parallels to the bush administration just before the invasion of iraq and so it raises some eyebrows when the commandant of the u.s. marine corps recently told his troops a war is coming and they should be prepared for a big fight. the pentagon quickly backpedaled saying the marines should always be prepared but with such an unpredictable commander in chief not everyone is reassured so two thousand eight hundred promises once again to be a turbulent year in the u.s. and the role in the world. and from watching what's ahead for the united states in twenty eighteen i'm joined now by boris forman it political science lecturer at a couple of other things at stake we just saw that the infrastructure bill which was a big promise which indeed has the potential for a bipartisan agreement because hillary clinton and sanders at the time were running on a sort of similar ticket but it remains to be seen how that's going to be financed especially after the tax reform and his campaign is also under investigation is and it's i mean he's under quite a bit of pressure right now of course the campaign ties or potential ties to russia being heavily investigated at the moment that process is expected to take a while now normally those investigations don't happen overnight but could we see some some major breakthroughs either way in twenty eighteen well it seems like in the last couple weeks robert miller the special investigator was zooming in on the inner circle of trumps and we saw some more or less nervous reactions from that inner circle so it is certainly possible that there might be some kind of revelation in two thousand and eighteen i think what we should not forget however is that just as important as these russian ties which might but end up to be a reason for impeachment in the end the obstruction of justice the potential of struction of justice by trump might indeed be a major problem and that's something that might backlash is that the i weren't there impeachment how long does that take well it takes a while it takes their strong institutional hurdles in the congress. in the house and in the senate to start an impeachment process it's unlikely to happen in two thousand and eighteen because we also have congressional elections and i don't think that the g.o.p. will will you know it would backfire on the g.o.p. to do it now let's talk a little bit more about those congressional elections those midterm elections coming up in the fall of course you know in the republican party at the moment trump himself as as we heard not terribly popular if we if we measure it on a historical scale could you see if swing here toward the democratic side and what would that mean for his presidency the historical context is great for the democrats from the last twenty midterm elections only eighteen or eighteen of the midterm elections went to the party that was not the president's party so historically always the other party wins out most of the time and you just mentioned a trump has very low approval ratings that also points towards a major win for the democrats but we shouldn't forget that in two thousand and ten with the census the republicans were very strong at redistricting which is important for the house of representatives so the democrats need to be very strong in order to win the house in the senate there's a similar picture because the democrats were so strong in the last couple of elections most of the seats that are up for election are democratic seats ok so the moral of the story keep your eyes open in twenty eighteen for what's happening in the united states or is for men from bard college it's a much for telling us a little more about it thank you. unemployment in germany increased slightly in december but looking at twenty seven thousand overall the jobless rate dropped significantly in fact employment in germany last year has seen its sharpest rise in a decade pushing the number of people holding a job to an all time high of forty four point three million that's according to german statistics office economists at the four institute say the strong economy will continue to create jobs in the coming years they're forecasting the number of employed people to grow to forty four point eight million this year and more than forty five million in twenty nine t. now the service sector enjoyed the strongest job job growth last year but manufacturing construction and agriculture sectors all added substantially to their workforce as well. now a comprehensive new rules for europe's financial sectors come into force today a revised markets in financial instruments directive or misfit too will change the way investment research is paid for transform the way trades are implemented and impact the way brokers exchange information the aim of regulators in brussels is to boost transparency in europe's financial sector and level the playing field for small investors more from our financial correspondent on a device in frankfurt on it what does this revised regulation mean for financial markets. well it's a small revolution for the financial industry it was kind of invented right after the financial crisis in order to make the financial system safer and more transparent so overall it has more than seven thousand pages the new rules said so it's a huge pile of new rules for the financial sector that one has to know that more than half of all trades are actually not taking place by official stock exchange it's rich already have of course full transparency but the other half is. our businesses which are called over the counter to broke up or even are done are transacted in so-called dark pools when bester is private investors can sell and purchase huge blocks off securities all that will have to change will and that is the big challenge for the financial industry how big that challenge is shows you the show the sort of wave of the future exchanges in the u.k. and also in germany got just today very briefly before the new rules actually got effective advice problem frankfurt thank you so much in iceland the new year has brought with it a new laws will making it illegal to pay men more than women for the same work and it's the first country in the world to make both public and private enterprises comparable to the rules. until now women in iceland have earned an average nineteen percent less than their male colleagues but those days are over equal pay for equal work has just become a must irrespective of gender ethnicity sexuality or nationality the new law will cover over one hundred fifty thousand workers. so far women have borne the cost of the gender pay gap and if that cost is too high and to reach our goal we're all going to have to work hard now we have the perfect chance to do so. the new law affects one thousand two hundred companies in iceland which employ at least twenty five workers who now have to publish their wage scales there are courses to help them implement the new rules on completion companies get a certificate which has to be renewed every three years. back to memphis because this will affect employers first and foremost they're offering the jobs and now it's up to them to shoulder their responsibilities. and be part of this mission with us a packet how do you have to recognize that it's hope to close the country's gender pay gap by twenty twenty two and the other countries have made similar moves for now iceland is the global pioneer. u.s. regulators have blocked a chinese firm from purchasing american money transfer company money gram siding national security concerns the move effectively ends the one point two billion dollars attempt by chinese payment company and financial to acquire money grab the decision was made by a five person panel tasked with reviewing foreign purchases of u.s. businesses it reflects a growing unease in the united states over china's acquisition of technology firms and financial is owned by jack ma the founder of the popular e-commerce site alibaba. and it's back to sarah now in german bond is the guest stars are trying to lose those extra pounds from christmas absolutely and. and i have more on that in our next bulletin but just quickly before we go now we want to remind you of the top stories that we've been following for you here at g.w. because in iran tens of thousands have held pro-government rallies following days of unrest targeting the regime at least twenty one people have been killed and hundreds of arrested during a week of anti-government protests. and north korean officials have reopened a communications hotline at the border with the south the move comes amid a possible thaw in tensions between the two rivals with leaders on both sides making calls this week for dialogue. you're up to date now on news we have more coming up at the top of the hour but don't forget in the meantime you can always get the latest news and information around the clock on our web site that is that dot com we will leave you now with some images of the bone chilling cold that has been gripping much of the united states over the last few days i'm sara kelly in berlin enjoy. it's. not our. lives. moment next to the phone. in the snow a.o.l. going. forward for lots of other friends was. present or lucas to go works up a sweat. i wonder vacation close to nature. the oh i region in winter. in sixty minutes on d. w. . what does a football loving country need to reach its goals. we'll tell you how german soccer made it back to the top. in our webspace. dot com football made in germany. and the leaders of the first movie it's not