this is g.w. news live from berlin tonight an emotional homecoming and a chilling warning dozens of kidnapped schoolgirls from northern nigeria returned home the same boko haram extremists who abducted them dropped them all but with a warning for their parents don't try educating your daughters again we'll be back also coming up. the facebook data scandal gets the attention of the german chancellor angela merkel in her first speech since starting her fourth term she lays out her new government's vision plus facebook boss mark zuckerberg breaks

in silence offering users a feature to turn off third party apps but not a word about facebook's role in the u.s. presidential election. i'm burned off it's good to have you with us tonight the homecoming in nigeria no one was expecting militant islamist boko haram have freed many of the a hundred ten schoolgirls that they snatched from the town of death she just a month ago but their act of clemency came with a haunting warning to parents don't try sending your daughters to school again or we'll be back we start tonight with this report. there's new happy

place today than. the unexpected release of the town's. transforming this square into a place of unbridled joy was earlier in the day militants had driven the go back into and set them free to the delight of dozens of frantic parents. you know i don't need to and i saw with my own eyes eleven boko haram vehicles they were with the children when they got to the ruled they stopped and blocked the road he didn't talk to anybody he didn't greet anybody they were just shouting allahu akhbar they dropped the children at one corner everyone came and i got my child and i was. there the girls are back in their community but some a clearly marked by their month of captivity. aged between eleven and nineteen this still coming to terms with today's unexpected freedom and mourning the friends who

didn't make it but not the looks of love that there were five of us that die and those that died were not killed by the koran they died because they were trampled upon it was stress and trauma that made them tired and weak. while their relatives reflect on a month of uncertainty the nigerian government has denied paying a ransom for the goat saying what they call back channel efforts brought the breakthrough it was i grieve that will be a real force for the christian. that's what was possible that took us this part of the agreement that were years ago what you said if you brought us with your friends this year most of the kidnapped girls are now recovering from their ordeal at a local hospital the old thirties will be keen to question them over the coming days and then finally they'll return home to their families. understandably very emotional very emotional homecoming w.'s correspondent in nigeria adrian crease

joins me now from walk has been on the story from day one good evening to you adrian i mean we can't even imagine the sense of relief that the girl's parents must be feeling tonight but there has to be a lot of anxiety as well. and he'd indeed it was a very emotional day. today and what we learn from people on the ground as you have said before it was a big surprise to a lot of the people in the town that those people came in the city today it was unexpected there were no indications whatsoever that those girls were going to be released today and in the morning apparently the military withdrew from the town shortly afterwards several pickups came into town with boko haram fighters and a lot of people were scared they thought it might be a next attack happening right now but it turned out that they were just going to the school to release the girls and that of course triggered a lot of happiness i wasn't up to the choice shortly after the abduction and i was

invited by one family that had our family for example who child was missing her daughter ayesha and today i called the father haji and i asked him is the truest did she really come back and he said yes she is back and he was so relieved and so happy and so thankful and then he said very positive phone to her she's standing next to me and he gave the phone and you could hear that she's still very exhausted very tired but she's very happy also to be back with her family so you were you were able to talk to one of the girls who had been abducted we know that not all of the girls have been returned do we know what the condition is of those who are still being held and what about the schoolgirls who are home again. well so it was one hundred and ten girl girls who wear abducted a month ago right now we learn that only one hundred and one of the girls who were

reunited with their families the ones we managed to talk to told us that they were treated relatedly goods by the terrorist they were given food they were given drinks but the government until now could not care if i what happens to the remaining nine girls we heard from eyewitnesses some of the abducted girls who said five of them might got killed while they were abducted there was a sort of car accident in the abduction process and then also we learned from another eyewitness who said at least one of the girls is still with the terrorist because she is a christian and she refused to denounce her religion and this is a just surprising turn of events adrian watching boko herat you know bring brought back and drop off the girls in person the you know the same militants who had kidnapped the girls had this ever happened before

no not in that form that's something completely new and to some people somehow also bizarre i mean the government and the authorities argue that they're trying to trace down where it is where they took the girls and they said they beefed up all their efforts increased aerial surveillance and then now after one month they can come back with kind of the same amount of vehicles they came in a month ago and return those girls that is indeed something that is very questionable something that is hotly debated here in nigeria was there indeed enough efforts by the military to trace down these girls and find them or not yeah there's also that warning to be. made to the parents telling them not to sin the rules to school again our correspondent adrian priest in law goes my dear you tonight thank you very much. well german chancellor angela merkel has laid out plans for her fourth term in office in a speech to the country's parliament today she conceded that the migration crisis

had split the country and she vowed to return unity to german society she also addressed foreign policy challenges from syria to donald trump's steel tariffs and she's all to reassure voters that her reluctant grand coalition is ready to get down to business. germany had to wait a little for this it took six months to form a coalition government six months in which she addressed parliament he wants now that she's officially back in office merkel sets the goal for fourth term as german chancellor. i just have it when this term is over i want people to say this government has learned its lesson from the september twenty seven thousand election results i want them to say the government understood and really has achieved something. here in this which is. one of the lessons learned the refugee crisis has deeply divided germany merkel defended her decision to take in

nearly a million people but also told parliament the situation like this mustn't happen again nevertheless she also put a new interior minister in his place after you said that islam doesn't belong to germany. there's no question that the story called character of our country is christian and jewish but it's also true that with four point five million muslims living here their religion islam has also become a part of germany. in about one hour americal touched nearly every policy area she spoke of migration free by fire for everyone and foreign policy calling for transparency from russia on the nerve agent attack on a former russian spy in britain the far right populist a deep party of the first to answer to the chancellor statement he gave daily don't chose to concentrate on the one issue that brought them into parliament attacking the government's refugee policy. neither in the election campaign the coalition

agreement nor the statement today do assessments knife murders or rapes play a role not even the fact that the migrants crime rate is higher than that of native germans. the tone for anglo americans for thermos chancellor is set and also will can be. expected from the leading opposition party. and here's some of the other stories that are making headlines around the world former french president nicolas sarkozy has reportedly been released from police custody this follows a day and a half of questioning over allegations that he accepted millions of euros in campaign financing from the late libyan dictator moammar gadhafi back in two thousand and seven an explosion in the afghan capital kabul has left at least twenty six people dead and about twenty others wounded the afghan interior ministry says a suicide bomber on foot detonated his explosives on a road leading to a shiite shrine. today kurds around the world are celebrating new

ross which marks the beginning of spring and the kurdish new year new roles festivals he went ahead here in southeastern turkey as you see there as well as iraq and other kurdish areas the festival is also a show of support for kurdish independence. a teenage palestinian girl will be sentenced to eight months in prison for slapping an israeli soldier ahead to mimi reportedly accepted a plea bargain for the incident which was caught on camera and made her a hero to many palestinians it's. already obvious here now with business and it had to have been eventually interest rates are going up that's why we saw that coming when for sure policymakers at the u.s. federal reserve have once again raced short term interest rates the quarter point uptick is the fourth such rise in the span of a year an indication that the recent economic growth in the u.s.

is expected to continue the latest meeting of fed governors is the first under new chairman general powell was nominated by donald trump last year's fed members project that they would raise rates twice more this year in an effort to control growth. and of course the financial markets were listening very closely at the words of the federal reserve yes caught our financial correspondent is on wall street and has been following the story for us yes hi it's good to see you well we saw the announcement by the federal reserve and mixed reactions and wall street could say yeah it was an up and down session pretty wild what we saw here especially after the fed meeting it is not unusual that on the day of the fed meeting itself traders need some time to figure out what actually has changed and what not so we might get a better picture in thursday's trading but what is showing from this fed

meeting that the federal reserve might become a bit more aggressive a few more rate hikes was in the next two years and then expected that is in general good news for banks so they profit from higher rates but on the other side especially if you look at capital intensive industries like some technology companies for them money becomes more expensive and therefore also their investments and so we especially saw technology companies getting under some pressure here in the late hours of trading and at the end of the day we finished in negative territory here on wall street let's focus on the figure on their own power will we know that this was his first such press conference as fed chair you know that first impressions count so what was that first impression. paul as they also called him is not a theoretical economist he's a trained lawyer what by the way is also not unusual here on wall street jim he

obviously prefers a very clear very open language and was this openness openness he follows ben bernanke here all saw fed chair woman janet yellen and if we think back to the old days of greenspan the fed policy was a pretty wild guessing game some people here on wall street to try to figure out what was the size of his briefcase how federal policy might change in those days are definitely over jay powell also hinted that he might be in favor of even more press conferences in the future because only at about every second meeting we do have press conferences so we might get the federal reserve being even more open and easier to read about in general could be a good sign but we shouldn't forget what is going to happen with the fed fund rates in the future depends on how the u.s. economy will be doing and nobody has

a crystal ball nobody really knows what is going to happen in the near future so it is still a guessing game how much rates will move in the future maybe one final comment what is still interesting to see even if the federal reserve becomes more aggressive the dollar is not moving in the direction you would expect quite the contrary the dollar dropped almost one percent on wednesday he has called on wall street thank you very much. european authorities continue to crack down on tax evasion and have now introduced new taxes against tech giants like apple or google here's more. ireland is popular with tech giants who want to lower their tax bill the firms concentrate their business activities in places where tax rates are especially advantageous that's why apple google and facebook have their european headquarters on the emerald isle but the e.u. commission wants to change that they plan to impose a special three percent tax on certain divisions within the tech giants today's

proposal. simply about fair for all companies they're about creating the right environment for modern businesses and they're about future proofing single market so that collectively we can rise to the challenges of global ised and digital eyes age and in the future tech companies would also be taxed where they sell their products and not just where they're registered that would mean a nice windfall for public coffers at the same time as drawing out european tax oases. and earlier we talked to our correspondent max holzman in brussels and asked him whether those taxes would add more fuel to the fire of the unfolding trade war . well the commissioner in charge of this pay almost v.c. insisted that this is not against a certain country not against the usa and that roughly one hundred twenty to one

hundred fifty companies would be concerned by this but of course if you look at it the biggest the biggest companies in the whole field of course are american if there weren't the big tech giants like amazon and google from the united states we wouldn't have this discussion at the moment i think that's for certain the question really is is it worth to risk a trade war because the united states might the trumpet ministration might take this as another slight as another probation but if you look at the actual numbers how much money could be made for example in germany just by taxing google that would be roughly in some colleagues calculated this sixty million in taxes annually and that's nothing compared overall to the business tax that's levied in germany because that's one hundred fifty billion euros. that was michael fun of brussels it's back to brant now and finally a related issue perhaps a status update from facebook's embattled leader does exactly right have

a year facebook c.e.o. mark zuckerberg has broken his silence over the data scandal involving his company and the data mining firm cambridge analytical in a statement on his facebook profiles eichelberger admitted to making mistakes and he promised users a new feature to turn off third party apps apps which cambridge analytics allegedly used to harvest information but zuckerberg said nothing about facebook's role in the twenty sixteen presidential election. the center of london home to cambridge analytical. the firm c.e.o. had a reputation for enjoying media attention but in the past few days alexander nick seemed less happy in the media spotlight. on tuesday cambridge analytical suspended next following an undercover investigation by british broadcaster channel four he was secretly filmed by a reporter posing as a client seeking to get candidates elected alexander nix outlines and dirty tricks

to help things such as blackmail. be affected to be just to get all of that speech to be covens. that it. has to be true that the actual text would be difficult. or in trapping politicians by filming them in compromising situations that get out the cat is out of the question. that's if it's true it. shortly before being suspended next told b.b.c. he was exaggerating the company's work. but these latest accusations on the only problems dogging cambridge and. the company had previously bragged how to use facebook profiles to help get u.s.

president donald trump elected now the u.k.'s data protection agency has social warrant to search cambridge analytic is headquarters and it's investigating whether the company illegally collected the facebook. this comes after a former employee spilled the beans on the company's tactics he says people were asked to download a facebook app weeks secretly stole private data about the user and their facebook friends i only need to engage fifty thousand one hundred thousand people a really big data really quickly and it scaled really quickly we were able to get upwards of fifty million plus facebook records in the span of a couple month and that's how one of the biggest breaches in facebook's history came about. facebook's has been dodging the media for days british lawmakers have summoned him to appear before a committee and accused facebook of misleading them at a previous hearing the hashtags delayed facebook and where is trending on social

media and made calls for the internet giant to take responsibility for the breach. we realize how important these companies are for example to elections right across europe and i think this is the year when politicians have woken up we is the public it woke it up and it's time for the tech companies to wake up because they don't get their act together they are going to face serious repercussions social networks will one celebrated as the saviors of democracy now critics are starting to ask where the social media should be more closely regulated. well i'm joined now by paula libby a he's co-founder of a platform called personal data dot that aims to help individuals take back control of their personal data paula good to have you on the show let me ask you are we not in control of our data that we have on social media know

the oldest story many people have been affected and no one knows whether they actually have been affected we have no idea. so who would you say is at fault then in this scandal would you point the blame at cambridge analytic is the blame with with facebook or is it with the users themselves who created their these profiles. well it's certainly not with the users i mean the users have no expectation that this will happen they just kind of thing would happen some of them have had their data it's taken out of is the only thing you can give their consent there is certainly responsibility we can present but at the same time there are probably dozens of companies sucking data out of facebook all the time so i think the responsibilities when the system is systemic and which facebook and a lot of other companies that enable data collection on a really large scale but when you when you say this is the stimming thin is the

answer to that regulation i mean do we need to have law makers around the world put and impose laws and and regulatory parameters for social media companies to work yes well that's around personal data that's already done and it has been done for a long time there is a convention of the tonsil of europe that governs data collection that involves dozens and dozens if not hundred one hundred countries it's just that it's not being taken so seriously so far and it's really not inforced but now we see the full editions are starting to see that data protection goes beyond privacy and protection of baby pictures or holiday pictures and really turns into a geo strategic geo strategic zero importance and part of the be a performer of time it do you think very that europe is being impacted the way that the u.s. so with its election we also know that cambridge analytic a played

a role in the kenyan election is it the same for europe. well in europe we have a history of having stronger laws so it's harder to assemble a large data set that can reach out it's just needs basically to act i think that the most important is that europe is defending itself already by and acting a new law at european level that will come into force in may and that promise is much much tighter and foresman ok olivier thanks very much for presenting taking the time and talking with us tonight you can for the united nations has declared today international day for the elimination of racial discrimination it's a worldwide far right and one very relevant here in germany human rights activists say that some germans dismiss racism as an historic problem associated with the nazis but for people of color it's an everyday experience.

to germans to foreigners they all share an apartment in germany each of them has experienced racism. each of them fights in his or her own way to feel like they belong. laundry lawn co has given up being accepted in germany a few years ago he was visiting a friend on his way back to the apartment a neighbor in the stairwell brutally pushed and beat him he thought laundry was a burglar because of his skin color. and i was really angry if i were german he wouldn't have asked me why i was there it would have been completely normal laundries roommates have not experienced physical violence but they heard many a racial slur and one question over and over again. they just see the color of my skin and immediately ask which country i come from they label me as

a foreigner as if i didn't belong here in germany who. it's worse is like this man's which sure prejudice and marginalized people andre poken bird from the right wing party alternative for germany. and. with the rise of right wing populists the debate over foreigners has intensified the flatmate say the question of where they come from is being asked more and more frequently not off the stuff i that some i said that wasn't the case in the past. for example when i lived in cologne at parties or when i met new people they didn't care about my skin color or ask me where i was from and i was just like them that's how. the four emphasize their similarities

they don't want other people to dictate to them who belongs in germany but i think. i know i'm german you know but i've also experienced things that maybe someone who only knows germany can't imagine it and that's why i see myself more as a german plus. but laundry lawn co has had enough of not being accepted after his studies he plans to leave the flat and return to his homeland in cameroon. after short break i'll be back to take you through the day. you'll. get.

entering the conflict zones confronting the powerful. has plenty to keep you busy that should. this week period of stress but the cost goes up by presidents of the european parliament and the former defense minister romania. felix multiple divisions. in sixty minutes to fix. the d w media center. see it.

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protection to. use an all channels available to inspire people to take action and we're determined to build something here for the next generation global india's fema barmen series of global three thousand. close. facebook's c.e.o. mark zuckerberg says he's made mistakes in the data scandal involving his company and cambridge analytic of his fix a new feature on your news feed but not a word about facebook's role in the twenty sixteen u.s. presidential election as for the boss at cambridge analytic he's been suspended i'm burnt off and.