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♪ >> stay curious. ♪ [applause] >> and now, "bbc world news." jane: this is "bbc world news america." reporting from washington, i am jane o'brien. the indian pilot captured by pakistan is leased, but tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors are high. the family of an arican student blames kim jong-un's 'sil regime for their so death after president trump refuses to in hanoi. he now says he is being misrepresented. and digging beneath the surface of mars. nasa's latest mission to uncover the secrets of the red planet.

jane: welcome to ouicviewers on pu television in america and around the world. pakistan has relead an indian fighter pilot shot down over the disputed region of kashmir. pakistan says it was a gesture of peace, but tensions between the nucleaarmed adversaries remain high following a suicide bombing two weeks ago which killed 40 indian soldiers. thpilot was handed over in ssdark at the border crossing orth indian state of punjab. from there, rajini vaidyanathan reports. rajini: it was the moment india had been waiting for. as tensions escalated with its neighbor and rival, the fate of this pilot has taken center stage. captured days ago by pakistan,re today he was. wing commander abhinandan varthaman was flanked by government officials and members of the military as he waited at the crossing with indi

n his release was expectedthe early afternoon, and after many hours of delays, the gate was finally opened after 9:00 p.m. local ti. the pilot who fought for his country for 16 years was finally back on home soil. outside, crowds erupted as the news came out. >> pakistan has released our countryman. a re very proud and very happy. rajini: millions across india have been following the wing commander's story. tv networks have been running wall-to-wall coverage ever sincn his capturednesday. pakistan says it shot his jet down after he violated the country's airspace. india says it was retaliating after pakistani warplanes entered its territory. shortly before he was handed back to india, this was broadcast on pakistani tv. it is unclear whether varthaman was asked to speak under duress

. many in india say it is nothg re than political propaganda. this all comes after weeks of escalating tensions between the two nuclear neighbors. the events here will have dampened down some of thens ns. but it does not take away from some of the underlying issues between the two nations. for decades the two countries have clashed over the disputedmi area of kash both claim it all,ut only control part of it. two weekago a suicide attack in indian-administered kashmir claimed the lives of 40 indian soldiers a group based in pakistan claimed responsibility. india accuses pakistan of harboring terror groups. at a rally ahead of upcoming elections, the country's prime minister narendrmodi said india would return the damage done by terrorists. reign, pakistan's minister told the bbc that any further escalation would be suicidal. >> i want de-escalation, i want defusion.

i feel the tension is too high. tempers have to be bht down. rajini: tonight celebrations etcontinue after the rn of a man being hailed a hero.br it might have ght back india and pakistan from the brink of war, but peace remairagile. rajini vaidyanathan, bbc news. jane: for more on the tensions between india and pakistan, i spoke earlier with a senior fellow at the council on foreign relations. just how far has this gesture of peac situation?fusing the >> it has been very helpful. no doubt about it, it has been a helpful step in bringing down the temperatures this week. imagine if the pilot had not been released. have beenings wou much worse. but we should not t confused abe fact that the crux of this problem still remains, that tipakistan ces to have u.n.-designated terrorist groups operating openly from its

territory.th unti problem is solved, we will continue seeing flashpoints in the region.pa jane: what is kistan doing about that? alyssa: it is not doing much about that. that really is the problem here. you have this group in question that claimed responsibility for the terror attack in indian shmir. that group is named jaish-e-mohammad. this group was designated by the united nions in 2001. in 2002, then-chief executive of pakistan general musharraf banned the group. lo and behold, here we are in 2019 and they are still around, they have increased the size of their headquarters in southern punjab, and they are able to plan and mount attacks.th is a real problem. jane: the u.s., president trump, has been much tougher on pakistan for this very reason. m whe could the u.s. and other countries do about this? alyssa: there are other steps that the united states could take and tco international unity could take. few ofalk through

thos we have seen that in january 2018, the trump administration decided to end security assistance to pakistan. we have completely withheld security assistance to pakistan for more than a year now. that obviously has not been quite enough to push the country in the direcon of really tackling these terror groups once and for all. another step coulde removing pakistan's status in the united states as a major non-nato ally. that would affect its y to have access to high-tech defense exports, things like that. the unitedha statebeen working actively in the international community through something called the financial action task force, an international consultation group that focuses on anti-moneyde lang and trying to counterterrorist financing. -- f counter terroriancing. this group met last weekend put -- and something called a gray list and told pakistan it has to take a number of actions and the status would be revisited in may. jane: what about india's response? what should that be? alyssa: india has been trying

very hard to get the international community to blrecognize this ongoing p of terrorism in pakistan. think we have seen over years that people have come around internationally to undersnding that terrorism creates a constant threat of conflict in the region. i think india should step up and keep diplomacy at the high level it is right now. india is reaching around the world and certainly pushing within the u.n. and pushing bilateral relationships. india has been active with the united states and the uae and saudi arabia, really trying to push these countries to ask pakistan to do much more. jane: thank you very much indeed for joining me. alyssa: thank you. jane: the family of the american student otto warmbier who died in prison in north korea has blamed kim jong-un. in a statement, the parentsaid

pr"we have been respectful during the summiess. now we must speak out. kim and his evil regime are responsible for the death of our son otto. no lavish praise can change that." president trump said he took kim at hisorwhen he exposed no 'sowledge of mr. warmbier treatment. i spoke to alexis simendinger of "the hill." rsthis is not the time that trump has stood up for strongmen or dictators, whatever you want to call them. why does he do this? alexis: it is usually a fosituation of affinity whoever the leader is, and even from his tweets this afternoon, talking about the criticism he has be talked about kim jong-un related to otto warmbier, the american held prisoner in north korea and returned in a vegetative state, that he doesn't want to be critical after he has had a

meeting with one of these leaders, and then when he is back in the states he starts to walk back under the criticism. he certainlyas been under criticism today. jane: what does this do for america's moral standing not just with adversaries but for allies? alexis: it causes a great deal of confusion and discussion internationally, as we can see, because the president andal his es don't always see the same figure and personality in the leaders he is dealing with. you can even see this inus congress, bethe president's allies on the republican party side this week have spoken out very strongly in opposition to the president's disposition towards kim jong-un. and one of his strongest allies hyin the house, kevin mcca the minority leader, said kim jongn is not our friend. jane: and there you go. now, talking of congress, the democratic field is widening.

they are virtually happening one a day at the moment. is bigger better when it comes to 2020? alexis: i don't think we have a choice. this is a wide-open field and the democratic party, and as you say, we are up to a dozen. ht be seeing additional entries into the presidential field from the democrats, en ing into next week. and the democrats expect thereto e many, many more, actually. we are going to see the first debates this summer, because the democratic national committee is trying to figure out a way to winnow the field well ahead of nge campaign next year. it is an interesange of ovrsonalities. we are seeing fromnors, but mostly lawmakers from congress, somewhat unusual. we have some mayors. and the way we reporters are listing to analysts, they ar talking about this being a race to the left. this is not a field that is very sympathetic to centrists. interestingly, jay inslee,

the governor of washington, the actest to declare his cand is focusing on climate change. is an issue like that a winning formula? alexis: voters don't usually vote for presidents based solely on issuesay, but governor inslee of washington state has a of passion on this issue of climate change and alternative energy. otif you don't have af name recognition nationally and you have to raise money, one of the ctings that might help him to really gain some tn fast, because he is going to be going into iowa and nevada right away, is to stand on a platform that he this in the polls younger voters, voters of color, voters in blue states very much support. jane: alexis simendinger, thank very much for joining me. alexis: thank you. jane:e's look at the day's other news. inia somofficials say special forces have taken all

three gunman in a building in mogadishu. al-shabaab stormed an area with hotels and shops the standoff was the lonst by the militant group since it was forced out of the somali capital in 2011. the canadian government has confirmed it will allow a u.s. extradition case to proceed against the chief fina officer of chinese technology giant huawei. meng wanzhou was detained in canada last year at washington's request.f she is accusedgaging in bank fraud to help her company violate u.s. sanctions against iran. she has denied the allegations. saudi arabia has t revok citizenship of hamza bin laden, the son of the late al qaeda leader. that is after the u.s. issued am lion reward for information to track him down. officials say the younger bin e laden rging as a leader of the islamist militant group. he has released audio and video messages calling on followers to attack the u.s. and its western o avenge his father' killing.

earlier i spoke about this with seth jones of the center for strategic and iniernational st thanks for joining me. what do we know about hamza bin laden, and how significant is he? seth: well, we know he is osama bin laden's son, t heir to the throne of al qaeda. he is about 30 years old. he said part of his time after 9/11 in iran. he is almost certainly in pakistan or afghanistan, somewhere in that region. if you look at what he sd the past couple of years, he hasy been increasinlling out the united states and encouraging attacks against the u.s., british, and other allies. he has increasingly become the young face of al qaeda. jane: he has been around forim some why has the state department decided to issue this reward for his ca seth: it looks like al qaeda is trying to make a bit of a urbound, as the islamic state has declined in st he has

-- it has declined in its corol of territory. al qaeda still has a reasonable number of jihadists in syria. it h al-shabaab in somalia, number of fighters in yemen, and other locations. it is trying to make a rebound, and this is its future, or so al qaeda leadership believes. jane: all eyes have been on the islamic state for a very long time. how much of a threat does qaeda actually pose right now? seth: for the most part al qaeda is engaged in combat in areas within which they are operatingv and not in a lot at the moment in external operations. planning attacks in the west. they are engaged in battles in syria, in the idlib area, they are activeith the taliban in

afghanistan. a local affiliate is involved in yemen, somalia, north africa. they are engaged. the issue is how much of the -- at the moment are the willing to strike targets in the west or embassies? for the moment they look like, based on what we are hearing, focused on the local fights as opposed to theei f fight. vebut as we een with al qaeda in the past, that can change. jane: hamza is married to the daughter of mohammed atta, the lead hijacker in the september 11 bombings s in 2001. nds dynastic. more than just a symboli figurehead, or can he really unite these disparate factions? seth: unclear at this point. they have been having hamza speak publicly threw their vios and make public statements for years. what is less clear is how much legiti across the movement in africa, the middle east, south asia,

even southeast asia. he is pretty green. he does not have the battlefield pedigree that his fath had. so involved in the anti-soviet wars. ayman al-zawahiri was also volved in these wars. he is not starting out with the battlefield pedigree his father had. whether he can move into that, we will have to see. u jane: seth jones, thank r joining me. seth: thank you very much. cne: you are watching "bb world news america." still to come on tonight's program, we speak to a photographer who traced the steps of slaves seeking freedom along the underground railroad. scientistsant the british that jointy said i've shelf -- ice shelf may crack and follow a. in a form -- in may form an

iceberg that is larger than the city of london. reporter:heesearch bases like something from a sci-fi movie. a space station on the ice. thit is here tha do cutting edge science on the climate. y it is also where tscover the hole in the ozone layer. but it has a growing problem. this huge crack is breaking through the floating shelf of ice on which the b says. any day now, this fissure will spawn a city-sized iceberg. it is one of the hazards of working in his frozen landscape. every so often the edges of the continent break away. to pin down any single carving event to climate chge. but across antarctica we are seeing a consistent pattern of glacial retreat and warmer mpatures, which does point to climate change.

reporter: the british antarctic survey does not want anyone in the u base during toming polar winter. it is an unnecessary risk. the base. itself should be fi two years ago snow tractors dragged the station away from the distance between it and the soon-to-be giant iceberg o. it has a unique design that incorporates legs and skis, which means that if any further cracks emerge, it would be possible to move the base again easily. the major headache has been about how to maintain cutting edge science observations at the antarctic while no one is around. researchers think they have managed to alternate most of thr experiments. jane: this year marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of

african slaves in virginia and the start of the atlantic slave trade. r photographer has turned her lens on one chapom this period, the underground railroad. this was the life line slaves escaping from southern plantations to safety in the north. i spoke with her earlier. thanks very much joining me. what gave you the idea for this? >> i grew up in indiana. and so the underground railroad was very much part of our schooling when we re younger. i think that is when it grabbed a hold of me. and just exploring the idea onth pages and what it would look like, it kept developing as i was moving through it. jane: you have got a lot of buildings, but also landscapes. what is the difference between the two, and w did you decide do that?er jeanine: i delely chose a first-person perspective for the project because i didn't want anybody to misunderstand the fact that it was the freedom

seekers' own will and determination to get end of freedom. i thought if i told it from a stationmaster's point of view or from any other direction, we were n getting the full story and understanding what was happening. and there e landscapes and buildings -- they didn't always have a shelter to stay in when they were traveling. the research drove the entire framework of the project and even gave it its title. "through darkness to light your coa." frthe fact that thdom seekers were traveling roughly 20 miles per night, in constant fear of either being captured,, recaptur killed outright, i was trying to convey that sense of urgency in moving through the landscape with the images. jane: the landscapes are veryug evocative, t what did you find out about the freedom seekers that you didn't know before? >> gosh, i have enormo enormous respect for the process they had to go through.

i can't imagine having to go through this journey in order to havehat we have now. and so it just kind of grips you and takes you in. i was hoping that as you view to the images andook in front of them, it would hopefully transport you to that view and think about what somebody would have felt or been experiencing. jane: what is the most powerful image for you? jeanine: there are so many, but i think -- i like the ending of it. o there within reach and then freedom. there are two photographs that are taken as the sun is coming up and as it is daylight. to me that symbolizes the hope e d freedom, and you are actually safe to mound in the daytime at that point. jane: thanks for every much for joining me. jeanine: thank you. appreciate it. jane: scientists have begun exploring under the surface of mars for the fst time. they are hoping to learn more

about how the red planet actually works. ere was such celebration went c probe ond a robo mars late last year, and after several months of operation, today they actually begin the researnc. our sceditor david shukman reports. david: it is a mission to mars like no other. a fiery descent last november that unfolded exactly as planned. is it is a hazardous journey that others but this time the spacecraft touching down on the service has a unique job. so, for mission control, getting there was a huge relief. >> touchdown confirmed. david: amid all the ncelebrations, they had b checking that everything is working so the science can begin. nasa is not the only team expling mars. others are going there as well. -- others e busy there as well. amazingly, there are six spacecraft in orbit around the

red planet taking pictures and gatheringa, dhree from america, two from europe, one from india. but only nasa has successfully gotten robotic missions down onto the ground it tlf. the latetouch down is very different from the ones that have gone before. called insight -- here it is -- it is getting its power from solar panels like the others, but it has a completely new kind of mission not investigating the surface of mars, but what is inside instead. it is doing it with very clever instruments. a sensor on the ground is -detecting seismic activi tremors from volcanoes, for example -- to build up a picture of the internal structure of the planet. a special kind of drill has another role, to burrow undergrod. the deepest ever attempted on another world, five meters down, to measure the heat flowing up from the interior. it is part of trying to understand what happened to mars, how it formed at the same

time as earth but ended up so very different.e on the key instruments from -- key instruments, a seismometer, was designed and built in britain at imperial college london and oxford university. highly sensitive device ttht can pick uslightest tremor to create a snapshot of the interior omars. >> every time an earthquake goes it is like a flashlight illuminating the interior of the earth. you n imagine the same on mars. we can seeinging around the planet. that would be very exciting because it would give us a quick flash of what the inside of the planet looks like. david: this is what the wind really sounds like on mars, the first time anyone has hearit, picked up by the spacecraft soon after it landed. the hope now is that with all

the insts ready, there will be more discoveries to follow. david shukman, bbc news. jane: mars is getting a lot of attention at the moment. you can find the rest of the day's news on a website, and to see what we are working on at o any time, checut on twitter. i'm jane o'brien. have a good weekend. ou with the bbc news app, r vertical videos are designed to work around your lifestyle, so you can swipe your way through the newsf the day and stay up-to-date with the latest headlines yocan trust. download nowrom selected app stores. >> funding of this presentation is made possible by the freeman foundation, and kovler foundation, puring solutions for america's neglected needs. >> what are you doing?es >> possibili your day is filled with them. ey>> tv, play "downton abb."

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captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good eveng. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: security check. revelations that president trump ordered his son-in-law, jaredr, ku be given top-secret clearance over objections from the white house chietaff and u.s. intelligence. then, it's friday. mark shields and david brooks are here to analyze michael cohen's testimony, and what the failed nuclear summit meanfor the u.s. and north korea. plus, actors ethan hawke and paul dano on their roles in the broaay revival of sam shepard's play, "true west." >> sam shepard is unbeevably funny, and he's a deeply spiritual man. and he's got a profound sensibility about america, and

it's not knee-jerk macho.