just. drawn between. some journalists decided to sacrifice their integrity. in life from. their headquarters. facebook. a firm called cambridge is accused of illegally vacuuming

millions of users information to help donald trump win the presidency the story started in the u.s. and u.k. but turns out that the firm's work and influence stretched to countries around the world. when explain how facebook data and the science of metrics helped to save opinions and win hearts and minds also on the grid a suicide bomber blows himself up near. where people had gathered to celebrate the persian new year at least twenty nine are dead. in just the past three weeks. africa's leaders gather to launch what they say will be the world's biggest free trade area but the continent's largest economy nigeria is refusing to sign its highlighted how tough it is to get everyone on board will explore. stands in the way.

you're with a news group we're live on air were streaming online through you tube facebook live and then al-jazeera dot com well the u.s. and british governments are bearing down on facebook and u.k. data mining firm cambridge analytical over allegations that information was stolen from fifty million people the central accusation is that data was used to psychologically profile people and deliver pro trump material to them during the twenty sixteen u.s. election campaign all involved deny this but now things are taking a more global twist as mariano honda explains. cambridge analytic care executive say publicly at least that they helped politicians win elections what the companies accused of secretly and improperly manipulation vote is the famous perhaps best

known for its work in the u.s. on donald trump's presidential campaign two years ago it began operating there in two thousand and thirteen when it was formed from its parent company is c.-l. and with the involvement of conservative steve benen but its operations extend well beyond america cambridge analytic is executives have reportedly boasted of targeting will than two hundred elections around the world including in kenya nigeria india the czech republic and tina the firm was in kenya just after it opened its job there was to help her opinion at the time facing charges of crimes against humanity he went on to be elected president cambridge analytical is accused of stoking it's nick tensions and demonizing kenya his opponent. its parent company is c.e.o. worked in the caribbean from at least two thousand and ten one of the accusations is that it targeted lindsay grant an opposition leader on the island of st kitts

and nevis by sitting him up and filming him in a shady deal and why do you distributing the video online and the gulf crisis cambridge generalistic a has been linked to a social media campaign to discredit qatar and in the u.k. it worked for the levy you campaign during the brics it reframed i'm british police are asking questions and the need is widening with investigations also underway in the us and destroy. or social media producer or healer mohamed is here and certainly plenty reaction to this in one of the countries that was mentioned kenya yes sorry uses in kenya use social media a lot and they haven't held back on the story this is a tweeted that we are just pawns in a game a lives on a case studies and our hopes and dreams data points and then you have another who says that kenya was really a united country we never had identity politics based on tribal lines such

a shame the cambridge analytical created all this hates while one voice says that the most painful pods is a thoughts of the phone being paid using taxpayers' money so distasteful and wicked we also heard from a kenyan journalist called laurie model cambridge in a letter weaponized data and manipulated can influence for its client present yet interested in trying to seventeen is a cancer for democracies and places like kenya where there are we have to do sions no scrutiny and little to no protection and privacy laws must be investigated and kenyans must get a full account of what it did here but cambridge analytical insists it's done nothing wrong according to its website the company conducted research to look at keep political issues voter behavior and people stressed and politicians and present a group in yachters jubilee party says that cambridge analytical work didn't really

have any impact and then the communications director this is dennis it trudi posted this on facebook saying that they employed the company's parent company called s c l just to help with branding well the opposition has called for full investigation they accuse cambridge analytical and the ruling party of trying to subvert the people's will so if you are currently in kenya we do want to get your thoughts on this what you think is likely to happen next connect with us using the hash tag. thank you well there are reports that facebook representatives will meet u.s. politicians from both parties behind closed doors in washington d.c. meanwhile a former facebook manager is giving evidence to a parliamentary committee in london so we do have this covered from both sides of the atlantic we have nadine barber he's standing just outside cambridge analytic as london offices but will begin with mike hanna who's joining us from washington d.c.

because michael it really seems striking about this whole thing is the silence of the facebook c.e.o. mark zuckerberg well that is very striking and has been remarked on by many within the u.s. or particularly politicians on the hill a senate intelligence committee is due to be holding hearings on the protection of elections and in terms of that process they want to speak to a number of tech c.e.o.'s in particular the founder of facebook but nothing yet has been heard publicly from mark zuckerberg or indeed facebook's chief operating officer sheryl sandberg and in fact in an in-house meeting that was held at facebook tuesday neither of these people put in an appearance the meeting was addressed we are told by senior legal officials within facebook so very much the question one source says that mark zuckerberg is taking his time he'll make a statement within the next twenty four hours but this we will wait and see

meanwhile so to all the politicians on the hill who really want to speak to people such as mark zuckerberg in terms of how elections can be protected against social media ok that's the view from washington mike hanna thank you well the british prime minister to resign may have spoken about the scandal in parliament listen. what we have seen in cambridge and in this because of the allegations are clearly very concerning as is absolutely right that they should be properly investigated it's right that the information commissioner is doing exactly that because people need to have confidence in how their personal data is being used and i would expect facebook cambridge analytic and organizations involved to comply fully with the investigation that's taking place and now joining us from london so we are expecting to hear from a former facebook employee in a d.m. who will be speaking to a parliamentary committee. that's

right she will it's not the first time that somebody from facebook has been up before but culture media committee of the british parliament but that committee a very frustrated with facebook that's putting it mildly the head of the committee has written to mark zuckerberg summoning him to go and face questions in person and part of his letter says your officials are answers have consistently understated this risk and have been misleading to the committee it is now time to hear from a senior facebook executive with the sufficient or thirty to give an accurate account of this catastrophic failure of process not the risk that he was mentioning was the risk of users data being used without their all thoughts of course facebook insists that once they realized what had happened they deleted what they had but that has been disputed by the whistleblower in the last couple of hours prime

minister to resign may has been in parliament term that you were just hearing saying there should be an investigation but also facing questions from some of the opposition about alleged links between her conservative party and the parent company s c l the parent company of cambridge analytical. it's emerged that one director has given the party around one million u.s. dollars in recent years some people are also asking where but in fact there might have been links with the bricks it campaign to leave the e.u. because aaron banks one businesswoman who gave millions of his own money to the pro bricks it campaign back in two thousand and sixteen has said that he use cambridge analytical but in a legal way he says. so lots of lots of political ramifications the moment term we will be will be waiting to see whether mark zuckerberg in fact does respond to that request to come in person to face the british parliament ok anything you're

standing just outside the offices cambridge analytic or have they said anything directly. no there's been a notable by their silence really since monday night that was when the information commissioner here in britain said that she'd be applying for a warrant to get into the building to try to access their servers to access their data well just softer that happened it emerged that facebook representatives actually entered of their own accord the information commissioner said you should not be there please holt what you're doing they did so but there's been no no news of a warrants no news of the information commissioner's people actually getting to to at access the building behind me and to talk to officials people raising an eyebrow at the delay over via term really the company has been stressing that it did

nothing wrong but on the british airwaves or early on wednesday the man who designed this facebook app which was a survey which led to he says thirty million people's data being accessed in the us he says he's been used as a scapegoat by both white cambridge analytical and by facebook he says that both sides assured him that everything was legal that everyone excuse me everybody knew exactly what the data was being used for and that it was clear that this was a commercial enterprise so he's pushed back he's an academic who's based in cambridge and he says he didn't get paid for the work and he's very surprised by the tone from facebook and from cambridge analytic and now saying that oh we didn't know that we were doing anything wrong ok admitting by giving us the update from london thank you and back to regular because you've been looking into the finance behind all of us where he learned something called psychometric profiling what is

it it's basically a discipline that essentially measures how smart people are and how they behave it does this by assessing how an individual is likely to perform in various situations or a. act to things traditionally these assessments are used during the hiring process to see if a candidate fits the job but marketers also use information gathered from this line of work to pitch anything from cars clothes and vacations with targeted ads so how did psychometrics using facebook data allegedly help the trunk campaign find their votes well there was an app on facebook called this is my digital life which is a personality quiz questions uses about how are going they are how vengeful they can be whether they worry or how they get their projects fish them basically stuff like this in twenty fifteen such apps could scrape up all the information off not only the quiz taker but all their facebook friends so

a hoard of information was gathered which was then used to psychologically profile us voters the trunk campaign then according to reports created targeted ads and messages that could play on individual biases fear is and loves effectively setting a bond between them and the candidate daryn ok thank you well let's speak to suster he's a senior lecturer in the department of informatics at king's college london joining us now via skype thanks very much for speaking to us you heard regular talking about the targeted arabs what's essentially known as micro targeting campus type of micro targeting actually sway an election how how accurate is micro targeting. so you need to be able to says that this is a very or election so when the chance. go to one. you know we can say it was a very very closely for elections there are many many different factors in the world and it's hardly the segment of things there that says it could have been

a less thing that. are you surprised that just how this whole thing seems to be snowballing and it started originally in the u.s. and the u.k. and now as we're hearing it gone global involving countries like kenya. yes i mean it seems that this was a modus operandi of cambridge analytical to go in and tell influence elections and go to state and country so and as you saw from the dean campaign a chance for an teams go there engaging other countries such as she chairs kenya as you just saw in our answer or so it seems like they did have ruled in many different elections it's using i don't know using data that people have been doing or they don't believe in on fixed this is what edward snowden has tweeted his of course the former national security agency contractor and he's saying this facebook makes their money by exploiting and selling intimate details about the private

lives of millions far beyond the scan details you voluntarily post and he's saying that they are not victims they are accomplices talking about social media now facebook of course saying that the alleged behavior was an incredible violation of everything quote that we stand for who is right here the snowden have a point. so there is it's now become a cliche to say that you know if you're not bait for a product in the berkshires you know if it's online and facebook is one of those operations that is free. and basically the way the business model for facebook is to take data from all its users and then try and use that for targeting specific ads that are that are tailored to these users that yes i think in some sense case book is sort of complicit in this. that it should be noted that we're also complicit in this because we basically saying don't do this but this startling

conduct that you know. giving up our data and then getting to work at our friends for free were there the source was there they'd be thousands of miles away from us we can contact them we can we can have conditions that them online on facebook and and because we're doing this for free giving up something and that something happens to be that that is really a patient about us and as for how there's the this develops a what are you going to be looking out for over the next twenty four hours forty eight hours as we're saying that's. got mark zuckerberg excuse me has not yet spoken out a lot of people waiting to hear what he's going to have to say. yeah i mean it needs to be figured out exactly what the code below the our facebook is where the culpability of cambridge is and what to d. of the academics in all of us and i don't hear that at this time it seems like there are certain well known abilities and are in the we the friendship and the

privacy settings there are steps in facebook at that time in twenty thousand i'm going to fourteen twenty fifteen timeframe which may have been partly that sponsible seems like a marginal sort of oversold what it could do with my to try to get a second actually of these things and also seems like there are some role being played by the academics but it seems like that that doubt has just been . in the today programme that there was a academic bar and there was a commercial enterprise that same academics. and it seems like that was almost ago a consultancy operation so they need to figure out who was responsible and to what extent ok we'll leave it there we thank you very much for joining us out of london good to get your thoughts and we are getting a lot of comments here on our social media feeds the news grid one of our viewer

tweeting us this is definitely not a good way to defend the privacy of people around the world a more should be done to protect privacy rather than use it to make tons off money and a nother viewer tweeting cambridge analytical has shocked many kenyans especially those who supported the opposition well tech giants like facebook and google as you can see have been under the spotlight recently with both companies having been accused the working behind the scenes to in fact silence certain kinds of voices so our team at the listening post takes a look at how the tech giants are policing their platforms and whether this amounts to a new kind of censorship it's a different kind of story but still linked to social media you'll find it at al-jazeera dot com under so click on the listening post. a suicide bomber has killed at least twenty nine people many of them teenagers staats as he blew himself up among crowds celebrating the persian new year in kabul the attack

which happened near a shrine as you can see has been condemned by a seventy as a crime against humanity. chaos and confusion on the streets of kabul as a burgeoning sea crews rushed to the scene of the latest bomb blast the apparent target afghans celebrating no ruse the persian new year and was playing footy with . even a suicide. behind us nothing much to. do exactly what i was a group of thirty young men celebrating and dancing when suddenly this sue said bomber detonated the explosive there is security here how was this who said able to get access to this area this suicide attacker detonated his device around two hundred meters from the car to shockey shrine where many afghans gather to mark the start of the new year holiday kabul university is nearby and most of the dead are understood to be teenagers who were taking part in street celebrations

a blast is the deadliest to hit the capital after weeks of repeated attacks on the noble didn't kill unfortunately once again our enemies are spilled the blood of our innocent countryman the young men were holding celebrations for nauru's. attack them here were wounded in the morning rush hour suicide blast in an industrial area of the city government said a private british security company was the target it was the four suicide attack in the afghan capital in the past three weeks a u.s. general in afghanistan has said protecting the capital is the americans main effort but the attacks continue increasing pressure on president musharraf gunny he offered peace talks to the taliban last month as part of efforts to end the sixteen year war but any sort of negotiated settlement appears a long way off but all of on has continued to grow in strength since the withdrawal of the u.s. led nato combat troops four years ago and most security analysts predicted annual

so-called spring offensive will be more intense this year as taliban fighters respond to repeated u.s. and afghan airstrikes as well as ground assault of wednesday's attack is any indication of what's to come many more lives will likely be lost as time. just a reminder of how you can get in touch with us here on the news greg you can send in your comments to any one of her online platforms were on twitter at a.j. inglis we're also on facebook at facebook dot com slash a.j. news grid and you can send us a whatsapp at plus nine seven four five zero. four nine and just a reminder to use the hash tag a.j. news grid now the suspect in a series of postal bombings in the u.s. state of texas has a blown himself up as a forward is closed and american media have named him as mark anthony condit's it's a grisly end to a terrifying three weeks for the city of austin but there could still be explosive

packages making their way through the mail from austin here's john hendren the confrontation with the main suspect ended as dramatically as it began police cluttering then firing on him in a hotel car park as he tried to drive away then a deadly detonation police say the twenty four year old man set it off killing himself as members of the austin police department swat team approached the vehicle the suspect detonated a bomb inside the vehicle knocking one of our swat officers back and one of our swat officers fired at the suspect as well he had been a person of interest seen on video and mention by witnesses police knew his car the bombs had no set patterns some were random some were targeted five hundred federal state and local police are still scrambling to unravel three mysteries are there other bombers other other bombs waiting to explode and why he did it for weeks

austin has been a city on edge the mysterious bombs in the state capital city killed two people and injured four others people are scared you will be too. you know random packages explosives going off people dying for no reason i'd be scared to you on tuesday another package exploded at a courier distribution center in the city of shirts near san antonio f.b.i. agents say a sixth package was sent to a separate fed ex depot police say the eventual destination of that package was an address in austin brian jaime's and sixty other employers of the courier company were evacuated after an unexploded bomb was found here giving police potentially valuable clues and it gets me thinking what if i loaded up that package in soon as i set it down and explode and i go in sort of the truck goes and then that truck is full of the other trucks full of gas and diesel and the whole fedex vicinities all destroyed and everybody strapped in there you scared now not scared not since the

attacks by the so-called unabomber ted kaczynski in one nine hundred ninety five have police faced a spree like it now police will continue to search for any other devices he may have left behind in trying to find out what his motive was john hendren al-jazeera austin texas in northern nigeria boko haram fighters have returned a hundred and one girls who were abducted from their school month but not all have come home as reports. it's difficult to hold back their tears after what these girls have been through these are some of the hundred in ten children who were kidnapped last month boko haram fighters took them from their school induction town in northeastern nigeria the girls say five of their fellow students died. when they took us from the school would being sitting thinking about what we might eat then we heard a gunshot everybody was confused they asked us to come to the school gate we were

in the area they picked us into the vehicle and asked who were the people fasting that they gave us a drink certain cake this was on the way after when they took us food there under a tree and gave us food to cook we cooked and asian proceeded further we continued going we entered one river then we boarded a canoe and crossed the river into a village they took us away from the village in the night we boarded another canoe to another place and remained in that place until today when they brought us back we didn't go to any other places they didn't mistreat us the dust in the distance are the boko haram vehicles which dropped off the children parents and relatives have been anxiously waiting for reeks to find out what happened to their children. i saw with my own eyes live a book of her own vehicles they were with the children they drop the children at one corner they told us to give space for people to recognize their children and i

got my child. so government really clear that it would negotiate but the kidnappers rather than use military force would not use any corvallis words of confession i don't forget that a lot of the children are much more important to us than you know you can get there's an even silence at the girls' school and men dressed in military fatigues entered the school and took the girls away in their truck. this isn't the first time school girls have been abducted there was an international outcry in two thousand and fourteen when more than two hundred seventy girls were kidnapped from she broke many have still not been found nigerian forces have not declared the details of the deal under which these latest girls were released but just nigeria and its allies have been fighting boko haram in the lake chad region for years but brazen kidnapping and drop off of victims indicates that the group is far from being defeated saddam and job aid are there. well now on facebook live

soccer star emerging as a force to combat islamophobia in britain and coming up on the newsgroup in just a moment to me unwise and sound suit she loses her right hand man what does it mean as a country faces mounting criticism over the roof crisis. so again we'll look at the weather across the levant and western parts of asia to begin with conditions here actually a pretty good at the moment of the most part so it looking quite warner tashkent then expected stand up at twenty four degrees it's fine around the caspian sea and the eastern side of the maid also plenty of sunshine beirut looking at highs of twenty six degrees in fact as you start to pick up the winds from the south we get up into the thirty's and head on through into friday so

a pretty warm start to spring it has to be said here in the arabian peninsula temperatures too are just way up at thirty three degrees here in doha despite a fairly brisk but breeze may just not the temperatures down slightly as we head on through into friday but on the other side the potential again with a southerly wind we're looking at thirty nine degrees in mecca with the medina not far behind into southern portions of africa where we got some showers on the eastern side of south africa and that's life continued here in the course of thursday suppose durban and johannesburg could be wet at times cape town should be largely fine some showers into the mid be and could be affecting when took in the course of the day through into friday and see that line precipitation extends towards parts of botswana and then joins up with the area in south africa johannesburg seen some heavy rain and highs here of only fifteen degrees. education is struggling to keep pace often failing to prepare children for today's

world. but some schools are changing the rules our kids have holiday insanity and how the baby. with astonishing results. they have it both are in. rebel education early learning mexico at this time on al-jazeera when the news breaks. on the wall that the city and the story builds to be forced to leave the interest. when people need to be heard to women and girls are being bought and given away in refugee camps al-jazeera has teams on the ground to bring new award winning documentaries and live news and out i got to commend you all i'm hearing is good journalism on air and on mine.

love the zero dot com right now to take a look at all the latest developments all the latest the new stories and check out

the most read articles on our website right now it's all al-jazeera dot com. now african union leaders have launched the world's biggest free trade area it's designed to allow the unrestricted movement of people goods and capital across fifty five countries and hopefully boost trade rates within the continent which are languishing at sixteen percent as you can see that's in fact much lower than other parts of the world so right now the continent is split between seventeen often competing trade blocs the biggest is the common market for eastern and southern africa or calm so african nations have a combined g.d.p. if more than three a half trillion dollars and the a.u. believes that a continent wide trade agreements could give africa a g.d.p. equal to the u.s. and europe together by twenty fifty well it's been forty years in the making but it

only has forty four of the fifty five signatures required nigeria's president who's in charge of africa's biggest economy is among those who aren't yet on board mohamed the doe has more from capital kigali where the leaders were meeting. this is a huge deal for africa african leaders have for the past forty years been talking about more trade between african countries and today with the argument the process has begun where the free trade is being as published it's a very long process riddled with challenges it will begin with there are two for kitchen of the agreement in the individual countries thoughts find it this will involve negotiations with trade unions and the private sector in every country to ensure that all the all sectors that are very crucial to the success of these agreements on board the absence of nigerian president mamadou bahati of the signing

ceremony is on everyone's lips saying that there are some countries the first feel i'm convinced that they will do well with the agreement so that also needs to be taken care of by the you secretary it's in the coming months and years it's going to take a long time before these comes into being but the idea is to bring africa's one point two billion people with a combined u.d.p. or two point five two billion dollars on the one market and that is where africa seems to be headed for now well one of the countries hoping to benefit from the agreement is zimbabwe who's a new president has promised to kickstart the flatlining economy a big moneymaker is tobacco as heroin tosser reports from harare. zimbabwe produced and sold nearly two hundred million kilograms of tobacco last year will nearly six hundred million dollars farmers hope they can earn more this

year tobacco is the country's second biggest export most farmers here up in officialese of the government's land reform program where land was seized from white commercial farmers and given to blacks nearly twenty years ago and the big. beans. in all those costs. more than ninety percent of zimbabwe's tobacco is exported most ins up in china south africa and belgium it's a battle industry and markets board says more than one hundred thousand growers have registered to sell their produce this season last year the number was just over eighty thousand pharma say their priority is improving the quality of the tobacco they produce the country's new leader. took over it was forced to resign in november he's promising consistent and more investor friendly policies to revive the economy and the agricultural sector impression is that many farms are have been

derelict for a long period of time and sixteen is not just a physical infrastructure such as buildings but it extends to things like dams which in this last rainy season we've heard of several dams of actually collapsed because there hasn't been proper management for those as rich as land reform policy was sometimes chaotic and violent it's alleged some zimbabweans grabbed several farms but there are no official records of who has what and how many government ministers say they will be a comprehensive land audit when money is available. that. also. to establish exactly. which individual is the link to which is of lead. and of course a spits of land utilize this. both a bit of. white farmers who lost farms nearly twenty years ago have been told they

will be compensated but the bobbies government is broke there is a shortage of foreign currency before land reform zimbabwe is called the land of milk and honey political analysts say reviving the agricultural sector needs the right policies and political will and rampant corruption has to be urgently addressed how to al-jazeera how to this is what's happening right now in london that is the u.k. foreign secretary boris johnson and he's speaking at a select committee about the poisoning that's a close earlier this month off the former a russian spy that happens over in the u.k. so mary a mozzie is joining us from london she'll have more on that story as well as some of the other international news yeah that's right during tensions continuing to play out between russia and the britain over this with boris johnson saying that the poisoning of a former russian double agent was an attempt by the kremlin to send a message to people tempted to defect from russia russia though denies being behind

the attack and says person is hiding evidence about the death of sergei script it was killed by a nerve agent earlier this month i think that first of all it was a song that. president putin the russian state wanted to give to potential defectors in their own agencies and this is what happens to you if you decide that you support a country with a different set of values such as our own you can expect to be assassinated. at least twenty two people mostly children have been killed in a russian air strike in syria's district or until rescue group the white helmet says the children were killed as they left school in comfort by village further south in eastern guta a russian brokered deal has reportedly been reached to evacuate a rebel group there say no harder has more from beirut. yet again civilians children and so are the victims and in this war according to the united nations in

two thousand and seventeen one thousand children were killed it was fifty percent higher than the previous year the latest victims killed in a town far but in the province of idlib province which is under the control of the opposition rebel controlled areas really are battlegrounds there are no front lines residential areas have been targeted the united nations calls that collective punishment further south yet another battleground in syria eastern huta where we have seen really one of the if not the ferias fiercest bombing campaigns for over a month the pro-government alliance are targeting this rebel controlled enclave to bring about a surrender what we understand from sources is that one of the rebel factions in eastern who got out a sham is ready to lay down their arms and evacuate and leave to live now there hasn't been any official confirmation but about a sham has been in negotiations with the russian military for some time now there

is a relative lull in the fighting which is an indication that negotiations are taking place behind the scenes on this is definitely going to put more pressure on the other two rebel factions in eastern huta who have publicly said that they're not ready to surrender but it is clear from the pro-government alliance that this military assault will not end until the rebels agree to lay them down their arms hundreds of thousands of people according to the united nations are trapped inside this besieged enclave which is now divided into three different pockets the united nations describing the situation as catastrophic. egypt's president. said in a televised interview that egyptians should not fear speaking freely in made these comments in response to criticism that people in egypt are afraid of imprisonment and a struggling economically c.c. also denied being responsible for a lack of competition in the upcoming elections who lonely and i have noticed on t.v.

that there are phrases like oh stop talking or no you can't say that this is not good and i am not saying this for the sake of saying it i mean it and people are comprehensively free to talk and act only one thing is not allowed for example to violently hurt the country some people ask about the democratic process in practice when they say that sisi may win the elections but still we wish to see some other competitors yes they are right why not more candidates but you talk to me about something i have nothing to do with omar sure is a professor of security studies at the doha institute a graduate studies he says the statement is not truthful and their oppression in egypt is worse than on the former dictator hosni mubarak. the practices on the ground completely different from what he says. most of the serious contenders for the presidential elections were either marginalized or life in prison including the former chief of staff of the education army general sami on and you have all those who have been harassed you have. human rights watch is talking about fifteen solid

and civilians who were court martialed in his reign between october twenty fourth seen in september twenty seventh this is unprecedented number even on the mubarak stime we have hundreds of cases of forced disappearances extrajudicial killings are well documented and made the human rights commission of they'd been rather speaks frankly about the. era of intimidation and terror ruling the country which is also unprecedented for a human rights commissioner to say that never been said before under any of the regimes so when this is said nobody no one should fear and these are the realities documented realities on the ground and there is a big gap is finance commissioner wants to increase tax paid by digital companies he has announced plans for firms with large digital revenues in europe to pay a three percent tax on their turnover bringing in around six billion dollars a year the proposals might come into force unless they're backed by the european

parliament and all twenty eight e.u. countries the move could result in the group of tech giants known as that's google apple facebook and amazon pushing a large chunk of the bill. have more from london for in about fifteen minutes time now back to daryn. and frank you will be on mars the factual leader on sun suit she has lost one of her closest allies after the abrupt resignation of the president so in a statement on facebook president said he needs to rest florence louis has the details . precedents in myanmar are meant to be both the head of state and the government but not to he knew the role would be largely ceremonial when he was appointed two years ago the rail is wielded by all. who led her party the national league for democracy or an audi to victory in the general election in two thousand and fifteen lines but the constitution which was written when the military was in charge barred

from becoming president so she created a more powerful role for herself state council and made the president a figurehead well i don't think this is going to have a huge impact on the country in the way that it is a primarily ceremonial position of power in the country is very. moderate she senior general and those of the few major centers of power and the president who is just that sounds an. active role in policy discussions who's had heart problems in the past has been suffering from el health to several months but his resignation which takes effect immediately comes months after he called for constitutional reform a sensitive topic for myanmar's military leader the constitution reserves powerful positions in government for offices. teen choice resignation coincides with increasing international criticism of the russian jet crisis nearly seven hundred

thousand rahane jeff led last year's military crackdown described by the un as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing the government denies persecuting the muslim minority. the constitution says a new leader should be elected within seven working days much of this has been decided and choreographed in advance we we anticipate that the current speaker of the parliament a. close ally and michael. will be nominated as the next president a man that should happen within the next couple of days. vice president. who was appointed by the military leadership is acting president until a successor is named florence lee. while still in me in march two journalists who work for the reuters news agency are there they are they've appeared in courts for the eleventh time since they were arrested in december while

loan and short so who are accused of illegally obtaining secret government papers rights groups say the journalists are being targeted for their reporting of the crisis while they face up to fourteen years in jail we can now speak to read he's the chief operating officer for reuters news and joins us now via skype from new york thanks very much for speaking to us on al-jazeera and if you can just give us an update on the two reporters as we're saying wednesday was the eleventh time that they appeared in court. well yes i mean there's been detention now for one hundred days those those eleven hearings they come essentially once a week at this point you know the been any number of witnesses have been called brother was called to the stand at this last hearing testified that they were no confidential documents found at the house when the police searched it you know it's

taking a long time obviously and and we're not even really in a trial this is sort of a pretrial hearing phase where you know the prosecution presents their case and the judge decides whether the charge to be heard or not so do you know until that is because the trials of the one sorry do you expect them to go to trial well i think it's really up to the judge i mean our belief is that if you look at the evidence so far you look at the testimony there's been any number of contradictions that have come out from the prosecution witnesses but you know about where they were arrested the sequence of events with the police officer said even that he burnt all his notes and then recreated them afterwards for the trap so if you if you look at that on the face of it you would say you know there should be no charge that he faced year the only of course we'll have to wait for what the judge ruled they were alleging authorities that is or alleging that your reporters were in possession of important and secret documents under the official state secrets

act something that reuters does the nie why do you think they were detained. well i mean i think we've said when we did our story about the massacre of ten men in the village of indian that we think that you know the authorities detained them because they did not want that story to come out you know while long has certainly told is his relatives and he said in public that you know they were invited to have dinner with them cleese men when they got there the policeman gave them some documents told them not to look at them and as they that the restaurant they all got arrested. so you know that the state of how they want up in jail. and as i've said i think you know clearly they didn't want that story to come out why would you describe the state of freedom of the press in mean maher we know reporters without borders is ranking me and maher one hundred thirty one out of one

hundred eighty countries that was in its twenty seventeen a world press freedom index but from your experience tell us how you see it well i mean i think you have to put this in little bit of context i mean man was in budging from years of military rule and clearly they have to take steps you know at at a somewhat measured pace obviously we think they could go faster than they're going and clearly there's a situation now where you know reporting on events in rakhine state on the writing year is as a very sensitive subject for the government to sort of prevented journalists from going up there and travelling around freely and the one so in some respects there is much more press freedom than there was certainly under the military government but in other respects certainly about covering issues of the hangar and so on that you know that the space is tightening ok we thank you very much red sure for speaking to us here on al-jazeera thank you. who all egypt has extended the

detention of al jazeera journalist mahmoud hossein by another forty five days the egyptian national was arrested while on vacation in december twenty sixth and is yet to be charged her saying is accused of broadcasting false news with the aim of spreading chaos he and al-jazeera strongly deny the allegations. joe is here in a moment to talk about sports and she's going to tell us who's just qualified for a place at the cricket world cup. in the future so that's coming up right after. the weather.

well the sports news for you in just a moment but first let me tell you about some news just coming into us and a teenage palestinian girl that's added to mimi who was filmed kicking and slapping an israeli soldier in the occupied west bank after he had tried to enter her house has now accepted a plea bargain so i had to tell me me who is seventeen became a symbol of palestinian resistance on social media and we understand now that she

will be serving eight months in prison after the deal was announced today by her lawyer and the israeli army prosecution. now it's time for all the sports news with joe there ian thank you very much one of cricket's most famous teams the west indies have booked their place at the two thousand and nineteen cricket world cup they were made to sweat by scotland and helped by the rains in harare the windies were two for two in the third over and never really recovered as they were one hundred ninety eight all out the match was evenly poised with scotland hundred twenty five five with more than fourteen overs to go but then the rain ended the match and with it scotland's world cup dreams it is a good thing that the west indies went through so these two team mates can put this little incident behind them on and samuels had a powerful strike which accidently struck evan lewis in the back of his leg the friendly fire floor tim for a little bit but he got back up and both of them ended up hitting

a half century each one country that can now dream of playing at the world cup in the future is nepal just last week they earned their official one day international status for the very first time and that means they can play some of the sport's big guns like india australia and england but as to be mistress to reports from kathmandu the new status hasn't dampened allegations of corruption and political interference. hundreds of fans wait outside government to airport to get a glimpse of their favorite stars and powers national cricket team arrived home on monday evening from zimbabwe after winning one day international status and i'm looking forward to playing the giants of the one day games such as india england and australia. this comes with a lot of responsibility we have to improve our game and if infrastructure is built on the next six months to a year we can plan and move ahead it's time the government gives priority to cricket. the path to one day international status has been a rocky one for than

a potties the players are talented but the sports administrators are plagued by allegations of mismanagement political interference and corruption involving embezzled funds all that cause the world governing body international cricket council to suspend cricket association of the past two years ago. association suspension from the i.c.c. has excluded the team from competitions but it has meant a reduction of more than ninety percent in funding all we cannot do locally don i mean snow mustard on i mean are it going to hamper because there were no more drowning in the domestic on i mean so we had a problem with pearson action and an all in problem for people who are involved in the system so the direct impact and most important impact that we had in the domestic structure. far from developing new facilities existing cricket grounds

have not been meant tain still control this is around the sports administration that's hard to dampen the spirit of aspiring players cricket has become and you know mostly popular in the past earlier this year one of the national players was selected for the indian premier league the richest cricket league in the world and a few people across the country. start to see the sport as a viable career option now with o.d.i. status assured for the next four years nepal hopes to cement its place as a competitive international team fans here hope that the sports administrators in the park as well as the newly appointed sports minister will make changes and start investing in the development of the sport to beat us russia al-jazeera. now iraq football fans are about to watch their team play a historic match just five days ago fifo lifted a near three decade long ban on the country hosting international matches and on

wednesday they'll play begin playing a series of friendlies in the southern city of basra. this was the welcome the syrian team got when they arrive for a training session iraq will play syria next week but their first game will be against castle is due to kick off in the next few minutes we have video sent to us from one iraq for fun he's headed to that game in buster this is from mit and as you can see him and his friends are walking to the stadium to watch their team like cats are pretty excited it doesn't look like an amazing stadium zorra is and all the fun who sent us this. my house i'm sorry from baghdad we are delighted and enthusiastic because of the football match taking place after the lifting of a rock band the match also brings a rat closer to our sister nation catarrh. well you can always say it's using the hash tag. tweet me at gerri get back with more at eight hundred g.m.t.

now it's back to daryn joe thank you and that'll do it for this newsgroup thanks very much for watching remember to keep in touch with us on social media there it is we'll see you back here studio fourteen at fifteen g.m.t. that'll be on thursday thanks for watching.

conservation is helping to recover its snow leopard population to see the results i traveled up to the remote nature reserve of saudi chat at a touch camera traps have identified a healthy population of up to twenty snow leopards as the technology improves we're finding all these ways in which our guesses are are getting corrected the latest evidence suggests they're more cats than previously acknowledged but the snow leopard trust believes it's premature to downgrade the cats on the international list of threatened species. stories of life. and inspiration. a series of short

documentaries from around the wilds. that celebrate the human spirit against the odds coming before. al-jazeera selects change makers at this time. boko haram releases one hundred one of the girls they kidnapped last month from their school in nigeria. hello i'm marianne.