welcome to newsday. i'm sharanjit leyl in singapore. the headlines: mark zuckerberg gets grilled in the us senate. the head of facebook explains how data was shared and admits they didn't always get it right. we have made a lot of mistakes in running the company. i think it's pretty much impossible, i believe, to start a company in your dorm room and grow it to be at the scale we're at now without making some mistakes. responding to a suspected chemical attack in syria — the us, france and the uk discuss coordinated action against president assad. poisoned by a nerve agent five weeks ago, yulia skripal is discharged from hospital. she's now been moved to a secure location. and after five months in prison in myanmar, two reuters journalists will find out later whether charges against them will be dropped. good morning.

it's 8am in singapore and 8pm in washington, where after five and a half hours, facebook chief executive, mark zuckerberg has finished testifying in front of the us senate. the hearing was called following revelations that millions of users had their information shared with a political consulting group cambridge analytica. mr zuckerberg said that facebook did not take a broad enough view of its responsibility and that it was his personal mistake. here's our media editor, amol rajan. it was the interrogation he feared and had long resisted. mark zuckerberg has never testified before congress. now, with the eyes of the world on him, this moment in the spotlight promised high drama and delivered it. in his prepared statement, zuckerberg said this was on him. we didn't take a broad enough view of our responsibility and that was a big mistake. and it was my mistake and i'm sorry.

i started facebook, i run it, and i'm responsible for what happens here. the charge at his door, that in building perhaps the most astonishing network in human history, he had created a mass surveillance tool that emperils us all. let me just cut to the chase. if you and other social media companies do not get your act in order, none of us are going to have any privacy anymore. mr zuckerberg is shy, awkward and usually wears t—shirts and jeans. here he was looking looking nervous schoolboy in an ill—fitting uniform. he recognised the company made a huge error in not telling 87 million users that they had been targeted by cambridge analytica. why didn't you inform those 87 million? we did take action. we took down the app. we demanded that both the app developer and cambridge analytica delete and stop using any data that they had. they told us they did this.

in retrospect, it is clearly a mistake to believe them. that was the second act of repentance. next up, he accepted that he was wrong to describe the idea of russian interference in the presidential election as crazy. one of my greatest regrets in running the company is that we were slow in identifying the russian information operations in 2016. we expected them to do a number of more traditional cyber attacks, which we did identify and notify the campaigns they were trying to hack into them, but we were slow in identifying the type of new information operations. as one senator pointed out, mr zuckerberg, sorry seems to be the easiest word. after more than a decade of promises to do better, how is today's apology different, and why should we trust facebook to make the necessary changes to ensure user privacy and give people a clearer picture of your privacy policy? intruigingly, zuckerberg seemed

to leave open the possibility of moving to a paid service at some point. but his core business model would always be based on our personal data. there will always be a version of facebook that is free. it is our mission to try to help connect everyone around the world and to bring people closer together. in order to do that, we believe we need to offer a service that everyone can afford and we're committed doing that. if so, how do you sustain a business model in which users don't pay for your service? senator, we run ads. that was amol rajan reporting there. our correspondent dave lee has been following this story for us throughout the day from capitol hill. mark zuckerberg began this session doing what he's done several times over the last few weeks, apologising for his company's role in this scandal in which cambridge analytica allegedly scooped up tens of millions of users‘ data by using a fraudulent app on the platform. after that, it was hisjob to convince senators he was the man to steer facebook away from this

crisis without onerous impact on the facebook business model. judging by the mood in the room, i'm not sure he achieved that. many senators believe facebook has become incredibly powerful, incredibly quickly, perhaps too much so, but investors seemed happy, stock was up around 4.5% during the testimony. mr zuckerberg made some interesting concessions. notably, he said members of his team had been interviewed by the office of special counsel robert mueller in his ongoing investigation into russian meddling, and also mr zuckerberg didn't rule out the idea that facebook could one day be a paid service, although he did say there would always be a free version of the site available to users. dave lee, bbc news, in washington. russia and the united states have failed to win support at the un security council for rival proposals on an investigation into chemical

weapons use in syria. the threat of military action is looming in response to a suspected chemical attack in rebel—held douma. president donald trump says he's spoken to british prime minister theresa may about a coordinated response. on the ground in syria, chemical weapons inspectors are planning to visit the site of the alleged attack. here's our middle east editorjeremy bowen. outside damascus, the war goes on. this was the aftermath of the conventional attack in idlib, the rebel held province to which many fighters and families have been transferred. only a small fraction of the half a million dead in syria's war have been killed by chemical weapons. more displaced people are being bussed out of douma,

the town that the west and others say was hit by chemical weapons. a trusted bbc source, abdullah abu hammam, saw the immediate aftermath of the attack. translation: we entered the building and all the dead bodies were still there. the ambulance couldn't reach the bodies due to the shelling. there were signs of suffocation, their skin was blue, foaming at the mouth and their eyes were popped out. but at the un security council in new york, the russians said there was no chemical attack. instead, the us and its allies were seeking a pretext for an illegal military operation. translation: you do not want to hear anything, you do not want to hear the fact that no traces of a chemical attack were found in douma. russia vetoed an american resolution to set up a new enquiry as to who's to blame for using chemical weapons in syria. russia has used the power of veto

to protect syria from international scrutiny for the use of chemical weapons against the syrian people. russia's credibility as a member of the council is now in question. we will not stand idly by and watch russia continue to undermine global norms which have ensured all our security, including russia's, for decades. a rival russian resolution failed, it felt like the cold war. earlier, the prime minister added her condemnation. first of all, this attack that took place in douma is a barbaric attack. obviously, we are working urgently with our allies and partners to assess what has happened on the ground. if this is the responsibility of assad's regime in syria, it is another example of the brutality and brazen disregard for their people that they show. there are no easy options for the americans, the british and the french in syria. it's become a very crowded battlefield. president assad's men work very closely with the russians and the iranians. the western powers need to avoid making matters worse. introducing more force into such

a highly militarised country increases the chances of escalating the conflict. air strikes are possible, like those a year ago after another chemical attack. but international inspectors could travel to syria anyway, which would complicate western military plans. more important than reprisals, and much harder to find, is a convincing strategy for syria's future. jeremy bowen, bbc news. let's take a look at some of the day's other news. president trump has again strongly attacked an fbi raid on the offices of his lawyer michael cohen, describing it as a "witch hunt". us media says the raid was looking for evidence that mr cohen paid off women on mr trump's behalf, including an ex—playboy playmate. our north america editorjon sopel

says the president is still very angry. he attacked the fbi for a break—in, they had a warrant. he attacked the attorney general. he attacked thejustice department. he said it was an attack on our country in a true sense. he attacked to deputy attorney general. he went after robert mueller and he went after robert mueller‘s team. so i think when you're sitting there with generals, i think that was a multi—target attack. everyone in thejustice department came in for the most venomous assault from the president. i think he is livid, furious, he's been tweeting about it again this morning, about attorney—client privilege being gone. this is a total witch—hunt, in block capitals. also making news today, president trump says he's encouraged by a promise by beijing to further open its economy, but will continue pushing for concrete changes to china's trade policy.

earlier president xi pledged to cut import tariffs on cars and make it easier to invest in china. it follows plans by president trump to hit hundreds of chinese products with new import duties. a mass funeral has been held for 2h children who died after their school bus crashed in india. most of those who died were younger than ten. the bus driver and two teachers were also killed. the incident happened in the northern state of himachal pradesh. president trump's homeland security adviser tom bossert has resigned from government. it reportedly follows a request from the new national security adviserjohn bolton. mr bossert oversaw the trump administration's work on cyber security issues. it is being called the wedding of the years. —— of the years.

—— of the year. the british prime minister theresa may isn't being invited to the wedding of prince harry and meghan markle next month. the couple have decided not to invite any politicians for their big day. instead, 1,200 members of the public will be allowed into the grounds of windsor castle for the wedding. yulia skripal, who was poisoned with a nerve agent alongside herfather in salisbury last month, has been discharged from hospital. she left yesterday and has been taken to a secure location. her father sergei, a former russian spy, remains in hospital and doctors say he is recovering more slowly than his daughter. the russian embassy in london says moscow would consider any secret resettlement of the skripals as an "abduction." here's our correspondent leila nathoo. she had arrived from moscow last month to visit her father in salisbury, butjust 2a hours later yulia and sergei skripal were both critically ill after being exposed to a deadly nerve agent.

in the five weeks since the attack the two have slowly been recovering. today, the hospital explained they'd responded exceptionally well to treatment. nerve agents work by attaching themselves to particular enzymes in the body which then stop the nerves from functioning. this results in symptoms such as sickness, hallucinations. ourjob in treating the patients is to stabilise them, ensuring that they can breathe and that blood can continue to circulate. the attack on the skripals involved a chemical so toxic it prompted a massive decontamination effort stretching across salisbury. experts say that despite their progress, there could still be complications ahead. the long—term effects are much harder to predict because these are effects on the brain, the nervous system, on things like the kidney and the liver. and so it's quite likely that the skripals will need more treatment before they could feel normal again. yulia has now been taken to a secure location.

herfather‘s home is where police believe the two were poisoned by coming into contact with the nerve agent on the property's front door. the house, out of sight behind the wide cordon still in place here, remains a focus for the police. detectives have now spoken to yulia at length and to her father about what happened to them. but the skripals have apparently not told them anything that has significantly changed the course of the investigation, and so enquiries continue, gathering evidence from witness statements, cctv and phone records. in the longer term, police are considering the option of giving the skripals new identities. russia has rejected the blame for the salisbury attack and hopes yulia will return home. its embassy in london claimed today: the recovery of yulia skripal has opened up a new battleground in this diplomatic crisis.

you're watching newsday on the bbc. still to come on the programme: looted ethiopian treasures go on display in london, sparking debate on whether they should be returned. 25 years of hatred and rage as theyjump up on the statue. this funeral became a massive demonstration of black power, the power to influence. today is about the promise of a bright future, a day when we hope a line can be drawn under the bloody past. i think that picasso's

works were beautiful, they were intelligent, and it's a sad loss to everybody who loves art. welcome back. this is newsday on the bbc. i'm sharanjit leyl in singapore. our top stories: mark zuckerberg has apologised to a us senate committee for allowing firms to misuse personal data gathered by facebook. russia blocks a un vote to investigate the suspected chemical attack in syria, increasing the likelihood of us—led military action against president assad. let's take a look at some front pages

from around the world. the front page of the new york times reports on what it calls india's "big brother programme". the government there is collecting biometric data on over a billion residents. the information will be used in a nationwide identity system. the south china morning post wonders if rugby fever is about to kick off across the country. the sport has already scored around 30 million fans. and that figure could explode if the chinese women's team does well at the olympics. and the japan times is getting in the mood for spring. it's front page features some budding blue flowers. over four million nemophila flowers are blooming in hitachi seaside park. they'll be around until may. let's return to our top story. facebook chief mark zuckerburg has apologised to a us senate committee

for a data breach which saw the information of around 87 million users improperly shared. five out of the ten most heavily impacted countries were in asia. earlier, i spoke to tim dillon, founder and director of tech research asia, about the data breach. those five countries that you mentioned i think tallyjust over 3.5 million facebook users. there does need to be a degree of perspective on this, i guess, in terms of the impact here, and there are a couple of points i would like to make. i guess the first is 3.5 million is a lot, yes, but compared with the 70—odd million in the us, it's relatively small. it's had a geographic spread. the interesting thing about this is how this happened, in terms of the impact, if you like. so if you look at how this happened, new zealand, the original users of the app that triggered the entire breach, there were actually ten downloads in new zealand.

now, that actually impacted just over 63,000 facebook users in new zealand. so there's an exponentially impact from those that were part of the app usage, and then how the data was accessed. so the impact is, yes, geographic — it's relatively small in terms of the numbers, but how it happened and the exponential impact is quite significant. the other point is that you have to look at other breaches that we've had. equifax was 140 million, linkedin it was 160 million, and yahoo was 500 million. you also had zuckerberg saying that probably all of the 2 billion users have had their data accessed. and he refused to answer whether he would support european—style regulations in the us. we know eu regulators are famously tough on tech companies when it comes to data collection, so would you suggest asian nations

need to look at the eu to roll out similar regulation, if they're being hit by this as well? yes, that is a fascinating question, especially with gdpr coming in this year in may in the eu. zuckerberg's answer to this has been we are going to apply the same level across all of our users. now, if you look at that across the eu perspective, it would say that everywhere, globally, needs a similar level of protection of data. certainly in asia and the pacific, we've already seen some countries, new zealand is a great example, australia is moving that way, we've had changes in singapore, hong kong, taiwan — so there are certain countries that are absolutely already changing their consumer data protection legislation. two journalists from the news agency reuters will find out later

whether charges against them, for allegedly possessing secret government papers in myanmar, are to be dropped. the pair have already spent more than 100 days in prison. they deny any wrongdoing. our myanmar correspondent, nick beake, has more. for the past five months these two burmese journalists have been in prison cells, their only crime, they say, doing theirjob. and this is a case which has kicked up the tension across the world. we know that amal clooney, who of course was a leading human rights lawyer long before she met george clooney, is part of the legal team based in new york. in terms of what will happen in yangon today, the two journalists will arrive in court. if convicted, they face 1a years in prison. but the burmese legal system is complicated, and it is unpredictable. we think that later today the judge will decide whether or not to throw out the charges against them.

the two journalists have been detained under a very old colonial—era official secrets act. it is said that they received the government papers from police officers that they went to meet. this was at a time when they were investigating on behalf of reuters the alleged massacre of ten rohingya men in rakhine state, and that was a story that reuters chose to publish despite the arrests. one of the men, wa lone, turned 32 today, and certainly his friends and family want him to be able to celebrate his birthday this evening at home, a free man. but they have been disappointed before. and so today, really, those friends and family are living in hope rather than expectation. treasures, including a royal dress and a gold crown — taken from ethiopia by the british 150 years ago — could be returned by london's victoria and albert museum on a long—term loan.

lisa—marie misztak reports. beautifully written manuscripts. a meticulously crafted golden crown. silver jewellery. these are some of the items that were plundered in ethiopia during the battle of magdala in april 1868. the royal and religious treasures were taken when a british expeditionary force laid siege to the mountain fortress of emperor tewodros ii, in what was then abyssinia. this was in response to the emperor's imprisonment of europeans. but now there is some hope for those fighting for the treasures to be returned home. the history of these items in our collections are legally complicated. the easiest way in order to have these items in ethiopia is a long—term loan, and we've done that with other items in our collection, with other parts of the world, in the past.

the ethiopian government lodged a formal restitution claim for the treasures in 2007, which was denied. the selection of a loan was first welcomed by the ethiopian embassy in london, which has partnered with the museum on this exhibition. loans are not a new thing. that in itself is a good beginning, a good start, for the continued dialogue, discussion and engagement of our two countries regarding cultural artefacts. there have been contradicting statements on exactly what ethiopia's position is for the return of the magdala artefacts. the uk ambassador applauded the move to loan the collections to ethiopia. but the country's culture and tourism minister has rejected the loan, and will now intensify efforts to return the treasures back permanently. calls to return the treasures have been ongoing for years.

i think it is a most welcome proposal. i think barring the possibility of the return of some of these treasures owned by institutions in britain, it would be wonderful if a long—term loan of these treasures could be arranged. i think it would be greatly welcomed by the ethiopian people. in the meantime, an exhibition like this continues to shine a light on the plight of many countries around the world that are still fighting to have sacred and precious items returned. that's all for now. stay with bbc world news. hello, good morning. there is warmer weather on the way for all of us in the outlook eventually. but it was along the south coast and in sussex, with some sunshine like this, that we had 18 degrees,

compared with around six or seven along some north sea coasts. that was thanks to that wind off the north sea. and similar contrasts, really, through the rest of this week. in general a lot of cloud around, and some further bursts of rain, too. now, the pressure pattern looks like this. low pressure to the south of the uk, some very wet weather again across iberia into southern france. higher pressure extending across the north from scandinavia, and that easterly wind. we have seen some heavy rain, though, across parts of the south overnight, and that will tend to head its way away from the south—west, keeping, though, a cloudier zone through wales, the midlands, east anglia, parts of southern england, and maybe a few showers towards the south coast, where we may get some warm sunshine again. sunshine across north—western parts of england, maybe northern ireland, the north and west of scotland, where we're sheltered from that easterly wind which keeps it cold and grey around some north sea coasts, and still pretty misty overnight.

some further bursts of rain as we head towards the end of the night, into thursday morning, but nowhere particularly cold. and, if anything, that rain is tending to move its way a bit further north on thursday, so it should be drying off across much of wales and the midlands. rain pushing northwards, patchy rain, across northern england into northern ireland, but turning wetter across south—east scotland and north—east england, and without that rain from the north sea, it really will feel pretty cold. get some sunshine, it's a bit warmer, especially in the south—east, although there could be one or two showers around. not a great deal of change as we head into thursday, from thursday into friday. again, lower pressure to the south, higher pressure to the north. an easterly wind, which is going to be stronger to the north of the humber, and this is where we've got most of the rain. so friday, again, it's the northern half of the uk that sees the wet weather. this time around, the rain could be wetter friday. watch out for some sharp showers in the south and south—west, but again some warmth in that sunshine when it comes through, but not everywhere getting it just yet. we start to see some changes as we head into the weekend. a big area of low pressure

approaching from the atlantic, but it draws up more of a southerly wind as we head through the weekend. still got some rain, though, in north—eastern scotland. cold and wet here, but otherwise, more of a southerly. we're losing the onshore wind for most of us, and that means some sunshine coming through, lifting the temperatures. one or two showers, but not as cold across south—east scotland and north—east england. and the higher temperatures move across the whole of the country as we head into the beginning of next week, as we get that southerly wind. most places will be dry, and there'll be some sunshine too. i'm andrew plant with bbc news. our top story: mark zuckerberg has apologised to a us senate committee for allowing firms to misuse personal data gathered by facebook. he said that facebook did not take a broad enough view of its responsibility and that it was his personal mistake. his testimony was well received by the markets and facebook shares closed the day 4.5% up. the likelihood of military action against president assad by the

united states, britain and france has increased after russia blocked a un vote on an investigation into a suspected chemical attack in syria. yulia skripal — the daughter of a former russian spy — has left hospital five weeks after she was poisoned by a nerve agent. it's understood she's been moved to a secure location. her father is still receiving treatment. that's all from me for now. stay with bbc news. and the top story here in the uk: the former us president, bill clinton, has said politicians