this is. tonight an emergency meeting of germany's cyber defense agency is called after the data of hundreds of politicians and public figures is released online poll numbers documents and credit card details have been published on twitter was this the work of a foreign power or someone inside germany so far there are no it's also coming up a desperate leap raises concerns over the condition of fifty migrants stuck on the rescue ships off the coast of malta european governments refuse to allow the

vessels to dock we will talk with an italian city who says migrants are welcome in his tent. brinkerhoff it's good to have you with us tonight the personal details of hundreds of german politicians have been stolen and published on twitter german security agencies are now investigating the data breach which includes cell phone numbers and credit card details the government saying that lawmakers at all levels have been affected journalists and celebrities were also targeted the identity of the hackers if they were hackers hasn't been established. the data breach goes right to the top german chancellor angela merkel victa information pizza fax number email addresses and several less is purported to be from her office and it's not just the chancellor. is doing. his personal data and documents from hundreds of politicians

and public figures were published on the internet internet for if only it wouldn't . waste on the first analysis politicians and officials from all levels were affected from the european parliament the german parliament means regional state parliaments and local officials. politicians from every german political party were targeted except the right wing populist. the leakers these twitter to publish personal data such as phone numbers identification documents charts invoices and even photos of their children justice minister cancer going to ballet said the leak was a deliberate attempt to damage faith in the country's democracy the left parties call for a full investigation. is this it's an attack on the social cohesion of our country i've read and heard that many artists journalists and politicians are

affected. the aim is obviously to create a climate of fear a climate of insecurity in our country. the leak was first discovered thursday evening but it seems the first documents started appearing in december with a twitter account releasing information daily in the style of an advent calendar none of the internal documents that were released a thought to be highly sensitive at the moment there's no known suspects or any clear motives. let's not kid ourselves there's no such thing as personal privacy and we're all vulnerable to attacks like this but they need to be stopped before aside this isn't the first time german politicians have been hacked in twenty fifteen russia was accused of a series of cyber attacks that stole data from computers in the german parliament and last year the german government's i teen network came under a fresh attack russian hackers were also blamed for that. our list because the

story now here at the big table with me is due to be social media editor carl nast men and you're in berlin our chief political correspondent melinda crane let me start with you the government says that news since the data has been leaked what does that mean what does it tell us that means that so far what we're seeing of this leaked data is all personal material meaning cell phone numbers chats facebook posts e-mail addresses and as we heard in the report even photographs from people's children what it is not is the kind of material or the kind of hacking that we have seen here in germany in two past attempts where hackers directly targeted infrastructure of the german government of members of parliament and therefore also released sensitive political information that is not the case here

and so even if a glimmer ackles fax number is out there we don't have a clear political e-mails from her to others on policy matters. we were told that all political parties were affected by this except for the right we popularized the we contacted the a.f.p. this evening they confirmed that what is being made by the fact that they were spared from this attack. well since this story broke this morning there's been of course a lot of speculation about who the perpetrators might be and we know that the cyber defense unit that's looking into this is certainly trying to figure that out but the first speculation was well could this perhaps be russian affiliated hackers we have seen that in the past or at least the suspicion has been that they were behind past attacks then there was some talk about this very fact that. politicians don't seem to have been targeted does that mean that someone affiliated with the party

might have been behind it now some cyber experts are saying they think this could quite likely prove to be almost a prank mischief making by young german men probably who are most likely sympathizing with right wing groups like the a.f.d. and who simply want to embarrass and provoke figures whom they don't like so at this point that's where the speculation is trending but it really is just speculation that speculations and i don't. know that politicians have been affected . it goes beyond politicians and we've been looking through this information as we heard reported there is are public figures we see german actors we see german t.v. presenters one in particular who is well known for playing pranks on the far right for example interestingly there's journalists and here as well at least forty journalists in germany had their private information leaked in this as well and we

have to say most of these figures are known for having leftist views more in the liberal side of the political spectrum what happened here is called docs and in fact that's how the hackers referred to it this is when you were least private information your home address your private phone numbers the intention here is to encourage harassment get people to visit your house get people to call you maybe get death threats something like that in fact we heard that martin schultz of the s.p.d. reportedly started receiving phone calls and. private number and that was how this was maybe first discovered of course it's easy to speculate but we're really curious what's going on here but it is fairly clear that the focus here of this hack was going out of its way to target people on the left side in germany. it looks like this legal happened four weeks ago in early december but no one in the german government noticed in yesterday's answer what's been going on in the past four weeks we're just now picking up on this i mean it's been it's been weeks but likely whoever did this had trouble getting the word out about their league i mean

we know this because of the twitter account that they were using to try to spread this information and this is what we mean here there are a couple of twitter accounts that were tweeting out information those have since been taken down by twitter this is one of them here you can see it had more than nineteen thousand followers and we suspect that many of those were bots those weren't real people take a look at how this account was doing it and releasing the information we heard from the reporter was and in the form of an advent calendar each day of december another bit of information was being released along with a link promising some dirt on german actor till it has what one reach wheat five likes if you can tell i mean these were hardly getting clicked on at all in this number eventually the perpetrators had to have another twitter account with two million followers use that to get the word out and that's when people started noticing again speculation but whoever was behind this it's not likely that they had a big organization behind them otherwise they wouldn't have this much trouble getting the word out all right cohen has been or she political correspondent linda green to both of you you thank. or here are some of the other stories

now that are making headlines around the world police have carried out a major police operation in the german city of cologne after shots were fired in the city center no one is reported to have been injured and one man has been arrested police are looking for three others who fled the scene local media reporting the arrested man has connections to the local biker c a palestinian television station says its offices in gaza have been ransacked and a group of men broke in and destroyed cameras and passing a quit station supports the fatah party of president mahmoud abbas they blamed the raid on the hamas group of his followers and in crease in tensions between the two parties in the palestinian territories. well two democratic congressmen have begun the process of attempting to impeach president they have the support of high profile new congresswoman. who called the president and used an expletive to refer to them however the democratic leadership doesn't support impeachment at least not

now speaker nancy pelosi says she'll only consider trying to remove trump once an investigation into his campaign alleged russian connections is complete. but he says the democrats will not give the president the money that he's demanding for his border with mexico calling it immoral on thursday entered the white house press room for the first time i see you again defend his project take a look you can go to barry or you can go to whatever you want but essentially we need protection in our country and we're going to make it good. to the people of our country want it i have never had so much support as i have in the last week. our back here in new europe to malta where concerns over the health of dozens of migrants stranded aboard two german rescue ships well those concerns are growing they were picked up in the past two weeks but authorities in valetta every

fuse to allow them to disembark earlier while several german members of parliament were on board one of the ships a migrant had to be rescued or re rescued rather after he jumped overboard and tried to swim ashore malta spain and italy have all refused to allow the ships to dock but the mayor of the italian port town of palermo says he'll make them welcome we'll hear from him in a moment but first this report. imagine being stuck on a boat in such rough seas not knowing well you'll go next since there dramatic rescue of the libyan coast in december this has been the reality for about fifty migrants they are in limbo in the narrow confines of the two ships operated by eight organizations see watch and see i q a p n countries have so far refused to let them disembark but mayors of several large italian cities refused to obey the country's official tough anti immigration law slamming it as unconstitutional.

in naples us and other cities we apply the laws only if they conform with the constitution thus the constitution prevails i vote ordinary laws to get people's rights are restricted according to the color of the skin by the constitution must prevail. in this official letter the majesty offered to let the watch come to the heart of naples assuring them that the refugees will be able to disembark. but according to see watch this is easier said than done official rescue centers have to assign available ports and the weather conditions are simply too bad deeply affecting the people on board. but the biggest problem is also that. the thirty two people that we have here on board know already for thirteen days. the show mental problems florence and palermo as well as several german cities have also offered the migrants refuge as more and more official to unite in solidarity

with the refugees hope increases for those in desperate need of help. short while ago we spoke to the mayor of. orlando we asked him if the rescue organizations had taken him up on his offer to die in his city. i just said it we're ready to welcome of but just to welcome are the people who are in the boat in this moment that is the society or position of the government and it telling our doesn't even the opposition therefore i am a strong a guest in the national government and is totally against the just the look that minister salvini led to the parliament approved is just the egg not human law is a law producing it in name of security producing crimes because a we cannot have a security just discarding the human rights or even the mocker see if there is only

one way to lead to a lender to be safe to make that a seed to be safe respecting human rights not to put in where i said you have no them ocracy you are a case for solution and i am in private against the submarine in the name of the european of their use not in the money the respect of human rights and i am for really for europe are strongly for the our constitution that is is just the start of every day by his government. and that was speaking with us earlier here's a reminder of that story we're following for you hundreds of patients have had their personal information hacked the stolen data includes. credit card details posted to twitter security agencies are investigating but it's not yet known who is responsible if you're watching live from. with more world news followed by the day

i hope to see you that. it's a real problem because there is no i knew about everyone writes that. and then. the great thing is.