♪ anchor: this is dw news, live from berlin. the cease-fire in aleppo, crumbling less than one day after it was announced. syria's army has resumed its shelling of eastern aleppo. the u.n. is demanding safe passage for civilians out of the firing line. also coming up, the u.s. federal reserve bumps up interest rates after a robust year for the u.s. economy. what does it say about prospects under a new president? i will ask experts on both sides

of the atlantic. how safe is afghanistan? safe enough, says the german government. it has begun reporting failed asylum-seekers back to their homeland. ♪ i am brent goffetz. good to have you with us. a short-lived attempt at a cease-fire in aleppo. an evacuation plan for civilians and rebels trapped in the syrian city. thousands were due to leave today, but a cease-fire collapsed amid acrimony and new reports of reprisals from syrian forces and their russian allies. the u.n. has demanded safe passage out of the war zone for the city's shellshocked residents. the fighting has made that impossible.

>> the short-lived cease-fire, already forgotten. life for those trapped inside the embattled city is intolerable. "i cannot stand here in the street for a long time because of the heavy shelling. it is affecting every neighborhood, which remains under rebel control." syrian government buses were meant to take moderate rebels and civilians out of aleppo. instead, they left empty. another sign of a collapsed cease-fire. both the syrian government and rebels accuse each other of breaching it first. syrian president asher assad defended his army's defenses. >> if we liberate aleppo from

the cover wrists, -- terrorists, they are worried about the civilians. they are not worried about the opposite when the terrace rorists tilde civilians. >> this has led observers to speculate on a cooling of relations between moscow and damascus. despite the deserted streets, thousands remained trapped inside aleppo. food and water is scarce. any hope of an eminent end to the fighting, dashed. brent: we are joined on the line tonight by elizabeth, the world

health organization's representative in syria. she joins us from aleppo. good evening to you, elizabeth. thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us. can you tell us exactly what is the situation where you are. what are you seeing? elizabeth: [indiscernible] shooting from the roof. here is her i am. i can see smoke from several areas of aleppo. many injured. they don't have a place for the injured.

there are 45 neighborhoods -- four or five neighborhoods. [indiscernible] elizabeth: they are trying to reach an agreement. unfortunately, we have not come to an agreement yet. there are high number coming out of the liberators area.

it is raining and cold. brent: elizabeth, i have to ask you, have you been able to see anything to confirm what we have been hearing in terms of atrocities being committed and aleppo -- in aleppo? there have been reports that syrian forces are going door-to-door, executing, killing, men, women, and children. have you heard or seen anything to confirm that? elizabeth: we have no verified reports beyond what we are hearing from the social media. i cannot say anything about it because we don't have information aside from what we read on the social media. brent: and what about where you

are in terms of safety? who or what is guaranteeing the safety of where you are tonight? elizabeth: [indiscernible] there are rockets coming from areas outside of aleppo. there is military activity in east aleppo. brent: and what kind of help, elizabeth, can the world health organization provided to the people in eastern aleppo at this moment? are your hands basically tied by this situation? elizabeth: [indiscernible]

also for the people who are staying in their homes are under besieged. there are 50,000 to 100,000 people they are trying to respond to. we are providing medicine and medical supplies. we are making mobile clinics and doing our best. brent: elizabeth, yes, doing a very important job tonight in aleppo and risking your life to do it as well. elizabeth with the world health organization in aleppo in syria tonight. stay safe.

the german chancellor angela merkel has phoned sent me a putin to demand an end to the fighting and -- phoned vladimir putin to demand an end to the fighting in aleppo. she tax sanctions against moscow. one of her senior calling parties told dw that western inaction has played >> the westy unified and determined to counter act this aggressive posture of russia. the west has not imposed sanctions on russia after the annexation of crimea, and now, as we have seen, war crimes on a daily basis permanently slaughtering children, old people, everybody. the western community has not

reacted, and putin does certainly perceive this behavior of the west as a weakness. i do not claim that economic sanctions are the key to contain misbehavior of russia, but they would be an expression of unity for the future. president putin would have to calculate the economic effect of sanctions so at least we should do that, knowing it is not the recipe to solve this problem. brent: that was the german norbert talking about the situation in aleppo tonight. the big news from the world's leading economy, anything other than a rate rise today would have come to a shop. the u.s. central bank has tightened monetary policy as expected. the federal reserve chief janet yellen vegging up the key interest rate to a br --

low unemployment combined with increasing inflation convinced the committee to make the final adjustments this year. i am joined now by our business anger at the big table. this is the second-rate hate we have seen since the start -- rate hike since the start of the financial season. is the u.s. economy ready for this? >> we have seen economic growth steadily improving during the last quarter. economic growth was as strong as it has been in two years. unemployment is at a nine year low. full employment is one of the objectives of the federal reserve. we see inflation picking up and keeping inflation at 2% is the other objective. taking all these things, all these issues into consideration, that is why the fed acted here. janet yellen just get her press

conference a few minutes ago. here's what she had to say. >> over the past year, 2.5 million net new jobs have been created. unemployment has fallen further and inflation has moved closer to our longer run goal of 2%. we expect the economy will continue to perform well. >> that was janet yellen speaking there, a short time ago. we went over to the new york stock exchange to gauge the market reaction. i asked him, with bond yields and inflation expectations going up since donald trump one met the election, isn't there a shift away from the fed providing economic support? >> that really depends how the economic policy of donald trump will be. that is say we had some kind of trade with china and tariffs on

chinese products that would increase prices in the united states, we are talking inflation and the federal reserve might increase rates even more than we expect today, so a lot depends on the policies of donald trump and we don't know precisely how they will look like. brent: and we know that president-elect donald trump has openly criticized janet yellen and the fed's policy. what do investors make of that? it is not a nice situation to start out a presidency. >> well, their relation is certainly not the best and they probably will never become best friends, but the mid term ends in february 2018, and so far, there is no indication that she will not continue to do her job, and then we should not forget, they were closely together, but the federal reserve is independent. they don't have to listen

directly to the president, but certainly, the atmosphere is not necessarily the breast, and by the way, if i saw that correctly, the federal reserve -- the best, and by the way, if i saw that correctly, we expect to more rate hikes, but the federal reserve proved again and again they had been wrong. brent: christoph, let us bring you back to the side of the atlantic. how is this going to affect europe? the u.s. economy is gaining steam. >> you are hitting the nail on the head, brent. we see the economic policies diverging further. first of all, with interest rates rising in the u.s., we may see a flow of capital towards the u.s. as we get more money over there. secondly, with these diverging interest rate, it is becoming

harder for the central bank, european central bank, to kickstart the economy's here in europe. brent: we are going to take a short break. when we come back, more news in 60 seconds.

brent: welcome back. you are with dw news, live from berlin. plans to evacuate residents and rebels from the eastern part of aleppo collapsed earlier today. now that as syrian government forces resume their bombardment of rebel positions. the u.s. federal reserve has raised a key interest rate for the first time in one year. it has increased it benchmark rate by quarter of a point to between 0.5 and 0.75%.

the move comes ahead of an expected rise in inflation fueled by the 12 advantage and economic stimulus plan. that is to get back over to christoph now. the u.s. presidential elect. >> we know he speaks twitter more than fluently. silicon valley has a special connection to donald trump. it is very -- they were openly dismissing him during the presidential campaign, but now the community seems to want to bury the hatchet. the u.s. president-elect is meeting the great and the good in silicon valley. on the guest list, the likes of tim cook, the ceo of the world's most valuable company, apple. he is in the big apple to talk tech with trump tonight. the ceo of alphabet is there as well. larry page is in charge of google and they are joined by sheryl sandberg, the chief

operating officer of facebook to see whatever firm gives the president the official thumbs-up. they are not the only ones. other top tech talent will be in attendance as well. so, that is quite a crowd assembled into tower. daniel winter thankfully is not fair. he is in the studio. he is our digital native, somewhat, the resident digital native. daniel, what is on the agenda at these talks tonight? daniel: just as we came on in, they were meeting at some tower and are trying to roll back the anti-trump rhetoric they were going through during the cap presidential campaign they are trying to be nice and give him a little bit of room, something to play with in order to show that they are meaning well. >> they are meaning well. despite the backpedaling, the atmosphere between trump tower and silicon valley has been

frosty in the last couple of months. how did it come to this meeting tonight? daniel: frosty is a good word for it. it is more like an iceberg. they are trying to avoid clashing with him. they had to have this meeting to find some common ground. they are going with a positive agenda. the ceo of ibm, creating 25,000 jobs says she wants to see trump invest in education. that is a positive thing most people can agree on, especially tech education. the ceo of oracle said she praised trump saying that while it is good he is going to reduce taxes and regulations, so they are finding a way to come together. this is one thing you cannot magic away during the campaign, an open letter from silicon valley executives said that he demonstrated poor knowledge about how technology works, reducing exports, and

exportation. >> at sign quite a difficult task. what can we expect from from, from a trump presidency in regards to the tech industry? daniel: i would be genius of i could tell you that, but he keeps changing his mind, doesn't he? he says one thing and then rolls back on another day. talk about obamacare, and he said he was going to scrap it. he said he was going to drain the swamp and get rid of the elite. we can see how that has been going. it is difficult to predict what he's going to do when he actually gets into office. brent: we have quite a meeting tonight at trump tower with all the great and the good of the tech industry sitting there. then the winter, from our business desk breaking it down for us. thank you so much. it is an unpleasant surprise for greece. verizon finance ministers have temporarily suspended debt relief measures.

athens was not sticking -- the athens stock exchange lost more than 3% on the news. in addition, speculation is rising that prime minister alexis will ask the monetary fund to withdraw from the country's bailout program. many people in greece accuse the ims of overly harsh austerity measures. we asked our financial correspondent whether greek prime minister alexis tipper underestimated his partners. >> maybe he has or maybe he is trying to get elected. it is the people of greece that is at prime minister, not the international monetary fund or any of the shin in europe. the prime minister of greece finds himself in a very difficult situation. the economy in the country has been doing somewhat better lately.

at the same time, the greek government has managed to come in with a budget surplus, a bigger one than targeted, so there was some fiscal discipline in athens. now, the prime minister wants to take some of the burden off the backs of low income pensioners by paying out a one-off payment at the end of the year of a bit more than 600 million euros. that is not in the budget, of course, given that the country still has to pay back so many debts. brent: reporting from the frankfurt stock exchange. that is all your business for this hour. here in germany, the country has begun deporting failed afghan asylum-seekers under the terms of a recent deal with kabul. the decision to send home up to 50 afghans has drawn sharp criticism. some germans believe the security situation in

afghanistan is too volatile for the return of the would-be migrants. >> they are in frankfurt wednesday evening, protesting against the deportation of up to 50 afghans. one of the organizers says afghanistan is not secure. "the country is not safe. it is unstable. hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing. they have got no future. this is the strongest the taliban has ever been." terrace attacks in afghanistan claim large numbers of victims, just like this suicide attack last weekend in kabul. the german government declares there are safe regions in afghanistan. that might explain the large numbers of afghans who returned home of their own coalition. this year alone, we have already had 3000 citizens voluntarily returned to their homeland, supported by various programs and other measures.

"the security situation throughout afghanistan can change very quickly. furthermore, there are no safe regions because it there is a war going on there. even the german government admits this much." the green party denounces the deportation that political showmanship. "people are well integrated into society here and have established families. it is absurd and are responsible." -- irresponsible." brent: we want to pull in heather barr, from human rights watch. we understand the plane to cobble just took off -- to kabul just took off. what can we expect when they touch ground in afghanistan?

heather: it is a frightening situation, afghanistan, and it seems to be getting worth during the day. your piece talked about the german government putting faith in the afghan government to take care of these people being dumped into a country they may not be familiar with. to be honest, the afghan government is not in the position that people can be putting much in them to look after these deportees. the situation in afghanistan is really difficult at the moment. it is estimated the afghan government is controlling 60% of the country and the taliban is controlling 10% of the country and the other 30% is contested. there is fighting going on. even the areas the afghan government is controlling in theory at least, there is violence happening regularly including in the capital where these deportees will be arriving when their plane lands. brent: so basically, what you're saying is when the german government tells the public that afghanistan is a safe country,

that it is not true, and if that is the case, what should the german government be doing? heather: you're absolutely right. that is not true. if you look at the security measures german diplomats living in kabul are living under, you can see that clearly. the formats in kabul rarely leave their compounds. when they do leave, they are in armored cars with private security details guarding them. the americans are no longer drive into the airport. they fly to the airport. the situation is incredibly difficult. anyone who is saying don't worry, it is safe to deport people is talking, i think, more from a perspective of the political situation in their own country than in regard to the security situation in afghanistan. in terms of what should germany do, well, part of the calculation in deciding whether to deport people is not only whether their asylum claim has

failed, but whether they can safely be returned to their country of origin. that is why we need to consider the afghan security situation in a more clear and realistic manner. brent: heather barr from human rights watch, joining us. thank you very much. after a short break, i will be back to take you through the day. we are going to have more on the situation that you just heard right now, in aleppo. stick around. we will be back after a short break. ♪

♪ as china experiences on going economic decline. housing costs in beijing now surpass those through new york. according to an april 2016 announcement, from the uk's business alliance, they have become the most expensive in the world.