♪ brent: this is "dw news," live from berlin. tonight, tensions between germany and turkey hit a new high. turkey's justice minister scraps a visit to germany after several german towns decided no turkish political rallies in our backyard. the turkish government wanted to rally turks in germany to support a referendum, giving the turkish president more power. also coming up, she tweeted a bit too much. france's far right presidential candidate marine le pen is stripped of her immunity from prosecution.

the nationalist leader now faces an investigation over images she tweeted of violence by so-called islamic state. and president trump backs his attorney general. there have been calls for jeff sessions to resign after it appears he had not been truthful about his contacts with the russian ambassador during last year's election. ♪ brent: i'm brent goff. it is good to have you with us. what started out as small-town politics has become an international diplomatic incident between germany and turkey. today, the turkish justice minister canceled a meeting with his german counterpart and flew home. and moved to protest the decision of several german towns to revoke permits allowing turkish political gatherings. those rallies would have been for turks living in germany to

vote yes and a referendum giving more power to president erdogan. turkey's government tonight is calling the decision undemocratic and it has summoned the german ambassador to express disapproval. reporter: it was at this hall where the turkish justice minister had planned to give a speech in front of 400 people. but the city canceled the event hours before it was due to start. >> we anticipated a large number of people, significantly more, many times the number that were registered. we have pretty narrow roads around the also in coordination with the police we decided not to let the event go ahead. reporter: lee hall had officially been rented for an association meeting, but given the nature of the event, a large campaign event, the city could not guarantee security. >> the organizers never

mentioned anything about a justice minister, and ambassador , and a consul general. all three announced today they did indeed want to come here. it seems the description given of what would actually be happening had not been honest. reporter: the event's organizers have now locked up the hall. it seems they do not want to legally challenge the city's decision. brent: want to bring in our correspondent for you. he is in the town tonight. what is the situation tonight? you are in front of the venue where the rally would have bee held. >> yes, and as you can see it is not just dark but very empty. we are only ones left here. there were not that many people to begin with. we arrived here about three hours ago and there was a group of about 30 german citizens with

apparently no turkish background. they were holding up signs, solidarity signs. they were protesting, they wanted to protest and they were actually very happy that this event was canceled. they have been completely surprised by the announcement that the turkish minister was due to arrive. they learned about it in the local newspaper today and they were very happy the event did not go through. brent: you mentioned the signs for the turkish, german journalist who has been detained in turkey on terrorism charges. getting a lot of criticism here in germany. it all fits together, a lot of people are saying. in explaining how relations between germany and turkey now are basically at rock-bottom. are you hearing people there

talking about that, that relations are really bad now? >> relations are definitely very bad, and that was the talk of the people here as well. i would not say they have hit rock bottom. they had been bad for a long time. but it will be very interesting to see what will happen when president erdogan himself actually decides to come to germany to hold a rally, because he has done that in the past and apparently he is thinking about doing that before the referendum in april. i am not expecting the german government will actually ban such an appearance but there will be even more criticism when he appears. i would say there is still room for escalation in the turkish, german relations. brent: arik, our correspondent -- all right, our correspondent

for us. thank you. just how angry is the turkish government over this and -- this incident? our correspondent in istanbul give us this reaction from turkey. reporter: turkish government seems to be very angry. reactions came very fast and very strong. a couple of ministers a couple of hours after the cancellation of the event condemned in a strong weight what happened. -- strong way what happened. they all said it is not acceptable and the german authorities always criticize the lack of freedom of expression or press freedom in turkey, but they themselves do not allow a meeting of people from turkish origin with their minister in germany. so, one minister even said in

ideological berlin wall is built now and it would harm the european democracy in a hard way. brent: i think other people looking at this story are wondering, how important are the votes of turks living in germany for this referendum? do we know? reporter: well, actually they are pretty important. there are a lot of turkish voters in germany. the turkish party is stronger in germany then turkey itself. it might be because people in germany, turkish people in germany are very contemplative and consumed a lot of turkish media, which has become more and more propaganda media in recent years. now the cancellation of this event, now it is used in a very

strong weight from the turkish government to show themselves as people fighting for freedom of expression in europe and especially germany. not understanding that. they can show themselves. not explaining that it is very hard in turkey these days for any oppositional parties or groups to hold any meetings to express themselves. that, of course, is not mentioned. brent: our correspondent from istanbul. thank you very much. france's far right has apparently gone too far on twitter. he far right presidential candidate marine le pen has been stripped of her immunity or prosecution or images she tweeted of violence by so-called islamic state. french law bans the distribution of violent images. reporter: the decision to strip

marine le pen of her parliamentary immunity was voted for by a broad majority of lawmakers in brussels. now le pen is under investigation in france where she could be found guilty of publishing violent images, which could carry a penalty of three years in prison. he charges date back to 2015 when she tweeted pictures of executions by the so-called islamic state. she has denounced the legal proceedings against her as political interference in the campaign. before his own legal woes, this might have been to the advantage of francois fillon, but he is now fighting to salvage his campaign. he might be charged over allegations he misused public funds and paid his wife thousands of euros for work she did not do. french police raided his home on thursday. the bid for the friends presidency is gathering momentum. the centrist candidate took aim

at le pen and fillon. >> this is an important and serious moments because two candidates have decided to propose programs which are conservative or aggression or which turned the country in on itself. we have also deliberately decided to attack the rule of law and judicial authority in particular. reporter: with the first round of voting seven weeks away, marine le pen and francois fillon can be assured that her legal troubles will do her no harm with supporters of her party. brent: u.s. president donald trump says he has total confidence in his attorney general, jeff sessions. his comments come as leading democrats have called for sessions to resign. that comes after sessions apparently lied after meetings with the russian ambassador after last year's presidential campaign.

democrats and a number of republicans are asking sessions to remove himself from an investigation into russian interference into the u.s. election. in his confirmation hearing in january, sessions told democratic senator out frank and never had any contact -- senator al franken he had never had any evidence with russia. >> if there is any evidence that anyone with the trump campaign communicated with the russian government during the course of this campaign, what will you do? >> senator, i am not aware of any of those activities. i have been called surrogate at a time or two and i had no communications with the russians. and i am unable to comment. brent: he did come in today on the matter here -- he did comment today on the matter. he said i never met with any

russian officials to discuss issues of the campaign. i have no idea what this allegation is about. it is false. let's go to washington now and pulling our correspondent on the story. good evening to you. when we watch that, it seems incontrovertible that sessions lied under growth. -- oath. he said one thing and the opposite appears to be true. how is he defending himself? >> it is interesting to see the way his people are spinning this because as you pointed out, it seems like he said he did not have any contact with the russians, even though we know he did. what they are saying now is first, he was saying he does not know about the allegations and they are absolutely false. now his people are saying the question was about trump's campaign staff having contact with anyone from the russian

side. he was not an official member of the campaign. this is not line up as we know that trump had pretty constant contact with sessions, and sessions was one of his strongest surrogates on the campaign patriot and referred to often as one of trump's senior advisers. this is how things are playing out now come in saying all the allegations are false. brent: it is interesting because his confirmation was also put into question because he was so close to the trump campaign. we have got the president today coming out and saying he has full confidence in sessions. what does that do to the democrats who are calling for sessions to resign? >> the democrats have very little leeway here to actually force anything to happen, short of trump firing sessions, sessions himself resigning, or republicans coming together with

the democrats to impeach him, and looks very unlikely. it also looks unlikely that sessions would step down in any way or even recuse himself is not only trump said he has full confidence in sessions, that he should not recuse himself from these investigations into links with russia. it looks a good democrats will simply be able to use this as another tool in their toolbox to further beat away at the legitimacy of trump's presidency. brent: briefly, all of this goes back to that nexus of trump and russia and the fear that more is going to come out, right? >> it is another hit against the administration, definitely. we have seen sessions now, we saw flynn, we saw several of trump's campaign staff, even one of his campaign managers have to step down as of these alleged ties with russia. it just supports the store the democrats want to paint of trump

being illegitimate. brent: on the story force in washington, thank you very much. we're going to take a 62nd break. when we come back -- take a 60 second break. there is another man in the room with business news. we'll be right back. ♪

♪ brent: welcome back. our top story, turkey's justice minister has scrapped a trip to germany after a rally that he was due to speak at was canceled. that really was about turkey's upcoming constitutional referendum. the likely is likely to worsen already tense relations between germany and turkey. germany's chancellor angela merkel is in egypt where she has pledged to boost support for the country's economic development and addressed the region's refugee crisis.

the aim is to reduce the flow of migrants to europe and she is looking for similar support from tunisia which we will -- which she will visit next week. last year around 180,000 people fled to north africa from italy i vote -- by boat. reporter: with a red carpet welcome, angela merkel's visit to egypt seems like regular diplomacy. but her trip could be -- she is under pressure back home from india -- from immigration and that is where the egyptian president comes in. merkel hopes egypt can stem the flow of people into neighboring libya, africans gateway from -- from legal mylan's -- for legal migrants to europe. >> you know this means for movement. terrorists out of libya.

the president has talked about this but there are smugglers and traffickers boosting migration into libya and we have a common interest to stop this. reporter: how the two countries will go about this is still unclear. egypt will cooperate with germany on the issue but seems careful not to overpromise. >> the main goal is to control the procedures in order to stop the immigration flow. whether crossing a state like egypt or through their borders. i would like to clarify that hearing -- here in egypt we do not have camps for refugees. there are more than 5 million refugees in egypt and those 5 million refugees live in egyptian society. they will live just like their fellow egyptians. reporter: merkel lees for

tunisia on friday accompanied by a business delegation, badly needed investments may at as a sweetener in the negotiations. brent: millions use snapchat every day, most of them are teenagers. i guess that is why i do not use it. today, the company went public. it's been a while. makes us realize we are not teenagers. gerhard: let's swap some snaps. [laughter] shares were snapped up today for this ipo for $17 each. boy, did they. first after logging its first trade of the price more than 40%. it is the largest u.s. tech firm to make a market debut in years and it could will give the others a run for their money. some analysts are skeptical about the company's strategy. investors seem to have seen a

ghost. let's bring in jens korte at the ceer of the action. where does this appetite come from? jens: basically we have not seen an ipo of a big tech company for quite a while. that is why a lot of investors jumped into the stock. by the way, the stock gained around 50%. it has been quite a success. also the overall environment could not have been better. the big rally we are seeing on wall street. it took about two hours before we got the first trade. unusual, the bigger the hype around a company, the longer it takes to get supply and demand together. gerhard: that is a huge vote of confidence from investors for snap. will they be able to deliver on this huge valuation? jens: yes.

the company has a violation of more than $24 billion. that is more than twice as much as we see with twitter. that is the question, what will snapchat go? the way of facebook, which is highly profitable and gets a big piece of the online market, or will it go the way of twitter? twitter has three times as many users as snapchat but has never proved to be profitable, and that stock is trading heavily to the downside. we will also see with the competition is doing. instagram is offering a similar service already that snapchat is offering. you mentioned it earlier, it is not so much teenagers but white-haired men who grabbed the stock, which means investors are usually older and users are juncker. we will see in the long term if investors really understand what snapchat is all about. but the first drip -- the first day of trading at least is successful. jens: jens, thank you very much

-- gerhard: jens, thank you very much. they're forcing them to register locally and pay taxes to them. the government says that is illegal. rebels say the move comes in response to an array of blockades by fighters of ukrainian army. reporter: ukrainian nationalists set up a blockade is reaction to the ongoing tension in the country. since the war, many of their comrades have been held captive by the rebels and they feel the government is not doing anything to get them back. he blockade is harming all parties because it has halted vital trade between the sides. but the nationalists felt it was the only way to provoke a reaction.>> we demand the releaf ukrainian soldiers held by the separatists. the government in kiev is doing nothing. they want to trade with the separatists while they are

beating our men. we will not stand for it. reporter: meanwhile, the rebels have stayed true to their threat. the have expropriated various companies located in their territory including steelworks, mines, and a telephone company. the government cannot ignore the recent escalation of the conflict. >> obviously this blockade can be catastrophic to our economy. we could seem lengthy coal we need to heat our homes. hundreds of thousands of jobs are at stake if the blockade continues. it is a threat to our entire national economy. reporter: support has come from russia about the expropriation of the companies. >> after the blockade was set up , leaders of the separatist people's republics have no other

choice but to take over these companies to make sure they continue to run. reporter: ukraine has already declared a state of emergency in their energy sector, well the threat of a food shortage continues to loom in rebel controlled areas. without a resolution, people on both sides also for. gerhard: the world's -- size will suffer -- both sides will suffer. gerhard: le farge operated a cement factory in northern syria until 2014. it's applied a third of the country's market. internal investigation showed it hired intermediate -- intermediaries -- a company statement called these measures unacceptable in hindsight. french prosecutors say they are investigating.

eurozone inflation is finally doing what officials wanted to do. energy and food prices were surging in february and put the annual rate at 2%. that is in line with the european central banks target. the massive economic stimulus program appears to be finally paying off. that is all for me and the business team. back to brent from news from the art world. brent: the tate modern art gallery in london has a new exhibition dedicated to wolf on tillman. -- golfgang tillman. he says he takes pictures in order to see the world. take a look. reporter: london in the 1990's. the place that made artist wolfgang tillman the artist

of a generation. raves, techno parties, so the apartments. he shot at all. young people were happily trading in the air of margaret thatcher for one of sexual liberty. he threw himself into the debauchery of the club scene and documented it for the whole world. >> in 2000 and the age of 33 come his provocations and talent won him the turner prize, the highest distinction in the art world. a decade and a half later, his work remains provocative. ♪ reporter: his 14 room show showcases photos taken around the world. they blur the lines between glamour and documentary. culture and nature. advertising and art. wealth and poverty. the name of the exhibition,

2017, forces the audience to see the works in a political light. in a time of global uncertainty, he is asking, what will this year bring? ♪ brent: if we only knew the answer to that. after a short break i will be back to take you through the day. stick around for that. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

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