a testit's being seen as of anti-immigrant and anti-e.u. feeling in your. many have been voting in the dutch elections with whole set to close any moment. 'sime minister mark rutte conservatives are facing geert wilders but support for wilderness has been slipping --

fourwilders has been slipping. the polls are set to close any moment now. turnout has been high throughout the day with voters having a lot of choice. they have a lot of political parties to choose from today. reporter: indeed, 28 different political parties to choose from . voting is still ongoing and set to close at 9:00 p.m.. we are told it will stay open as long as is necessary in those polling stations across the country. we are getting the first exit polls and it looks like the christian democrats party look five it is taking most of the 150 parliamentary seats. exit polls are not official at the minute. party also being told the of prime minister mark rutte, and were hearing that the big surprise is from the green left

party. it had four seats in the previous, outgoing parliament and it may have taken as many as 16 in this future parliament, according to these non-confirmed exit polls. as you mentioned, no matter what the result, one thing we've seen throughout the day and across the country is very high voter turnout. election ingeneral 2012 it stood at 75%, and may have even surpassed that on this occasion. in 2006 it was 80%, but never as high cents. people said given the results they saw in the american presidential election and in the brexit u.k. vote, they really felt it was important to cast their ballots. and what a choice they have. with the 28 different parties. laura: you mentioned the exit polls and the three parties that appear to have come in first, second, and third place. that would suggest that geert

wilders far right freedom party has not done as well as expected. indeed, the far right freedom party of geert wilders for a long time in surveys looked like he could've taken as much as 30 of the 150 seats. aboutas maintained until 24 hours before voting began and then it seemed to fall off and he was reduced back to 10% or roughly the equivalent of what he already had in parliament. some political scientists have told me this is something to be expected because a lot of dutch voters remain undecided until the very last minute. notably the moderate voters that take a longer time to decide. people who are on the far side of the political spectrum tend to know early on how they are going to vote. that explains how wilder's went back to something in the middle on that vote.

while he got a lot of international attention, the campaign here in the netherlands was not quite as intense as many men believed. he -- he is the only party not to hold a rally or a party to get together to watch the results. he is indeed watching it in the parliament building behind me. may noteert wilders have done as well as expected, but some exit polls are saying the far right party is sharing second-place was to other parties. i know there are a lot of different polls coming in at the last minute, but he really has managed to dominate the campaign in terms of the issues. this has been all about immigration. the dutch economy is doing pretty well, unemployment is low , but he's managed to get immigration front and center, hasn't he? indeed, immigration

and dutch identity came high up on these issues. a lot of people say that while , a lot of the main parties refused to enter into a coalition with him and it was unlikely he would become prime minister, a lot of people say that nonetheless he has power in these elections and the political parties in general in the netherlands. prime minister mark rutte proposing to curb the amount of people arriving. a lot of people say even if he's not in power, he's having an effect on those in power. immigration will become a major issue because the economy here in the netherlands is doing relatively well. ,rowth is expected at 2% unemployment is the lowest it's been in five years. the doctor more inclined to compare themselves to their own

history, to what the economy was like perhaps in the 1990's or before the economic crisis rather than the rest of the eu. if you compare them to the rest of the eu, they are doing very well economically. laura: more harsh words for the orch from turkey's president one. he said -- president erdogan. he is accused of being it detached from reality. erdogan has threatened to scrap a migrant deal with europe which relates to refugees from syria and elsewhere being taken from europe that to turkey. to erdogan computer hackers get online today and never cyber attacks on a host of targets announcing the dutch and german's as nazis. reporter: ignoring calls for

calm, turkish president erdogan has hardened his rhetoric again. >> the spirit of fascism is running wild in the streets of your. reporter: erdogan caused anger on tuesday by blaming of italian for the slaughter of 8000 in the muslims and serbs 1995 massacre. on wednesday, he went further. >> the dutch have nothing to do with civilization. they have nothing to do with the modern world. they massacred over 8000 bosnian muslims in bosnia-herzegovina. reporter: the european parliament has condemned erdogan's attack and voice , thearity with rotterdam location of the we can stand up between dutch police and turkish ministers. >> today i want to say that europe is the netherlands.

a place of freedom and democracy. if anyone sees fascism in rotterdam, they are completely detached from reality. pro-turkeyarlier, hackers attacked dozens of accounts. it included amnesty unicef.ional and the hacks published identical tweets and turkish saying nazi germany, nazi netherlands. laura: i'm joined by his cyber security expert. thanks for being with us on "france 24." these cyber attackers basically tweeted with es attacking variousslurs. .- various slurs

how did they manage to do that? >> that was the question this morning when we woke up and discovered thousands of high-profile twitter accounts had been hat. had attackedey each count severally, but that takes too long. they attacked a company that provides twitter services. to access your account to calculate statistics. that was the problem here. so does not twitter that has been hacked, it is a third-party, a different company that was hacked. laura: how well-organized do these hackers appeared to be?

>> the question is not that easy to answer because it depends on the level of security of these third-party twitter accounts. is not that difficult to attack a third-party like that. it might be a lone wolf, as we call them, or it could be a small group of people that were able to organize and synchronize that. with what we know today, we think it does not require a high level of competency. laura: there have been a lot of these cyber attacks in recent -putin russian hackers, for example. what can big firms do to protect their clients better? >> they are investing a lot of money to protect their clients. topicsecurity has been a

for five or 10 years. it is time to invest now, otherwise we will have some problems. the situation is changing. ceos in big companies are starting to understand the problem of cyber security and informationotecting systems and their clients better. also they are learning how to respond to such attacks. learn to detect them and respond very quickly today. laura: thank you very much. paid maybe $40 million in taxes in 2005, 20 5% of his annual income. it was rebuilt by a pulitzer-winning journalist. himself has so far refused to reveal his tax returns. he's been on twitter himself denouncing the reports as fake news.

u.s. tv host rachel maddow shared this snippet of information. >> what i have here is a copy of donald trump's tax returns. we have is federal tax returns for one year for 2005. i believe this is the only set of the president's federal taxes that reporters have ever gotten hold of. reporter: the white house said it was illegal to release the forms. it didn't preempted her scoop by confirming the information. donald trump earned $150 million in 2005 and pay $38 million in taxes. whonalist david k johnston, received the forms anonymously in the mail, said there was nothing improper about showing the document, before adding -- >> it's entirely possible that donald sent this to me. over the years he has leaked all sorts of names. reporter: tax forms are a thorny

issue for trump. during the campaign, hillary clinton constantly attacked him for his refusal to release his returns. the new york times revealed a 1996 tax form that suggested trump aborted paying federal in town -- income tax by using a loophole. trump supporters say it shows he is a savvy businessman, but critics say he is dishonest. laura: the revised travel ban is set to take place at midnight on thursday. the new executive order bars people from six mostly muslim countries from entering the united date. the previous order was thrown out by the courts and deemed unconstitutional. reporter: it's one of the first battlegrounds for president trump's revised travel ban. hawaii argues the executive order, signed earlier this month, will harm its muslim population as well as its

tourism industry. it's one of several u.s. states challenging the legality of the order. sparked massban protests and cause chaos at airports after it was signed by the president in january. but the order was halted by the courts after judges expressed concern about the way it had been rolled out. they said it had not given enough notice to those affected. 's revised order is due to come into effect at midnight. the original order barred people from seven mostly muslim nations entering the u.s. for 90 days. the revised order no longer includes a rat. legal permanent residents and valid visa holders are also exempted. not all refugees will began from entering the country for 100 20 days. the indefinite ban originally imposed on syrian refugees will no longer apply. seven u.s. states have joined efforts to block the order,

questioning whether it is necessary to keep the country safe, as the trump administration claims. lawyers are arguing the ban is discriminatory and unconstitutional. the white house says it is confident the revised order will prevail, but further protests against the banner being organized with several rights groups pledging to continue to challenge the president in the courts. peace talks, inland cease-fires, and whahat e u.n. has called the worst man-made disaster since the second worldld war. there is n no end in sightht toe confnflict in syria, which today entered its sevenenth year. there were two suicide bombings in the capital of damascus and at least 31 people were killed. reporter: a double bomb blast in the heart of damascus. the first attack a suicide bomb inside the city's main courthouse. according to the police, the

attacker walked into the palace carrying a shotgun and grenades and when he was stopped by security guards, he blew himself up. explosion killed dozens and left many more wounded. later, intwo hours another area, second bomber walked into a restaurant and detonated his two aside best. both attacks are firmly in government controlled areas of damascus with strongholds around the eastern suburbs. no group has claimed responsibility for either bomb but the twin attack in the city last week that killed 70 was carried out by the former al qaeda affiliate. syria possible war enters his seventh year this week or the conflict has killed over 400,000 and displaced millions. areas under siege by assad

forces. laura: kate moody is with us in the studio for some business news. were starting out with america's central bank. no big surprises today, but this does give us a clearer picture of where the world economy is headed. kate: that's right, the fed raise rates for only a third time in a decade. saying the american economy is recovering and inflation and unemployment are almost at their target rates. wages are also on the rise. , professor randall of economics at the university of chicago school of business and a former fed governor. thanks for taking the time to speak to us. we had been expecting this movement of a quarter percentage point from the fed. were there any surprises you heard in the fed statement or in janet yellen's forecast?

>> she showed a lot of confidence and where the economy is. that is something we've not heard as much from the fed before. the fed has been very cautious about potential downside risk and such. she made it very clear, saying people should be comfortable about the economic outlook. i think that means a different approach. we've heard a lot about so-called data dependency. the fed will always be responding to this or that piece of data. she seemed to be saying were confident we will move forward even if the data is not so great because we are pretty confident in where we are going. the pacet do you think of rate hikes will be that will follow in the next year or so? the forecast of how many rate increases there will be suggest there will be three or so per year. i think they are on a reasonable pace to do that for this year.

it seems to be a reasonable expectation and consistent with the forecast back in december. now they are executing on that and raising in march. kate: re: entering a new era for the federal servant terms of monetary policy? are the low rates here to stay? >> my hunch is it will be lower than historically, but they will be moving up far beyond the zero range where we had been before. could get to be around 3%, which is below where they had been in the past, but slow, gradualery move there. i think rates will still be relatively low compared with the past, but higher than they have been. kate: how much impact to you think the fed decision? we know that donald trump and janet yellen don't see eye-to-eye on things like growth forecast. to what degree does that matter to the central bank?

she gave a very informative answer to that. she said if there are reforms that will be increasing productivity growth, things like making the tax system more efficient to encourage investment and bring some of the trillion dollars trapped offshore back on shore, if we do regulatory reform that will streamline regulation and make the regulatory system more efficient, those are things the fed would welcome. like when alan greenspan in the late 1990's said were going to fire up productivity growth, so we don't need to raise rates so quickly, janet yellen was basically using the same approach. growth is coming from her activity enhancing reforms and the fed is comfortable with that. if it comes from other stimulus areas there is potential for more of a clash. are there any weak spots in the american economy that you would be cautious about, going forward?

>> on the questions is exactly what will happen with the reforms proposed by the administration. reformll happen with tax and regulatory reform. those are some uncertainties and the sooner we get clarity on those and have execution on those, the better. so there is some execution risk that is there. but the economy right now seems to be a reasonably good path. there is always something that can happen, some shock that we don't see. but right now things seem reasonably balanced. kate: thanks so much for speaking to us. the markets had largely priced in the rate hike but we've seen wall street cheering the decision from the fed. the dow jumped 100 points after the fed announcement, closing up in triple digits there. the nasdaq hit a new record high earlier in the session closing about .75%.

the s&p 500 up about .8%. oil prices rising, giving a boost to the energy sector. a tighter trading session for the european markets. investors were fairly sure they knew what the fed was going to be doing. a lot of focus on the election in the netherlands. the biggest losers of the withon, zodiac aerospace shares thinking over 16%. say renaulttigators has been prodding pollutions test for 25 years and the cover-up goes up as far in the ranks as the ceo. he has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. reporter: a new chapter in the emissions handle socko. all eyes are on renault after revelations that two of its models exceeded the legal co2

emissions limit. french investigators said fraudulent software was likely used to allow vehicles to cheat on emissions tests. they also accused entire senior management including ceo carlos gomes as being complicit in the scam, which they say has been going on for 25 years. renault rejected the allegations on wednesday, saying there was no intentional wrongdoing. a line of defense already used in january. >> there is no cheating. there is no software that is trying to falsify the results. >> the argument did not convince the french consumer lobby. its members are now demanding answers. >> facing a scandal that does not just affect volkswagen and no, but other manufacturers. -- okanagan and renault.

they carried out systematic reviews of manufacturers after volkswagen admitted to cheating on emissions test in 2015. the scandal affected other carmakers, including renault. the penalty could be much worse this time around. the group wrists a 3.5 billion euro fine, around 10% of its yearly turnover. kate: german prosecutors have rated audi offices as part of a similar probe. they are trying to identify who is responsible for installing the cheat devices inaudi cars. the u.s. justice department has charged for people over the massive data hacking at yahoo! which affected 500 million accounts in 2014. suspects include two professional hackers and to members of the russian intelligence agency. yahoo! previously said the

breach appeared to be state-sponsored. data was stolen from 30 million yahoo! accounts as part of a spam campaign. authorities say one of the men was on the list of most wanted cyber criminals. he is currently believed to be in russia. tohe used access to yahoo! search for and steal financial information such as gift card and credit card numbers from users in accounts. he also gained access to more than 30 million yahoo! accounts whose contacts he then stole to facilitate and email scam. kate: other business headlines now, the unemployment rate in the u.k. dropped to 4.7% in january, a level last seen briefly in 2005 and before that not since 1975. a sign that inflation may continue to rise and could begin inweigh on living standards

british household. the european commission has approved the at&t bid for time warner. the megamerger still faces hurdles. the trump administration has indicated it will oppose the but it received the green light from the justice department. and protest in sweden. an investigation reveals many of those hard to transfer shipments were hired from eastern european countries so they could be paid lower wages. they were paid about three euros and hour. they said they do not hire their drivers directly. laura: stay with us, we will have the latest from the netherlands. our correspondent is at the hague and she will tell us what the exit polls are saying is the polls are set to close very shortly in the netherlands. that's up next. stay with us. ♪vp

03/15/17 03/15/17 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! >> the critical point in our history, already at the beginning of the year, we are the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the united nations. now, more than 20 million people across four countries face starvation and famine. without collective and corrugated global efforts, peopople will s simply starved o death. amy: as donald trump seeksks t