berlin. a top politician gunneds" we will talk to someone who knew him,. . a didisturbing find by police in southern california. 13 brothers and sisters held cacaive in this suburban h home.

tonight, the parents are charged with torture. plus, a tough lesson in life for wit thousand danish teenagers. there could be devastating consequences. ♪ brent: i'm brent goff. we begin tonight with the shooting death of the politician that is being called an act of terror. today, a prominent leader of ethnic serbs in kosovo was gunned down in front of his political parties office. his murder threatens to inflame ethnic tensions between serbia and its former province, kosovo. kosovo declared independence from serbia in 2008, a decade

after a war that killed 13,000 mainly ethnic albanians. it still views it as its southern province. serbian and kosovo officials have so far refrained from accusing each other of being behind the killing, but sererb's presidensaysys that the e killig was an act of terrorism. >> assailants opened fire as the politician arrived in his headquarters. he was rushed to the hospital, but doctors were unable to save him. he had been hit at leaeast five times in the c chest. the assassination occurred on the very day servivi -- serbia and kosovo talked about normalizing ties after a break of more than a year. the serbb delegation immediately left talks t to return to belgradede. the e delegatition leader descrd

the killing is an act of terrorism. >> its goal is to destabilize the situation in kosovo -- especially in the north. they want to drag serbia into conflict. >> oliver evanovich was considered a moderate. he was known for backing dialogue with coast of those ethnic albanians. and, he had his enemies. the kosovo court convicted him of war crimes. that verdict was overturned, and a retrial had been underway when he was killed. his car would set on fire in july. the serbian president said his country must be included in the inquiry.

"whoever carried it out, carried out an attack on the ivanovic family, and on the serbs as a whole." predominintly, kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008. serbia does not recognize its independence. ivanovic's assassination is likely to inflame tensions in the region. brent: we would now like to bring in someone who knew mr. ivanovic. dusan is the head of the institute for international security affairsrs. welcome e to the show. i want to talk a little about mr. ivanovic, and maybe you can tell us why he was so significant in northern kosovo.

what was it about him that made him a lightning rod for this kind of attack? dusan: oliver ivanovic was an independent man who was very outspoken, although he was also pragmatic in his attempts to build bridges between various communities. he named people who were involved in all kinds of criminal things, so if there was someone who fought the character of impunity, than it was him. the number of enemies in the political class that he made was quite significant. brent: would you say that what we saw today was an assassination? do you suspect who could have been behind it?

dusan: i cannot suspect anything because the information is not there for us. it reminds me of many other killings which of happened in the last two decades in the region formerly known as yugoslavia. remember that two weeks ago, we talked about kosovo is instability because of various criminal groups which have been tolerated by the authorities -- and not only by the albanian authorities, but as many critics say, mostly overlooked by the international presence there. their prime concern was always to keep stability and avoid risks. brent: for people around the world who are watching and want to know what is going on i in tt part of the world, talk to me a little bit about relations between kosovo and serbia today,

and how they have been since basically 1998-1999. dusan: the authorities still consider their interaction as 80 some game -- as a zero sum game. it is about identitesies. kosovo has not been recognized by two out of the five members of the security council -- china and russia. it is about who is going to make political gains. at the moment, it looks like the ambition of kosovo and its supporters that it will become a genuinely accepted country. on the other hand, belgrade is not in a very strong position to

dream of reintegrating kosovo into serbia's constitution. so they are fighting four inches, without any significant political improvement. kosovo is now poorer than it was 20 years ago. so there are two options. intmmigrate, or join the organized crime syndicates and make a living. brent: thank you very much for taking the time to talk with us tonight. we appreciate your insights.

here is a look now at some of the other stories that are making headldlines around d the world. bangladesh agrees with myanmar about repatriating more than 60,000 muslim refugees over the next two years. the agency warned that it is essential that the refugees only be returned voluntarily. pope francis has held the papal mass in front of thousands in the chilean capital of santiago. is asked them to give the catholic church for a sex abuse scandal that has turned many away from their faith. u.s. president trump's former top aide steve bannonon is calld to testify before grand jury over alleged contacts with russian officials ahead of the 2016 election, according to the "new york times." lawmakers grilled bannon over his ties to russia. the kremlin has been accused of

meddling in the 2016 vote. a disturbing find inside of a suburban california home. 13 brothers and sisters were held captive by their own parents, in filth and with little food. they range in a ge froge from 2. police were learned by one of the daughters who managed to escape. >> authorities were shocked by what they found, describing emaciated captives in padlocks and shackles. neighbors describe the family is reclususive, thehe children neay invisible. > they were the type e that u did not get to k know anythingng about. they were clannisish, and they only kept to themselves. the only time you would see them

, they would go out and maybe make a grocery run. >> parents david and louise turpin were arrested. the couple are being charged with torture and child endangerment. but photos posted by the couple on facebook and 2016 portray a happy family. authorities will now be asking, what went wrong?? >> i in the time we live in, its unfortunate to see this. it is actually heartbreaking for the staff, and it is just unbelievable what you see. >> the 13 children are now being treated in a hospipital. theirr parents are set to appear in court on thursday.

brent: this is definitely a bizarre story. i am joined by john baird on-scene.. good afternoon to you. what more have we learned about this family? john: they have lived here since 2014, and it is kind of a new development. the neighborhood looks good from the outside, but i guess the house was s extremely didirty d fifilt. the childrdren were chaiained to beds and furniture. think about this. kids are chained to furniture, and the mom was apparently perplexed. she didn't know why the authorities were there. here is one thing that was said by the officials at the conference a few moments ago. >> when you have adults whose children are so malalnourisheddd are not being fed and lilive in

thesese filthy, dirty condition. john: the ages ranged from 2-29. there were seven adults. they did not look like adults. brent: so obviously this did not happen overnight. there are a hundred questions here. how is it possible for so many children to be chained inside of their homes? were these children not going to school? did the neighbors see nothing? john: they were apparently homeschooled. that is our understanding. the neighbors did not notice anything out of the ordinary. they said the family kept to themselves, so they did not know much about them. one of the neighbors said, how are we supposed to know what goes on behind closed doors? brent: one yeah, that's what being a neighbor is about. it is s out knockiking on the stores. is there anything more to the

story in terms of these children being homeschooled? were there any religious affiliations that raised the flag? john: they told us at the news conference that they are still investigating,g, but the impression that i got was that religion did not play a role. that i am also hearing that the parents of the father said that they were religious people, but at the news conference they indicated that it did not play a role. they did not know why kids were being kept in these conditions. brent: yeah, or why the mother was perplexed about police knocking on the door. john baird, thank you very much. john: thank you. brent: you're watching "dw news" live from berlin. up next, oa video.

time to switch years and talk about the financial world. fannie fascar is here with more. fannie: siemens will soon receive a separate listing on the tax index. it comes at a time when markets are strong and prime for future takeovers in the sector. it is valued at around 40 billion euros. siemens will offer as much as a quarter of a stake in the firm, or about 10 billion euros. that is an attractive offer in a market that is already big and getting bigger. the medical imaging market is estimated with an annual growth of 3%-5% through 2021.

talking about the latest creations at the detroit motor show. its technology getting ahead of itself? >> it may nonot look like it, bt this may be the future. it creates a real 3-d map of anything it is aimed at. it allows carars to cut out the middleman and take care of the driving itself. with a big bet on t technology, analysts say lawmakers need to remove regulatory roadblocks. >> i think autonomous car's are growing faster than any technology we of seen in the past. we need infrastructural things in place.

>> nissan is also continuing its focus on semi autonomous vehicles anin detroit, featuring pro piloted technology. it takes over some of the heavy lifting, b but still requires human intervention and emergencies. it might not be as glitzy, but ride sharing options like this bus may be the real future of driverless technolology. >> it will be a long time before we have them in our driveways. we won't own them. someone else will own them. we'll have a subscription service, all business models. >> self driving rideshare, analysts say, could change the market as we know it. fannie: at the car show is carsten von nahmen.

what are the main challenges? carsten: i think the biggest challenge is the trust of ordinary people in that technology. we all know that computers are necessary, but we also know how frustrating it is when they fail, when the technology does not work. and if you have a car that is driven by computer, that is even more important. i sometimes get nervous when i am on the road and there is a big truck with the driver coming behind me. now, imagine this coming from behind. you see there is clearly no driver -- just this big machine coming. i have no idea how that is supposed to work properly or safely, but thank god there is someone who can. robert falck is here. how does this work without the driver? robert: it is actually a

combination of different techniques. we are actually using different systems in ai that can replace the truck driver. carsten: and what happens on that technology fails? robert: self driving can solve those problems. so we actually get the driver to reap the benefits of this technology. carsten: so there is a human fallback option that someone from headquarters can steer this, ok. so when do we see this on the road? how long will it take? robert: we are doing testing right now. the first installation will come during q3 of this year. carsten: so this year, some of these trucks will be on the road in sweden and working? robert: yes.

they will be able to provide transport back-and-forth between two warehouse is that we are using. carsten: thank you robert. expected truck like this on the road near you soon. fannie: how are other brands looking into that future? for example, vw is looking to polish its destroyed image. what are they doing to promote their brand? carsten: volkswagen is emphasizing that they have learned their lesson, that they want to be a reliable partner for customers in the united states. both is apparently already in a very good way, because they are one of the few companies that have risen in sales over the past year -- 5% more in a slightly decreasing market. so are most german companies here, because they feel dieselgate is no longer a major topic here.

fannie: think you so much for your reporting from detroit. --thank you so much for your reporting from detroit. brent: we want to take you to denmark now. 1000 people could face charges of distributive child pornography after they shared video clips of 215-year-olds having sex. anyone found guilty would be put on a child pornography register. >> it took just a few seconds to share the video. the young people who did so never realized how serious the consequences should would be -- could be. >> i am surprised it is only a thousand being charged. there are so many more who had it. i don't think it is fair if it is only this handful who are convicted, when so many others

are involved. >> investigators say the scale of the cases unprecedented. most of the suspects are under 25 years old. >> it may be a prank, but it can have adult consequences. if you are convicted of disturbing child pornography, you will have a criminal record and it will appear on a background check if you want to work with children. that could have ugly consequences. in denmark, it is important to have a clean record. >> ramifications are also far reaching for the victims in the case. the young couple featured in the video. >> the young people who were 15 at the time the video was made and try to put it behind them, but they are reminded of it on a regular basis. they would like to forget about it, but they can't. wewe should at least make susure they are b beingaken sereriousl. >> the danish government w wants

the case to send a clear message. >> i hope this could be a wake-up call for many people, to say it is illegal and not acceptable. what we have seen is deplorable. >> if convicted, the defendants could appear on a register for 10 years. brent: very serious consequences. how did we get to this point? i'm joined by teresa lheresa locker. last night on this show, we spoke with a former content manager from facebook. is that we're looking at, here? that a content manager receive a complaint and send it upwards? theresa: as we all know, facebook tends to be a big black box. what happened was that facebook received complaints, and they were received not on the public

platform, but within messenger, which usually allows for many people to discuss something which is not public. brent: danish authorities are saying that the pornography charges could be thrown out by the judge, because he could say, listen, these youngsters did not even realize that the people having sex worere minors. if the judge can say that the k ids didn't know what they were looking at, then how can facebook say that? theresa: they are legally obligated to forward any complaints that deal with exploitation cases on minors. since the stance is, better safe than sorry, they forward a lot

of information to europe. in germany, we also get a considerable amount of these complaints. germany gets about 800,000-900,000 complaints every year. brent: danish police want to pursue this case. they want to send a message to young people, that it isn't ok to share images of other people doing these things. that is one point, right? theresa: yes. there is also a case to be made for privacy. when you have a messenger system that you think is a closed communication line between two people, you have to assume it is bulletproof. facebook proves otherwise. if they receive a complaint,

they can decrypt and read the most recent messages. brent: that is disconcerting, because if i am going onto facebook messenger and i think something is encrypted and have been told it is, that is a lie. if someone complains, a content manager has the authority and ability to look into my message, which means it is not encrypted. theresa: yes. i personally have never heard of it, but there are systems that are encrypted and bulletproof. i did not personally know facebook could read these. brent: there are also nondisclosure agreements. the point is, the transparency levels at facebook and other platforms are -- we don't know what happens when we send a message or share something, do we?

theresa: what i do know is that facebook puts every link that is ever been shared into a giant database. when a complaint arrives, they can assign an id and fin alld all instances where it has been shared. they can then forward that to law enforcement. brent: amazing power there that these companies have. you are really aware until you see a case like this. theresa locker, thank you. after a short break, i will be back to take you through the day. ♪

♪ anchor: welcome to our special end-of-year edition of "focus on europe." and what a turbulent year it was, full of challenges for the continent and its people. we are taking a look back at the people who impressed and inspired us in 2017. people who summon supernrnaturl powers, dare to take on new challenges in old age, flee from their homeland, fight for animal rights, and who fefearlessly putut thr fah firsrst. one of these special people is the monk mikhail sannikov.