china offering hope the coronavirus epidemic has pete. the number of new cases hasas dropped for a second straight day, but the who is warning it is to send to know which way the outbreak will go. turkey facing off with russia. the syrian army's push to cacapture the last rebel stronghold triggers an internatational standodoff that

prompts hundreds of thousands of civilians to flee. could this man become head of germany's conservative party in the next chancellor? he throws his hat in the ring. the woman angela merkel selected said she is no longer in the running. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ brent: i am brent goff. welcome. the most positive outlook since the coronavirus outbreak began. china suggesting that outbreak has reached its peak. officials have reported 97 more deaths in 2000 infections, but say these of the lowest figure since january and predicted the epidemic could be over by april. the who says in apparent

slowdown should be viewed with extreme caution, adding that outbreak could still go in any direction. for more now i'm joined by a senior fellow for global health at the council on foreign relations. it is good to have you on the program. what do you make of the way china has handled this epidemic so far. are they taking the rightht stes to controlol it? >> the government has launched a very jerky in in set of f measus in tackling the outbreak come including wuhuhan and surroundig cities, basically 100 million people q qrantined in hubei province. that approach has seemingly

achieved the objective of stabilizing the epidemic, although to what extent it is effective remains to be seen. brent: what do you make that china sank this outbreak could be over by april or as soon as april? is it possible to even make that prediction at this point? >> well, i think it is still too early to say until we see the inflection point, when the crises will be over, but many public health experts think that we will l see the inflection pot , the cases starting to drop, in late april, , in provinces o otr than hubei province. for china, we will not see that

arrive until n next month. my hunch is very likikely we cod see the virus died down in may. brent: in may, instead of april, a months difference. that brings us to the international response we have seen so far. has it been proper in your opopinion, enough? >> if you look at international reresponse so far, it is very uncoordinated, almost like a knee-jerk panic response to the outbreak in china, and very likely many violated article 43, which allows countries to take measures based on their national law, but also say these measures should not be too invasive, intrusive to people, reasonably

available alternatives that could achieve an appropriate level of health protection. brent: do you think they'd u.s. policy of not allowing any chinese nationals to come into the country or putting people in quarantine, do you think that has been too drastic? >> i think so. all right, that will wrap it up. senior fellow for global health at the council on foreign relations, we appreciate your time and your insights tonight. thank you. >> thank you. brent: some other stories making headlines, italy's senate has cleared the way for the former interior minister to be tried on charges of holding migrants hostage. he said he was defending italy's border when he refused to allow

rescued migrants to disembark the ship for seseveral days l lt summer. pleasese and northern ireland he charged a man with murdering a generous last april in london dale. the group later said it shot her by accident. the 52-year-r-old man charged is one of four suspects arrested on tuesday. the mastermind of the 2008 mumbai terror attacks has been jajailed for f five years by a t in pakistan. hehe was convicted on two chargs of financing terrorism. he f founded the group that conducted the attacks. he has denied being involved. the latest advance by syrian government troops into idlib province has disrupted relations between the key players in the conflict. the past 10 days has seen deadly clashes between turkish shoulders supporting syrian

rebels and supporters of the regime. turkey's president has hit out at syria and its russian backers, rummaging to attack regime forces everywhere in syria if his forces are attacked. the country's humanitarian crisis continues to grow. >> the roads out of idlib province in the last few months, more have fled than at any o otr time in the conflict, many braving the harsh winter condnditions simply to get out. >> it is sad to see people here during the snow and cold and most are children. what are we going to do? we have nothing left. we are sleeping under olive trees. >> it is a terrible site. this road is completely cut off because it is packed full of cars and people have no idea where they are going. >> this is what they are leaving

behind, violence has flared in idlib and strained ties between two main international players, russia a and turkey. tuturkey hasas sent m more trood warnrned it wasas strike syrian regime forces if it soldiers come under renewed attack. >> anyone targeting turkey should know they will pay the price for this, not only at the sight of the attack, but eveverherere. >> hununeds of thousands of people have left in rececent wes , but not everyone can get out. thosose still stuck face and anxious wait in a worsening humanitarian crisis. brent: earlier we spoke to one person who is a teacher in a village in the countryside in aleppo. we asked him aboutut his livivig conditionsns in the region ravad

by war for years. >> these d days people are facag one of the mosost difficult situations in the last nine years. now all people are fleeing from the cocountryside e and idlib te north and the bordeder with turkeyey. outside my homome, aa long linef cars, a 10 kilometer line of carsrs are fleeing and fleeing. i don't know. they donon't know where to go.. people are mentally ill, psychologically ill, , and phphysically ill. ii remember just now that to dae is my daughthter's birthday. who cares. i can't help it. i can''t make a pararty for her. this is juju how people think. they can't think anythining, jut where to go, w what to do,o, and they won''t ve a answers likike. itit is getting closerr too the

borders afteter people don't knw if thehey live now, so what is e next step? they are fleeingng from thihis o death. this is in facact the whole situation ththese days. in f ft, i want to senend a messagage for the woworld that s isis the last step to take an acon for t these people. i don't want anyone to tell the next generation we didn't know, didn't hear, wewe didn't seeee, because t the last nine years he been very hohorrible for syrian people, but the coming might be the worst. brent: a teacher and his desperate outcry from the war in syria. in the u.s., bernie sanders has won the new hampshire primary. democrats are selecting a candidate to take on donald trump in november's presidential election. sanders narrowly beat pete

buttigieg, who won last week's iowa caucuses. politics in germany, a conservative politician reportedly plans to run for the leadership of the cdu. he was widely expected to enter the race for the position of party chief, no big surprise here. in 2018, he narrowly lost a race for the leadership to akk. she stunned the country by announcing she is stepping down. for more let's bring in our chief political correspondent on the story for us tonight. good evening. friedrich merz's and angela merkel have rarely seen things i to i -- eye to eeye. if he were to become leader of the party, could she rethink her plan next year? >> that could happen.

she is ahead of the government and said she would stay out that term, but the fact is these two have a long history. the rivalry goes way back. in fact, she proved such a nemesis for him that he left politics altogether for many years. he is distinctly to the right of chancellor merkel. he was that author of the term to describe the idea that germany needed to return to a stronger sense of its national identity. all of that could make them an easy bedfellows, so to speak. many speculate that if he were headed up the party that she might step down earlier, which within prompt new elections, because the junior partner in the governing coalition has said it is ready to serve out until the end of this government with

angela merkel in place as chancellor, but not somebody else. brent: let's say friedrich merz becomes party leader of the cdu. does that mean he would follow angela merkel and be candidate to become the next chancellor? >> that is the current intention of akk who is still leading all this was prompted by a crisis in a local election in the eastern german state where the chancellor's conservatives, the cdu, voted side-by-side with the right wing afd party to put in place an outsider as state premier. all of that sent shockwaves all the way to berlin because it is a taboo to cooperate in any form with the right wing afd. akk was not able to establish her authority over the party.

she said we need new elections and explicitly said they should not, and they did. she stepped down, and her plan is to reunite the party with the chancellor candidate, but a number of people say this will not work because of the timeframe, and there are quite of few wrenches in the works at this point or her plan, so i don't think we can count on it. even if friedrich merz became candidate and party leader, that is not to say the cdu would have such a strong showing that they could in fact lead the next government. brent: that's true. assumptions and politics are very dangerous, that is for sure. thank you. leaked documents reportedly showed the cia and germany's intelligence agency bought an encryption company in the 1970's and used it to spy on clients

for decades. reports by the washington post reveal the agencies relied on a swiss-based company that sold encryption devices to more than 100 clients around the world. it is almost like a spy novel here. my colleague is with me here to talk about the story. i guess people are wondering how the german secret service and the cia were able to spy on so many countries. >> in the most scandalous and ruthless way. operation rubicon might become the most important spy mission that has ever happened in history that we know of. brent: that we know of. >> in 1970, they bought a company in switzerland that was cryptoto, o offering technologyo encode important information, so an interesting product for

countrtries that wanted to prott information flowing between military services and communications channels, thee biggest top secrets or missions. they bought this company and then manipulated the deciphering machines that were then being sold to over 100 countries in the world, countries in europe, africa, asia, south america, so quite a dimension. all of these countries bought the technology thinking they bought the safest thing ever, thinking switzerland is a neutral country, but in the end, they paid millions for a technology with those then accessing the top secrets. brent: it is like a digital trojan horse, if you will? >> it is. there is also money involved, the money they paid, and that these agencies got, so a really bad deal. brent: give me some examples.

which were the most remarkable events or entities that were spied on? >> lots of things that have happened throughout the last decades in germany and the united states, the security services were very well-informed about planning forward and movements, so one example happened in berlin, the bombing in 1986. it was a club in west berlin that was very popular among american soldiers who were stationed here, and it was bombed, three people died, 20000 were injurured. the cia knew about it, prorobaby also knew about the planning, but then president ronald reagan announced he had precise information about this attack and that libya was behind it, so you might very well ask why didn't anyone intervene. 10 days later, u.s. forces attacked libya. they were able to get all this

information through operation rubicon because they could read and decipher what was coming out of the libyan embassy in berlin. brent: what does this mean for neutral switzerland? >> it now has to crack a tough nut. they launched an investigation about this whole operation. obviously their credibility is at stake here. they also have suspended export licenses for the successor companiess, so trying to stop this right now, but there are many questions that need to be deciphered and revealed, yet to come about that money, where has onto? brent: that is a good point. we appreciate your reporting. thank you. young, impressionable, trained to kill, 250,000 child soldiers were recruited and deployed in 2018 in at least 16 countries, south america to asia.

as you can see, the problem is greatest in africa -- gravest in africa. we now go to south sudan, some of the highest child soldiers in the world. >> in order toto protect him, we can't reveal h his identity or e his real name. peter is trying to come to terms with what he in south sudan civil war. >> when i left my aunt and sister, i was 10 years old. i fled because of the war. i had never heard the sound of gunshots before. i was afraid that i might be shot, so i ran. >> a civil war broke out in south sudan after the country gained independence. since then, different groups have been fighting for power. some 400,000 people have died so far, millions forced to flee. the violence abruptly ended

peter's childhood. he struggled until a rebel group took himim in. >> they taught us skills, how to hide and run. they trained you and how to load a gun and how to shoot. >> peterer was in the militia fr two years, then able to flee to ugananda. he likes going to schoho there with help from save the children. his life is slowly returning to normal. >> my heart was heavy when i arrived in uganda. i sell schools and hospitals and i was excited and said, this iss a place where you can at least study and get medication whenever you are sick. >> as soon peter finishes his homework, he takes care of his

pigeons,s, his pride and joy, he has bred a good dozen so far. peter says living in safety h hs given him strength to be hopeful about the future. brent: it has been almost two weeks since the u.k. officially left the eu, and that means several empty seats in the european parliament. how are eu lawmakers coping with this change? we caught up with several of them and found the holes left by briggs that have yet to be filled. -- brexit that had yet to be filled. >> you see the flags flapping happily in front of the european parliament, all there, but one is missing. britain has now left de you. how wilt life carry o on after brexit? >> this is one of the most outspoken europeans from the labour party who has not left.

inside the committee room, a german parliamentarian can't quite believe his best friend after so many years is gone. >> so normally that would have been the place, so sitting next to me in the first row of the group meeting. it was nice having richard sitting next to me. it is sad that he's gone. >> the u.k. lost 73 seats in the eu parliament, and 27 were redistributed to other countries. one of the winters is very andrews from ireland. >> i am sad for our colleagues that they are not here, but i hope now to fulfill my mandate. the circumstances are not ideal. >> he also gets to hold his first speech in the plenary.

it is about the negotiations on the future relationship, especially trade between the eu and britain. >> we are at a delicate stage in the proceedings. there is no example in history where negotiating parties are seeking to impose trade barriers , so it will be difficult. >> one member of the green party has like most fellow members not quite digested what happened 10 days ago, but she is also looking for a way forward. >> it is the first week without our british colleagues. it still feels surreal that the seating has changed in the plenary and they are not here anymore. we want to keep this information channel going, but also obviously the affection we feel for each other, the friendship we feel for each other, because that does not go away just because of breit. >> brexit has never really happened, and british relevant

hearings have truly left the european parliament. their friends and cle like after every other divorce come they know in the end that life will have to go on. brent: formula one now i'm a glamour team ferreri have unveiled the car they hope will get them back to winning this season after years of failure. the german driver is meant to be the number one, but the emergence of a teammate has caused tension in the team. the pair put on their best miles at a glitzy ceremony ahead of the opening race next month. ♪ >> a grandiose theater in northern italy was chosen as the venue for the unveiling of her aris 2020 formula one car. the most successful team have however not won a pool driver's title since 2007. germany won four titles with

red bull, but struggled at ferreri. he hopes several technological innovations can give him the boost he needs. >> i think it is an incredible achievement, a lot of hours go into the car. i like it a lot. we had the opportunity to see it before and have a direct comparison with last year's car, and you can spot the differences. >> his main problem last season was his teammate, the 22-year-old from monaco outperformed the german and several incidents led to speculation there rivalry was causing problems. he believes he can do even better this year. >> the approach is different because i know the team, the car

, an improvement over last year's car was so we have been working to make it better and to be more reready for this year. >> mercedes reveal their new car monday. they will hope it powers then to a seventh championship, equaling michael schumacher's record. ferrari have an epic challenge to topple them. preseason testing begins next week, with the first race in australia on march 15. ♪ brent: from fast cars to fast planes, airbus has use the singapore air show to unveil a prototype of the passenger jet of the future. the maverick is a scale model of what is known as a blended wing body aircraft. the revolutionary design is thought t to be more fuelelfficient t than passengers jets used today. airbus claims it would give travelers a totally new

experience. one ofof the challllenges is wog how to prevent passengers from being thrown about when the aircraft turns. no martinis on board. this "dw news." i will be back after a short break to take you through "the day." stick around. we will be right back. ♪

y you're watching in paris in france twenty four the headlines this hour. u. s. democrats tend the sites to nevada and south carolina for another victory for benny saunders difficult to set a set one the parties. hampshire prior. place followed by center. he would you judge. the former favorite joe biden finish fifth. turkey's president vow to stir still tree any. any tensisions for the night are there what since the series will be. to hundreds of civilian awfully of ray s. on prevent. andnd