crazy to think it's only the beginning of this cycle human machines starting february first on t w. this is you know when you use live from berlin seeing double after sheep and dogs now researchers have successfully cloned monkeys decades after dolly the sheep was cloned scientists in china use the same technology to create to tell the monkeys a scientific breakthrough that's raising many ethical questions at the front of a call to make human cloning possible one day also coming up turkey grounds to

continue its offensive targeting u.s. backed kurds in northern syria all this is quite a warning from washington to limit the campaign for president clash with u.s. forces on the ground and done all trump arrives at the world economic forum in davos can you reassure the world's movers and shakers that his america first policies can be good for them to. thank so much for your company everyone i want to begin with a scientific breakthrough in china the baby monkeys that you see right here behind me don't just look alike they are identical researchers created them by using the same cloning method that produced dolly the sheep almost two decades ago but monkeys are primates just like us humans and now the question is being asked are we

next. me chills sean and they might just look like two cute baby mechanics but they also represent a breakthrough that has excited scientists around the wild the monkeys are close the very first successful clones of a primate using the method that produced dolly research is that the chinese academy of sciences presented them to the public this week the purpose of doing call me a monkey and use monkeys experiment animals is really for the human health for the cure in a few meant izzy's there are many other animal models you can use you can use mice was widely used but there has been difficulty. in using that as animal model for the human disease because mice are very far away from humans the process took over a year and one hundred twenty seven eggs almost eighty viable embryos and at bevy of host mothers to produce the two babies it's hoped the clones could be used to

studying diseases like parkinson's and alzheimer's research is say plans like these could help them glean results that would be more pertinent to humans but this breakthrough also begs another question can we clone humans and should we the burial of cloning primate species is well over. in principle any private including humans can be caught but all purpose of produce will call monkeys is purely for human benefit for medical purposes we see no reason of call of humans but despite the assurances it seems the debate around possible human cloning is once again on the agenda. well it is considered a major biomedical breakthrough and raising also many many questions we're going to try to tackle a scientific angle with their claims are due to science editor and martin gagged you know he's correspondent for religious affairs and ethics will help navigate

some of the ethical issues that have come up as well want to start off with you if i may dare to give us the state of play before we start talking about this specific case about the the world of cloning because since dolly the sheep we had cloned monkeys cloned dogs dogs excuse me and many different mammals why well there are a there are about twenty different species that we clone now want to regular basis and many of them have there's a variety of different reasons we clone mice for example for research study purposes we clone cowls because they can then we can get cows that deliver more milk and we can be certain that they'll deliver more milk so there are a wide range of reasons why we clone animals this is definitely this is definitely moving in the direction of medical research cloning monkeys we don't have any we don't raise monkeys for food so what exactly it was so what talk to us live it more about the significance of this breaks are but it's very highly significant because

it's going to really smooth down medical testing it's going to make it happen more quickly and easily because if you're working with a group of genetically identical individuals that are actually very close to to shuman beings evolutionarily then you're going to end up in the end with products that are probably going to work a lot of the time with medical research you go in with mice testing and it works and by the time you get to human testing it doesn't anymore because there are the differences are just too great the differences between humans and monkeys are very small are very small is that already raising some ethical questions there for you martin well i mean graces of course i think of questions i mean which is the production of subjects for experimentation i mean this obviously is a question drily speaking we tend to think that. but only human beings but people i mean that you know all ninety miles understand this very well i mean we are not simply dealing with biological material one of the issues that we need to ask ourselves how we said that we're going to actually account for the way in which we're treating and the status of these clone individuals this is obviously an

ethical question that cannot be ready leanne's for but this is one of the things that he's on the table there is also a question which was debated in the late ninety's and early not so i mean then it subsided about sort of the genetic makeup of the clones so there were issues concerning for instance aging aging. aging markers other genetic a level that were found to be the fish and let's say i mean we can not go into a full explanation in dolly in the famous she. these things were somewhat put aside as concerns but sort of there is still the door of books effect and i think we do not understand the full significance and significance and impact these are things that will have to be discussed but we will be one hundred and that's significant and back until we don't really large scale studies and the question is as i think it's still up in the air how large scale do we want those studies to be how close are we realistically to being able to clone human beings are you asking me for my opinion yeah

a lot of men and i would say we're probably going to see it in the next ten to twenty years wow this is for us you are out there probably working on it right now but it's considered criminal miten in many countries in the winters i don't know if in single case in which human cloning is actually permitted essentially goes there bioethical medical ethics protocols which in theory at least play internationally known the lists part of a promise of regulatory frameworks are of course stronger in some countries not in others and many of the countries i mean the translation countries are doing it already we don't know if they're doing it already but countries like china which have a lot of might in technology i mean these are enormously powerful technological bolz . which have a lot of means at their disposal how much weaker regulatory frameworks and there's another interesting aspect of this which is that a lot of a lot of of the research that's being done is very very closely related to this for example for example research into embryonic stem cells which have really issue

could have a huge medical impact so it's very you know drawing those lines that clearly is really not a simple or easy task give me one really compelling or so compelling reason in favor of human cloning. i'm not in favor of human cloning so it's hard for me to given his age in a situation where it would be called for to continue with this type of research i think that this is one for think that this is well i think that the strongest arguments are not i mean take this one i think that the strongest arguments are really concerning the moment of genetic fitness to solve to solve essentially or to cure or to cure illnesses i have very strong reservations about human cloning very strong reservations but i think it's very obvious that the potential for medical cures are just enormous i mean really beyond beyond the imaginable these are very strong arguments because we are still committed to the health of her populations we

still want people if you're going to ration where you are critically ill absolute that how absolutely so that it's a very very strong argument that this should be said which is this is a wonderful gift that does have small print and we have not read through the small print yet and this has to happen right on that note of brave new world for all of us thank you so much for breaking it down as our science editor and i think jack are i think saturday and my pleasure so much talk to you both all right i want to move on now to some of the other stories making news around the world. a delegation of north korean officials and athletes has crossed the heavily guarded border into south korea for joint olympics training as pyongyang called for all koreans to seek unification of a divided korean peninsula while the north and south korean women's ice hockey teams will join forces at next month's winter olympics in john chang in the south.

at least three people have been killed and more than one hundred others injured ten of them seriously as a regional train carrying commuters to the italian city of milan derailed many passengers who were trapped and had to be freed by rescue services the cause of the crash has not been established. gun officials have raised to forty the total number of people killed in last saturday's attack on a luxury hotel in the capital kabul a health ministry official says twenty five of guns died in addition to fifteen foreigners taliban militants have claimed responsibility for the assault to syria now where turkey is vowing to press ahead with its military operation targeting u.s. backed kurdish militias in the country's north all that's despite a warning from u.s. president donald trump to limit the advance or risk confronting american forces on the ground in a phone call with the turkish president's he urged turkey to quote exercise caution

to avoid any actions that might risk conflict between turkish and american forces in the region but present threats of type two ones office denies this was said turkish officials say the phone call was quote limit it to an exchange of views and that to trump did not share concerns about the escalating violence in a free in the kurdish a y p g militia there have played a key role helping u.s. backed forces against the so-called islamic state well the turkish government calls the y p g g terrorists. the shattered turn of yield is evidence of the force that turkey has brought to be enough turkey's government is determined to press on with operation all of branch which to them has been a success so far it appears. the operation will continue until the threat is removed. reject a little but the kurdish y p g wants the world to know that they would surrender

the enclave without a fight. we will resist and will not allow the enemy to invade our land to the last drop of blood we have we will never retreat from here on. those appear to be no idle words missiles fired from y p g controlled territory crashed into this mosque in the turkish border tone of killis causing fatalities and panic as worshippers tried to free the wounded from the rubble. the death toll rises on both sides but turkish president rich one says he will expand the offensive eastwards. u.s. troops stationed in northern syria might soon find themselves caught between kurds and turks each ally determined to banish the other from the region at all costs not only in the middle of memory or through meantime donald trump has arrived in switzerland he's the first u.s. president in eighteen years to attend the world economic forum in davos well the white house has indicated that trump will spend the next two days pushing his

america first agenda is due to address the forum on its closing day on friday. the big moment has arrived donald trump is in davos mr america first himself and what's mostly been an assembly of multilateralist the elephants in the room have names like trade wars and punitive tariffs expressions that stand for the u.s. is in a word pivot in contrast to european appeals to look beyond borders but that's not a unified stance the british have a tight rope to walk they have to sell themselves as a country open for business despite brags that impending free trade is a topic that i have discussed with the president of the pauls we're very keen that we'll be able to do that free trade agreement where we leave the european union with the united states of america that we are all that of already working on how we can shape. may and trump are due to meet in davos today or year ahead of trump's arrival u.s. treasury secretary steven minucci was already selling his boss's strategy over lots of meetings again lots of discussions just focused on international trade what's

good for the united states is good for the rest of the world in terms of growth what that actually needs in practice has not always been easy for the international trading community to decipher many in davos will be searching from speech on friday for additional parity with a modern art to tennis now and see mona help that will face carolina lost me akki in saturday's australian open final in melbourne well that's after the top seeded or main in got the better of germany's angelica kerr were in three marathon sets and the other seventy and number two seed wozniak overcame a second set wobble to defeat belgians a least meriton steve dane is a former world number one but like taylor has yet to win a grand slam title meanwhile marino chill it is through to the men's final on sunday the croat dispatched of britain's kyle edmund in straight sets he'll play either defending champion roger federer or the unseeded. for the title now before i

let you go remind you of our top story that we're following for you right now scientists in china have revealed two identical baby monkeys created using the same cloning technique that gave us dolly the sheep more than two decades ago their research breaks the technical barrier that could open the.