this is d.w. news live from berlin an attempted assassination in britain using a nerve agent developed during the russian soviet era london sets a midnight deadline for answers the british prime minister says it was highly likely that the kremlin was behind the poison attack against a former russian spy. and dozens of sick and injured leave syria's eastern kuttan the first evacuation since the government siege began nearly

a month ago the red cross says more are expected today. i'm sumi so much going to thank you for joining us we will have more on our top stories in a moment but we start with some breaking news that's coming into us u.s. president donald trump has sacked secretary of state rex tillerson he's replaced him with cia director mike pompei oh now the move comes after tillerson broke with the white house to say russia was probably behind the nerve agent attack on a former spy in britain trump said on twitter that cia deputy director gina household will succeed pump a zero at the cia that would make her the first woman to run the spy agency. and let's go right to washington d.c. carson phenomenas standing by for us hi carson these are reports that we've been hearing of what more can you tell us. well this move

comes quiet unexpectedly i have to say because yes there has been speculation that tillers and. be on his way out but those speculations particularly rife around the beginning of the year and it seemed like exactly dead media coverage that trump was about to fire to listen head safe to listen because trump simply didn't want to do what everybody expected him so he did it now at a time when nobody really expected it especially as to listen was just in the last few days on the trip to africa where he try to mend fences and rebuild alliances in the fight against terrorism there obviously this move by trump has undercut those diplomatic efforts if the timing was simply due to the fact that to losen had to condemn to russia he had gone further than the white house wanted to go

concerning the poison attack in great britain that we don't know yet but it probably was the last straw that broke the camel's back here the last truck question because these two have had a difficult working relationship from the beginning haven't they. absolutely rex tillerson never really go out of found the way to relate to the president he said so himself or at least he indicated that when he said he was still learning how to communicate properly with the president these are two very different people have both a business man but they have a very different character donald trump is very spontaneous emotion those shoots from the hip rex tillerson is very measured very serious very quiet tries to do things in a very organized and methodical way and so those two never really clicked and then of course there was this infamous incident where rex tillerson

allegedly called the president a moron and i think donald trump hasn't forgotten that and rex tillerson never really rejected the reporting saying that so we can assume that he said something of that kind of donald trump has a long memory when it comes to that and carson we've heard that he will be replaced with mike pump ale what can we expect from him this is the u.s. is most important representative essentially four countries a prime. absolutely about the effect of of course donald trump is the man who dictates foreign policy that was a big problem for rex tillerson that whatever he did donald trump undercuts him basically contradicted him at many points and so also my complaint was not have it easy a secretary of state on

a trump has clearly undermined the status of that position after only one year in office but having said that mike pompei was certainly is someone who is closer to the president also as cia director he has been very cautious of how to describe russian meddling in the u.s. elections for instance he hasn't really good night it because basically the intelligence community here is united in its assessment that russia did interfere in the u.s. elections but the president of course has his doubts or has expressed his doubts at least and might put pale has been very cautious here to tread a fine line and so he might have a better personal relationship with the president how effective he can be as a secretary of state i don't know yet carson this has been a particularly to mulch us time for the white house rex tillerson being sacked today last week was the top economic adviser gary cohn why are we seeing such

upheaval at the moment. well. it's trump it's the way he operates he. likes chaos in the sense that chaos lets him shine if everybody around him is on the edge and doesn't know what happens then he can dictate how things are working and that's what he wants really there are other people who are speculation about other people about to leave the white house soon gen next mast his second already national security advisor is if you like. the one most people expect to be voted off the island next also his second chief of staff general kelly is general cushion or even his son in law there is speculation about him after his recent problems to receive

a permanent security on top secret security clearance so this kind of chaos is a method in the white house so this would not be the last person to leave the white house to leave in a sort of trump and there might be other ministers also at the white house also who might be leaving so we don't expect an end to this turmoil really all right our washington correspondent catherine fund naaman question thank you for bringing us that today and let's get some reaction from the here and europe over at our brussels studio we have used barbara bass all standing by for us barbara have there been any reactions yet to this development. no so far not but you can be sure there's shock and awe in brussels because we have seen last week the start of a trade war is sort of really offensive and aggressive sort of action off donald

trump towards the european union and everybody is still busy was that is too busy trying to figure out what does it mean how can we prevent it are there ways to circumvent it or whatever and now comes the next come sort of the next step the next blow because rick citizen had been let's say the reasonable face off american foreign policy scene from the side of the european union he was the man they could still talk to he was he was the man who would sort of come up with a reasonable wording for common conflicts for instance the latest. russia or the he reassured the reason may in london about u.s. support for her reactions to putin and russia and so if he is all of a sudden gone what next who sort of to address their worries and their problems too in washington so it creates further confusion and it is extremely unwelcome for

brussels as you said he was seen very much here in europe as the steady hand for europe after the trumpet ministration what do you think this will do now for relations between the e.u. and the u.s. going forward. i don't think they're going forward they're not going anywhere because we are at the moment sort of completely stuck in trying to figure out how to behave what to do how to position ourselves as europeans towards this new. aggressiveness coming out of washington and already mentioned the trade wars that is something that has really sort of occupies occupied european minds for the last days and it will continue to do so but then this tilson thing sort of comes on top notch is he is gone. can they call in washington and say let's talk about

this let's figure out a compromise let's somehow sit down together and find a way forward so if that bridge is now burnt and hardline it will come into the office of foreign minister the feeling of being in danger on the international scene will rise of course and speculation also on where the trump white homes is going to go after this it's extremely sort of disquieting some concerns being raised there in brussels our correspondent barbara basal with the reaction there thank you barbara now to our top story of britain has issued a midnight deadline for russia to explain why a deadly nerve agent developed by the soviet era military was used in the fascination attempt from here in germany a conservative ally of chancellor merkel says if russia doesn't provide answers there should be a joint western response the former russian spy circus cripple and his daughter remain in critical condition more than

a week after being found unconscious in the city of salzburg. this is where as the prime minister puts it somebody attacked the u.k. authorities say the nerve agent was made in russia the question is who deployed it a rogue element for the russian state. mr speaker this attempted murder using a weapons grade nerve agent in a british town was not just a crime against the script pals it was an indiscriminate and reckless act against the united kingdom putting the lives of innocent civilians at risk officially moscow says it has nothing to do with the incident a russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said made a statement was a circus show put on for parliament russian state t.v. went even further if the parliament question if you think about it the only ones who would benefit from the poisoning other british in order to feed the russophobia that's why you were all saw for the. people in salzburg who were near where the

attack took place have been told to wash their clothes the russian ambassador will be summoned to say whether his government was responsible for if it sounds or fails to allay suspicions that the kremlin was behind the attack we must theresa may has promised a robust response although she did not say what that would be. like humans we have our correspondent alex forrest whiting has been following the story for us hi alex thanks for coming back in the studio for us how can britain be so certain that russia is behind this poisoning well this nerve agent has been examined at the bar trace at porton down by government scientists and they have confirmed that it was developed in the seventy's and eighty's by the soviet military for the soviet military is part of the cold war strategy as far as they know it has never been used before but it is extremely toxic so i think has been

a big shock to scientists around the world that this has been used to troll. russia has continued to deny any involvement in this and we've even today that is the prime minister treason may have said it was either use intentionally by russia or with not intentionally it lost control of the nerve agent so obviously that would also be deeply worrying well she has now set a deadline for russia to for midnight to get some answers on the story why did she give russia and ultimatum year well i think that she wanted to go on a support from within the u.k. but also particularly from her allies and she was doing really well with that this morning she has had support from france from germany from the e.u. from nato and from the former u.s. secretary of state. and i think i mean i it's difficult to say that but i think this must be very difficult and frustrating for downing street and also for

the british foreign office that he has now gone because what he said was really strong and you know we he had said we stand in solidarity with our allies where does that now leave the u.k. can they rely on that american support or not and i think that makes it difficult given this deadline of midnight and what are her options if she does not get receive the answer that she's looking for by midnight well she can do what happened in two thousand and six seven when a former k.g.b. agent litvinenko was killed in london and again it had the hallmarks of russia in that case they had russian diplomats were expelled from the u.k. they also talked about freezing some bank accounts obviously at the time that was considered not particularly tough on russia they want to go hard as she used to be the home secretary so she used to look coauthor of the she still does the prime

minister that she used to look off to. the u.k. say says she wants to prove that she's tough so obviously they're looking at whether they can do those but also they want to get more support from around the world so perhaps they can have tougher economic sanctions diplomatic sanctions there's also talk about consulting allies in nato mislead pending america on this one but about invoking oscar five that principle of common defense which would mean if you attack one of us you attack all of us and that's where the perhaps they could get more support for some kind of sanctions on russia i mean there's even talk of the u.k. launching a cyber attack that's been covered by one of the newspapers in london you know trying to attack kremlin computer networks i don't know whether that really is a possibility or whether that's just the excitement of journalists but i think the u.k. second is very serious and wants to prove that you can't treat the u.k.

like this if it is proved that russia was behind it and just briefly if you can alex how much support just theresa may have at home for this strong stance that she's.