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> the conflict is not over yet. we need immediate humanitarian assistance. we need to make sure syria can be rebuilt. >> the country has suffered 13 years of war and its economy has collapsed. the assad regime, a corrupt regime, depleted the resources for its own benefit. >> the situation on the ground is very volatile. it is not clear it is safe for everyone to go back. that decision needs to be made on individual circumstances. ♪ >> the u.n. envoy to syria warns the conflict is far from over amid significant tensions in the north. calling on israel to withdraw from syrian territory which of the upper -- occupied in recent days. the security council is meeting tonight to discuss the situation. we will talk to one of the lawyers investigating the crimes

of the assad regime. we will catch up with quentin sommerville who has been in a port city. tonight, a phone call between donald trump and sir keir starmer amid signs of tension in the special relationship and trouble in the arctic as the bears come looking for food. a very good evening. the u.n. special envoy to syria says israel's actions since the fall of assad have been highly irresponsible and are a danger to the future stability of syria. on a visit to damascus, dear peterson called on the israelis withdraw their troops that is beyond the line of separation. after the yom kippur war in 1973, the security council brokered a agreement between the sides which established a buffer zone bordering the occupied golan heights. it is currently manned by a u.n. peacekeeping force who say their operations in recent days have

been severely hampered by the israeli army's activities. in several places they have removed israeli flags and they report some construction activity on mount harmon which is syrian territory. last night the israeli prime minister visited the troops who are inside syria and said they were would stay there for as long as is needed. . the german foreign minister has expressed her concerns. tonight in new york and as we speak of the un security council is meeting to renew the mandate for the international peacekeeping troops in that area. >> there is no reason that isel should occupy new syrian territory. the golan is already occupied. don't need two -- new land to be occupied. what we need to see is israel asked in a matter that does not destabilize this very fragile transitional process we are in

in syria >>. so what does it feel like outside damascus in the cities emerging from years of sharp al-assad's reprsion? our correspondent and cameramen have been touring areas previously off-limits. tonight he is in a port city. we watched your report yesterday. i got the sense it seemed to me there is now this period of uneasy truce where everyone is adjusting to the new realities on the ground. >> that is right. it is a collective holding of breath if you like. i suppose it would be unrealistic to say after this long journey to freedom almost 14 years in the making everything would suddenly be ok in syria and everything would start working. let's remember some of the details of that journey in 2011.

it started with pro-democracy protests. there was a full-blown civil war in 2015. russia intervened. we saw the expansion of the islamic state group. all the while the syrian people were suffering should we saw them suffer on the beaches of europe. we saw them suffer in turkiye. we sell them displace 12 million people. more than half the population of this country were cast out of their homes. we met them in the most harrowing circumstances. entire families who were fleeing for their lives and now with the fall othe assad regime are beginning to get a true sense of the absolute horror they were fleeing from whether it was the mass graves being found all over this country, now 157,000 missing people. think of all those. families missing for loved ones -- looking for loved ones and

relatives. the chemical gas attacks. the barrel bombs. the horrors of that war. the most abiding sense i have had while being here has been one of joy and perhaps one of be willed or meant the assad regime -- of bewilderment the assad regime fell so quickly. this was a leadership that was being welcomed back into some parts of the world and suddenly here we are. but as you see, some very difficult times ahead. >> if you were to look for echoes of that in history, you would look back to what happened in iraq in 2003. different of course because there is no invading american force on the ground but there are similarities. not least the absence of the armed forces because we have now in syria a shattered security apparatus with various militias trying to fill it in places like where you are. >> i mean obviously i was not in

iraq in 2003 but we remember donald rumsfeld saying democracy is messy. we saw the catastrophic effects of the dismantling of the iraqi state within a matter of months. it does not feel like that here. as you said, the security forces, the army have in effect been disbanded good -- been disbanded. the defector leaders have moved into that vacuum in many parts of syria. you saw the report the other night. they are patrolling. they are trying to keep a semblance of order. in the first few days after the sudden fall of the assad regime, there were other rebel groups in the city and there was more of a sense of chaos we saw as we were arriving building still burning. it has not been the widespread looting and chaos we saw in iraq. perhaps there is almost a moment

here if things can be held together for long enough, if syria can catch a break and that includes habs an end to sanctions which hts have been asking for. syria is perhaps the most sanction country in the world and you feel it here. you see the bread lines every morning when you're driving around. people waiting for their daily bread. you see the queues agas stations, petrol stations. this is a country that looks very worn and very broken and needs a lot of help in the coming months and years. >> there is a lot of outside influence and a lot of outside interest in syria. we are watching pictures of the u.n. security council. we are going to listen to the russian federation. let's hear what he is saying. >> the conflict armament research organization which he represents is financed by nato and the european uon.

can we expect any independent or impartial assessments from this individual? of course not. it is completely clear that whose political interest of ngo is advancing with the methodology of the work is highly primitive. experts have seen that he has -- this is prosed by the ukrainian prosecutor general and defense ministry. >> clearly talking about ukraine at the moment. i know they are going to talk about the peacekeepers on the golan heights in the buffer zone. as we wait for them to get to that, talk about the new power in damascus. the new man that is in charge there. he obviously wants to bring everyone together. there are these outside influences plang a part not least in the south around the

golan heights but also turkiye as well. how dangerous does tha syria? >> that is a very good question but you also have to ask the question what was it like before. it was catastrophic for syrians before so this situation even though it is difficult, even though there is a lot of uncertainty is a good deal better than what most syrians have been living through for the past decade. the assad regime fell for two reasons. it lost its main backers, hezbollah and russia. they were distracted either with of war in lebanon or in russia's case with the war in ukraine. there was an unwillingness, a tiredness with dealing with assad and his regime who refused to negotiate, who refused to engage with any kind of vision for a new syria that did not involve him athe very top.

the other thing is the syrian army was unwilling to fight. perhaps incapable of being able to fight. this was a regime which in the words of one person i spoke to had rotted to the corporate turkiye has backed hts and other groups and i think it is implausible to think the offensive which happened, the lightning offensive which moved the assads from power cannot have happened without turkiye support. the israeli issue is difficult for syria because syria is incapable of dealing with it at the moment. it has too much else to deal with. we have had some indications from mr. giuliani that he will come to that but he will come to that later because he has to feed his people. he has to get security. he has to disarm armed groups. there are so many different things are the two most

important things for him are the ending -- the ending of sanctions and receiving some legitimacy. hts is a prescribed terror group by most of the world. it associated in the past with al qaeda and for some time the islamic state group. it broke with those ties a long time ago and has since about 2016 and onwards has been building a ministate in the north of the country at has run that fairly effectively. it is an islamist state. it is very conservative. that has many people here and elsewhere in syria worried about what his vision for the new syrian state would be so there are many different factors at play but the key issue looking from damascus would be the ending of sanctions and some legitimacy being conferred on this regime so they can get on with the business of rebuilding syria and welcoming people home.

>> a quick final one. in that interview pettersen has given to the bbc does mention the need for a process to begin that delivers justice to families across syria. without that, he said the anger will erupt and divisions will appear. how difficult is that going to be and will each community, the different groups in syria feel represented within that? >> it is going to be an enormously difficult task. when we have been speaking to people here, they still drop their voices and they speak about the assads. even now they are too scared to speak about the assads. there is a mindset here. totalitarian terror chaz ipped this nation for more than half a century i should say. undoing that is going to be

annan armistice task and there will have to be reconciliation as part of the and people will want to know what happened to their loved ones and they will want the people responsible brought to justice for that. that is an enormously long process. syria is at the beginning of all of that and has to realize it no longer has this terrifying rule over it. this threat in its daily lives which stopped fathers talking about the leader in front of their children in case they blurted something out which would get them in trouble. there is an enormous amount of work to be done. >> it was a fascinating report you brought us last night. thank you for coming on the program. good to speak to you. as quentin has in saying, that process to deliver justice of the families of more than 100,000 syrians forcibly disappeared since 2011 is going to be very complicated/without a

process, pettersen says the anger will boil over. most of the missing are presumed dead, and turned in the mass graves reporters have been visiting in recent days and there is a mad scramble underway not only to track the henchman responsible for the reign of terror but to secure the records and state documents that will be used in evidence against them. the assad regime documented everything and for 13 years, a team of syrians supported by a group of international lawyers have been smuggling out a great personal risk thousands of documents and photographs known as the assad archive of evidence. the lawyers think the legal process when it does begin it will be bigger than nuremberg. aside's father who ruled from 30 years before him was said to be advised in his torture methods from a former nazi who wasn't granted refuge in damascus. . he had served as a deputy to adolf eichmann. let speak to one of the international lawyers for the syria justice and accountability center who is helping in that

process. quite clearly the work is only just beginning. but it must be i would suggest in these first few weeks when there is that opportunity to secure the documents so how is that being done and who is involved in it? >> yes, the -- what stands between good opportunity and a lost opportunity is what we decide to do now. today we see there is a lot of mishandling of evidence, of documents. of potentially mass graves. what we artrying to do is to not only document and preserve and try to preserve the documentation but spread awareness about the dangers that

comes with mishandling disinformation. these are materials that could be used in trial, in court. before they are admissible, they have to comply with the rules of evidence and procedure. they have to be preserved in safe place. a proper chain of custody has two be established before a court. this is really hard work and it is the beginning of a very long road. assad was perhaps the biggest impediment but it was not the only one. this documentation is not only about the crimes committed by aside but all parties to every armed conflict. most of which there are still ongoing in syria. >> obviously there were people around him who facilitated this machine of death which he recited. there were some key people, his

brother who commanded the fourth armored division. there was the former head of the national security bureau. there is the air force intelligence chief should we are these top men who you would want to see in a court? >> this is a question we yet have the answer to but indeed, the assad regime, those are conceptual entities. assad may not have committed a crime directly with his hands but there are many other people. there is an apparatus composed of many people who have joined including those names you mention, the heads of intelligence service and the chain of command that ordered and that ran the torture chambers, the prisons and the apparatus over many years. >> when you say he was not directly involved, i know he had

nightly meetings to put down the revolution but i have read somewhere there are documents with his scribblings in the margins which suggest he knew what was going on. dark i was not suggesting he did not but the understanding of a domestic crime that a person, only the person who come to the crime on the crime scene. a person who might be remote from the crime scene but could be the most responsible. indeed he is the most responsible but he is not the only one. there are many other people who are involved. we have been tracking these people in europe with the use of syrian communities in several european countries and other countries. we have been trying to identify the whereabouts of some of these people who are part of the killing apparatus. and we have successfully brought some of them to trial in several

jurisdictions. >> on that point, do you think you will ever get him? clearly the russians do want to maintain a presence in syria. would he be the sweetener because there are some people who think he does not have much value to putin. do you think there may be a case that could be built and one day he would stand trial? >> we all hope so. i think it is going to be of great symbolic value to put a closure to a lot of the pain and suffering that took place in syria. until then, we need to continue working, documenting these crimes because a lot of these crimes have not been rorded just yet. we have recorded so much but there is so much that is still out there to be documented, to be properly handled and evidence of which preserved and hopefully

later on presented in a courtroom to achieve a justice that we all deserve. one thing here is the crimes committed by the assad regime and every international crime committed by every party to an conflict in syria, they are not only against syrian people. these are crimes against humanity. war crimes and those are crimes that affect all of us. we all deserve that justice. > very good to talk to you tonight. thank you for coming on the program. we will take a short break. around the world and across the u.k., you are watching bbc news. ♪

welcome back. the federal reserve has cut its key interest rates for the third and final time this year. the fed's target rate between 4.2 5% and 4.5%. it is an effort to boost what some think is a steadyg but cooling economy.

rates have dropped four percentage points since september which is a bit of christmas cheer. similar interest rates to credit cards and mortgage rates. whether jerome powell who is still speaking seepolicy heading in 2025. >> inflation has each significant he of the past two years remain somewhat elevated relevant to our 2% goal. our estimates based on the index and other data indicate total pc prices rose 2.5% over the 12 months ending in november. >> get a quick road with the chief economist at -- dana peterson with the chief economist at the think tank conference. thank you for being with us. just when you look at the figures around this decision, particularly consumer prices are increasing at the fastest rate in seven months when the numbers came out yesterday so why are

they cutting further? >> i think it is about the fact that they think the risks to the outlook or at least to the economy right now are pretty well-balanced. certainly with respect to making sure there is maximum employment and inflation is heading back toward the 2% target. we are getting closer. he said just now a few off months does not mean inflation is accelerating or going in the wrong direction. he thinks that overall the fed is headed toward its 2% goal. that goal is going to be achieved later. >> as i said jesse, what we are looking at is whether he would divulge any thoughts about the incoming administration. did we get any clues to that? >> he did not say anything about his own projections regarding the administration but he said for some of the fomc participants who put in their projections, they were folding in some projections about what

the next administration's policies might mean for the u.s. economy. he said some also did not and some did not say anything. certainly there is somelement of the policies or anticipation of what the next administration's policies are going to do to the economy in the sep projections. >> what does that mean for rates next year? >> it means the fed is going to be cutting 50 basis points less than anticipated back in september meeting. this is not a forecast but this is with the fomc participants are thinking right now so that is a slower pace relative to what markets have been pricing in which is four, maybe five cuts next year. the fed is talking about two it is a much slower pace than many of us expected. > does that suggest the economy is cooling a thaad? >> no, they are cutting rates. the thing is the economy is not growing as rapidly as when it

was recovering from the pandemic. . imagine falling into a giant crevice. . you need to grow very fast. we are out of the crevice but we are still growing at a good clip. this year the u.s. economy is going to grow at 2.7%. i-20 24 -- which is not that bad. >> we dream of those figures in the u.k. we dre of those figures. i can tell you. >> it is good for the u.s. >> good for the u.s. no doubt. thank you for coming on and giving us that update. we will talk about that with our panel later in the evening. let's take a short break. we will be right back after this. announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... financial services firm, raymond james.

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