this is our take tonight syria's opposition coalition says yes to attending next week's peace talks in switzerland but can confirm which delegates will be there it comes amid further doubt over a chemical attack near damascus last year these rockets could have never been fired from government controlled territory experts from m.i.t. call into question america's claims that a sad forces will be behind the assault exam and that this hour also two officials from moscow visit guantanamo bay prison seeking to negotiate the release of a russian national who's been held there for years without charge just like the majority of other detainee. and the yes they can continue with sweeping surveillance president obama's anticipated plans to reform the n.s.a. the activities of being dismissed as a limited. number

of the morning for me in moscow this morning our top story then the opposition syrian national coalition has announced it will attend next week's peace talks in geneva but it's still no clear exactly which members of the group will take part in talks ended ending syria's bloody civil war. the latest. amid mounting international pressure syria's opposition has decided to take part in next week's geneva two peace talks the group which faces its own internal divisions announced its decision saturday following a meeting in is stamboul now hearts of the syrian opposition were previously critical of taking part in peace negotiations that could help syrian president bashar al assad they say stay in power the syrian national council i mean

opposition bloc even threatened to pull out of the coalition if the general assembly voted in favor of attending the geneva two it seems though however that mounting pressure from the u.s. and western countries cause concessions to be made the conference will be held under the auspices of the un and it's co-sponsored by russia and the u.s. it's scheduled to begin on tuesday january twenty second it is aimed at finding a way to install a transitional government that will subsequently pave the way for to ending the nearly three year old civil war which has reportedly claimed the lives of some one hundred thirty thousand people a correspondent new york city there will be tom the u.s. conclusion that a chemical attack near damascus in august was carried out by the government has been challenged by a team of highly respected experts washington immediately then blamed president assad but this new report for the most of its institute of technology from the

rocket couldn't have been fired from government controlled areas. we went through two to three months worth of study to determine the types of rockets. the weight the size of the propellant and we determine that the range is on the order of two kilometers i like to make a note that the u.n. also had come up with a range of approximately two kilometers so this is very confusing to us in our studies and we're trying to understand exactly what the white house map means because right now as it stands these rockets could have never been fired from government controlled territory they would be fired more from a rebel type of territory or a border of a contested territory so it appears something in america's official conclusions does not up not his legs here jessica takes a closer look at this latest mit study. this latest report is trying to answer one

question whether the missiles carrying. in august the twenty thirteen were really fired from the parts of damascus controlled by the syrian government now we reproduced exactly the same map which the u.s. intelligence used when they voiced their concerns that the attack was carried out by the syrian government and this is the part of damascus controlled by the syrian government at that time in august twenty third scene this is the part controlled by the opposition those blinking yellow spots they mark the places where the attack happened in particular this western most point of those attacks where the biggest number of casualties happened and this red line here it shows where the missiles could could have gone if they were fired from the from the governmental territories in damascus the maximum range of those missiles is two kilometers now of this eastern the most point of the of the attack is about four kilometers from the

isa most point of the governmental control and the territories controlled by the government and if we talk about the heart of the of the territory controlled by the government that's something which was specified by us state john kerry that's where the rockets were fired from this is about nine kilometers from the this point here this report basically does not lay blame on any side and does not say whether there were those were the rebels who perform these attacks using chemicals but what it does though it seriously puts under doubt that the quality of intelligence and as to why the u.s. authorities used what seems to be incomplete or even flawed intelligence data to voice their concerns and if we remember what u.s. state secretary john kerry said back then the claims were quite solid high confidence this is common sense this is evidence these are facts also this report speculates at one point that it could have this. wrong data could have been used in

a similar fashion as the attack on iraq when wrong information was used as a pretext to launch a military operation official washington hasn't yet responded to this latest report by the mit research is. correspondent yes it is good more than the controversy surrounding this attack and talk to middle east expert. joining us live from beirut . the mit report as we were in there suggesting u.s. intelligence drew the wrong conclusions from it all the working on we think roughly the same figures technically why is the white house was washington been slow to react to this news or do you think well i don't think washington really wants to draw attention to the subsequent reports that are coming out mostly private endeavors by private individuals at this point any time you actually apply scrutiny of any sort to many. washington statements you find a lot of holes in it so you know when when when the chemical weapons attack first

happened the u.s. used lofty terms an important sounding language to make us feel that they had it covered you know we had intelligence and we had observations of this sort and other in fact none of that is true the u.s. sort of backed into an argument that support a policy objective as they have done in many other instances in the middle east yeah i mean there's there's one thing going to the story of there's another thing going we've got high confidence in the law and we you know here we just heard a clip of john kerry back in august saying we had high confidence in the information that was available then but this very same information that the independent inspectors ability to talk to the child last night was the same information but they do exactly the opposite conclusion i just. struggled to understand where the high confidence bit comes from do you. well the term the language high confidence. low confidence this is intelligence

community language and it's something sort of reporters and analysts now have been sort of suckers to to to listen to to accept us. observations as absolute when they use language like this so for instance in one of the early chemical weapons or alleged chemical weapons attacks in aleppo in april of last year the u.s. government came out and said we have varying degrees of confidence on this issue but there was a calving it for instance that capping it was the chain of custody it turned out the u.s. didn't know who had who had the samples in their hands and how far it had traveled so you know you really have to bring scrutiny to washington statements and we're not doing enough of that in the media or certainly in politics to go to the top was absolutely horrendous and what are you looking at it but you think we'll ever know who coded. you know i'm not sure i think

there's very little incentive for governments that this point even the syrian government that claims that it has no part in it had no part in these attacks because the issues moved on we were talking about disarmament in our disarming you know with chemical weapons and now we have a talks peace conference talks coming up in geneva next week but what's interesting about this particular attack is there is it's taken on a life of its own through social media and bloggers and and experts of all kinds weapons experts chemical weapons experts coming online and sharing ideas and evidence and theories so i suspect a lot of these kind of this kind of investigation public resource investigation continue even though i think governments have basically moved on in the show you know one of these experts on the line from beirut appreciated. and as the violence rages on in syria the country is partly turning to into a major drug producer to

a covering that surely both the rebels and government for the lead taking amphetamines to keep up the renner jian keep going during battles to talk about that very soon. but after a decade long efforts to secure permission an official delegation from moscow is now finally been able to visit guantanamo bay america's most notorious detention center a matter of russian national there who's being held at the prison despite never having been charged with a crime efforts to secure his release with the priority of the visit and consultations were held at the pentagon as well as grant alamo officials group was also given a limited to the facility i spoke exclusively to the head of russia's delegation foreign ministry constantine told god. it was the first. meeting with him we have been trying to organize such a meeting for quite some time for several years he told us about quite a number of very serious incidents which happened with some other detainees

people whom he personally knows did he give you any details but he himself witnessed the aftermath of the use of methods which are not compatible with the international norms and regulations if you feel you could talk freely to you well it's difficult to see this well has been under duress for almost twelve years so it's difficult to expect that suddenly he started speaking completely freely the most important probably. element of a visit was to convey the message to america representatives of americans say that we insist. he is rates and legitimate interests. it would be taken care of. principled position of all of the russian government.

the russians it is a broad. did it official statement office or is it talk of also basic international standards of the rule of lord not being up held at guantanamo. days from washington about. the visit securing the release of the only russian nationals held at the detention center for over twelve years without charge reveal . the human rights commissioner reiterated russia's position on the detention center in guantanamo bay in his meetings with officials from the defense department and from the department of state he said that russia's position is that this detention center be closed down as soon as possible this detention the mere existence he said of this detention center is in violation of human rights and international law back in two thousand and eight. the us president promised to shut down the detention center multiple times he said that he wasn't able to fulfill his

promise because of the congress which. a number of occasions has vast laws to make it harder and harder for the u.s. administration to either transparent. detainees to other countries or to bring them back to the u.s. and try them on u.s. soil which has left the u.s. administration really in political limbo because this detention center has has seen the image and reputation of the u.s. . iraq's have occurred claiming the number of hug a strike as has doubled in fact in the past month and now stands at thirty three but the military authorities refusing to release any new details authorities said the release of information about hunger strike has quote detracts from the more important issues of the welfare of dayton even the safety of troops aspire to clive stafford smith is a lawyer for several guantanamo detainees he's witnessed himself some of the most brutal tactics used by the military this for a prisoner from camp six rich is the least bad account goes on hunger strike they

automatically get transferred not just count five but account five record which really has been the most abuse to place an order on a ton of prisoners are held in all steel cells and denied the most basic human rights just as a punishment for going on strike that force feeding techniques are very much an action unfortunately against the very abusive force feeding techniques i mean casting aside the question of whether it's aquaculture course being a tour in the world medical association says it's not you know unfortunately the techniques they're using grown tonneau aren't groups you're assisting kind of so for example in the some of those that they used to leave but use up the prisoners noses to it so much they're still prelim most tubes out every single time twice a day forcing them back up each time they're still forcing far too much food too quickly into the prison american presence if you're sick they just carry on doing it it really is horrendous what's not. after the break we look at how deep

a bomb is reforms of the n.s.a. really will be or not come up shortly. the playing. field limbic spirit travels with the flame from its place in greece. join james brown for an elemental and epic journey around russia and beyond. where i was because.

i love again so will not dismantle the global spy network the announcement of a major overhaul of the national security agency outlined by president obama failed to provide any detail on when the collection of data would be stopped or indeed whether it would be stopped at all and critics say the plan for deep reform was nothing more than a full than a facelift as a sex explains. after nearly seven months of n.s.a. disclosures president obama finally came forward with reforms to the spy agency

acknowledging that the current capabilities of the n.s.a. do leave open the possibility of abuse given the unique power of the state it is not enough for leaders to say trust us we want to be use the data we collect for history has too many examples when that trust has been breached. our such a system of government is built on the premise that our liberty cannot depend on the good intentions of those in power the president address the n.s.a.'s most controversial program section two fifteen bulk telephone metadata collection basically the president no longer wants the government to be in control of these massive metadata databases but that doesn't mean the president wants to get rid of bulk collection in fact the bulk collection of virtually every american's metadata will continue indefinitely and the new restrictions announced by the president requiring the n.s.a. to obtain pfizer court approval before searching all that metadata doesn't satisfy privacy advocates who argue the pfizer court has acted and will continue to act as

a rubber stamp nothing in obama's speech put any rain rain dan this collected all approach and yesterday bit there was a big revelation of god called this fire program that just fire program was collecting all tax calls literally hundreds of thousands of text calls every day are going into the n.s.a.'s vacuum it's gigantic coober regarding spying on foreign leaders the president said he's put an end to surveillance on friends and allies but did not say the n.s.a. will stop spying on diplomats nothing about the n.s.a. breaking encryption standards and ports that the n.s.a. has been breaking into the data links on google and yahoo servers while some specific reforms were introduced how exactly they will be implemented moving forward remains to be seen especially since the same government agencies that have overseen the massive growth of the surveillance state are now the ones tasked with reigning into it washington d.c. sam sachs r t. about a speech on the n.s.a.

was met with criticism in some of the countries spied on germany's justice minister said a written agreement is needed to stop but he was supported to by brazilian will make it who believes the u.s. has little respect for international partners when european m.p. believes washington he's just paid lip service to make people feel better i spoke many times the president of the national whistleblower center who told me the government's trying to distract public attention here with a well planned p.r. move. think twice next time you decide to like someone on facebook why well especially if that someone you form a partner maybe who wants nothing to do with you because one click might get you arrested interested to read up more you can find it on our website and still think about buying a ticket for the sucky winter olympics well maybe this will help you make your mind up on the emotions sex we've got dads like bird's eye view there for the city that might make you want to go. fighters on both sides of the syrian civil

war turning to drugs as both a source of funding and staying power in battle a recent media investigations revealed the soaring export export of illegal unfettered minces turned syrian to a major drug hub. explains. with syria about to enter in its fourth devastating year of war the lack of law and structure has allowed one dark industry to flourish the country has become the number one producer of a drug known as caps and gone since synthetic stimulants were first manufactured in the one nine hundred sixty s. and it was at that time used as a medicine to treat hyperactivity and depression but it's too addictive and this is why it was banned in most countries so here in the middle east it's still very popular it's cheap and it's easier to get but today syria not only produces more than any other country in the region but it's also kept a close main consumers believe that five terrorists are taking the pills to

maintain vigorous energy levels your elevenses battles because it helps you keep awaken for hours and hours but there are also reports that ordinary citizens those who've been livin in depression and in this war and chaos for almost three years now are also holding to the drugs for these capers to four year aid gives them and it's lucrative it's between fifteen and twenty doors appeal and the right hundreds of millions of them been taking all trafficked and there is evidence that the revenue raised is buying weapons from both sides of the syrian conflict the un office on drugs and crime. has been reporting that syria which is located at the crossroads here in the region has for a long time been a transit point for the drug going from europe to turkey and lebanon but since the war began captagon trades guns and mastic and factories are appearing these

days all across syria and production has increased and sales of building here elaborate on the authorities seized around two hundred million dollars worth of tab . lost here mostly hidden in the tracks go in through the syrian lebanese border from syria into lebanon where there is its final destination clues in the gulf countries some of the most ardent supporters of the syrian opposition and saudi arabia where around a billion dollars worth of the drug was seized just last year with authorities saying this is nothing but just ten percent of the real turnover of the drug indicating. the headlines this morning russia's national counter-terror committee says seven militants have been killed in the southern republican. security forces have been negotiating with militants in a house where they were holed up but the armed gunmen opened fire it's believed some of the militants are responsible for a grenade attack on

a restaurant on friday followed by twin blasts that killed at least sixteen one of the militants killed was the leader of a local guy while another was the friend of a female suicide bomber who carried out the terror assault on a bus in volgograd last october will result in said preparing for a suicide attack and was wanted by russian forces. all the day's news a day of bloodshed in iraq has left at least thirty people dead militant violence seventeen died and more than seventy were injured in multiple bombings that rocked baghdad in the west of the city jail was seized by government leading to the escape of dozens of prisoners this comes after six were killed in the suicide blast and shelling in the rest of anbar province just outside the capital. roughly five water cannons scuffles with protesters in the turkish city of istanbul demonstrates is flooded the streets to express this content of the new draft bill that would restrict access to the internet the government wants to keep records of online

activity and banned sites for alleged violations of privacy without the need for a court order if passed internet service providers will be required to join an internet union under central control. type protest is a blockaded the place h.q. in bangkok just a day after a bomb injured twenty eight demonstrators at least eight people have died since unrest and forcing the government first started back in november problems too and sisterly solution to the crisis will be a snap election in february. in india a stampede that they are all over revered spiritual leader in mumbai killed at least eighteen people authorities said the turnout was greater than it expected to fail to control the flow of mourners instance like these are relatively common sadly last october more than one hundred people killed in a stampede to the temple. coming up next the highlights from the olympic torch is record breaking journey on its weight if you're watching out international if

you're in britain evening to you we get special program few going on the ground lined up with afshin rattansi. because he doubted states is the big dog the only hyper power and the cultural driving force of globalization it takes a lot of flak i mean a globalization means the whole world gets hollywood and hot dogs and not the other

way around so let's take a break from the negativity and talk about something truly amazing about america and as a guy who lives in moscow i could say that the constitution of the united states is something truly amazing in russia there is constant talk about needing a new national idea a new ideology or political theory or big changes to the russian constitution and so on and it's hard for people in america understand this but twice in the twentieth century the system that russians gave their lives for collapsed and the current constitution was written quickly after a period of violence and said collapse not after a glorious victory now you see why people here aren't exactly memorizing amendments and founding fathers quotes here in america there are debates between liberals and conservatives but almost everyone believes the constitution and it is america's greatest strength there is a national idea that is a sacred document with a list of rules as almost universally agreed upon everyone with half a brain on the street but sadly not in congress knows when something is against the constitution or should i say against america near universal belief in the

constitution is actually something truly exceptional about america but that's just my opinion. it was supposed to be just another news or of course although admittedly for a special occasion it was. hundred twenty three days before the start of the winter olympic games in sochi and i was in greece for the lighting of the olympic flame the ruins of a limpia one of the most famous monuments of ancient greece the site of the very first olympic games where stones like this would have been part of the temple. the temple. temple.

home. mom.

well that was a rather surreal. definitely the way to stream i've had for a while. it was a memorable ceremony. one pretty sure the high priestess never spoke to me. what was it she said. full of the flame or something. there's. a lot more of course of base. from which the top story this morning than the silky twenty pulteney olympic flame of them by seven days off it was in the ancient greek city of libya carried by russia's deputy prime minister dimitri cool with ak if i travelled in a small mountain to red square where president vladimir putin spoke of its meaning for the russian people at the olympic torch the symbol of the world's primary sports competition of peace and of friendship. but he has come to russia if there are many.