yeah mr john oliver of hearty americans do the same we are apparently better than food to see people you've never heard of love back to the night my president of the world bank so they. really. seriously sent us an e-mail. syrian government forces with russian support retake a key fortified area held by islamic state in the city of derrius or paving the way for its liberation comes following the lifting of the terror group's three year long sea. the russian president says mounting pressure on pyongyang will not solve the north korea crisis. let's not be driven by emotion and push north korea into a corner. and german chancellor angela merkel is pelted with tomatoes during an election campaign rally police and i looking for those responsible.

well can watching our international start this hour with breaking news to you because an anti terror operation is underway in paris two men have been arrested after a bomb making material was found in an apartment in a suburb of the french capital they have been charged with a terror plot to blow up a church police found ingredients for explosives and also gas canisters well swear police in spain and morocco have arrested six men two suspected of having links to islamic state five of the suspects reportedly spanish and one moroccan the spanish interior ministry says they were planning atrocities and had been simulating beheading they are not however believed to be linked to the recent twin terror attacks in the country bring you more details on the stories as we get.

now the syrian government forces backed by russia have recaptured a large fortified area held by islamic state in the city of dear resort. after retaking the position syrian troops found a network of tunnels containing weapons medical supplies and food it's also emerged that the area was mainly defended by terrorists from the former soviet republics and russia on tuesday rushmore ship targeted the militants there helping the syrian army storm the fortress the latest operation is part of

a larger campaign to force eisel fighters acted theories off meanwhile the un special envoy to syria staffing the mistura is still uncertain about the country's future. issue is is the government. deliberation of their iraq really being am prepared to generally negotiate and not know victory which we all know and they know to can not be announced because they want be sustainable without a political process really the opposition be able to be unified and realistic enough to realize they did not win that war. but. right now i know you are was. all of these are pictures of two government army brigades reuniting after the siege on the city was finally lifted

one had been trapped inside for all that time has more on the liberation campaign. of the people of their resort won't have to pray for these to appear in the skies anymore for three years air drops with their only lifeline and they prayed for what was really just a handful of syrian soldiers to never let the city fall completely to islamic state while i salute used any means absolutely anything to take their resort it's all over now but nearly nine months ago a sea of i saw all around the city and beyond how the country and black as you can see on this map since that point it's only been shrinking two thousand and seventeen so far a nightmare for islamic state and syria i'll break down the milestones for you number one palmira.

the city with more than three thousand years of history had really been caught in a tug of war before march when the syrian army with russian air support took full control number two the city of rock the one known as the capital of the self-proclaimed caliphate. no more capital in iraq looks like the terrorist commanders ran from there and thanks to the efforts of the kurdish units and other u.s. led coalition fighters the hottest in the city are fully surrounded number three breaking the siege of the errors or.

this was one last chance all the remaining war might be had to offer off it went to dare resort according to russian army intelligence crossing islamic state in this area is the next step time to check up on the map now that's progress three black traces left the rooms of the self-proclaimed caliphate. international affairs commentator john thin steel says that ice will still poses a very real threat as foreign fighters may start heading back to their home countries war is long way from being over i mean the isis fighters particularly once before and will gradually if they've not been captured filter back to their home countries and of course start doing terrorist activities didn't cross is large britain where we've had three days of summer in barcelona or in berlin or in france the threat is still very much alive as the isis is losing territory in syria it's not losing all its manpower while another syria related story has grabbed headlines

this wednesday a new u.n. report accuses the assad government of using chemical weapons against civilians and it claims it was responsible for an attack in italy province back in april we'll have the details on this a bit later in the program. the russian president says sanctions are mounting pressure will not solve the north korea crisis as pyongyang feels it is being backed into a corner flemmi putin made the comments after speaking with south korea's leader of the eastern economic forum in the russian city of bloody for stock and hawkins has more. it's foremost primarily a place for business and trade interests to find common ground but as you say there's only been one thing really hanging over the four and one key thing on the agenda and that's been the korean crisis the crisis on the korean peninsula and president putin of south korea half an hour concluded the talks they've done a joint press conference where putin again as russia's position has been over the

last weeks and months that diplomacy negotiation was the only way long term to solve this crisis take a listen it's obvious that the korean peninsula problem can't just be solved using sanctions and pressure it's impossible let's not be driven by emotion and push north korea into a corner. now it's evident that there are some differences between the south korean and the russian position here the south korean government of course do favor a strengthening of u.n. sanctions against north korea particularly targeting the oil sector something that will very much appreciate as an escalation in this crisis the russians of course have favored diplomacy negotiation long term and that still seems to be the case aside from that it's very much business as usual here for quite literally there's delegations here from over fifty countries several thousand people in attendance here hoping to sign trade and business deals last year that equal about thirty two

billion dollars so very much significance in the asia pacific region but also with the former governor of the u.s. state of california and he says north korea poses a great risk to global security and that dialogue is needed. north korea of course is a threat nobody can ignore this thing is moving quickly with north korea we talked about i didn't feel there was any real clear path forward but i do know this close friend exchange between russia u.s. and china and other countries in the region are absolutely crucial and wiser minds i hope will prevail and be able to move north korea off this very dangerous path that they're on. washington has said meanwhile it will continue to deploy troops and weapons to the korean peninsula one top u.s. army official says that is to address pyongyang's self destructive actions

america's deployment of hardware includes craft carrier strike group and the missile ships as well as fighter jets and helicopters and washington so are reportedly preparing to hold more military drills south korea my also asked the u.s. to redeploy its nuclear weapons to an insurer is shutting the now reports south korea is currently eyeing a possible redeployment of u.s. nuclear weapons on its territory which if approved would bring the military build up around north korea to the highest level. we would need to find realistic countermeasures by reviewing all the political military options in a serious security situation with north korea's nuclear missile threats but the question is will this drastic move have the desired effect of making north korea back down while of the past few months have taught us anything now but being young and washington are nowhere near to dialing their saber rattling back only raising the stakes higher and higher kim jong un shows no such understanding his abusive

use of missiles and his nuclear threats show that he is begging for war any threat to the united states or territories including. or our allies will be met with a massive military response. president reaffirmed the commitment of the united states to defending our homeland territories and allies using the full range of diplomatic conventional and nuclear capabilities so disposal so as a nuclear option the next step would trump make that call looking back trump has always had a rather shall we say unconventional approach to nuclear weapons during his iconic one thousand nine hundred interview with playboy he confessed nuclear war was on his mind and it seems the idea hasn't exactly gone away first of all you don't want to say take everything off the table just you know better go shoot or if you do this nuclear look nuclear should be off the table but with be a time when it could be used possibly the trouble is when you said earlier even

america's oldest allies can't count themselves one hundred percent safe can you tell the middle east or not use the nuclear weapon and never say that i would never take any of my cards off the table but europe we won't use and you're going to take it off the day you might use it in europe. and surprisingly trump wants the u.s. to expand its nuclear arsenal because apparently if you're going to have nukes you better have more than everybody else it would be wonderful the green would be that no country would have no. but if countries are going to have nukes we're going to be. at the top of the pack yes for every major world leader at the option is always on the table and to be fair trump has said that it's highly highly highly highly unlikely he would resort to nuclear action and prefers a world without nukes but even if it's just about scaring the enemy when nukes are dominating the thought processes of kim and trump the rest of the world would appreciate more predictability and transparency in the thought process. r.t. washington d.c. well russia and china did offer their solution to the standoff over north korea at

an emergency u.n. security council meeting on monday moscow and beijing proposed what's being called a double freeze initiative and under that plan north korea would stop its nuclear and ballistic missile tests and then in return the u.s. and south korea would hold their joint military exercises however the u.s. is to smith the proposal as insulting. we spoke exclusively with russia's new ambassador to washington and he told us world powers do need to work together to resolve the crisis i cannot he would mention in north korea it's a great challenge for us for united states we have to secure the n.p.t. nonproliferation treaty and please don't forget the united states it's too far from north korea but north korea is our neighbor frankly i can't see any problem. to deal with all outstanding issues with the united states. now angle merkel may be

the front runner in the german election but she's been met by an angry crowd on the latest stop of her campaign trail but the details his base are all of. it is fair to say that this is being a fairly tepid election campaign in germany even by the well relatively low bar set by german elections in the past moments of drama how of common courtesy of those right wing political activists who've been turning up at angela merkel's campaign rallies now these people who are on the whole fundamentally opposed to angela merkel's refugee policy or they've been turning or booing jeering and blowing whistles events as she's traveled around the country and the latest happened in heidelberg in the south of the country well this time there was an added edge as to tomatoes were thrown as angela merkel took the stage one of them clipping the german chancellor on the hip another one of them though splattering one of the moderators angela merkel in fact offered her a handkerchief to clean herself up during the debate though during the rally she

was asked a question about what does she think her best qualities are and she pretty much said cardless under pressure noticeably not making reference to the flying fruit that occurred earlier in fact anglo-american was so unfazed by the tomato incident that she even kept the same jacket on when she appeared at a later rally in the city of stuttgart now it was expected that this campaign could have been a very closely run thing between angela merkel in a christian democratic union party and martin schultz and the social democrats if we go back to march they were almost neck in neck now though angle of merkel leads by around fifteen percent in the polls and it seems almost impossible for the social democrats to claw that back and it does seem that angle of merkel will be returned as chancellor but they're still a couple of weeks ahead but when it comes to drama in this campaign we're really picking up crumbs and soon to come this hour a u.n. report claims that the syrian government used chemical weapons against civilians

we'll have live reaction to this after the break. the feeling of going to. every the world should experience. that you get a little. according to just. come along for the. show seemed wrong. just don't. let me. get to shape out to stay active. and engaged equals betrayal.

when so many find themselves worlds apart. just to look for common ground. hello again a report out today from the un accuse the said syrian government of using chemical weapons against civilians and also blames it for a sarin gas attack in april in italy province poor slip has more. the united nations syria commission has issued a report in which it found that there was a chemical attack that was carried out back in april in live and that those responsible were government forces using sarin gas against the civilian population

they based the contributions first and foremost on interviews with eyewitnesses victims and medical workers they also used videos and photographs but what is important is that the investigators themselves did not travel to the scene of this attack and not at the investigators of a previous report that was conducted by the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons the o.p.c. w and the findings of the o.p.c. w. report also used by the u.n. commission as of this time around but what is also important here is that the o.p.c. w. reported not assign blame it really was investigating whether or not this attack took place so what this means is that the question of who is to blame who is responsible is still open now the united nations report to not only focus on this alleged chemical strike it also looked at the question of civilian casualties due to the coalition air strikes in syria and what is not clear is why they mixed these

two topics together particularly because the coalition civilian deaths constitute an important part of the report and they are based on solid evidence not least because that evidence is coming from the coalition forces themselves they have a detailed look at civil cases that are confirmed by the coalition forces and you have the coalition as meting to killing more than six hundred civilians although activists say that that number goes into the thousands now a huge chunk of those you report is devoted to this question of civilian deaths caused by the coalition forces and only what's at the end of the report. is there mention about this chemical attack and yet despite this on twitter the united nations has called those a report into the use of chemical weapons in higher shy couldn't and not a report into civilian casualties that were caused by the coalition forces in syria

. ok we can talk with charles bridge now he's a security analyst and counter terror expert about this latest report. what are your views here then do you think there are reasonable grounds to believe the syrian forces were responsible for this sarin attack. there are some grounds to suggest an attack took place but as your reporter has just mentioned it's still very much. up in the air to use perhaps an unfortunate phrase us to where the liability culpability of this law is it's interesting in this report i've read through this report issued today by the commission of inquiry into syria one of the un bodies that's looking at syria it's interesting that it cites for example the earlier report a more detailed report in this instant by the international chemical weapons watchdog which is the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons the a p c w the u.n. today this commission of inquiry cites their findings into this incident however

very notably and absent from the u.n. report the. report was found on a balance of probabilities one might say that sarin was indeed used for solving type substance and caused these tests the. report not only as your reporter just said didn't attribute blame in fact it wasn't within its mandate to attribute blame but very significantly and actually ignored by almost all of the western media that report by the o.p.c. w which this report today relies on absolutely it does not find evidence of an aerial attack it's found no convincing evidence that an airstrike was responsible for this it may be that further evidence emerges but it's quite significant of course given that if there had been an attack with using an air dropped device remnants of that all evidence of that would've remained but the opposition who

controlled the at the time have failed to deliver that to the o.p.c. w. and so yet again we've got a situation as in previous reports by the commission of inquiry and indeed others where the blame for the use of chemical weapons upon assad is based solely on the evidence of witnesses and in many case. if not most those witnesses are not reliable for example they constitute people who are not unbiased they constitute people such as what the report calls first responders that otherwise of course are known as the white house it's a un us funded group that purports to carry out lots of rescues but in fact when you look at it in more depth as actually seems to been set up with its primary. and indeed anti russia propaganda vehicle by british and american under the funding. just looking at the language of saying there are reasonable grounds to say something like this believes the saudi government is responsible is it just misleading to say that given everything you've just said and what we've heard in

our report there are many questions to be asked here should you really be saying in our opinion we think there could be grounds suggest that because we all know what will happen people just quote this report and eventually say oh that report said that he did it. yeah i think they're wrong in this they may not be wrong. but that conclusion is still far from proven and the evidence simply isn't there to see support that conclusion so when i say there are reasonable grounds there are reasonable grounds as the i.p.c.c. is found to conclude that sarin was used but that is far from saying that this is sarin came from an air drop weapon and if it didn't come from an air drop weapon given that this area is controlled by a combination of different jihadist groups that would tend to support the alternative theory or an alternative theory that income in fact conscious was a false flag incident designed to provoke a response from primarily america and remember that response did happen did or

decrease missiles to hit syria as a result of that incident and break up the consensus that was developing at the time between russia and the united states and the west over how to deal with syria and so therefore yes it's i agree with you entirely it isn't reasonable to say there are reasonable grounds to suspect that this attack was carried out by assad or the syrian air force notwithstanding that there are reasonable grounds to suspect as has been found with better evidence that sarin attack or some one incident to take place i would point out though very quickly that there is going to be a much more detailed report issued by the joint investigative mechanism which is a joint body between the u.n. and the c.w. that is geo out later this year and so we should await what its findings might be sure ok charles thanks for your time today that was child security analyst and counter terror expert thank you. ok we're going to return to our breaking news this hour because two men have been arrested in a suburb of paris on suspicion of posting

a terror attack charlotte devinsky he's in the french ones is now with the details . what else do we know. well as you mentioned there we understand that two men have been arrested following a raid by police. in the south of paris in a suburb called now what we understand is that a plumber a maintenance worker had been at an apartment and had alerted the authorities to what he thought was suspicious material inside that apartment now we understand from the raid that material that could be used to make explosives and bomb such as gas canisters and wires were found at that apartment and subsequently the person who rented that apartment and somebody else arrested now we understand that they will face terrorist charges and they will appear before the judges here in france on friday just to make this. even more tricky we understand

that while those two men were questioned today one of them has actually admitted that he had been selling bullet proof vests to another man who is a suspect in the murder case here in france and is also alleged to been plotting terror offenses here against churches in france well these aren't the only terror arrests that we've seen in europe today there were also six arrests that took place in spanish territory in the city of. this is actually a spanish city in the spanish territory which is right next to morocco on the african continent and what we understand is those individuals were arrested today suspected of being involved with. islamic states and we understand from police sources that the suspects had been holding nightly meetings including holding terror training sessions in which they were simulating assassinations that come from police sources but we have also heard from the police that there were no

apparent links between this alleged terrorist cell in the city of lilya and the terrorist cell that carried out those attacks just a few weeks ago in barcelona and income on the mainland of spain. ok thanks. in paris thank you. more news and more updates. possible in the dubrovnik in venice our will fix travel destinations so it must be nice to live there or is it the. crowds of tourists disrupt the city's economic and social life in them a little bit before this on the celestial all such as the traditional story some not as i am sometime soon as we don't spend money into a school but days

a month while the city's try desperately not to collapse. it. will put this up it will probably be global in the. cup of. tea in the bushes up the on saabs knock up the supposed to me about. to. run. as a tourist phobia will fail fall into an identity. with . mark zuckerberg at facebook. arguing about artificial intelligence is going to destroy the world. says maybe we'll mark zuckerberg has already destroyed the world so why does he care let's find out.

hello and welcome to crossfire all things considered i'm peter lavelle how bad can it get how low can russian u.s. relations go at this point it's anyone's guess but one thing is for sure donald trump's call for better relations is now dead in the water. across talking russian u.s. relations i'm joined by my guest here in moscow mark sloboda he's an international affairs and security analyst we also have petro he is a professor of political science at university of rhode island and we.