cia chief. foreign intelligence official who says. the democratic party was an inside job. cyberattack we speak to them. underestimated. and do not try. percent a stark warning to north korea on this tour of asia he's now in china where he's pushing beijing to take a tougher stance against. the first time since the cold war nato increases its. europe to speed up truth moved across the continent. i.

know independence protesters have clashed with police at a railway station it's part of a general strike demonstrators. in protest of the jailing of top politicians. good evening thanks for joining us this hour. the cia director mike one player has come under fire for meeting with a former intelligence official over the alleged hacking of the democratic party back in twenty sixteen the u.s. intelligence community laid the blame for that hack on moscow met with william binney a former national security agency official turned whistleblower in the believes

that the alleged hack of the democratic national committee was in fact a leak carried out by a d.n.c. employee who also coauthored a memo to the president on the issue for which he's been dubbed a conspiracy theorist i spoke to been himself about his encounter with the cia director. only thing they say is well the intelligence committee f.b.i. and n.s.a. and cia you know say that this is true so i went through the technical data that we is the veteran intelligence professionals who have technical experience all of the technical data that we had available and could look at the analyze and from that was very clear that it was a local download because of the speeds and all i mean we've even tried to transfer data across the atlantic with through the web. and see what speeds we could achieve and the most we got was like twelve megabytes per second and you needed at least thirty eight megabytes just to pass the data not counting housekeeping so that meant that the capacity was about one fourth the one eight what would be necessary

to transfer that data to somewhere in europe for example and when you spoke about wi on lies the data is that meaning i was reading about an expert forensic aids or is the person who was an allies in the data for you well he was looking at the data yes and so were about five or six other people. and i was looking at the output of that trying to assess that. just to verify and we also tried to test it in the real world not in the speculative world trying to do the transfer to make it something that would be compatible with that download rate and we could not achieve that either so i want to challenge you on this one because i read that one of the members of your kind of team that was working on this they disagreed with you but they weren't so convinced and i mean convinced that this was definitely the case that this had to be a download is it's not possible to transfer that spade the best we got was from a data center in new jersey to a data center in the u.k. and the best was twelve megabytes per second that's what i said was one fourth the one eight the necessary capacity to transfer that data at the rate it was download

so it had to be done locally there was no substantive evidence anywhere if they could produce some factual evidence that we could look at and analyze find but so far they produced absolutely nothing. back in two thousand and thirteen william binney was a welcome guest on american news channels when he exposed privacy violations in the n.s.a. spying program then c.n.n. described him as a whistleblower with a dramatic story however now the network seems to have changed its tune describing him instead as a conspiracy theorist nimbin himself says that the channel uses labels instead of actual evidence they have a problem of course because they've been asserting this kind of. speculation at the gender driven stuff for over a year now and it would be kind of difficult to go back after that so but i mean to me it basically shows the the shallow weakness of the argument when you have to throw labels at people instead of dealing with any factual evidence in fact

the f.b.i. knows a lot more about this than are telling anybody so it is n.s.a. but they're not saying it either so and they're not telling that this is information i'm getting from other sources i don't have it substantiated but they need to come forward and say exactly what they've got so far they've not done that . nato is increasing the number of military headquarters in europe for the first time since the cold war the meeting in brussels the alliances chief also announced the introduction of cyber activity in military operations all amid growing tensions with russia. the other petition of the nato command structure will further strengthen our ability to reinforce our laws quickly effectively. but military will be that this is not only about new homes it is also about the ability to move forces on the quitman quickly with the right transport the right infrastructure all the idea is to create this europe wide zone where it's easy to move forces and

equipment around nato commanders want to get rid of a lot of the red tape in europe in order for them to take things like tanks and military hardware and personnel and move them transport them from one country to another across the continent at speed and even though the chief of the military alliance insists that they're not saying any specific country. turns on the senses not other to the against any specific nation or may take everything that he came about as a way of containing communism that was it's resonant with that no longer an issue in recent years one of its top priorities has been containing russia we have seen the much more assertive russia we have seen the russia which has over many years invested heavily in. their military capabilities modernize the military capabilities now as part of this announced revamp there also plans to help protect

sea lines of communication for the military alliance which in the event of war would be a vital supply route to europe now all this talk of preparedness for a potential war with russia is pretty reminiscent of the sort of rhetoric we heard all those years ago during the cold war the kremlin has accused nato of pursuing an aggressive strategy on its borders that threatens to destabilize eastern europe with nato his latest move to expand its military capabilities on the continent this cycle of military saber rattling appears to only be getting worse. little analyst chris bambery believes that the moves are a threat to world peace sir continuation an expansion program of needs or which is very dangerous to world peace and the idea there is going to be a central atlantic command talk of

a possible war in the article why this should be the case i don't know all but a possible war with russia and there in the arctic i returned to the sorts of dogfights vote bullets we saw in russian and american. russian american waters in the atlantic all of this is ratcheting it up and it comes at a time when really i think we do need to be concerned about what is going on here and the potential threats to peace in europe and on the wider field. the united states and north korea have been trading insults once again pyongyang has called trump the lunatic old man before adding that washington is not fit to act as a judge of human rights but after president trump described north korea as being a hell that no one deserves this during his stop in seoul as part of his asian tour and as usual trump didn't miss a chance to stick it to north korea on twitter there is a warning video accompanied by

a rather dramatic soundtrack. response of. course. our response. our to. this danger to get. comments. president trump is now in china for the next much anticipated leg of his trip the visit has already though proved pretty fruitful it's been reported the u.s. and china signed some twenty trade deals with nine billion dollars the chinese side dubbed them a warm up before a big a ceremony coming on thursday spirit can look back now though at trump and cheese previous meeting. as donald trump arrives in china on his five nation asia tour it's now the chinese president's turn to roll out the red carpet just six months

ago the chinese leader came to washington and the two hit it off bonding over chocolate cake but trump couldn't help but be a bit theatrical during the dinner topping the magnificent dessert with a show of washington's military might we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you've ever seen and president she was enjoying it so what happens is i said we've just launched a fifteen minute missiles heading to iraq and what would you have had to syria yes heading toward syria trump loves his weapons so much he thinks they're the solution to every problem and when the threat is as serious as north korea all the other countries in the region must be armed to the teeth and prepared to respond well that's the idea he's been trying to sell on his asia trip so far in both japan and south korea prime minister the band is going to be purchasing massive amounts of military equipment as he should south korea will be ordering billions of dollars of

that equipment we make the best military equipment by far we make the greatest military equipment in the world the f. thirty five fighter which is the greatest in the world the greatest in the world missiles of many different kinds whether it's planes whether it's missiles we make the best the greatest military equipment by far in the world the purchasing it from the united states. now trump is counting on the chinese president to back him up as he puts pressure on pyongyang president xi where we will be tomorrow china has been very helpful we'll find out how helpful so on but he really has been very very helpful well it's often said that diplomacy is merely seduction in another guys so the question is will trump's efforts to seduce the chinese. leader carry over and will he be able to strike a sweet deal for the u.s. set me up high on our t. washington d.c.

our common director of the case crisis research institute in oxford believes that the weapons that trump is pushing allies thereby abound to leave china concerned his willingness to sell and indeed his insistence that japan and south korea must buy sophisticated american anti missile technology is something that worries trying to particular to a lesser extent russia because of course these kind of anti missile systems based in south korea or japan might provide defense against north korea but their radars would also reach deep into the people's republic of china and be an intelligence threat to china itself so one reason why china would like to calm the issue is so that particular south korea could avoid being pushed into buying american military equipment and intelligence gathering equipment that could provide the u.s. with eyes into china itself as well as provide a kind of defense against any possible maverick north korean missile launch. saudi arabia has detained dozens of royal figures in ministers in what is calling phase

one of an anti corruption push these arrests do not represent the start but the completion of phase one of our anti-corruption push eleven princes four ministers and many ex ministers were detained by the saudi anti corruption body the u.s. president has expressed his approval for the controversial move this by the fact that one of his former business partners was reportedly among those detained with more details is artie's jacqueline bouvier. riyadh's ritz carlton became the impromptu site and luxurious prison for some of saudi arabia's most wealthy and powerful over the weekend it was a serious fall from grace for those rounded up including princes ministers and business people who had to make do with sleeping on the floor in the five star hotel. it's all part of an unprecedented anti-corruption purge decreed by the king and put

into motion by thirty two year old prince mohammad the sweeping arrests are thought to be the young saudi heirs gamble to stamp out political rivals and clear his way to power and on that way he is ready to shatter decades of royal traditions by breaking saudi arabia's addiction to oil we will not have it to be at the mercy of commodity price volatility or external markets we have developed a case of oil addiction in saudi arabia and his rise to power principal home it has also forged a close relationship with the trump administration. so it perhaps came as no surprise when trump gave his backing to the so-called corruption purge on twitter i have great confidence in king salmon and the crown prince of saudi arabia they know exactly what they are doing. some of those they

are harshly treating have been milking their country for years so who exactly is as donald trump claims milking saudi arabia dry one person is sixty two year old prince all what we'd been told all internationally known businessman holding shares in several u.s. companies like apple twitter citigroup and time warner funding early enough trump himself has ties to bin talal who reportedly helped bail out the tycoon turned president twice in the ninety's but the relationship seemingly fell apart in two thousand and fifteen you are a disgrace not only to the g.o.p. but to all america withdraw from the us presidential race as you will never win don't be prince our will lead to control our u.s. politicians with daddy's money can do it when i get elected apparently that doesn't always apply to saudis pouring money into america trump is now pleading for the gulf states national oil company to float its shares on the new york stock exchange so while term criticizes those arrested for milking saudi arabia it would seem the

us president has nothing against milking riyadh's coffers to fill washington's syrian army and its allies so that they've liberated the last the major eisel stronghold in syria the town of. the town is on the border with iraq and was the terrorist last major bastion after they were driven from the city of their resort places defense ministry recently noted islamic state controlled less than five percent of every street in syria and that was before these last major trees. like to begin to guess now director of middle east studies at the university of oklahoma joshua landis joins me on the line just sure this victory can we go so far as to say this is the the fall of in syria. it is this is the last major town that's held by isis in syria the iraqi army has pushed out from al qaim

the sister city across the border on the euphrates just recently and so the two armies met up and this a last major town on the euphrates there may be some small little. crossroads in the middle of the desert but does that mean mucked up quickly this is the end of isis as a state. the villages is said to be an important crossing guerrier into iraq terrorists are not going to be able to move freely through that crossing does that mean that this is going to now how the the ice left it's in iraq as well absolutely iraq is pretty well locked down by the government troops and so is syria today because the kurds in the north supported by the united states been pushing east as well as the syrian army supported by russia in the south have been pushing both armies and pushing east in

a race russia and the syrian regime have been successful in taking book from all major towns along the euphrates they took terrorist or just a week ago and now the real question will be what happens to the oil in syria much of the oil is dominated in the north by the kurds syria will need that oil in order to rebuild. and if and when all of the terrorists have gone what will it mean for example with the civil war will that rage on or is there more of a chance of that coming to an end. well. president assad it is a very dominant position but there are significant sections of syria in the north around it live province in the south near doll which are still owned by rebel troops and that that that so that battle is going to proceed for months to come turkey has entered in the north we know that united states also in the north

helping the kurds so assad has not taken back all syrian territory as he's promised you. and you talked about the oil just how significant is this in the conflict that we've seen in syria and in iraq to what extent are all the parties involved willing to put bodies on the line to get control of these valuable facilities. well as you say in iraq we've just seen the iraqi central government moves very determinately against the kurdish holding of your kook a major city with oil supplies so the iraqi government took that back that has hobbled the kurds in iraq in their effort to gain independence because today they don't own enough oil to become independent they were going to become that they will be dependent on baghdad if you give them will money according to the constitution in syria the situation is quite different because of american support

the kurds have been able to take quite a bit of the oil wells over fifty percent of syria's oil now belongs to the kurds poil used to be forty percent of all government revenues before the uprising so that means. that the syrian government is going to be hard put to rebuild the massive destruction if it doesn't recapture those levels i cited said he's going to take them. we'll have to see how that how that proceeds joshua appreciate you taking the time to speak to us director of middle east studies at the university of oklahoma joshua landis thank you. now tensions are high outside of a station in barcelona right now this is where there's been a major standoff between pro independence protesters and the police and we can bring you live pictures from the scene now officers moved in a short time ago this was to try and move away activists stuff that they have lost

the entrance to the stage. i i i i police are currently massively on members by protesters who were chanting pro dependent slogans the standoff comes falling a general strike that brought much of the region to a halt activists blocked crucial transport networks in major cities and this was in protest over the jailing of the region's leaders madrid accuses them of rebellion in its edition today the noble regions the ration and i said during the strike roads trains they were blocked by the protesters and we've

also got pictures here from sharon where protesters cut off the region road that connects spain to friends and your own a train station hundreds of demonstrators broke through a police cordon. us i i i i i i or a quick recap of what's happened in catalonia over the last month or so. on october first the region held an independence referendum but that was marred by a violent police crackdown an overwhelming majority voted to break away from spain independence was declared an october twenty seventh later that day though madrid stripped the region of self rule in order to snap elections and then last week eight former counselor ministers were jailed on charges of sedition and rebellion

meanwhile the spanish foreign minister says the madrid is ready to change the constitution in the interests of catalonia to have created a committee in the parliament to explore the possibility of amending the constitution to be able to sort of accommodate better you know the escalations of some of the crap from the people i think we are ready we you know we acknowledge that there is a political situation that deserves to be looked at but catalan spokesperson from the european partnership for independence told us that madrid will not bring peace to the region just thank you thank democratic force by the fact that an institution and obviously they want. to have you. know you're right it's an outrage it's very

critical for him for that for the spanish to stay to preach to make believe that they are the ones bringing peace when they are the ones bringing the bar and i know . you know just imagine way cats i mean if you show the spine just a little. while ago so national trait is that they. that they say and i'm from all this out in so many nations and they're universal rights in that i legitimately and my little guy. a top heavyweight boxer has become the latest russian to be cleared of unproven doping allegations by world governing bodies i can discuss this story now with artie's culture he joins me in the studio so imagine it's been a pretty difficult last year or so for the man i remember they called him the russian absolutely right alexander prevent their russian knights the last year was really saw for him he was basically a banned from

a boxing for his entire life and the man is just in his mid thirty's so he was definitely looking for another world title and this happens he was accused of steroids drug called auster and afterwards he was dropped from all the major organizations but now a year later and he has been cleared by all international books are going to but once again lost more than a year when he was accused it was sort of a swift trial or no trial at all if you will and even quicker. as he was banned from everything and. there were several samples taken off his blood five of which came back negative there were done in the laws and switzerland and one of them that was that was done in los angeles california at u.c.l.a. it was proved he was positive the organization that was running

a. career the filed a complaint with the world and. against this lab in los angeles and the subsequently the lab was suspended from work for three months and now sometime later we see alexander prevent can being cleared from all charges about his doping and we'll see him back on the range on the fifteenth of december that take place in . maine while the only punishment all the only sour note in all of this if you will is the two hundred fifty thousand dollars fine and you'll still have to put up sitting credible story a remarkable turnaround i don't imagine pretty embarrassing as well for the folks in florida happens in the world before that a boxer was brought back from a lifetime ban yeah. like you said i think questions really need to go a bit deeper now how this was possible very interesting story that many thanks for man caused. and let's stay with the issue of drugs and doping because russia's

investigative committee has rejected claims that the country had been running an elaborate state sponsored doping program and said the world anti-doping agency provided no proof to back the findings of a report that was produced by the canadian lawyer richard mclaren with more on that is wrong because the. well they carried out an extensive in-depth investigation involving more than seven hundred athletes their coaches various medical personnel and they question them about the allegations in the mclaren report and a number of them they rejected firstly they rejected the claim that some of the some pulls was switched and this claim was made in the mclaren report it says it said that some of them are normal or some of the samples indicating that perhaps they were mixed with salt and distilled water in order to hide the banned chemical substances in the samples while the investigators stage their own experiments and they found that depending on how intensely an athlete trained what he had drunk his

unique physiological exchange process as well many samples could be found as anomalous the second claim that they rejected was that the urine sample bottles themselves were tampered with were opened them manufactured by a swiss company and they're made to be incredibly difficult to open if not impossible to open and close without leaving any sort of mark and back in march there was an experiment that investigation which found that these a urine bottles can't be opened without damaging the integrity of the bottles themselves or even destroying them so that claim doesn't fly either the other claim that they rejected was that there was a state sponsored massive national doping program in russia investigators say the evidence that they have is that there is no evidence that mclaren report hasn't

offered any of them mass duping distance but the investigators did say that they don't deny that there may have been individual cases of athletes using banned substances but those seven hundred questioned many of them said that. they did indeed buy performance enhancing drugs which they believed to be legal from grigori he's the former head of the russian anti doping agency on whose testimony much of the mclaren report was was made and here's what they had to say matthew that's what caught our developing while taking the drugs i'd bought from roche and give it said the tests would always been negative if we used these drugs later he took them off me and never gave them back my athletes was disqualified for two years even though we deny using prohibited drugs later i remember i bought some drugs from rob chink of jury in the testing period now i suspect the drugs he sold me were banned. allegedly claimed that the athletes that these were illegal substances but after

doping tests they were marked as positives nevertheless grigori watching of himself investigators claim they have this phone call on record on tape he called the current head of the russian anti-doping agency and offered money a bribe in return for a database of all russian athletes doping results. it was concluded that flushing who is now in the u.s. and works with professor mclaren telephoned a former site i had and asked her to sell him the database of russian athletes test results that the former senator had told russian investigators about this and now the committee has records of their conversations earlier this month of course to russian athletes skiers both were banned for life from competing in the olympics due to positive results in doping tests but the questions being asked here now is that if the investigation is still ongoing.