me and its allies liberate the last i saw stronghold in syria brings the terror group self-proclaimed caliphate in the country. i. know independence protesters clashed with police at barcelona railway station it's part of a general strike that see demonstrators blocking the roads in protest over the jailing of top politicians. and cia chief comes under fire for meeting a former intelligence official who says that last year's hack of the democratic party was an inside job rather than a russian directed cyber attack we've spoken to the man behind the play.

thanks for joining us this hour my name's they'll harvey you're watching our international. the syrian army and its allies including the lebanese militia has by last said that they have liberated the last major eisel stronghold in syria the town of carmel the town is on the border with iraq and was the terrorist last major fasti and after they were driven from the city of daraa saw the recapture of the town gives damascus its first border crossing with their ranks since the region fell under control of i saw back in twenty twelve cents ministry recently noted that islamic state controlled less than five percent of territory in syria and that was before these last two major victories. let's bring in our library journalist and commentator do you think that this victory is effectively the end of iceland oh

there's some pockets of resistance but would you call this the end for them in syria. will certainly does. it seems that the radical group is living its final days in syria now they don't have any major towns to control across the country they have villages and the areas they control are very easy to take by the syrian army and its allied forces in upcoming days and i think today it's not only about defeating isis out of syria completely but also about recreating. that creates lebanon that connects lebanon syria iraq and iran which in a way could signal success to damascus has been. since two thousand and fifteen at least since the beginning of the russian intervention in syria bearing in mind that the united states has repeatedly said it would like to create

a situation to prevent this kind of land connections between the four countries what about some of those small pockets of terrorists i was talking about they're said to be in some of the neighboring villages in the region how important is it to wipe them out and how long do you think it could take. well we have to take a look at the geography it's open deserts very difficult to defend for arsenal especially without any major towns or cities to go to for talking. and food supplies and other main supplies the more likely scenario is that an upcoming days . would seek an escape from these villages and try to seek some kind of settlement similar to this ultimately reach with a certain demographic force those are the kurds the mainly kurdish militias when they evacuate in iraq. and try to leave the country and for iraq or into. other powers under the control of the kurdish militias i think we're speaking here of

water in a matter of weeks. definitely before the end of two thousand and seventeen but i think these sporadic pockets and villages they're not important in the larger context of defeating arsenal i think the radical group has been completely pushed out of syria bearing in mind that the syrian army did not of issue an official statement declaring the full control of officers operating their field commanders have told me that they need perhaps the early hours of the morning before they can declare that the city has been fully recaptured taking into consideration that overnight things could change some remaining i could attempt to retake parts of the of the neighborhoods of that town but it's only a matter of hours before the army issued an official statement saying that they have fully and officially taken the city of come up. with a terrorist skulled what will that mean for syria in terms of the civil war is it more likely to come to an end shortly. well i don't think it means that the

civil conflict in syria is coming to an end because of our still being defeated the feeling was the only thing everyone agreed upon since two thousand and thirteen and i saw sort of rising in syria as one of the main rebel forces fighting against the syrian government and then it became what we know as the islamic state right now what used to be the islamic state i think now puts many of the regional and international powers who have been interested and invested in the syrian conflict on a course where they have to face up the new facts that the syrian government is the major fighting force inside the country that the kurdish militias control substantial parts of syria that russia would be. voted player in any upcoming settlement. syrian conflict because of the role it played to a lot of the feet of and i think all these factors could if the regional players

accept the new facts on the ground could put the country on the course of a political solution very good moment the control of the rebels in syria is somewhat if not very limited to three or four. areas across the country and as a result it would be easier to reach a settlement which we have seen before of the syrian conflict that many of the international players and the regional players such as saudi arabia qatar turkey and other occasions they are not america have decided to go against the facts on the ground and try to create a new situation to. implement what they think their political interest in syria so again. the future of this prepares the conditions for a political settlement to end the conflict in syria but this is dependent on how the major players will deal with the new facts on the ground and finally a lot it's been said that this latest plan to be taken as a key crossing point into iraq for the weapons as well as terrorists how much will that we can cause in iraq how will it take them to be defeated that. well the

fact that the syrian army have been working with the iraqi army and the iraqi militias to defeat arsal in this border town and actually pushing our command would not been that easy had it not been that in the previous few days in the previous seventy two hours iraqi forces were able to encircle. which is the other part of that crossing between syria and iraq and preventing the from moving any supplies into the city of who will come out i think it signals not only that defeating onslaught in iraq but we also very close but again we're speaking cleared of all the new level of coordination unprecedented and actually in the past few decades between syria and iraq a mostly coalition community around that could again change the many facts we know in the middle east with these two very major conference call for. into government to go big leagues of government in many aspects and many issues not to recover for

the few thousand perhaps the abuse and of a few years of corp and could be there with. a new era. would bring helps to change the face of the middle east as we know moment thanks for joining us alarmed by him is my guest syrian journalist and commentator. and to other news now the cia director mike has come under fire for meeting a former intelligence official of the alleged hacking of the democratic party back in two thousand and sixteen the u.s. intelligence community has laid the blame for that on moscow. with william binney he's a former national security agency official turned whistleblower then he believes that the alleged hack of the democratic national committee was in fact a leak carried out by a d.n.c. employee he also coauthored a memo to the president on the issue back in july. well let's remind you about the d.n.c. hack it was announced by a cyber security firm working for the d.n.c.

on june fourteenth two thousand and sixteen it was blamed on two russian linked groups the next day an anonymous hacker goose of a two point zero claimed responsibility for the attack but the d.n.c. didn't confirm that they claim responsibility for another breach on july fifth and later that month wiki leaks released thousands of the democratic party's e-mails william binney believes the files in the second attack were copied much too fast for remote breach to be the method that was used. one of the main issues i was there telling him is that i didn't believe the intelligence agencies were telling him or the president the truth 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 through the web. and see what speeds we could achieve 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 you because i read that one of the members of your 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. but in two thousand and thirteen william binney was. being welcomed on american news channels when he exposed privacy violations in n.s.a. spying program back then c.n.n. described him as a whistleblower with a dramatic story but now the network seems to change this chuen and describes him as a conspiracy theorist william binney 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 of the gender driven stuff for over a year now and it would be kind of difficult to go back off that so but

i mean to me it basically shows 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 they're 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 . pro independence protesters have clashed with police at the railway station in barcelona offices were trying to move the activists away after they block the entrance to the station. i police found themselves massively outnumbered by protesters who were chanting pro independence slogans the standoff took place after a general strike which had brought much of the region to

a halt activists blocking crucial transport networks in major cities that was in protest over the jailing of regional leaders madrid accuses them of rebellion and addition and this today of note the region's declaration of independence it was i hearing the strike roads trains were blocked by protesters there are pictures here from your own no where protesters cut off the regional route that connects spain to france and then a journey train station hundreds of demonstrators broke through a police cordon. yes i guess i guess i guess. i i. i i.

i. here's a quick recap of what happened in catalonia over the last month or so on october first the region held an independence referendum but was marred by a violent police crackdown an overwhelming majority voted to break away from spain independence was declared october twenty seventh later that day madrid stripped the region of self rule and ordered snap elections and then last week eight former counselor ministers we jailed on charges of sedition and rebellion. in the meantime the spanish foreign minister said that madrid is ready to amend the constitution in the interests of catalonia you have created a committee in the parliament to explore the possibility of them in the course of two sions to be able to sort of accommodate better you know the escalations of some of the catalan people i think we are reviewing we you know we acknowledge that there is a political situation that deserves to be looked at. and r.k.

has a come to learn spokes person from the european partnership for independence told us that madrid will not bring peace to the region just thank you to the regressive force by the crackdown on institutions and obviously every war that. you have you just don't know how you're right it does 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 violence final parting in an illegitimate way the cats are an institution that spans the state morally righteous do for no reason so national treaties that they signed that they'd be free and then promote the south and so many nations under universal rights in that fund i legitimately i mean damn dance i believe.

nato is increasing the number of its military headquarters in europe doing so for the first time since the cold war so that the alliance can move troops quicker across the continent all this amid growing tensions with russia. the other petition of the nato command structure will further strengthen our ability to reinforce our lives quickly effectively. but military will be that this is not only about new homes it is also about ability to move forces on the quitman quickly with the right transport means the right infrastructure and 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 targeting any specific country nato. turns on the senses the text of against any specific nation 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 them into you could build this now as part of this announced revamp they're 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. to only be asking why us. united states and north korea have been trading insults again pyongyang called trump the lunatic old man before adding that washington is not fit to act as a judge of human rights that after president trump a described north korea as a hell that no one deserves this during his stop in seoul as part of his tour of asia as usual tom didn't miss a chance to stick it to north korea on twitter he released a warning video accompanied by rather dramatic soundtrack. responsible strong words nicely. for. our response. our duty to

this danger to get. us. out. you. are with. us for. the. president is now in china for the next much anticipated leg of his trip a visit though has already proved fruitful it's been reported that the u.s. and china have signed some twenty trade deals worth nine billion dollars the chinese side has dubbed them merely a warm up before a bigger ceremony on thursday right now though anti semitic can take a look back at trump and she's 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 fiat's recall 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 fifty nine missiles heading to iraq and what were you headed 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 be purchasing it from the united states. thank you very much. now trump is counting on the chinese president to back him up as he puts pressure on pyongyang president 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. later carry over and will he be able to strike a sweet deal for the us. r t washington d.c. . a top heavyweight boxer has become the latest russian to be cleared of unproven doping allegations but will governing bodies discuss the story with auntie's in one

culture. has been going through something similar to what other russian athletes have been gone through of last years and that's of course related to. this particular war and that example was accused of taking steroids a year ago and following that it was trial or rather no trial at all and then and even a quicker punishment and he was banned for life and that decision one was based soley on one laboratory that was in los angeles california meanwhile european independent labs in switzerland showed his results proved negative of steroid use so the story is quite interesting and there's a lot to be said about it but speaking about that particular lab the. there was a complaint launched against him by the russian company also by some other clients

as well and consequently that was suspended from work for some time so you can see because of that decision of one lab unchecked and athlete lost an entire year off for his career but thankfully right now all of the governing guys ations like w.b.c. w b o. all of them have accepted back into their ranks and he will be back in the ring in december yes they've thought it a remarkable turnaround very embarrassing i would say for the for the books and also to stay many thanks to my culture. meanwhile russia's investigative committee has rejected claims that the country been running an elaborate state sponsored doping program and said that the world anti-doping agency had provided no proof to back the findings of a report by canadian lawyer richard mclaren with details of that his mind goes 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 pills was switched and this claim was made in the mclaren report it said 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 banned chemical substances in these 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 the mclaren report hasn't offered any of them mass stooping to stem 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 illegal 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 doping 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 remembered i bought some drugs from rob chink of during the testing period now i suspect the drugs he sold me were banned. allegedly claim 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 saddam had and asked her to sell him the database of russian athletes test results the former senator had told russian investigators about this and now the committee has records of their conversations earlier this month of course two 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 why are athletes already being banned for life and he spoke exclusively to russian sports minister pavel color cough on the country's cooperation with the international olympic committee and water as well as if russia will take part in the upcoming winter olympics in south korea. there's even a couple of the announcement made today by russia's investigative body is very

important i think what they should take into consideration the conclusions reached by russia's investigative body i very much hope there will be cooperation between these entities but with the aim to determine the truth if the area you see does decide on making sanctions against russia in games such as not allowing the russian national anthem to play or bahrain can get their feet from the opening ceremony would you consider that as being an acceptable humiliation for russia and would you then consider what we call the games. i don't like the word boycott there were boycotts in the one nine hundred eighty s. and had a very adverse effect on sport this is an impossible scenario now our team is calmly preparing for the games staying in constant contact with the i.o.c. on many points we do disagree i still hope that the final decision will be in the

name of sport i've said many times that athletes that violate doping rules should be punished but clean athletes shouldn't have to bear responsibility for those breaching the rules our goal is to make sure clean athletes get the right to compete but i think the international sports organizations have the same goal when making such decisions we must think about every individual athlete involved the. u.k. international development minister pretty but. quit it comes right after an official talks with king israeli officials in a letter to the prime minister patel apologized for what had happened and offered her resignation it's been revealed that she held twelve meetings while on holiday in august including with the head of the israeli foreign ministry but patel failed to inform the foreign office about it she is the second cabinet minister to fall in the u.k. in just a matter of days is more his and sincere churkin from london. this has led. lots of archy's ations of rebellious behavior acting in defiance with existing

process as well as calls to not just sack her but also u.k. foreign secretary boards johnson and we shouldn't be applying a special standard. and if if if if particular target has to go i find it difficult to see how he can stay in the to go there due to the care of the stool cost lives supplies above all true britain's chief diplomat and i find it difficult to see how he can stare at them well of course johnson is obviously no stranger to controversy but his latest blunder came following comments that he had made involving a case of a british citizen being kept in iran that could potentially prolong the amount of time this british citizen has to stay in jail in iran lots of questions about whether or not that behavior on his part was appropriate and all of this calms as to recent may's house of cards really seems to be tumbling left and right because of course we have been seeing most recently the scandals and accusations on investigation.