the syrian army and its allies liberate the last stronghold in syria bringing the terror groups and self-proclaimed caliphate in the country to an end. pro independence protesters clashed with police at barcelona railway station it is part of a general strike that has seen demonstrations block the roads in protest over the jailing of top politicians. and the cia chief mike comes under fire for meeting a former intelligence official who says last year's. democratic party was an inside job rather than a russian directed cyber attack we speak to the man behind the claim.

the syrian army and its allies including the lebanese militia has glossy that they have liberated the last major eisel stronghold in syria the town of. now the town is on the border with iraq and was the terrorists' last major bastion after they were driven from the city of paris or recapture of. damascus its first border crossing with iraq since the region fell under control of eisel back in two thousand and twelve russia's defense ministry recently noted islamic state controlled less than five percent of territory in syria and that was before the last two major victories abrams assistant professor of public policy at northeastern university told us about the possible problems to follow isis to feed in the region. so this latest battle really signals very much a big problem and therefore the end of the main you know political goal of islamic

. but islamic state so it's not yet. you know this is a group to attract tens of thousands of fighters from scores of countries and so there are many you know isis members and former isis members in that stronghold iraq and in syria you know so i do think that assad's power of the syrian government is expanding the country but i don't expect him to have all of the country because there are still remain you know tens of thousands of prepared to fight against this syrian their army and its militia. the cia director mike pump air has come under fire for meeting a former intelligence official over the alleged hacking of the democratic party back in two thousand and sixteen u.s. intelligence community has laid the blame for the hack on moscow pompei all met with william binney a former national security agency official turned whistleblower but he believes 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 back in july and 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 sixteen and it was blamed on two russian linked groups the next day an anonymous hacker goose of her two point zero claimed responsibility for the attack but the d.n.c. didn't confirm that he took credit for another breach on july fifth and later that month we could leaks released thousands of the democratic party's e-mails earlier my colleague neil harvey spoke to william binney who believes that the files in the second attack were copied much too fast for a remote breach to be the method used. one of the main issues i was there telling him was 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 as the veteran intelligent rational 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 in this way 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 to guest on american news channels when he exposed privacy violations in the n.s.a.'s 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 as

a conspiracy theorist william binney himself says 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 to back off 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 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 and i really station in barcelona official officials excuse me tried to move the activists away after they block the entrance to the station. it was it was

it was. so massively outnumbered by protesters who were chanting pro independence slogans a standoff that took place after a general strike brought much of the region to a halt of activists blocking crucial transport networks in major cities and a protest over the jailing of regional leaders agreed accuses them of rebellion and sedition and has today and molded the region's declaration of independence. during the strike roads and trains were blocked by protesters these are pretty pictures from. where protesters cut off the original route connecting spain to france and that major run a train station. hundreds of demonstrators broke through a police cordon.

a quick recap of what has happened in catalonia over the past month or so on october the first the region held an independence referendum marred by a violent police crackdown an overwhelming majority voted to break away from spain and independence was declared on october the twenty seventh later that day madrid stripped the region of self rule and ordered snap elections and last week former catalan ministers were jailed on charges of sedition and rebellion meanwhile the spanish foreign minister says madrid is ready to amend the constitution in california's interest we have created a committee in the parliament to explore the possibility of amending the go situations to be able to accommodate better vs predations 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 on r k a catalan spokes person from the european partnership for independence told us madrid will not bring peace to the region. thank you do you think the regressive forced by the facts are an institutional and obviously. that's not. you just thank you you are right because it's an outrage it's very critical for him for that for the spanish estate to preach to make believe that they are the ones bringing peace when they are the ones bringing the bar and i know who partying in an illegitimate way the cats are an institution especially just a morally righteous do for no more seem so national charities that they signs that they be found on promote the sound of terminations under universal rights in that

fund i legitimately dance i believe. nato is increasing the number of its military headquarters in europe for the first time since of the cold war it is so the alliance can move troops quicker across the continent all amid growing tensions with russia. the other petition of the nato command structure will further strengthen our ability to reinforce our lives quickly and 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 road transport means the right infrastructure or 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 need to. turn to the senses the text of against any specific nation in recent years one of its top priorities has been containing russia we have seen them much more assertive russia we have seen the russia which has over many years invested heavily in their military capabilities modernize that military capabilities 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 appears to only be getting worse. well at a meeting in brussels the nato chief also announced of introduction of cyber activity in military operations political analyst chris bambery believes the moves are a threat to world peace a 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 to talk of a possible war in the article why this should be the case i don't know but a possible war with russia and there in the arctic i return to the sorts of dogfights without bullets we saw in russian and american planes russian american

warships 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 u.s. and north korea have traded insults again pyongyang has called trump a lunatic old man before adding that washington is unfit to act as a judge of human rights that comes after president trump described north korea as a hell that no one deserves during his stop in seoul as part of his asian tour well and as usual trumpet did not miss a chance to stick it to north korea on twitter he released a warning video accompanied by a rather dramatic soundtrack take a look. response. astroids force isolate. our response our duty to run this danger to get. us. up and secure.

us for. our secret lives. and our president trump is now in china for the next much anticipated leg of his trip and the visit has already proved fruitful. is being reported that the u.s. and china have signed some twenty trade deals worth nine billion dollars the chinese side as it dug them a warm up before a bigger ceremony on thursday artie's american looks back at trump and she's previous meetings. 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 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 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 leave 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. so marathon r.t. washington d.c. . russia has rejected claims by the world anti-doping agency that russian athletes have used banned substances in competition for much more traffic for.

manufactured consent to public wealth. when the ruling classes project themselves. in the final. weekend or middle of the room sit.

back as arch international live from moscow with me shaun thomas now a top heavyweight boxer has become the latest russian to be cleared of unproven dumping allegations by world governing bodies over my colleague neil harvey discussed the story with parties on cost off. safley that has been going through something similar to what other russian athletes have been gone through the last years and that's of course related to. this particular war in that example that kid was accused of taking steroids a year ago and following that it was swift 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 to. prove a negative steroids use so this 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 lab was suspended from work for some time so you can see because of that decision one lab unchecked and athlete lost an entire year all 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. meanwhile russia's investigative

committee has rejected claims that the country ran an elaborate state sponsored doping program and said the world anti-doping agency had provided no proof to support the findings in a report by canadian lawyer richard mclaren does but i've got to comment. 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 samples 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 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 question 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 after 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 the testing period now i suspect the drugs he sold me were banned. of allegedly claimed that the athletes that these were illegal substances but after

doping test 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 or to spoke exclusively to russia's sports minister puzzle of on the countries of cooperation with the international olympic committee and water as well as if russia will take part in the upcoming winter olympics in south korea. here's a little bit 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 to making sanctions against russia to games such as not allowing the russian action to play. down to get their feet from the opening ceremony would you consider that as being an acceptable humiliation for russia and would you consider the games better when you know i don't like that would 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 the team is calmly preparing for the games staying in constant contact with the i.o.c. on many points we do disagree but 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 goal is to make sure clean athletes get the right to compete i think the international sports organizations have the same goal while making such decisions we must think about every individual athlete involved but that does it for mail me back in about thirty five minutes with a look at your news you are right to trash the.

better survival guide stay fit to start. this. issue there you go get a bad. back. oh. good use a repatriation team to get there after seven years. philippa said keyser her. they all. seem to. help. solve. all of this is all the proof. please. please. please please. please

please. liz . we're going to fire.

i'm lindsay francis's boom bust broadcasting around the world in washington d.c. coming up to eighty five billion dollar deal could be in real jeopardy reports are coming in but the eighteenth tee time warner deal could be off the table if they don't agree to sell certain media properties and eight hundred billion dollars that is how much the coffers of the saudi government stands gave its frozen the assets of dozens of officials businessmen and even royal family members for corruption but there's a twist those assets might be not so easy to get their hands on and amazon delivers a one two punch to the medical distribution industry soft storage after a leak showed its certification as an online pharmaceutical distributor in numerous state kalitan like that c.v.s. catch up i discuss this with my guests melissa harlow the founder of the stocks were down by two bucks start right now.

it's been a week of arrests and detainment of sixty prominent saudis including. and says government officials and businessmen and other wealth will become state property the saudi arabian monetary authority has announced a freeze on their assets valued at an estimated eight hundred billion dollars in response to their pending legal cases it will fill the kingdom's purse as it becomes state property this palace purge as it's being called is spurred by decrees from crown prince mohammed bin salam solomon since june when he was declared heir to the throne he has acted to clear the country of corruption and of course consolidate power after a prolonged low oil prices the oil dependent economy could benefit from any amount

it reclaims it terms of borrowing on the international bond market andrew extensively from the country's foreign reserves according to government data reserves dropped from a two thousand and fourteen peak of seven hundred thirty billion dollars to four hundred eighty seven point six billion in august much of the arrested individuals assets are held abroad which will complicate those efforts to reclaim it. the u.s. department of justice may allow the eighteenth tee time warner merger but only if one of the company's sells an existing property it is being reported now that in order to gain regulatory approval either time warner own c.n.n. or eighteen t own to direct t.v. must be sold this demand could potentially set up another battle for the two companies whose merger is at eighty five billion dollars if the d.o.j. makes a formal demand eighteen d. and time warner will more than likely challenge the government's basis for blocking this.