it. to. lebanon's prime minister announces he's putting his surprise resignation on hold after the president asked him to reconsider the pm sparked a regional political crisis two weeks ago when he said he was stepping down. as i saw his grip on syria all but of our parades there's a dramatic shift from a military to a political solution in the war as new peace talks start today in russia following president assad's surprise visit to sort. of serbian wartime commander ratko millet ditches convicted of genocide and other war crimes over his

role in the bosnian conflict and is sentenced to life to life imprisonment. i am. a very warm welcome you're watching r.t. international broadcasting to you live from the russian capital and mickey aaron good to have you with us we start with breaking news this hour the international olympic committee has handed a lifetime bans to four russian skeleton athletes two of the athletes have also been stripped of their swords winter olympic medals the i.o.c. says it has disqualified the athletes for violating anti doping rules at the two thousand and fourteen games last week water refused to reinstate russia's anti-doping agency for noncompliance with waters code but twenty eighteen winter olympics will be held in south korea in just eleven weeks.

moving on the lebanese prime minister has announced he's putting his surprise resignation on hold after the country's president asked him to reconsider. sitara look. i just just today my resignation with the president of the republic must be too great a source of list to get to put you on hold for you and to allow for me comes to take into the reasons behind why i can't leave it was a surprise but a relief this time prime minister hariri has been speaking from beirut for the first time on the lebanese soil in the last twenty days that has been a very turbulent time for lebanon more than two weeks ago mr hariri left the country and he announced his resignation in his televised speech while speaking from the capital of saudi arabia and brought kind of crisis here to lebanon and today it's picking up to the official part of the independence day celebrations you can see now they are still continue here in beirut mr heriot has said that he

agrees to put his decision on hauled off to be disgusted with the lebanese president and he stressed that the major goal right now is to get and keep lebanon away from any arab conflict he didn't give any further specific detail but adhir earlier mentioned the attempts by iranian backed military and political forces to meddle into affairs here in lebanon and throughout the arab range and as the major reason behind his decision to resign his today's speech was understood by many as the l.t. made him that this iranian influence should be diminished one hundred able to speak to people here on the ground and they have told me that given how influential iran bag forces are this could be a difficult thing to do but it is also clear and mr hariri made it clear that if it's not happening he might come back to this cause his resignation decision again

so i guess this is the challenge that lebanon is now facing. with the time it's now fully turned against islamic state in syria those were new hope that a political solution could finally bring pace to trying to reports from the russian city of sochi which is hosting talks that could bring the long lasting conflict to an end. it looks like tsotsi is shaping out as the new platform for dialogue on syria the resort has become the venue for the first major round of talks on the syrian crisis since i so lost its last city and the country basically the terrorist organization is now in control of only a few villages and some part of the desert in syria that is of course after two years of joint efforts by the syrian government and the russian air force against the terrorists on the one hand and on the other hand the efforts by some kurdish

groups along with elements of the syrian opposition backed by the u.s. the syrian president bashar assad was here on monday it was a surprise we didn't find out that his talks with vladimir putin happened until yesterday morning then mr putin had a long phone conversation with donald trump and on wednesday mr putin is welcoming the presidents of turkey and iran here and saw it was these three countries russia turkey and iran that were behind the so-called astronaut talks in the first place and with the terrorists now almost gone this format could prove to be more crucial than ever.

as a result of the talks in the kazakh capital ankara. moscow until iran became the guarantors of the four deescalation zones and syria and the fact that these zones came into being was actually the first major step towards a point where we could perhaps a civil war in syria no more in years and these areas finally violence has been significantly reduced and humanitarian aid could finally be delivered to areas of syria where it was needed most and this brings us to the issue of the us being involved in all this or not being involved in all this at all

of course the aster talks began when president barack obama was still in office and back then officials in his administration were asked questions about the american involvement in this as you can he doesn't see it in the. know the senator doesn't see this as a sign of it all does he not at least feel the u.s. is being sidelined if not excluded from what was something the u.s. was leading we are not excluded we are not being sidelined you know they are he did it is quite different than we his role before and we are still leading right now this leadership that you're speaking of is of past tense is that not true i would disagree well this time as i've told you vladimir putin gave donald trump a full update on the talks with syrian president bashar assad mr putin also told mr trump about the upcoming summit with the presidents of iran and turkey mr air dawn and mr ron e as we remember in vietnam mr putin and mr trump produced

a joint statement on syria so it's this kind of communication somehow involving different sides like washington moscow damascus ankara and to iran that is giving us a reason to say that things may be looking promising here. are saying now to our top stories the fresh revelations that the lebanese prime. minister has announced he's now putting his resignation on hold we can bring in our guest now dr take a sociology sociology professor from the american university in cairo this is not a doctor thank you for joining us on the program now do you think that temporary remains a credible prime ministerial figure after he put his resignation on hold. as you know you've been on can live without a. prime minister for a long time and they did that many times in the history what is victory now is considered a temporary victory there is

a relaxation of the system the tension in the area is going to decline for a while but not for good as you know we have reconciliation going on in syria there is an end of the civil war in syria there is the civil war between the mess and. in. the west bank there is also attempts which is very important to have an american peace process in the sound and the tension that happened with lebanon own is because no one is also part of this we can celebration anything that will happen in the middle east will have to go small bent on so what you have today is an attempt to make a better known stabilize because many countries began to be involved especially france france only bent on was an old colony and they don't want the old connolly to collapse and also don't want tension in the area or trouble and this is also the

viewpoint of egypt and for the worse coordination between president marco in fonts and the presidency see. they need again this alliance that may be pushing the area toward its coalition and that's why i'm saying what happened today may be a temporary ceasefire a temporary relaxation of the situation but it is not going to end because there is an attempt to create. an via a peace in the middle east between palestinians and israelis on the american amber alert and that requires all potential troublemakers like iran like hezbollah neutralize that and i say this is not the. i'm sorry to interrupt just two weeks ago we were posting about how he really wanted to resign he denounce his resignation now two weeks later and see president lebanese president said that he wants him to reconsider while what reasons could he have wanting her very to stay

on. as you know live by known is composed of seventeen different sects the biggest one is the shah fifty percent if he were signs that would be. weakened and the saudi all want to control it and they've just feel that they are not capable of controlling the situation so that by blowing up the situation in libya known in this way you would cut the hand of iran soon hezbollah hezbollah would be involved in a civil war in or who will be on the a lot of pressure from the other factions or six in libya known to stop meddling in the area or stop being involved in the area hezbollah became very strong after returning back from syria and now this defeat of the west in syria cannot escape without punishment and so one of the things that they are planning is let's have some trouble in sight syria inside lebanon and this

is what is happening is he accepted some for some member of the sony or coalition that support how we may feel that he is too weak to continue but those who are against how we feel that he is his presence is important to keep the situation stable so even his enemies do not want him to leave these i kept him to stay on because that would keep the country from falling into the game that is being cooked in the area ok dr saeed sadec from the american university in cairo thank you for joining us on r.t. international. the former bosnian serb army commander ratko millar dish has been handed a life sentence for his role in atrocities committed during the bosnian war millett it was found guilty on ten out of eleven counts including war crimes genocide and crimes against humanity he was sentenced by a un court in the hague but it was in command of the bosnian serb army at the

height of the bosnian pond flix between one nine hundred ninety two and one nine hundred ninety six taking part in the siege of the bosnian cut the capital sarajevo it was also found responsible for ordering a series of persecution and exterminations across many other bosnian towns including serbian eat over eight thousand muslims mostly men and young boys were slaughtered by his troops many of the victims have not been identified to this day and serbia while condemning the killings has never accepted the charge of genocide well let's get some reaction to this now from international affairs commentator marco mr joe welcome to r.t. international it's good to have you how expected was this verdict will it it wasn't found guilty on all counts birds how hard will that be to accept for those affected by his actions. this verdict was very

expected because this calls as you call it which is actually a tribunal financed by the united states of america. saudi arabia and george soros is an institution that is designed to achieve the prosecution of the targeted nation say the serbian nation and so this verdict was necessary for the us of a primarily because this to find someone guilty of genocide is to create a false moral mandate to stop future suppose a genocide so on the basis of this verdict the usa will give itself the right to attack anywhere any time with its acolytes in keeping with its own world interest so this well it was inevitable was it accurate no it wasn't because i mean we can we can deconstruct this the elements of this to for the next hour but certainly the figure the figures mentioned of eight thousand are really don't even accord with the tribunals own previous verdicts for example in the carriages

judgment it was a figure of five thousand in the ptolemy and it was less than five thousand so nobody quite knows how many people were killed there and the circumstances in which they were working old all died are also subject to various interpretations they've all been put into one box marked genocide it's a false box it's there for p.r. reasons in that sense both the scale and the nature of the charge against him counts as fake news now millet it was accused of crimes against humanity are you confident that all of those who committed such crimes during the war in yugoslavia have been brought before the tribe you know. absolutely not because we didn't understand in terms of the struggle it's a victims that killed or servants of the first victims were the serbian victims who were killed over a sequence of three years by the forces from within serbia it's alleged by each and that's or it has been found not in control of his forces that was not good enough an argument for the his serbian equivalents but mass or if you showed videos of his

murders of serbian villages in the outlying hamlets has been allowed to walk away after running in effect the isis or the balkans on behalf of the balls in muslim army so the first casualties in service are with the serbian casualties and when we look to why they would have been a mass murder in july ninety ninety five revenge is of by the local population is the main reason and the main reason was attested to by the commander of u.s. forces at the time general moore rio on who said that the level of hatred against those islamist forces within seven it's run by nasser or if the level of hatred that the serbians outlying villages felt was such that he felt they would be a terrible outcome unless things were managed very carefully things were not managed very carefully to stop a terrible outcome in fact things were managed carefully to provide that outcome because according to another bosnian muslim source document which in april one

thousand nine hundred three the presidents of then of the bosnian muslim forces of the bottles of government in sarajevo is a beggar which said he had been told by bill clinton he needed five thousand dead muslims in order to have a pretext for a excuse for military intervention i've bombing of the local serbs and in that way america will get its first mandate to bomb abroad without u.n. authorization or indeed anybody's authorizations international affairs commentator market gas h. thank you for your time. thank you now anderson is pervert. finding a business best data storage for the u.s. government amid concerns tech giants are working too closely with the government story and more right after this break. here's what people have been saying about rejected a night with your position it's full on awesome the only show i go out of my way to

launch you know what it is the really packs a punch oh yeah it is the john oliver of our three americans do the same we are apparently better than blue nothing. to see people you've never heard of love or down to the night i'm president of the world bank so very. seriously send us an email. the political crisis inflicted upon lebanon by saudi arabia appears to receive it least for now is this a sign of things to come as the saudi royal family changes so to saudi arabia and the region is it time to buckle up for a stream. she's a good capitalist american and a. good insurance for gun owners don't be such a shy communist loving bootlicking stock insurance company c.e.o. just taken money willy nilly for making people here want to addicks do something constructive impose got insurance and stop the bloodshed.

welcome back the u.s. intelligence community has struck a deal with amazon for the company to provide to data storage the online giants developed a special projects toilet exactly to the government's needs can fit the explains. the line between political business and commercial business is getting thinner by the day especially when it comes to internet and tech giants let's start with amazon which has just announced a new deal to provide a tailored cloud service to the u.s. intelligence community this secret region yes that's really its name comes on top of amazon's existing six hundred million dollar contract with the cia and other agencies and the cia's chief information officer couldn't be more excited about the partnership that we named commercial club services or shoot to us for a reason because we want to be like commercial would want to be like government we

want to the best of breed as well reported with amazon and they aren't alone just last month microsoft announced a similar partnership over a dedicated cloud for the u.s. government and their partners microsoft is partnering with the u.s. government in the journey to the cloud providing both infrastructure and platform offerings to digital transformation meanwhile a treasure trove of connections were uncovered between us politics and internet heavyweights after last year's presidential election in which some of them seem to have sided with hillary clinton now take google clinton's campaign chair john podesta had his emails hacked and published at the end of two thousand and sixteen they contain several references to eric schmidt the executive chairman of alphabet google's parent company and schmidt seemed eager to help with that which made tonight he's ready to fund it dries the recruitment etc clearly wants to be had outside advisor but didn't seem like he wanted to push others out one of clinton's digital advisors noted that schmidt had

a team working on important products for the campaign and a memo which also mentioned that discreet conversations had been initiated with google facebook and apple to understand their priorities when it came to the election and their priorities were quickly made obvious especially when it comes to facebook there was a sense of deja vu when facebook's chief operating officer was also revealed to be in communication with protest expressing her hope and willingness to assist clinton in the race for the presidency i still want hillary clinton to win badly i'm still here to help us i can. look forward to working with you to elect the first woman president of the united state with such an intricate web of partnerships between internet giants politicians and the government perhaps it's time to worry about our online freedoms getting tangled up in them now should be mentioned that hillary clinton's former campaign chair suggested some of the leaked e-mails could have been doctored professor peers weapons and gave us his take on the situation is

something to worry about. so notionally government and business are supposed to function in a way that they're independent of each other but i think the reality is that there are overlapping interests and influence is exercised and this is a problem it's a problem for democracy those platforms then become extremely useful tools for governments to try to exercise influence and power and that is a real danger this is not a new form collusion sense that it's been there before historically with mainstream corporate media and government certainly knew in terms of the global reach and i think that you have these corporations are continued to be appear to be on the behest of the u.s. government i don't know increasing drive of people to leave them and go to other platforms which are under the same kind of influence. the upper house of the russian parliament has voted to adopt a law on foreign media operating in russia medina carter never has the details. the

upper house of the russian parliament this wednesday approved bill law on foreign media working and russia now is under this new piece of legislation any foreign media which receives funding from abroad could be asked to register as a foreign agent and as soon as this media is given this new status the status of a foreign agent should use a special disclaimer and its work and it will also be obliged to file reports on its funding to the russian government now next step for this new law is that it should be signed by the russian president now this particular move to introduce this new piece of legislation was the made in response to the recent demand coming from the us department of justice that our. brains working in america are t. america should register as a foreign agent now r.t. america followed that demand and register it last week but that happened after

months of pressure and being blamed for allegedly mantling and the twenty sixteen us presidential elections however all that time there was no real avodah provided that it did take place and now this demand coming from the us parked a lot of debate within the russian government and the government said that there will be some reciprocal a measures introduced very soon and this is exactly what we see at the moment. the german president so far failed to unite three parties that were supposed to form a coalition government aside from the refugee influx the major stumbling block was said to have been climate change policy on our time so as the climate chancellor is being brought into question our environmental policy has long depended on reducing coal burning emissions which bore to the support of the green party but as time has

gone by dogs has been shifting. as a country we think we can become pioneers on the way to creating the age of renewable energy we need deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions and therefore we have committed ourselves to decarbonise into the global economy. called free energy supply doesn't starve and die just is not easy even for germany we have such targets for twenty twenty twenty thirty and subsequently twenty fifty now at the end of twenty seven she still have wider way to go and the work of japan's two thousand and eleven fukushima nuclear meltdown germany valid to end the use of nuclear energy one of merkel's key plans was to shut down all nuclear plants in the country by twenty twenty two that put pressure on the country's use of coal something she had found to reduce to win over the greens moco promised to reduce

greenhouse gas emissions forty percent by twenty twenty and what was then a half by twenty thirty but as it now turns out the maximum reduction by twenty twenty may only reach thirty four percent we discuss this issue with peter bias joining from the alternative for germany party he believes the promises made by angela merkel will be broken. there was no strategy behind it it was a complete nonsense to to leave. nuclear power you see all our neighbors are still using nuclear power this is a very clean energy this is a typical typical sign of america's policy. and that she is moving the whole political spectrum to left to ride and she is a one time serving the voters of the socialist and the other time the voters of the

greens she has no. shape profile which are all the other chancellor of a former chancellor of c.d.u. of the conservatives used to have she will definitely not to be able to fulfill the promises and now we will see. to public will react on that with the latest headlines on the back at the top of the hour to me that. is going to become addicted. to because. i don't want to thank you. because

because. they call me a useful idiot i mean you called me a useful idiot a useful idiot useful idiots go expressing my opinions on the first two sins of us doing it behind his record is the same strategy we attack persons instead of talking about what's next why stop feel banned me from getting this close to the white house i'm with a group called pink why not ban the color pink one hour stretch beyond the right i should be sent to the town because i want to try to break me on the wheel i have put up with a long time with this sort of nonsense you don't scare me and i'll continue to voice my opinion i'll continue to speak out in good company i'm in good company

you're going to lose me you want to do this because we're all freezing cold. p. everybody i'm stephen both. tell hollywood guy you suspect every proud american first of all i'm just george bush in our view to say this is my buddy famous financial gurus will use a little bit different i'm. going to tell or not they're going to win those up with all the drama happening in our country and the brood have to meet every day americans. all over. the store to bridge the gap this is the great american.

football. i'm beyond this you need this is boom bust broadcasting around the world from washington d.c. coming up we'll explore the global surgeon i ceo's in the future of digital currency markets then we'll also take a look at how luxury products have compared with traditional stocks as a good investment and will just ask on the massive increase in fees just hurting middle class americans the first let's check today's top stories around business and finance news. bitcoin has hit yet another record high of eight thousand dollars on friday well it did drop to around seventy five hundred it jumped back up to the seventy nine hundred mark by the afternoon this follows quite the week for cryptocurrency the.