lebanon's prime minister suspends his resignation following a request by the country's president the pm sparked a regional political crisis two weeks ago when he said he was stepping down. international olympic committee makes another ruling in the russian doping scandal banning four russian skeleton athletes for life. or broadcasting live direct from our studios in moscow this is r.t. international i'm john thomas certainly glad to have you with us. and with the tide

turning against islamic state in syria there is renewed hope that a political solution can finally bring peace speaking at a summit on syria attended by the leaders of iran turkey and russia vladimir putin said that syria is now has a real chance to end its six year civil war at the summit in sochi it was also agreed to hold inclusive all syrian talks has been following the trial lateral talks for us. with syria becoming almost completely terrorist free or eyesore free i should say we were all curious what is going to be decided and what was going to be said when the key regional players the leaders of turkey and iran type word on the house and ronnie arrive and saw archie we saw happy faces as they were meeting the russian president vladimir putin all three leaders looked quite determined and when the camera men were asked to press their off buttons and leave

the room we heard the leaders confirm their assessment the syrian conflict has entered a new stage the era of active fighting is over and time has come for a new settlement opportunities much so we. do not scale military actions against terrorist groups in syria are coming to an end i'd like to note that thanks to the efforts of russia iran and turkey we have managed to prevent the dissolution of syria stop it from being captured by international terrorists and avoid a humanitarian catastrophe. if you want our joint efforts over the last eleven months have helped to prepare the ground for a political settlement to the syrian crisis and our meeting today symbolizes the start of a new stage in this process. the trilateral meeting today has uk most important is the final stage in putting an end to the bloodshed in syria we have achieved success thanks to the union of rand turkey and russia so after roughly one and

a half hours of talks along with the foreign ministers and the heads of militaries when the three presidents came out to say a few words to the journalist we finally heard about the number one decision for the new stage the creation of the syrian national dialogue congress it will be an unprecedented platform for. inclusive all syria talks and all kinds of political ethnic religious groups are expected to be involved it is going to convene here and sought she but the date and the specific list of participants hasn't been decided just yet the leaders say that it should pave the way for a new constitution in syria and new elections and it all looks good on paper i can tell you that ankara tehran and moscow are really genuinely looking forward for the

plan to work on the ground on monday we heard the president of syria bashar assad telling vladimir putin that he is ready for new rounds of dialogue reforms and the new elections that i mentioned mr putin tried to convey this message to the leaders of iran and turkey and when it comes to the syrian opposition they are always in close contact with anchor off so the hope is definitely there we discussed the importance of these talks with mohammed mara from the university of tehran he believes a syrian national congress would be a positive step forward there are many questions regarding how it might work given that so many sides are involved. the very fact that for the first time. this process is being moved forward largely without the united states and its allies i think is one reason why it has achieved so much faster than the fox as

well as the current talks in sochi have. pushed the part of the process a great deal for the force things have shifted in change of enormously on the ground and hopefully these talks will help pave the way for. the the conflict to come to an end but i think that it looks good on paper but it i'm sure it's going to be very complicated in the weeks and months ahead but one of the difficulties is what about those groups that align themselves and continue to be allies of al-qaeda we know that many of these people have committed horrific crimes they continue to exist they continue to terrorize people in different parts of syria who is allowed to participate in who isn't allowed to participate in a very important and the world the united states to pull out of syria the americans have occupied significant portions of syria without the permission of the syrian

government this is a violation of syrian sovereignty there's a lot to do and it's not clear if the americans and their allies are going to help this process move forward or whether they are going to improve competed but i think what is what is very positive is that these countries seem. to be determined obviously all three of them have their own opinions but i think the very fact that they're getting to get they're getting together and they're making these statements public show that there is a strong degree of determination. the lebanese prime minister has announced he is putting his surprise resignation on hold after the country's president asked him to reconsider. i'm staying with you we continued together. was we shall stay together and we shall carry on to give. we are nation of

moderation and the nation of stability the political crisis began when the lebanese prime minister announced his resignation in saudi arabia's capital riyadh the decision was televised and it was met in beirut with disbelief of many suspecting he had been pressured by the saudis then france's president invited her eat and his family to paris of all places where the french leader assured him of his political support and then after paris hariri flew back to lebanon for independence day though not without paying a lightning visit to the president of egypt and then the leader of cyprus on his way and now he is back in beirut having made his surprise announcement archies more if notion and brings us the latest from the lebanese capital. pool is a surprise but a relief 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 a televised speech was speaking from the capital of saudi arabia and i draw the kind of crisis here to lebanon and today is speaking off to the official part of the independence day celebrations he can see now they are still can see here in beirut mr harry 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 gas and keep levelled out away from any arab conflict he didn't give any further specific detail but as he earlier mentioned the attempt by some iranian backed military and political forces to meddle into fairytale lebanon and throughout the arab region as the major reason behind his decision to resign his at today's speech wasn't a two by many as the l.t. makes him that this iranian influence should be diminished i have been 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 mr hariri made it clear that if it's not happening he might come back to this because he's very sick nation decision again so i guess this is the challenge that lebanon is now facing a professor of history and international relations dream all walking him believe the saudis are using hariri as a tool to put more pressure on iran. i believe that his figure got damaged a lot here received as severe blow specially the lebanese public thinks the prime minister how did he was humiliated in saudi arabia we need to admit the fact . his father really how do you leave. for. a long time representatives sold the influence in lebanon and that is

a widespread belief in lebanon and how do you was forced to designate. a man at a time when the crown prince of saudi arabia. is trying to increase the tension in iran especially in lebanon after they lost their influence in iraq. and syria. the international olympic committee has handed a lifetime bans for russian skeleton athletes to the athletes have also been stripped of their searching winter olympic medals the i.o.c. says it disqualified the athletes for violating anti-doping rules at the two thousand and fourteen games cashmore professor of sociology at aston university says there is an atmosphere of fear among russian athletes still hoping to compete . i mean it must be dreadful i can't even get myself into the mind of an athlete to imagine that it's prepared for four years maybe longer still waiting for the

outcome of the deliberations to know whether i'd be allowed to compete for what is after a lifetime's goal i mean it's unimaginably difficult for them you know in a properly run world probably so this should not happen let's think of an analogy it's as if moscow city center for the past several saturday nights the high number of driving under the influence of alcohol arrests you would expect that the offenders would be tried individually cases evaluated and they would be punished accordingly we wouldn't expect that everyone who holds a driving license in moscow to be banned but that is effectively what is being contemplated that the moment. these new cases should not really material impact the material impact the decision on whether to disqualify russia as a nation but i think in the real world that probably will. the former bosnian serb

army commander ratko has been handed a life sentence for his role in atrocities committed during the bosnian war lot of he 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 a lot of it was in command of the bosnian serb army at the height of the bosnian conflict between one thousand nine hundred two in one thousand nine hundred six taking part in the siege of the bosnian capital sarajevo he was also found responsible for ordering a series of persecutions and exterminations across many other bosnian towns including chevron into where thousands of muslims mostly men and young boys were slaughtered by his troops many of the victims have not been identified it to this day and serbia while condemning the killings has never accepted the charge of genocide we discussed in the verdict with political analyst john bostich. this verdict was in to support it even before the court was formed there's no surprise

about the way it was done what is surprising is that anybody anywhere expected even the slightest chance the general might be acquitted that i'm sure no normal rational person could have expected and not because he's guilty but because he was determined to be found guilty even before the first witness presented any evidence but i can tell you that here in downtown belgrade in the main central park in the city there are rows of stands for tourists to buy things and among the things they can buy are t. shirts with general a lot of his face on them and generals hats all of that type exactly worn by general and i can tell you that later today there's going to be a run on those stalls and you're going to see young children aged ten and twelve years old buying those t. shirts and buying those generals doesn't that tell us a little bit more about what the reality is here. the u.s.

has carried out an airstrike in north east somalia targeting militants in coordination with the federal government of somalia u.s. forces conducted an air strike in somalia against the camp killing more than one hundred militants. is an al qaeda affiliate it has been fighting the somali federal government and is comprised of around eight thousand militants the u.s. is conducting military operations across africa to be exact in eleven countries more than six thousand troops are currently stationed there however it seems some american politicians are confused about the exact extent of america's military presence on the continent. but i didn't know there was a thousand troops in niger this is an endless war without band boundaries no limitation on time the geography you heard senator graham there you didn't know we had a thousand troops in asia where did you know i did not we discussed the issue with me i think you editor of the pan-african newswire he told us that the us president

is centered on areas of high strategic value this clearly as a means of justifying these airstrikes if it is mentioned by the trumpet ministration that al shabaab is affiliated with isis or al qaeda in many cases people just blocked out any further thought about what the u.s. military is actually doing on the ground there are the areas in which they are stationed strategic for example in djibouti where you have the camp limone now which is the largest concentrated presence of u.s. troops right next door to somalia clearly in the range of the gulf of aden it's within short distance from the southern arabian peninsula leads into the indian ocean which is one of the largest shipping lanes internationally we could also look at and as year zero is the world's fourth largest producer of uranium all of the

presence of u.s. troops in africa is clearly related to economic and military interests. the u.s. intelligence community has struck a deal with amazon for the company to provide data storage the online giant has developed a special project tailored exactly to the government's needs are to jack involved 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 chief information officer couldn't be more excited about the partnership that we named commercial club services or so to us for a reason because we want to be like commercial would want to be our government we want the best of breed outs were 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 their rich meet tonight he's ready to fund advisor recruitment it's clearly wants to be had i would side 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 discrete 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 states 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 and should be mentioned event hillary clinton's former campaign chair suggested some of the lead e-mails could have been doctored professor peirce robinson gave us his take on the entire situation there is something to worry about. notionally government and business

supposed to function in a way that independent of each other. i think the reality is that there are overlapping interests and influence is exercised and this is a problem that's a problem for democracy both platforms and become extremely useful tools for governments to try to exercise influence and power and it is a real danger it's not a new form collusion sense it's been there before historically with mainstream corporate media and government certainly new in terms of the global reach and i think that you have these corporations continue to be appear to be acting in the behest of the u.s. government i don't know increasing drive people to leave to go to other platforms which aren't under the same kind of influence at russian hackers helped to keep the rest who accused russia of internal i am not sure what the total part of all the accounts that have been detected zakk information. college for his that he says it

is all about sabotaging relations between europe and moscow. fortunately i think one of the objects of this entire campaign to talk about russian influence in both the us and in europe is about that very strategic goal of making sure that moscow and europe do not have good relationships the degree to which the importance to which it is it is being given to the russian president is simply laughably out of proportion. there is no way people in the know know this that there could be anywhere near the amount of russian influence that is alleged to be taking place in spain or in the united states hence the creation of this idea of the russian threat which apparently they're telling us is in every part of our lives but of course it isn't it is being blown up to make people think that way and unfortunately our state of civic education isn't strong enough for many people to do the discerning

work to some of these more outrageous theories of russian influence. germany is in the grip of a political crisis after on the merkel's failure to form a coalition government president frank walter steinmeier has called for further talks while the german chancellor has said that she would prefer a snap election to form a minority government earlier ernst. a veteran german diplomat and former ambassador to russia commented on the political climate in the country. this is a situation which we didn't have so far any time in post-war german history we always had a stable government and now we have to look at is the poppies the which has been newly elected to the wooden a stock of federal parliament in september they have somehow to sit down and hammer

out a new government and that can only be a coalition government because there is no party which has an absolute majority. with the greens alone she couldn't do it and this is why it was a triangular negotiation period with liberals in addition to that but as a matter of fact this has found it so now one has to look out for a new possibility and there are very serious discussions now going on in the social democratic party and they will now instead of ritually immediately after the election results came out that they were not willing to continue in government but they wanted to go deep into opposition now they're a strong voices within the social democratic party that they should reconsider and that is the option of the grand coalition is not off the table.

presently the game is open to for every new way of negotiations between the christian democrats and the social democrats as clearly i am convinced that in the end no talks between the social democrats and those party will at least be started what will come out of it one cannot say at. an antique purchase in a moscow market gave one french woman more than she bargained for it was only when she got herself it camera home that she made an interesting discovery. sixteen beautiful pictures black and white pictures which were all about a boy. apparently an important moment of his life so i've got found him to find him to to give is photos back to him.

who were part of the i was at the airport or my friend said new photo of a little boy who looks very much like me with a caption saying looking for a russian boy you know there are so many questions where's these photos come from and why is someone looking for me or who is this elizabeth american to get these photos of your. found me really. good or what sub base age from dimitri saying i was a russian boy you are looking for. in the end i decided to color by skype and we talked for two hours about everything she turned out to be a very nice woman. but it turned out that my uncle had given it to his friend to sell it to market we had forgotten to remove the film from

a. pretty body elizabeth the spine is to come here in february to visit all these places and photos of his written amazing film script for the story that's going to be turned into a documentary i'll do my best to help or. is the idea would be to use a camera as a literary camera which is it is a key object in order that story and use it as a character really photo you know those of us of the camera and go back to the places where as a picture was taken. i'm not looking for fame i just want to share this amazing story with other people so that others might realize that our life is not just about politics and that includes room for small everyday pleasures. and the.

russian senator who stands accused of tax evasion and money laundering has been allowed to remain out of jail by french prosecutors. has been told to surrender his passport though and post a five billion euros bail was arrested on monday at the airport in nice following which he was taken to court and charged a french judicial source said the case centered on the alleged purchase of several luxury residences on the french riviera through shell companies russia's foreign affairs ministry has said that as a senator possesses immunity and they are working to protect his legal rights and that does it for me i'll be back with headlines in about thirty two minutes you are watching our international glad to have you with us today.

we're going on the ground of the day drazen means chancellor unveils the u.k. budget just days after the british medical journal published peer reviewed claims

that economic mud could have killed one hundred twenty thousand coming up in the show the man who ran the u.k. defense intelligence the old west tells us what he wants from for the balanced budget and what he thinks of you defense secretary william something to replace disgraced cabinet colleague michael fallon and three years to the day since the shooting of twelve year old timey rice we speak to black lives matter activist don that just broke as you came as police commissioner cuesta dick is accused of calling for more black boys to be locked up plus some of the headliners. on the british breck's of this weekend's goal is a more coming up in today's episode of going underground for fifty years ago this month britain ceded power to the socialists of southern yemen and today when it isn't attacking the zimbabwean government you can mainstream media covers yemen as if britain has no role in the slaughter charities like unicef are required by law to be impartial so i can just produce videos like this in the past few days to

educate nato nations about what is happening. for the u.k. state mandated b.b.c. questions are raised with saudi arabia about the largest have a. for outbreak of the twenty first century we are by far the largest provider of humanitarian assistance to yemen no country or combination of countries in the world has provided more a.t.m. in than saudi arabia but of course despite u.k. media avoiding british responsibility.