little bit of history. in the stories that shape that which will collapse in syria russia and its regional allies lay out plans for establishing a lasting page in the country. unsettling times for germany and chancellor merkel this coalition talks break down leaving more question marks over her future as leader. we visit russia's most notorious prisons bring you a rare look at what life is like for the country's most and an unexpected twist in the prime minister returns to beirut and suspends his resignation. hello good afternoon welcome you're watching the weekly here on r.t. international our look back at the biggest stories over the last seven days with islamic state all but wiped out in syria the prospect of

a lasting peace in the country is now finally on the horizon russia is attempting to help secure a political solution to the almost seven year conflict in this week held talks with other key regional players a prank reports it looks like saudi 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 the syrian president bashar assad was here on monday. at this stage especially after victories against terrorism we are of course interested in advancing the political process then mr putin had a long phone conversation with donald trump. 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. it was these three countries 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. to launch scale military action against terrorist groups in syria 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 the humanitarian catastrophe 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 the trilateral meeting today has not missed

importance 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 after roughly one and a half hours of talks 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 of all syria talks and all kinds of political ethnic religious groups are expected to be involved in the leaders say that it should pave the way for a new constitution in syria and new elections it's this kind of communication somehow involving different sides like washington moscow damascus and tehran that is giving us a reason to say that things may be looking promising here. in a prank of their will politics professor side mohammad marandi told us the talks

were a positive development but difficulties still lie ahead. fastener fox as well as the current path from sochi have. pushed the power of the process great deal forward of course things have shifted in change of enormously on the ground and hopefully these talks will help pave the way for. the the car to come to an end but i think that it looks good on paper but it damn sure it's going to be very complicated in the weeks and months ahead there's a lot to do and it's not clear what the americans and their allies are going to help this process move forward or whether they are going to improve and competed. now there has been a moratorium on the death penalty in russia for over twenty years and the country's most dangerous criminals are now sentenced to full life terms in prison or this week artie's murdered gaz d.f. was given unique access to the high security facility known as the black dolphin

arguably russia's toughest jail. in these provincial town at the edge of siberia is a been the most so lists butchers the black gold thing russia's highest security prison maniacs serial killers terrorists and even cannibals i held in this cell a man who raped forty four miners and killed five children aged seven to eleven some of the people in this prison will never be allowed out so we dread for the things that they've done and then the man in a drunken killing frenzy killed six of his friends in this cell. seven hundred inmates sentenced to life between them they've killed almost four thousand people everything is procedural everything intended to minimize risk from

sleeping schedules to how inmates are schooled that bend too but the waste in blindfolded so they can't memorize the prisons layout. it may seem excessive humiliating even but do not forget what these people did to be here to that end every cell door has a description of the inmates crimes any sympathy the gods might feel disappear is immediately. when you ask me if i do it again i've thought about it and it would have been better if i died with them eagle was just over twenty when he and his father took on a rival gang after killing that enemies they attempted to get rid of witnesses ordinary civilians in a restaurant seven dead eight injured both he and his father and castrated here. when he fell ill they transferred me to help him for

a while the most important thing is to avoid becoming him pitted it is so easy to turn into an animal you're staying human that's harder some say a life sentence is worse than the death penalty. i've been here for seventeen years and i've never heard anyone say they don't regret it. i regret it everything is lost the years go by your health worsens everything passes by they are show you that you were wrong totally wrong you can't do that. to me treat saluted his family his father his mother and his brother he was twenty now he's forty five. we watch t.v. we see people who have committed two or three murders get sentenced to seventeen or nineteen years that isn't so terrible yes we are guilty before the law yes we are guilty before the public but if they're left out after twenty years why are there

fraid of letting us out the difference is that life sentences are mostly reserved for crimes of such brutality that they escape reason for individuals deemed a permanent danger to society one inmate released early from the black dolphin committed the murder on the very train that was taking him whole. groups will never see release. inmates can pick where to work in the wood shop. or on the suing machines they earn money with which they can buy extra food personal items make calls and pay compensation to their victims the even had visits four times a year i think that. if you take the period when we came into solvent and compare it to know the conditions are entirely different prisoners now have special terminals where they could review their cases complain about abuse or apply for

work they have a library school church which was built and painted by the inmates themselves they can also take walks sort of. the exercise yard isn't anything to write home about but every prisoner has the right to spend an hour and out of here every day walking around exercising war just sitting still so long as they don't live being watched guards check on everyone every fifteen minutes in cell cameras and monitor twenty four seven and there's three doors to every cell it's easy to see why no one has ever escaped from the black dolphin and for most of the uni sure way out is in a coffin for i guess the oddity from solar let's russia.

uncertainty hangs over germany's political future after talks to form a three party coalition government collapsed on monday these are all over examines what caused the negotiations to fail and what options remain the chancellor. the day after the bundestag election in september angola merkel said that she was confident that by christmas she would have a ruling coalition government in place or fast forward through weeks of torture a sit times negotiations with the green party and the pro-business free democrats while the wheels of that coalition health fail off well and truly with christie and lynn of the free democrats delivering the killer blow we have the other one is that we will not abandon our voters for a policy with which we are not convinced it is better not to govern than to govern badly ingrained differences between the parties on key issues such as climate

change refugees and the budget saw the so-called jamaica coalition break down. just hours after coalition talks with the free democrats and the greens collapsed under merkel was turned down by another coalition suitor this time the social democrats martin schulze saying there would be no return to a grand coalition if. on september the twenty fourth the grand coalition lost fourteen percent so it's clear we were shown the red card in view of the election

results we are not available to join a grand coalition without off the table one other option available to angola merkel would be to rule over a minority government most likely with the green party. but a minority government. would be unstable at best and would certainly require horse trading on gargantuan proportions with the other four parties in parliament if the government was to well pass anything more than just time in the chamber it's also worth noting that this would be a first in modern german history and wouldn't exactly fit the profile of the german voters who do love stabilises so where does this leave us the other option would be we go back to the polls for fresh elections. so back to the polls we go well step forward german president frank voltage

steinmeyer it's predominantly a ceremonial role but when it comes to installing a government that's where the german presidency has executive power whether he decides that he accepts angle or merkel as the head of a minority government or whether he dissolves parliament triggering elections and for the long serving leader mrs merkel that could well prove to be a storm she doesn't whether it's keep that's really fun for somebody has got to be responsible for that the federal chancellor created this situation she's been in power for what feels like one hundred years and now she should be asking ourselves maybe i have something to do with this situation for americans but mrs merkel has failed us it's time for now to take a step back that night at the end of the merkel era began europe's biggest economy is heading into uncharted territory with current polling suggesting that a new ballot wouldn't return any results too different from what we had in september it does seem that there is no immediate solution to the current

instability germany is facing and of course the implications that has for the why do european union peter all of a r.t. berlin. well shortly after it was announced the talks had failed the german president did call on parties of all colors to work towards producing a stable government this is the moment when all those involved should pause and reconsider the all the parties voted in the parliament are committed to the common good they are serving our land i expect from everyone your willingness to talk in order to facilitate the formation of a government in the near future that anglo merkel has already indicated her readiness to renew the so-called grand coalition with the social democrats the system that's governed germany for the past four years the chancellor says the alliance has proved to be very effective and the social democrats with martin shelves at the helm does seem to be so also softened their position to they

previously refused to deal with merkel again we are some members of germany's political parties about the recent twists and turns in the bundestag. my party has fraud from the beginning said that we are guided by principles we have been elected because we. did to modernize the country we entered into these negotiations with good faith and things went well in the first phase of the coalition talks with then run into difficulties and the main obstacle was caused by the greens my party i think would be willing to resume talks if there is a meaningful outcome well this is very surprising to me so far she has always clung to power and i thought she would have sought another negotiate a solution so this is a surprise but everybody is putting this to f.t.p. but in the end to to make a coalition agree the f.t.p. the c.s.u. the c.d.u.

was a very very unlikely construct a very strange construct that of course cannot work and we can see that the country is at some turmoil here and that this is indeed to the unprecedented situation we don't know if there's going to be new elections but if there are going to be new elections i've been pretty certain the f.t.p. and probably also the i.f.b. the opposition party that came into the parliament with thirteen point six percent of the votes will gain because this. is quite a silent significant part of the population that wants a change in the immigration policy so i would be surprised if we had fresh elections but apparently stated that we are going to have them. still ahead on the weekly gig whose parent company has been busy making changes to its search engines especially when it comes to russian media but have the details just off the press.

the war hard sell you on the idea that dropping bombs brings. police the chicken hawks forcing you to fight the battle for the dog. that you stopped by to tell you that every gossip to have a. lot of talk that doesn't tell you. like . all the hawks that we all are the one. who is parent company is working on d. ranking stories from the sputnik news agency in web searches then they would make articles harder to find alphabet boss eric schmidt's comments did come at a security forum in canada when he was asked about our city's use of google's ad

sense service i had a subscription for google alerts in german language and getting them every day out of ten results between five and ten every day we have sputnik news which is a russian german topic of no outlet and when i clicked on them they were monitor rise to that sense is it really necessary to monitor the rise russian propaganda outlets would google it since so we're well aware of this one and we're working on detecting this kind of scenario you're describing and again the ranking the ranking those kinds of sites it's basically artie and sputnik are the two and there's a whole bunch of coverage about what we're doing there but we're well aware of it we're trying to engineer the systems to prevent it we don't want to ban the sites. well eric schmidt who you heard there does have a long time relationship with the leadership of the democratic party in the u.s. he was reportedly a donor to barack obama's campaign later becoming an advisor to his it ministration

and he's also believed to be the tech mastermind behind hillary clinton's presidential campaign too although he's never confirmed that himself but under pressure from the u.s. authorities google recently launched an investigation into alleged russian meddling but its own report to congress says it found no evidence that r.t. had violated its policies or scuse me manipulated you tube in any way to get its status as the most viewed news network despite that google dropped our channel from its you tube prime list in the u.s. without notice or explanation it only explained later at a congress hearing when grilled on why the firm hasn't carried out the move before by didn't you revert artie's preferred status after the i.c.a. came out in january two thousand and seventeen it took you to september of two thousand and seventeen to do the removal of r t from the program was actually

a result of as as i understand it is a result of some of the drop in viewership there is nothing about our t.v. or is our content. mentally stayed in or stayed out. eric schmidt's remarks have been contradicted by a google representative who did say the company doesn't change its algorithms to individual sites media consultant he wallace says certain google's actions against r.t. are politically motivated. i don't think it censorship you don't have to like the stories that russia today covers you don't have to want to read the material coming from sputnik but i really do not believe it is in any way except a ball that a bunch of politically correct. democratic party supporting people certainly in silicon valley should decide what i should or should not read i think

it's the height of arrogance to morrow the same sort of pressure may get may make them decide to attack the daily mail here in here in britain another political viewpoint they might not like i think that i am quite capable of watching r.t. reading sputnik and deciding what i do or do not want to take from it what i do or do not believe i think it is extremely said mr as i say. lebanon's prime minister suspended his resignation on wednesday after arriving back in beirut the sudden announcement to step down made in saudi arabia had plunged his country into turmoil and seem to expose a growing regional power struggle between riyadh and to run we live now i announce my resignation from the post of prime minister with my certainty that the will of the lebanese is stronger that they will be able to overcome the tutelage from inside or outside because i discussed my resignation with the president of the

republic he won't speak to wait before submitting it to put it on hold and to allow for more consultations into the reasons behind it are complied with resigning in riyadh did take a small detail before returning home visiting france egypt and also cyprus here's a quick recap then of the events of recent days. somebody prime minister saad hariri was forced to resignation it was not his desire nor decision to let. him in.

and i hope i am here in the kingdom as a free man. hariri was met by crowds of supporters on his return to beirut some of them believe he was held against his will and forced to resign by the saudis we asked people in the

lebanese capital for their thoughts on the situation. i hope that all the other countries in the region will leave lebanon alone so the lebanese people can decide their future for themselves it's unprecedented that saudi arabia held the lebanese prime minister by force and pushed him to resign while he was outside his country that is we have to tell ourselves we want our country to stay out of regional conflicts when it comes to the saudis meddling i'm sure it will continue and it's not only riyadh's interference into lebanese affairs many other countries are doing it too i'm sure saad hariri wants to help his country lebannon i think that the way saudi arabia treated him is very wrong international relations professor jamal wakim told us he believes the saudis are using her aid to advance their own regional agenda. i believe that his figure got damaged a lot he had received as severe blow special leave the lebanese population thinks

does prime minister said he was humiliated in saudi arabia we need to admit the fact. sought how do you see his father ideally where. a long time to present that of all saudi influence in lebanon and that is a widespread belief in lebanon and thought how did he was forced to designation by some of them so not at the time when the crown prince of saudi arabia. is trying to increase the tension in iran especially in lebanon after they lost that influence in iraq. and syria he wants and we can hear and i say thanks for the company tonight we'll be back with more in just a half and. i

says was it to buy americans by the israelis unfortunately by financial support of something. contrary. or making them unsafe you. welcome to the wonderful world of blood donation i come here every three weeks to

get my transfusion to be specific i receive immunoglobulin my body gets and some bodies that i cannot produce itself around the world giving blood is seen as a symbol of generosity and does this because it helps people it just says one of the side effects is that it helps this applies more to bring people to put their money on your car immediately after you get done half of all plasma based drugs today come from a private company and are produced from paid plasma as well as on provider you know a motor car computer no one of them in it and there is proof. if i was lying when i. moved over two years old he will go in the money in the drill and who runs the blood business.

that image was quite controversial some of the people some people store as irresponsible some people sort of dangerous threatening whereas other people including you store as a symbol of something very different what was it. powerful. protecting . that is more freedom. but the people who criticize you want to base. a right wing lunatic. eighteen years ago i traveled across the united states exploring america's deadly love affair with the gun i witnessed the grim results of these weapons in hospital emergency rooms morgues in the confused off to mass of mass shooting sprees. after each new massacre the newspaper headlines were always the side why did it happen

here. since my book was published in the year two thousand more than half a million americans have been killed by firearms in the usa five hundred twenty seven thousand people dead and many more injured i decided to return to the subject to track down each gun owner who i'd met and photographed those years ago to understand why despite this death toll there is such fierce resistance to even moderate gun control laws in the usa.