in the stories that shaped the week with islamic state on the verge of total collapse in syria russia and its regional allies lay out plans for establishing a lasting peace in the country. unsettling times for germany and chancellor merkel as coalition talks break down leaving question marks over her future is leader and we visit russia's most notorious prisons bring you a rare look at what life is like for the country's most dangerous criminals. and i welcome good afternoon you watch in the weekly here and i see international our look back at the biggest stories that have happened over the last seven days

now with islamic state all but wiped out in syria the prospects 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. 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. you launch scale military action 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 as the dissolution of syria stop it from being captured by international terrorists and avoid the humanitarian catastrophe we heard the leaders confirm their assessment of 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 most important is the final stage in putting an end to the bloodshed in syria we have achieved success thanks to the union of grand 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. it trying to reporting

will point to six professors side mohammad marandi told us the talks were a positive development but difficulties still lie ahead. fox as well as the current path of. push the power 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 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 competed. now there has been a moratorium on the death penalty in russia for over twenty years the country's most dangerous criminals are sentenced to full life terms in prison and this week

artie's murder against the ever was given unique access to the high security facility known as the black dolphin arguably rushes toughest jail. in these provincial town at the edge of siberia is a prison but it's no ordinary prison the mere sight of the statue has broken the most so lists butchers the black hole for russia's highest security prison it is here that some of the country's worst 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 with 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

a murderer killed eleven people. 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 to the waist and 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 disappears immediately. who is missing his men to whom you ask me if i do it again i thought about it and it would have been better for i died with them eagle was just over twenty when he and his father took on

a rival gang after killing their 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 here staying human that's harder some say a life sentence is worse than the death penalty. and i've been here for seventeen years and i've never heard anyone say they don't regret it or they'd kill more. and 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 a murder on the very train that was taking him home. most 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 they even have

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 a half here every day walking around exercising or just sitting still so long or after talks to form a three party peter all of it examines what caused the negotiations to fail and what options remain the chancellor merkel. the day after the bundestag election in

september angela 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 fell off well and truly with christie and lynn of the free democrats delivering the killer blow the event ones 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 schultz saying there would be no return to a grand coalition if you were 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. that could well prove to be a storm she doesn't whether to 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 a hundred years and now she should be asking ourselves maybe i have something to do with this situation. mrs merkel has failed 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 after it was announced the talks had failed the german president did call on all parties 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 the willingness to talk in order to facilitate the formation of a government in the near future that angela 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 had proved to be very effective and the social democrats with martin shields at the helm seem to have softened their position to they had 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 met it to modernize the country we entered into these negotiations with good faith and things went well in the first phase of the coalition talks we then ran 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 the jamaica coalition agree the f.t.p. the c.s.u. the c.d.o. was a very very unlikely construct a very strange construct that of course cannot work and we can see that the country is good from 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'm pretty certain of the f.t.p. and probably also the ifi 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. you're watching the weekend still to come as

a society blockade that is making life unbearable for millions of yemenis we'll have the details in a cup and it's. the rebuttal from stephen. collingwood. guy suspects every proud american first of all i'm just george washington and r.v.'s do suggest this is my buddy max famous financial guru where she's a little bit different i'm not a good one on the line no one knows up with all the drama happening in our country i'm shooting the road have some fun meet every day americans come home and hopefully start to bridge the gap this is the great american pill which.

i says was it to by the americans by the israelis unfortunately by financial support of some. sort of contraries in there. for making them unsafe to delete it. hello again you're watching the weekly now planes carrying vital humanitarian aid started to arrive in the yemeni capital sana'a on saturday after the saudi led coalition aids its blockade of the country twenty million people in the war ravaged country are reportedly in desperate need of assistance will be for riyadh decision to allow help through thousands of people had been rallying in the yemeni port of a dieter they were accused of saudi or they were accusing saudi arabia and its

allies of genocide riyadh has been supporting the ask the yemeni president against who the opposition fighters since it intervened in a civil war there in twenty fifteen and has frequently been accused of war crimes see recently increased the pressure on yemen further after a missile was fired towards the saudi capital or that led to the coalition to close all air sea and land routes tightening the already existing blockade but under pressure from humanitarian organizations it was partially lifted a week later however the u.n. and a groups do you still say that is not enough to improve the dire situation in the country the red cross is now warning a million people are at risk of a renewed cholera outbreak in three yemeni cities that after clean water supplies to the cities were cut. that.

will. leave. but yeah. actually i'm here since i'm. the one year and i can tell you i could see the situation deteriorates every day more and more the public health system is almost collapsing the water and sewage system is to having the same thing people are not getting the most basic things like having bread or having cooking gas to make something to eat and to put on the table. the two years and a half or most of this conflict is really bringing a lot on yemenis and the civilian population on the day today we did speak to the u.n. undersecretary general of humanitarian assistance about this and he told us that

yemen's ongoing crisis could spark the worst famine the world has seen in decades. the effects of the blockade has been to make it much more difficult around the aid operation at the moment where feeding seven million people every month through the u.n. and our partners in yemen we are providing water services for four million people and we are we made very good progress through the world health organization and children's fund the red cross and others in bringing this terrible cholera epidemic under control but the point is until the food and the fuel and the medicines get back in there we won't be able to sustain those operations in the way we have been doing we have had you know sensible pragmatic discussions about that we are expecting to send two missions to arabia to look at their detail the arrangements for getting aid in more successfully once we get the operation up and running again

in the way it needs to be both interest in our airport and into the day to ports and to leave port. a high number of suicides among french police officers this year has intensified concern about the stress caused by overwork and the threat of terrorism should have been ski has been to meet one officer who's made not one but two attempts to take her own life or her lee not real name is an officer with moving two decades of experience having joined the police at nineteen she was very moved to beat it and excited about the job but jeez latent the pressure of her work through thirty two suicide attempts the latest just seven months ago. our ministration is taking decisions on the people's anger is tending against us we are suffering from that image our government created for us today many people are calling for policemen to be killed. the most important mission of the french police

today is preventing terror attacks this is themselves have become the primary targets of your hardest it's. the normals we suffered enormously physically and psychologically from the terror attacks we worked extremely hard but that was our duty what was really bad is that we were not given the tools to fight with terrorism someplace men received new weapons some received training but not all of us the measures that they have introduced were minuscule. all highly tells me the suicides amongst police she'd by no means be as isolated cases. they

always say that these are passed we will stop saying that please some of the hits traumatised by the way they decide to commit suicide more easily than now that is why i know it's because they have weapons on them how many of them hang themselves throw themselves into trains take pills my female colleague forty nine years old killed herself last week with a hunting rifle. all her lee is one of the lucky ones dozens of others have succumbed to the extreme pressures they face she says there was only one reason why she pulled through and that was her children. i realize that my child will come home that day and it saved my life the lack of humanity and police nowadays leads to the situation when many of my colleagues professed to die instead of fighting. about it in ski then other news this week google was caught

secretly collecting location data from android phone users even after they had turned off all relevant settings and had no sim card in their devices caleb maupin explains now your cell phone will often ask you annoying questions like would you like to share your geo location data well if you answer the question no you would assume that your geo data is safe and well it turns out you're wrong cell phones operating on android are sharing information with google even if you take the sim card out the android phone will start gathering the addresses of any nearby cell phone towers i'm standing not far from one right now. if you have a single cell tower then that will only tell you something about a radius around which the phone is somewhere but if you have what say three towers that all have different distance locations then you can try and get

a late pretty cold. to where the actual phone is google admits that they've been keeping track of mobile phone i.d.'s and their location for over a year now but they insist their intentions are good. in january of this year we began looking into using cell i.d. codes as an additional signal to further improve the speed and performance of message delivery google claims that it hasn't done anything particular with the data and now it's going to turn it off. i don't find it entirely credible because some engineer or group of engineers had to spend time putting together this capability and they had to do it for a reason because someone told them to do it now google assures us that we have nothing to worry about that they never store or share our data with anyone well we've heard that song and dance before does the n.s.a. collect any type of data. on millions or hundreds of millions of americans. no sir. it does not. not wittingly google says that

android phones will stop tracking the locations of users without their consent by the end of november that sounds like good news unlike the fact that they have been doing it without consent for many months. r.t. washington d.c. you can watch the week he thanks me company to save me more from me at the top of the.

welcome to the. wonderful world of blood donation i come here every three weeks to get my transfusion to be specific i receive in. 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's just that one of the side effects is that it. applies more. to put money on your car radio we don't have all plasma based drugs today come from private

companies and are produced from paid plasma as well as. you know. what are the risks of pay donation which. then is proof that the frequency of pathologies is much higher paid. in it. if i was. over two years old he was. in the money. and who runs the blood business. everybody i'm stephen baldwin task hollywood guy usual suspects favorite movie proud american first of all i'm dressed as george washington and r.v.'s through supposed to be the big boy this is my buddy max the famous financial guru and will she's a little bit different. no one knows the last but not least my larger than life.

the night an aspiring star rio. with all the drama happening in our country i'm shooting the road to have some fun. every day americans see a nice profit here when it's cold frosty but who knows. what's america. things come so crazy i was naked. to get my finger up hopefully start to bridge the gap this is the great american pilgrimage. stuff to venice beach california. one of the coolest place to be in the world.

until now. stephen is pondering how he can start a conversation that will help bring america together. but stephen can't do it alone he needs the help of his trusted friend famous financial adviser max keiser.