in the stories that shake the week with islamic state on the verge of total collapse in syria russia and its regional allies lay out plans for establishing a last thing peace in the country. unsettling times for germany and chancellor merkel as coalition talks break down leaving question marks over her future as leader. gains access to russia's most notorious prison and bring you a look at the grueling regime of its lifelong inmates. at the international live from moscow just going to am in the russian capital on

daniel who. thanks for joining us this hour. now with islamic states all but wiped out in syria the prospect of a last thing peace in the country is now finally on the horizon russia's attempting to help secure a political solution to the almost seven year long conflict this week held talks with other key regional players in this report 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 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 a 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 as the final stage in putting an end to the bloodshed in syria we have achieved success thanks to the union of iran's 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. i spoke to politics

professor mohammad marandi he told us the talks were a positive development but difficult to use still do lie ahead. dostana talks as well as her and far from sochi have. pushed a far bigger process a great deal for the force things have shifted in changed enormously on the ground and hopefully these talks will help pave the way for. 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 if the americans and their allies are going to help this process move forward or whether they are going to improve and competed. now for over twenty years there's been a moratorium on the death penalty in russia the country's most dangerous criminals a sentence the full life is in prison and this week r.t.

is what i guess the earth was given unique access to the high security facility known as the black dolphin arguably russia's toughest jail. in the 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 solace 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 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

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 too but the waist in blindfolded so they can't rise 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. 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 home. loosed 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 through 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 or just sitting still so long as they don't mind being watched god's check on everyone every fifteen minutes in cell cameras and monitors 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 of r.t. from solar let's russia. over to germany where uncertainty hangs over the country's political future after talks to form a three politic coalition government collapsed on monday it's all over examines what caused the negotiations the fail what options remain for charts and amuck. 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 fell off well and truly with christie and

lynn of the free democrats delivering the killer blow the available ones 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 in 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 with that 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 govern. it would be unstable at best and would certainly require a 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 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 a hundred years and now she should be asking herself maybe i have something to do with this situation. mrs merkel has failed it's time for her 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 piece or all of a r.t. berlin after it was an outs the talks had failed the german president called on all parties to work towards producing a stable government. this is the moment when all those involved should pause and reconsider their stance all the parties voted into the parliament are going our land expect from everyone the willingness to talk in order to facilitate the formation of a government in the near future as it. has already indicated her readiness to renew the so-called grand coalition with the social democrats that's the system that's governed germany for the past four years the chancellor says the alliance has proved very effective and the social democrats led by martin schultz seem to have softened their position as well and previously refused to deal with merkel again. i would be surprised if we had fresh elections but apparently stated we are going to have them both far she has always clung to power and i thought she would have

sought another negotiated solution for everybody it's just f.t.p. but in the end the jamaica 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 that turmoil here and that this is due to the unprecedented situation is going to be new elections are pretty be f.t.p. and probably also the eye of the the opposition party will gain because this. is quite a silent significant part of the population that wants a change in the immigration policy are still ahead on the weekly google's parent company has been busy making changes to its search engines specially when it comes to russian media see for that story in ninety seconds.

he's never actually confirmed that himself now under pressure from the u.s. or thirty's google recently launched an investigation into alleged russian meddling where google's own report to congress says it found no evidence that he had violated its policies or manipulated youtube in any way to get its status as the most viewed news network just last month google dropped all channel from its you tube prime ad list in the u.s. without notice or explanation and later cited the drop in viewership as the reason that the spike r.t. being the most watched t.v.

network on the platform. why 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 it the removal of r t from the program was actually a result of the as as i understand it is a or is a result of some of the drop in viewership there is nothing about r t or its content that. the mental state interstate out. i mean while eric schmidt's remarks are being contradicted by a google representative who said the company doesn't change its algorithms to deal rank individual sites media consultant neil wallace is certain google's actions against r.t. are politically motivated i do 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 in any way except the 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 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 this is extremely said mr as i say. thousands of islamist protestors have faced off with pakistani police on suddenly they responded by firing tear gas into the crowd. protesters surrounded the offices of the punjab region norman as the settler demanding his resignation accuse the minister of blasphemy after all for. altering the electoral oath remove a reference to the prophet muhammad at least six people were killed and hundreds including police officers were wounded during violence the previous day police

reported making over one hundred arrests and in the capital islamabad is the myths party activists have blockaded roads for weeks the pakistani government has asked for troops to be deployed in order to quell any further disorder. and lebanon's prime minister suspended his resignation on wednesday his son announcement to step down made in riyadh two weeks before had plunged his country into turmoil many saw it as evidence of a growing regional power struggle between saudi arabia and iran. and i gotta look 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

after resigning in saudi arabia hurriedly to the small detail before returning home on tuesday he was at france egypt and cyprus is a quick recap of events of recent days. somebody prime minister saad hariri was forced the resignation was not his desire nor decision.

and i hope i am here in the kingdom as a free man. he was met by crowds of supporters on his return to beirut some of them like many of the country's politicians but 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. so i hope that all the other countries in the region leave lebanon alone so the lebanese people can decide their future for themselves it's on president in

saudi arabia held the lebanese prime minister by force and pushed him to resign while he was outside his country in that he sell it than i have to tell ourselves i once our country just stay out of regional conflict which. when it comes to the saudis meddling should continue because it's not only riyadh's interference in some lebanese affairs while many other countries are doing it to america with i'm sure somebody wants to help his country lebannon i think that the way saudi arabia treated him is very wrong but. do you get more of our stories on our website or law or social media as well we're back in a half hour with more news from around the globe they suit here not international.

here's what people have been saying about redacted in ny with your position it's full on awesome so the only show i go out of my way to launch you know everybody is there really packs a punch oh look at least yampa is the john oliver of marty americans do the same thing we are apparently better than blue nothings better deceive people you've never heard of love or down for the night not the president of the world bank very critical moment seriously send us an e-mail. in america a college degree requires

a great deal. paying a decades long debt. study so hard it requires to. go through humiliation to enter an elite society. debt sometimes quite literally to. want other true colors of universities in the us. there. are. a lot of welcome to all the part that's diseases is very common condition and won't

be sourced from each country's but its effects on the body of the economy as well as the potential cure up always country specific what would it take for russia both economically and politically to win itself all of the hydrocarbon the windfall all to discuss that i'm now joined by anthony my child director of the economic policy program at the carnegie moscow center mr maher china's great to talk to you big fan of yours for a long time thank you now it's generally believed that the position of an addiction is the first step towards coming clean and in that sense russia's excessive reliance on hydrocarbons has long been recognized but i wonder if it has been recognized as something unequivocal about something that needs to be broken where. well i wouldn't completely of the alcoholism and the had been some initial resources in the service of course is a disease which is imposed by the be here or the second one is a structural problem russia cannot get rid of the hydrocarbons and until european union stops to buy

a cup. and because of the enormous overwhelming amounts of cash coming from the hydrocarbons so hard to fight for the diversification of the participants are they to nomics be brought me curious not decisions of abandoning the the better a source of marginal good into the water but from what i understand does does is not just excessive reliance on oil and gas it's more about. high appreciation of the currency that makes other sectors either less competitive or less attractive for foreign investors and in that sense i wonder if you believe in the euro from the very skeptical and critical of the russian government if you believe that the russian authorities. had enough instruments prior to two thousand and fourteen to encourage other sectors and to. off sad at the facts of that very sharp robel appreciation well i would leave the two to the coasts

appreciation and even would not talk about course a professional talks can also can be controlled by other factors and russia is the real example of the pure duchesses of. the plant or the oil price exclusively with her fault. because of the policies or other factors something water can buy but not pursue and doesn't affect the economy that much and as we saw in the in the ruble depreciation after the prices fall russia coots us the foreign currency and could find the ground of this free fall. and that was partially of this from what i understand because russia actually did try to. counterbalance its dependency on oil and gas by sort of. stashing the wind fall income away in various funds it wouldn't say that because if you look

at the resource which was your token for the reserves the reserves didn't follow substantial now we we still in cruisers that. it was merely because russian government stayed away of the problem they were out of the good the there will prices for the there will price fell the the imports squeezed the the exports squeezed to the consumption fell all the perimeter so the all of the question were adjusted to just stay in the equilibrium and this would probably be mooste smart policy around the overcoming of the crisis not related to the. to the problems with the mean minerals you do sell or to the main focus of your column but on the other side which you are talking about the there are sufficient policy.