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 last thing peace in the country. also this hour on settling time for germany and chancellor merkel coalition talks break down leaving question marks over her future as leader. and we gain access to russia's most notorious prison and bring you a look at the grueling regimes. there good morning from moscow you're watching the international with me daniel hawkins who are you are welcome to the program our top stories this hour islamic state is all but wiped out in syria the prospect of

a last thing in the country is now finally on the horizon russia is attempting to help secure a political solution to the almost seven year long conflict this week has seen talks with other key regional players in a patrol has 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. you 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 it is 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 is 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. politics professor

marandi told us the talks were a positive development but difficult is still do go ahead. faster than a fox as well as the current path from sochi. pushed the power of the process a great deal for the force things have shifted in change 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 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 if the americans and their allies are going to help this process move forward or whether they are going to improve and competed. for over twenty years there's been a moratorium on the death penalty in russia the country's most dangerous criminals are sentenced to full life terms in prison this week. 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 this 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 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 food thousand people everything is procedural everything intended to minimize risk from sleeping schedules to how inmates are in school that bend to the waist and blindfolded so they can't memorize the prisons layout. eruption of the inmates crimes any sympathy the guards might feel disappears immediately. you ask me if i do it again i've thought about it and it would have been better for died with them eagle was just over twenty when he and his father took on a rival gang. millions 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 but they take you more serious and i regret it and everything's a hoping we watch t.v. we see people who've committed it 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 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 monitored 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 the unique sure way out is in

a coffin. i guess the of tea from saul in let's russia. on certainty hangs over germany's political future after talks to form a three party coalition government collapsed on monday but it's all over examines what caused the negotiations the fail and what options remain for chancellor merkel . 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 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 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 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 herself maybe i have something to do with this situation matters 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 peter all of a r.t. berlin after was announced 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 in all the parties voted in the parliament are committed to the common good they are serving our land expect from everyone a willingness to talk in order to facilitate the formation of a government in the near future at it. markel has already indicated her readiness to renew the so-called grand coalition with the social democrats that's a system that's governed germany for the past four years the chancellor says the alliance has proved very effective social democrats with modern schultz at the helm seem to have softened their position as well they'd previously of course 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 policy of 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 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 could see that the country is it from turmoil here and that this is indeed to the unprecedented situation if there are going to be new elections i'm pretty certain the f.t.p. and probably also the ifi the opposition party will gain because this. is quite a silent significant part of the population that wants a change in the immigration policy that i had on the weekly google's parent company has been busy making changes to its search engines especially when it comes to russian media so you know that story for the ninety's. i says was it too by americans by the israelis unfortunately by financial support of some. countries in

the. for making on sick. manufactured. to public wealth. when the ruling class is protect themselves. when the family. lives and be the one person. nor middle of the room to.

welcome back to r.t. i would emerge this week to google's parent companies working on the ranking stories from r.t. on the sputnik news agency in web searches the move would make articles harder to find alphabet boss eric schmidt's comments came at a security forum in canada when he was asked about our to use 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 some russian german program no outlet and when i clicked on them they will monitor rise to a sense this is really necessary to monitor the rise russian propaganda outlets would call it science so we're well aware of this one and we are working on to to ranking the ranking those kinds of sites it's base that we don't want to ban the sites he's never officially confirmed that and some more details though google's own report to

congress says it found no evidence that r.t. had violated its policies or manipulated youtube in any way to get its status as the most viewed news that work just last month google dropped our channel from its you tube prime list in the u.s. without any notice or explanation it later cited a drop in viewership as the reasons that's the spike being the most watched t.v. work on the platform but i 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 reason result of some of the drop in viewership there was nothing about r t u or its content that. meant that it stayed interstate out. i mean while eric schmidt's remarks have been contradicted by a google representative who said the company doesn't change its algorithms for

individual sites media consultant neil wallace is 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 in any way except to 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 it is extremely said mr as i say. now lebanon's prime minister suspended his resignation on wednesday is someone else want to step down made in riyadh two weeks ago and plunged his country into turmoil many saw it

as an evidence evidence of a growing regional power struggle between saudi arabia and iran we had a look now an ounce 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 hariri took a small deeds or before returning home on tuesday he visited france egypt and cyprus let's take a look at a quick recap of events of recent days. so

the prime minister's son henry was forced the resignation was not his desire nor decision and. i am here in the kingdom as a free man. in the lebanese capital for their thoughts on

a regional conflict so when it comes to the saudis meddling i'm sure it's going to funerals and some of the news affairs while many other countries are doing it to get home it goes i'm sure something best let's all from me for the salla do check out more last hours online as well about came about half an hour with more headlines from around the world to see that. do. they put themselves on the lawn. to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president or injury. or somehow want to be brits. it's

a right to be for us this is what before us three of them all can't be good that i'm interested always in the waters of our. quest. the village of collect she has been nicknamed sleepy hollow because for some unknown reason its local residents have formed victim to sleep demick. or do was just being committed to a group if she would use a future how do you plan your initial. order to more than consume that's it but also ensuring the sort of but i'm also going on with the question you're still talking superthin you've got to go back there more deeply the position of switch. from where did you do what we have ordered. this with.

me. right here in there did you have both barrels there of the. first. to get the degree which will get them that dream job young americans no longer hesitate to put their health at stake is the first day of term on the columbia campus one of the most prestigious universities in the world more than eighty nobel prize winners have either study due to or to. just as in many other ivy league american schools some students take drugs to boost their academic results thanks stanford to mean divot if they can study through the night without showing any signs of tides huge my friends say just like breaking you could be and there are

hours to. be. in the united states these study drugs have become a public health issue more than a third of american students take them regularly. and i got into columbia thanks to an exam she took under the influence of infection. to avoid a disciplinary action she will hide her identity i didn't have any expectations of getting in the essay i wrote was an autobiography five pages i ended up taking a ph d. in medicine it just it puts you. in a mental space where you can focus entirely why not take a pill if everyone else is doing it to give you that competitive advantage that you have not heard of the helping hand that she got hold of very easily you're getting a friend of mine a prescription for concern and he gave it to us for free i'm probably down like

a dozen times or so. and you will see how these pills are almost sold us over the counter drugs on campus. we walked through the streets around new york university with a hidden camera. after twenty minutes. thirty thirty. so josh deals to twenty five milligrams that here bridge is no longer acceptable we're all in very big trouble among the most fragile students these pills can cause violence pollution nations and suicidal thoughts. despite the risks a real traffic of these drugs has developed over the internet. this classified ad site well known by americans has dozens of office full study trucks. to attract students these miracle pills have even been renamed study. in order to get hold of them a simple phone call will to. zero zero one.

zero. zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero. good the police have been looking at these new internet quite some time. oktober two thousand and two. operation dot com led to the arrest of twenty one new yorkers who were operating on this site. among them a student at n.y.u. . the aim of the authorities is to break up any traffic where doctors may be involved. on campus the addresses of these specialists are being exchanged illicitly we went to interview one of them. and it was like oh this is good this is .