demonstrators attempt to storm the u.s. embassy in beirut in protest over donald trump's decision to recognize jerusalem as israel's capital it follows days of rage in palestine and condemnation from the un security council. syria has been proclaimed free of islamic state military groups both pockets of scott a jihadist remain. and russia has banned from the twenty eighteen winter olympics after the doping scandal which erupted two years ago that's despite the i.o.c. saying there's no concrete evidence to support claims of a state sponsor of drugs program. and letting matthews in and says he will run for reelection in the twenty eighteen presidential race.

this is the weekly at r.t. international coming to you live from moscow i'm kate partridge thank you for joining us. well our top story from lebanon these out this hour these are the live pictures from outside the u.s. embassy in beirut where protesters have attempted to storm the building the rally in the lebanese capital is the latest in a string of protests decrying president trump's decision to recognize jerusalem as israel's capital.

i was. in response to trump's move palestinians declared three days of rage which ended with several people killed in clashes with israeli police. this started at eight o'clock this morning was supposed to start eleven one hundred or so palestinians arrived at the embassy stormed a few managed to get into the inner perimeter of the embassy and that's when really all the violence started they were met with water and from security forces but then from that point on with scuffles broke out toys were burnt and more people now are arriving on the scene it's something like a fifty fifty mix of lebanese and palestinians let's not forget that in lebanon there are something like four hundred fifty palestinian refugees living in dire

poverty in refugee camps but as you know martin this is all coming in the wake as a reaction to the american president donald trump recent official statement to recognise that jerusalem is the official capital of israel therefore i have determined that it is time to officially and recognize jerusalem as the capital of israel talking do you believe the u.s. leader wouldn't have foreseen the good whose decision would call it what was he expecting. think he was i think he's been very naive and i think he's he's literally taken everything israelis have given at face value and not really looked at the implications i mean the thing that stands out for journalists like me in the region is how he has not spoken on the gauge beforehand with the regional arab players and of course a lot of great there's a great deal of anger and resentment from from turkey from jordan from from egypt because you didn't do the. so i think he's been

a rather naive i don't think talks to question really expecting anything like this at all he thinks that you know that we can just put all this trust in israel and more or less we can move forward but clearly that's not happening i mean do these sort of these sort of disturbances that ripple across the middle east caused by western leaders who refuse to meddle in affairs which which they don't really understand could have dog consequences if you just look back a few years to the arab spring you know a similar thing a lot of elites in the region and i think this is what governments powerful leaders around the region they'll be worrying about they'll be still be looking at this and seeing asking themselves can this escalate can this actually turn to something that we can no longer control it's very interesting that yesterday lebanon's former minister of the arab league suggested some sort of sanctions against america which on the face of it sounds very far fetched to me how do you have a small countries of have a relatively small amount to trade of the other direction with america are actually

pretty measures in place but i think it probably wouldn't happen on a formal level but on the informal level you've got to put yourself in the place of some of these elites in the region if the if there are people demonstrating on the streets trying to burn flags starting to do what these palestinians are lebanese are doing here in the capital today against just against american embassies let alone anything else that is going to have an impact politically if you look at the riots today at the american embassy in beirut i think that's quite a good indicator of what we can expect nobody here but also in other countries in the region the security forces here were taken off guard this is these these u.s. embassies in eleven are one of the highest security embassies in the entire world and the fact the protesters could break ins the first perimeter and actually get into the court shows the security forces here only americans are really not prepared for this at all is that indicative of trump himself not being prepared remotely for what he's done i think so with the. probably but not

a lot more than he can truly needs now to talk to his people and to actually put together something where we can scale back and actually backpedal slightly on this this issue of announcing that jerusalem is the cup of israel i think he's certainly taking on more than just the pope to be able to have. when i was local journalist martin j. in beirut and we'll be hearing more from him later meanwhile in jerusalem is considered sacred by jews muslims and christians the jewish quarter of the city is home to the western wall the last remnant of the second jewish temple which was destroyed by the romans the ancient city also houses the strine of the dome of the rock the oldest islamic monument still in existence and the hour x. a mosque the third holiest site in islam. well israel israel calls jerusalem its eternal city however most of the international community don't recognize the claim of a capital no country in the world has an embassy in jerusalem only some conscious

and the western part of the city is mostly israeli and the eastern part mostly palestinian where his holy sites are a particularly sensitive issue with unrest frequently erupting over them. well a number of european cities have also stage process in support of palestine an emergency session of the un security council was also convened during the meeting of the fifteen members fourteen were united against just one the u.s. . we regret the us president's decision washington's decision with serious concern these decisions are helpful to the prospects for peace in the region our actions reflected an honest assessment of reality it is fuelling tensions and increasing instability in an already volatile and turbulent region israel like all nations has the right to determine its capital city unilaterally actions attempting to change the status of jerusalem respect for its in the long existing foundation

for thirty two months of these really palestinian issue the united states will not be lectured to by countries that lack any credibility when it comes to treating both israelis and palestinians fairly. well meanwhile israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu praised trump's decision calling it historic but as caleb maupin explains that should come as little surprise. collusion is a popular accusation to throw around these days and a lot of what we're hearing working with a foreign government receiving money is what the trial team did with israel like undermining the policy of the current administration in favor of a foreign government michael flynn trumps former national security adviser admits he called russia and asked them to delay a vote at the un security council that israel didn't like. on or about december twenty second twenty sixteen and then recently a member of the presidential transition team directed fully into context officials

from foreign governments to learn where each government stood on the resolution and to influence those governments to delay the vote or defeat the resolution. we informed the russian ambassador about being coming administration's position to the resolution and requested that russia vote against or delay the resolution now we don't know who engineered it but take a look at this video of hi i'm savin the israeli billionaire and jared cushion or trump son in law seriously you and your team. were. taking steps to try and get the. united nations security council. to. not go along this crowd and myself want to thank you for making that effort thank you very much and then there are sheldon adelson now he's an israeli billionaire newspaper owner and he's also

a top contributor to israeli lobbyists bankrolling their activities well he threw in five million dollars to contribute to donald trump's inauguration now there is money and also personal chemistry the trump family is quite close with benjamin netanyahu according to the new york times netanyahu even borrowed the bedroom of jarrett cushion or when he was sleeping over at his mansion in new jersey now the relationship is no secret b.v. has even bragged about it can i review how long we've known you. oh it was never small it was always big it's always told but. i've known the president and i've known his family and his team for a long time so as all this close and sometimes not so open cooperation gotten us well donald trump has now recognized jerusalem as israel's capital now this move is very pleasing to israelis but it's quite explosive for the region but no one is keen to shout about this blatant teamwork unlike some other country that's

constantly in the headlines. r.t. new york. in other news on tuesday the russian team was banned from competing at the. twenty eighteen winter olympics international olympic committee chiefs reached their decision on the findings of an independent investigation into alleged state sponsored don't think however individual athletes who can prove they are clean will be allowed to compete on three neutral flag. these you know i do the absolute so will participate in between individual or team competitions under the name olympic elsley from russia. no one thought about what it actually means for the athletes to go to the olympics under a neutral flag and simply the murder of our national sport. well

the probe headed by former swiss president samuel schmidt found evidence of the systemic manipulation of the anti doping rules and system it also led to the suspension of russia's olympic committee and a fifty million dollars fine. however this report says it's unclear exactly who was behind any doping efforts. nevertheless the independent and impartial evidence do not allow the i.o.c. d.c. to establish with certitude either who initiated or who headed this scheme on many occasions reference was made on the involvement at the minister of sports level but no indication independent or impartial evidence appeared to corroborate any involvement or knowledge at a higher level of the state the simple truth is that in order to compete at the highest level you have to do something to stay there and when you have a very well paying job at the level of mr parker and mr reedy and travis tygart and

so on they need to do to kind of stay on on top and us into doing a new russia is very useful to keep this one is a thing i would question that i have my mind is ok so russia's by and so long as it was completely beyond what next who else will go after like my my money would be on nobody because they will want to keep beating or sick a piece a new drum say russia's by russia's bad because if russia is the only bad one in order at least for clean in the case you know a lot of the case that there's a lot of bad guys everywhere and you know it's just it won't change and there with this it will change even for the. well another i.o.c. investigation looking into individual cases is still ongoing and has already resulted in the lifetime bans for twenty five athletes most of them insist they are innocent and accuse officials of violating their presumption of innocence. because the story is a little more as we would almost knows my uncle thought that things probably was to

appear to be just plain you know that she only now believes knows if it is going to be a slow and. almost or that my mum could get the news most to your. list of do it just reasonably just really should sit around the. most. of that is to get used to. the boy in the rich sickly trite the guy has a right but the most the thing even though i've been. joining more of your thoughts . to be needed to push a sting out of the opinion leadership in your. direction of what just words would be a. moral. thing if you did that. the three of. which would be.

well glad i'm a pigeon said the decision against the russian team was politically motivated saying it's wrong to impose collective responsibility but the i.o.c. has presidents given his assurance that politics played no role in the outcome of the i you see politically absolutely neutral we would not allow her to be influenced by any kind of political considerations in. such a sporting matters they fielded exactly that question and they said this isn't a political decision but of course the world knows that it's exactly that this has been a controversy that has been clouded in political judgment and it's impossible to separate this particular decision from what's going on in the rest of the world regarding fake news and the allegedly intervention of russia into britain's

briggs's vote i think even the american presidential election so there is a lot of this kind of stuff swirling around the world at the moment a lot of it is beyond belief frankly about people are accepting some of it so i don't think you can disentangle the two things. and we'll be back with more news after this short break. it's. a fight for many clubs over the gays so i know the guy even so i got. the ball isn't only about what happens on the pitch for the fun of school it's about the passion from the fans it's the age of the super money killian around is expected to get a twenty million why. it's an experience like nothing else only because i want to share what i think what i know about the beautiful guy my great so we'll all chance

for. peace. no russian flag will fly at the twenty eighteen john winter olympics but there will be russian athletes. no russian national anthem will play out during official ceremonies but fans will probably chant and acappella rendition you can take the athletes out of the country but can you take the country out of the athletes. welcome back this week the russian military announced syria has been completely liberated from islamic state military going but it warned that the no particular

area is not held by jihadists there are still small pockets of resistance the russian operation in syria began in september twenty fifth eighteen when i still held more territory in the country than any other faction and u.s. led coalition has also been involved in the northeastern part of the country by liberating the area west of the euphrates river it means the kind of fight no longer exists we're doing the russian operation in the country ati's correspondents were given direct access. to the conflict. this is the ad based in love hockey from which russian jets are launching the sorties against islam mix they target here in syria. whether it's. time the

pilots are ready to go what's a moment's notice. in this amphitheater laid down by the romans almost two thousand years ago that isis staged one of its sickest massacres the russian military considers it the crowding jewel of the operation here in syria. you can see here just some of the impressive military hardware that isis have in the possession that has made the battle for palmira so tough way extremely close to isis positions less than two kilometers away in.

the. words a syrian artillery position overlooking the industrial quarter of their resort the battle is said to be theists isis fired back as we filmed shells began falling all around. we ran but the syrian batteries kept firing life indeed as order is still far from normal. but at least they will be starving to death anymore. when i can return to our top story where demonstrators have attempted to storm the u.s. embassy in beirut and four more what's actually going on in beirut right now we can cross live to local journalist martin j. martin thank you very much for joining us once again i mean how tense is the atmosphere in the lebanese capital now. well just a few minutes ago i was almost going to say that it was a party atmosphere here in front of the u.s.

embassy and then pandemonium broke out something like about a hundred riot police charge from behind me. attacking the protesters and pushing them back and far right and far into the glass at the same time so quite chaotic scenes here we just see in the last minute or so two or three young palestinian youths arrested by riot police here who were resolve themselves are quite uncomfortable with us filming so they pushed us back but at the moment things have gone quiet once again for martin i mean this is all come in response to donald trump's decision the statement that they've made about jerusalem let's just listen once again to what donald trump had to say let's take a listen. therefore i have determined that it is time to officially recognize jerusalem as the capital of israel. but there we go martin that we could hear that it's in official recognition there i mean what impact do you think that decision will have on israel. but on israel

and on the entire middle east is going to have a colossal impact we're already seeing a groundswell of resistance against that decision from countries that haven't really even played much for a role in the entire issue of jerusalem or the palestinian single state so i think um i think we can safely say that trump didn't really look at look into this quite deeply enough i think he took too much advice from his son in law i think you listen to the israelis to. didn't actually engage in other big players in the region like saudi arabia like jordan egypt or all so this was a really bad mistake he says is clearly bitten off more on the contrary we're just having some problems now with riot police are telling us to actually pack up and move all right you can see me now but you can still hear me we're being told we have to move back because they're clearly planning a second push a second to none in fact what we're seeing is young palestinian use of force who are now to my car being arrested out of camera and

a police officer harassing my cameraman now because clearly they don't want those sort of scenes to be filmed. in which case they must really be there to make sure that your cycle will come back here it seems that we can get another connection as martin jes local journalist in beirut will try to get back to martin i soon as we can thank you. well meanwhile vladimir putin has announced he will run for president in the elections set for march twenty eighth artie's nichiren has all the details. it was widely expected that lattimer putin would decide to run for reelection next year however he has played korea on the topic so many times i in recent months and one can help but wonder whether he was genuinely conflicted on whether to run for the presidency again or whether he was just being really good at keeping a secret and playing the media nevertheless we were put out of our misery when he said this but seagrams approach you for your support yes i would present my candidacy for the president of the russian federation.

my super bowl sure thank you for your reaction but first of all for you. and i was rumored that there's a big announcement would come earlier in the day when he attended a volunteers for and here in moscow in fact i was here ready and waiting to bring you the breaking news of his decision however he played quite a once again and also seemed to seek validation from the audience there and they seemed very clear on what decision he should make. sure you remember if i make such a decision. and the people close to you support it. but it still should prove to be an interesting race over the coming weeks and months with quite an eclectic mix of candidates throwing their hats into the ring one of the most prominent being a stop child who's been gaining headlines around the world she's the former reality

t.v. presenter she's also posted playboy amongst other things that she's considered to be the russian paris hilton and what's also quite interesting about her is that she and putin she's a ten. opposition rallies and she's promised to unite people against vladimir putin one other interesting thing about to me is that she happens to be the daughter of the format of some petersburg a man who finds me putin himself has referred to as his mentor in those early days so that should prove quite interesting but it goes asides that are an unprecedented number of women entering the race for the presidency next year which is quite extraordinary because it's the first time we've seen any woman and to the race for the presidency in russia or in fourteen it is and of course there are the usual suspects as well including the liberal democratic party had the media she were not scare the communist party is again on t.v. zyuganov and the liberal yabloko parties grigori yavlinsky up five for not also

business own but sman boris titov who is from the policy of growth he has pledged to champion the rights of entrepreneurs so quite an eclectic mix that for the russian people to think that teeth into the head of the elections in march next year. more news at the top of the ah so you. would hope that. they get accepted or rejected. so if you want to trust. you so much. to work. that's what. people. perceive as it. should. when

lawmakers manufacture them sentenced to the public will. when the ruling classes protect themselves. in the final merry go round be the one percent. we can all middle of the room sick. i mean real news is real. so there's no those all important as a person but in here is important in those far as is leaving would cause a risk in the regime falling apart so indeed the americans are americans so much

less to have him leave the old oil from time to time they keep saying at the again so in the end i think most countries are accepting that they will stay. on welcome to worlds apart it will be no more russian flag and b. two thousand eight hundred young tang olympics but there will be athletes from russian national anthem will be played out during official ceremonies but there

will probably be many a cup caliber in distance from the fans. and possibly even from the athletes themselves you can take the athletes from the country but can you take the country from the athletes to discuss that i'm now and joined by doing much warning cheer on the national organizations mr mcwhorter it's great to talk to you thank you very much for your time thank you very much alex and i were happy to participate you were one of the people calling for the ban of team russia from the games. i seem you feel gratified by the i.o.c. decision well the i.o.c. had a difficult challenge ahead of it for sure and they took their time to look at the evidence that was made available and then they discovered they made a decision and i now go congratulated them for the decision that they took now as you can imagine this is a subject that leaves absolutely no wind in russian different and there is a range of reactions to the i.o.c.

decision some people say that. the committee has sold itself out to hawks like you i daresay that this is the least painful decision i see could take where do you stand on that well the i.o.c. of course has its absolute discretion around the olympic games and and the currency that uses participation so. examined the situation i'm sure they arrived at a difficult decision but the decision was that the russian olympic committee their member should not be able to participate in the games and i think they've created a wise decision in allowing enabling a pathway for russian athletes to participate in the game so essentially what are you saying that it was a compromise of sorts well i think that the i.o.c. .