indeed it's quite a very significant development and where it would lead i think that's on known andar probably this creates i think a crisis between the two traditional nato allies as the u.s. and turkey i think actually it's. it's a problem for turkey but it's also a major problem measured by lamar for the u.s. so i think that the u.s. it's very likely that they weren't expecting turkey to follow through on these threats over turkey have a sense that american remarks about a border some kind of border hammy within syria turkey has been threatened or threatening to take action i don't think that these words but second very seriously by washington now as i said this creates a dial m.r. to washington it's also at the same time something which the syrian government would object to the syrian government considers this to be

a violation of its sovereignty so we have the you know the reactions could come from everywhere you we have a u.s. turkish dispute i think as a result of what's happening at the same time you have a dispute between the syrian government and turkey because the syrian government has cut the categorical or express that it's categorical rejection for any such step so you could this could lead even to a confrontation between the syria between syria and turkey or so where there are a lot of you know possible scenarios which do lead to escalation and i think that now that it's begun i think it might be very difficult to to seize control of the situation. well mr rizk you've mentioned that the united states probably didn't do think that turkey were going to follow through with their threat of a military operation now that turkey has followed through indeed do you think what do you make of washington's reaction to this operation and what do you think this reactionary is going to be are the is the is washington going to do try to do some

more damage control here. her well what we've become accustomed to when the trying to restrain him is that we don't have one reaction we have several reactions you know different american stances that's what we've become accustomed to regarding the us support for the kurds in general and when it comes to the choice between the us supporting the kurds whether you are supporting turkey and there appear to have been some conflicting views within the administration even regarding the plan for a border army a inside syria i have heard information that the pentagon was supportive of standing with the kurds supporting the kurds training creating this border army on the other hand the state department secretary tell us and was again to step it appears that you know the pentagon won that round but now we have this which has

happened what will be the u.s. reaction i'm not sure that you're going to see a clear reaction i go i think what you're going to see some conflicting views and when you do have conflicting views with it is within the same home when i'm going to say home i mean the u.s. administration i think that's made makes it very difficult for them is for the administration to come out with one policy to control that that situation so what what that would mean i think is a turkey might continue or might be given room to continue with these with this operation with the absence of one clear coherent american stance and a lot of these different divisions within the american branches of government alys this the the absolute end of the road for any kind of cooperation collaboration between syrian kurds and the u.s. because it seems that the kurds have been abandoned if we start getting numbers if a tallit is is there any way back. i wouldn't jump to that conclusion yet that the us have complete view of the american

association has completely abandoned the kurds you have to remember that the u.s. believes that its only ally in the fight against isis in general harder cones you know they're here wes can partner with the syrian government they can partner with iran it can partner with hezbollah or you know it demonizes all of these groups the only group it can partner with in this fight against extremist groups or extremists are the other code so i wouldn't say that the u.s. will quickly go ahead and abandon the kurds at the same time cannot take action against turkey doesn't feel that support in supporting the kurds deserves u.s. intervention against turkey that's also a big question so i think the u.s. is in a big dialer if it does continue to continue to support the cause or further support them that leads to more and more confrontation with the turks if they're bad for

this and that means it would abandon the only group it might be able to depend on and to score points in this war against terror so it is i think as i said a real dialogue an hour for early trump administration and i much appreciate your time and your views of the risk my guest expert on middle east affairs thanks thank you. look at this me to another breaking news story in afghanistan where a group of up to four armed men have attacked a major hotel in the capital kabul the perpetrators who reportedly include suicide bombers are still believed to be inside the building with reports of heavy gunfire taking place local journalists blouse abare has no. according to an afghan special forces commander from c.r.u. the crisis response unit that's a unit that's trained to fight these sort of attacks there are several attackers there were in the kitchen of the hotel then they moved to room one hundred three in one of four on the fourth floor there's

a lot of confusion according to the commander of the afghan special forces who are fighting a very complex attack now this is a hotel. is historically a jewel for afghanistan is all it was built in the more peaceful times it said santa held targets very difficult to secure almost not impossible and this is also a hotel that got attacked in two thousand and eleven and we only heard in the last forty eight hours or so from the u.s. embassy and kabul putting a security alert saying a number of hotels in government buildings in other locations were at risk of an attack obviously this sort of an attack shows the constant security an intelligence failure but it also shows how the afghan government and its international allies are finding themselves fight another fight on a very difficult front line which is the city's air at this moment i really don't

know more than what i have told you there's a lot of confusion but this is also a hotel which houses a lot of people and i think that will be a nightmare for afghan special forces because their priority will be to protect lives. on trump's first year in the white house has been marked by a government wide shut down after the senate refused to approve a bill to fund the government among democrats all but five voted against the sticking point being trump's refusal to include protections for undocumented young immigrants. demand that the republican leadership do the job they are paid to do today they put politics above the national security everyone who thinks of themselves as the leader in that building is going to have to look at themselves in the marriage and ask are they really being true to the ideals of this country democrats hold or local citizens hostage over their breakfast of moans we have

a divider in chief in the white house this is behavior the structure just loses not legislated. and this is just the latest example of how bumpy the first twelve months for the president to being open takes a look at how trump's tenure has unfolded. when trouble is sworn in a year ago emotions were running high on all sides. ok. us media described it as a pivotal moment in american history you're not having a terrible terrible dream also you're not dead and you have gone to hell it will be very bad americans and others will now die washington d.c. the establishment is terrified and they should be they call that the trump revolution from promise to completely overhaul u.s. foreign and economic policy he promised a brave new world that was cheered by his supporters and dreaded by his detractors

as a distro be an apocalypse so a year on where are we well with all this america first rhetoric you might have thought that what it meant less interference in other countries well that's not exactly how it played out tonight i ordered a targeted military strike. of our military and it was another successful event we have many options for venezuela including a possible military option if necessary on the home front some promised a new level of protectionism against mexico and china but the usa is increasingly buying more foreign goods and producing less of its own the trade deficit with mexico is up by eleven percent the trade deficit with china is up by seven percent unemployment is low but so are wages there is record amounts of household debt in the united states right now and retail stores are closing across the country and here's one thing that didn't change between trump and previous administrations during the election trump talked about getting along better with russia and his

detractors called him a kremlin puppet but now one year later things which when washington and moscow are about the same as they were before bad the action by the. congress to put these sanctions in place from the way they do that's the decision they made that made it very overwhelming was going. except we may be at an all time low in terms of the relationship with russia this is built for a long period of time now trump promised to drain the swamp of corruption we are going to dream. of washington d.c. . but it looks like that slump is still here and deeper than ever policy stay the same our foreign policy is the same the monetary policy in the federal reserve is the same spending as the same deficits are still rising so there has not been any significant changes in the direction of our country which i had been hoping for is that he has perpetuated so many of our deeply flawed policies

especially in foreign policy foreign policy is a little bit more confusing i am very pleased he's at least made an honest effort that he's reduced the amount of regulations and i think that's one of the reasons we've had an economic boost. and that is that is good and he's made an effort to reduce taxes that's for from perfect but lower taxes less regulation is good and the marketplace is reflecting that oh and don't forget about that wall we're going to build the world we have no choice we have no choice. yeah how's that going we have some wonderful. prototypes that have been put out now despite the president's ambitious timetable for construction it remains unclear when the wall might actually go up on the surface donald trump looks like a president like no other is allowed brash he doesn't care about political

correctness is even turned twitter into an official white house channel but if you look a little bit closer and judge him by his political actions he's a little bit more the rule than the exception. artsy new york. little in terms president so far as being mocked by a string of quirky catchphrases and diplomatic moves which have kept the world on the media guessing what he's going to do next his own take on his tenure throughout the year. elaine. donald trump's oath of office means nothing this is one of the most radical right wing not your own speeches we've ever i'm not going to give you

a question you say kind of you are fake it is. donald trump's incoherence is all a direct result of the potential collusion russian u.s. officials are growing increasingly concerned about possible russian a solution. we've just launched fifteen. heading to iraq where we're headed to syria. heading towards syria. you just got back from the middle east leaders of saudi arabia is.

still. going to go to a. meeting with. we are totally prepared for the second option totally destroy north korea is a sick puppy north korean regime is calling the president words a load of nonsense obviously he's a pretty smart cookie. he wish you a very happy kind of. thinking about what's

going on and the love that's all over because you're. all about jerusalem. meanwhile a growing number of us republican congressman are demanding the release of a top secret intelligence document they believe that it reveals political bias against chum in the ongoing russia probe but i had that same shock feeling i was like wait a minute this actually happened from our justice department and this f.b.i. that's how serious this is that there has been a real attempt to undermine this president that is the type of information that we need all americans to see immediately the american people deserve they must say they want to know what's in this document sadly much of the mainstream media will not be covering this today but in this house on this day let us know that indeed we

are still one nation under god and willing to protect life. well the content of the secret document remains unknown and it's the law unclear whether it will ever be released but based on the comments made by some republicans it's thought that intelligence officials under the obama administration were politically motivated during investigations into alleged trumpet russia collusion democrats they've also reacted to the memo denouncing its content they've called the document a profoundly misleading set of talking points that say that they attack the f.b.i. and give a distorted view of the bureau issues also made a splash on social media the hash tag released the memo trended on twitter in the united states late on friday and it wasn't long till russia was that it into the mix as well when a group of research is accused alleged kremlin linked accounts of pushing for the memos release on twitter they say the use of the hash tag increased massively over the course of a day among roughly six hundred users that they were monitoring independent journalist martin some of thinks russia just got caught up in partisan troughs fire

. the russian link to count seems to have appeared from nowhere the fact that there's a very partisan situation in the us where the f.b.i. quite likely would being used to try and undermine trump i think that's a fairly likely thing that's happened but of course both sides are now digging doing this on each other accusing each other of being russian stooges and of course for the world at large what is this and it's becoming increasingly bizarre and ridiculous these allegations are being flung around in the way that they are what's happening now is that the republicans are turning this russia proved on to their enemies by saying we're not sure fact it looks like the democrats have been. playing fast and loose and are not playing by the rules both sides actually probably are cheats that's what i would suggest. and forget the war on terrorists russia and china that are now america's biggest threat that's according to the u.s. defense secretary james mattis as he unveiled the country's new defense priorities

picks up the story. trump's new defense doctrine can probably be summed up in just three words bring it on and to those who would threaten america's experiment in democracy they must know if you challenge us it will be your longest and your worst day the war on terror is now secondary the priority is the new great game of global proportions great power competition not terrorism is now the primary focus of u.s. national security the logic here is that the technological and hard power gap between the us and the competition is narrowing and washington simply can't let that happen it cannot expect success fighting tomorrow's conflicts with yesterday's weapons or equipment. investments in space and space nuclear deterrent forces missile defense advanced economist systems and resilient an agile logistic

will provide our high quality troops what they need to win. i . that is a new arms race or races a nuclear arms race at me races cyber race space to what has that ever made the world a safer place sure we can have competition and all of that internationally but we should be working more cooperatively with each other because last time i heard the cold war was over what i'm really concerned about is that we're going to be seen. draining i drain resources to something we really really don't need already they're

talking about a hypersonic fighter who needs it that really requires billions upon billions of dollars of research and development and again it's really aimed at keeping the defense industry in business it's been said that budget cuts have done more damage to the u.s. military than anything else they say is an attempt to undo that damage but these are out of business plans remember the f. thirty five or the colombia submarines lethal weapons at least when it comes to destroying budgets but then that's what friends of fool you know it winston churchill it once said the only thing harder than fighting without allies is fighting without them the growing economic strength of today's democracies and partners dictates they must now step up and do more. making everyone else pays as much as part of the planners all the fancy toys europeans especially haven't been

all that enthusiastic about spending fortunes in defense understandably but then there's a new domain to fight in the cyber world this is a wild west right now as you know people in their bedrooms can be doing things that are causing your bank account dire problems at this point an urgent challenge and the u.s. is going to overhaul and boosted cyber forces giving them greater capability to deal with the random guys in their bedrooms i think we've got some serious challenges ahead we don't have the resources for the kind of spending that they want to do and i think we need to be a great deal more concerned about how those finite resources are going to be allocated and we need to be meeting immediate threats and that's terrorism. the russian defense ministry claims that america is still sitting on ten percent of its chemical weapons stockpile and that this is in violation of washington's

commitments under a chemical disarmament convention jacqueline viggo has the story. back in the ninety's both the u.s. and russia signed the chemical weapons convention arms control treaty and that pact prohibits the use deployment and stockpiling of chemical weapons and yet a statement from the russian fence ministry has highlighted the fact that the us has yet to meet its obligations with that according to the statement the u.s. still has around ten percent of its chemical weapons arsenal and that it's kept combat ready meanwhile russia was already able to say last september that it had destroyed all of its chemical weapons and that was done of schedule president putin held that as a historic moment whereas the u.s. has repeatedly pushed back their deadline using an excuse that putin found to be rather lacking. russia and the u.s. with the largest possesses of chemical weapons but now only the united states is unfortunately they do not fulfill their obligations regarding deadlines to destroy the chemical weapons the terms of destruction have been postponed three times

already including of the pretext of a lack of sufficient budget funds now the idea that they simply lacked funding really is hard to reconcile with the fact that the u.s. has a massive military budget every single year now we contacted the u.s. department of defense to comment on these claims coming from the russian ministry of defense and they have sent us on to contact the state department so we'll see what happens there and this all comes as washington has once again accused president assad of using chemical weapons and of moscow supporting the syrian leader and that russia has of course objected to those accusations on a number of fronts first of all there's the fact that all chemical weapons were in fact removed from syria back in two thousand and fourteen and destroyed that was all carried out by russian authorities and confirmed by the o.p.c. at the time plus there's the fact that these investigations that have been conducted into chemical attacks in syria really have been quite flawed those who were conducting the investigation never actually went to the site and any evidence

that was collected was actually sent out of the country by people who are actually part of the opposition forces which of course would be a distinct conflict of interest. thanks thing with international news coming up to this very short break. it's. a winner take all bent out of it's a lottery mentality in america either waiter or you're dead and the pharmaceutical companies of course lobbies are going to washington to change the laws that they have possible to peddle all cost in america and nobody cares because it ever learned a lesson the world war two did that they said let's do it again. with both his hands to do something. he put themselves on the line. to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. some will want to be preached.

to going to be press which is what before three in the morning can't be good. i'm interested always in the waters of my. question. here's the loss and. how it all move along what has night we're on. right now is a good idea of the rise of abuse and there are riders you know the crowds are for for i didn't hear this. i'm going to let some part of my next question then i can come to an almost solution china central falls. down. then i'm all in funny little follow it. and then tell everyone i

had enough for. me. good for toll full choice for a gun the i'm here your home and pay our sweet time as serious as. we do she also a divorce from my love for them after that i will fight on this just ahead to put a gym in an oil for half or put it off at a minute or. welcome back most return to our breaking news story turkey has launched a military operation on syria's kurdish held region involving air strikes a ground invasion and cross border shelling to accuse general staff says one hundred eight out of one hundred thirteen targets were successfully hit on saturday when the seventy planes conducted sorties all aircraft and now back at their bases

in turkey campaign which ankara has deemed antiterrorism has been named operation olive branch it's aimed at ousting kurdish militia from afrin which is a region that's been held by them for five years turkish backed syrian opposition fighters have reportedly entered the kurdish enclave from the ground turkish president earlier confirmed his country had started a military ground operation that turkish cross border shelling of the region began on friday correspondent paula slayer's been following developments. least eight f. sixteen s have been firing from the skies while on the ground you have the turkish backed syrian opposition rebels who have moved into this enclave not isn't on tape that is controlled by the kurdish militia the y.p. g. from the ground we're also hearing that the free syrian army has been arriving in buses as well as in trucks that have been fitted out with machine guns we are receiving reports in terms of the civilian situation there and they we're hearing

that people have been ordered to retreat into their homes and into shelters but there are reports coming through of people who have been wounded and injured and who are being taken to the local hospital now all of this follows threats over the last few days by the turkish president the one that he was going to launch a ground offensive into africa was really just a question of when and he said that this was really the only answer to root out what he has called terrorist elements there take a listen throughout the hour for an operation has a factory been started on the ground this will be followed by. the promises of not so nobody has a right to say anything. now man but it is an area that is mostly arab it is waste of the euphrates and it is the next step in terms of the turkish military's way of dealing with the kurdish militia it is not far from the area that the army has entered now so that is where all eyes are turning for the immediate future. the

turkish foreign minister has posted a tweet that says the country launched the offensive against syrian kurdish militias in order to exercise its right to self-defense yarded ankara's actions are strictly in keeping with international law he went on to stress that the operation isn't getting through villains names only to take out terrorist groups. they say i can speak now to dr alan liril he's the former director general of the israeli ministry of foreign affairs very good evening to you dr the total demented that we're seeing against the syrian kurds do you think this is going to remain largely confined to the north of syria to destroy or in other countries other other factions could there be a chain reaction. difficult to predict how this will develop but i think it will be limited mostly to this region although all the target is to paralyze the turkish forces all along the law the syrian

border so it might go deeper into the iraq direction i saw one expression of a senior turkish people that was say will go until the border of iraq but i don't think this is going to happen. just how strong are the kurds in this region and how much support if at all did they have from america who wants call them allies kind of unsure exactly what their relationship is now how much support the u.s. is offering first of all because of the long war in syria the thirty four says gained a lot of territory in the north of syria mostly in the north east of syria. because of the collapse of isis they became a major force with the aid with the support military support of the united states turkey sees them as a terror or got the same.