the u.s. defense secretary admits that his country has no concrete evidence there was a chemical attack in the syrian city of do more on saturday. germany gives a firm no to any involvement in the u.s. led military action against syria as other leaders continue to weigh up their options tonight. but even to pick an inside an issue that's on my. community of us not to tell you can. the british foreign secretary seizes on the u.n. chemical weapons watchdogs confirmation that saturday and huli ascript were poisoned with so you didn't case that the russian state was responsible. international love for moscow with me kevin zero eight pm here first in this

bulletin tonight the u.s. defense secretary mattis has said america has the right to preemptively strike the syrian government in order to defend its troops and in an address to congress he also admitted this no clear evidence that a chemical attack took place in the syrian city of duma over the weekend i believe there was a chemical attack and we're looking for the actual evidence the the o.p.c. do this you're going to station for the chemical weapons convention we're trying to get those inspectors in if we get them and if the regime will let them in we will not know who did it they can only say that they found evidence or did not. so really confused picture coming in from the united states on all fronts tonight specially the defense secretary across that kaleb take it so it's been said that. so as you just heard that was the u.s. secretary of defense james mattis it missing that the usa does not have evidence

that this chemical attack in dumas or alleged chemical attack even took place and furthermore that if they did they still wouldn't know who is responsible now that's quite an mission given that there's been so much assigning of blame in the media over the last few days now interestingly also the o.p.c. w. inspectors are now on their way to syria they will begin their work in syria on saturday getting the bottom of what exactly happened so without any evidence how is it that the u.s. leaders have been going about assigning blame for the attack and talking about a military strike well madison explained the procedure let's take a listen. there have been a number of these attacks in many cases you know we don't have troops were not engaged in the ground on the ground there so i cannot tell you that we had evidence even though we certainly had a lot of media and social media indicators that either chlorine or sharon were used so u.s.

leaders are getting on social mit media twitter facebook and seeing pictures and that is the basis for threatening a country with military strike very very interesting now the congressional committee i wanted to know under what specific legal authority james madison would carry out the attack if ordered to do so and this is how you explain the justification for attack in this effort protection of our forces i don't think we have to wait until they are under chemical attack when the weapons are used in the same theater we're operating in. now so basically if u.s. forces feel like they're under threat they have the right to take action doesn't matter if the threat is real or not now interestingly they did say that they would minimize civilian casualties when they did carry out an attack if they proceed to do so and furthermore they don't need congressional approval but they will report

to congress afterwards they'll report to the u.s. congress and tell them about the attack that they engaged in and now donald trump has come out as president united states and said he hasn't really made the decision yet but he is going over it with his generals and his advisers. looking. to see what happens if you what happens if. the world is in a position which is. or i kind of. for the details come out of the forthcoming well meantime this is a little trumps tweeted earlier on the possible struggle against the syrian government in response to the alleged chemical attack the president says military action could come from washington very soon all not very soon at all. some of the confusing statements or tweets coming from trump. white house press secretary therefore particularly challenging check this. our maintaining that we have

a number of options and all of those options are still on the table what he certainly means i think there's a lot there that you can read from but at the same time the president has a number of options he has a number of other options as well other options options our options options and all of those options remain on the tape once again the president has a number of options we're considering all those options he said i. really like. and they all options are on the table it gives what you know from brussels he's a member of the european parliament for the u.k. independence party one third of what you make of the various messages and tweets except for them coming out from the states but we've got the defense secretary mattis admission that the u.s. has no evidence that a chemical attack took place in duma and even if the o.p.c. do go in they still won't be able to tribute back to who carried it out it's a pretty messy picture isn't it. it is that he was insisting this is almost facile some of the i mean the press conference we just had about the options it just

sounded nonsensical i'm afraid that a year ago assad's regime were accused of carrying out a chemical weapons attack which was then used as a basis of a s strike which knocked out a airport for a few hours a year later there was still no evidence as to whether or not it was assad's regime that she carried that out but we also know that isis have carried out fifty two chemical weapon attacks so i would just say how we ever going to learn from the past or we just going to keep on getting involved in these ridiculous foreign wars which strike is in which our proxy walls of other nations who are posture in that time has come for britain to be strong and not to get dragged into this and to say you know something the evidence doesn't stack the people of britain don't want this so we're not going to get involved well some people are already drawing comparisons

of course to the build up to the iraq war in two thousand and three and we all know the fallout from that again you know what you were left with it all and they don't seem to be. no absolutely this is the problem it's i mean often for political reasons or for reasons of alliances we seem to get dragged into these foreign walls we can't afford it one of the you know the british forces have been stripped to the bare minimum let's just be brutally honest about this will be sending in troops or will be sent in in the air force in antiquated or in situations where they don't have the right equipment to do what the being asked to do and of course they will do it they will carry it around as we saw with the you know the the fallout from the iraq war what basically happened was with the snatch range rover and all those kind of things we just didn't have enough helicopters we weren't prepared or equipped and it's the same situation right now back to the present reading it where

you are regarding to reason may be becoming more on the fence on this she said parliament will be recalled but then she doesn't seem to be. at the forefront of leading this charge to go in and bomb syria as she maybe did a couple of days ago you reading it. yeah absolutely i think you're right with what there was the initial knee jerk reaction and then gung ho kind of talk in the will stand by our allies but i think as everybody's actually looking at this with a cool head they're realizing that the public appetite is not there politically it's not expedient for them to do this it really isn't expedient for them to do this and i think that's what happened before when the previous prime minister was going to take this in and have as strikes it with libya nodule for lead the public to say no let's not do this in the old fall votes in in parliament to allow it to happen than realized there was an appetite amongst the public they pulled pulled out of it and we ended up not doing it thank heavens we did and let's hope the same

thing happens here and that's reason may can read the writing on the wall and realize that not only that the public not wants it what will we penetrate from it seriously what will we benefit let's let the rule of law be supreme let's look into this and find out whether or not actually did happen and try and find out who actually carried this out and then punish the people who actually carried it out and just bomb in willy nilly you know if i'm willing to do anything you can depend his party you think you. and america many times is germany will not be involved in any military strike in syria if the operation does go ahead the german chancellor made berlin's position players other countries continue to consider their course of action tonight. has been following a high level reaction in europe. but while we're seeing donald trump stirring up suspense with yet more tweets we're seeing his allies across the atlantic trying to figure out exactly what they themselves are going to be doing next and here in the u.k. we know that british prime minister theresa may is meeting with her cabinet ministers

this afternoon to figure out if there's going to be any military action and clearly we don't have to look far to understand that the questions that are going to be discussed as a whether or not they're going to get involved militarily at all and be whether or not there is going to be a vote put in front of parliament on this issue and all of this is happening while we're seeing the british media discuss reports of typhoons torpedoes submarines being pretty much on standby and ready to go if that decision is made and it has to be clear that technically theresa may does have the capability of going ahead with any military action in this particular case without parliament's involvement however there are many voices here in westminster not just within the tory party but also in the opposition that are calling for the opportunity for parliament to be given to weigh in and here's why russia america the european. neighboring

countries. are going to be in for the sure use real strong and the but it's a good place for those who quote the people you see. who looks like we just. use the school in the war goes well meanwhile across the channel in france the french president emanuel has talked about having proof about chemical weapon use in the latest developments in syria we have proof that last week chemical weapons were used at the very least chlorine by the regime of bashar assad and germany we have heard angela merkel talk about expressing support to our european allies however making it clear that germany is now. not getting involved in any kind of military adventure in this case mrs merkel in which way would you support a possible missile strike in syria. even to.

militants not to in the detail you can and so clearly very big and important decisions are being considered and made as we speak with lots of more developments to come while when those decisions are finally made and certainly we'll be watching what happens and updating our viewers as that happens meantime a military option isn't being backed by the british public according to a national poll which suggests that forty three percent are opposed to military action thirty four undecided and only twenty two percent would be backing a strike in syria we asked people in london for their opinion direct. think military strikes in syria will help solve anything you know i've been to the only thing the usa and the u.k. i have a secret agenda basically. i don't think the game's up the whole world knows it's like the agenda is the zionist agenda to go into syria because it fits into their motive to get rid of you or break it up and it's looking for excuses i don't know

this whole mess at the moment when obvious area and she's considering any kind of military intervention what would you actually achieve by really disagree with military action against anything happening in this syria is already in the fighting going on there as it is and there's a real danger of war escalating way beyond what we expect. and they were targeted to send any for the singer. push up you know the basic military intervention that outsetting i think we have that and five attitude where these countries have these problems have these civil wars and we trying to fix it but we had our civil war when the americans had their civil war nobody went and bombed us and we got this side we have now they need to go through this on their oh . elsewhere tonight the international chemical weapons watch talk is back britain's findings regarding the type of nerve agent used against it again julie screw pulp

the u.k. foreign office in turn is seized on the o.p.c. w.'s report supplanting it leaves no doubt than that the russian state was behind the attack given the purity of the substance that's despite the fact that the organization itself is not in a position to apportion blame fully boyko reports. but it said its team can confirm the findings of the u.k. relating to the identity of the toxic chemical that was used in seoul sprit the summary doesn't actually name the specific nerve agent used but the u.k. government lab porton down had identified it as know of a child very soon off to the script files were taken ill five weeks ago novacek originally developed in the soviet union by soviet scientists in the late eighty's so the summary that we've got confirms the u.k. labs identification it also says that its conclusion is based on the work of four independent laboratories around the world they all came to the same results and

they also know that the nerve agent was of high purity and what we've got to see is just this executive summary there is a deep are supplied reports where it's said that the nerve agent is a and that's been sent to all the countries that are party to the chemical weapons convention russia is of course a member already confirmed that it's received its coffee of it what the summary doesn't mention is where the came from and by the way the head of that ukraine the borat three cooled down has also said that he can't confirm where the nerve agent came from the u.k. has already called for a u.n. security council meeting following the o.p.c. w. report and we've also had a line from the foreign secretary here boris johnson he's already said that there can be no doubt that russia was behind the attack although there's nothing to that

effect in this p.c. w. summary at least in fact the information that we have isn't particularly new nor is it sensational it's simply independent verification of the facts that we already had about the specific way. but where it came from is still very much the source of debate throughout the scandal over the spread powell attack the british government hasn't revealed many details about why it's come to this conclusion that the blame should be laid at moscow's door certainly we haven't seen anything to confirm that in this document today and as a grad guest if explains fear of the questions surrounding the case have been on said there was no trial no discussion no evidence no proof there was only judgement and punishment is highly likely that russia was responsible to hold

russia culpable culpable culpable for the attempted murder the pundits needed even less the name nuvi chalk sounds russian means russia did it establish that it is not a chaka matter is by definition of the translation of the name which means newcomer part of a program in the soviet union in the late seventy's and eighty's the points made there are a lot of questions to ask of this whole mess but over the last few weeks we've interviewed dozens of chemists experts and military specialists and hear their biggest gripes. the nuvi nerve agents a new she quit they haven't been so in decades here they are exerts from the books and studies available to the public neither the formula nor the chemicals any more russian than itself for years now researchers have published studies and

theses on the nuvi chocks which there are dozens and dozens of many developed in different countries there's just one in twenty zero seven the us or the published of people numerous chemical compounds we were interested because of the toxicity the author invited them under the system there are more than sixty compounds here and they've all been indexed that means someone somewhere synthesize them and shared the information since then these formulas or some of them have appeared in various publications constantly you simply cannot see they are secret. there's more to it if you suspect a potential adverse arena has made a new discovery you have to do the same in order to study the new substance and make antidotes it's true to say that russia is not the only country being able to

send it dies a few grams of no beach up in the late ninety's all intelligence services in the west worked on of each other because there were these rumors about a new military chemical agent produced in russia so so i'm not surprised that in france in a new king in the united states you have this kind of information that could explain this speed in which the product was identified that's the purpose and that's the job of this kind of laboratories and there's a whole lot of nerve agents to go around with more being discovered undeclared nerve agents. and. and it's a country and there are many discovers the properties of a new chemical structure it's the exit to our chemical weapons potential they must immediately according to the convention vegeta it with the obviously w. but no country does so despite having created many such chemicals.

and it really isn't as difficult as it may sound if it's really an overture we're dealing with it's not a real problem to synthesize that kind of nerve agent or the necessary components are easily available on the open market the synthesis does not require sophisticated procedures any specialist in organic chemistry would be able to make it though every expert we talked to said that you need serious expertise and substantial funding to make a pure nerve agent. and of course you can't make this in any basement the chemicals are highly toxic and the lab has to be well equipped with ventilation detoxification equipment and the chemist themselves have to be educated not every lead can synthesize this but there are twenty or so labs that counter. the argument that there is no alternative explanation because only russia has made new rich ox

sales. britain's decision to classify almost every aspect of what happened and the investigation is called the rumen mill running but there are tidbits that have leaked out tidbits that have the scientists scratching their heads is supposed to be very toxic highly toxic five to eight times more toxic than the x. which is already very very toxic so small amounts should have killed mr creep out for sure but again it's very difficult to assess and evaluate this kind of question before knowing exactly how the product was delivered the interesting thing with nobody chalks is that there are so many of them and they come in so many different forms they can come in a powered as solid as a crystal and even as

a liquid but just to give you some reference if this was a variety of the nuvi chalks a single drop is enough to kill ten people ten people within minutes if this was an inhaled even more units one and putting it we can have symptoms appear and follows in minutes if it gets in the skin symptoms and can take from minutes to. at first one might think that the script could only have survived because the dude's had to be very small but the reported symptoms don't match they're simply missing a little of it when witnesses found them they said cyril gaze cripple was rocking back and forth waving his hands it seemed more like the effects of narcotics if it was a small dose as they claim then first would come meiosis then the rest of the symptoms convulsions uncontrolled urination but we didn't see that in photos or hear of it

in reports there are many questions. if indeed this was a new rich aka nerve agent at work the script uls we're very fortunate. saudi arabia's crown prince mohammed has just wrapped up a three day visit to paris and it seems he has made quite an impression on the french president emanuel micron's now asking critics of the saudi here to give him a chance to show other do bensky explain. the saudis a crown prince's been on a global charm offensive of the west for the past three days here in france it seems like it's being all hugs and handshakes but mohamad been solemn and he's even joked about having asked special bond with the french president.

that despite the fact that bin selman is the leader of an absolute monarchy considered to be one of the world's most oppressive regimes yet on his visit to france saudi arabia's new tourist reputation for human rights offenses seem to have been swept under the carpet. or your legitimate questions from civil society and from journalists about human rights and various sensitive issues concerning your country we have the choice to stick to our traditional positions and we can decide that the first act of modernization of this society will be cosmetic as the prince was winded and dined protesters struggle to draw attention to the saudi offensive in yemen and we've been calling on france to stop the use of these weapons so all of this weapons and equipment. since two thousand and fifteen almost

six thousand yemenis have perished in the war between the saudi led coalition and the rebels more than nine thousand have been injured three million have fled their homes all much did to address that is promised a conference on yemen's humanitarian suffering and even then he took the time to reassure the saudi prince. william and francis taken a clear. position since the beginning of the conflict in this war it is obvious that we won't tolerate any ballistic activities that threaten saudi arabia and its citizens and matt corn made sure his guest didn't leave without some lucrative deals between french and saudi companies with some eighteen billion dollars the pair also discussed a strategic partnership with france and plans to create an opera from say in saudi

arabia and that's the same situation we saw with other stops on bin solomons big wooing the west tour in the us he finalized an arms deal with twelve and a half billion dollars in the u.k. humanitarian aid deal with one hundred and forty million dollars was branded britain's national disgrace by critics next on the agenda is spain where the prince is set to work his diplomatic cash filled magic once again this time he's expected to beef up a surge arabia's military might by buying warships and despite protesters calls for prince solomon to be given the cold shoulder it looks like those deep pockets are set to keep governments in the west on friendly terms with saudi arabia so. r.t. paris close to where the top stories are shaping up so far this thursday night i'm

kevin know him much more for us twenty four seven a coarseness of. other guy the product of google offer guide the actions of the employees within it and they can stop the algorithm isn't this just like fantasia that to say well we were making about we're. he goes to war with the dancing groom that he sighs to chop it down it creates more than a craze a flood within the wizard alice these are algorithms that are out of fricken control and employees within the company can't stop the war driven by algorithm who's in charge the algorithm or the head of google those words are shown. cracking gave americans a lot of new job opportunities needed to come up here to make some money i

could make twenty five thousand dollars as a teacher or i could make fifty thousand dollars a year trucks or chose to truck people rush to a small town in north dakota was an unemployment rate of zero percent like gold rush is very very similar. but this beautiful story ended with pollution and devastation a lot of people have left here i don't know too many people here and just slow down so much they lost jobs got laid off the american dream is changing that's not what it used to be. it's a tough reality to deal. with. those strong pressure find a security company that's by the pentagon and by the media on don't donald trump to do something about it see it probably at some stage she might get into this pressure but i don't think it is his intention to what i consider more likely down

another u.s. military attack on syria is that the united states policy build the need to wreck any ethic by the russians to turks and iranians to find a political solution. thank god. to welcome to the alex salmond show in the spring cities of programs we've been looking at the changing politics of the celtic nations of these islands ireland scotland and in this week's program wales today alex is in conversation with someone whose political career stretches back almost

half a century logically arrived in the house of commons as a young m.p. and fairbairn one nine hundred seventy four now he sits in the house of lords is played commies only peter of the realm in between is leader of play to the party of wills he took the party to its best ever election result in the first assembly elections of one nine hundred ninety nine and two within a whisker of ending labor supremacy of both politics and this interview he explains why plight unlike the s.n.p. have never managed to build on that success but i guess it breaks it may be about to change the political landscape of wales but first your tweets messages and emails and in the mission to assure a couple of weeks ago with opec and peter tatchell sun compass says to heartfelt interviews last night we sometimes forget what our politicians to after losing their seat it's not always back to an edited family business absolutely so suzanne when finlayson says in relation to last week's show great interview with alex neil .