u.s. defense secretary admits that his country has no concrete evidence there was a chemical attack in the syrian city of duma but might the strike preemptively to quote defend american troops. pull up to germany give us a no however twenty involvement in u.s. led military action against syria as other leaders continue to weigh up their options. stunt. and even to end came in sight unusual from my. own community it was not so in the detailing. the stories tonight u.k. foreign secretary said no doubt it was russia behind the script poisoning after you were watchdog confirms the substance used in the attack that's despite investigations not confirming russia's the source of the nerve agent. and saudi

arabia's crown prince mohammed wins over the french president in his whirlwind two of europe with present mccraw now asking critics of the saudi here to give him a chance. why this is out international live from moscow with me kevin owen it's just tonight in the evening here now and first in this bulletin tonight the u.s. defense secretary james mattis is said america has the right to preemptively strike the syrian government in order to defend its troops it followed an admission that there's 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 o.p.c. w this your going to station for the chemical weapons convention and 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 u.s.

secretary of defense james mattis is saying essentially that the usa does not have any evidence about the chemical attack in dubai they can't confirm necessarily that it took place he personally believes it took place but they cannot confirm it and furthermore when inspectors and experts are on the scene they may be able to confirm that it happened but they won't be able to attribute blame they won't be able to say who did it 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 but there have been a number of these attacks in many cases you know we don't have troops were not

engaged on 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 media twitter facebook and seeing pictures and that is the basis for threatening a country with military strike very very interesting now that 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 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 at this point donald trump has not yet taken a decision but he is considering all options with his generals and advisers but we're looking very very closely at the whole situation. we'll see what happens if

you see what happens if. the world puts us in a position like this well meantime this is donald trump's tweet earlier about possible strikes against the syrian government in retaliation for the alleged chemical attack the president says military action could come from washington very soon or not very soon at all and some of the confusing statements or tweets coming from can make life as a white house press secretary particularly challenging our maintaining that we have a number of options and all of those options are still on the table but 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 as other options options are options options and all of those options remain on the table and once again the president has a number of options for considering all of those options as you say options because russia certainly like i said a few times a day all options are on the table the claims of a chemical attack on the syrian city of dubai were made by the instant response

group known as the white helmets russian experts of being to that area themselves though and they say they found no evidence the toxic substance was used moscow's invited investigators to visit the area the first group of inspectors from international chemical weapons watchdog to derive this thursday we spoke to some locals in duma. is a i haven't seen any chemical weapons here i don't believe it because i haven't seen it. i haven't seen anyone suffering from exposure to chemical weapons i haven't seen it and haven't even heard about it nothing at all. angela merkel says germany will not be involved in any military strike in syria if the operation does go ahead the german chancellor made berlin's position clear as other countries continue tonight to consider their course of action. and it's been following the high level reaction in europe. but what 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. america the european. neighboring

countries. have got to be cool you sure you get used to strong and that is a good place with those people hope the people you see. who don't so you'd like to just take you along the school and 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 in germany we have heard angela merkel talk about expressing support to our european allies however making it clear that germany is 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 and. even to aid in your. own militants not to need to tell you can and so clearly a very big and important decisions are being considered and made as we speak with lots of more developments to calm while when those decisions are finally made and certainly we'll be watching what happens and updating our viewers as that happens tonight in gilley's a member of the european parliament for the you can depend on his party he believes the u.k. should avoid getting him brought in another overseas conflict and for political reasons or for reasons of alliances we seem to get dragged into these four walls are we going to learn from the past or we're just going to keep on getting involved in these ridiculous proxy wars for other nations who are posture in you know whether it's really muslims or whether it's the russians and the americans you know this is not our battle it's not our war we saw as

a public what happened in iraq we do not want that to happen again the time has come for britain to be strong and the not to get dragged into this and to say you know something the evidence doesn't the people of britain don't want this so we're not going to get involved. and the tree 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 percent are undecided and twenty two percent would be backing striking syria because people direct in london for their opinion. think military strikes in syria will help solve anything no i think to be only i think the usa and the u.k. have a secret agenda basically. the thing the game's up the whole world knows it's like the agenda is the zionist agenda to go into syria because if it's in their motive to get rid of you or break it up just looking for excuses i don't know

this whole mess at the moment well obviously very anxious about any kind of military essentially what would you buy really disagree with military action against anything happening in this syria there's already enough fighting going on as it is and there's a real danger of war escalating way beyond what we expect. in the world of targeted to send any for the singer. push ups you know the basic military intervention that outsetting i think we have that and five attitude where these countries have these problems have the civil wars and we try and go to fix but we had our civil war when the americans had their civil war nobody went to bomb us we got this side we have now they need to go through this on their own. international chemical weapons watchdog has backed britain's findings regarding the type of nerve agent used against surrogate yuliya script the u.k.

foreign office in turn has seized on the o.p.c. w.'s report claiming it leaves no doubt 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 police reports. but it said that it team can confirm the findings of the u.k. relating to the identity of the toxic chemical that was used in souls 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 independent laboratories around the world they all came to the same results and

they also know that the nerve agent was a high purity and what we've got to see is just this executive summary there is a full declassified report where it said that the nerve agent is a and that's been sent to 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 of the child came from and by the way the head of that u.k. in the forestry 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 that's expected to be held next week 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 weapon used but where it came from is still very much the source of debate throughout the scandal over this square pile 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 has the if explains fear of the questions surrounding the case have been answered there was no trial no discussion no evidence no proof there was only judgement and punishment it's 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 chalk and that is by definition of the translation of the name which means newcomer part of the 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 do 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 good tool in twenty zero seven the us or the published a paper on 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 share 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

sympathize 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 that city a chemical weapons potential they must immediately according to the convention fragile it would be 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 overtrick 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 chemists 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 of school the room and mill running but there are tidbits that have leaked out tidbits that have the scientists graduating the heads of each other is supposed to be very toxic highly toxic five to eight times more toxic than the x. which is already a very very toxic so a small amount 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 nova 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 in the haled even more units on putting it we can hail the symptoms appear and follows in minutes if it gets in the skin symptoms and birth can take from minutes to hours. 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 but 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 were very fortunate. a palestinian man who is sick caught on camera in a video that's gone viral being shot by israeli defense forces says he posed no threat and the soldiers cheer and laughter is injuries but much earlier while i did nothing i was just a demonstration i went to my friends to help them and before i reached the place they shot me the soldier knew that i was going to help them and that's why i was shocked. it's pre-split more this together google middle east correspondent paula paula was not a brother since. well this man says that he recognized himself in the video through the red jacket that he was wearing he said that this was filmed on december twenty second in southern gaza when there was

a clash between israeli soldiers and palestinian protesters we are hearing though that he was throwing stones at israeli soldiers he says that the film captured the moment that he was shot in the leg he was subsequently treated in hospital and has been suffering ever since now this comes amid latest clashes that we witnessing on the israel gaza border but this particular video was filmed from the israeli side we hear and we can make out a conversation that i.d.f. snipers were having between themselves what is particularly worrying is that you hear cheering and you hear swearing on the israeli side and then you see in the video palestinians converging on this wounded man take a look. if you. draw a rope. the only one with the little flare up of the richest of them did.

very little to the ground war really right there. now the israeli defense forces has launched an investigation into the whole incident in its initial review it has cleared the sniper but it has said that those who were cheering and those who filmed the video will face a disciplinary hearing and a statement released by the army they said that the expression of the video and the distribution of the video are not in the spirit of the idea if the real. action here in israel has been mixed on the one hand you have israeli politicians who have come out and supported the sniper in the soldiers actions saying that you cannot judge a soldier while he is in the line of duty that these soldiers are defending the country and they're under a lot of stress but then you have for example arab members of parliament who are

highly critical who are calling for the soldiers to be brought to book and who say that this is simply and completely unacceptable the video surfaced during a particularly sensitive time here in israel we've witnessed some two weeks of violent clashes that have left some thirty one palestinians killed along the israel gaza border and yet again both sides are gearing up for potentially another showdown this friday now the palestinians are protesting under the banner of the great march of return they insist that their protests are peaceful against the israeli occupation but the israelis for this side say that while most of the protesters are peaceful their troops on the border are being fired at with explosive devices and molotov cocktails and that they've caught a number of people trying to breach the border fence hamas organization in gaza has conceded that amongst those who have been killed are some of its members so we have two battles going on we have both sides laying blame at the other and we have both

sides accusing the other of using excessive force paula thanks. for the public stoning the sort of dirty campaign to get his thoughts good evening. to the. reaction to this israel's defense minister avigdor lieberman says quote the sniper deserves a medal the photographer deserves a demotion so obviously this backing from this from the very top what's going on here puts it to use is the idea of the most moral army in the world that could be no doubt when you're at the front line under a lot of should these things. emotions run high because you have an argument there for that or not of course it does and you want to sort of the u.s. has a view and the use of. seen just now there's a fence between these snipers and the palestinians. did you see anything go over the fence do you see any protectors there was nothing there were people yes demonstrating as they have a. right to in what is the biggest jail in the world in gaza and this is from

december but i do take issue with your correspondents characterization of this as violent clashes this is exactly the israeli narrative it isn't it is civilian protesters on one side and violent snipers on the other picking them off there is no justification for killing one protester but they have killed more than thirty in the most recent incidents and all of these people want to go home because these people eighty percent of the palestinians in gaza are actually refugees some of whom come from villages just under a kilometer from that fence carol we've got to leave it there we've got the sun but we've lost the picture to i'm afraid but for thanks for bringing us your thoughts on this ongoing. highly sparky issue at the moment thank you thank you for watching tonight to this is art international news continues next i believe yes we've got

time for another story thirty arabia's crown prince mohammed has just wrapped up a three day visit to paris and it seems he's made quite an impression on the french president you're micron's now asking critics of the saudi air to give him a chance as charlotte do bensky explains. the saudis 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's 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. 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 the society will be cosmetic as the prince was winded and dined protesters struggle to draw attention to the saudi offensive in yemen who have 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 not counted 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 much 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 france say in saudi arabia and that's the same situation we saw with other stops on bin salmond's 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 worth 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 field magic once again this time he's expected to beef up a saudi 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. set to descend on russia calls for the world cup and nine weeks time now and counting the fund clumber for quick and treat ways to get it but that's not exciting enough want to gyptian man has decided to turn his trip into a full scale two wheeled adventure. i i

i. it's been hard to plan this journey but we're trying to overcome the obstacles there are many security issues these are struggles within the range everything before we set off to get everything sorted the journey. for the adventure those who are the top stories are shaping up so far tonight thanks for watching as ever my name is kevin o. in moscow without international a website.