the u.s. defense secretary admits his country has no concrete evidence there was a chemical attack in the syrian city of duma but might strike nonetheless preemptively to quote defend american troops there. meantime other developments tonight after a lengthy cabinet meeting trees of may doesn't shed much light on london's course of action on syria the british prime minister did stress that would need to coordinate with its allies other developments on top of that the german chancellor today though giving a firm no to military strikes against damascus. good stunt. and even to end its chicken inside the uterus on my. own militants not to unleash detail you can. also coming up to the u.k. foreign secretary is in no doubt quote it was russia behind the scrupled poisoning after u.n.

watchdog confirms the substance used in the attack despite investigation is not confirming russia as the source of the nerve agent. and saudi arabia's crown prince mohammed wins over the french president in his whirlwind tour of europe with president mccall now asking critics of the south here to give him a chance. live from moscow this is out international with me in tonight's and levon pm here first of this bulletin then 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 comes after he admitted there is no clear evidence that chemical weapons were used in the city of do more on saturday and alleged attacks that triggered calls for intervention against assad's forces. 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 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 and 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 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're under chemical attack when the weapons are used in the same fear. we're operating 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 you see what happens in. the world puts those in a position like you. or me tom this is donald trump's earlier tweet about possible strikes against the syrian government in retaliation for that 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 of tweets coming from trumka 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 it certainly means that i think there's a lot there that you can read from that at the same time the president has a number of options he has a number of other options as well other options options other options options and all those options remain on the tape once again the president has a number of options we're considering all those options you say options because

certainly like senator thompson they all options are on the table the claims of the chemical attack on the syrian city of duma were made by the self-styled civil defense group known as the white helmets russian experts who bring to the area and they say they found no evidence the top six substance was used as our correspondent mentioned the first group of inspectors from the international chemical weapons watched over due to arrive so that you to start their work on saturday syria's representative to the u.n. security council has said his country will do everything possible to aid that investigation. the syrian government is ready. to grant a visa. for the second team we are ready to escort them to with a world where ever they want anytime they want. ok we'll keep across the let's get some force now on the u.s. defense secretary latest comments are done collecting the lines of human rights lawyer listening intently there and what are your thoughts on james mattis is mission that washington has no real evidence of chemical weapons use in duma yet is

still considering going in any way to protect its forces there is troops. well i find it. reprehensible frankly and we've seen this time and again every time it looks like the u.s. may be leaving syria in fact trump announced last week the u.s. military must prepare to leave syria all of a sudden right now and. there is an alleged chemical attack which now all the sudden just defies. you know military action so i think you know one has to look at this very skeptically first of all. there needs to be an investigation and we need to pause. before her that engagement should show you actually getting a syria and russia want the o.p.c. w. to go in there on their way there now are they the right people to be sent yeah they were but the problem is with the o.p.c. w. they're not there to apportion who to pour some blame if you like so who should go

in that everybody trusts. well in terms of assessing blame you know the security council could appoint you know an independent organization to go in and do that i think that should be done. but i think. that the investigation is being planned at the moment at least from the start in the nothing should be done well tonight in at tonight in front suppress them across says he has got the proof that nobody else has seen at the moment what that proof is. yeah well again i i would be very dubious that france has such proof and frankly many just state that even if there were proof you know what would be the intent behind a military attack. if this point you know the idea that somehow the u.s. is going to enforce human rights through bombing it's usually a bombing that doesn't seem to have much rhyme or reason. is ludicrous in

a in a it disturbs me that many in the media are pushing for such a bombing. that's not the way to handle. these types of issues worst case scenario what could the western nations hope to achieve by carrying out these strikes i what what could the implications be i mean the worst case scenario frankly is that it's going to grow won the war you know the fact is that you know assad is very much on the verge of winning this civil war whatever people think of assad the fact is once the war is over i think we can expect you know so i want to one of what we don't want to prolong it. well i think we know why i mean i think that there are people who vote only said henry kissinger openly said that we need to crow on the war in order to keep other forces i know are weak in the area or to

prevent them from having more power i mean the u.s. is has recent times shown that it's willing to maintain instability in the middle east in order to maintain its own foothold there which of course is something that . we should be opposed to i mean obviously we want stability but i'm not sure of the u.s. or as your wants to bill in the middle east. will leave if they don't develop human rights lawyer things shown us alone give us your thoughts this huge story thank you thank you meantime the developments in connection with this and the merge and see cabinet meeting in london summoned by the british prime minister just concluded trees and main advisors have been contemplating possible military strikes against the syrian government in response to that alleged chemical attack in the war torn country let's go to london get the latest from artie's in a day or two there. was a long meeting of probably what came out of it. well there was a lot of anticipation as we waited for the results of that cabinet meeting we were

expecting a major decision to be made of the possibility of military action but actually what we've ended up is quite a vague statement so after some key points here she's condemned the act calling it shocking and barbaric and that the use of chemical weapons should not go unchallenged the cabinet agreed that they should take action to alleviate humanitarian distress and that they should continue to work with their allies the u.s. and france so no mention of military action at all. but that was the big debate obviously was whether to resume needed parliamentary approval to go ahead with military action and it would have proved unpopular because a lot of people from our own party and other parties have spoken out about the fact that she shouldn't be able to do that including ten clock he said that there should be parliamentary approval also the leader of the labor party jeremy corbyn he explains why that should be the case that some quickness and. america

the european union neighboring countries iran saudi arabia have got to be in ensuring there is a real choice for under political pressure that's good hope to people with. more clarity more. like we just take. and we've also heard from france emanuel micron he said that he has the proof that is needed to confirm that it was indeed the assad regime responsible for that chemical attack let's have a quick listen to what he had to say. we have proof that last week chemical weapons were used at the very least chlorine by the regime of bashar assad and we've heard from germany chancellor angela merkel has said that she definitely won't go ahead with military action and here's what she said. mrs merkel in which way

would you support a possible missile strike in syria. and even to. militants not to tell you can so quick recap as to the outcome of that cabinet meeting in the u.k. to resume there was no mention of military action she condemned the chemical attack in syria she said that there was a need to take action but did not specify what that action should be and they agreed that they should continue to work with their allies the u.s. and france or. all the poles just seems the military option isn't being backed by the british public either according to a national poll suggesting tonight forty three percent are opposed to military action thirty four percent are undecided and only twenty two percent would be backing a strike in syria we asked people in london direct for some of their thoughts in

the streets. i think military strikes in syria will help solve anything no i think the only thing the usa and the u.k. have a secret agenda basically. 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 well obviously very anxious about considering any kind of next week essentially what would she achieved by really disagree with military action against anything happening in this syria there's already enough fighting going on there as it is and there's a real danger of war escalating way beyond what we expect the scenario and the way to target it to send any sort of thing no. 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 try to go in and fix it but we had our civil war when the americans had their civil war nobody went and bombed us and we got the side we have now they need to go through this on their own. social rentiers the bolivian ambassador to the united nations indeed the man who called today security council meeting is talk to him he said made the time to be with us hi thank you for your time tell us more about your concerns which which led you to call the meeting. thank you very much our main concern is the duty due to the. threat that the united states is imposing on this situation. the threat to use force in our union other action the goals against the united nations charter also we are concerned about the possibility of this coalition that this could go out of control and we might end up

with why there a conflict that done the one that's already been suffer in syria and that's a serious concern you think it is possible here. well i mean. we believe that the united nations charter and its principles should guide the. resa lucian of any any any cold fix the problem the problem that we are facing is that the united states is willing to go against the charter and we believe that the u.n. system as a whole not just the security council but the u.n. system should do its best in upheld in the principles of the u.n. charter and that's why we convened a meeting that we had today. we just been informed that to morrow will have another open meeting regarding the threats that the united states.

sent against not just syria in this case but against the whole u.n. system your colleague the u.s. envoy to the to the u.n. nikki haley just a few days ago said that the quote security council has proved itself to be useless what's your assessment of the comments on it. well i think that the security council has a lot of problems i think it has a lot of all sorts challenges. we can talk about the need of reform of the security council we can talk about the privilege that the permanent members of the security council have that we think that we will leave that that should be change but at this particular moment i think the main challenge of the security council hass is to unite and to create an independent mechanism in order to investigate the arledge

chemical attacks but even if that doesn't war that doesn't allow the united states to take actions by its own so whatever happens if the united states takes a unilateral action it will be a violation of international law and the u.n. system should not of course accept that and as i said it will not be an attack against syria but also an attack against the whole united nations system and as it stands your thoughts about the u.s. to friends in the americas the right to carry a preemptive strikes against assad's forces to defend its own troops that's just a pretext to go in is it. it is a pretext it is a predict it right now we have what we have the information we have from from the united nations says that. there is no conclusive

investigation on the chemical attack first of all second that the only. body the only organ in the in this in the international system that could approve the use of force is the security council before they do anything they need to have an approval and of the recession by the security council otherwise it is also it is of course a violation of international law the problem is that the united states believes and acts as it would be it is above any any law they believe that they have their own rules and it is not the case and believe me as members of the security council has a responsibility to represent to the whole the whole or membership of the cancer the one hundred ninety three countries those fifteen members in the council represent the why the membership the first. responsibility that we have

is to upheld the purposes and the principles of the united nations charter and any you did unilateral action goes against those purposes and principles such are laurenti bolivia's ambassador to the united nations thank you. international criminal weapons watchdog has but britain's findings regarding the type of nerve agent used against. you go for an office in turn has seized on the o.p.c. w.'s report clearly at least no doubt that the russian state was behind the attack given the purity of the substance this is the organization of self is not a position to apportion blame as police reports next. but it's said that it's 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 here porton down had identified it as novacek 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 classified report where it's 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 novel 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 un 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 o.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 a guest 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 be 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 but 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 new nerve agents a new she quit they haven't been so in decades here they are exerts from the books and studies and mailable to the public neither the formula nor the chemicals any more russian then 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 and it is just one 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

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 sympathize a few grams of no beach up in the late ninety's all intelligence services in the west worked on me chart because there were these rumors about a new military chemical agent just 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 the 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 chemical weapons potential they must immediately according to the conventions register 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 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 crashing 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 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 an hailed even more units one and putting it we can tell you symptoms that 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

doods had to be very small but the reported symptoms don't match they simply missing. 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. 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 the new rich aka nerve agent at work the script baal's were very fortunate. so the arabia's crown prince mohamed has just wrapped up a three day visit to paris and it seems he's made quite an impression on the french president and i know my crown is now asking critics of the saudi air to give him a chance to show they do better ski report saudis a crown prince is being 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 from a hermit and 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. goosen i hear 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 acts of modernization of this society will be cosmetic as the prince was wined 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 this weapons and equipment. since two thousand and fifteen almost six thousand yemenis have perished in the war between the saudi led coalition and heathy rebels more than nine thousand have been injured three million have fled their homes almost condit to address that is promised a conference on yemen's humanitarian suffering and even then he took the time to reassure the saudi prince. or yemen france has taken a clear position since the beginning of the conflict in this.