the u.s. defense secretary admits that his country has no concrete evidence there was a chemical attack in the syrian city of goma but might strike preemptively to defend american troops there. after a lengthy cabinet meeting theresa may fails to shed much light on london's course of action on syria merely stressing a need to coordinate with allies meanwhile the german chancellor gives a firm no to military strikes against damascus. and even to. need to tighten. also this hour the u.k.'s foreign secretary is in no doubt russia was behind the screen poisoning after u.n. watchdog confirms the substance used in the attack that is despite investigations

not confirming russia is the source of the nerve agent. and mike nominee to be the u.s. secretary of state promises to get tougher on russia saying country is not exceptional like of the united states. are broadcasting live from our studios in moscow this is our g international incheon thomas certainly glad to have you with us now the u.s. defense secretary james mattis has said america has the right to preemptively strike the syrian government in order to defend its troops that came after he admitted there is no clear evidence that chemical weapons were used in the city of durham on saturday and alleged 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 the o.p.c. this you're going to zation 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 the 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 and 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 seriously the closely the whole situation and. we'll see

what happens folks see what happens is. that the world puts us in a position like. this is donald trump tweet earlier about possible strikes against the syrian government the president says military action could come from washington very soon or not very soon at all meanwhile friday has seen another u.n. security council meeting on the use of chemical weapons it was called by the bolivian about sitter who caught up with journalists afterwards. and. may be able to send him a link of the u.n. charter for him to read to. him and if anything i'm not sure i don't have any idea because. we spoke to mr llorente on our program as well he says the u.s. threatens to undermine the very principles on which the united nations is based the problem is that the united states believes and i thought it would be. any

any little they believe that they have their own rules and it is not the case the threat to use force you know through action that goes against the united nations charter and 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 it will not be an attack against syria but also an attack against the whole united nations system. the claims of a chemical attack on the syrian city of duma were made by the self styled a civil defense group known as the white helmets russian experts have been to the area and say that they have found no evidence that a toxic substance was used the first group of inspectors from the international chemical weapons watchdog are due to arrive soon and will start work on saturday

syria's representative to the u.n. security council has said his country will do everything possible to aid the investigation the syrian government is ready. to grant a visa. for the second team we are ready to escort them to where they want when ever they want anytime they want meanwhile a news agency has obtained an interview with a man held in captivity by the militant group jaish al islam in duma he was freed from their custody on monday he recounted how militants allegedly forced him to participate in a staged chemical weapons attack they filmed in duma back in two thousand and fifteen now we should mention that so far we have been unable to verify the man's story independently. and it only clinical the militants gathered us and forced us to take our shirts off and said that the syrian army was about to use chemical weapons they also said we should pretend as if chemical weapons were used against

us and we couldn't breathe there was also a kidnapped doctor with us he was forced to fill syringes pretending that he was injecting us to revive us militants poured water on us and forced us to pretend we were unconscious then they brought a camera and filmed us another former captive in a girl taken prisoner together with her family said that the militant group was spreading the false atrocity story in advance. and of the terrorists were telling us that the government is going to use chemical weapons to kill us but we saw nothing now could we hear or smell anything. an emergency cabinet meeting in london called by the british prime minister wrapped up late thursday theresa may and her advisors have been contemplating possible military strikes against the syrian government artie's now you're a traitor has more on the meeting and its outcome. 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 through monetary and 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 alimentary approval 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 telling clarke 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 russia america europe. the neighboring countries iran saudi arabia they've got to be in there ensuring real she's strong on the political pressure that's good hope the people the. more critics. like you just take. and we've also heard from france micron he said that he has the proof that is needed to confirm that it was indeed the assad regime response. before 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 mrs merkel in which way would you support a possible missile strike in syria and would look to an even to a. non military mission or to need to take a listen so a quick recap as to the outcome of that cabinet meeting in the u.k. there was no mention of military action she condemned the chemical attack in duma 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 earlier we spoke to the former mayor of london ken livingstone who told us stories i'm a knows that the british public is unlikely to support a new military action in the middle east. last time britain was considering getting

involved in syria there was a debate in parliament and parliament voted against it. was bad news for them prime minister cameron but the idea that we should be getting involved in wars in the middle east without parliament being able to buy issue and make a decision is absolutely outrageous and i think it's because she knows there is very little public support for getting involved in the middle east again we all remember everyone in britain unless we were lied to by our government and the american government when we were told that iraq had weapons of mass destruction the result was hundreds of miles and i think nearly a million day many of our own troops lost their lives as well and they all turned down sweet based on our laws and picking up on the former mayors words their recent poll shows just how little appetite the british public has for more war the survey suggests forty three percent would oppose military action thirty four percent are

undecided and only twenty two percent would be backing striking syria now we asked people in london for their opinion. think military strikes in syria will help solve anything you know to be only the usa and the u.k. 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 voted to get rid of the old brick itself just looking for excuses i don't see how messy the moment when obvious very anxious about any kind of mutually essentially what would she achieved by really disagree with military action against anything happening in this area there's already enough fighting going on 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 more than signal you. push up you know the basic

military intervention no doubt setting i think we have five got to choose where these countries have these problems have the civil war and we trying to fix it but we had our civil war when the americans had their civil war nobody went to bomb us we got the side we have now they need to go through this on their oh. international chemical weapons watchdog has backed britain's findings regarding the type of nerve agent used against in sergei and us group all 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 is despite the fact that the organization itself is not in a position to assign blame parties by boko and but i've got a report. well it said that its 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 no of a very student off to this 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 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 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 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 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 the square power attack the british

government has 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 the whole 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 available to the public neither the formula you know 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 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 shared the information since then these formulas or some of them have appeared in various publications constantly you simply cannot see there are secrets and. 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 sympathise 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 overt 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 cure 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 over each other 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 in the haled even more units one 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 simply missing a little but it's 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 nuvi chalk a nerve agent at work the script pals were very fortunate british medics must have realized quickly what was at work here or else have a miracle cure for a new nerve agents there's no other explanation.

donald trump's a new pick for america's top diplomat of my pompei or has been grilled by the senate on his foreign policy views here's how he explained the difference between russia and the u.s. and their roles on the world stage this is a unique exceptional country russia is unique but not exceptional artie's american in washington follow the nearly five hour long hearing. regime change was discussed my pompei as confirmation hearing for the position of secretary of state and he was asked why it would be ok for the u.s. to adopt a regime which is official policy but not russia for example and apparently it's because the u.s. is quote exceptional and russia is and he also said that soft policy on russia will and one he becomes secretary of state but it's not clear what this policy is exactly considering a trumps tweets and recent sanctions imposed on moscow just last week and pale

seems to be proud of this to say that the u.s. has expelled the most diplomats at any time since the cold war and he also said that he would make sure that the administration continues this policy would take a backseat to no one with my views of the threat that is presented to america from russia and if i am confirmed as the secretary of state i can assure you this administration will continue as it has for the past fifteen months to take real actions to push back to re set the deterrence relationship with respect to russia and on other issues pompei or repeated the establishment line. and you still agree that far from being a great public service wiki leaks is more like a non-state actor hostile to the interest the national interest and security of the united states so really i do believe that.

and i think you still agree that but i'm sure putin's government actively interfered in our presidential elections and reflections at large and twenty sixteen of the etc that's correct. tony democracy is in the vital national interests of the united states and yes indeed center and then are effective is doing that is an important tool of american foreign policy. but looking at his nomination through a wider lens a trump also appointed a bush era neo-con john bolton as his national security adviser so it won't be too surprising if we see a more hawkish foreign policy from the u.s. in the future professor of history had american university peter says policymakers are unable to accept the u.s. must now share global leadership with others. that same line that we're hearing from it we've been hearing from american leaders this is nothing new for madeline

albright secretary of state she said that if we use force it's because we're the united states were the indispensable nation you had obama talking about us being the indispensable nation hillary clinton so this is really the air that americans breed and we're now in a multi-polar world united states and russia still have a couple thousand nuclear weapons pointed each other on hair trigger alert china's economy is booming this is no longer the world of the early one nine hundred ninety s. now putin is standing up and asserting russia's national security interests and there are some people in the united states who just don't like that. for something completely different to saudi arabia's crown prince mohammed who was has just wrapped up a three day visit to paris and it seems that he has made quite an impression on the french president emanuel macron is now asking critics of the saudi air to give him

a chance and start to struggle to pinsky explains. the saudis the crown prince's been on a global cholo my friends to the west for the post three days here in france it seems like it's been all hugs and handshakes from my housemate been home and he's even joked about having asked special bond with the french president. thank. god. that's despite the fact that bin solomon 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. do so are 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 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 been calling on france to stop the use of these weapons 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 hugo's you are in yemen france has 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 u.s. 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 in spain where the prince is set to work his diplomatic cash filled much. once again this time he's expected

to beef up the saudi arabia's military might by bowing warships and despite protests to schools still prince solomon says even given the cold shoulder it looks like those deep pockets are set to keep governments in the west on friendly terms with saudi arabia. altie paris more news in just under thirty minutes this is hard to international. to take you had to take matters into its own hands to provide its own security and securing the border radius now this is a very very legitimate cause however who are the bridge to be there who are the americans to be there who are the british doing.