well top stories floods made putin holds talks with germany's angela medical just outside and with the iran nuclear deal and syrian reconstruction. will say we visit one of the cities west heads by the war in syria aleppo to witness the reconstruction process off t.v. is under attack by islamic states and other militants. the u.s. comes to spend up to fifteen million dollars on in home some soldiers physical performance and insurance the pentagon warns future conflicts will require troops with the highest tolerance for extreme conditions. they got to best he's been charged with acting as an unbiased russian agent in the u.s. has been transported to another prison we have from her lawyer about her health

what to expect and the cake. is just ten five am in the russian capital you're watching aussie international welcome to the program all top story russian president vladimir putin and german chancellor angela merkel have concluded talks them as a big bet and that was several topics up for discussion including the rebuilding of syria and the iran nuclear agreement reporting from germany has done no holkins. here in schloss smears a burg about two hours drive from talks have been ongoing between shots of marco and president putin in the government residence just behind me here now from the outset the german chancellor was realistic about what could be expected as an outcome from these talks saying it's of working visit and nothing to spectacular should be expected nevertheless she did emphasize the importance of having

a relationship a functional dialogue and communication with russia as the two leaders came out of the building having signed the guestbook they did have points on which they could agreed that the german countryside here behind me is peaceful and. that's far from how you could describe the relationship of the two leaders though they have clashed on numerous occasions with mrs merkel being a fierce critic of putin on issues from human rights to ukraine they did today have points though on which they did agree syria being one of the key ones both of them agreeing that emphasis on humanitarian assistance and humanitarian help was the key to solving the conflict. should cities it's important to do move for the humanitarian situation in syria most importantly bring aid to its people and hope losing your ears were a few jews can return from

a broader sense in the shooters are going to use this for my and that's this we have to do humanitarian catastrophe in syria there may be less fighting now but that doesn't mean we have peace and order. the iran nuclear deal which of course the united states recently pulled out of was another point upon which they could agree with mr putin emphasizing the importance of maintaining that international deal sanctioned by the united nations security council when. we will discuss the joint plan to rig the iran nuclear agreement it is extremely important to save this multilateral deal. proved the u.n. security council designed to strengthen global security and nuclear nonproliferation if you're doing the work you're supposed to and despite their previous rocky relationship mrs merkel and mr putin have been pushed together into a sort of political marriage of convenience future a rift with the united states both countries have been affected by u.s. tariffs russia has been affected by sanctions mrs merkel has been criticized for

being overly reliant on russian gas imports indeed the nords dream to part from project was also something that was discussed news headlines questioned what could really come out of these bilateral talks which side could gain watson who would come out on top in negotiations but as the day here draws to a close and the limousines pull up to take this back to their residences mrs merkel will take this as an opportunity to consolidate her position as a european leader capable of negotiating with russia and putin while the russian president will view this as a chance to take steps to bring russia out of its isolation through those sanctions and find common ground with one of his oldest political colleagues. but before meeting marco putin paid a quick social visit to austria the russian president stopped off to attend the wedding of the country's foreign minister. oh. thank you. it was really great the ceremony took

place it's a venue art in austria steria state some slums the foreign minister for inciting putin to the wedding because it seems the russian president had a great time even dancing with the price many try to guess what president to give to the happy couple that was a painting an ancient loyal press and a traditional russian some of and here are the president's congratulations to the newlyweds. to the bride and groom i want to hold heartedly congratulate you on your wedding and forming a new family in russia we have the custom of wishing the couple luck and love i gladly do that and wish you much luck and else in your common future. thank. you thank you. with this syrian army reestablishing control across the country efforts underway to

rebuild the shots of the nation in the latest in a series of reports igor start off travels to the city of aleppo to see how locals are slowly picking up the pieces. much of the city of aleppo is still in ruins reviving it to its former glory is a task of gargantuan proportions and of immense political and economic importance the citadel of aleppo has become the symbol of the city's resistance. but our lipo is much more than just a maze of antique streets and attractions from history books.

the militants have stolen computer units with chips for the machines they destroyed the factory on purpose they wanted to damage syrian industry as a home and specifically in the street in aleppo reviving this that. would. see one river go over this area. and feet and basically very dysfunctional hunker. down want to be immense but now that the former industrial hub is slowly getting back on track things are finally looking up for the people of aleppo. two years ago during the war we couldn't even open our shops the shelling snipers were everywhere you couldn't live under such circumstances we covered the roof of the building back then so that we could take cover it was unbearable we took shelter for about half an hour whenever

the shelling started we just locked ourselves in here thank god now we can work peacefully day and night we just hang around smile. just like the good old days the under joe a little the atmosphere is really good around here the weather is nice everybody is feeling safe and it's only getting better you can see getting better day by day. i was lucky enough not to leave my home the wind this is the district of rebels couldn't get through at the time there was a blockade once but it was firmly lifted now same god things about are despite all the things we've been through we're no better than normal we know it's safe you can return home if your house lies in ruins you can still fix it the main thing is it's safe now. just a couple of years ago these turned used to protect people in the street from polling shows and well now they're sheltering them from the sun historically the city of aleppo has been the economic capital of syria and now with the world gone

finally some traders are coming back to treat. reporting from aleppo in syria. meanwhile donald trump has tweeted that the u.s. has cut its development funding to syria asking other nations to pick up the tab and the u.s. state department says it will read iraq to stabilization money planned for syria to other foreign policy if it is washington insists though that this will not affect its humanitarian assistance program it comes as saudi arabia purchase one hundred million dollars to syrian reconstruction projects however the money will only go to the northeast of the country the region under the control of the u.s. backed kurdish forces and while some programs the kurds others remain in place with the u.s. saying it will stay in syria for some time yet to fight against the last pockets of terrorists. we're remaining in syria the focus is the ensuring defeat of

isis we still have no launch the final phase two defeats the physical kind of fight this is actually being prepared now and that will come at a time via choosing but it is coming well we spoke to joshua landis head of middle east studies at the university of oklahoma he says america's interests in syria beyond fighting terrorism the united states does not one aside to become too strong there you are hoping to keep leverage in order to try to push iran out of the country to get a better deal for the kurds and and of course they're also worried about what's going to happen if there are problems where there are very complex negotiations and and russia is at the heart of that so there are many competing agendas in washington and as long as president trump is not spending a lot of money there i think he's happy to keep a few thousand troops if that increases america's leverage. the u.s.

department of defense says planning to spend up to fifteen million dollars in halting the performance and insurance of its soldiers but caleb maupin explains history shows that as a reason to be wary. treated . hollywood science fiction often depicts the soldiers of the future with all the talk of a space force from donald trump and fighting robots across the silver screen our imagination has plenty of places to go. now on the surface a new grant from the pentagon for extramural biomedical research and development doesn't sound so bad the object is to create soldiers who can withstand even the harshest circumstances take

a listen develop technologies to maximize the physiological performance of s.o.f. operators including enhanced in durance enhanced senses tolerance to environmental extremes and enhanced overall fitness in order to maintain operational posture ability in high stress scenarios without noticeable augmentation and without hampering personnel mobility additionally the ability to accelerate the effects of sleep through methods requiring less time a vivid picture i know the prototype. three piece. now let's give this a little context this won't be the first time that the u.s. military has engaged in this kind of research.

for. the. you know. now at the time these grotesque experiments using american g.i.'s and civilians essentially as lab rats at the time they were taking place the public knew nothing about it it was all classified now the public documents indicate that these new experiments will not involve human beings only human simulators however anyone who is familiar with the not so well publicized but very well documented history of u.s. military research will certainly raise an eyebrow kaleb up and r.t.

new york. russia is at its again that's the claim by the us magazine the atlantic it says the kremlin has set its sights fanie on medicine in the upcoming midterm elections to weaken america they ought to cope as on to explain moscow's and ledged three step plan to break american democracy fast and leash russian hakas second made by corrupt us politicians and thirdly support those who think favorably if putin but it's not just the russian state that's come under suspicion that long takeoff there claims this very channel helps one to mind to more chrissy by inviting on guests who dat question mainstream narratives the magazine named brandon struck him as an example he's the founder of amazement encouraging democrats to walk away from the party although the advantage fails to point out that he talks to other media outlets to. i i myself was

a lifelong liberal democratic voter i would say kind of a democrat by default because i'm a gay man and i think that the expectation for a lot of minority groups is that we are supposed to vote democrat and that we are supposed to be liberals for industry because spent years as a liberal he now says he's concerned by what the left has become well before the election i was already starting to feel uncomfortable with where we were headed in terms of identity politics and p.c. culture. political commentator line only explained why he thinks such a russian articles written nobody ever calls these people to task they are paid for by volume or how many likes to how many clicks hey that was a great article factually incorrect. factually based list and also the mentality just feeding frenzy of this this monster dismount this monster that you

must feed constantly with this no rush no nato no bad guy no bogeymen so there's many reasons why the book even the strawman dispatcher the evil image of russia must be maintained. very a bit the guy who's been charged with acting as an unregistered russian agent in the us has been transferred to another prison without the lawyers knowledge russian diplomats have visited butane of that and say he's been subjected to cruel treatment all have pets no belongings with the stink reading books tells and hygiene items. they also say bettina's being deprived of proper medical attention is claimed she was suffering from swelling on the head but was only given painkillers she's also allowed to receive letters written in russian affairs they might contain coded messages the russian embassy stresses that protein is still not

being convicted of any crying meanwhile the twenty nine year old has launched a crowdfunding come pain to pay for her legal defense routine his lawyer updated us on her condition. i was unaware that she was transferred until last night at around midnight i received a collect call from her at home and the phone was disconnected before we could get through but i knew it was from alexandria jail so i drove down and tried to get in last night and could not but i was able to get in this morning and visit her so she is in alexandria detention facility at least for now for this weekend it's a smaller facility than the d.c. jail as respected facility but it's hard to know why the move was made where there was made for medical or other reasons or in response to complaints about the conditions in d.c. she does have arthritis in one of her legs kind of a history of problems with that leg so she sought treatment for that and so far has just received tylenol and nothing else and i think she has also been a little bit frustrated by policy when people are in protective custody they do bad

checks every fifteen minutes at night to check on detainee safety and i think sometimes depending on who the guard is you know the lights are turned on every time there's a check and so it's very hard to get proper sleep when you're being woken up every fifteen minutes she's segregated from the general population of the prison facility you know no contact really with outside people besides her lawyers and occasional phone calls and when you're being held and it's in some isolation like that it's difficult because every everything i think she wanted to do was kind of a one off request there isn't a very set schedule and so it was very difficult to make sure she was getting her proper exercise and. trips to the library and things like that because everything she did she had to do by yourself i'm not saying anyone would have an easy time in prison but in this is an accomplished student you know someone who i don't think ever envision spending a day in jail or a life to be in you know it's a pretty tough facility. they alleged russian agent was arrested every month the

guy she was refused bail after pleading not guilty two weeks ago she's also accused of offering sex in an attempt to get a job and then a named special interest great if convicted spy tina could face up to fifteen years in prison no date has been set yet for her trial as hanoi remains optimistic she's in very good shape she's helping actively with us to prepare the defense she's confident in her innocence there's no allegation of espionage there's no allegation of classified information style geishas she was paying anyone off there's no allegation she was recruiting spies none of the things you would typically see in an espionage case the allegations are fairly vanilla that she attended meetings of various groups that were public that she had dinners with various people and she took a lot of selfies as i think a lot of people are twenty's do with with people she met and posted them on facebook so this is not the kind of a typical this is no comparison to what the allegations were against for example at a chapman or others where there was actual whether they were true or not their

actual allegations about the use of sophisticated equipment and payoffs and spy ring and things like that there's none of that here with some point made try to get her released pretrial again we're just looking through documents trying to find the proper evidence to do that and i think we may be able to do that hopefully the next couple of weeks. in the u.s. to see a fiasco hundreds of people have attended a demonstration and i spy the right wing great patriot press the rally was how the end of the slogan nipsey would that. gathering attracted counter protesters from the last leading to mine a clashes between the two sides at least three people have been arrested but there's no information yet on possible charges the rally was against

a proposed new law that would raise the age in washington state for buying semiautomatic rifles dozens of police officers including some in riot gear with battens were called to in short order during the protests. now occupy london appears to be the latest victim of facebook's recent spree of shutting down accounts the social justice movement how it's page taken down for several hours the movement says it's not the first time facebook has tried to censor its content ok by london was founded in two thousand and eleven it's part of a global movement organizing hundreds of protests against financial elite the movement says its founding values are equality diversity occupy london has a significant social media presence with a round one hundred fifty thousand followers on facebook some believe set in pro palestine post by occupy london might be to blame for facebook site action we asked facebook for comments the social media giant has since apologized to occupy london

saying it was all a mistake but one of the movement's activist george barter isn't convinced. just you know sort of a blip in the state of the blue probably wouldn't mean very much at all but the problem is this is part of a massive rear guard action i think by the establishment you know anyone can go online and see the evidence this themselves chris hedges is a pulitzer prize winning journalist is one of those exposing most of the details of this but effectively what's happening in the name of dealing with can use many progressive websites that have been a major part of you know bernie sanders jeremy corbyn etc. they used they found the traffic going down. websites like alter net truthdig you know mainstream progressive websites using that traffic play down by seventy percent literally and these algorithms devised in private nobody can inspect and have a huge impact on what information the world gets to see about what's going on and

that's a hugely significant issue going forward the relevant thing today in terms of discussion is still a very powerful force online and has millions of people engaging with its posts and so it's very important that they and others like them on not in the name if they can use effectively removed from most people's internet searches and i think this is a huge issue going forward bearing in mind that google and facebook are very very close to the american establishment you know the washington post is owned by jeff bezos he was and is an answer but not surprising to me he's very keyed in using the washington post to make sure that the internet allows his articles to come up at the top of searches and no arms. ever to spain where graffiti has been a pairing in the spanish city of barcelona encouraging holiday makers to jump off their hotel balconies some of it suggests that the potentially deadly practice nowness balcony fun one of the graffiti message is mockingly claims that improves

the quality of life for local. can encounter a fair either to jumping into a pool from a balcony or climbing from one balcony to another the risk activity is growing in popularity with tourists some hotels have been deaths and introduced fines as well . the balcony in graffiti that sprung up in barcelona has sparked online anger this year alone six people have diets performing the stunt most of them were from britain or islands the u.k. foreign office has warned against engaging in the practice in the majority of accidents they victims have been trunk and lost their balance we got reaction from

tourists in barcelona. thanks for the a c. it would be too oh so i am out of my secret there is no sir like many messages very violent like me against this i guess the same in terms of like they want to have a city for over and they know it's important to maintain jobs to make some money out of the worst word and i think this is some kind of tax why can i have this many tourists from you on that it's not comfortable for and have evidence of this role i think last night such a sea change that's just so old and do so much and it should leave except. for it for most students really aggressive things to escape this it's the main source of income. but nothing like that system. was nice and it took place if i would live here and i see guys ruining my city. hall style sometimes with the

like. now the mosque a sky was illuminated on sus they know it's by thousands of colorful lights as a spectacular fireworks show marks the a painting of a two day international fireworks festival. the festival is the largest annual display of pirates hikma also the most gay teams from all over the world come to get its take parts of the castle seen more than sixty thousand fireworks and on the company by background music some of them reach as high as forty to it's into the sky the festival also includes it's a library ground. well that's the round the presidents house cable news and i'll be back with more in thirty minutes.

joined me every so on the all excited when sure when i'll be speaking to get us to the world of politics sport this list i'm sure i'll see you then. on welcome to worlds apart we may believe in

a global village but every corner of this village is guarded by different polls on what one may or may not same public one man's truthteller has long become another man's bigot while public debate often comes down to have done alex rachel hurling insults rather than discussing policy is it still possible to have a substantive conversation of those who disagree with you being mean to discuss that i'm now joined by katie hopkins a british journalist and media personality katie good to talk to you thank you very much for your time thank you for seeing me now you're a pretty controversial person in your own country and many people consider you purposefully offensive and yet over the past few days that you've been here in russia in st petersburg you've only said nice things that have this country did it honestly is not very used to hearing nice things about itself being purposefully spiteful i saying all those things as a contrarian. people have been surprised by my reporting from st petersburg because

i love this place i love the openness of it and it's been a real surprise to me we are i think in the west in my personal view you know putin is painted as a. this is very much the way of people almost actually of coming to russia because there's this idea that it's somehow a frightening place and all i've been trying to present to people and show people i think is that if i may have a what i feel or my truths and my truth from this place is that i love it i feel very safe. much safer than in london for example and i also find people here to be really russian so they identify as russian to me and that's a real different from the country that i was from let me pick up on that point because you had one specifically about st petersburg that seem to rile a lot of people you describe the city as a place untouched by the myth of multiculturalism and deranged diversity and i'm sure you seen all those dozens of replies of people pointing out to you. most

multicultural city in. the world that of course one hundred sixty nationalities and built by the french and the buildings and the dutch name of one i mean we also have a very vibrant muslim community who petitioned this are where you are small. but you know i had it all i see that i get what people are saying i get them but when you come to some petersburg as an outsider and i'm an outsider its heels russian people if you speak to people in the street or with help but i speak to people in the street they identify as russian first you go to the u.k. you won't find any of that russian mean an athlete. affiliation or it may mean a national affiliation so most of the different nationalities who will love to have in this city would also identify as russian i wonder if you given that so much maybe multiculturalism is not such a bad thing after all no because i don't buy you a definite.