the mountains of least only grow. 6 hours of talks between the presidents of russia and turkey result in a new plan for northern syria one that forces the removal of kurdish y p g forces from a border buffer zone. also this hour a report by the international chemical weapons watchdog on last year's alleged chemical attack in syria is more and by irregularities that's the conclusion of an independent expert panel that's been scrutinizing the o.p.c. w.c. findings. plus fears rise that the mistakes of the $2800.00 into a crisis will be repeated as a congress accuse us ratings agencies of going easy on big firms that are heavily

in debt. and the 1st ever russia africa summit is now underway in the resort city of sochi with a host of leaders and attendants. here watching our to international bring you your live news update from our studio here in moscow welcome to the program. more than 6 hours of talks between the turkish and russian leaders have resulted in a breakthrough on the situation in northern syria the cease fire there was extended by 6 days with kurdish forces expected to leave the area within that timeframe both leaders held a deal. syria should be free from unlawful foreign presence the long term stability of syria can only observing the sovereignty and unity in this country mr putin and i concluded the historic agreement to fight terrorism insurance serious to restore

integrity and political unity and return refugees these talks were very tough and you have to remember the turkey initiated the meeting with putin after they launched an offensive against the kurdish forces that and crises as terrorists at the turkish syrian border the operation known as peace and gird actually many or maybe even too many including damascus moscow washington mr the gun came to me in sort of showing he lost his patients and he is ready to continue the military operation in syria's north and basically he was threatening at the same time asking a lot including i guess a total control of a so-called safe zone along the turkish border east of the euphrates 30 kilometers deep into syria russia has the massacres of major l. i could not allow this to happen and russia's logic always has been that only those legally in syria meaning syrians of course and russia invited officially by damascus have the authority to stay in syria so under this logic turkey is not

legally in syria but at the same time it's really dangerous to ignore it negotiate and you always have to remember that the resteal the province also in syria's north home to from 2 to 3000000 people not controlled by the syrian government where. turkey bag forces all over including some jihadist and islamists are in charge and that situation that crisis and that they're a should be resolved and cannot be resolved without turkish assistance what exactly just going through the main points that they have agreed on all here they signed a memorandum with 10 points number one and most important is that both turkey and russia agreed to respect political unity and territorial integrity of syria which is very important i mentioned there are areas. syria's north not controlled by the syrian government and you cannot talk about successful ending of the crisis unless damascus is full control over all syrian territories is restored then next turkey led military operation against the kurds that they mentioned is basically now over

because the sides agreed to in fact eliminate the reason all of these operations the kurds should leave the so-called saves on the turkish border and take their weapons with them and for that purpose the syrian border guards and russian military police will enter the syrian part of the turkish syrian border and they will monitor the withdrawal and once it is confirmed and we already now we're hearing reports that the kurds have left but once it is officially confirmed they will be joined russia turkey patrols along the border and that is also a very good thing because the control 1st of all be shared between turkey and russia and turkey is not the country i mean judging by their relations and their actions that you can 100 percent trust and 2nd that territory will be secured and also both russia and turkey confirmed their commitment regarding safe return of refugees to syria and fighting terrorism on the 2 syrian territory talking

generally you look at good news generally for syria as a whole in its quest for long term peace all year because i think this is one of the major t.v. of this meeting is that the milter operation in syria is north is now over it's too early to talk about peace brought to that part of the country but it is definitely a step toward that direction and maybe in some near future we indeed may see refugees coming back including internally displaced people. within syria coming back to these territories that's a very good thing another thing is that with america now out of the picture we can see that there are less parties left on. ground to negotiate these and this is. along with russia's position that only those who are legally in syria can actually negotiate over how it's going to end although we still hear here from americans

that this is their achievement thanks to the strong leadership of president donald trump we have an opportunity for a permanent cease fire. we may well give the international community an opportunity to establish a safe zone between turkey and the kurdish population in syria that will ensure peace and security for all the peoples of this war torn region we heard from russia's foreign minister sergey lavrov saying that the americans are americans they have their own position that by the way tend to change very often. especially regarding the syria crisis but what matter is is there a stab at the raw aphorism the reason will from russia turkey and syria to end this crisis and to bring peace long awaited peace to syria. a russian military convoy has arrived at the northeastern syrian border town of cobain doc from turkey's ruling party explained what the cooperation means for ankara. well we have been

very clear from the very beginning of to stop aeration we have 2 objectives 1st we want to. secure our borders 2nd we want to create a safe zone and in order to deal with this humanitarian crisis actually we have to cooperate with that reason from the very 1st day of this crisis we might just president putin we have under president mark long and. stumble turkey was the only country who was on the table when it was. in. a start of peace talks. meanwhile washington is moving its troops out of syria and across the border into iraq but baghdad is not happy about that latest reports suggest the iraqi government is seeking international help after u.s. troops entered western iraq without authorization and the local government is weighing legal action against the uninvited guests the u.s. secretary of defense mark asked for is currently on a visit to baghdad he's discussed objections raised by iraq to the deployment

iraq's defense minister earlier said that the troops could stay in the country for a maximum of 4 weeks on monday a convoy up around a 100 u.s. vehicles was seen crossing into the country meanwhile washington is also moving troops to saudi arabia. and explains why that particular deployment could prove profitable. amid widespread criticism of his recent moves regarding syria donald trump sticks to repeating a pretty strong commitment when it comes to foreign policy it's time to bring our soldiers back home now one would think that back home means back in the united states but if you think that you would be wrong now there's an old saying that your home is where your heart is and u.s. troops have been in iraq since 2003 so they've had plenty of time to get furthermore 2000 troops are being redeployed to the kingdom of saudi arabia we are sending troops. to the middle east. but are you

ready saudi arabia at my request has agreed to pay for everything we're doing now the troops in saudi arabia i'm not coming for free the kingdom is coughing up the cash to cover the expense so perhaps donald trump meant back home unless someone pays us but is a rocket going to pay for its troops iraq is a lot poorer than saudi arabia but perhaps having your country invaded and having your infrastructure destroyed gives you a discount in 2019 the us military budget amounts to roughly $690.00. $3000000000.00 u.s. dollars so perhaps having countries pay for the presence of u.s. troops as a way to balance the books right now the u.s. military currently has a presence in over $160.00 different countries if all these countries started paying perhaps the american taxpayers could start making money rather than losing money on the u.s. military budget perhaps the deal maker in the white house has an exciting new business model that is already in the works well it's not clear to the troops who

were. going to be coming home. to the american public who is told by president truck pulling the troops out of syria to bring them home presumably the united states but what it's doing he's redeploying given the current structure of the united states government given the current system that it's given its imperial interests i don't think it's possible for u.s. troops to be pulled out from either syria or the middle east you know. development in the u.k. where 39 bodies have been found inside a truck that had entered the country on sunday having traveled over from bulgaria keep our church has the details. their investigation is now underway after those

$39.00 bodies were discovered in the back of a lorry in craze in essex in the south east of england having a ride from bulgaria in what appears to be but is not yet confirmed as an act of people smuggling as we know a 25 year old man from northern ireland a lorry driver has been arrested on suspicion of murder prime minister barak's johnson has given this response this is an arm imaginable tragedy and truly heartbreaking i know that the thoughts and prayers of all members are with those who lost their lives or their loved ones. i'm receiving regular updates and the home office who work closely with essex police as we establish exactly what has happened look at the events themselves what actually happened oh 1 40 in the morning so in the early hours of the morning the ambulance service actually alerted the police to the situation and it was the police that confirmed that $39.00 people have died of those $38.00 of thought to be adults and there's one teenager now we don't yet know what caused these people to die and we don't yet know that their

identity is the police are saying their identification is the top priority but they anticipate it being a lengthy process and these people are not sought to be from bulgaria from where the lorry came from as bulgaria is in the e.u. and therefore these people would have had free movement to have come to the u.k. let's also look at the location of where the bodies were found the watergate industrial park apparently is very large and has lots of multinational companies based there it's also not far from the m $25.00 which is the motorway that services london but also the route that the lorry took as well when i arrived from bulgaria but it came into the u.k. through the welsh port of holly head which is some horses have said is a very odd orthodox route to take as it takes a long about way it would add an extra days journey to be able coming into the u.k. that way rather than coming through the more also dark street which were to go from cali into dover but apparently security and checks have been tightened there so perhaps this might explain why. that route was taken when also it harks back to

a to a different time to sound and 8 june 2008 when 58 chinese immigrants were found dead in the back of a lorry the following year a dutch lorry driver was jailed for them manslaughter but in the meantime this is still an ongoing investigation and police are appealing for more information particularly about the route taken by that lorry and also the time that was taken what they were doing in between arriving in holyhead and also what's happened before this discovery today this tragic incident. a report by the international chemical weapons watchdog on last year's alleged chemical attack in the syrian city of duma is flawed at least that's the conclusion of an independent expert panel that's been looking at the document penned by the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons. across live now to our 2 saskia teller for more what are the main issues experts have with the report.

while wiki leaks has released a very interesting statement made by a panel that had spoken and listened to a whistleblower from c w that is the organization for the prohibition of chemical weapons now this panel met in brussels on october the 15th and it convened because it had concerns about potential practice within the chemicals watchdog especially in relation to its fact finding mission in the syrian city of. often alleged chemical attack that back in april last year and really in a nutshell what the panel seemed to say is that the o.p.c. excluded some testimonies suppressed some findings and even barred investigators in order to its conclusion of what happened in the events at duma which remain on challenge not just a quick recap of what happened. before i go. the finer details of the statement now

as we know of 2 sites in april last year at what talking to allegedly the chemical weapons resulting in the us open tween 40 and 50 people on the internet over 600 others. of course sent in to investigators to sites collect samples and in its final report concluded that the. quran based chemical weapons had been used the fool out was that the international community roundly condemned and blamed the syrian army on the syrian government now to return just to go to i mean the statement is packed with information but just to pick the main takeaways from it the whistleblowers who was on that fact finding mission and. said that these chemicals allegedly found at the site which have been cooled by many as the smoking gun of the c.w. which is basically the basis on which its entire final report was based. exists in and in fact might very well have been taken from the natural informant from

something as simple as. a 2nd point is that the presence of crew or in could easily have been calls from coming into contact with something again as ubiquitous as household bleach and finally that toxicologist who was at the site reported the symptoms of these people following the alleged attack just simply aren't consistent with symptoms following who are based chemical weapons attacks now this is all in direct contradiction to stop these final final report and the whistleblower says that the chemical watchdog calls all of the above concerns and accounts on tenuous unscientific and simply dismiss them now at the same time we can mix has published an engineering assessment and which was also interestingly admitted in the final report and in fact it stated that the chemical suits which were allegedly filled with the chemicals. the attack would not drop from the sky from helicopters are

scary. but were in fact for the place the sights it's what we see imagining here that this is not the 1st time that concerns have been raised around the events in that syrian town for example and to stop the footage allegedly showing off the mouth of the attack has come under scrutiny before and the fact that the attack was then used as justification both by the u.s. and the u.k. . to conduct as strikes on several syrian government targets has been considered by some critics as quite convenient but this latest statement is different in that it really poses a serious question about the partiality of the p c w the words inconsistent incoherent irregular malpractise appear over and over again and the conclusion that the panel again i reiterate is coming to it's up to you or it could to quash the alternative accounts so that it could publish its

seemingly. conclusion of what happened so what's going to come out with this well placed upon which the. new employees go in the future come out and potentially testifies that they can get to the bottom of what happened in syria last year so some serious questions and concerns raised here and so that's why it's on the c.w. as it responds to this and what else might come out but we. are too soft thank you for bringing us that report. economists have criticized the u.s. credit rating agencies for again going easy on heavily indebted companies and one example is firms growing north for 4 years in a row and that's creating fears the lessons of the 2008 financial crisis haven't been learned a quarter has more. trillion dollars that's almost half of the entire u.s. economy is worth it's not a small number but it is the total debt of all u.s.

companies combined except for banks and rating agencies should be sounding the alarm right about now the basic function of the rating agency which is an independent corporation is to assess the credit worthiness of the government that borrows money or of the corporation that borrows money in other words the idea is if the company issues their prints of on good borrows money and gives to the lender of bond it is typically expected that the lender wants to know how safe it is to land just on a ration or indeed to a local government or a state government or even the federal government take newell's brands for example it's a mega manufacturing us company that's been in deep debt for years but in august the 3 major agencies passed the company with flying colors on their investment

report moody's recognizes newell's moderately high leverage with pro forma debt to . around $4.00 times however the rating agency expects leverage to steadily approach 4 times in the year ahead through a combination of debt repayment with internally generated cash and proceeds from divestitures and english that means the company has a lot of debt but promise to fix it so it's ok which they also did in 2018 and 2017 and 2016 and 2015 but hey there's nothing to see here definitely no debt problem does this remind you of something 2008 perhaps is going to be one of the water should be punished more through 3 it was a manic monday in the financial markets. the dow tumbled more than $500.00. point 2 pillars of the street tumbled over the weekend lehman brothers a 150 year old firm filed for bankruptcy just one week before the bankruptcy both

moody's and s. and p. gave lehman brothers the highest possible investment grade days later the u.s. economy collapsed with lehman brothers bankruptcy being one of the main catalysts back then there was no mercy for the rating agencies the major rating agencies have done a terrible job of catching financial crises talking about you moody's standard and poor's fitch come on what planet are you guys living on this conflict of interest has cost american investor investors and pensioners billions of billions of dollars 11 years after that and it's business as usual again the grass is still growing the sun is still shining and the rating agencies are still inflating the reputation of big business if you have the receiver of the evaluation paying for the valuation the notion that it valuation as it is reliable is

simply too big and yet it has continued for many many to work that way and even in the crash of 2008 even though there was some talk about changing this relationship both corporations and the rating agencies were able to evade any change at all they bring the latest on the hong kong protests after this short break. join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics sports business i'm showbusiness i'll see that.

welcome back for months a huge and often violent antigovernment protests have brought hong kong to its knees and today the authorities officially withdrew the controversial extradition belt which initially triggered the demonstrations back in spring. as a result of the divided views of the public regarding the extradition bill there have been conflicts in society having studied the matter the administration decided to suspend the amendment exercises and formally announce the withdrawal of the bill . despite the government's move there is no end to the protests which have developed over time into a mass fight for democratic freedoms at the beginning of september it was said the extradition bill would be abandoned but the protests continued on monday demonstrators again clashed with police leading to a response of tear gas and dozens of arrests aside from killing off the bill the protesters have 4 other demands including an investigation into police brutality

and the resumption of democratic reforms. now let's discuss this lie with andrew long independent china specialist did the hong kong authorities just not realize that this is about more than just the fate of that bill now. you know i think at the beginning. well. there was a lot of. them from the day but also from a number from other countries so the idea was to avoid all being becoming. or could be the. around the world but however. this is. a wall in. a phone call and those in the main that oppose the law. and there is a fear. that. all of.

this is to associate. the volume the whole call. it into those so a bit difficult to get all the holes in. it because the sort of the family that the one country 2 systems is suited to was one of those systems was the fact that the local young people who were born all sort of all they had over and most of them have a sense of mission it a lot we got themselves a star these at all. what they regard themselves as a small cause 'd they feel that this direction the integration integration of hong kong with the mainland and encroach on their sense of identity and our own with this should build the feeling that the government is on this is for them is in whole t.v. and also. the set of whole

a real fall out of anger and that's what's happening and you can see that the months as you highlighted as no longer about that is that there was a little. more specific i think that with all the see and also the model for universal suffrage that's want to see that will suffer just so it is in fact included in hong kong's face aglow with the whole constitution even though it's not the poor the joint operation with britain where the phone was handled but it was included in vocals constitution. at the initiative. but then the condition is that no one can be elected as the chief executive who can parallel keep the separatists so they're all permissions to street they can't see this provision for screening this assault. except for this they were petty and so the key to this is also

a whole is the scrap all these safeguards in the basic law and basically trying to rewrite the basic law and also because of this agent on the cover this. week jane so there are a lot of the violence is talk of the. trashing the national flag throwing the horse that sort of black into the sea. but. even. mentalizing businesses connected with with with including china spans so this is the. the color of which the seeing sees as kolo rouge. and a long independent china specialist thank you for your time and your comments thank you very much. the 1st ever russia africa summit is being held today $43.00 leaders are taking part with the aim of boosting cooperation. the

list of deliveries is experiment you would share it with process and i can coach real products increases russia is one of the top 10 largest food supplies on the african markets we are exporting more agricultural products than weapons so this week africa is russia's guest to get russia to be africa's guest more often or even permanent in some cases the rush hour for economic forum and summit that's what they're officially called are well underway and we know that before the summit all the african leaders got an invitation almost all of them made a 2 sought she so now nearly 50 heads of state from africa are here getting together and also most of them will get an opportunity to talk face to face with vladimir putin we know that such economic and global powerhouse is such as the u.s. europe and china of course previously through similar events now it is russia stern

although some people would say that in many cases countries that i mentioned western countries plus the u.s. china sometimes they are way too eager to get that slice of the african after all 30 percent of the global natural resources that something that does sound quite tempting although top russian officials have been saying that russia's approach is completely different russia isn't bishan when it comes to africa call are far behind and when it comes to the spectrum of the things moscow has to offer when it comes to business and different kinds of projects really does meet the natural demands of the african nations and the desire needs to come from both ways when i met the the russian minister of economic development in the form quarters here's how he.