tensions flare in syria as a u.s. military patrol is called violent clashes in the northeastern city of commish lee while turkey threatens to launch an operation against bashar assad's forces over it live probably. elsewhere the day the french president faces a mass walkout by m.p.'s leaving his ruling party while his popularity crushes in the opinion polls ahead of crucial local elections. the german city of dresden commemorates 75 years since the 2nd world war bombing campaign which left an estimated 25000 dead coming out we speak to one man who narrowly escaped that huge firestorm. parents rushed outside and took nothing with them others went back

to their flats and they died in the flames in the narrow streets the flames were spreading so fast people were suffocating. there live for 5 from the arts international world news center this thursday it's kevin i am with you for this half hour update hope you stay with me to take you through it great to have you company 1st the news is a syrian civilians being killed and another man injured during clashes between american troops and locals near the border with turkey the fighting broke out when a u.s. convoy changed partly its usual patrol route. good luck. to them i thought. the.

president spelt the vehicles with stones as they attended a pass through checkpoint in a place called commish lee now according to syrian state media the american patrol then opened fire retaliation but according to u.s. military spokesperson this news is a bit different they're saying that the convoy was responding to small arms fire in which way we can confirm russian military police later arrived on the scene to mediate tensions also rose dramatically over in northwestern syria on wednesday to after the turkish leader threatened military action against president assad's forces in it live with more on that our senior correspondent regards doing. rebels in the islamists are facing catastrophe in the span of a little over a month they've lost a 3rd of their territory so you would understand why turkey which said which paid armed and trained those rebels as outraged at the gun is beside himself he needs to vent the shrike out. the syrian regime as well as russian forces

and iran by militants i've seen with it continuously attacking civilians committing massacres on a kurd in syria might find stranger the guns concerned for civilian casualties but russia took those accusations seriously pointing out rebels had launched ceaseless drone attacks on the russian base violated this ceasefire again and again and again al-qaeda linked jihad this control 90 percent of lip and who turkey despite promising to do so hadn't been able to separate from moderate rebels the statements made by turkish representative. about alleged russian military attacks on civilians in the eduard discolorations zone are false the real reason for the crisis and ad lib unfortunately is the turkish colleagues have failed to fulfill their obligations to separate the moderate opposition militants from the terrorists in

these areas but god appears death ended mute to his own faults instead of explanation he's flooding it with troops with tanks with artillery vowing lesion for anyone who dares shoot at them. she was very strong we determined to drive back syrian regime forces from our observation posts by the end of february we will do whatever is necessary both on the ground and in the air without any hesitation and without any delay and egging it all on is washington apparently they've forgiven ever the gun for his little crusade against syrian kurds and have lifted their sanctions on turkish officials involved in attacking kurds they went further saying they stand with their god as he invades a sovereign state my condolences to the families of the soldiers killed in yesterday's attack in the ongoing assaults by the assad regime and russia must stop

i've sent jim jeffrey to ankara to coordinate steps to respond to this destabilizing attack we stand by our nato ally there are now 4 nuclear powers engaged in syria 5 if you count israel and they're fighting on different sides the danger of escalation is colossal and happened when the american convoy drove into a village where they weren't welcome. but that this is the movie which the americans came in and faced resistance from the religious people who threw stones at them so they answered with bullets young man was killed and 2 injured the pentagon in a statement referred to the villagers as a pro acid militia and accuse the villagers of occupying the village they live in also the american soldier who apparently scratched himself as 5 no need to worry they literally separately tweeted about that so there you go an ugly day in our glee war and as things stand liable to get

a whole lot uglier still. global affairs analyst patrick henningsen believes turkey should be doing more to deescalate the conflict not the opposite. turkey has not upheld its obligations not on the saatchi agreement but also on the astonished agreement on the. deescalation zones are not going to work if turkey doesn't. maintain its side of the bargain and in order to separate the militants supposedly from the regular moderate rebels we know in reality that there is no difference really between those 2 so that part of the agreement is neither here nor there but big because of this there's no way to have the escalation zones on the a stunner agreement. if you remember back in the fall of 20 teen there were a number of things agreed and one of the key things was that turkey would assist in the liberation of the international road to damascus to aleppo road or the the m 5

highway to turkey has never done that and the reason none of these agreements are working is because actually turkey appears to be pursuing a parallel agenda and as long as it's doing that there's no way that they're going to meet those obligations and therefore the situation will become dysfunctional very quickly. covering this next head of potentially crucial local elections in france next month president has got a mutiny on his hands to deal with and as m.p.'s from his own party abandon ship the french maid is also saying as public popularity hit new lows to report from paris our correspondent shouted to bensky. in 2017 emmanuel. power in france promising a new kind of politics next he set up a new party. he went on to secure a majority in the national assembly but less than 3 years later the wheels already coming off the bus. porton to elections he's facing problems on several

fronts firstly his government and many of its policies have proven them popular take pension reform which has sparked protests across the country. those changes. every day citizens even his own m.p.'s have questioned the plan. the desire for reform and the speed imposed have taken precedence over the government's ability to listen and consult with the fringe she since left isn't the only one to have done so the only move party has suffered several high profile resignations and defections m.p.'s in ministers who may have once toed the line have begun to question the party's position there was a syndrome of us all being very well behaved because we didn't want to cause

problems for the government but today there are lots of members of parliament who don't want to play that role in a bid to rally the troops mark or invited his parliamentarians to the telling them they should be proud of being perhaps a not too subtle reminder that they should fall in line khan's popularity since his meteoric rise to the presidency has long been crumbling recent polls show that less than one 3rd of people in france view him favorably he's so unpopular that voters are expected to hand big gains to marina penn's national rally and 2 green parties in france's municipal elections next month. and is also struggled with movements like the yellow vests 15 months on and not only the protesting on the revolving they accused him of being the president of the rich a title he has not surprisingly rejected but a new report by france's observatory for economic conditions suggests it's a label that perhaps should stay cool no one said from needed a jew for terry and

a head to state it seems members of his own party and many citizens disagree with that enough to perhaps bring mark and his new politics crashing down. on. european politics very told many within the on the move. my corps had of course a large majority it's always the case when a president is elected to the next elections for parliament his party his group gets a large majority 3318 if i remember well members of parliament which was a lot much more than a needed but since then he has lost some 18 or even 19 members of parliament people of resigned 2 of left who will stay on but as independent many people in his political party don't believe that it is

a party anymore they don't believe that michael is interested if his power is personal at least the president any doesn't work with this party really so we have seen so many people leave 1819 and has majority is eroding so much that it becomes a bit dangerous for him politically speaking in the coming 2 years. united states nato representative claims that every nation has been targeted by the russia or china in cyberspace warning that the world must strengthen its fire walls against moscow and beijing that said a report revealed to the cia and its german counterpart rig swiss made encrypted machines back in the 1970 s. alone to spy on embassies and government institutions in a 120 countries and double quarter reports. the washington post is calling it the intelligence coup of the century the cia working with west german secret services pulling the strings of a swiss and christian company and stealing government secrets from over 120

countries foreign governments were paying good money to the us and was germany for the privilege of having their most secret communications read by at least 2 foreign countries it was a foolproof operation 1st called thesaurus and later renamed rubicon for over half a century the company crypto agee was a captain of the world's encryption industry based in neutral switzerland most governments were quick to believe their secrets were in safe hands little did they know the cia and west germany's b.m.d. had co-opted the company's founder to create a backdoor into the world's best kept secrets in 1988 western spies had complete access to the egyptian president's communications with cairo during the camp david peace talks with israel a year later washington was spying on a rainy and officials during the hostage crisis and as late as 1986 u.s.

intelligence was listening to libyan officials congratulate each other for the bombing of a berlin disco although the c.i. a and b. and d. weren't able to hook their main rivals russia and china had enough foresight to look elsewhere for their encryption needs nowadays though those 2 are the scapegoats for all of the west's cyber woes if you see throughout our alliance every one of our countries has had side by and hybrid attacks from russia some from china for washington it's become a routine to point the finger at russia and china but it's not like u.s. intelligence operations have wound down since then on the contrary they've adapted . edward snowden is a 29 year old intelligence contractor who leaked top secret national security agency information revealing the incredible extent to which the u.s.

government is monitoring and keeping records of not just our phone and national security agency has developed to build an infrastructure they could intercept almost everything. national security agency there in the united states allegedly spying on quite vast amounts citizens data to group by a president who was reviewing the washington spying program because largely defended it although the program had not prevented a terrorist attack it was still vital to security. the central intelligence agency has washed control of highly classified documents and computer code about the cia's technical capability to carry out tracking into electronic devices things like android phones only phones and julian assange.

accusing the cia of devastating incompetence saying the agency has lost control of its cyber weapons it doesn't matter who you are friend or foe they're coming for your secrets. i have since we started talking about then and see always made it clear to the u.s. president that spying among friends is not acceptable and if you take wiki leaks vault 7 documents into consideration it makes operation rubicon look like child's play the scope and direction of the cia's global covert hacking program its malware arsenal and dozens of 0 day weaponized exploits against a wide range of u.s. and european company products include apple's i phone google's android and microsoft's windows and even samsung t.v.'s which are turned into covert. microphone's even their own citizens aren't safe now increasingly we see that it's happening domestically and to do that they the n.s.a.

specifically targets the communications of everyone in just some by default it collects them in its system and it filters them in atlanta laws is the minute measures them and it stores them for periods of time simply because that's the easiest most efficient and most valuable way to achieve these ends snowden took the revelations about crypto eiji even further comparing it with the formerly secret $10000000.00 contract between the n.s.a. and a major u.s. computer security firm it begs the question what info grabbing operations are still going on right now under our noses. given the passage of time for them whistleblower john kiriakou doesn't expect anyone though to come clean over the reported operation. i can only speculate but we have a mandatory declassification law in this country where if information is at least 30 years old and it is not operational in nature that is it doesn't include

information related to sources and methods that it has to be declassified and i wonder if that's really what this is all about that the information is old enough that that there's no reason to keep it classified anymore the u.s. has interfered in more elections around the world then any other country in the world and i wouldn't be surprised if it was more than all other countries in the world combined this is something they that the u.s. does routinely regularly this may at least temporarily serve to take the attention off of russia off of china and other countries because this is something the united states does all the time not only will there be no criminal repercussions i would not at all be surprised if those responsible for this operation who are still in the cia or n.s.a. are not given medals for what they've done. this is the international thank you for

watching we have your children around the world coming up the u.n. human rights office has released a nisse now of companies supporting illegal west bank settlements on israel is from happy about that will bring it latest on it more news to it as well. seemed wrong. to me. to shape out these days to educate and engagement equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground.

now at 2025 the global potential pandemic here and people's fear is compound it by the fact that there's nothing in the global economy is anchored anything so. so you have this remark paranoia by disorientation in a world around any kind of solid anchor and it's only going to get more chaotic. again israel is strongly condemned the new un human rights office report that identifies 112 companies as having ties to illegal settlements in the west bank and

administration describe the findings as shameful though and said it will suspend the international body which had this to say 1st off in defense of the document. finding mission highlighted 10 types of business activities it viewed as being of particular concern given the well established legal nature of the settlements in the occupied palestinian territory and their impact on the daily lives on the human rights of the palestinian people on whose land the settlements have been built and continue to be built the united nations was referring to the israeli settlements that are constructed in the west bank post the 19676 day war these are the $121.00 officially recognized settlements house around half a 1000000 israeli settlers these places offer places of worship homes and businesses that serve the region for the israelis the israeli reaction towards the

announcement by the united nations was met with a furious rage with a plethora of statements coming out from different israeli government organizations these israeli president truman revel in actually announced that this state this list was shameless and it's reminiscent of dark times in israel's history who have a boy good will be borg to the human rose comes to is a buzz buddy that is devoid of influence the state of israel will not tolerate this discriminates he and he is really policy and will take action to prevent the implementation of these kinds of decisions this list included $112.00 companies operating in these settlements they included some international companies such as moral solutions however they also included mostly israeli banks however some american companies like trip advisor and air b.n. b. were also mentioned in the list however the united nations list does not state that

these companies are practicing any illegal activity over that they are only being listed because they are operating within the israeli settlements it's important to know that it is not some claim a black. list nor does it qualify any company's activities as illegal that would be separate and highly complicated terminations the palestinians welcomed the united nations list that arrived from the human rights council calling it a welcome diplomatic victory and a sign of the palestinians diplomatic efforts in the international community to confront israel's publishing this list of companies and entities operating in the settlements is a victory for international law and diplomatic efforts the american administration announced the deal of the century palestinians call this deal or this peace offering a pro israel agreement that gave nothing to the palestinians and gave everything towards the israelis this has actually created more tensions between the

palestinian authority and the israeli government with these tensions also escalating into live protests on the ground and tensions are only rising in the days to come spoke a bit earlier to mohamed decide he's the national director of the boycott divestment and sanctions movement in south africa he told me he hopes the new report will encourage businesses to end this support for west bank settlements. but as a boycott divestment and sanctions movement we see this as a great as a great positive step in the right direction for holding israel accountable for its violations of international law it has taken the b.d.s. boycott off is the deal just over 15 years to get to the stage and so we really do hope that this nonviolent boycott movement can have an effect on the israeli government in an attempt to bring israel to the negotiating table similar to how the parties to africa was brought to the negotiating table big business is like a b. and b. bookings dot com trip advisor invidious others should be on the right side of history

and should in this complicity with the israel's very lesions of international law. it is a somber day the german city of dresden as it commemorates the victims of a mass carpet bombing campaign it's estimated that 25000 civilians died in the raids led by the british and american air forces 75 years ago to the day since then the intensity of the strikes in dresden has been called the question as the 2nd world war need it end. and. everything around turned into i see a woman in her pants is a bundle it's a child she runs and falls the child disappears into the flames.

when i was something 5 years old we heard the story of a man whose parents had the foresight to take him out of dresden shortly before the bombing began all of those mi 5 years old at the time he still has recollections of what his family went through. the bombing started and the house was on fire my

parents rushed outside in took nothing with them others went back to their flats and they died in the flames in the narrow streets the flames were spreading so fast people were suffocating it was a simple struggle for survival after the attack no more no less for weeks afterwards the corpses were burned at the old market my father had to help there to from february to the beginning of may they started to clear some rubble and burned the bodies there were $6.00 to $7000.00 corpses burned at the old market 200 meters from here there are pictures of this there were bodies lying around everything was destroyed it was chaos because there were also many refugees from poland and east prussia that's why you don't know how many in fact died because there were so many unregistered people here who were burned the corpses could not be identified. him in a true story michael jones says the bombing raids on dresden lack perception and

furthermore were carried out he says on an excessive scale well that's always been a controversial of and right from the bombing itself on the 13th of february 945 dresden was a very beautiful city it was a cultural city so the question was was it really necessary there was a lot of destruction and i think it was excessive and with hindsight it would have been much better for a number of reasons if the bombing raids had been more targets and less than thunderous had been. i think the scale of the station was unnecessary and very regrettable. that's a pretty low from history month so i think looking so far from russia this thursday afternoon it's coming up to 28 minutes past 5 in the afternoon much more a very social media non to dot com because our next program variously lined up for you in your part of the world the break coming up be time for me kevin o.

and big thanks for watching and have a great rest of this day. i . am 24 to you know bloody revolution to the demonstrations going from being relatively peaceful political protests to be

creasing the violent revolution is always spontaneous or is it just a lawyer here i mean you know liz put me in the new bill is that i do believe it or the former ukrainian president recalls the events of 2040. of those who took part in this today over 5000000000 dollars to assist ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic. this is the one business show you can't afford to miss. and i'm british born washington coming up u.s. government says it will finally provide evidence of how while away is a threat to u.s. national security we have

a live report plus what is go happening on the ground in china during the fight against the coronavirus we speak with a reporter in china to get his perspective and outrage it has taken place has the u.k. quietly lifted some sanctions against russia we take a look at a report you won't see anywhere else a lot going on this very busy day so let's get started. and we begin as the united states says it will finally provide evidence that while way is a national security threat officials now say that while waking and covertly access mobile phone networks around the world through back doors designed for use by law enforcement. stop so back doors the same ones that the u.s. government has demanded that cell phone companies build into their systems right and yes back doors that the attorney general and senators like lindsey graham are demanding that facebook and apple add to their systems for law enforcement can be accessed.