russia is called to help the syrian army repel an offensive in italy a province launched by militants but the support of the turkish troops. lynn is unofficial memorial for the 9 victims of last night she was in the west of germany account for merkel condemns the poison of racism as the suspect is believed to have had a phobic motives and president micron back to back on except it isn't in france as he bids to win votes ahead of next month's local elections. there is 10 pm here in moscow you're watching r.t.

international sciri militants backed by turkish forces launched an offensive against the syrian army in the war torn italy province today but russian airstrikes helped to repel them he was dan of join me earlier with the details. basically what happened terrorist factions launched an offensive on the syrian forces who were holding one of the villages a village in that northeastern province a very large scale offensive supported by artillery strikes by the turkish army so that offensive or that was of such scale that the troops the syrian troops on the ground could not withstand it on their own so the ask the russian air force to help out so it did but again that offensive that terrorist offensive was supported by turkish artillery so moscow had to intervene and reach out directly to ankara and ask them to stop the support to. militants from moving deeper into syria

s c u 24 aircraft of the russian air force at the request of the syrian command have carried out air strikes against the dancing armed groups this allowed the syrian troops to successful the ripple all attacks the turkish ministry of defense has confirmed that 2 of its soldiers have been killed as a result of the airstrikes and 5 more wounded now it is not clear yet who fired those deadly rounds or what war the those russian air force or the syrian air force but still the situation is very very explosive given that now 3 independent 3 sovereign states have been engaged in a skirmish effectively in a deadly skirmish and one of those states being a nato ally as well it's been a rapid escalation hasn't it just over the last day or so how did it reach this point well essentially turkey has been very vocal about the situation in libya and the turkish president earlier one has been telling syrians to get out of italy to

move out of that province behind the troops line that had been pre-agreed back. he's been the one who has been giving deadlines to the syrian army by the end of february then we never going on their demand and saying that there's no deadline they should move made immediately or the attack or the turkish attack would be imminent. i don't doubt that the operation is imminent in particular we will not leave it to the regime which is not yet understood our country's determination on this issue and those who are encouraging it committed to making it live a safe place for both turkey and the people of the region at all costs as. well it seems the push has come to shove now in that syrian province and interestingly turkey has been encouraged from abroad it has been encouraged by its main nato ally the united states they've been sort of cheering anchor and saying that. they are

all along standing by their nato ally also literally hours before the advance whether or not it is a coincidence we don't know but an official nato twitter account an international twitter account posted a promo video saying that we are nato and that's in turkish language now russia has been all along saying that turkey has failed to deliver on its key promise ankara being. one of the guarantors of the peace process in libya has been tasked with delivering a clear distinction between radical hardline ji harvest's and those groups who are ready to engage in dialogue and sit behind a table and talk to the syrian government and russia has been saying that ankara has failed to deliver on this key promise and key tasks so we'll certainly have a look whether this this mess in today's mess and will see all sides back at the negotiating table political commentator and explained why she believes that

turkey is just buying its time on the ground in syria. let us remind the audience that what's going on on the ground or in nato which is an area or a village in south east is not inhabited by residents it's only or by civilians it's a military zone it is where this unit arab army is advancing to liberate the city of idlib and it's where the militants are residing it's practically the last frontline that the militants can hold on to try and stop the syrian arab army from advancing to the city what is happening right now is very dangerous but at the same time politically speaking i think this is just the last politics on the ground that can be played by the turkish side b. so before eventually sitting on the table with an interview to your of the russian side with damascus and talking about how turkey will have to eventually leave the

syrian land because it's syrian learn and it's the syrian arab are we trying to clean this land from terrorism so what is turkey doing there anyway. now with the man who is believed to be leading the call to prayer at a mosque in central london has been stabbed in the neck reports from the british capital. what we know so far is the gentleman the morrison is that school at this mosque in central london this is one of the 1st mosques to be established in the u.k. he was reading the call to prayer for the afternoon prayers around 3 or 330 in the afternoon when he was stabbed in the neck by another person who has since been arrested the 29 year old now just the gentleman the victim in question is said to be in his seventy's and he's in hospital now where he's expected to survive that attack despite it being the starting attack in the neck now we've spoken to some

people who've been inside the mosque earlier this evening and he was in the off the moon and they say that according to officials here at the mosque the gentleman who's been arrested the man who's been arrested was seen here before he had been a visitor here but had perhaps been seen as somebody of an outsider was suspicious is some way so it's unclear whether this is someone who was an attendee of the mosque or someone who was possibly staking out in preparation for an attack like this in any case the police have released a statement they say they're not treating it as terrorists and at this time but of course tensions and fears will be high in the u.k. and especially amongst the muslim community. meanwhile people in berlin holding an unofficial vigil for the 9 thinks himself last night shooting in the west of germany the suspected attacker is believed to have had. with 5 of the victims being to nationals peter all of those more details. to vigils have been taking place here

in the german capital in response to the killings in the western city of now at the brandenburg gate the iconic symbol here in the center of berlin we saw people forming a human chain in solidarity with the people of high now also in another location in the city people saying. that they'd come out on to the streets against racism and semitism and right wing terrorism there's also been a vigil taking place in the city now where this incident took place from full to steinmeier the german president who is in attendance there there have been other politicians out and about it various events that have been taking place on thursday evening 9 people were killed 2 separate locations 2 she shipyards in the western city of head now not far from the major city of frankfurt a 42 year old man who is believed to be the main suspect was later found dead at

his home alongside his 72 year old mother eyewitnesses who were there when the shootings took place that she should bars have described the scenes and what they saw and heard just beyond on how such a huge good thing the little i heard gunshots then i ran out and looked in the direction of the she should be i couldn't see anything i mean that the doors were open and people were running out of the other restaurants i heard from a neighbor that someone was shooting at the restaurants around back and told my guests to stay away from the window. i walked with my 2 little kids. who pulled the shooting began you actually 100 meters from the place and when i went up stairs and heard 5 to 7 gunshots. of the attorney general is investigating links to right wing extremism in this case that's after a $24.00 page manifesto was found in the possession of the main suspect in that manifesto he talks about hatred of foreigners and non white people he talks about

the extermination of certain nations in north africa or in the middle east and in central asia it's riddled with racist tropes as well as being full of a far right ideology searches things like eugenics there's also a video that emerged that was published just a few days ago from this man this fall. 32 year old german man who is the main suspect in the shooting in the shootings in this video which gives no clue that he may have been preparing to take to carry out this attack he speaks in english it's understood it's being directed towards a u.s. audience and it's full of constancy theories really. what we have seen though is a number of politicians coming out in condemnation of this attack also the german chancellor angela merkel saying that there would be a full investigation and no stone would be left unturned. if it's too early to give

a conclusive assessment everything is being done to find out what was behind this murder but a lot already suggests pyrite rhesus north of the of the attackers who parents are acting out of hatred towards people of different descent religion periods racism is a poison hatred is a poison and this quickly exists in our society and has led to many crimes. so the feeling here in germany really one of sadness of mourning but certainly of anger that this was able to happen in the 1st place in the wake of the shooting the chairwoman of the ruling c.d.u. party was quick to bash rivals from the alternative for germany party accusing them of having extremist tendencies. women in theater i ensure it's fine if you look at their text profiled it seems like he had racist xenophobia as well as the far right motives and this trenton's me mightily for the c.d.u. you should always be clear not only for the c.d.u.

but for all parties in germany that they can be no corporation with a party which tolerates far right extremists and let's call a spade a spade not says a monitoring so we are resolved to have no cooperation with the f.d.a. in any shape or form it's important to keep the spirals is the tentative for germany it's more or less the parliamentary wing of a right wing movement even of the right wing terrorists if they want or not they are the ones who give the key. to terrorists. every collaboration by other parties with. what. but give this party more credibility in the eyes of the followers so we have a level in the public debate that is more of a child and a rational political debate and when i hear yesterday night about that shooting i instinctively knew that our opponents would blame us for being responsible for it

it is completely ridiculous and i can only ask everyone to read that money festa of this crazy terrorist and then compare it to what we are doing and then it's all views that it's nonsense but no one reads that money 1st too and so opponent think if they only repeat and repeat and repeat that we are somehow linked to that or that that this terrorist had links to us than enough people would believe him ok maybe that happens but it's just fake news and of course we fight against fake news where is the german chancellor back to battle racism in her country the president of neighboring france nine's he's fighting islamic separatism my new man. made the claim our campaigning ahead of next month's local elections short of the pinsky sent this report from powers. it was a long awaited speech from president outlining how his presidency will rally

against the political islam. we can advance in a credible way to fighting it's a political ideology this is separatism which is incompatible with freedom and equality compatible with the indivisibility of the republic and the necessary unity of the nation 1st in the firing line is foreign interference not corn has vowed to end a program that allows countries such as old jewry and turkey to send moms and teachers here to provide services without supervision this scheme in place since the 1970 s. allows those foreigners to provide language and cultural lessons to help children maintain a link with their country of origin around some 80000 children attend these classes every year. i'm not comfortable with the idea of having women in many schools of the republic who can teach without the education system exercising their right as controlling and we no longer have control over the programs they teach you cannot

teach things that it clearly not compatible either with the laws of the republic or with history as we see. instead mark on wants to have more trained on french soil there would also be an end to the hundreds of additional religious leaders who arrive in france during ramadan mosques will be funded in a transparent way we need to know where the money is coming from who uses it and why he said interesting lead this echoes a policy from his political rival marine le pen during that head to head in 2017 per mandate said this. close all the extremist mosques identified by the ministry of the tarea and perhaps of foreign funding of place of the washer and their personnel strong words coming from the president or is it just a last ditch attempt to woo voters ahead of difficult local elections in just a few weeks my boy is found to shore up his position with the right wing

electorate also with some of the left of course the question of. the secular state in france is important right across the. micros relationship with parties on both sides of the spectrum. he needs to make this statement of municipal elections neutering those voters could be a double edged sword france is home to europe's largest muslim community there are said to be around $6000000.00 here that's about 8 percent of the population and back in 2017 this community overwhelmingly voted for president he's already shown that he's moved away from those centrist ideologies that he once espoused when outlined. immigration another policy direct from the playbook of the pen so by grasping at ideas that some see as being from the hard right wing is he likely

to lose voters from the left and from muslims but there are some areas particularly some local municipalities some towns in areas where this is a concern for french voters and so what he's doing the context of it is to try to reassure where there are law muslim communities muslim communities that the republicans still searching the values of the secular republic. the election whether that will succeed or not remains to be seen in the opinion polls are not don't look like there were calls for next month's elections are seen as being a referendum on president c. and on his party on the move could they signal the beginning of the end of march. sallah da vinci r t paris. mysterious spreading in 3 craning regions

where protests have been held over the country's nationals being brought back from the coronavirus 8 percent in china the flights carrying 73 people evacuated from will eventually landed in the ukrainian city of harkov now demonstrators have clashed with police in the town the passengers are meant to be quarantined. oh i. was no no no no no. oh. god. god. god. so far ukraine has yet to see one case of the corona virus but many people clearly are quite scared of even taking that chance in the region of laval's groups of protesters worse were seen blocking the streets to

a major hospital where the passengers were supposed to be quarantined after arriving in the country riot police were quickly sent to the scene they could be seen dragging people from the streets and even some of them were hospital workers themselves now for the past couple days other skirmishers between protesters and the police have become widespread across the country but the ukrainian authorities are saying are trying to reassure people that none of these passengers were affected or infected by the coronavirus about half of them were ukrainian or ukrainian and the rest come from a number of different countries but all of them have been screened twice before being allowed to board the plane now the government's been trying to find a quarantine area for a while now and amidst all the chaos of these new protests president selenski says that these reactions are not really something to be proud of these reactions to something that was supposed to be a gesture of goodwill to help people in need is a shame the not all of us can be proud of the humane reaction the efforts to show

find ways to blow close spittles not to let ukrainians back to ukraine we're not demonstrating the best of our character here especially given the majority of the passengers are under 30 to most of us they are almost children now the passengers are bound for a health center in the poltava region of ukraine but with such a negative reaction to something intended to be a gesture of goodwill we'll have to see how similar attempts in the future to fight the coronavirus fair if there are any at all. one quarter reporting there now the u.k. home secretary has unveiled a new points based visa system the move is intended to reduce the amount of cheap migrant labor flowing into the country. this is the 1st time in decades the government has been able to take control run its own immigration system after we've left the european union and free movement and low skilled migration to our country

which means that we will get migration numbers down and that essential to this policy of a points based system the new system does require immigrants to prove their knowledge of the english language as well as professional qualifications and skills and existing job often meeting a minimum minimum salary mark would also be required p.h.d. qualified specialist would receive extra points making it easier for them to gain entry but new rules would have proven quite a challenge for those who've already made a career here there in the u.k. . i don't know if i'd actually be in this country under these rules would you with your parents they wouldn't qualify with this is a very different system to what is going on in the past and don't forget this is a point based system you make on the local market. well known u.k. citizens have until now i made up a substantial part of the country's workforce with close to a 1000000 immigrants working in the live skilled sector in 2018 import democrat politician jonathan fry believes it won't take long for the new system to reveal

its faults. really a very dangerous game that the home secretary is playing basically just to satisfy the promises that the conservative party made joining the general election and to deliver briggs it as it was proposed many businesses have warm but it's just i'm realistic to assume that you can change the nature of the workforce in the way that the home secretary and presumably the prime minister want this doesn't solve the problem which i think is going to arrive very soon which is this country needs a lot of people in what art for the moment lower paid jobs basically what this new policy is saying is that the sort of work they're doing often for not very high pay is not being valued and that maybe they're not being valued as members of our

society. in a week in concrete for has lost its legal bid for damages from the government over a botched attempt to recreate its employees working in russia as spies refiner has more on the story. it drains like an unlikely story of a government with quite literally a concrete plan for spying now we join an intelligence they used one of the country's successful companies to snoop on russia but when caught red handed the company's be left empty handed with its hugely lucrative contract ripped in pieces .

early on but don't blame the now we just saw a taste for that and filed a case against them but lost now is for carrying to appeal we're running a twill affect the country's business and its relations with russia. it will for sure have great impact on other norwegian companies plan and activities in russia norway has a very hostile attitude towards its business in russia. it is unclear whether the alleged attempts by the norwegian intelligence services were successful or not but the company had been the only one to get the hard to win contracts with russia that surprised many people from earlier bettong tough guys when i was minister of foreign affairs we were in contact with them he struck me then there was actually no one who succeeded in russia except for one they did not come from the russian

neighboring region nor did they have any of the natural conditions for success in the more months but they got it it seems that the battle is not yet over not until the courts final decision is set in concrete. now in a move marking deepening defense ties between greece and the u.s. the 2 countries have held a training drill involving the american air force it does come after us things recently bought military equipment from washington and another nato ally from. the us chris relationship is stronger than it has ever been our defense to defense cooperation is an essential component of the united states really believes in the idea that greece is forced to go it is a winter period of our last strategy for the larger region. the u.s. signed a new defense agreement with greece last year it was an expression of a deal 1st struck back in 1900 if the last american military to use great facilities including for training refueling and emergency response but back in

october the treatment and the visit by the u.s. secretary of state did spark massive protests in athens. the protests were organized by the greek committee for international detente and pastes a call for people to mobilize and go against the government's decision to work with the u.s. it was argued it was dangerous to follow imperialists will political and this petras all go to you does think that the closer ties will only see greece stating exactly what washington wants. so far there has not been tangible benefits for

greece from the u.s. point of view. re serves the us interests for example one recent development. greece. is very likely to move i'm getting engaged and there are conflicts with turkey. the gov the greek government decided to give. us with technical stuff i'm sorry around here are the instructions of us and we've given there are differences as well that's just one small example of what the ratio of the venerable benefits dangers these are going to be very regarding us relations. now abuse at your peril that is the warning from the u.k. . health service which is tightening its tolerance when it comes to one really patients doctors can already refuse non-emergency care to aggressive or violent patients but new rules which do come into effect in april are much broader now then

all types of harassment bullying or discrimination will be covered and that includes sexist racist or homophobic comments in h.s. says any abuse of staff has to be taken seriously. we will not tolerate assaults physical or verbal against colleagues staff all volunteers all assault and hate crimes against images stuff must be investigated with care compassion diligence and commitment well under the new agreement police are also being handed more power to deal with crimes against medical staff although not everybody is happy. this was a huge potential for abuse how will accuse ations of abuse be investigated before treatment is withheld or will the word of any in each or simply be enough to put a patient's life at risk. personally i think this policy is ridiculous and could well end up being abused according to you had a national health survey last year alone

a quarter of all staff were subjected to at least one case of harassment you put me she put debate. the n.h.s. is now saying they won't treat people who are overweight they won't treat people who smoke they won't treat people who have made certain comments they won't treat people who provide that you cannot reasonably expect these people to pay for n.h.s. care that they do not receive so what you must do is also excuse these people from paying the elements of tax that would go towards the n.h.s. i think that when you look at the n.h.s. stuff there overwhelming concern is to provide support to help people in need so they do. prepared to put up with quite a lot i think where it really crosses the line is all severe verbal and physical abuse think that that is a major concern we need so we need to be sure that we're not going to end up in a situation whereby people who've maybe made a little bit of

a joke on table to be treated but on occasion it can go too far and it can cross the line and not line is quite broad i think but there are there are piece of terminology particularly around and indeed on sexuality that we deemed acceptable say 203040 years ago which is now considered all the acceptable and i think it's extremely important particularly with older people who might be on the work that sensitive it's a the a all fairly treated you never hear people complaining about being called colored and stuff like does particularly from the elderly and again the care staff are perfectly sensible enough to say ok did all worry about it they'll ignore that stuff it's not the stuff that is the cause of the majority stress in the produce i mean what's incredibly frustrating about this is that we live in a system in this country where you can drink 10 pints of lager you know enjoy yourself in some form of misadventure.