it was. turkey clashes with syria at the u.n. security council over the turkish troop presence inside the conflict ravaged country that's not the turkey's there is 33 of its all just were killed in syria is it live performance. in libya escalation turkish officials say that will no longer stop syrian refugees from crossing into the e.u. it's reported large groups are already making their way towards the greek border. also ahead as bernie sanders surges in the polls one believe there don't add to the democratic sound the party to do nights behind anybody but birthday claiming the socialist senator cannot be donald trump.

a warm welcome to you you're watching r.t. international with me making arrant our top story this hour the u.n. security council has held an emergency meeting must after reports 33 circles soldiers were killed during an offensive by syrian forces now syria's representative to the u.n. said the turkish military presence in italy is preventing damascus from fighting terrorists on its own territory turkey's u.n. envoy in return stated that ankara intends to maintain its military posture there. we will not abandon. and we'll continue or reinforcements. are all the my country is combating terrorism in its own territory and we are committed to using tools to defend our people and the unity of syria. in response to the ongoing violation of the cease fire within the zone the syrian army has every right to

subdue the terrorists the assad regime russia and iran must halt their offensive before more innocent civilians are killed and displaced the presidents of russia and turkey have held a phone call in which they discussed holding a high level meeting about the escalation earlier russia's foreign minister spoke out in support of the syrian army's right to response to ceasefire violations and called for cooperation between all sides within the agreed framework but. we reaffirm our commitment to agreements reached by the presidents of russia and turkey a suggestion is that everyone should already start fulfilling their was a the syrian army have every right to respond to regular violations of cease fire from inside the observe own to neutralize terrorists we cannot restrict the syrian army from fulfilling requirements written in the universe aleutian in fighting terrorism. the syrian army has been engaged in a very violent fight to defeat the last militant stronghold in syria and the profit

in the province according to moscow the turkish troops that were killed on thursday were among terrorist fighters involved in a large scale offensive against the syrian army but the russians say they weren't even informed of the presence of turkish troops until they were hit by that airstrike on february 27th near the settlement of b. whom turkish soldiers who were embedded with terrorists came on to the syrian army fired at the same time according to the coordinates transmitted by the turkish side to russia there were no turkish troops or units in the area and the russian reconciliation center says that they immediately rushed to the aid of the injured turkish troops after discovering what had happened it's certainly strange they weren't informed in the 1st place since the center maintains regular contact with ankara and the russians say that the data turkey provided suggested that there were no turkish troops there although ankara recently denied this and said that they did inform russia of their troop locations the tanker also called for

a consultation with its nato allies following the attack leading to an emergency meeting of the military alliance and there's even been speculation that article 5 could be a vote now what that means is article 5 would potentially draw turkey turkey's allies into a war against syria and russia but again as of now that is that's just speculation but we also heard from the country's minister of affairs and he said that syria will be held accountable for what happened to turkey is determined to continue to it fulfills its objectives in accordance with its legal rights the murderous regime and those who encouraged it will account for their betrayal in the most severe way now a lot of this chaos stems from disagreements over a cease fire that came into effect earlier this year on the one hand turkey accuses syria of violating that cease fire with this stuff. and serve against the militant stronghold in ad lib and on the other hand syria and russia accuse turkey of not

holding up its end of the bargain apparently ankara was supposed to remove terrorist groups from the region while negotiating with the more moderate groups but making a firm dividing line between the 2. possibilities between groups there but the efforts that it's made to that effect have been quite ineffective and more talks are scheduled in march actually between iran and turkey and russia on the issue so we'll have to see if that yields any results of that can solve the crisis currently going on in this syrian province we discussed the issue with middle east analyst told us what goals he thinks turkey has in mind in syria the turkish agenda in syria is very clear and specially. the turkish agenda was creating groups that are ideologically close to turkish government and can be used for turkey to create a safe haven for disease loveless groups in northwestern syria turkish military

presence in the same region has to be carefully. regulated to. turkish government to. radical islamist groups in the same region. so i don't think that turkish military will have to further complicate the situation i mean while nato has how to special meeting in brussels at the request of turkey as secretary general says the alliance stands behind the anchor of a cold on all sides to find a peaceful solution. constantly looking into what more they can do to provide further support for. they too are laws are engaged in trying to move forward in the efforts of the un their 1st of find a peaceful solution we call on turkey we call on the. russia to fully engage in such un led efforts of on the peaceful solution we spoke

about this with mark almost he's a political analyst and director of the crisis research institute and believes nato support will remain vocal i don't think nato forces will enter syria in support of those who've gone the problem to turkey is the nato alliance is principle is an attack on one is an attack on all but the turks might be risking trying to say that an attack by one nato states brings in all the others to support it and i think is also reluctant to see new to come into direct confrontation with russia so there's quite a lot of powerful voices in nato who support the turks desire to see the syrian army's offensive stopped but i'm not sure they want to go beyond words and perhaps symbolic gestures. as military conflicts continues in the region large groups of refugees continue to head for europe early on friday there were reports of us turkish officials saying the country would no longer stop refugees including

syrians from crossing into the e.u. these pictures from our video agency ruptly show people in turkey some carrying children reportedly making their way to the border with greece. in greece these new pictures show migrants arriving on the island of les paul's by boat volunteers have been meeting them with blankets and essential supplies the protests have gripped greek islands in recent days with locals opposing government loans to build new mines. mark almost again believes turkey is using tensions around e.u. migrant controls so blackmail europe for support. several crimes in recent months we took his government spokespeople there to himself or said 1st of all turkey has through a hole through 3 quarter 1000000 refugees that it's a pain to go after maybe the european should do more for them all that go to your and she could be what he's now doing in this crisis is saying to the europeans if you don't back me up i have a weapon i can use to stabilize your society is remember what happened when and when the whole refugees arrived in germany in 2015 was

a spin off german politics in which to appear important and so in a way a person who i don't understand your friends support me but if you don't i think blackmail you with opening the floodgates to perhaps 2 or 3000000 refugees trying to enter the european union that makes you course when i was there or could i would have if you feel that he's trying to hold a gun to your head as well as in his other hand a gun to the head of syria. big hitters in the us democrat party are being urged to unite behind anybody but it's bernie sanders a wealthy donor has made the plea believing that saunders could not beat donald trump in the next presidential election of a poor. they say money can't buy you friends or happiness but might be true but they could just buy you the white house mega donor bernard schwartz has been digging deep in his pockets to help the democrat course but it's not entirely a no strings attached situation we should know who is the best person to be donald

trump and with all due respect burna son there's cannot be trump so which horse is short is betting on well he's not. fasi but either of his friends from the billionaires club will do who just like him on shy on splashing the cash and since we're already here together let's look at just how much cash with king take joe biden now he's discovered that he can't just rely on his instagram a bromance with obama to take him all the way so decided instead to drop a 6 figure sum on just one ad for good measure though he did keep in some abominate . this is an extraordinary man with an extraordinary career in public service you've got to admire him though if i were trailing 12 percent behind the top counted and had my own backers jumping ship i'd be a bit tighter on the past strings but either way biden still pales in comparison to what his buddy bloomberg has spent so far it's estimated the ex new york mayor has

dropped a casual 400000000 on his campaign but hey it's only no point 6 percent of his $64000000000.00 fortune so no biggie also at least he's having some fun with it not even the aspiring u.s. president is above a cheeky trolling campaign and it seems to be paying off because he's risen from the very bottom of the polls to somewhere near the top of course let's not forget he is an old hand when it comes to knowing just what money can get you all of the new democrats that came in put nancy pelosi in charge and gave the congress the ability to control this president i got them hoops well let's look further afield now at some of the candidates like back to judge to his credit he sense that people might not be found of this whole exclusive club of the rich so decided to play the role of the average joe just the man on the street and the only candidate on those

debates stages in this race the major candidates who's not a millionaire or billionaire what's this a penniless candidate and big money politics well if you believe bunny. not quite we're going to contrast our views with mayo to judge 40 billionaires who are contributing to his campaign the heads of the c.e.o.'s of the large pharmaceutical industries the insurance companies and so forth well since bonnie's made to the parents let's peek inside his coffin he might go about divvying up the cash once he gets his hands on those government funds but until then it seems he's more about treating himself he has dipped into his funds and brought out around $14000000.00 for just a few t.v. outs so it seems that no matter what side of the political spectrum you're on you know that to win in this game you need a lot of the green stuff to help you along the way but money is always played a big part in american elections especially since 2010 with the u.s.

supreme court ruled in a case called citizens united that you could spend as much money as you wanted on candidates because corporations spending money on politics is free speech spending money is free speech corporations are people that's what this supreme court decided that's a travesty and that's really undermined american democracy even more and made it more a money game then ever before that's a big problem in the u.s. money yes and the role of money is growing even more but you know i don't think it's at a point where a movement like centers could still prevail. french police have arrested 54 people in paris after a fire broke out near the get the train station. so as you say it was started by a group of people who had been attending the concert of

a congolese artist nearby despite the group's sanction is totally unacceptable the assembled crowd reportedly tried to prevent firefighters from getting closer to the place firefighters managed to extinguish the fire quickly although a number of vehicles were destroyed the station was evacuated along with the metro and people have been asked to avoid the area. and a report in the u.k. has found that minority groups are being over represented in the media by cation and other ethnic minorities have twice the presence on t.v. than they actually have on the streets of britain the same also applies to the l.g.b. community while one of the channels looked out in the report says it's simply trying to reflect reality for c.e.o. claims its main goal is to reflect modern diversity in its output but critics say it's gone too far. characters to reflect demographics or.

you know what else is over represented on t.v. the hate for white people that's even worse there are 4 characters here well 2 have to be nonwhite and one must be gary the country isn't 50 cent nonwhites and of course again. we put the issue for debate with new york observer columnist andre walker and human rights activist peter peter tatchell. this highlights the ludicrous idea of having quotas for everything i genuinely believe that in television like in all the rest of life you should have the best people for the job but you know what if you're going to have quotas that when the white middle class heterosexual mad presents it then you've got to throw somebody else out or we don't have a quota system in british t.v. there are attempts and have been successful attempts to corner this is a 6 to redress the marginalization exclusion and clicked of past decades and i think that's a great thing to celebrate because it does show that we are a more accepting understanding inclusive society this is about normalizing the fact

that we live in a diverse society this is not about diversity not to be about diversity what it should be about is the best person for the job television is bad to tell humans so you pick the best guy for the job or the best woman for the job who acts in the best way all the social change that peter tatchell is talking about all of this let's get a gay person because the guy you're black person has a black it's just a load of 970 s. rock i'm certain that all those black and gay actors are chosen not because of their race or sexuality because they happen to be good actors we need to fight discrimination we need to ensure that people who are disabled or gay or black are not discriminate against but the idea of just let's just pick this person whoever they are just in order to fill a quota is not doesn't so pretty that everybody's doing the right. they choose good actors peter i love you to pieces if you're out of date. or certain is that america's then mighty university of founder reporters who were irregularities during the bolivian election didn't provide sufficient evidence the allegations of

election fraud sponsored mass protests which led to president evo morales quitting the report was made by the organization of american states look to the bolivian general election results of november when there was a break in voting it appeared more or less was thinking effectively in front of his rival they report found irregularities and therefore claims the election results were not accurate one of the mit research is jack williams they explained what made them doubt the findings. wanted to specifically look at the portion where they claim that there is significant difference in the results following the interruption and then also in the last 5 percent of results of the unofficial vote count. during this process me and my colleagues were unable to find the evidence that the we have created here results are out there and you know having an effect on the world without any measurable logical or even like even just that they used

to produce the results that they created we find it extremely difficult to naturally find the breaks that they found and used for their results so following the release of the oas reports some media outlets spoke of election fraud like it was a proven fact and audit indicated there was a clear manipulation in the country's elections last month accusations of irregularities in last month's presidential election was rigged of american states but a report saying that. they felt that. the whole she would actually. i would again believes the media and opposition use the oas reports to their own interests. the statistical claim was the one that was able to be tied to the results and to claim the results that were being presented were illegitimate and that's what the opposition party and then the media has also used

to justify those people knew that there was problems with the oas research but maybe didn't have the technical expertise do it center for economic and policy research had released a report prior but it had not much traction among especially the media so i think they really wanted someone to evaluate this and take it seriously. and this is the u.s. state of monk's hall where a total of 4 city council officials have now lost the prosecutor's office to drop charges against whistleblower brandon bryant who is famous for lifting the lid on civilian killings in u.s. overseas drone operations the air force veteran had been charged with threatening city officials in a you tube video and is currently in detention over the past few months to taser he's attended multiple city council meetings criticizing the way tax money is being used but as mother though claims his incarceration is politically motivated she's launched a campaign in the hope of raising $100000.00 for his bail my son was the u.s.

air force missile or who broke the code of silence on the drone program now he's in jail in the. facility he has no criminal record and yet he is the held on $100000.00 bail under detention he's isolated from this family and his friends in france medically i mean indeed an emotional support animal. brandon bryant served as a u.s. air force drone operator from 2006 until 2011 having left the military he began exposing cases of what he alleged to be civilian deaths resulting from american drone strikes brian claims commanders often prioritize the elimination of a target over accuracy resulting in innocent people being killed in the process is revelations 100 german whistleblower award in 2050 and also intensified debate over the use of a german air base by american drones here's how brandon described his experience to

us back in 2050. i actually talked with a lady whose husband. was killed whose has been in brother was killed in a drone strike or talked to or face to face and she asked me why her husband and brother had to die and they weren't bad guys and i just looked at her and i said i don't know and that's not really the best thing that i can tell someone who is asking questions about why someone that they cared about was killed and they need to know the answers and they're really true hard answer to say is that i'm sorry that. the mistake happened and i'm doing everything that i can prevent further mistakes from happening. brian was arrested on a felony charge after he had allegedly exhibited behavior toward city council meetings

and on top of that he threatens to eliminate its members in a you tube video however former f.b.i. agent and whistleblower colleen rowley believes brian's current predicament is connected to his past revelations. this does seem to be more retaliation for his having spoken out about the drone operations and the fact that they were killing innocent civilians more so then what he's now done typically what the. so blower they look back in your personnel file 1st to see if there's anything bad that they can use to discredit the messenger and if they can't find anything bad bad in someone's background or personnel file then they wait for the whistleblower to you know make a small error or mistake and the draw was a blow or are in a fragile emotional state already as you can see with all the veterans they suffer from p.t.s.d. and we know from many other cases of retaliating and persecuting was of lors that

that seems to be the standard oh the government is in perpetual war and so the war goes on for ever that means that even if you speak out even years ago and it's especially if you continue to speak out about the wrongful actions in the war crimes it's going to continue this is not to negate the fact that brandon certainly he erred hurt if he made any threatening remarks or comments he certainly should be corrected in the should receive more treatment but i don't think he should be punished the way he's being punished. problems have been angered by comments made by the ambassador of its ally molly he was critical of french of the terrorist squads in the west african country. of false tensions have risen diplomatically between mali and for all spurring those comments by the moment the process in which he criticised and denounced the actions of french soldiers on the ground in his

country if we're going to cross certain elements there are no desirable some elements of the army because we see it all we see to use all over and we don't know what they're doing on the streets of the marco at night and it's not good for the image of france. well those remarks have provoked anger here in frogs while in ambassador was hauled in front of the foreign affairs with history to explain those actions meanwhile the french armed forces with us to florence probably didn't know most of those big polson all so on except of all this was a statement from her ministry rather than channeling and spreading false accusations we expect the ambassador of mali to devote all his energy to implementing the pow summit and achieving success for everyone it comes just off the frog's held 'd a big summit just a few weeks ago in the south of france to discuss the future of the sawhill region and operation volcano this is francis and largest overseas operation with all the

$5000.00 troops stationed across 5 countries in the sawhill region including mali now president merkel also said at that summit that french soldiers were paying for the conflict in blood and let's have a look at some of the recent attacks in the sawhill region. it comes amidst other tensions such as protests on the ground against french troops

are being stationed in bali protesters saying they don't welcomed at all so you saying that france is still treating the country as if it's a colonial entity and it comes of it's the fact that the mali in present. it himself this is that his government has opened talks with john hardest in a way to find a solution to the conflict now we know that mali is sending its foreign affairs minister here to paris to try and smooth things over but the reality is this is the latest diplomatic answer that is going to raise more questions about the why of french soldiers in the ground possibly offering up their lives to fight for a war that's not their own. germany's top court has upheld a ban on judges and trainee lawyers wearing headscarves the work ruled that the clothing violated the neutrality of the courtroom with more details his peter oliver. germany's constitutional court has decided that when it comes to wearing

islamic headscarves court rooms are a special case i'd like it done on religious symbols similar to what they have in france isn't favored in germany but when it comes to wearing islamic headscarf in court that's a different matter the court has rejected the constitutional complete against the ban on wearing a headscarf for certain official activities all those obligations constitute an interference with the completeness freedom of belief and other fundamental rates this is justified the case was brought by a german rocket legal trainee you argue that the state of pace's rules that she couldn't wear red scarf while carrying out certain official duties was constitutional the ruling by the constitutional court has raised a few eyebrows on social media with people asking the question why a crucifix is allowed in a court room but a headscarf is not on the one hand the state may prohibit women lawyers in training

from wearing the headscarf in court in order to maintain ideological and really just neutrality on the other hand. germany a courtroom must be relieved neutral hands the head scarf ban also germany. headscarf ban because the court should be neutral at the same time crucifix on the wall because it is known not to be a religious symbol has scarf bans target the group that is most discriminated against in germany in making the ruling the constitutional court pointed out that headscarf can be worn in the court building there only prohibits its carrying out public duties in the court itself i spoke to people on the streets of berlin and asked if they made this decision ok. i think it's absolutely not pride believe in a free country and everyone here has the right to freedom of expression and freedom of religion. is an astonishing are no no. no i think that it's wrong because it

concerns really. obliges you to burn it then you have to do it no matter where you go that's why i don't think it's right that it's forbidden. we are old people they have their own culture and we have our culture those people have to adapt to where they are i have nothing against it those people who come to germany they have to adapt but i have nothing against the headscarf germany 16 states have differing rules when it comes to religious symbols in this case the cole ruled that the trainee lawyer couldn't wear a headscarf as it went against the neutrality that a court room must show however it has led to questions over that being one rule for christians and another for muslims this is not a job this is something we need to do so this is something oh it's belong to vote a law on the constitution and they need to represent the constitution and it should

be neutral all all we know about you're out of here and the country was a christiania to remain over that was the only change and they need to respect that and the main of the people a lot of people in this country they don't want to see a lot of muslims on one of the religions who are being the symbols of privileges to presenting the constitution in the cost this isn't something we are told know yet about of the main constitution or the country and to make us more what country need people will be who are to present the law without any other allegiance to be mixing in this law. by stating r.t. international if you'd like to comment on any of our stories then do get in touch by following us on social media we're back in 30 minutes with the latest headlines . for you rocky is now.