security council is russia it is the closest supporter of the assad regime and that also explains sadly why the information in this report is unlikely to little lead to any justice for these crimes the only way you could do something like that or the only available route is to the international criminal court and that needs a referral of the un security council russia is a permanent member of that council and it's proven in the past that whenever syria comes up the idea of referring syria to the international criminal court as a permanent member they have their veto and that prepared to use it james thanks very much indeed james bays there from the united nations. now in the united states u.s. senator bernie sanders has dropped out of the race to become the democratic presidential nominee that leaves a former vice president joe biden as the presumptive challenger to president on a trump in november sundered says it was a tough choice. i know that there may be some in our movement who disagree with this decision who would like us to fight on for the last ballot cast at the democratic con

an improvised barrel bombs so pretty clear here this report pretty clear no doubt really that the assad regime was responsible for these crimes certainly the whole international system had been trying to come up with some sort of conclusions the chemical weapons use and this is the 1st time we have a definitive answer like this a truck driver has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of 39 people found dead in the back of his work or in the u.k. the bodies of the vietnamese nationals were discovered in essex east of london last october 1st robinson from northern ireland appeared at a court in the british capital via video link among the men women and children were 10 teenagers 2 of them 15 year old boys police say they died from a lack of oxygen and overheating an enclosed space. yes senator bernie sanders has suspended his campaign for the democratic presidential nomination clearing the way for joe biden to become party's candidate of a month senator had been the front runner in the race to take on donald trump earlier this year only to be eclipsed by the former vice president serge biden

somebody says that the assad government did it will you not condemn the assam got such a government and why are you playing this lane game of not taking sides trying to be equal to both sides aren't you leaving one very important side out of this and that's the syrian people who have been gassed and over the last 50 years by the assad regime have been executed and talk shit i think we are on the front lines with the syrian people we have been our humanitarian colleagues have been there throughout throughout this conflict trying to support the syrian people in their daily lives so why is the u.n. pulling its punches well the answer is russia syria's closest ally and that's why you're unlikely to see any accountability for the attacks in the syrup or 'd the u.n. security council has tried to refer syria to the international criminal court in the past but russia a public member has used its feet oh james pays al-jazeera at the united nations the u.s. senator bernie sanders has ended his bed to be the democratic party's presidential nominee and his exit clears the way for former vice presid

an improvised barrel bombs so pretty clear here this report pretty clear no doubt really that the assad regime was responsible for these crimes certainly the whole international system had been trying to come up with some sort of conclusions the chemical weapons use and this is the 1st time we have a definitive answer like this. the head of the world health organization has defended the agency's handling of the krenov virus pandemic it comes as president donald trump accused of being china centric and threatened to cut funding the organizations chief says now is not the time for such threats the focus of all political parties should be to save their people please don't politicize this virus it exploits the differences you have at the national level. if you want to be exploited and if you want to have many more body bags then you do it if you don't want many more body bags then you refrain from politicizing it my short message is please quadrant in politicizing it well for more on this let's bring in our white house correspondent kimberly how could in washington d.c. and kimberly. defend

court rules that assad sees a.

the syrian civil war they were part of the intelligence and security apparatus of president bashar assad's government and in those capacities they either carried out or were complicit in the carrying out of multiple murders of torture there's one allegation of rape and other serious violent attacks against the syrian people as i say at the start of the syrian civil war what's interesting about this is these individuals came to germany at different times and presented themselves to the authorities as refugees and yet starting today for the course of the next few months they're going to hear claims that they are anything but that they are guilty as i say of the crimes and the offenses which i just outlined outlined of course the presumption of innocence applies here they deny the charges there are other interesting elements about this the german government is choosing to to implement the jurisdiction it claims that it has under the universal janet jurisdiction for serious crimes such as genocide and other serious crimes and that is what's being applied here and many international human right

i want the culprits to be brought to justice from the accomplices all the way up to assad these people are responsible for spilling our children's blood that can be them. more than 26000 pictures of torture victims were smuggled out of the war torn syria by a courageous former police photographer has coated the scenes or the photos could help convict torturers and murderers. human rights lawyer mohsen doubt we survived torture in syria now living in germany he's pressing charges against his former tormentors including anwar as a former senior member of the syrian secret service n y r r is charged with crimes against humanity murder and rape. this is a fit of stone it will be a thought this is the 1st time there is a spoke to them or judge and we have picked a suspect and we saw signs of the state of florida we don't have it and see you. bill wiley is investigating syrian torturers be used to hunt war criminals as the. when prosecutor and worked on cases from the former yugoslavia and the rwandan genocide he knows that without a peeper trail it's difficult to bring culprits to justice.

well look i mean the assad regime would have not survive without its allies and he is. certainly one of the major allies that assad regime has including of course russia and iran it is a force multiplier both for this opera seem as well as the main operations on the country obviously it is quite well known the role that hizbullah plays within lebanon where it is developing a state within a state pressuring the government to do certain things exempting it from certain a obligations his past play a major role in the crime in the drug smuggling operations in south america my organization c.p.a. has just done a study 2 years ago on cigarette smuggling of his bottom line or tips in south america to generate but given all of that is a total ban the best way to counter the threat that has military and political wing do indeed post. on this decision today you know coming on the back of the 2008 decision to ban and not television and the 2014 decision of the german government to ban one of its. charities that collective farms is very significant because it allows now the securit

and iran's foreign minister meets with syria's president bashar al assad in damascus both expressing their displeasure with the u.s. sanctions on their countries we're going to discuss it next and later at sports h.q. regina hamm shares the story of one runner who decided to tackle the boston marathon in his own unique way solo runner check it out will be right back. is you'll be via reflection of reality. in a world transformed. what will make you feel safe. isolation or community. are you going the right way or are you being led. by. what is true what is faith. in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the depths. or remain in the shallowness. this is a story about what happens auster a stray bullet kills a young girl in the streets. what happens to her family and daughters in florida no mother and daughter is buried in a cemetery in meaning this is with your head what happens to the community the public was screaming for a scapegoat the police needed a scapegoat so why not choose a 19 year old black kid with a criminal record who better to pin this on than him and

i want the culprits to be brought to justice from the accomplices to assad these people are responsible for stealing our children's blunt. to our viewers on p.b.s. in the united states and all around the world welcome we begin the day with americal and donald trump on opposite ends of the pandemic every afternoon in the press briefing room of the white house u.s. president trump presents the latest developments in the battle to stop the virus although the u.s. has more cases and more viral related deaths than any other country although dog. still complain of not having enough tests the president's message remains it's time to go back to work to reopen america now on this side of the atlantic a different message altogether today the german chancellor once again voiced her growing worry on monday the country began lifting restrictions stores and shops are now open and since monday the number of new coronavirus cases has increased every day merkel appealed to the public not to neglect social distancing not to forget the discipline that has kept the death rate relatively low compared to ita

the transepts north assad rises before their eyes. the 1st panels of glass begin to arrive and. never had a glass maker undertaken such a colossal challenge. each panel had to be drawn 1st in full size. old testament kings and prophets dozens of medallions over 25000 pieces of multi colored glass. the old master works with the zeal of a man who knows his days are numbered. maybe the whooping. of all the colors the most precious is a deep blue the blue of kings and the virgin mary drawn from cobalt out or its formula is jealously kept and its price exorbitant. critic covered with it. colored by copper i and our magnates the thousands of panes would be sturdily assembled using lead sticks. the rows windows will have to resist both storms and centuries. when the planes are finished the glass makers daughter escorts them to paris where they will be installed. paddle after paddle my rose begins to bloom. the night was dangerous during the middle ages. when she would come to paris the young woman found refuge beneath my vaults among the end hieronymus 6 a connection or. a need the wat

into the use of chemical weapons in syria says the evidence points squarely towards one place the assad government. the weather's cheering up quite nicely now for parts of greece but we do have some storms making their way across turkey little more cloud coming in the middle area of low pressure still causing some problems around that eastern side of the mediterranean high pressure dominates the weather across a good part of europe says lastly find a dry with lots of warm spring sunshine over towards the west so it's a very different story this next weather system that's going to make its way through bringing some clouds and rain into spain and portugal some heavy downpours certainly possibility here over the next couple of days ahead of that 25 celsius in paris as that warm sunshine still getting up around 20 degrees there for warsaw basin bits and pieces of cloud and rain that eastern side if you're just pushing into western russia cooling off in moscow around 9 cells this is that system makes its way through the cloud and rain that we have into spain will tend to peter out as we go o

regime and its allies who are named in the report but of course we know who the assad's regime allies are and there's only one that has air power and that just happens to be a permanent member of the u.n. security council russia the board of inquiry don't make it clear that all of these findings are not conclusive but that's another reason i think to look very critically at this government because they say they couldn't be conclusive because they couldn't actually examine the scene of any of these incidents the assad regime wouldn't give them visas and didn't cooperate in any way with this inquiry there's a place down walling fell so if that's the case then james what what could possibly be next i mean what type of accountability. well that is the problem and has been the problem throughout the long war in syria is how do you get accountability when you could go to the international criminal court but you need then a referral from the u.n. security council they've tried that and it has been blocks and i can tell you right now even though this report is pretty damning i don't think you

it's civilian areas including a hospital the report goes on to say that bashar al assad's heavy use of chemical weapons has been a crucial part of his regime's military strategy let's cross straightaway to our diplomats at the james base who joins us from the united nations and james it important to report this very important investigators coming out with more specifics about what happened. an important report but will it be a game changer clearly the long and horrific saga of the use of chemical weapons goes back to 2039 you're remember that certainly the obama administration thought the assad regime did it they said that it across the red line but then president obama decided not to take any sort of military action at that time well all the while we've not had any technical scientific proof that the assad regime was responsible well we now have it just over an hour ago for the 1st time the o.p.c. w that's the international body that deals with chemical weapons has produced this $82.00 page report looking initially at 3 incident incidents go back to 2017 they are in a town in it live

that had heavily congested civilian areas including a hospital report goes on to say that bashar al assad's heavy use of chemical weapons has been a crucial part of his regime's military strategy let's bring in our diplomatic editor james bay is joining us live from the united nations and james that we have specifics now in this investigation tell us more. yeah absolutely it's been a long and horrific saga of the use of chemical weapons in syria going back to 2030 and claims that the assad regime responsible go right back then and you remember that the trumpet ministration and the obama administration both blamed the assad regime for carrying out chemical attacks in fact it crossed president obama's red line but then he didn't take military action but what we've never had is a proper international scientific investigation that apportions blame we now have it it's this report took a very long time because various other efforts were blocked at various stages notably by the russians in the security council but the o.p.c. w. set up a new unit the a p c w the part of the international community

another factor was the mutual dislike between arafat and syrian president assad. syria's military intervention was stepped up following an assault on a damascus hotel by the n.t. out of the of palestinian groups. the perpetrators were quickly apprehended and hanged in public. faced with the syrian onslaught i felt appealed to the arab world for assistance accusing syria of attempting to liquidate the palestinian resistance the syrian assault force the palestinians onto the defensive. they were no longer able to mount an effective resupply of their besieged refugee camps and the christians. the camps principle among which was tell us were overrun and the residents expelled or massacred. 2 arabs some its work quickly convened they established what became known as the out of deterrent forces made up principally of the same syrian forces that had entered lebanon with only token representation from several other arab states syria had prevailed the value at which had. president assad's view was that syria and its ability to achieve strategic parity with israel had to be

one was a prominent member of bashar al-assad's forces at the start of the war. first time any official has been brought to court for work crimes from the syrian government. >> they came to germany claiming to be refugees from syria's civil war. now it is claimed they committed crimes against humanity airing it. specifically multiple murder, torture and other serious offenses. ofthe defendants are accused having been members of syria's secret service. the accused is believed to have been head of an investigation unit, which was responsible. he is believed to have been the leader of investigation officers and personnel in prison in which systematic torture occurred. >> the older of the two defendant defected from president bashar al-assad's forces in 2012 before coming to germany two years later. he was subsequently identified by syrian refugees living here. he and his codefendant were arrested in february last year. in bringing this case, the german authorities are applying the principle of universal jurisdiction. certain of their laws regarding serious criminal

prosecute julian assad without also prosecuting the new york times and the guardian and. newspapers around the world that publish the same material how do you public prosecutors did not prosecute journalists everywhere but the coming ministration didn't care about that so they just kind of created a theory that said that assad worked with his source tells the manning to do more than just receive information that he actually tried to help her. getting caught which is very similar to the theory that all star government is trying to use against me because they're copying that model it's in and the reality is journalists all over the world help their sources not. and what they're now trying to do is turn that into a crime by saying that if you work with your source to keep your source safe you become part of the criminal conspiracy. u.s. congressman have been spotted touching their faces wearing masks and properly or not wearing them at all in session and the internet has reacted. this is a very important piece of legislation piece of legislation. russia's support of this leg

youngg mededical student had spn up for human rights and called for bashar al-assad to stetep down. now come eight years after his death, his mother is seeking justice. >> i want the cuculprits to be p to justice, from the accomplishment -- accomplices all the way up to assad. they are responsible for spilling our children's blood. >> more than 26,000 pictures of torture victims were smuggled out of war-torn syria by a courageous former police photographer. his codenename -- caesar. the photos could help convict torturers and murderers. this human rights lawyer survived torture in syria. now living in germany, he is pressing charges against his former tormentors. as a former senior member of the secret service, he is charged with crimes against humanity, murder and rape. >> this is the first time it will be a trial. this is the first time there is a respectable court and judge and we have victim and suspect and we can exercise the law and state of law. we do not have it in syria. >> l wiley is investigating syrian torturers.. he used d to hunt war criminalss a u.n. prosecutor and wo

mr assad is awaiting a hearing on extradition to the u.s. there he could face a 175 year sentence for publishing leaked evidence of u.s. military wrongdoing in iraq and afghanistan a british court has ruled that a songes hearing will still go ahead and may spawn the current locked out of his lawyer for a postponement he argued that he's been unable to communicate with this line for 3 weeks because of the pandemic it will be impossible to hold a fair trial next month the judge refused saying it is too early to tell whether the courts will even be in operation in may the editor of wiki leaks told r.t. why the hearing shouldn't go ahead under current conditions. it is absolutely absurd to not take into account the situation and not to move the hearing which is planned for may 18th further down the road it's not just the situation probably will be still very bad and there's a lot of witnesses that have to fly it's not possible to to continue with their presence in the courtroom also keep in mind that now for 3 weeks the lawyers have not been abl

i want the culprits to be brought to justice from the accomplices all the way up to assad these people i was spilling our children's blood could kill me them. more than 26000 pictures of torture victims were smuggled out of your tour in syria by a courageous former police photographer his code name caesar the photos could help convict torturers and murderers. human rights lawyer mas and doubt we survived torture in syria now living in germany he's pressing charges against his former tormentors including anwar as a former senior member of the syrian secret service and more are is charged with crimes against humanity murder and rape. this is a 5 star it will be a thought this is the 1st time there is a spur of the court a judge and we have picked a suspect and the size of the state of florida we don't have it and see it you. bill wiley is investigating syrian torturers he used to hunt war criminals as a u.n. prosecutor and worked on cases from the former yugoslavia and the wanton genocide he knows that without a peeper trail it's difficult to bring culprits to justice. that's why these s

you know ironically the prosecution argued on thursday that assad would have had to try to change the government in the us for it to have been a political offense and that's of course what that's of course what the most the us assigns critics say that he truly brought trump in he tried to stop who recruited rather than he published what he got and can't publish what he didn't get on trump that this was a journalistic decision and that he was necessarily so and so you're right they are trying to mix in 2016 they want to get a song for that they're blaming him for that they're blaming everyone except hillary clinton for a loss of course and to try to suck that into sanjian to that russia gate story at this point when he's not been charged on anything other than what happened in 2010 under the espionage act and simply for possessing and then disseminating classified material which no one of the journals has ever been prosecuted for under the espionage act and us the obama administration wouldn't do it to trumpet ministration as they crossed that red line that's what this is about but it'

the older of the 2 defendants defected from president bashar assad's forces in 2012 before coming to germany 2 years later he was subsequently identified by syrian refugees living here he and his co-defendants were arrested in february last year in bringing this case the german authorities are applying the principle of universal jurisdiction of certain of the laws regarding serious criminal offenses affectively allowing them to prosecute individuals who are not german whose alleged offenses did not take place in germany and whose alleged victims on not germany was. the war in syria has now gone on for more than 9 years human rights organizations have left the calls for such trials to take place they believe this is a watershed moment this is a view for some of the stuff in the protests begin percy importance that this child is taking place i think a lot of people including at clients have waited for a very long time that this funny takes off it was a huge challenge for them to step out at the shadow and to speak about these crimes the 1st time ever but at thursday's hearing neither d

and sentence me to i guess she thought it was a sunni only our 42 months in prison lived out that mr assad will receive that same sort of mercy or we've talked to people who've been in the court they say they can see all the u.s. officials and then you hear a british q.c. to speaking the words what do you think. why do you think they might have been using your case so early on in the proceedings at this south london court and they trying to tie up the cia are they trying to connect a publisher and journalist to someone who like you consider themselves a wrongly convicted former cia officer i think what they're doing is. considering be efforts to use the espionage act with their own called a darn good job to see to quiet dissent since acquired free speech i think it does make sense and where you know her purse or wait for them to mention my case because there was an appeal in my case where the government won't be appealed so you finally decide i'm clearing me confusion about whether the government would go after the press were any journalists or by allowing just you know. be a son's case th