there is no guarantee that the people who are fighting bashar al-assad will listen to the americans or others that are supporting them. they have strong feelings. bashar al-assad has been killing their people, barrel bombing their people, chemically attacking their people. similarly, the russians have less than full control over their allies, the syrians. jane: very briefly, they have met many, many times before. what is your notion of whether or not these peace talks will actually make a difference? william: they can make a difference if the russians will come around to agreeing that bashar al-assad has to go, the mentally -- eventually they can succeed. jane: ambassador bill taylor, thank you for joining me. italy is planning a state funeral on saturday for dozens of victims of this week's survivors, search for continues. the 6.2 magnitude quake hit in the early hours of wednesday. rescue and recovery efforts focused on 3 small towns. this was taken from a satellite image before the tremor. you can see the red tiled roofs of the houses. this is the village on thursday. piles of rubbl

national cemetery show a new willingness by iran to discuss their involvement in syria...and support bashar assad. in washington, rich edson, fox news. the u-n says right now two million people in the syrian city of aleppo lack access to clean water ... creating a risk of disease. the justice department is saying no to private prisons. it says a recent audit found private facilities have more safety and security problems than ones run by the government. as of december - more than 22- thousand federal inmates - or about 12 percent of the they became more common in the late 1990s due to overcrowding. the justice department says the decline in the prison population over the past three years contributed to the decision. a federal judge told former nfl star darren sharper that courts can't ignore the damage he inflicted on women - and on society at large. the words came in new orleans as the judge sentenced sharper to 18 years and four months in prison. she had earlier rejected a nine- year sentence under a plea deal - saying it was o sharper pleaded guilty in federal court to drugging three women so

assad to continue as their president. now who on earth is in a position to make or force or push bashar al-assad to stand down as president, well, certainly not america, charlie. possibly the russians, possibly the iranians but what insen tif do they have to do that at this stage? >> that is exactly what the 51 diplomats expressed. which is that they need more leverage on the ground in order to bring the other side to the table. >> exactly. and to be clear the u.s. has no leverage in syria. the opinion of most syrian people is that the u.s. has essentially stood back and washed their hands of this conflict. and i think the turning point was, of course, the so called red line after the use of poisonous gas by bashar al-assad against his own people. and the syrians understood after that point that there was no way the u.s. was going to step in and intervene on their behalf. that was then cemented when the u.s. decided to intervene and fight against ice is. so now essentially what leverage does the u.s. have, without doesn't really have the skin in the game. when it is sitting at the negotiationing table saying to russia hol

there is nothing wrong in the deal when we still accused bashar assad. when the attacks took place, they had intelligence caloric that there were two suspects. and also the military. they only had one suspect. they didn't tell the american people there is another suspect and they also didn't tell them they didn't say, the chairman of the joint chief of general clapper, director of overall national intelligence committee over rating agency have both told the president that they couldn't be sure that they had a case. they both said it's not a slam dunk because what we've seen doesn't match what we know to be in ours will. i don't like not telling the truth about critical issues. what he may not have done and i'm not saying i know, i'm saying the whole story has not been told by the white house is like a viable to me. you can get to vote in the congress today. he's a hip there. we love our hipsters. i'll take a second and say this year. he's fighting a life-and-death war with those people. if isis are one of those people give them power, he and his wife and

as you e know, bashar al assad, by all accounts, is guilty of using chemical weapons against his own ople, which is why the united states is not a fan of him. would trump be in favor of keeping bashar al assad in power in syria? >> i don't know if trump would be in favor at this point, but what he would have been in favor of is never articulated and implemented a half baked idea that says we're going to support the groups that are going to overthrow assad, draw red lines and never execute the strategy. they never got to the point. >> i'm trying to figure out -- and i apologize for interrupting. these are complicated matters. would he say we cannot support bashar al assad because he uses chemical weapons on his own people. how would trump negotiate that? >> number one, trump would never have gotten the united states -- >> but we're here now. i want to know how he would go forward. >> what he would do is that he would negotiate with the russians to defeat the radical jihadists in syria and other places in the middle east and once we dephotoed isis, we would decide where we would go with

both are allies of syrian president bashar assad. late last year russia raised the possibility that they would fly planes out of iran, but the decision to do so would catch the u.s. department by state surprise. >> we are still trying to assess what exactly that they are doing to the extent that they are doing it. it appears that they did use in some fashion iranian air bases. >> the military spokesperson said that they did notify that u.s.-lead coalition just before launching the bombers. >> uc berk lease' chancellor a- - berkeley chancellor announced that he was making a personal decision to resign, but they did not offer the specific reason. that they have been under fire for how the university handled the sexual harassment cases on campus and for financial decisions that he made in the face of the budget shortfall. the 66-year-old man was named chancellor three years ago, saying he would officially resign once the successor is selected. he also said that he plans to return to teaching as he is the second uc chancellor to resign i

assad. none of which is going to work for bashar al assad.ians on board. one thing to have the russians and americans on board. certainly russia is playing that key puppet master role in syria. but how the syrians react, how bashar al assad reacts to this is key. when you look at the conditions of this deal, this is about humanitarian access. that's what we're seeing in aleppo. the situation in aleppo is truly devastating. only seven hospitals left. the hospital where those boys were crying in has been bombed into the basement and is operating out of the basement. we're not just talking about aleppo. there's video that's just come up from a suburb of damascus. take a look at this. this suburb was under siege for four straight years. people have accused the assad regime of using food as a weapon of war. they finally struck a deal for this neighborhood to get civilians out. and what you're seeing here are a group of young kids who have just walked outside. they are being evacuated from this neighborhood. they look up in the sky and see these bi

we're drawing a line in the sand, assad better not cross it. leader bashar al-assad did cross it.ed in transition to democracy in syria has begun and time for assad to get out of the way. that is 2011. he has not gone out of the way. let's bring in former republican governor of virginia, george allen and former democratic governor of missouri bob holden, thank you very much for being here. governor holden, i will start with you. i'm not sure how but maybe you do, how hillary clinton gets around this. bashar al-assad is still in charge. there are airstrikes all over the place, from the governor, from russia, alliances involve the united states. what happens, we have a little boy wiping blood out of his eye like that. i am lost here, how does hillary clinton get around this as she runs on foreign policy foundation? >> first of all, everyone knows the middle east, like any region of the world is in very difficult situation, particularly the middle east, and to develop a more democratic society takes time. and they're trying to put all the pieces together. there is a lot of players in

i bashar al-assad for essays around the city of a lot though, the white house and u.s. secretary of state john kerry are the military cooperation with russia to combat terrorism of the hostilities agreement and syria. allegations of regime mass atrocities had over the battlefield and complicate efforts to reach a political settlement. major questions remain about the legal implications of the response to the uprising, the nature of iranian involvement in the war and the manner in which the united states in the international community will handle crimes against humanity and war crimes both in the context of a future settlement in syria, but also under a new american president had to discuss what is known as the assad regime, the torture of his they are pleased to host some of america's best minds working on writing, working and writing on the syria crisis and international legal issues surrounding it. to my left is the ben taub who is a contributing writer at "the new yorker" where he authored the recent and i feel excellent articles entitled the assad files on the regim

iran is using money to destabilize, if you will, sunnis in iraq, they're using money to bolster bashar assad who only last week used chemical weapons again in aleppo to kill his own people. all of that is being funded by a policy decision that the president really didn't have the authority to do. we had a lot of laws in place designed to limit iran and -- as long as they were a state sponsor of terror. he circumvented them. that's one of the dangers in continuing that policy. we now have in syria a situation in which we have two enemies. one, the government, which is a sh sh sh shia allawite side, and -- >> that's the big question. that's the big question. i know that you guys are going to be looking at this very closely and we really appreciate you joining us with your insight. keep us posted, please. >> sure will. thank you for having me on. >> thank you. >>> giving voters a third option. libertarian presidential nominee dp gary johnson moving up in the polls. could he be a viable alternative to hillary clinton and donald trump and make it on the debate stage? that's a question we are look

the other reason we heard the president was concerned what comes after you take out the bashar al-assad regime. the reporting out of "the wall street journal" by jay salomon, a well-respected reporter, to me as a former policymaker is plausible. the problem i see, why did the president put down the red thing without thinking about what are the possible consequences, that iranians would push back because damascus is tehran's closest ally in the middle east. melissa: yeah. >> i'm not surprised this is a possibility but, i think they should have thought through the consequences further. melissa: as a policymaker who dealt with all of this, how do you honestly things would be different with donald trump or would they be? >> it is hard to say. the next president will face a tremendous amount of foreign policy challenges, melissa. none of us can predict the future. just even a few months could things in january of 2017 could be very different than they are today but i would say the next american president is going to face an unprecedented number of foreign policy challenges in the middle east

our enemy is not bashar al assad our enemy is the banalisation of evil. >> the filmmakers have managed to create tiny masterpieces of absurdist theatre in their weekly videos like here, when two men try to fix a door in their home which is completely useless because the entire house has just been destroyed in an attack. >> don't put it in like that. wait a minute. >> push it towards you a bit. >> that's right. you're the boss, abu stef. >> is that good? what do you think? >> what's most difficult is depicting the trauma people experience. as filmmakers we're in a completely schizophrenic situation like everyone else. we've all had it up to here. but we carry on. that's why we feel obligated to make films. to tell stories that show that life is still possible. that people still have a future. >> the abounaddara film collective produces work from the frontline, at the risk of their own lives. they show us the insanity of the situation in syria right now as we've never seen it before every friday. >> violence against dissidents in the name of religion has become part of everyday life in b

this comes five years after president obama said it was time for bashar assad to step aside. five years later we have millions of refugees who have left the country, hundreds of thousands by all accounts who are dead. why is this apparently worse than ever before, the chaos in syria? >> yeah. part of the problem, of course, is that russia is helping the syrian regime. the syrian regime has committed atrocities and we aleppo, we see that in other parts of syria and then we have, of course, the isil forces that are also causing these problems. >> but what could we have been doing better? >> what you have to do, you have to work with our international partners. that's what the obama administration has done. we can't police the world. if we put our troops there, it's going to be counter productive, we know that. we have to build up local capacity, exactly what the obama the same time building the capacity to hold that territory. we have done that. we have to continuously do that until there is no longer an isis and the caliphate is over. >> we all look forward to that day. senato

it has now been five years since president obama first called on syrian leader bashar assad to step down. the u.s. and russia will try again next week to work out a keel. kevin corke has more. >> reporter: his name is amrad, just 5 years old. the victim of an air strike in the syrian city of aleppo. the pictures are difficult to look at, even harder to imagine. but his is the face of war. a reminder of the collective failure in syria, and how little u.s. policy has done to stop it. the picture comes on the fifth anniversary of the day that president obama issued a statement about syria that read, in part, for the sake of the syrian people, the time has come for president assad to step aside. that was 2011. the same day then secretary of state hillary clinton said this -- >> the transition to democracy in syria has begun, and it's time for assad to get out of the way. >> reporter: then a year later, almost to the day, the president famously declared -- >> we have been very clear to the assad regime, but also to other players on the ground that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole

they say those deaths have all happened since the start of the uprising against president bashar assad in march of 2011. >>> hundreds of thousands of accounts have been suspended. the san francisco-based company has terminated 360,000 accounts since the middle of 2015. the rate of daily suspensions is up 80% since last year. twitter says suspensions spike following terrorist attacks. twitter has been criticized in the past for not doing enough to keep extremist groups like isis from recruiting. t, we bel. the opportunity for everyone to explore a digital world. connecting with the things that matter most. and because nothing keeps us more connected than the internet, we've created access from at&t. california households with at least one resident who receives snap or ssi benefits may qualify for home internet at a discounted rate of $10 a month. no commitment, deposit, or installation fee. visit att.com/accessnow to learn more. >>> donald trump heads to north carolina today for a series of events one day after announcing an expansion of his top staff, which is being met with mixed reac

assad government. as the siege strikes on, around 250,000 people are still living in the city, and their dire situation could be made worse yet if the united nations cannot convince president bashar al-assad to sign off on crucial aid deliveries. brent: here's a look at some of the other stories making headlines around the world. egypt's military says it is kill the head of the sinai branch of the so-called islamic state. he reportedly died in airstrikes . b eye is affiliate has killed hundreds of security personnel during a month-long offensive on egypt's sinai peninsula. libyan government forces have launched fresh attacks against militants of the so-called islamic state in their stronghold in the city of cert. airstrikes at ease the way for the libyan forces this week. germany's foreign minister has warned turkey that it would not be allowed to join the european union if it reintroduced the death penalty in the wake of the attempted coup last month. note eu state has capital punishment. in germany, they are not the only ones issuing a warning like this. austria has called for into turkey's negotiations to join the eu due to its lack of democratic stance. >> the eu attitude has

going to work with russia and if so does that mean you are going to follow russia's lead and allow bashar assadstay? because many diplomats watching this have said that half the country will not accept assad staying in power and that might drive some of them into the ranks of isis and make isis harder to defeat 37 are you going to step up the number of troops in the region in iraq and syria but also the number of u.s. special operations forces globally who are assisting other countries. are you going to make this an america versus isis on the ground fight or are you going to stake with the plan we're doing now of mostly working through local forces? these are a lot of my questions. >> so julian, put your professorial hat on for me. trump needs a bump. he needs a big bump. he's trailing clinton in the key states in the latest polling. so he needs a runway and he needs to get a group behind him that isn't already. take me through history. historically, what would a national security speech look like that could be or has been in history a game changer for a candidate? >> let me say there aren't sp

it has now been five years since president obama first called on syrian leader bashar assad to step down. the u.s. and russia will try again next week to work out a keel. kevin corke has more. >> reporter: his name is amrad, just 5 years old. the victim of an air strike in the syrian city of aleppo. the pictures are difficult to look at, even harder to imagine. but his is the face of war. a reminder of the collective failure in syria, and how little u.s. policy has done to stop it. the picture comes on the fifth anniversary of the day that president obama issued a statement about syria that read, in part, for the sake of the syrian people, the time has come for president assad to step aside. that was 2011. the same day then secretary of state hillary clinton said this -- >> the transition to democracy in syria has begun, and it's time for assad to get out of the way. >> reporter: then a year later, almost to the day, the president famously declared -- >> we have been very clear to the assad regime, but also to other players on the ground that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole

he won't talk about bashar al assad -- >> translator: other question? talk about politics. muhammad has a job in metal industry and though the government has helped his family, he's proud he paid his own way. despite what happened, the couple still love their home country. >> translator: when the war is over in syria, and i wish they would work on rebuilding the country to become the strong country is used to be. >> reporter: i dream that syria returns to the prewar state a dream to be reunited with our families. until then, they plan on staying here and filling these empty walls with new pictures and new memories far away from home. isha sesay, cnn, los angeles. >>> thank you for joining us for this hour of "cnn newsroom." i'm george howell at the cnn center in atlanta. for our viewers in the united states, "new day" is next. for other viewers around the world "amanpour" starts in a moment. thanks for joining cnn. be the you who doesn't cover your moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. be the you who shows up in that dress. who hugs a friend. who is done

there can be any meaningful peace talks in syria while president bush are al assad -- president bashar -assad syria. i am basing this on conversations i have had with every single person either living in rebel held syria or who is supportive from outside of the country. the amount of blood that has been spilled, the amount of people who have been killed, the relentless bombardment the , barrel bombs, the targeting of schools and hospitals, people do not feel they can move beyond that and ever accept bashar al-ssad to continue as their president. now, who on earth is in a position to make him or force him to stand down as president? certainly not america. possibly the russians, possibly the iranians, but what incentive do they have to do that at this stage? charlie: that is what the diplomats who wrote the letter. they need more leverage on the ground in order to bring the other side to the table. clarissa: exactly. and to be clear, the u.s. has no leverage in syria. the opinion of most syrian people is that the u.s. has essentially stood back and washed their hands of this conflict. the turni

russian troops have given president bashar al-assad military backing since last year.oth the government and rebel groups have been accused of using chemical weapons during the civil war. all sides to 90 allegations. anchor: in nearby aleppo, the fighting is only getting worse. rebels have been trying to take back the only route into districts they control, a route now held by syrian troops. they have launched a counter offensive on a number of fronts around the city. there are 300,000 civilians trapped in the eastern part of aleppo, the largest besieged area in all of syria. hith sudan, a country being with a massive humanitarian crisis. 60,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in the past three weeks. most of those refugees are women and children fleeing the violence and heading into neighboring uganda. that number has more than doubled in the past 10 days. john keeps close watch over her infant son. the pair, just two out of tens of thousands of civilians displaced by recent fighting in south sudan. >> there was nothing there. everything had been stolen. w

-backed rebels are still doing battle against syrian president, bashar al- assad, but with mixed results. in the brutal five-year old civil war that continues to this day. for the pbs newshour, i'm margaret warner. >> sreenivasan: so what are the differences between how donaldtw trump and hillary clinton would combat isis? for that, we turn to walidto phares, a foreign policy advisor to donald trump.p. and wendy sherman was under secretary of state for political affairs while hillary clinton was secretary of state. she's now an outside advisor to the hillary clinton campaign. walid phares, what's the key strategic difference that donald trump wants to make in the fight against isis that the obama administration has not? >> first of all, very important to know that between now and 2017, many things will change on the ground, and they will change for either mrs. clinton or mr. trump. so anything we're projecting right now has to do with the moment. there are major differses. first, in looking at iraq, syria and of course libya has to be dealt with. level number one, what forces are going t

he was a classmate of bashar al assad in medical school. dr. sahloul is a critical care specialist in chicago. welcome to democracy now! when you heard about the latest attack, even since you have just returned from aleppo, russia attacking from iran, your thoughts? and then describe aleppo to us. >> my thoughts and my colleagues thoughts from aleppo, which i keep contact every minute with them, is the same. everyone is bombing syria and no one cares about ending the crisis. it looks like the russians are having fun bombing syria from different parts. they are bombing isis and also civilians. the al-assad regime is bombing cities and historic sites and civilians with all kinds of weapons. the iranians are bombing aryans. everyone is bombing syrians. the story that is not being told in the media -- i mean, when people know about syria or hear about t syria, they think it is something related to isis or that something that is collocated, but what is happening is civilians are suffering every day. children are being mutilated and killed with barre

diplomatically and politically to find the process there in syria that would lead to a government without bashar al-assad, one that can be responsive to the children and every syrian citizen. so, yes, the situation on the ground is extremely frustrating and that is why secretary has been so energetic and involved. he had a conversation with foreign minister lavrov in just the last hours and i suspect he will continue to stay very active and engaged in the days ahead. katty: let's hope the negotiations bear fruit a bit quicker than they have in the past. thanks very much for joining me. in california, they are continuing to tackle a massive land,re by air and by dousing it with water in hopes to stop the flames. the fire is less than 5% contained and thousands of homes in communities east of los angeles are under threat. reporter: midday in southern california, and the blue cut fire continues to rage out of control. ground is drive from five years of drought, it is baking hot, and the strong breeze is fanning the flames. conditions for firefighters could hardly be worse. >> what a big deal that is. report

prime minister binali yildirim said that while syrian president bashar al-assad could play a role during a transition, he should have no role in the country's future. the prime minister also urged the united states to speed up the extradition it has requested of cleric fethullah gulen, who lives in pennsylvania. turkey accuses of gulen of instigating last month's failed military coup, which he denies. reuters reports u.s. state and justice department officials are planning to visit turkey to discuss the case. in yemen today, there was a massive show of support for a newly-formed governing council. hundreds of thousands demonstrated in the rebel-held capital of sanaa. they were showing support for the council led by former president ali abdullah saleh, though it's been rejected by yemen's internationally recognized government. 6,500 people have died in the 16-month civil war between shiite rebels and a saudi-led, u.s.-backed coalition supporting the government. united nations-sponsored peace talks collapsed earlier this month. on tomorrow's program, the lionfish "invasion" threatening mar

off saddam hussein, going in libya, knocking off gadhafi or being obsessed with getting rid of assad, bashard. is that your policy or do you have a difference with him on his fitness or ideology? >> chris, i'm a career diplomat retired. i didn't support a regime change. i'm one of the people sent in to spend three years in iraq on the ground trying to clean it up. i know what foreign policy messes are. we have got some explaining to do to the american people in the past but this isn't the way to do it, not with his agenda. >> what do you think his appeal is on foreign policy? why is he -- he's falling right now, it's a bad time for him but he got up to the low 40s. he was competitive with hillary clinton as recently as two weeks ago. very competitive. what's that about? what's his appeal? >> well, i think there's a general appeal, i'm a tough guy because i say i'm tough and i think that appeals to a lot of people because strength and foreign policy is important. the problem is, unlike in domestic affairs, there's no checks and balances for foreign policy. the president as commander in chief

togree with it in its terms bring down bashar al-assad. many around the world would as well. ocide in syria so it is very understandable that the erdogan government would be opposed to bashar al-assad. since is a have seen concerted effort on the part of the turkish government to empower a broad range of actors that are involved in the syria conflict. some of whom are very troubling. --eport -- error code that i a report that i wrote with talked to, we government officials who were talking to the turks about their border policy, how they had allowed for jihadi fighters to cross into isis controlled territory and what we heard from these officials was that this was essentially a turkish strategy to bring down the assad regime without having to get involved personally so it was a proxy war. they were not distinguishing between so-called moderate rebels and the more extremist the hottie variety. -- jihadi variety. we saw a trend of traffic. we saw bulk cash going into these territories. a string of fighters flying to istanbul crossing over the border of a nominal fee of $25 or mo

. >> reporter: 5-year-old syrian boy who survived an air strike by president bashar al assad's forces captured the world's attention. one of the some 9 million kids affected by this war. he survived, but his brother died, one of the estimated 55,000 children killed since 201 2011. >> they say they fight for their own survival. bret? >> reporter: connor powell, thank you. that last story was supposed to be preceded by another story. which is why i said its much more serious element of war. this is the story that was supposed to go there. the army says it has removed a training presentation dealing with the proper handling of classified information that featured an image of the democratic presidential nominee, hillary clinton. her photo appeared, alongside bradley manning, edward snowden and others, suggesting these people are an inside threat to handling classified information. poorly. the army says a local unit was given latitude to developity own materials and those materials did not reflect the position of the army. also listed there, general david petraeus in that photo. >>> turkey

bashar al assad and the russian army are targeting hospitals and civilian locations, we are doing thetes to a degree with a question able ally in yemen. >> and we don't know if these a are deliberate decisions to target medical clinics or schools, or if it is negligence, or just really terrible targeting. but their not getting better. the casualties are mounting. and if you talk to the yemenese, they will say this is a u.s. bombing campaign. what is happening is we're helping to radicalize the population against the united states in the conduct of this campaign. the result is that people on the ground think the united states is involved in a campaign killing thousands of civilians and that is terrible for us right now. >> and terrible for the yemenese civilians. thank you for your time. >> coming up, obama care could be in big trouble after a big move. >>> and breaking news on a long held breaking tradition, stay with us. only wendy's can make the baconator. because while some other guys use frozen beef from far away. that's 9,429 miles away. wendy's only uses fresh beef from ranches