i'm karin giannone in london. also in the programme: hundreds of australian firefighters battle a huge bushfire threatening southern sydney. police say it may have been started deliberately. capturing the sound of the stars. nasa's new mission to seek earth—like worlds and alien life. it is 8:00am in singapore, 1:00am in the morning in london, and 8:00pm in washington, where the united states is preparing new sanctions against russia, targeting companies supplying damascus with chemical weapons capability. president putin, meanwhile, warned that any further western missile strikes against syria would cause international chaos. syria's president has been meeting russian politicians in damascus. he is reported to have been invited to visit moscow, a sign that president putin continues to fully support his government. here is our middle east editorjeremy bowen. in damascus, journalists were shown one of the targets. the syrians deny it was a chemical and biological weapons site. the attacks were limited, a punishment

i'm karin giannone in london.rs in australia battle a huge bushfire capturing the sound of the stars. nasa's new mission to help look for planets close to us.

i'm karin giannone in london.tening southern sydney. police say it may have been started deliberately.

hello, i'm karin giannone. this is outside source, and these are the main stories.o the alleged chemical weapons attack. after raising expectations of imminent action in recent days, president trump is now striking a more cautious note. we're looking very, very seriously, very closely at that whole situation, and we'll see what happens, folks. we'll see what happens. the russian military says the syrian flag is now flying over douma, the town where that alleged chemical attack took place at the weekend and the last rebel stronghold on the eastern edge of damascus. in china, a baby boy has been born to a surrogate mother four years after his parents died in a car crash. and we'll bring you news of a landmark expedition to the amazon rainforest, and show you some of the nine new species that have been discovered. welcome back to outside source. amnesty international has released its annual report on the death penalty. the human rights organisation recorded at least 993 executions in 23 countries in 2017. that's down by 4% from 2016. but this figure excludes the thousa