Though theyre just gone midnight here in moscow youre watching r. T. International our top story this hour the rising tensions between russian banks Syrian Forces and turkish troops in sports at 33. 00 turkish soldiers were killed during an offensive by Syrian Government forces the president s of russia and turkey have held a phone call in which they discussed holding a high level meeting about the escalation earlier russias foreign minister spoke out in support of the syrian armys right to respond sissys 5 violations and also called for cooperation between all sides within the great framework. We reaffirm our commitment to agreements reached by the president s 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 their either observed on to neutralize terrorists cannot restrict the syrian army from fulfilling requirements written in the u. N. Resolution on fighting terrorism you. The syrian army has been engaged in a very violent fight to defeat the last militant stronghold in syria and 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 werent 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 its certainly strange they werent 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 banker also called for a consultation with its nato allies following the attack leading to an emergency meeting of the military alliance and theres even been speculation that article 5 could be a vote now what that means is article 5 would potentially draw turkey turkeys allies into a war against syria and russia but again as of now that is thats just speculation but we also heard from the countrys minister of affairs and he said that syria will be held accountable for what happened to her he 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 so 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 its 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 well have to see if that yields any results of that can solve the crisis currently going on in this syrian province. Dont go to their will meanwhile nato has held a special meeting in brussels at the request of its 2nd general says that the airlines stands behind ankara but did call in or sides to you to find a peaceful solution. Constantly looking into what more they can do to provide further support for. Nato allies are engaged in trying to move forward in the efforts of the un there 1st and find a peaceful solution we call on turkey we call on. Russia to fully engage in such a u. S. Led offensive on the peaceful solution we spoke about this with mark almond hes a political analyst and also the director of the Crisis Research institute he believes that nato you support though will remain largely. I dont think major forces will enter syria in support of those turks who gone are the problem to turkey use the Nato Alliance as principle is an attack on war as 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 was also reluctant to see move to come into a confrontation with russia so theres quite a lot of powerful voices in nato who support the turks desire to see the syrian armys offensive stopped but im not sure they want to go beyond words and perhaps symbolic gestures now as military conflict is continue in the region large groups of refugees continue to head for europe earlier on friday there were reports of a turkish official saying that the country would no longer stop refugees including syrians from crossing into the European Union these pictures from our video agency show people into some of them here carrying children reportedly making their way to the border with greece in greece itself these new pictures show migrants arriving on the island of lesbos spied on entities have been meeting them with blankets and essential supplies but protests have also grips creek islands in recent days with locals opposing government plans to build new migrant camps there mark almond again believes that he is easing tensions around the migrant controls to blackmail europe for support. Several crimes in recent months 3 turkish government spokespeople who are himself. First of all turkey has through a hole through 3 quarter 1000000 refugees that its painful cost or maybe we were pretty and should do more for them or let them go to europe and she could be what hes now doing this crisis is saying to the europeans if you dont back me or i have a weapon i can use your society as remember what happened when the moon and the whole refugees arrived in germany in 2015 will spin off on politics and to appear important and so in a way a person who understand your friends will. Me but if you dont i think black weve opened the floodgates to perhaps 2 or 3000000 refugees trying to enter the European Union. When all the. Trying to hold a gun to your head as well as with his other hand a gun to the head of a. Bigot is in the Us Democrat Party of being unite behind anybody but Bernie Sanders a wealthy donor has made the play you believe in that sound as could not be donald trump in the next president ial election so now reports they say money cant buy you friends or happiness but might be true but they could just buy you the white house methadone a Bernard Schwartz has been digging deep in his pockets to help the democrat cause but its not entirely a no Strings Attached situation we should know who is the best person to be dull trump and with all due respect bernard son theres going to be trump so which horses shorts betting on well hes not fussy but either of his friends from the Billionaires Club will do who just like him arent shy on splashing the cash and since were already here together lets look at just how much cash with king take joe biden now hes discovered that he cant just rely on his instagram a bromance with obama to take him all the way so decided instead to drop a 6 figure sum in just one out for good measure though he did keep in some a bar minister. This is an extraordinary man with an extraordinary career in Public Service youve got to admire him though if i were trailing 12 percent behind the top candidate and had my own backers jumping ship id be a bit tighter on the past strings by the way biden still pales in comparison to what his buddy bloomberg has spent so far its estimated the x. New york mayor has dropped a casual 400000000 on his campaign but hey its only no point 6 percent of. His 64000000000. 00 fortune so no biggie also at least hes having some fun with it not even the aspiring us president is above a cheeky trolling campaign and it seems to be paying off because hes risen from the very bottom of the polls to somewhere near the top of course lets 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 bought i got them hoops well lets look farther afield now at some of the candidates like a judge to its credit p. 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 you know im the only candidate on those debates stages in this race the major candidates whos not a millionaire or a billionaire whats this a penniless candidate and big Money Politics well if you believe bunny not quite were 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 bonnies made an apparent lets peek inside his coffin he might be all about divvying up the cash once he gets his hands on those Government Funds but until then it seems hes more about treating himself he has dipped into his funds and brought out around 14000000. 00 for just a few t. V. Ads so it seems that no matter what side of the political spectrum youre on you know that to win in this case you need a lot of the green stuff to help you along the way 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 thats what this Supreme Court decided thats a travesty and thats really undermined american democracy even more and made it more of a money game then ever before theres a big problem in the us money yes and the role of money is growing even more but you know i dont think it serves a point where a Movement Like senders could still prevail. Now a new report in the u. K. Has found that minority creeps are being overrepresented in the media black asian another ethnic minorities have twice the presence on television they do actually have on the streets of britain and the same also applies to the l G B Community where one of the channels looked at in the report does say it is actually simply trying to reflect reality cannot foresee claims that its main goal is to reflect modern diversity in its output but sekret excess saying it has gone too far. Grobe our endeavors characters to refer demographics or world provide. You dont know what else is overrepresented on t. V. They hate for white people that its even worse there are 4 characters here well to have to be nonwhite and one must be gary the country isnt 50 percent nonwhite and a quarter again we put the issue up to date the new York Observer columnist andre walker and also the human rights activist Peter Tatchell. These highlights the ludicrous idea of having quotas for everything i genuinely believe that in Television Like all the rest of life you should have the best people for the job but you know what if you can have quotas that when white middle class heterosexual men are under represented then youve got to throw somebody else out but we dont have a quota system in british t. V. There are attempts and have been successful attempts according to these statistics to redress the marginalization exclusion and collect past decades and i think thats 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 it ought 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 lets get a gay person cause that kerry or black person has a black its just a load of 970 s. Rock im 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 and not discriminate against the idea of just lets just pick this person whoever they are just in order to fill a quota is not doesnt serve you know everybodys doing the right. They choose good after you get a piece of pizza i love you to pieces if youre out of date. Over to the u. S. State of montana now were a total of 4 City Council Officials there have asked the Prosecutors Office to drop charges against the whistleblower Brandon Bryant who is famous for lifting the lid on civilian killings in u. S. Overseas Drone Operations well the air force veteran had been charged with threatening city officials in the you tube video and is currently in detention over the past few months hes attended multiple City Council Meetings criticizing the way tax monies being used brandons mother does claim his incarceration is politically motivated and shes launched a campaign in the hope of raising 100000. 00 for his but. My son was the u. S. Air force the civil war who broke the code of silence on the joint program now hes in jail in the sense that its still that he has no criminal record and yet he is in hell and 100000. 00 bail under detention hes isolated from this family. And its really means in terms of plea i mean indeed an emotional support animal Brennan Bryan served as a u. S. Air force drone operator from 2006 until 2011 having left the military began exposing cases of what he alleged to be civilian deaths resulting from american drone strikes brian claim that commanders often prioritized the elimination of a target over accuracy resulting in innocent people being killed in the process as revelations then one him a german whistleblower award in 2015 and also intensified a debate over the use of a German Air Base by American Drones heres how brandon described his experience to us back in 25th. I actually talked with a lady whose husband. Was killed he was has been and brother was killed in a drone strike i talked to her face to face and she asked me why her husband and brother had to die and they werent bad guys and i just looked at i dont know. 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 the really true hard answer to say is that im sorry that. The mistake happened and im doing everything that i can prevent further mistakes from happening. Well Authorities Say that bryant was recently arrested on the. Had allegedly exhibited threatening behavior. And on top of that he threatened to eliminate members and he. However. Doesnt believe that brians 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 than what hes now done typically with the whistleblower they look back in your personnel file 1st to see if theres anything bad that they can use to discredit the messenger and if they cant find anything bad bad in someones 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 that the standard of 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 if specially if you continue to speak out about the wrongful actions and the war crimes its going to continue this is not to negate the fact that brandon certainly he erred if he made any threatening remarks or comments he certainly should be corrected and he should receive more treatment but i dont think he should be punished the way hes being punished. Bronzes been angered by comments made by the ambassador of his ally mali he was critical of french antiterrorist squads in the west african country coming wednesday picks up the story. Tensions have risen diplomatically between mali and france following those comments by the mali and to france in which he criticised and denotes the actions of french soldiers on the ground in his country. There are no desirable some elements of the army because we see it all we see to all over and we dont know what they are doing on the streets of the marco at night and its not good for the image of france. All those remarks have provoked anger here and Francois Hollande ambassador was hauled in front of the Foreign Affairs ministry to explain those actions meanwhile the French Armed Forces with the stuff of a large party didnt know most of this being false and also i think sceptical 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 post summi