and loud enough to distract from the worst december on wall street since the great depression u.s. president double truong has given the order for u.s. troops in syria to come home he claims mission accomplished but today he tweeted it's time for others to do the fighting. this is the day. we have won against isis to those who say we have that they did isis in syria that is a. statement we've beaten them yet syria's territorial integrity should be respected by everyone. and we've beaten him badly the presence of u.s. troops in syria is not legitimate and now it's time for our troops to come back home i believe it is a catastrophic mistake we have not yet eradicated isis total darkness from the

president and his national security team well tell you what the plan is there is no plan. also coming up tonight before he returned to earth the german astronaut alexander garrett recorded a message for his future grandchildren an apology for the kind of planet that we are set to leave behind. when looking down to earth i feel that i have to apologize. it looks like my generation is not going to leave the planet in the best shape. i wish i could look into the future with your eyes. look into your world and understand how you see it. we begin the day with u.s. president drums announcement that u.s. troops are leaving syria the decision yesterday called almost everyone off guard from berlin to london to inside. the pentagon and the white house the president's

national security advisor john bolton was reportedly livid washington and its allies blindsided by truong yes but you would have to be blind not to see the immediate consequences a geo political reshuffling is taking place as we speak russia iran the syrian government and turkey are ready to fill any vacuum created by the u.s. exit israel reportedly feels abandoned by washington and without the cover of their u.s. allies the kurds in syria the fierce fighters who helped defeat isis are now sitting ducks if turkey decides to attack. snap decision has produced clear winners and losers a member of syria's parliament foreshadowed much of this just a few days ago to take a listen. to some of the kurds who in the end are syrian citizens equal to any

others are still betting on the americans but if one draws lessons from history we saw how they abandoned their allies in vietnam how they abandoned their agents in lebanon and fled in korea in many places the americans always abandoned their allies and paid agents. there can't be a dream to a stop a kurdish state by the so-called syrian democratic forces other groups because firstly the syrian government doesn't allow it. syria is one state that has sovereignty over all its territory and of course its neighbors iraq and turkey won't accept an ethnic or sectarian continent along their borders and this is why one can only bet on the syrian government and the syrian arab army and syrian president bashar al assad because the syrian state is the only guarantor for the syrian people. this heartless take this story to the middle east.

is standing by in beirut good evening to you i'm sorry i want to pick up on that syrian lawmaker and ask you does the departure of u.s. troops from syria mean that syrian president bashar al assad has won the civil war in his country well that is absolutely right bashar assad has indeed won the war in syria barring groups that are part of the president which is a city has bought it with turkey and the presence of the kurdish forces in the north east now the presence of the kurdish forces that meant something meant to be in opposition with the american troops and with the american troops now leaving means that. facing no real opposition except for the troops in there so it would be correct to say that he has won this eighty on the war you know yesterday's

announcement has reshuffled the geo political deck in syria and you know increasingly the entire region they are losers they are winners from this decision here is what the kurdish military council leader in amman beach said about the turkish threat and kurdish reliance on u.s. troops take a listen good enough to the ship of course we have taking the turkish threat seriously and that the members military council forces have taken their precautions on the front line. that there is an agreement with the international coalition to protect the city of mumbai from all the dangers they might face as we liberated monday from the islamic state group we will preserve it with the help of the international coalition. and he said there with the help of the international coalition i mean he was clearly referring to the americans after yesterday's announcement who can the kurds turn to for protection. but no

one really seems that despite the sacrifices of back to where they stopped it's all she has managed to stick on isis and defeat isis isis did present very imminent threat to them but other than that they would not be achieving any of their political goals they wanted to have a contiguous territory or a long border that is not going to happen they wanted some sort of often autonomy within city of that's going to be very hard because it would have enough leverage the only person they can perhaps not turn to is most of us says which sort of. displays a sad state of affairs it has become for them despite the sacrifices and trying to accent sort of an understanding with them and at the moment he actually face quite an active threat in mom beach where the american forces were now once the forces leave and he says they are about to attack what happens to the kurds what happens to the us yeah it's a big open question tonight i'd like you to listen to what the israeli prime

minister said today when he was asked how israel will react to the u.s. withdrawal and will continue to act in syria to prevent iran from two military intrenchments over against us we're not going to reduce our efforts we're going to increase our. netanyahu they're saying we're going to increase our efforts because well because they don't have a choice do they i mean how big of a loss for israel is the u.s. withdrawal from syria. but pretty huge so for israel it's very important to have united states support and the fact that american troops were on the ground meant that the american troops would continue to arm and iran's i mean policy is to be targeting israel or at least taking israel on that would be more appropriate to say because of the palestinian issue so when the american troops leave this is for

israel because supposedly these troops were containing iran and that's not happening which means that the has a large round proxy in syria and the iranian militias other militias that iran supports will have sort of free rein sort of sit there because a bus al assad is an ally or that it is a magic concern for israel at all won the civil war israel has attacked the starlet's the iranian and its political sense of the are one hundred times from what benjamin at the hour now says that would continue but i'd also like to bring your attention to the fact that among these changes there is another change that's taken place over the last two weeks which is that there's a new or reworded attention to lebanon and we've seen that on the levanon and israeli border so we might see more activity in this country as well yeah it looks like as we said the entire geo political equation there in the middle east is

being recalculated as we speak to the abuse and chalkboard on the story for us tonight in beirut and i'll thank you. all right let's take this story from the middle east to the u.s. capital my next guest tonight is professor of global affairs at johns hopkins school of advanced international studies syce in washington d.c. how brands is also the author of numerous books including american grand strategy in the age of trouble which was published earlier this year mr brown's says the current geopolitical environment is the most difficult and troubled one since the cold war mr braun's welcome to the day it's good to have you on the program after u.s. president trump announced yesterday that u.s. troops will leave syria the year the german foreign minister tweeted this the

abrupt decision by the usa to withdraw all troops from syria is not just a surprise for us as has been pushed back at the threat remains there is a danger that this decision will hurt the fight against us in jeopardize the success already achieved of germany's assessment is on the same page as that of france and britain how is it possible that the us president can be at odds with america's allies on an issue so crucial to national security that being the state of islamic state. well he's not only at odds with america's allies and partners he's at odds with his own advisers from all the reporting we've seen this decision was an unwelcome surprise and even shock to the pentagon and to a number of white house state department advisors as well and i think what it indicates is that president trump has always had. an extremely skeptical view of u.s. involvement particularly u.s.

military involvement in the middle east he has seen that there are more costs than benefits to be had from that involvement and so even though he outlined during his campaign very aggressive program for going after the islamic state he always made clear that he did not want to see a long term residual u.s. military footprint in the region and i think what we've seen is that his advisors have have fought him on this over the course of about two years now and had successfully delayed his decision to withdraw but ultimately the president has decided that he's taking command of u.s. policy toward syria and the middle east and he's going to do what his inclinations i've always told him to do in march of two thousand and seventeen you were in foreign policy that. some catastrophic u.s. policy misstep the defeat of the islamic state at least in iraq and syria is probably just a matter of time is is trump is he simply stating you know what you predicted almost two years ago. so i thought that there would be

pressure for the united states to withdraw from syria and perhaps iraq at some point but i certainly didn't anticipate that it was going to happen prior to the completion of the counter isis campaign whatever the president may say that campaign is still uncompleted there are residual pockets of isis fighters operating in syria the estimates range anywhere from a few thousand to perhaps twenty thousand and as long as there are that many fighters who are still active or perhaps have gone underground it's simply incorrect to say the campaign is complete and so what was particularly striking about this decision was that it was not simply a decision to get out as soon as the mission was over it was a decision to get out before the mission was over what do you make of president drunk reportedly folding turkish president to one yesterday and shortly after drums announcement of the troop withdrawal turkey confirmed that it will purges u.s.

petri missiles and not a russian made into aircraft system. so it's hard to know if there is any explicit quid pro quo coming out of the president's conversations with airto on i think you can look at this in two ways on the one hand it's good news from a perspective of u.s. security that the turks are going to be buying patriot missiles particularly if that gives them an alternative to the s. four hundred russian anti-aircraft rockets that they are waiting delivery of right now on the other hand i think that the u.s. withdrawal from northeast syria makes it far more likely that the turks will mount a significant military operation to go after the syrian kurds particularly the wife p.g. who they view correctly as being linked to the p.k. k. which is a major terrorist organization within turkey and so i think it puts the kurds in a very difficult spot they will try to reconcile with the syrian regime as quickly

as possible to buy some protection from the turks but they are going to be facing serious challenges in the months ahead and before we run out of time i want to ask you about this decision and what it means for the struggle against radicalization and considering the kurds in northern syria they say that they feel betrayed by the u.s. they thought isis for the coalition they've been denied an independence referendum and now they've been left as sitting ducks turkey attacks. so i think that the kurds are pretty realistic when it comes to geopolitics because they have a lot of hard experience with being courted and abandoned by great powers including the united states in the past i think they probably weren't expecting it to come this quickly when the campaign was still ongoing and so i think that the major danger now is you see in talk that the kurds may release the three thousand or so isis prisoners that they're holding which would simply increase the dangers of

a resurgence of radicalization in that area. all right professor burns joining us tonight from washington first of ron's we appreciate your insights tonight thank you. or to france now where police unions are urging a work slowdown this week in response to proposed cuts to the national police budget in addition to a heightened terror threat in recent nationwide protests police say that they are buckling under strain resources and unrealistic quotas and it's that pressure that's being blamed for france's police suicide rate four times that of the general population now one of france's highest profile campaigners for better working conditions was police officer maggie biskup ski w. was scheduled to interview maggie but sadly she took her own life last month w.'s lisa lewis went instead to meet the colleague she left behind for years

maggie biskup ski lived out her dream fighting crimes on the streets of paris and led the charge against police suicides that was until she tragically took her own life devastating days she left behind like a good friend and colleague you thought you had become i lost my partner i'm left with a void. maggie we miss you we love you. we had originally planned to interview maggie now he has agreed to talk to us for her sake gillman maggie were inseparable she texted him to say goodbye. i can't believe it when i saw the message i thought you know not maggie. he almost taking us to the suburb where she used to work his beat is an equally deprived area they both campaigns for better working conditions for the police in france young bullies

the deteriorating conditions where one of the main reasons for maggie suicide for the police cars are so old some of hundreds of thousands of kilometers on the meter we can't keep up with the fast cars in a chase plus a walkie talkies often don't work these are the sort of working conditions that we have to deal with in areas where people throw stones and spit at us it really takes it out of us and the measures introduced since the terrorist threats mean we can hardly take any time off there's too much work to do. getting out of the car with a camera is too dangerous even in the morning before the drug trade gets going maggie felt that her bosses were making her job even more difficult or the one called good morning demanding concrete results why do you have to arrest thirty people for months it didn't matter what. we both from the police was are calling for how can the managers introduce rules that will make people hate us even more

you couldn't stand the fact that they were damaging the image of the police. so. maggie is not the only officer to commit suicide this year more than fifty police and military police have already taken their lives now the administration says this is not necessarily linked to their working conditions we wanted to see for ourselves but we weren't allowed to join a police patrol. the police say they are employing more psychologists to deal with the many suicides forty extra to cover the whole country but they reject that the police force has fundamental problems. or. face completely normal to give our police officers concrete targets. that we need to justify how we spend taxpayers' money. now less pressure on our police as

a terror threat is diminished. and we will employ an additional seven thousand five hundred police officers over the next four years for this response is not good enough. police needs to be thoroughly reforms if we hadn't been astray ssion that took care of its people we would need to fight for better working conditions and maggie would still be here as. well three astronauts have returned safely to earth after spending more than six months on the international space station one of those back on terror firma is the german commander alexander. back from space after spending months in zero gravity alex and a guest had to be helped out of the tiny so u.s. capsule they tarried him and his crew back to earth. feels like coming home although i am in kazakhstan in

a place i haven't been to before but it still feels like i'm coming home. you know although. his fellow astronauts russian. and american serina and chancellor both seem exhausted but are said to be doing well. the catchcry was docked into the international space station the i assess which has been home to the astronauts for the past six and a half months the crew performed dozens of scientific experiments on board alex and i guess later became the first german to take over command of the s.s. . not always an easy task the replacement teams failed launch meant that many experiments could be carried out and gassed had to extend his mission russian astronauts also had to carry out a grueling repair on a mysterious hole in the sole use capsule the craft that would ultimately bring them safely back to earth. during his mission alex and i guess stayed in touch with people on earth through social media he used his unique perspective from space to

offer insight on scientific and very mental issues before he left the isis he sent a message to future generations. when looking down to earth i feel that i have to apologize. it looks like my generation is not going to leave the planet in the best shape. i wish i could look into the future with your eyes. look into your world and understand how you see it. this. fortunately i can do that all i can do is try to play my part in giving you a future and the best possible version of it. back on earth the next on the guest is ready to spend christmas with his family. that's right he was smiling today when he returned to earth just in time for christmas and by the way gets to set a new record for a german astronaut a career total of three hundred sixty three days in space with me is the man whose

record just broke thomas reiter coordinator of the european space agency and a former astronaut himself good evening to you mr ryder we didn't mean to. that way as a man whose record had just been broken but i'm sure you're happy to have that record broken by mr garrett tell me where you were holding your breath today until the touchdown was complete. oh yes first of all i knew that the day will come when this record is broken that's what records are fought to be broken and let's see a whole long can hold this record i keep my fingers crossed that it will be long yes of course we always very excited it seems like such a return back to us kind of routine but it is fall from that it is always quite an exciting face in which the spacecraft does the atmosphere fly through this three

thousand decrease said to great hot plasma and then finally touch a stone yes we were holding our breath everything was working is usually very reliable and now he's stick fits we happy to have him just before christmas and yeah you know he was smiling and you say he's fit tell me a little bit what is it like adapting and getting used to mother earth again after you've been in space for such a long time. you know this is in fact not easy when i think back to space flights when i returned i have to say the first hour one and a half hour us are not so easy the vestibular system needs to readapt the gravity pleasure regulation is a little bit. small regime and the first the first minutes of the first one and a half quite difficult when i saw it coming out of the capsule this morning i was

wondering if he was really in space because he really looked fit and as he just arrived he was walking almost normally at least for me it looked like that so he has done a fantastic work not only in terms of science plus also to maintain his fitness because that helps a lot when you return to be in this good shape after being in gravity folie a few hours and what about the time that he was on the. commander he didn't always have an easy mission diddy. it's. all no definitely not apart from the let's say the normal plenty of the scientific experiments maintenance work they had of course some trouble with the social skep so fortunately that was not too serious a phenomenal situation i think they handle it very nicely and at the return it was not a problem whatsoever but you know this is also the reason why humans so. very useful

in this environment not only because they can be trained very well and they all subject to some of the medical results specifically about their need to capabilities the combination of coke need to have sense of tori capabilities capability to work things with our hands with offing us to take decisions even intuitive make us very suitable to react to unforeseen situations in such an environment and thomas reiter former astronaut now coordinator of the european space agency. have a merry christmas mr wright thank you for talking with us tonight. for the day is really down the conversation continues online right to us and remember whatever happens between now and then tomorrow is another day we'll see you than ever but.

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