bit of aleppo still under rebel control. this morning russia said the syrian regime now controls 93% of eastern aleppo and more than 10,000 civilians have fled the area in the last 24 hours. cnn s senior international correspondent fred pleitgen is the first western tv reporter inside the old city of aleppo. he joins us right now. fred, first of all, thank you for being there for us. give us a sense of what you are seeing and what the reality on the ground is. reporter: well, the reality is that there is a massive offensive going on by the syrian government. we saw this earlier today when first the russians said there would be a halt in military operations by the syrian armed forces and by their own armed forces but we saw none of that. we saw a lot of shelling, heavy gunfire, mortar fire, jets in the sky. as i m talking to you, i can hear the jets hovering overhead and i can hear intermittent air strikes on the bit of enclave
if there was a shooting meaning a shooting engaged with people who have weapons, that becomes serious. also, earlier in the night, news out of paris about 10:00 p.m. this evening that a second attacker got away following friday s carnage. that is information we re updating people with. we re listening to sounds coming are from the video from twitter. walid, getting back to this. a massive manhunt is underway for that particular man. let s listen to that just a moment. you can hear. so walid my french is not good. there is a lot of heavy gunfire we re hearing. and a lot of not just a lot
difd mccullough will give us perspective on the present through the lens of the past. why in the world is not a tiny nation about to skip over a date entirely? i ll explain. next up, a fascinating look inside spy games. both the fictional and nonfictional varieties with columnist and novelist david ignatius. then a look at innovation with the master architect frank gehry. finally, why president bush might have offended some italians on inauguration day. first, here s my take. we hear a lot about leadership these days, mostly in the sense of the failure of leadership, the absence of leadership. certainly that s the view of many people who oppose president obama. but there are also many democrats who believe that president obama has been a disappointment, a bad manager, an ineffectual leader. the conventional wisdom is that obama just doesn t have what it takes to be the kind of leader we need, the kind we have had in the past, someone, for example, like bill clinton,
fighting to the finish. the war wages on in parts of tripoli where gadhafi loyalists continue to hold out. hello. i m here at the cnn center. welcome to our viewers in the united states and right around the world of our special coverage of the crisis in libya. rebels say he was in their custody. but just hours ago, saif islam, the son of moammar gadhafi spoke outside a hotel in tripoli and his message was clear. the government remains in control of the libyan capital. translator: there have led through the sea and through other means gangs of people who are sabotaging and you could see the people of libya are standing and had to have broken the spine of those rats and gangsters, just today we ll go to the hot spots of tripoli, in tripoli, and we ll reassure the people that things are fine in libya. now, saif gadhafi says his father remains in tripoli despite speculation that he may have fled the country. still, there s been no sign of the long-time libyan leader. the
committed crimes against humanity. pope benedict xvi is visiting madrid, spain. the city expects a million or so people to attend. not everyone is happy to see the pontiff, however. some spaniards are protests over the cost to put on the event. those are the headlines from cnn, the world s news leader. i m zain verjee and world business today starts now. good morning from cnn london. i m nina dos santos. good afternoon from cnn hong kong. i m andrew streechbs. you re watching world business today. the top stories this friday, august 19th. many people are happy it is indeed a friday because the market sell-off continues to roll around the world as fear takes hold of global investors. bank of america announces plans to cut thousands of jobs. and the story of a small business that s thriving despite the tough economic environment. now, the stock market sell-off has made its way right around the world as andrew is saying, driven in particular by fierce of recessio