but syria s ally russia denies the assad regime is behind the chemical attack foreign minister sergei lavrov says the reports are an attempt by rebels to provoke fresh fighting but for the crew to do so their only goal is to bismarck chen to demonize the government forces to accuse them of all possible deadly sins and military crimes in order to continue actions in the eastern regions. russian president vladimir putin s demand for humanitarian pause office hope of a much needed rest bite been eastern ghouta. and let s bring in journalist alec loon with the very latest from moscow now hi alec of lattimer putin as we said his government ordered a daily cease fire for the region in eastern guta the united nations on the other hand has called for a thirty day pause in fighting across the country is sliding or put an undermining
the killing in. but also it s responsible for the killing in. an afternoon and why nobody do something so that people are very upset that there s not a lot of pressure to stop this turkish attacks on our feet which used to be safe for as our correspondent lattimer friend bill ginsburg is in the syrian town of bani right now for us thanks very much you re welcome. now to some of the other stories making the news at this hour at least five people have been reported killed after severe thunderstorms swept across central parts of the united states and storms spawned tornadoes cause widespread flooding in kentucky and tennessee a number of states have declared disaster emergency. christian leaders in jerusalem have closed the church of the holy sepulcher in protest over new israeli taxation and a proposed law to prevent land sold by churches the church of the holy see is built on the site where christians believe jesus was crucified and buried.
in the town of a free in more than two hundred thousand civilians have fled their homes in the last three days according to the kurdish red crescent which also said that turkish bombers had destroyed the city s only hospital. lattimer as a journalist speaking to us tonight from erbil in northern iraq who recently returned from syria welcomed a lot of civilians from african have fled to earth where you are you ve had a chance to speak to some of them what are they saying. why she suggested a thousands of civilians i consider. that actually fled to northern level. the situation is a very. bitter expect rebels and the turks are going to are about to strike will have been and it s expected that there is going to have a battle between the kurds and the. turkish backed forces. so we ve also been
international community and this deal was most likely discussed with him in advance with his government in advance so they already have what s our all assad on their side. in addition to that you have to remember that this deal is actually into best interest the assad government wants to maintain pressure on rebel groups in the city at the same time it doesn t want to make many of these headlines that were seen about the civilian casualties so this type of ceasefire deal allows them to claim at least publicly that they are doing what s in the best interest of the civilian population while maintaining the military campaign ok now how much influence does lattimer putin have right now with bashar al assad. well as i just said there moscow and vladimir putin is the biggest ally of boxall assad on the international scene now you have to remember it was russian military support that allowed the allowed damascus while the assad government to actually