And the First Lady Melania Trump receives an apology and damages from the daily mail over allegations about her work as a model. A meeting is underway in moscow between russian president Vladimir Putin and us Secretary Of State Rex Tillerson just hours after President Putin claimed relations between the two countries was at its lowest ebb since the end of the cold war. Earlier Rex Tillerson held talks with his russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. Rex tillerson wants russia to withdraw support for president assad following the chemical attack ona assad following the chemical attack on a rebel town which killed more than 80 people. Our correspondence is travelling with Rex Tillerson and sent this report. This is not the kind of meeting that once seemed to be on the card. Long gone talk of a grand resetting of relations with russia, producing is encouraged by donald trump was replaced by tensions over the Chemical Weapons attack in syria and russian anger over the military response from ame
a number of other german news outlets you found evidence that german made arms are being used in the conflict in yemen how did they get there. they were sold by the german government i mean we re talking about arms sold directly such as the troll vessels or helicopters but also components say of tornado jets and of other weapon stations so it s a mix of components that were sent via third countries for example through the u.k. also directly and some of them were sold off of the wall started on helicopter. rifles guns a lot of weapons were exported even after the would been going on for several years and a lot of the human rights violations have been documented what kind of restrictions does germany on exporting weapons to places like yemen or countries involved in that conflict. gems got they strict guidelines in theory i mean we have guidelines in sales to countries involved in armed conflicts and early last year
together welcome me let s start with the where the when the when were these weapons sold to saudi arabia in the usa well it s a mix i mean some of these weapons were sold in the eighty s in one thousand such as tornado jets but quite a few of the actually sold off of the war started in twenty fifteenth s i got a couple of examples here we re talking of patrol vessels helicopters radio systems artillery of munition pistols rifles warhead the list why it s list and. when used all of these were exported after twenty fifteen after the war in yemen was ongoing after the saudis endemol rocky s were clearly involved so there s a mix old and new but exports are continuing the latest exports were approved as late as september twenty eighth and what reaction has there been from the german. well so far not a lot we obviously put the accusations to them they declined to comment on the use of specific weapon systems i think we ll probably get more of a reaction once the full report comes out later
our planning to minimize to the maximum degree possible any chance of civilian casualties. cruise missiles were among the weapons used, and british tornado jets, u.s. b-1 bombers, and warships also part of the strike. we did have some initial surface-to-air missile activity from the syrian regime. that s the only retaliatory action that we re aware of at this time. the strikes come less than a week after a suspected chemical weapons attack on syria s rebel hie -held town of douma. victims including children shown dead and injured. cnn has not been able to verify the authenticity of the images independently. the evil and the despicable attack left mothers and fathers, infants and children trashing in pain and gasping for air. these are not the actions of a man, they are crimes of a