screen and my social media contacts as well. in the last few hours in the bbc newsroom , in the last few hours in the bbc newsroom, this claim came through from the syrian government, that it had from the syrian government, that it ha d reta ke n from the syrian government, that it had retaken aleppo entirely, as the last group of rebel fighters had been evacuated. we understand this group who were notjust the fighters but theirfamilies group who were notjust the fighters but their families as well, had been holed up in a small enclave in aleppo but they were finally evacuated on thursday. that was negotiated under a deal which gives the army and its allies full control of the city after almost four years of the city after almost four years of fighting. we can bring in the bbc correspondent in beirut james longman. i guess aleppo fell a few weeks back so this is more about the symbolism of the moment? that is absolutely right. the huge moment for the syrian regime and they have been making the most of it. there has been celebratory gunfire heard on the west side of aleppo. the army are making their way into eastern aleppo to physically claim it back because this is definitely a war about territory claimed and lost. we know on state television they have put banners up calling this a momentous victory and there has been a statement put out by the army where they said this was a deadly blow to the terrorist project and its supporters. this is the biggest win for the government, resident bashar al—assad, in almost six years of war. aleppo has been contested forfour of war. aleppo has been contested for four years. the of war. aleppo has been contested forfour years. the rebels have had control of the east for that amount of time. they were hoping to launch attacks on the rest of syria are least claim of them urgent centres —— other major centres. now they have the north—western area of idlib. the rebels and families of rebels are going up there as evacuees, as refugees in their own country, but also to regroup. rebel groups will regroup. this war in syria which has been rolling for nearly six years may be over in aleppo, but it is certainly not in syria at large. you mentioned idlib, how strong are the rebels in that pa rt how strong are the rebels in that part of syria and is the syrian government indicating it will turn its military power towards idlib instead of aleppo? they certainly are. the rebel alliance in idlib is mostly dominated by some of the more extreme elements of the rebel community in syria. 0ne extreme elements of the rebel community in syria. one group is linked to al-qaeda which is one of the main groups and another one which is a huge fighting force in syria which is not designated a terrorist organisation but extreme nonetheless. it is fair to say the colour of the syrian opposition has over time shifted somewhat, as the government has made a concerted effort to hit the most moderate rebels first, in order to make this claim that it is only terrorists in syria they are fighting. today in a statement the rebels say they want to continue to reclaim every span of the homeland so that would suggest thatis the homeland so that would suggest that is exactly what they intend to do. this war will continue into the north—west, into the province of idlib. it does depend on what the russians decide to do. it is only because of russian support that the army was able to reclaim eastern aleppo but it is likely they will support the president in this endeavour because they have been watching as strikes in idlib province over the last six to eight months. i think largely the fight for idlib will begin in earnest in the new year. james, thank you. and if you want updates on the situation in syria, you can get it from james on twitter as he goes about his work. before the syrian army made this announcement today, we heard from president assad. he was already anticipating complete victory in aleppo. he said the liberation of aleppo. he said the liberation of aleppo from terrorism is not only a victory for syria but for all countries fighting terrorism, especially iran and russia. the bbc‘s jonathan beale especially iran and russia. the bbc‘sjonathan beale has been discussing syria with the head of the army in europe. what we see is syria is weapons capabilities. they are using weapons in certain situations which are not necessarily required for that tactical situation, but they are demonstrating that they have these capabilities, practising if you will, a live fire opportunity to experiment and train with all their weapons systems. that is not helpful. and of course, the disregard for syrian casualties that we see in places like aleppo, again, thatis we see in places like aleppo, again, that is not the conduct of a nation which wants to be a superpower and be treated like a superpower. we work hard every day to protect our systems. our systems are under attack from all sorts of different sources. russian? all sorts of different sources. we have responsibility for training, awareness and procedures to protect our networks. you are worried about definitely. let's bring you up—to—date on the latest in the berlin attack. the fingerprints of the main suspect in the berlin attack have been found inside the cab of the truck. here's germany's interior minister. translation: we have had additional indications today that indeed the strong suspect is by all likelihood the offender. we found in the driver's cab fingerprints and we also have other indications pointing towards that likelihood. pressure must be growing on the german authorities, not only because that man was known to them before the attack but it is now three days since the attack and they have not found him. damian grammaticus has been talking to me. angela merkel went to visit the security services. she thanked germans for their patience and calmness after the event. i think there are questions to be raised for there are questions to be raised for the police, the security services, for their handling of the case of anis amri before these attacks, but there is also i think quite a good deal of patience while police hunt for him. tell us what is behind you? ican for him. tell us what is behind you? i can see some festivities but also some concrete barriers. yes, this is the market. we are right in the middle of berlin. this isjust the market. we are right in the middle of berlin. this is just close to where the attack happened. the lorry came through notjust this pa rt lorry came through notjust this part of the market but 100 metres through the market stalls. here, they have reopened this. we were here when they were putting the concrete barriers in place along the road to block the market stalls off from road to block the market stalls off fro m a ccess road to block the market stalls off from access to the site. the stallholders are back. trade is not as brisk as you would imagine, but many people are coming here to this point where they have been putting candles and flowers and there are other points as well. this is a sign of the lunar is trying to get back to normal to say we are open. —— people of berlin. we spoke to a stallholder who said the importance is not to be afraid, not to let the people who carried out the attack win but to get back to business and show they were back to normal. and the hunt goes on for anis amri. there are various reports in german media of his his links to islamic extremism. this is a news website — it says he'd been seen in the company of a man who was arrested with an extremist preacher. spiegel magazine reports he offered himself as a suicide attacker. the bbc can't confirm either of those stories. also the new york times says he was on a us no—fly list — and that he'd researched explosives and communicated with the islamic state group via a messenger service. we've also been getting information from his family in tunisia — they live in a place called kairouan. this is what his brothers told journalists. this is the home that anis amri grew up this is the home that anis amri grew up in. he was barely 16 when he left his hometown. there have been outbursts of anger from his siblings who have gathered here, since we arrived. his sister came out at some point. she was crying. she was shouted at some of the journalists saying everyone was trying to vilify her brother and the entire family. she does not believe that her brother had anything to do with the berlin attacks. his brother also came out at some point and talked to us came out at some point and talked to us saying that his brother had told him he might come back to tunisia as early as january. translation: we we re early as january. translation: we were waiting for our brother to come back with a new work permit. we did not expect to hear the news that we heard. i last spoke to him ten days before the attack. is operatives have been recruited from this country for over two years now. some come from big cities like the t miss, others from sleepy towns. they have also come from different backgrounds. some have been from from wealthy families, had a higher education. others have been average tunisian is just trying to get by in life. and some like the suspect and his family come from abject poverty. friends and family say he grew up like any other youngster here. he loved spending time with his friends, he listened to music and he drank alcohol. we'll so know he had a criminal history. he was sentenced in absentia to five years in jail and he was also imprisoned in palermo in sicily for four years before he moved on to germany. it is not believed that he ever had any islamist links here before he left the country, so if he did get radicalised, it happened during his stay in europe. and you can find all the bbc coverage of the attack collated in one place on the bbc news website. let's look at what could be a major breakthrough in the treatment of multiple sclerosis. it's concerns a drug called ocrelizumab and that appears to be able to slow damage to the brain in two forms of ms. the findings of a the trial were published in the new england journal of medicine. james gallagher has been telling me how the drug works. if you think about what ms is, it is an immune system is starting to attack the brain and wants it attacks the brain it disrupts chemical and electrical signals throughout the brain and that is how you lose control of your body. if the immune system is attacking the brain, let's attack the immune system. so what ocrelizumab does is it selectively destroys part of the immune system to ease the assault on the brain. this trial was of 2000 patients. is that a significant number? can we draw some big conclusions? and has the latest trial and it is the most important one. trials go from a couple of people where you test it for safety and then bigger numbers where you say, does it work for patients? this isa say, does it work for patients? this is a really significant trial and it shows it does work in patients who have relapsing remitting ms. that is the kind that gets worse, then it gets better and then gets worse again over time. for people with the type which just gets worse there is no hope. we have the details of this trial published online. what now happens? it has to move from a trial to real life. the first stage is getting an official license to be prescribed by doctors. it will go to the us food and drug administration to get the license. it is expecting to get the license. it is expecting to get the license. it is expecting to get that by the end of next year and then it is the case of who wants to pay for it? expensive? they are a lwa ys to pay for it? expensive? they are always expensive, ross, you know that. this is a really innovative piece of medicine. how you pay for it is almost as big question is developing the drugs in the first place. not for the first time at week from donald trump has raised a lot of questions. we will have more on that and be with barbara plett—usher get reaction. around 70 to 80 prisoners have taken control of a wing at hmp swell side in kent. the category b training prison houses prisoners on life sentences. this is the fourth disturbance at an english jail in less tha n disturbance at an english jail in less than two months following disturbances at bedford, birmingham and lowest —— hmp swell side. swaleside is a very difficult place to work at the moment. there is a shortage of staff. it is a tough prison. prisoners are there for a long period of time. they are big, powerful guys. there are a lot of drugs in prisons at this period in time. it is a particularly tough place to work and if you short staffed, staffed, it makes it even harder. hello, iam ross hello, i am ross atkins with outside source. the syrian army says it has taken control of aleppo. bbc chinese reports that japan has increased its defence budget for the fifth year in a row. that's seen as a response to tensions in the south china sea — and the threat posed by north korea. the draft budget takes spending next year to a record 43.6 billion dollars. bbc swahili reports that opposition mps in kenya have stormed out of parliament alleging they had been assaulted. this all happened during a debate on changing the electoral laws for next year's presidential election. the initial debate on tuesday also saw mps exchange punches. separatists in the east of ukraine have held a competition to find the self—proclaimed republic‘s most patriotic cat. owners were encouraged to dress their pet in the colours of the region's unofficial flag. this is tima who was the winner. about an hour ago, donald trump tweeted this tweet, "the united states must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes." as is often the case with mr trump, he tweets but does not offer a great deal of detail on top of that. that can sense the media running and to work out what is going on. let's bring in barbara plett usher in washington, dc. isee bring in barbara plett usher in washington, dc. i see we have been offered a little help from one of mr trump's press advisers? yes, mr trump's press advisers? yes, mr trump is mac transition team have been left with the task of translating that remarkable tweet. they say what he meant to say was it is important to prevent nuclear proliferation, especially regarding terrorist organisations and rogue states. the transition team also pointed out that mr trump has been emphasising the need to modernise america's deterrent capability. that is the note on his website. if that is the note on his website. if that is what he is saying with this tweet thenit is what he is saying with this tweet then it seems as if he would be supporting president obama's current policy which is to modernise america's ageing arsenal, but if thatis america's ageing arsenal, but if that is what he was trying to say, he did so in a way that caused quite a lot of surprise and alarm. there isa a lot of surprise and alarm. there is a difference between modernising and expanding and it is the word x band which drew a lot of attention? that is right. —— the word expand. president obama has been all about reducing stockpiles. some have criticised this because of creating a new cruise missile and updating a nuclear bomb. there are some changes which people say could increase an arms race but it is not within president obama's policy to expand nuclear weapons in the world. he entered office talking about a planet without nuclear weapons. so when mrtrump planet without nuclear weapons. so when mr trump tweets he wants to strengthen and expand they question it. and if he tweets without any policy discussion or policy details or even a position he —— a position to make policies because he is not president yet, then this is what the clinton campaign were saying, that he is too erratic and this will feed those concerns. we are new territory with mr trump those concerns. we are new territory with mrtrump in those concerns. we are new territory with mr trump in many ways. i don't think america has had a president before who tweets and then has collea g u es before who tweets and then has colleagues to translate for press and country. we will carry on talking about the president elect because he continues to expand his team. this is a billionaire investor who will advise the government on regulatory reform or to put it another way, reduce regulation. he says it is time to break free of excessive regulation and let entrepreneurs do what they do best. let's try and understand what that means. samir is in new york. what is this describing in practical terms? when you are talking about carl icahn, he is an activist investor. he is someone we have talked about before. he is very well made people on wall street. he will take on the role of advising donald trump on regulations. what he argues is that any rules which confine business in any sort of way actually reduces how much businesses can put out in the world and say what he wants to do is to say, look, if we get rid of a lot of the rules which are tying down businesses then that will allow us to flourish. that isa that will allow us to flourish. that is a republican held belief. donald trump, by appointing him into his tea m trump, by appointing him into his team of advisers, is really signalling that he wants to get rid ofa signalling that he wants to get rid of a lot of these regulations. we have talked about this before with a lot of the banking regulations which force ba n ks lot of the banking regulations which force banks to keep more capital one hand or keep more liquidity on hand to try and protect itself from any sort of big moves within the market. this is another one of these moves in which donald trump wants to try and get rid of some of the rules to allow businesses to flourish. you mentioned the banks and this looks like a reverse. if we go back to the months of 2008, the lack of regulation was the thing that people highlighted as one of the primary causes, wasn't it? and macro that is absolutely right. what many will argue is we have gone too much in the opposite direction and we have too many regulations now which are really hampering banks. this is why you are always hearing the words dodd frank. those are the regulations put into place after the financial crisis. mr trump says he wa nts to financial crisis. mr trump says he wants to rule back —— rollback of some of those regulations to free the bank to do what they do best. thank you, samira. we have had reports from lebanon and now we are turning our attention to china. ali barber is done in —— much of the business of ali barber is donein of the business of ali barber is done in china. america has put it on a blacklist due to the counterfeit sales online. the company was accused of selling high levels of fa ke accused of selling high levels of fake goods. aliba ba accused of selling high levels of fake goods. alibaba rejects those allegations and says it polices the marketplace much better than in the past, and it also says that today's political climate in america at have something to do with the fact it is back on the blacklist. president—elect donald trump repeatedly accused china of stealing intellectual property and has appointed an outspoken critic as head of the trade body. but donald trump has not taken office yet so the authorities would probably disagree with alibaba's speculation that it disagree with alibaba's speculation thatitis disagree with alibaba's speculation that it is back on the blacklist. just before we finish this half of outside source, let me remind you of some very significant news. this is the hp quoting the syrian army says it has reta ken the hp quoting the syrian army says it has retaken aleppo entirely, as the last group of rebel fighters we re the last group of rebel fighters were evacuated. militarily, the battle for aleppo ended a couple of weeks back but nonetheless, this is a city which has been fought over for nearly four years. for the first time in that period the syrian government is backing control. speak to you in a minute. —— back in control. good evening. time to talk to about the weather in the world. yesterday, i spoke to about at tropical cyclone. it is slow moving. we have had some very wet weather in australia in the northern territories. these systems will combine as we go into the christmas period so you can imagine, with that slow—moving nature, we will seek flash flooding and coastal storm surges. in contrast, it is getting drier across new zealand. for melbourne, we could have one of the warmest christmas is on record. plenty to keep our eye on here. we have also got a tropical storm heading towards the philippines for christmas. it will start affecting the philippines on christmas eve. it could be very damaging indeed with heavy rains, mudslides and coastal flooding. there is a storm surge heading its way inland. there is some wet weather and snowy weather for the north on friday. for the united states we have some rain and snow, but a potential blizzard developing for the christmas weekend and that clearly will cause some travel disruption. for the south we could have some thunderstorms. they are calling the storm at the moment europa. there is the potentialfor a storm off the coast of madagascar. some lifted dust could well be affecting travel for the ca nary islands in the next few days. further north it is rather cool and chilly across the middle east. it is bitterly cold. temperatures are starting to rise a little bit. you can see the cold air is back and in the north and the other issue we haveis the north and the other issue we have is snow. it has been giving real problems across syria. for turkey and lebanon, further storms around coastlines. the storm is heading eastwards. we also have this storm heading into the uk and we will hear later about that from darren. we could see disruptive wins for the denmark, germany, scandinavia. there are warnings out for avalanches. and fog has been a real issue. once one clears away and we have another potentially coming in. in the uk it is looking very windy on christmas day. there will be some rain around but at least it will be mild. john will have more later. bye—bye. hello, this is outside source. the syrian army has declared victory in level of the last comboy rebel fighters and civilians has left the city. german authorities say they have firm evidence that links the main suspect in monday's attack in berlin to the truck. fingerprints have been found in the cab of the vehicle that was used. we only spoke by donald trump a couple of times, we will speak about him again because he has appointed a man cold peter navarro is one of his key trade advisers. he is a staunch critic of china and ruled that the impact this could have an economic relationship during the us and china. and at some of the best pictures from bigwig competition