>> liberte, egalite, actualite. mark: welcome to "live from paris," world news from france 24. annexation of -- vladimir putin is staging is takeover of four regions in ukraine. ukraine the dominant issue at the united nations general assembly. french president a manual -- emmanuel macron.

the devastation caused by hurricane fiona. puerto rico underwater crying out for urgent help. other regions affected. we bring you a full roundup of who is in fiona's path. thank you very much for being with us. vladimir putin is staging his own referendum on russia annexing 4 regions of ukraine. hence, donetsk, separation, and -- if russia annexed as the land, it creates a mindset the russian territory is being invaded with each ukrainian push and could well be used to

justify general mobilization of russian forces on the ukraine front. the world, we are told, would not recognize the annexation, as with crimea in 2014, but analysts say this won't influence putin. >> a shock announcement from 4 pressure controlled areas of ukraine. the separatist regions of luhansk and donetsk as well as pierce on and zaporizhzhia are set to hold a vote on becoming part of russia. >> we have charted a course to join russia, and there is no turning back. based on referendum results, i will personally appeal to the president to legally approve them as soon as possible. >> it is a plan that has quickly been rebuffed by russian leaders at the united nations general assembly. >> russia declared war.

it invaded this region. it dropped bombs. it killed people. it forced others to flee, and now russia says in this same region, it is going to organize a referendum. it would be funny if it was not so tragic. it is cynical, and it obviously will not be recognized by the international community. >> the aouncement of the referendum comes after moscow suffered embarrassing defeats on the ground in ukraine this month. u.s. national security advisor jake sullivan suggested places moscow in a position of weakness. >> how transparent and how in a way thrown together this whole russian political effort is. it is the act of a untry that has suffered setbacks militarily, diplomatically, and those setbacks we think are giving the momentum to the

ukrainian effort. >> in addition to moscow's losses on the battlefield, moscow's president has grown increasingly isolated on the world stage. leaders of china and india, nations considered friendly by russia, openly conveyed their opposition to russia. >> these countries have said they will not recognize these areas, thought to be just a rubberstamping exercise for vladimir putin to claim these territories. >> they are seeking to potentially announce -- and this is of course regulation at this point, but it very valid -- mobilization to get the economy

more on a war footing and get the much-needed reserves to help the military in ukraine. also to send a very clear message to the west that we've got no pain whatsoever to back down. we have to remember if this referendum goes ahead, it is successful for russia, these regions join russia as their subject not only changes the kremlin's military attitude, any attack by the armed forces will be an attack on russia. at this stage, that means mobilization. also, these talks are very likely to be an attempt to push

kyiv to negotiation. ukraine officials have said if a rent -- if a referendum does go ahead, you can forget the talks. any small chance that does exist now will be absolutely gone. also to send a message to the west. the operation is going ahead, and seems it will be fulfilled. mark: ukraine is the dominating issue at the united nations general assembly. emmanuel macron has set friends will continue to ship arms to ukraine. the french president said the longer the war last, the greater the threat. macron made a call to action, saying those who do not speak up today will be serving the aggressors.

plates those who would like to mimic the fight by refusing to express themselves clearly are mistaken. the combat of the nonaligned movement is a combat for peace. they fought for peace. they far for the sovereignty of states, for the territorial integrity of everybody. this is the fight of the nonaligned. those keeping silent today actually are in a way complicit with the calls of a new imperialism, of a contemporary cynicism. mark: emmanuel macron speaking a few moments ago at the united nations general assembly. watching that for us as ever, our correspondent, who joins us live from the united nations. i think it is clear to say, a clear call to action from macron . >> absolutely. he gave an impassion speech

from t united nations podium, a speech in defense of democracy, in defense of diplomacy and multilateralism, and he strongly condemned pressure and called on all world powers to do so, saying if you don't, you will be on the wrong side of history. he also warned about contemporary imperialism, something that he said france rejects. his speech was very clear. he also warned that the war in ukraine could lead to other wars of annexation ahead. perhaps china's ambitions in taiwan. he said it is the new imperialism, this new world order trampling over current ones. mark: the referendums that vladimir putin in russia is

planning, many people, i think, and we have heard this from moscow, from our correspondent there, view this as kind of a rubberstamping exercise. i'm wondering, could you give us some insight information on how countries at the united nations will view this? >> first of all, western powers are coming out one after another condemning these sham referendums. that's the terminology that the german chancellor used when he spoke to reporters earlier on. he will be giving his speech from the united nations podium shortly. they are condemning this move and saying that it is completely invalid, that it has no legal basis. macron has also said that. the u.s. has said that. it will be interesting to hear

from the global south to see how they are going to respond to these referendums in those russian-controlled parts of ukraine. earlier on in the day, we heard from the senegalese president, who is the chair of the african union. he seemed to be saying that african countries are not going to be pushed by the west to further isolate russia. we will stay close to hear what other developing countries of the world will have to say about this russian plan. mark: thank you very much indeed for that update. the united nations general assembly continues. thank you very much indeed. great to see you. next, hurricane fiona, a powerful category three storm hit the creek -- the turks and caicos islands this tuesday. it has left two people dead so far. one man was swept away in

guadalupe and another died while cutting down a tree. >> hurricane fiona flattened everything in its path when it hit puerto rico, sweeping homes away an evening watching boats ashore. many were not prepared for what was to come. >> it was too much. i did not expect this. a lot of lost everything. very, very rough. it's at least 900 people have had to be rescued from the floodwaters which have left entire communities like these under water. the hurricane also knocked the power out, plunging the island into darkness. more than 3 million people are still without electricity. for some, there is no other choice but to stock up on gasoline to keep their generators going. >> we are looking for gasoline, water, ice, all the supplies necessary for getting through this. we were hoping it would not be

so big, but it was bigger than we expected. you have to make do with what you have. >> puerto rico's crumbling infrastructure is particularly vulnerable. the island had barely recovered from hurricane maria, which hit five years ago. maria destroyed the power grid and killed nearly 3000 people. now a public health crisis could also be looming. puerto rico's governor says it could be days before everyone has electricity again. mark: let's get more on the situation. the director for the latin american region at the macroeconomic and geopolitical consultancy gree mental -- green mantle joins us. the situation, as we can see, is a desperate one. what kind of response is needed? >> you have a country that has

been hit twice very hard in the last five years by two very different types of storms. maria was very strong wind. here, the main problem as far as we have been hearing, is in terms of rain, which creates -- you know, given the blackout, and a lot of the issues with infrastructure, creates a real sort of time-sensitive crisis for getting that material on the ground and then trying to save as many people and reorganize as much of the country as possible. it is coming at a very difficult time. many people who have been able to leave due to the blackout are leaving, but the vast majority of people and families are stuck there for the interim. >> the last time puerto rico was

hit, donald trump was in power in the u.s. there was criticism of lack of reaction from his administration. is a quicker reaction expected w from the u.s.? >> on the one hand, you probably will have more political sympathies from this administration towards puerto rico than perhaps was the case for some within the trump administraon. that said, a lot of the othe iss with supply chains that have been going on during the pandemic have not fully recovered, so i think that the will is there, and i'm optimistic that every effort will be made, but the logistical issues and potential bottlenecks might be a little harder, especially given the fact that we do have this flooding, which keeps a lot of the -- with wind,

it knocks do, and you have a very acute crisis with which you can start to rebud. it creates a crisis that is less acute, and that will be more difficult to deal with logistically. you cannot start to rebuild right away. mark: there is, of course, the issue of climate change, that, of course, being behind what is happening, the increased frequency of this type of disaster on a more practical scale, getting help to people who need it. you have identified the problem of flooding. of course, the way the area is all spread out makes it even more difficult. >> that is absolutely the case, and it has bn an unusual hurricane ason. it started very late. we have not had very many big storms, and obviously, much of the world has been focused on otrssues.

the suddenness and ferocity with which this particular stm hit clearly caught the local government off grd as well as the u.s. government and the international mmunity, and i think that you are seeing a lot goodwill and a lo of scrambling, but at this point, it is playing catch-up with this particular storm, a much to your earlier point with climate change, that these storms are becoming more frequent and the extent to which we are able and positioned to ameliorate the damage and help the people who are affected does not seem to be keeping pace with that. >> thank you very much indeed for giving your analysis of the situation there from the green mental consultancy -- green mantle consultancy. thank you, sir, very much

indeed. >> absolutely. thank you for having me on the show and covering this very important issue. >> time now for business. inflation dominates the agenda of economies around the world. kate: prices still rising at their fastest rate in decades. higher interest rates tend to encourage consumers and businesses to save, which usually tames inflation somewhat by curbing demand. the current rices, however, is linked to problems on the supply side, so raising interest rates will not be a silver bullet. this tuesday, sweden's central bank kicked off what is expected to be a series of rate hikes around the world. >> filling up the tank or filling up a basket of groceries, swedish consumers are getting less for their krona.

to tame historic levels of inflation, the central bank raised interest rates a whole percentage white, the biggest hike in 30 years. >> inflation is far too high, and that is causing problems for households and businesses. then we have to act with our monetary policy. >> the eu is dealing with his highest inflation on record, and prices are also soaring in the u.k. and the u.s. central banks are trying to catch up. sweden is just the first of several expected to act this week. the u.s. federal reserve is expected to raise its key rate by as much as .75% for the third time in a row. the bank of england is also expected to build on recent rate his with another half a percentage point move on thursday. >> hiking rates does not always fix inflation. the fed does not haves good a

record on that. it oen causes a recession. we know that. not all the time but much of the time, so there are some risks here. >> the world bank has noted the unusual degree of synchronicity among central banks raising interest rates at the same time and warned last week the world could be edging toward double recession next year. kate: central-bank decisions are really what will be moving markets this week. major european indices closing in the red, about .6% in london. in germany, the producer price inflation was driven by soaring energy prices and are higher than expected. wall street also closed lower as the u.s. federal reserve kicked off its two-day policy meeting. ford shares led as the carmaker said it would lose an additional

billion dollars in the third quarter because of supply chain issues. unions in france led demonstrations this tuesday in solidarity with delivery workers who say they are dealing with difficult working conditions and low wages in the gig economy, but they are also trying to shine a spotlight on the status of those workers, many of them foreign and undocumented, and now at risk of losing their jobs. uber eats remove more than 2000 accounts from its delivery platform for allegedly using fake identities earlier this week. >> it has been six months that he has not been able to work for cooper eads. >> i tried to connect but i could not. two days later, i got an email saying my identification was fake. quincy does not receive any kind of severance pay, nor is he

eligible for any kind of unemployment benefits. quick to during the pandemic, no one asked, hey, sir, do you have your papers? they did not ask. they let us work, like fools. >> like other platforms, it decided to clean up its accounts. as a result, 2500 accounts were deactivated over the summer. riders were told that their papers were fake. he still has the right to work and think that despite the recent cleanup, the company is not planning on operating any real change. >> the documents were not considered fake two or sicko, so they cannot now be considered fake. also, they are allowing new accounts with the same documents. >> this lawyer specializing in

labor law says there is nothing surprising about the situation. >> knows full well these people have been working for months and months, but it shuts its eyes because it needs these people willing to work or low wages. if it tries to hire undocumented workers, you would not find as many people willing to work for this kind of wage. >> a number of legal cases have been opened against the company, but only the government has the power to regulate the situation or leave it as it is. kate: that is all for now. mark: thanks very much indeed. as ever, on the money. time for truth or fake. you have a video from the russian defense ministry purporting to show the destruction of a ukrainian naval vessel. tell us more.

>> that is correct. the russian ministry of defense released a video and a statement on their official channels, but more importantly, their official telegram channel. that's the video and statement they posted. it has since gotten 300,000 views, and in this, they said that the russian forces hit and destroyed a ukrainian naval barge in eastern ukraine close to the zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and called it the destruction of an amphibious vehicle or amphibious landing. let's take a look at that video now to see exactly what they are talking about. in this video, we will see russian helicopters hyper focusing on launching several missiles at a large, semi-unidentifiable element inning on the river and

triggering explosion. if i'm correct, i think that starts at around a two-minute mark, so let's have a little skip there. this is the element on the river that they say is a naval warship by ukraine. mark: how do we prove that this video is fake? >> the first sign is that the so-called barge is filmed from quite a significant distance. it is also recorded only by the helicopter camera, which does not give us much visibility. many pro-russian and european accounts have been sharing this video, believing it to be real, and it was in fact this group of twits that i compiled here, but it was this one that really allowed us to dig further. it has nearly 8000 views, and

the best thing is that it really pointed to where we should start taking the truth. it told us that the alleged barge was from a certain city and using geolocation tools, we were able to use a bit of magic. using satellite imagery on google maps and identifying the exact structures to match it identically with what russia claimed was a warship. i think i got another little piece for you they. the best thing that we were able to find to really debunk this story, however, was this website which catalogs structures and buildings around the world. it turns out in fact that this amphibious vessel that russia

claims, a.k.a. the naval barge, it does not exist. this is actually a remnant of an old bridge built by the nazis for world war ii. i think i actually have a picture of it to show you. as you can see, that does look remarkably like what we saw in russia's ministry of defense footage. we also uncovered that this bridge was demolished in 1952 to allow for the completion of the reservoir, and ironically, that reservoir was built in the first place to allow for the operation of the zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which, as we know, is at the heart of the nuclear conflict. through geolocation software and comparing minute details between russia's video image and the photograph, we can really see the minute details really do match up. it is clear that moscow's

footage does not document the destruction of ukrainian naval vessel but is in fact a world war ii war relic. mark: thank you very much indeed. lies and manipulation exposed in our truth or fake segment. thank you very much indeed. thank you all watching, too. stay with us. more to come "live from paris."

o;o;ó7ó7 09/20/22 09/20/22 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> they use ms political ponds, treated them like chattel and a cruel, premeditated political stunt. amy: the white house has denounced florida governor ron desantis and texas governor greg abbott for busing and flying asylum seekers to liberal areas