thousands of people in barcelona rally against the spanish government over attempts to quash sunday's independence referendum for catalonia. exclusive video from syria's darrow's or our correspondent takes you to the heart of the decisive battle for the country's future amid claims that some forces are exploiting the games. president emanuel mccrone proposes new tax breaks for france's wealthy leading to protests and paris. hilton brought here to riot police to talk to them. like she abused right she discriminated left britain

bunch of them for a day these are the things that. an english football fans get a warm welcome in march for the u.s. afaik champions league despite the british media sphere mongering head of the fixtures. it's just turned six pm here in moscow i'm jacqueline guga thank you for joining me and the whole team here at r.t. h.q. . we start in catalonia where thousands of students are rallying in support of the region's independence referendum scheduled for this sunday luis castro has been following the mass protest in barcelona. mostly it was a clue from this section of the universities and schools here in qatar lumia who told the students to come out on the streets and you can see that coming. in the.

yeah so this is been going on the whole day. guys guys ago couple here anybody speaks english right so so what do you think what do you want to tell the people that is watching right now about what is about to happen on sunday here in this pain in catalonia and there's there there are pair of oh yeah you got no you know that people that you think that don't have a i'm seeing ass he feeds killing them across and we want to board we want to block out her heart i want to bring. as you can here this is the situation right now that this is happening all and the majority of barcelona today the same people there's a lot of students protesting what is being going on but let's hear what they all been saying doing today and the people that is actually supporting this referendum . every day i see move people who are ready for action and i don't see anything i see people worrying about whether the votes will happen or not what will happen but

i haven't met anyone who would say they're going to stay at home because they're scared to go outside i see now how the movement has been evolving for the last four years right here i've never seen anything like this before we know that hispanics please come. here. to cite the. feel relieved. within. three feet maybe you're. here. feel like. you're right. but as you can see a lot of people are wondering what is actually going to happen on sunday regarding the actual election the result of the election was the recent polls here in spain and in general are showing so far the forty one percent are supporting the process of independence of catalonia in forty. nine are against but these are old post of

the moment they don't know a senate seat was about to happen sunday regardless of whether there's going to be any actual election on sunday because as we have been telling everybody doing today the police has been going into this since the bulls and they being confiscating some of the material that is supposed to be used for these somebody so far we could also show you a little bit sooner we actions that we had hoped she had on the streets of boston lona where we found the interest in people that are actually thinking a little bit different give us an overview to people you will see for yourself eventually you see you know you give up believe you've got the feeling to rebuild your case you see the whole time the piece by going to you will see and to start thinking that somebody this economy not you know will get the feel of you know your stuff in the field it's been on the wall to do something i'm actually like

a little shook up with this you know the there's a lot of activity there's a lot of protests there's a lot of people calling for democracy and for this bunny schoolman to live than express that voice on sunday in the referendum called for the first of all over in response to the upcoming referendum spanish authorities are stepping up measures to prevent the vote taking place fourteen regional officials have already been arrested and ten million ballot papers seen the official campaign web site has also been blocked with an increased police presence in the region madrid is also planning to take over polling stations in catalonia. the region's minister for foreign affairs has called on europe to intervene in the situation he says that by trying to block the vote madrid is violating democratic pence per and principles of the e.u. the call echoes the callon president's earlier statement accusing the european commission of turning its back on his region's right to vote. i was going to i think you will have earned the right to be heard this is something that has not

happened up to now this is something the european commission has been deaf to they will not be able to continue ignoring this issue while callum's voiced their anger at madrid journalists have been trying to pin down the e.u. to get its views on a media briefing this week r.t. spoke to one of the reporters who was there now all you have a double stand out in a freedom of expression whilst found that four thousand. in other strand out for. you condemn it when they shut down cambodia daily but you stay silent when a member state starts playing with freedom of expression. private websites if they start arresting jewelries how can you say this is a constitutional that we don't have anything to say i mean this is freedom of expression anything else that we're going to help you with today. it's an internal constitutional problem according to the e.u. and the house to be sold into frame or called internal orders or legal order of

spain. the problem is that this is true until until when certain issues arise like this in the last few days the issue of freedom of expression which is not only an internal constitution not an issue of spain it's clearly in your p.o.v. why do you which is if you want. constitutional order what all the spanish call situation or that it's with the official referendum page now banned online by spanish authorities where he works founder julian assange has responded by posting up a mirror of the website on twitter which now shows a polling station being taken over by the government we discussed the issue with european parliament member diane james. this is a serious issue in terms of freedom of speech for a european union member state and comments such as likening the situation to that

that has occurred in communist countries korea north korea and china i think the analogy and the similarity is there the european union believes in or claims to believe in freedom of expression and free to preach and yet here we have a member state doing the absolute opposite but the spanish government is resorting to this sort of threatening tone in terms of reprisals now if spain is allowed to get away with this that will form a precedent for other countries and it will form the the means if you like in the future for other national governments to ban referenda which are deemed to be unsuitable or make the european union uncomfortable. syria's ambassador to the u.n. has accused the u.s. of trying to take credit for the operation to retake the city of bears or from eisel. the u.s. coalition and rebel militias they support hold to their operation in iraq which was

a stronghold of eisel and threw their forces behind trying to push the syrian army out of dairies or as if the americans were competing with the syrian government over control of derrius or instead of fighting are you still in iraq or. the remaining terrorists and there is or are now surrounded by both the syrian army and us back to kurdish forces our correspondent is in the city. this siege may have been lifted but it's not over yet isis holdouts in parts of that as sort of not for long. day and night battles rage around the city that jihad ists are throwing everything they have into the fight. every day there is combat they'll use heavy weapons from range although trying to infiltrate in the middle of the night they attack with suicide vests and car bombs the battle goes on every day but the tables have turned it is isis now

that is surrounded and slowly being squeezed out. we're it's a syrian artillery position overlooking the industrial city the industrial corridor of their resort for supporting troops that are staging the offensive down there an offensive that began earlier this morning with a barrel of airstrikes but the battle is said to be fierce with isis giving no quarter from here syrian spotters watch for isis fighters from above this is why height is so important in war better advantage and better. and this range you can't really miss a lot with hillary. he gets a verified and confirmed in real time it was at this exact spot as nest that

a russian lieutenant general advised syrian offices fifteen minutes before his death he was killed several days ago by an isis shell just a few hundred meters from here. isis fired back as we filmed shells began falling all around. we ran but the syrian batteries kept firing. the city of durham will be liberated in a week at the most and will free some of the suburbs to. the cost will undoubtedly be high it's a challenging battleground from dense urban areas to lush river banks and even trenches. the euphrates is both a blessing and because isis still uses the waterways to move men. and

even launch surprise attacks. this bunker is manned during the night. right because the tower across the river belongs to i saw for three years captain the bream squad has bled and died in the trenches along the euphrates sacrificed not enough to break the law stalemate but now everything changed now that we've gone i guess do you see from there is order syria. after three years of terrorist siege many people indoors or are in desperate need of medical help this is the only functional hospital in the city and as you can see it's riddled with bullet holes and trouble for now it has just seven doctors a shortage of medical supplies and is overwhelmed with patients home and is one of the patients there he was wounded in terror shelling as with his and his father was killed in the same attack. the russian military has released new video of its anti

terror air raids in syria is it live province it says throughout the week all air strikes were for focused on the terrace hardware and meeting places they also foiled the terrorist plans and neighboring home a province where all this or a fighters were apparently planning other attacks. in france protests have taken place in the capital against president emanuel macross decision to slash spending and keep public sectors and cut taxes for the wealthy after unveiling his first annual budget mccrone has been dubbed by some the hero of the rich our correspondent charlotte dubin ski reports. thousands of pensioners in paris of rallied to the cools from a number of unions for a national day of action against the cuts that are being imposed in not new budget the first budget by a manual month corns government no social security in particular is going to be slashed in the budget ploys point five billion euros removed from the budget

a many pensioners say the unhappy about what they see is being a budget is for the rich when some pensioners in phones are having to live on as little as six hundred euros per month and many pension is i've been speaking to this process say they're having to live hand to mouth and mouth every moment. mr might draw is making separately seek up the road she bangs. that's not interesting for me and for the majority of the forty in front of the crown is defending the reach of his actions prove that he was supposed to tax us on the poorest in favor of the rich. people on a personal level i don't know how to live and how to eat eat usually such a class has children who are left ill provided for that's the whole trouble is that sentiment of this being a budget for the rich has been echoed by some of the papers in france today saying

that this is one the only benefits the rich must close government to said that they feel that this is a budget that will benefit all let's take a listen to what mr president emmanuel mckown has to say himself. a budget can only go hand in hand with strong political leadership led by a common finance minister and strong parliamentary supervision at the european level only the eurozone with a strong an international currency can offer europe the framework of an economic world power mr marquand talking about his why drinking ideas for the europe of the feature coleman are you as a minister called. finance a budget for those but many of the pension is his say they want him to focus not on this idea of an opponent only a superstate but actually only the issues hey in france and to help these people who've contributed to the social security budget for decades opposed decades who need help the most. russia's foreign ministry says america's latest demands and

russian media go against free speech all the details on that after the short break . here's what people have been saying about rejected and that it was actually just the law in austin that was the only show i go out of my way to find you know what

it is that really packs a punch oh yeah it is the john oliver of r t america is doing the same we are apparently better than blue the things that i see people you've never heard of love for jack to the next president of the world bank so take. me seriously send us an e-mail. welcome back to the program russian media is being targeted in what moscow sees as more anti russia hysteria russia's foreign ministry says recent demands were being . made by washington r.t. and sputnik to register as foreign agents contradict the principle of free speech let's cross wired now to medina coachella for the details. what do you know what exactly did the foreign ministry spokesperson have to say on the subject. russia's foreign ministry spokeswoman marie as the heart of

a has reacted to intensified criticism coming from the u.s. towards russian media working on its territory in particular. now she mentioned some recent incident saying clipping the u.s. department of justice demand to register artie's american america as a foreign agent now she said that the u.s. is using the policy of double standards in this case and that these sorts of demands go against the principles of freedom of speech and expression. of the demands towards r.t.m. sputnik contradict america's principles of freedom of speech this has serious legal implications when the law is turned into an instrument to story a t.v. company then every step against russian media will have the same answer from us and washington should understand to whom that answer will be direct. she also said though often being blamed being an instrument in russia is alleged to meddling in

the u.s. election so no real evidence been so far forward to back those claims and indeed earlier the u.s. senate has issued where report where it blamed for interfering in the u.s. election by releasing reporting now that if information on one of the u.s. presidential candidates hillary clinton now has often been discussed in detail differ in the u.s. senate hearings. she said today propaganda call them whatever are to the problem going to or the russian propaganda on steroids or a can of the russian government i don't know whether average citizens find it were persuasive but. i'm afraid. that here your public diplomacy. russia eats lunch. and the criticism over the channels toward painting at the moment it seems that even the law is being used as

an instrument in this hysteria. question of our reporting live from moscow thank you very much. back on line and back in the grasp of u.s. media russian trolls have been accused of infiltrating facebook to chaos and america for more on these latest claims we're joined by caleb mock been in new york . kaleb what are these latest reports claiming. well some stories never die and viewers will recall that supposed army of russian trolls that were supporting donald trump during the election well according to c.n.n. they're back. that was bought by this russian troll farm on facebook was a black lives matter ad that was hard headed specifically to the cities of baltimore and ferguson missouri and this is based on my conversation my source and

is that the goal here was really about creating chaos. so according to anonymous sources c.n.n. says that there were specific ads related to the black lives matter issue that were targeted at ferguson missouri and at baltimore and that this army alleged army of russian trolls that it was it was supposedly both for black lives matter and against black lives matter at the same time now furthermore they're alleging that russia created a facebook group of united muslims of america supposedly just stirring the pot and we've got u.s. senators now claiming that russia is to blame for supposedly fueling the n.f.l. controversy take a listen. the russians and the troll forums the internet for weeks tried to raise the noise level of america and make a big issue seem like an even bigger issue is they're trying to push the

abusiveness in this country. now according to facebook what they're calling quote suspected russian trolls bought one hundred thousand dollars of ads during the twenty sixteen presidential election now is one hundred thousand dollars all it costs to influence u.s. elections that's a question that viewers should really ask themselves now twitter will be briefing the intelligence panel and privately briefing them and providing them with information next month the intelligence committee of the u.s. senate will be hearing from tech companies so it's a story we'll be following we'll be listening to claims that are made what's what set in testimony we'll keep you up to date on these events. artist kayla mop and wife from new york thank you for the update. football fans are getting a taste of what's in store at the two thousand and eighteen world cup british fans

have been in the russian capital for the u.a.e. f.a. champions league this week both liverpool and manchester united supporters were given a warm welcome as their teams played at spartak and c.s.k. moscow's brand new stadiums you see a lot of the new deal about the fonz being very aggressive but when you actually call me see this if it's all the way or. there's no fair fight to the boys it's got of. moscow's big places you know church goes you go slow . you are very very it's very early on the streets very very shaky won't sound very good. remind you the most. lovely to think about and he put it to. the soon to be amazing icon tell you how lovely and specially to. former england international footballer stan collymore told us the fear

mongering in some british media ahead of the fixtures has been proven completely unfounded. fast forward to the last couple of days the british press of my really big deal. when you get off the plane if you're black if you write a few english you're going to be attacked and you just heard there from liverpool fans a bit of line here from a journalist that you just dropped on to it's a kid. with noir racially abused rightfully discriminated left britain busted him for dead these are the things that did not happen survey in moscow this week that was replicated right the way throughout the city the reason why this last couple of days has been very important is that it's two of england's biggest clubs the poll of manchester united a huge supporter base traveling to moscow with moscow two of moscow's biggest clubs so we wanted to see in film around security the police in the experience that and

as we see the experience that little poll finds out in particular it was fun stuff off to all this game and that's been going on in social media by people it's an it's a be able to shine from them i think it's been absolutely fine experienced to the stadium experience in moscow and it's been absolutely brilliant. what we've heard that some people really were wary of coming to russia but you didn't get that impression from any of the family the problem means is when you set a narrative two or three days ago and some of the newspaper headlines of russian mobs whiten for english just inflames the situation the vast majority of russian football fans want to go and watch their team play is there a small minority that cause trouble yes but coming from a country that i do read england we've had problems with hooliganism for thirty forty fifty years in some cases and it's taken a quite a long time to deal with it so the two lot of english football fans were. there was something called gentle fans which were funds of both moscow and sports

at moscow and initiative by both sets of fans given a blanket. giving a spanking a warm welcome that's not going to be on the front page of tabloids tomorrow what they're looking for is rice isn't what they're looking for trouble they didn't find any so today always on social media often a look at a quite incredible how quiet it's been on social media from some of the journalists that two or three days what. didn't happen people just had a really good time at the football predicted as expected. don't forget you can find us on all of your favorite social networks twitter facebook and you tube and of course you can always head to our website our team dot com to find all of today's top stories and more i'll be back at the top of the hour so do stay with us. on.

the modern international border centers on two basic principles the sanctity of sovereign borders and self-determination and disregard the kurdish question is particularly vexing and even dangerous will some thirty million kurds ever. the kurdish language as many proverbs one of them as being cited frequently better accounts of one's own then jointly own come. closer the iraqi kurds to being their own shepherd.

what politicians do so. they put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected . so when you want to be president and she. wanted. to go on to the press this is what before three in the morning can't be good. i'm interested always in the was the. first sip. at that you're so. in passing i've only just learnt you worry yourself and taken your last wrong turn. you're out caught up to us we all knew it would i tell you i'm sorry but only i could so i write these last words in hopes to put to rest these things that i never got off my chest. i remember when we first met my life

turned on each breath. but then my feelings started to change you talked about war like it was again still some are fond of you those that didn't like to question our ark and i secretly promised to never be like it said one does not leave a funeral the same as one enters the mind it's consumed with death this one quite different i speak to you now because there were no other takers. to claim that mainstream media has met its maker. as there was a look for a moment ago we can all get a little bit of the arm plus i'm a lawyer but are you a little lobotomy was a bit of that i guess sort of kind of a little place i understand for the overseer dump a lot and there's no fear because of illness.