values in in barcelona rally against the government over attempts to quash sunday's absolutely in independence referendum also ahead. exclusive video from syria's the terrorists were there a correspondent takes you to the heart of the decisive battle for the country's future and claims that some forces are exploiting the games. president might call proposes new tax breaks for france's well three leading to protests in paris.

from moscow to the world this is r.t. international my names you know neil welcome to the program we begin in catalonia where thousands of people the majority of them students rallied in support of the region's independence referendum scheduled for this sunday parties at louis cust through has been following the must protest for us in barcelona. it was a clue from the 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. it's not going to see how so this has been going on a whole day. guys guys i've got a couple of here anybody speaks english right so so what do you think what do you why. and to tell the people that is watching right now what is about to happen on

sunday here in a spain in catalonia and there's there there i bear no word yet knowing that people that is in that don't have they aren't being asked he feeds killing them across and we want to board we want to block her 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 there's a lot of 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 essentially 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 there are

hispanic families coming here. to cite the. kind you really. wouldn't. be ready to do there is their. feeling. 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 general are showing so far the forty one percent are supporting the process of independence of catalonia and forty nine are against but these are all polls at the moment there are no certainty or worse about to happen this sunday regardless of whether there's going to be any actual election on sunday. because as we have been

telling everybody that in today the police has been also going into this tent that paul's and they being confiscate them some of the material that is supposed to be used these sunday so far that we can also show you a little bit some of the actions that we had total pete on the streets of barcelona where we found interest in people that are actually thinking a little bit different biggest thing will be people you will see for yourself if you see you know if i believe you but they didn't really go to your face isn't the whole time he said by continuously induced by the never before you that if you're not me not you know you're the only you know yourself in the middle you're just didn't know what to do it's not something i'm actually not really sure. it. is a lot of activity there's a lot of protests there's a lot of people calling for democracy and for this by the schoolman to lead and suppress their voice on sunday in the referendum the first of all over. motions are

running high on the midst of it all police have been instructed to take over public buildings right across cost money which could be used as polling stations but in a show of defiance independence supporters in barcelona gul there are first and took matters into their own hands as they continue to back the vote when it all comes a spanish authorities continue to staff all measures to prevent the referendum from taking place fourteen regional officials have already been arrested ten million paper seized on the official campaign website along. heard there a moment ago has also increased its police presence. in the capital on the minister for foreign affairs has called on europe to intervene in the situation he say's not by trying to block the vote madrid is violating the democratic principles of the e.u. the call echoes the council on presidents or earlier statements accusing the european commission of turning its back on the region. i was going to i think we 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 catalans voiced their anger at madrid journalists have been trying to pin down the e.u. to get its view on the media briefing this week r.t. spoke to one of the reporters who was there. now when you have a double standard in freedom of expression whilst found that four thousand gaddy and in others three and four got thrown at you condemn it when they shut down cambodia daily but you stay silent when a member states starts playing with freedom of expression stay shut 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. 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 of ancient spain it's clearly in your view which is that if you want to. do tional or not only spanish constitution or it with the official referendum pages online by spanish authorities the wiki leaks founder julian assange has responded by posting up a mirror of the website on twitter which now shows information regarding polling

station little earlier i spoke to a spanish history professor about the implications of the government crackdown. do you think that madrid has gone too far in their crack died perhaps turning the tide against themselves even further in the region by doing such actions probably was not. the wisest of the moves on the other hand i think the spanish government felt that they had to do something and they had been so adamant that they will not allow the referendum and probably will it will call backlash and more people would be willing to support the independence of catalonia most of the population in the field both catherine and spanish but if you look at the polls and the surveys the younger generation is much more sort of catalan only in terms of pay down through so yes this is the time bomb and this is what will

reemerge even if a solution is found. ok moving on syria's ambassador to the united nations has accused the u.s. of trying to take credit for the operation to retake the city of duress or from myself. the u.s. coalition and rebel militias they support hold to their operation in iraq which was a stronghold of eisel and through 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 i saw in iraq. remaining terrorists in duras or another surrounded by both the syrian army and us by 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 the jihad ists are throwing everything they have into the fight. every day there is combat heavy weapons from range although trying to infiltrate in the middle of the night for your tank 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 whereas a syrian artillery position overlooking the industrial city the industrial korda of there is order 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 fight is from above

this is why height is so important in war better advantage and better aim 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 his nest that a russian lieutenant general advised syrian offices fifteen minutes before his death he was killed to 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 there is or 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 battle ground from dense urban areas to lush river banks and even trenches. the euphrates is both a blessing and the curse isis still uses the waterways to move men and the arms and even launch surprise attacks. this bunker is manned during the nights because the tower across the river belongs to eisele for three long years kept the need for him squad has bled and died in the trenches along the euphrates the sacrifice not enough to break the long stalemate but now everything changed now we need more guys do you see from the resort of syria. of

course after three years of terrorist domination and many people interest or are in desperate need of medical help this is the only functional hospital in the city as you can see it's riddled with bullet holes on shrapnel for now it has just seven doctors a shortage of medical supplies and these are overwhelmed with patients and this is muhammad he's one of the patients there and was wounded in terrorist shelling his father was killed in the same. with a russian military has released new video of its terror raids in syria's province it says that throughout the week all strikes were focused on the terrorist hardware meeting places they also for oil the terrorist plans in neighboring come province where all news were fighters where a party plotting other attacks. will be one of the major talking points for russian president vladimir putin his turkish

counterpart. meeting. we believe it is wrapping up shortly we will bring you the media conference from the russian president her words as soon as we can but for the moment here's. what the latest. definitely. tory but certainly significant talks today here and first of all syria is. expected to be on the agenda between at the disk discussion between putin and if. you remember russia iran and turkey. all across the area where any military activity including military advocation would be viewed by many as a chance to and years long violence in syria and to bring long awaited peace to the country less than two weeks ago russia and iran have agreed on a full. in. bold to return.

to the control of and to government forces that turkey since the beginning has been to have a particular influence all while russia and iran are backing the forces from the other side so we it is it looks really realistic rather realistic that we could see in the near future the fires in the area and as many say this would be a historic moment because we're going to see russian turkish and syrian sides the countries that are backing war reinforces working together. to fight between forces and also comes off to a referendum in iraq where local kurds overwhelmingly voted for independence this is another issue of concern for. her. hearing that these could inspire turkish kurds to start moving. in the same direction towards independence is well we can

expect that this issue is also going to be on the agenda at the talks. turning our attention to from swer protests have to can police in the capital against president emanuel decision to slash spending in key public sectors and cut taxes for the wealthy after unveiling his first a new will just crawl has been dubbed by some the hero of the rich or correspondent charlotte dubin ski has more. 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 pension is in front of 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 month. mr might draw is making the police seek help the rajiv bank. 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 in international currency can offer europe the framework of an economic world power mr marquand talking about his one drinking ideas for the europe of the feature coleman are using minister called. finance a budget for those with many of the pensions his say they want him to focus not on this idea of an opponent only a superstate but actually all the issues here in france and to help these people contributing to the social security project for decades upon decades who need help the most. are to ripley video agency has filmed the site of the recent u.s. airstrike in afghanistan let's take a look

a household in cobol was hit when an american missile reportedly model function a number of civilians were injured as a result here's how witnesses describe the tragic incident i was praying in my house and when i saw american helicopters i told my wife and children to save themselves after that i just heard a big sound and then my house was destroyed six people wounded including women and children my house was two kilometers away from the accident and there is no taliban or days here. many children and women were injured our house is two kilometers away from the bomb saved you can see the rocket was a sixty kilogram and they destroyed our house and killed our family members why americans are killing our women and children every day in afghanistan and then just saying sorry it was a mistake the u.s. strike was called in to suppress an earlier terrorist attack in the afghan capital

. several mortar rounds struck the ball international airport just hours after u.s. and nato chiefs arrived there the taliban claimed it was targeting the u.s. defense secretary james mattis speaking to media that day the pentagon chief blamed the taliban for putting civilian lives at risk and said that no one should question america's motives for positive change in the country. world does a criminal act by terrorists designed to go after generally innocent people to make some sort of statement and it's just a classic definition of what the taliban are up to right now it is what it is but it's also the reason why we've been together and we don't we don't question what we're doing here well i think the first key thing here is that under international law the responsibility to protect civilians from the use of us military force

belongs to the us military and the us government and no one else it's not the responsibility of the taliban to protect civilians from us use of military force it's the responsibility united states so i think a chamber full that the u.s. military is trying to deflect responsibility to some other party for the u.s. military's own actions and sadly this is a pattern for the u.s. and its allies is the same thing we're seeing with saudi arabia and yemen and saudi arabia blames everybody else for civilian casualties caused by saudi arabia. in the u.s. media spotlight rushing trolls have been accused of infiltrating facebook to sow chaos in america. and reports. well some stories never seem to die now you remember how c.n.n. was talking about a supposed army of russian trolls that were supporting or allegedly supporting

donald trump during the two thousand and sixteen presidential elections well according to a new report this troll army seems to have returned to ads that was bought by this russian troll farm on facebook was a black live matter ad that was argued specifically to the city of baltimore and ferguson missouri and it's based on my conversation my source that is that the goal here was really about creating chaos and so according to this c.n.n. report based on anonymous sources russian advertisements were purchased on facebook that were directed at baltimore and at ferguson missouri when there was racial unrest going on in those two cities now the interesting thing is that it's alleged in this report that the ads were not only supportive of black lives matter but also opposing black lives matter that that these russian trolls were taking two different positions very interesting we're hearing furthermore that there was

a facebook group created called united and muslims of america and that russian trolls were somehow using this facebook group supposedly facebook group aimed at uniting muslims in order to stir the pot and stir up controversy in the united states which is also based on anonymous sources and we're hearing some very interesting claims now apparently it's these russian trolls that are to blame for the feud between donald trump and the n.f.l. we know about the n.f.l. players that have not been standing but have been taking a knee during the national anthem and us media has been covering this nonstop i mean it's a it's a constant story being reported on on u.s. cable news but somehow we're to understand that russia is to blame for the trump n.f.l. . all controversy the russians and the truth forms the internet for weeks trying to raise the noise level of america and make a big issue seem like an even bigger issue is the trying to push do business in

this country now the number that's being floated by facebook of ads that were bought by what they're calling suspected russian trolls is over one hundred thousand dollars now they admit that's just a drop in the bucket even facebook themselves are not ready to say that they have conclusive evidence that these accounts even come from russia they're simply saying that these are suspected accounts or anonymous accounts of the united states presidential elections are rather expensive millions of dollars are spent should really ask themselves if a hundred thousand dollars is enough to influence the results of a presidential election with facebook ads and that later this month the house intelligence committee is going to hear testimony from tech companies about what they say is alleged russian meddling in the u.s. elections so we'll be staying tuned we'll be hearing whatever updates come from the testimony before the u.s. congress. bringing up

a lot of issues there that's throwing go through some of them across live tomato berga meaning he's a journalist and funder of shite u.k. you're very welcome back to the program how credible do you think that these allegations are given the u.s. media once again is not naming its sources. i think there's always a question mark there whenever you know journalists or papers use anonymous sources but when you don't have a single named source or a single solid bit of evidence. to prove wrong with this story it kind of puts it all into question also the fact that this story's been going on for forget how many mumma supposed been going on for quite some time and not a single real so concrete shred of evidence has come out it's shocking that the u.s. media been covering it for so long in such an extent but it does seem the top of the charts when it comes to hits success or just throw russia into into

a name and it seems to get the hits on any number of websites do you think that these adverts one hundred thousand dollars is supposedly spent in a six point eight billion dollar election could have turned the tide of what we saw last year in the election i mean if you did it kind of paid to read a really horrible picture about the u.s. electorate how easily they all their manipulated if that's what the media is sighing the u.s. media. i mean you know you when you go do you go look at is the campaign budget for the democrats and the republicans you know they are huge you know that's pocket change in comparison to what they spend in a couple of weeks combine you know in a t.v. ad such a small amount of money on a couple of you know facebook ads or a couple of social media websites isn't going to influence the election to any extent let alone to to an extent that they will put someone in power just your thoughts on why the kremlin trolls continue to appear despite there being no concrete evidence that the exist or are involved. for me i mean russia has

always been america's great enemy now that is the idea of the cold war and all this kind of stuff so whenever you want to put the blame on on the country i think russia's if you're from the us i think russia is a safe bet you know no one asked too many questions it's always the russians again etc why this keeps coming up your guess is as good as mine it almost seems like they want to destabilize the trump regime potentially the idea that you know someone like trump could actually have gotten elected by the american people you know with his ideas and his beliefs maybe so shocking that there's gotta be another reason people can actually believe what this man with this man's talking about what this man trying to do and it is going to be another reason this gotta be some sort of meddling involved in the election this combi the true result. the country just needs to face facts is that there is a huge amount of division and he's a man of issues and someone with those views has actually gotten into office all right the thoughts of material bergen mean a journalist and founder of shite u.k.

speaking to us from the british capital this hour thank you. thank you and that is where we leave the news for the if you want to more on that story plus a lot more during the hour go on to r.t. dot com we've got you covered there are lots more stories just waiting. it's. weird include

a. scene over game thanks to. these various fish oh please. oh he asked me to let me just moments it's almost funny yes i might. i could introduce you eat it is home to most ball full drug syndicates why you're growing marijuana tomatoes it's a. good deal of the full grown people of the market. for your money want people. to keep. a. close eye on most times the government knows what they do and they do nothing.