i. thought. i was going to. catalonia is hosting rallies both for and against independence from spain ahead of sunday's historic referendum. tech giants take center stage in the scandal on alleged russian meddling in u.s. elections as google joins facebook on twitter in declaring it were testifying to congress. and it's been exactly two years since russia launched its first airstrikes in then

we're talking syria we look at what's changed in the time. you're watching r.t. international coming to you live from moscow i'm kate thank you for joining us. responding region of catalonia is on the verge of what could prove to be an historic decision with its independence referendum shadowed for sunday tensions are mounting between madrid and barcelona with both sides trading accusations of extremism. if there is disturbance it would. clearly be on the side of those who are a book agent a good friend are. adopting nazi like by you know pointing out people who. are against that. referendum it didn't matter if the government over

a haunted house crossed the ferry dangerous for blowing he has decided to resurrect the best stuff right quick. boss discuss the latest developments further that's now cross live to our medina question about who's in maslova or however didn't we what's the mood now on the streets with the referendum not so very far away. well as you can see right behind my back of the mood on the streets is to protest and this is the exactly what we've been seeing in the past couple of days people taking very their views to the streets and this is the protest against the referendum now this saturday as the a last stand the crucial day before the referendum on the end dependence of cattle on it kicks off and as i said we've seen a lot of movement in the streets and across the region now this morning spanish civil guard raided the center of communications center cannot use up information to

switch off applications that could be used to count the vote on sunday but he's also cordoned the building off now we've seen a lot of police presence at the pretty says tried and in different places around the city especially on a major squares and barcelona and also a round screws that will be used at polling stations now we do know that spanish authorities have already shut down thirteen hundred schools in the region and that's almost half of the schools catalonia has now we've seen especially on friday people citizens of barcelona gathering neighborhood watches too and they refused to leave the building of the schools and they just swapping each other just to prevent the security services from shutting them down now the local police have warned that of the acts of a suit to leave the sides by six. o'clock sunday morning however they were

instructed not to implement force and this is very important how the catalan regional police respond to this water is regarded as the key to the success or failure of the planned vote now the president of the catalan national assembly says that he is ransey to a look for a new state in the area of the future referendum. or no we have said to the spanish government that it's still not too late to send a message expressing the will to find a new scenario for the referendum or for joyce government does that it will be the first to welcome it to say let's talk anyone postponing it over first vote. meanwhile this saturday we've seen a lot of protests especially those protesting against the referendum now we've seen people taking in flags of spain they're shouting slogans they're clapping basically they're doing exactly what they're doing right behind my back and we managed to

speak to some of those here in the streets of barcelona. president of spain has been sleeping for the past five years and during that time the government in catalonia has been preparing and fighting for independence and now the president has to act quickly and he's running around trying to solve this somehow. with the cold war here franco to decode they were they bought it but he's not democracy told me. what to vote on how to vote it. and i think that vote is just kind of democratic but it felt to me if you take it to the extreme it can be on our case. and on friday there was a massive rally on plus a spaniel which is also at the heart of barcelona now we've seen thousands of people gathering there in support of the referendum mostly we've seen young people bringing in facts of council lani and so as you can see as the date of referendum

droste and we're at the split within the council on societies getting more and more avid and with people from the old strata of society taking their views to the streets who was thank you thank you. thank was. i. those are things we did a question of in barcelona thank you very much indeed. while the spanish government says the referendum is intended to break the country many spaniards are also against the idea of cuts a leadin independence. i . know people have voted in a mock referendum in the spanish capital the question on the ballot paper was do

you want catalonia to remain part of spain hundreds of people against scotland independence took part there's a division in spanish society grows the country is european partners not rushing to offer help. for the next even when i mean if. there is a problem. it's a. little bit much this is. the only one that is. going to get over. you should call the either free or not to take side for their report a referendum and they do pay their share note but doesn't say that those measures taken but. the government of madrid are not acceptable imagine if they were bruised and. over it is really a question of done the same things that will be every day nationalist gown that will come out but if you lose your squad the measures everything you know we cover side there's no i would like to the european union we did three or more push to do

what you preach your neighbor share negotiate your mission was we're hearing their law and order in the region is maintained by the council on regional police force known as the mostest escort that are this replace the spanish local police almost ten years ago and is controlled by the casablanca government and the afghan forces have been tasked with preventing sunday's referendum from taking place however fears are being expressed in madrid that offices might not comply the spanish government has deployed national military forces the civil guard to the region to in children vote does not go ahead well six thousand civil gods have been stationed at ports in the region arriving on cruise ships childhood by the spanish interior ministry they'll stay in barcelona until october. was asserted well earlier this saturday morning a convoy of police vans left the port area heading into the city meanwhile the spokesperson for catalonia as police force says that while orders will be followed it doesn't necessarily mean anything will be prevented in the bottom of the trust

of the plug on the main rules of police just to guarantee the internal security of our society in this respect the police do not support those either for or against the referendum or rather the catalans we have no choice but to abate the decisions of the court and prosecutor's office when it's about control over crowds and public order we have to see what happens in each individual case if we can't prevent something it doesn't mean we don't follow orders but the most probably we can't do anything about it. now google says it will cooperate with us also it is our alleged russian meddling in the twenty sixteen presidential election it's the latest tech giant after facebook and twitter to make headlines in the saga to pin down outside interference well earlier twitter published a report on an alleged russian activities on its platform it says it's banned over

two hundred suspicious accounts despite failing to link them directly to russia it also took a swipe at r.t. by revealing confidential information regarding how much this channel spends on twitter advertising. well and u.s. claims against russia range from using social media platforms to meddling in the u.s. election turn disrupting the national football league but former u.s. congressman and presidential candidate ron paul is skeptical about these assertions but i think it's a witch hunt i think that they don't care about what hillary was doing and they want to their very biased against that from him pain so far they haven't showed me an ad that was a that was a pro trump ad that was paid for by the russian government most of the time you could look at some of this stuff that's going around and i think it's all coming from sore losers i thought it would be better with more outlets and the internet to counteract some of this but it looks like sometimes this backfires and they

actually end up using the internet to try to stir up more trouble frankly i don't have the sensation that boy this is a big deal you know if we don't find out and find out exactly what russians did to our elections you know the end of the world is coming i think that's a bit of fear mongering i can understand everything that is being a used and going on i just see what's happening in this post-election period as a result of a bunch of sore losers that were shocked that they didn't win the election and now they're out there to sort of go after a witch hunt but i think that the responsibility for us ought to be is what has our government done has our government been involved after they're in power and unfortunately we're involved too much around the world. meanwhile the mainstream media are also not letting up in their allegations against mosco m.s.n. b c host rachel maddow has accused russia of meddling just about everywhere from

europe to the middle east r.t. some iraq on takes a closer look at the claims i have reason to believe that russia does not watch this t.v. show so here's an experiment let's create a fake secessionist movement in the united states on the theory that russia will support secession of anyone in the west for any reason just because they had literally love for the west to break apart lately it seems that rachel maddow covers russia more than any other topic for the past few months she's managed to connect almost every news event to russia she starts with fires at ukrainian ammunition depots but also conveniently fails to mention that such fires have happened multiple times two thousand and four in two thousand five and two thousand and six but facts don't matter when her sole agenda is to blame russia now we might not be here to prove her wrong but we can however note that her reports are filled with in accuracies we saw that this week in iraq where russia was one of the only nations on earth that supported the northern iraq referendum in which the kurds

noted this week that they should break off northern iraq from the rest of iraq and become their own independent nation now that's completely false the russian foreign ministry said in a statement that moscow supports unity sovereignty and territorial integrity but it doesn't stop there even somehow manages to drag catalonia into this there's also going to be another independence referendum this weekend in spain where the capital on the region is voting on whether or not they'd like to break off and form an independent state apart from spain turns out russia is supporting that one too as she says russia supports the catalan independence referendum but contrary to what maddow says russia views the issue as spain's domestic affairs a position which spain's ambassador to russia believes to be perfect and accusations of course don't even and there russia for years in this country has actively promoted the secession of texas rachel. those sentiments were quite similar to the rest of western media and one of the only pieces of evidence cited is that the group's means contained grammatical errors but that's not the only time

russia was under rachel maddow spotlight she's been accusing trump of colluding with russia since the election you're not having a terrible terrible dream also you're not dead and you haven't gone to hell this is your life now this is our election now this is us this is our country we know of the russian attack on our election russian efforts to try to elect donald trump president it did not seem to be a super labor intensive process it was like an industrial process but you do need people to do the work and they're apparently still working now this summer it's still against us even though rachel maddow is enjoying these record high ratings it seems as if political discourse has been reduced to celebrity gossip which is quite unfortunate that there is no longer some sort of boundary between news and entertainment. but you seven summits in the italian city of turin parents received a less than warm welcome the hundreds of angry protesters surrounded the venue.

clashes broke out between police and demonstrators voicing fury at the policies of the three seven economies several arrests have been cool to night and while ministers discussed aspects of a full industrial revolution protest on the streets of children of showed no signs of calming down. russia's anti terror campaign in syria is two years old today and the up. break which i can look changed.

thank you to the game this is how it works now the economy is built around corporations corporations run washington washington media the media over voters elected to businessman to run this country business equals power you must it's not business as usual it's business like it's never been done before . what politicians do sometimes. they put themselves on the line they get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. for something i want to. let you go right to the press this is what. three of the people. interested

always in the water. they said. welcome back french president emmanuel mccall has been hit by a fresh wave of criticism after cutting taxes for the wealthy he has responded by saying his latest tax reform is aimed at encouraging investments and promoting talent in the country however many people in paris don't agree warning the new leader is already becoming a president for the rich that the reform will only worsen inequality in france. as well how do you know when you know just rich but you won't feel feet waves. fast cars and resources a definitely signs that eve more than

a pretty penny to spend right. well not so much in france where the twenty's the rich and famous no longer eligible for tax and that's causing quite a stir if you think this is. i think this is unfair but justice no longer exists in france there isn't a justice system anymore this is the hunger for power of a prince who wants to rule our country how he wants some government is only for the rich and. care about the poor we don't have a middle class there are only poor people who work for the rich yes i am outraged and we the young people should protest against this much switching how france taxes wealth his government claims that it wants to you have the extremely wealthy including tens of thousands of millionaires who fled the country because of the country's old tax system and even though only

a tiny fraction of french people pay the old tax money going to own m.p.'s admit they going to face a hard time explaining bass. how could i explain this to six year olds who are in an old apartment that they will be taxed more than young traders driving a ferrari so cool that the taxes raised under the old system account sold out by the money that rolls lost by people trying to avoid it but many people particularly pension is say they'll be hard to hit under the new system and they do you realize they claim that much of course government is only for the rich and the super rich. see paris. well mccall's economic reforms have spelled protests across france demonstrations have seen retired workers on the streets angry with taxes on pensions and meanwhile student protests. and to use spot purchase with police a french left wing party member told us that if nothing changes they mccall's

policy his popularity will sink further. attracting a rich people to invest in france is always a similar government but. forgot that france is one of the. best country for already the best country for. foreign investment for was elected we with them i guess you could us presented by many medias like a new president they would change things and it was a lie because what is proposing is this. same politics. only been for beneficiary for the rich are seeing the impact will be that less and less people. believe that mr michael. popularity will go down. syrian militants have suffered the most serious losses in the last few months according to the russian defense ministry over two thousand islamic state and al qaeda extremists were killed in just eleven days the ministry added russian airstrikes

also injured almost three thousand militants as well as sixteen i saw a field commanders among those killed four hundred citizens from former soviet states and join the terrorist ranks. today marks two years since russia launched its air campaign against terrorists in syria the decision was followed by a diplomatic dispute with washington but the campaign has also seen significant and rapid victories on the ground. please. well this map shows how much territory eisel has lost in syria since the air

campaign began most of the terror group strongholds have fallen to president assad's all me according to the russian defense ministry eighty seven percent of syria is now free of islamic state altie correspondents have been covering the russian campaign from the beginning. this is the air base in love from which russian jets launching their sorties against islam mix the targets here in syria. there it's. time the planets are ready to go it's a moment's notice. it's

quite incredible to be standing hay in the pulse of the dead that decade since fifty of palmetto that the people around the world would be reduced to dust in this amphitheater laid down by the romans almost two thousand years ago that isis staged one of its secrets massacres the russian military considers it the crowd. the jewel of the operation here in syria. one comes to the government's side of aleppo the sees what you see on your way here we're just a few hundred meters away from the front line. we're

in the eye. and the rebels are pushing into aleppo again. the rescue is now digging through the rubble looking for the body of a thirteen year old go. and. if. it. were it's a syrian still reposition overlooking the industrial quarter of that is sort of the battle is said to be theists isis fired back as we filmed shells speak on fooling

around. we ran but the syrian batteries kept firing. life even did as ordered is still far from normal but at least they will be starving to death and the more. right. i'll be back with the headlines at the top of the hour but i want to use in the mean time. there are some nazis in the f.t. it's not the mass of the h.t.

voters but you know that saying that our culture of atonement. oh remembrance of nuns nazi crimes is wrong that's too much it's the attitude of some people in the if deep which by the way is no in the process of tearing itself apart.

nor make this manufacture consent to public wealth. when the ruling classes protect themselves. with the crime. certainly the one person. doing or middle of the room sick. is really. lexington in the central east of the united states it is within this city with a population of three hundred thousand that the university of kentucky can be found . it is barely nine in the morning david and brandon two first few students are in the middle of a video game. jewel as a warm up before the first match of the season for their universities american

football team the wildcats are going to drink a beer before you can start the race so you're waiting to hear. cheers and a lot of. these students have found themselves a great way of supporting their team since breakfast isn't. a large supply of strawberry banana flavored vodka david and brandon down four shots in less than two minutes on empty stomachs. is good. for the students university sport events are a great chance to get away from the pressure of their studies but also a particularly good opportunity to party and drink. on the. ground isn't twenty one years old yet the legal age for drinking alcohol in the usa . but on campus circumventing the law has become a national sport. on the way to the stadium they get to the ski again.

competition has started. in the streets of lexington the behavior of these young men doesn't seem to shock anyone you go there. these students even walk along with a bottle of vodka and there had however as is the case on many other american campuses alcohol is legal here the cops don't care that is that there was a default down for you to hammer though like a resident as long as you can spare the gold rush or somebody on university match days anything goes for almost anything. just outside the stadium the traditional parade has started. led by kerry their leader the charity does galvanize the crowd. came a triumphant caray.