michael giant monsanto is banned from the european parliament after refusing to attend a hearing questioning studies about its products. to international live from moscow studio with me welcome to the program the spanish region. is on the verge of what could prove to be a historic decision with its independence referendum struggle to sunday tensions are mounting in the region with extra police deployed on the streets on raids to prevent the counting of electronic votes in barcelona crowds gathered to protest against the upcoming vote throughout saturday and didn't dread spanish unionists staged a rally in front of the city the activists were seen singing the anthem of the fascists prompted a number of protesters also gave nazi salutes and as tensions mount between matured

and powerful man officials from both sides trading accusations of experience and. if there is disturbance it will. clearly be on the starboard those who are advocating the referendum are. adopting. by the. people who. are against the referendum the enemy of the government has crossed a very dangerous red line he has decided to resurrect the bust of franco as i'm hearing long demonstration amount of time to time down a pro independence bana from basilan this time home but after trying for over a minute is down a sign which read more democracy the protest eventually gave up to that question of a report from the council on. this saturday as that last the crucial day before the referendum on the end dependence of council on a cat stock analyst. in

a lot of movement and the streets of barcelona and across the region now this morning spanish civil guard has weighed at the center of telecommunications and technologist information to switch off applications that will be used to count the votes and we do know that the spanish police cordoned off the building now police presence has been tightened in different areas of the city especially on all the major squares and around school buildings that will be used as polling stations on sunday spanish authorities say that they have already shut down thirteen hundred schools across the region and this is really the half of old schools that catalonia has catalan officials say that they are ready to find a compromise for you know we have said to the spanish government that it's still not too late to send a message expressing that it will go to find a new scenario for the referendum for a whole his government and we will be the first to welcome it to say let's talk and

even postpone the october first vote meanwhile this saturday we see a lot of protests here in barcelona mostly people are protesting against the referendum to take place on sunday now we managed to speak to some people and listen to what they have to say. 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 think that though they were they bought it but he's not democracy to me. what that thing is what to vote on how to vote it. and i think that votes just kind of democratic but it felt to me if you take it to the extreme it can be an arc east on friday there was some massive rally on plot this spine you know which is also located on the hard barcelona we've seen foundations of people. we're eating

a referendum mostly young people drinking facts of consul lani and also shouting slogans so as you can see as the details of the referendum drove near the splits within the confines society is getting more and more avid and with people from all stripes self society taking care of us to the streets. i think. the polling stations are defended by so-called neighborhood watch is comprised of local supporting the votes authorities have given them until six in the morning to vacate the buildings but so far they've found to stay and make show voting takes

place but sometimes both the buildings and those standing guard come under attack in one of the schools for example for people sustained injuries to the neck and chest after they were shot with a pellet gun the identity of the assailant has not yet been revealed. another polling station at a secondary school was vandalized on friday night four stations offenders were sleeping there at the time of the assault here's how one of the activists described the atop. he goes no it's what we were preparing for the votes a group of around twenty people turned up and tried to enter the polling station they still did hanging signs writing graffiti on the walls and provoking us they were hitting things destroying things shouting slogans in favor of spain in favor of spanish unity and against the. meanwhile in the spanish capital people have voted in a mock referendum question on the ballot paper was do you want catalonia to remain

part of spain hundreds of people against tends to the division in spanish society close the countries you have been partners and not rushing to offer help. but if you don't i mean there's. you know there was a little. bit of attention to. the latest issue of the caliber. you should cover either fear not to take a side for they're ready for a referendum and they'd be better sure no but as they say that those measures taken by. the government of madrid are not acceptable imagine if the president maduro venezuela has got done the same things there will be every day national scandal about resolutions could the measures everything and now we've got silence no i would like to the european to get it through their fear more exposure

to really watch evil peace. negotiation lucia. the spanish interior ministry says most of the polling stations which photo organizes and doesn't try to to host the referendum have been shut down by authorities. law and order in the region is maintained by the council on regional police force known as the most lost this replace the spanish police locally almost ten years ago and is controlled by the cats land government and the cattle 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 god to the region to ensure the vote does not go ahead six thousand civil guards have been stationed at ports in the region arriving on cruise ships chartered by the spanish interior ministry they'll stay in barcelona until october the third. on saturday morning

a convoy of police vans left the port area heading into the city meanwhile the spokes person for catalan his police force says that while orders will be followed it doesn't necessarily mean anything will be prevented. from baltimore we just pull the plug on the main rules of police just to guarantee the internal security of our society in this respect police do not support those evil feet against the referendum. catalans we have no choice but to obey the decisions of the court and prosecutor's office when it's about control over crowds and public 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. 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 including sixteen i saw field commanders were killed in just

eleven days the ministry added russian airstrikes also injured almost three thousand militants among those killed four hundred citizens from former soviet states who joined the terrorist ranks the ministry confirmed that with the help of russian airstrikes the syrian army will soon dr eisold from the eastern part of dairies or and saturday marked two years since russia launched its campaign against terrorists in syria our correspondent is reporting on the anniversary in water and air is all this is one of many locations he's been filming for us since the start of the campaign. now on the second anniversary of russia's operation i stand in dead us or a city that was besieged by isis for three years one of the most horrendous sieges in modern history its people suffered they stabbed and they died yet they now have

hope the city is slowly coming back to life but as with all things in syria it isn't that simple. isis still hold the small parts of the city and a few days ago they cut the highway linking did a sword in the middle of this vast desert to the rest of government controlled syria this morning they attacked the airport of their disorder but will force back defeated that it has been a rollercoaster defeats and victories escalations and deescalation seize fives and betrayals certainly an action packed few years. this is the ad based in the talkie oh from which russian jets launching this so

it's he's against islam mix they thought gets in syria. whether it's. in a time the pilots are ready to go it's a moment's notice. in this ad fifty at the lay down by the romans almost to. thousand years ago that isis staged one of its sickest massacres the russian military considers it the crowding 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 just a few hundred meters away from the front lines. where in the. and the rebels are pushing into aleppo again. the rescuers are now digging through the rubble looking for the body of a thirteen year old girl. and. you.

were as 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 and fooling around. we ran but the syrian batteries kept firing. life even did as order is still far from normal but at least it will be stun. him to death anymore. this is the map which shows how much territory i still has lost in syria since their campaign began most of the targeted strongholds to fall into president assad's army according to the russian defense ministry eighty seven percent of

syria is now free of islamic state. an. but the most significant came at the beginning in cannes that october twenty fifth the in the syrian government forces to that point really on the rope i feel were at the gate of damascus. russia coming in leveled the playing field and favor the day for the syrian government

you have to remember that before that point the western countries and the gulf countries had been sending we've been to the land this fourth fifth. regardless of consequences or whether that actually help i feel the west been powered through it and saudi arabia are continuing to pour in it's been through the jihadi forth through russia of intervention particularly with air strike turned the tide. the g. seven summit in the italian city of cheering has received a less than warm welcome after hundreds of angry protesters surrounded the venue. clashes broke out between police and demonstrators in theory at the policies of the

g seven economies several arrests of report. while ministers discussed prospects of a fourth industrial revolution protests on the streets of cheer and have shown no signs of calming down. could. the song of russia's recently close san francisco consulate has come to an end as the last of the facility stalls and now on their way back home. to the has the

details. of the last remaining diplomats from the now close russian consulate in san francisco have left the united states the consulate along with two trade missions one located in new york city one in washington d.c. were shut down with only two days notice by washington d.c. at the end of august and the diplomatic compounds were subsequently search by the f.b.i. a move that the russian foreign ministry has called a violation of international law now the san francisco consulate itself did contain two different buildings there was the consulate and the diplomatic residence while the consulate itself has been under u.s. control since the searches took place at the beginning of september the russian diplomats have had access to the residence under certain restrictions up to this point this diplomatic rift. it really began last year between the u.s. and russia when in december former president barack obama ordered the expulsion of thirty five russian diplomats and seized two diplomatic properties that was in

response to allegations that russia meddled in the us presidential election of course all those allegations have not been backed up with any concrete proof and russia has denied them very strongly at that time no retaliatory measures were taken by moscow but after a number of sanctions were imposed against russia by the u.s. throughout this year there was the breaking point and at that point the kremlin said they could no longer take this lying down so at that point the kremlin ordered the u.s. state department to reduce their numbers their personnel in russia by seven hundred fifty five members washington then decided to take a more tit for tat approach to the situation and what they called parity shut down the san francisco consulate and the two axes like i said in washington d.c. and new york city sergey lavrov the russian foreign minister expressed regret over the rise in tensions that he says was not started by russia and those closures really did signify an all time low in u.s.

russian relations and while tensions seem to have cooled at this point we can only wait and see if the departure of these last few diplomats will be the last word on the matter. president among the omicron has been hit by a fresh wave of criticism off to cutting taxes for the wealthy he's responded by saying his latest tax reform the same just encouraging investment and promoting talent in the country however many people in paris don't agree warning the new leaders already becoming a president for the rich and reform will only worsen inequality in france a correspondence that depends. how do you know when you not just rich but your filthy wage. your cars and race horses a definitely signs that eve more than a pretty penny to spend right. well not so much in france

where the toys of the rich and famous no longer eligible for tax and that's causing quite a stir if you think this is a poor student i think this is unfair but justice no longer exists and firms 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. government is only for the rich and he doesn't 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 not cool 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 my coins own m.p.'s admit they going to face a hard time explaining bass. how could i explain this to six year olds who own an

old apartment that they will be taxed more than young trader's driving a ferrari so cool that the taxes raised under the old system occur and 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 fear reus they claim that my calls government is only for the rich and the super rich charlotte didn't skate ot see paris. micron. i cannot make reforms have sprawled numerous protests across france demonstrations have seen retired workers on the streets angry with taxes on pensions meanwhile student protesters dup micron anti youth and spot clashes with police are front and leftwing party member told us that if nothing changes in microns policy his popularity will sink further. attracting

a rich people to invest in france is always a similar agreement but mr mccrone forgot that france is one of the. best country for already the best country for. foreign investment mr marquand was elected we with them and yet you can rest presented by him in the media is like a new president meeting would change things and it was a lie because what he's proposing is this same old politics that this is only been the first beneficiary for the rich are seeing the impact will be that less and less people believe. and that is popularity will go down. collect giant among has been kicked out of the european parliament it's lobbyists were banned after refusing to attend hearing it was about whether secret studies into the safety of monsanto products were flawed or exaggerated for commercial ends lawmakers also slammed the secrecy surrounding the studies. how can we be sure of

developed conclusions about the safety or otherwise of life a state when there is lack of transparency when it is publicly revealed by the latest us court cases that the scientific data provided by the company experts was falsified. the line to say that the m.e.p. just mentioned is used by monsanto in some of its weed killers chemists say it can cause serious eye damage and is toxic to animals and people the world health organization claims it can also cause cancer you'll get my consumers association says monsanto is happy to sweep it under the carpet if it means bigger profits. stakes for months down are extremely high they have an eight billion dollar industry that they're trying to protect in the united states there are hundreds of people who have gotten cancer from exposure to monsanto's roundup herbicide who are

currently suing the company we have a paper trail that goes back to the one nine hundred eighty s. that shows monsanto knew that round up causes cancer and they have been able to successfully suppress this evidence and it was only until two thousand and fifteen when the world health organization determined that monsanto is roundup was a probable human carcinogen they've been trying to cover their tracks and convince regulators that things should proceed business as usual in the united states and in the european union they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars euros every year to suppress the evidence that their products are dangerous and to improperly influence regulators and decision makers in parliament or in the congress if it means billions of dollars in sales to monsanto i think they probably would be better off continuing to hide the evidence even if it means being bad for lobbying. the u.s.

and russia have agreed to work together on a new project to build a space station orbit the moon the station will serve as a launch pad for the space exploration including manned missions to mars we spoke to former. new things john projects like this help nations to improve their relations. this deep space gateway is one of the key components of the new architecture that is more moon centric now and it's basically a node a very small a human tended kind of a space station that will enable us to both explore the moon and also service a departure point to go farther into the universe including possibly where hopefully one day to mars we want to go to mars in my opinion i think it makes a lot of sense to go back to the moon first because we want to make sure that everything we send into mars before we send the crew there is going to work so we want to make sure habitats work the power sources power generators the rovers spacesuits we want to train crews there the moon is only three days away so if

something goes wrong you can get your crew back pretty quickly what the d.s.t. does gives you a lot of flexibility for exploration and i would fully expect all of the partners currently working on the i s s and hopefully new ones as well when we cooperate together in a big simple program like a like a space program that trickles down into other parts of the relationship and that can only be positive. for the new think that we're all a with social media facebook twitter and of course our website that's awesome dot com i'll be back at the top of the hour with the headlines.

in case you're new to the game this is how it works in the economy is built around quite. preparation around washington the washington post media the media. voters elect. to run this country business because. it's not business as usual it's business like it's never been done before. welcome to worlds apart as the newly minted german parliament ariens gear up for

their first session analyst are arguing why their last week's vote resulted in a disappointing victory or a comfortable loss for the country sitting chancellor with the lowest share of the vote since nine hundred forty nine uggla merkel's party retains hold on the top job but it will now have to share the chambre with the parties it shares almost nothing in common the way it did the german politics just change in a major way by staying mostly the same well to discuss that i'm now joined by former editor in chief of the german newspaper desire mr zimmer it's an auditor talk to you thank you very much for your time. it's a pleasure talking to you while the newspaper where you have worked for more than half a century of the desired just published a transcript of its editorial meeting from i think it was nine hundred eighty two when the you all discuss the entry of the new party into the german parliament back then it was about the greens and the discussion was whether or not they should be considered.