that's a. violent scenes iraq jury in catalonia is independence referendum with gross police sound of voters injured we hear firsthand accounts from those caught off in the on the arrest. to seeing we are also. on the he does with the crops. elsewhere this week tech giants google facebook and twitter all joined in the hunt for the elusive alleged russian election meddlers. that's the euphrates river and cross it is isis it's from there that they shelled the city. and islamic

states days in syria look numbered as they're driven out of the eastern city of debt as all across the euphrates river. thank you for watching the weekly here on r.t. international life from moscow i'm kate partridge. felonious independence referendum is underway but has been marred by scenes of violence thirty eight people have been injured in clashes with military police spanish civil guard officers have forced their way into polling stations across the region they broke down doors as activist incised trying to prevent them from entering with a number of people tried to way.

was. i. to sold it to feeding her and this is not the first people this was the earth and the taken from you by what's so disturbing from their early hours of the morning it seems to be escalating well these are what appear to be rubber bullets fired by police as they disperse a crowd of voters sound of shots can also be heard on the video well spanish police say eleven of their officers have been injured in scuffles today a spanish government official has tweeted that the police actions are professional and proportionate that some of the videos emerging white suggest otherwise well we spoke to one witness from the city of jerome in northeastern catalonia who was injured during one of the scuffles.

thank god thank you thank you thank you we sold they will be able to take us from the polling stations we never thought that they would be such a byron's from the police to keep us back to the all people he says it is simply unacceptable we were seeing again that we saying no by humans was thing we just want to ball we were seeing we also lands on the he does with the frogs it's been said about many people crying over the porch i don't know what they think it's proportion but i really no one here was for nothing i was and was thinking them and

asking for our freedom our votes and they were not making any distinction at all they were hitting every one they were not looking at and it's. this is another video of violence we've got alone you have police officers could be seeing pushing people and dragging them out of the polling station our correspondent dana question of our reports from one of the polling stations in buffalo. people who are here in barcelona never expected it such a violent approach people are in shock really we've got a lot of people here in this neighborhood very close to the polling station that is still operational you know people are still trying to vote here but we do know that it's just two blocks away there was there was another piling station on the other building of the school that was just a basically raided by police forces and police forces used force and they were violent and just as you mentioned they pushed people out now we spoke to several students who managed to ran away from that school and they're over here now they

told us that the police forces arrived and they moved real quick and they pushed people out people try to lock themselves with them to school to protect the building of the school so they broke the windows sounds of school and they got inside and they tried force really to remove people out of the school and they were removing them by their hair and they pushed an elderly woman out of a cell eight went of tense and violent real quick what's happening right now is that we are we expect police forces to iraq i pod crowds are getting bigger and bigger here by the minute we know that a lot of people came over here from the school that was just raided by police and there are a lot of students a lot of young people here there are also families with children we see a lot of calgary people and everyone we can feel fear with and the crowds and

people expect police forces to at rival but they keep telling us that they are determined to vote and they're determined to defend their democratic rights and they're determined to stay here and protect the polling station. video has also appeared online of offices confiscating ballot boxes and voting papers from a council on polling station with voters trying to stop and. was. was. and these are also pictures of police taking the ballot boxes away you can hear people in the background checking the offices the police also reportedly seized boxes and voting papers in the days leading up to the referendum. well the spanish government does have reasons to worry about losing this region catalonia compass

six percent of the country's territory but accounts for twenty percent of spain's g.d.p. the region is also responsible for more than half of all investments into startups but almost a quarter of spain's foreign tourists go to catalonia which is why madrid is so desperate to stop the referendum. no i. think i. think we members of the former government have been judged and convict. and barred from public positions. because we'll let.

that get on with. the company that you know to. give to. get us. to me to. look. at all the roots of the council on crisis go way back in spanish history. now you've surely heard about cats alone his desire to go it alone in the prosperous region in northeast spain it counts for almost a fifth of the country's economy and believes it's paying madrid way more than it

gets back catalonia is home to seven point five million people boasting its own language culture and history which is why many cats once considered themselves a separate nation. but it has been a lot of spain since the fifteenth century courtesy of king ferdinand and queen isabella for the origins of the modern says sation its movement let's fast forward to the twentieth century spain becomes a republic and catalonia gets a statute of autonomy but six years later franco comes to power and takes that away the three decades of franco's oppression and he boasted the catalans desire for independence and after his death and spain's transition to democracy catalonia got its autonomy back but not enough as many locals believe when the countries can stitch new court limits on council lands claims to nations that it started a chain reaction. with protests and symbolic referendums in

cities and towns across the region some catalans now compare madrid pressure to the decades of franco stick to the region held a non-binding independence fight back in twenty fourteen about eighty percent said yes to independence but it was declared illegal by spain. one of about the undemocratic the catalonia is pressing ahead for gardeners and seems more determined than ever to be in the sand. well as spanish society divided europe's largely refrain from taking sides saying it's an internal issue for spain however a number of e.u. observe us all monitoring today's referendum we spoke to one of the greek m.e.p. school it's not richard gere's the. question you again should. if you are right by the usual use they do this of both for spain and europe you don't know that the government go for over a mother i think good god to do all the bridges with catalonia she dares to wish

her a whore the prime minister of spain bears the deadly. blow to the unity of spain by using this the doctors and all sure thing that the european union must interfere not taking sides in the very thought of see or know in their affair and do yes or no in their virtue but do it to make the age at the start to die or go well let's get some reaction now from cause a and reach falls from the castle and solidarity for independence coalition well first of all very much can i ask you mean what do you think then to say off the civil god's actions damn in the people who are acting peacefully so what do you think is the reaction. well the reaction of the people that everybody here reads much shocked at. police reaction to the national police who acts. against the people it is not the catalan police who walk say against the people and

then we are absolutely shocked today we can see which kind of. repression of democracy has been suffered catalonia from site of a spanish. it's absolutely incredible we are absolutely shocked and we could never believe that what we are suffering for democracy it's incredible i mean you're saying then that you didn't expect much violence or any violence today i mean do you see the situation escalating. yes they could they could take a lot of. by force and turning on the schools and that england pull stations with a lot of a bio and then they don't show it. may there nor there all. they don't show may their an order of of just is they only react and the thing with bio and the taking out the. polling stations if they'd never

seen before from the times of franco that means that we are returning back about forty years ago it's absolutely shocking situation and also as you say is there seizing the ballot boxes and also so the diversion papers they're forced into some will go missing i mean can the vote therefore be counted as legitimate. well look in fact right now there is a lot of pulling stations which are in march because because they continued making the. ok they put all the problems on the decode some of both may be them for single something like these of the polling stations but a lot of the polling stations each containing very slowly because because of. the way how they make the checking of all the people it's very slowly but they can

already be continued making and. it means that we will continue until did the end of the day. because democracies these we want to express our our necessity of democracy in front of such a kind of. well the we had from the spanish interior minister we had a tweet that he sent out saying that he thought the police reaction was appropriate it was proportionate i mean what do you think about how the all star teams have responded here and and do you think that this is being proportionate. ok this question it can be and sort of simply looking at the world why you might just we just. going into. these proportionally unprofessionally only for the government not for them about the government how we supposed to go but the democratic government bre-x.

in front of the population for a democratic demand like these they was reacting against of young people against of all people against of everybody who is in the polling station this is not democratic this is not proportional leads up solidly crazy we can not accept a poll for these it will be before and after of these they which will change absolutely. the believe in this of a spanish government in front of the world now it's time of the rest of the world of the rest of the companies with this evil people who can demand even they see that these kind of reaction if these proportionally or not from us absolutely will accept so what do you think the fallout will be in own two levels one we're looking at society will society in spain also catalonia be different tomorrow and also what what do you think the vote will be what do you think the result will do how do you

think as a country and as a region your progress going forward. i think that they will be at the end of the day after the after the vote they should be going to be. the reaction of the of the government they will make a bull aeration of of the situation they will make. i think that. fully below ation of all of the situation and then they will decided how to proceed politically on the war on the on the next days on the next week i think that from my party what we will demand immediately immediately it's a unit that i'll declaration of independence this is the only one way we see that it's possible to talk with. state it means deduce no talking to the by humans he must meet a declaration off independence immediately indeed and we'll leave it there josie and rich folks from the castle and so i doubt your independence thank you very much

indeed for your time and. thank you very much want police try to stop the boats in catalonia teams here in moscow and boss alone who will be updating you on the situation on the ground. so. here's what people have been saying about rejected and i suspect it's full on awesome the only show i go out of my way to launch you know what it is that really packs a punch. yampa is the john oliver of r t america is doing the same we are apparently

better than the things that i see people you've never heard of love redacted tonight the president of the world bank so very. seriously send us an e-mail. what politicians do. put themselves on the line. to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president. or some want to. have to go right to the press this is what before three of the people. i'm interested always in the water. welcome back and let's start with some breaking news from canada police in edmonton are treating the running down and stabbing of a fellow officer as

a terror incident to finding an iso flag in his car four others were also reported injured by the search here old driver who's been apprehended a manhunt followed the ramming of the police officer who was stabbed several times but his injuries aren't life threatening the driver was finally stopped later in a trunk after he not done at least four pedestrians in a high speed police chase to the center of the city no deaths have been reported though the condition of the victims is at this stage. some of the other stories that shapes this week's news major tech firms are cooperating with the u.s. or so it is by handing over information supposedly related to russian meddling in the american presidential election in a statement twitter also took a swipe at our c looks at the latest efforts to root out and legit russian trolls internet is now trying its hand at hunting down even the slightest sign of moscow lurking in the shadows facebook twitter and now google are all gearing up to

testify in congress on pesky russian meddling next month. twitter has released a report with the name just made to fill headlines russian interference in two thousand and sixteen u.s. election bots and misinformation now it sounds spooky but the findings are more than a little vague twitter apparently found and shut down a grand total of two hundred or one suspicious accounts that broke their spam rules and while russia is mentioned in the report those accounts aren't actually proven to have concrete links to moscow what was clearly laid out however was this channel spending on ads shockingly proving that r.t. uses social media and buys advertisements. facebook released similar findings earlier revealing four hundred some. in authentic accounts and then admitted most ads run by those accounts didn't even reference the u.s. presidential election at all so the kremlin is so sneaky that it was able to rig an election without mentioning the actual election pretty impressive facebook also

said russia spent one hundred thousand dollars on those ads and other words less than one percent of how much candidates spent campaigning on facebook. while stories of how moscow swayed u.s. voters with a bunch of social media ads continue to dominate the mainstream media the most shocking social network revelation is all but ignored what he weeks has posted an email conversation in which facebook's chief operating officer seemingly proposes helping hillary clinton's campaign head. i still want hillary rodham clinton to win badly i'm still here to help as i can i'm thrilled at the progress hillary's making . looking forward to working with the first woman president of the united states. google is also accused of having close ties to the clinton camp a leaked memo written by clinton's digital strategist surfaced online in it he talks about eric schmidt boss of google's parent company and the work that he's done for clinton i have been kept apprised of the work being done by eric schmidt's

group and others working directly and indirectly with your team on the whole i am comfortable with where we stand and confident in our roadmap to launch day and beyond but if you're waiting for these special committees and investigations to be set up into whether facebook or google actually help the clinton camp don't hold your breath just in case but i think it's a witch i think they don't care about what hillary was doing and they want to their very biased against the pain so far they haven't showed me and that was a that was a pro trump that was paid for by the russian government i just see what's happening in this post-election period as a result of a bunch of sore losers at work. shocked that they didn't win the election 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. in syria remaining pockets of terrorist resistance in the city of dera so what pounded this week by government ground forces and russian air power islamic state siege of the city was broken by the syrian army a month ago these are exclusive pictures from the western side of the euphrates river where syrian government forces made an important game driving. the russian military has now established a bridge that allows on the calls to cross in a separate mission russian strategic bombers carried out strikes on myself and al nusra positions in the syrian promises of i saw. i.

in the remaining terrorists in there as though and now surrounded by both syrian army and u.s. backed kurdish forces ossie travel to the city to witness the battle and i correspondent what i guess the of reports from the frontline food out pilots once that is sort of most exclusive resorts now a modern day fortress out of necessity. for three years the garrison here has one. isis attempts to cross the river at times it was a close run thing and we don't have saudi can on him from the onset coming up to the roof was very dangerous because of the snipers it was really bad but when the

army broke the siege they fell back a month ago it would have been suicide to film up here not anymore. these five star hotel seem better days but thanks to its grandiose design and height acted as something of a fortress here indeed it has sought and just to show you how close we are if you have a look through this hole at that hospital while everything behind that is ice is part of the city of that is or across the river they also hold sway this is all their territory that's the euphrates river and across it is isis it's from there that they shelled the city at will and from there that they launched the occasional raid across the river taking the other bank is key to liberating the city entirely isis still sends fighters and back and forth across the river at night it may take

weeks but it is inevitable isis in syria is on its last legs its collapse has been as spectacular as its rise since the beginning of the year the so-called calif it has lost thousands of square kilometers losing precious oilfields and strategic towns to the advancing syrian army and the us backed rebels that is not to say it's over all that it will be easy isis has nothing left to lose according to the syrian military and the families of isis fighters and diehard supporters have allegedly retreated to the town of my head. they have nowhere else to go in the shrinking caliph these is the final act the dream of an islamic state has been shattered but even in its death throes will

inevitably claim more lives. see from there is order syria. i'll be back with more news in just over half and. in america a college degree requires a great deal. paying a decade's long debt. studying so hard it requires strong. going through humiliation to enter an elite society. and paci dead sometimes quite literally. want other true colors of universities in the u.s. . peacekeeping way it was only about maintaining peace between states at an essentially symbolic value when you

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