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bit by bit the syrian army backed by russian aircraft is advancing against the islamic state in the province of debt as all although each victory of course comes at a heavy price the terrorists are fighting fiercely to retain their last strongholds in the region and the newly liberated village all have witnessed a brutal battle for example the newly liberated village of hatta witnessed one of the fiercest battles to date following the liberation of the village the syrian

army is now heading northwest here further into i saw the territory however before about just down here by hapless in this part of the map but i follow troops right over the only bridge there across the euphrates and from across this bridge he sent us the following report from the frontline. under a bright blue sky through devastated country across the euphrates over the only bridge in the entire province we came to the village of had lot less than a day ago this was part of the caliphate but no longer from what we were told the syrian army's fifth division did the heavy lifting here much of had has already been swept and cleared but no tool it isn't like the movies do is rarely open that the first peek.

then came the first warning. and. told you. he was right it wasn't one of their as. isis back up had arrived reinforced the jihad ists felt confident enough to pick a fight and we weren't in a good place the syrian army responded quickly but there was some couldn't. then about. there who never know how many. five hundred meters from hadleigh village isis is making it still. doesn't it dug in. like that house over there. to the truck to

be arrested syrian troops what they're doing is they're driving around in circles using speed and distance as their protection taking potshots the other things hiding behind a house driving out foreign for a little bit then hiding back before the syrian. with heavier weapons it isn't going to get the game them very much but it's a harassing kick in keeping everyone on a jury in the fierce firefight one of the pickup trucks stopped here is one of the jihad ists briefly showing himself while spraying away on full auto with the clear targets out came the heavy of weapons. it was a miss try again. the

scrap isis lost but everything you just saw was shot within the span of a single hour in one village with a small unit these scenes being repeated. across the front hundreds of kilometers wide or i'd get. from had syria. years of islamic terror having devastated lives. previously found a russian speaking children stranded at a baghdad orphanage you were believed to have been taken to iraq by their radicalized parents however some of them on are preparing to finally be reunited with their families back at home. many catalans are being left outraged after the region's leader put their hopes for an independent homeland on a hold that's after he signed a declaration of independence but then took

a big step back from adopting it in the hope of perhaps opening dialogue with madrid among the popular we asked for a mandate to declare catalonia an independent state. responsible that the prospect with all due respect i also parliaments to suspend the declaration of independence so that's in the coming weeks we can undertake a dialogue given the a given to a man named here i think you should have declared independence because now she says she wants dialogue the kettle on it has asked the spanish government like seventeen times and every time the doors have been closed so i believe he would have finally declare it and i am a bit disappointed he stayed could he didn't take the step for that everybody wanted we understand he wants dialogue but catalonia spoke in it and he wanted independence. and i want independence i don't want anything to do with spain my ancestors wanted it but we are forced to be spanish if i have

a can say that my nationality is catalan. has been following reaction across spain. well following what was supposed to be a major historic moment with many waiting for a proclamation of independence for catalonia to come that never quite occurred the reaction here on the ground has been raised eyebrows and some have even described what happens as a betrayal so that we will not return to any parliamentary activity until steps towards the implementation of the republic. well these are statements from the c.u. people already which is quite crucial in the makeup of the regional parliament two years ago when they were elected in this region a regional parliament together for yes coalition they were the ones who made up the pro independence majority that the government had hoped would allow them and give them a carte blanche for a portion of this independence referendum and now that that has on rivals they are certainly not happy with the way the bands have gone now in terms of reactions from

madrid i mean clearly they've been saying in the days leading up to the referendum in the days following the referendum that they see what pushed him on has been up to was illegal they said they wouldn't recognize any declaration of independence they even talked about potentially imposing article one hundred fifty five from the spanish constitution which has never been done before and which would be something that basically freezes the regions autonomy and so far we've heard reactions from madrid of with of course much more expected to come especially as the day unravels today so far they've said it just looks like which to mont doesn't really know where he's headed let's take a listen. to the speech that the president of catalonia made today is a speech of a person who does not know where he is where he is going and with whom he wants to go the catalan regional government cannot display the results of the referendum because it was an illegal act a fraudulent one and without the minimum guarantees well now basically the question is what's going to happen here next because obviously the castle our leader carlos

which tomorrow made so many loud promises in the days leading up to the referendum he said he would even consider going to prison over this independence issue he then said the proclamation of independence would come within forty eight hours following the referendum and obviously we've seen yesterday that he's decided to take it down a notch obviously as part of the reaction to certainly phones ringing off the hook in his office from madrid as well as the european union but the clarity here is that the cast lead leader is not going to be able to sit on all chairs at once he's not going to be able to satisfy the major pro independence movement here in caps alone. he's already clearly not satisfying madrid even though now he's saying he wants to be able to have dialogue so really we're going to have to wait and see what exactly unravels and whether any kind of dialogue is still going to be able to take place between my slowness and maturity it certainly did take some time however for the cattle and leader to eventually deliver his long anticipated speech.

we spoke to a number of analysts who feel that the cattle and president as cave into immense pressure well i think the peers are more this is a very difficult. situation they've been you know and overspread sort of for a lot of sides both the political person. and also the european union but there's

a financial presence too about doing the make of this declaration about to develop this as a catalyst side that was expecting that kind of international in derivation which is not a cop and without this in their sort of he did a version of the cuff to face the spanish state the mother eat and mother it is much more of the. cut on the government on the one hand tends to think of course approach speed in the spanish state poll nearly high and yes to think about this huge move. all the people all the citizens who have so to defend their democratic plates and to defend the result of the referendum so clearly no he has to think to release us to think about how he sees the independence agenda in a leave that matches the ambitions of the present from the he owes the house to consider the the any from the conflict with the spanish the basically. the u.s. the u.k.

relationship has always been branded as special one after another american and british leaders made short of stress how important and strong it was however one former advisor to barack obama has revealed it was all seen as one big joke. reports repeat something long enough and people will believe that the relationship between america and britain will remain strong our relationship is very special special relationship that exists between our two nations people forge friendships together that is what makes this relationship special i hope to have a good relationship with them has a he has been a special relationship it was very important for us to mention the special relationship in every press conference that we had when the u.k. were here but really we laughed about it behind the scenes. nowadays on both sides of the pond the phrase special relationship is rarely outed without a generous dose of irony some say that you started with the bromance between these

two is something maybe that you some personal interest that you have in common maybe in religion or something or your newsmaker with both you. grace tony blair's support for the u.s. led invasion of iraq and him the unsavory nickname of bush's poodle america was less reciprocal in its loyalty though when bush's success so weighed in on the u.k.'s brags that referendum in twenty six there might be a. u.k. u.s. trade agreement is not going to happen in time soon and you could be. in the back of the queue in a glossy magazine interview the same month barack obama gave david cameron a dressing down for his handling of the libyan intervention. i had more faith in the europeans given libya's proximity being invested in the follow up david cameron soon stopped paying attention becoming distracted by a range of other things twenty seventeen ushered in

a new jew as the figureheads of the world's most famous long distance relationship keen to prove it specialness to reason may was for us to visit the newly inaugurated donald trump q some awkward hand-holding and yet more talk of friendship we have one of the great bonds we pledge a lasting support to this most special relationship but according to reports donald trump's promise to prioritize a trade deal with the u.k. was broken just days later when the german chancellor angela merkel convinced him to deal with the e.u. first and just last month the u.s. didn't shy away from slapping heavy import tariffs on bomb body eight jets made in northern ireland after a complaint from u.s. company boeing by basically disappointed by this news of hugely important to

northern ireland in terms of the jobs that time special relationship was immortalized by winston churchill but over seventy years down the line the rhetoric and the reality don't seem to match and that makes it increasingly prone to ridicule in a particular special before it might have pain i think it's going to be sour and now everyone is like almost going on their own way they'll do all they want to do regardless of what we want to do there are elements of fragments of what was once a special relationship in defense of risk and water and waters and depending on who's in charge of the two camps and it's very wide at the moment it's complicated . and it's quarter past the hour here in moscow a lot still to come on this trial including tiny ice. and qualifies for the football world cup the first time in its history that story in the mix of your headlines just a. theory

to. what politicians to do something to. put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to express injury. or some want to. have to go right to be close to see what the full story of the morning can't be

good. i'm interested always in the water. thanks. for joining us here on out say it is a day of national pride for iceland offer the country qualified for the world cup for the first time in its history it's off to the team because of to no. crowd across iceland celebrated the country booking its place in next year's finals here in russia it's the smallest nation ever to reach the championship as a population of less than four hundred thousand people.

iceland's prime minister revealed to form a footballer stan collymore the secret of just how his tiny nation surprised the pundits and defied. how did you feel as prime minister of the the smallest nation ever to qualify for the faithful local well i'm just simply extremely proud. on behalf of the players and on behalf of all eyes on this i've been following the body closely for a long time now. proud this is the way i feel if you really what cards you can achieve amazing things and that is for me the most valuable thing investments in.

pitches pitches coaches pitches at schools it's now bearing fruit this is no miracle this is something that happened a decade or so ago and it's now starting to produce it's not just about professional footballers but people all the already enjoying their sports and iceland is a is a huge sports center yeah artificial turf is what we are introducing now and it's been happening over a long long period of what the club so doing for the kids. straight out of school the gold club someday can use the facilities it's what is happening in the social life is also reflected by the. participation in different sports when i was growing up there was this one note to all girls that's been a practice in simon england football knowledge my girl is thirteen seat is in the club forty fifty eight only in my small town i believe you will not

find anywhere in the world the same density of indoor football pitches. as you will find in ice associates weights so russia with all you going to go the going to be lots of heads of states their prime ministers presidents will you be one of the told. yes i'll be going well if success for next year's world cup here in russia i don't miss the new stan collymore show coming soon on this child. i played for many flips over the years so i know the game in. all isn't only about what happens on the pitch to the final school it's about the passion from the families it's the age of the super money. owners spend spend two hundred twenty million and one player. it's an experience like nothing else not to be true so i

want to share what i think you know about the beautiful game great chance for. peace. and as a twenty one minutes past the hour here in moscow russian speaking children who had been left stranded at a baghdad all financial knowledge just hours away from returning home they were reportedly taken to iraq by their radicalized. joint islamic state but now after the terror of war and two weeks off waiting their ordeal is almost over.

it's not. just. the. film the children of the baghdad orphanage an appeal for help to trace their relatives back in russia and since then the number have been identified but others still need help if you recognize or perhaps know someone who might recognize any of the kids in the footage please contact us via the e-mail address at the bottom of

your screen. let's get back to our top story here on r.t. international today catalonia is bid for independence well in just the last hour the spanish prime minister has been addressing the media following an emergency cabinet meeting let's cross live to aunties and i see a truck and who's been suffering following what mr hoyer had to say any surprises that from the prime minister. let you know every to be honest the main surprise. was why he would give this kind of brief press conference at all because not much information came out of it were guard list of people watching what madrid step would be next i mean what we're witnessing now is a sort of chess game between barcelona and madrid and basically trying to see who blinks first because it seems that there is a lot of confusion on the ground unraveling in spain following the announcement by carlos put him on which never came he was supposed to come out and declare

independence at least that's what he promised he said he would do it within forty eight hours following the announcement of the official referendum results certainly it's been over a week since the referendum took place and now with the saw the spanish prime minister come out and make a statement basically asking barcelona for explaining what happened because they're saying there seems to be some sort of confusion they want a clarification from barcelona in terms of what exactly happened because they sort of did say they want independence but then they suspended proclaiming any independence for dialogue with madrid now marianna reform he did mention article one hundred fifty five of the spanish constitution which is kind of a hint that madrid is not ruling out this option now this would be a quite extreme measure which means it's actually something that's never been applied in spain before which would mean a certain freezing of the autonomy of the region so that's not being ruled out but really what he wants answers from barcelona and it seems that it's the castle on leader here and. once some kind of dialogue with madrid so really

a question of what is going on it seems to be unraveling here and it's going to be really up to the two politicians to really show the country what's going to happen now in terms of the reactions of the approximation of independence that never came really raised eyebrows as well as some calling them on a traitor let's take a listen. to just a little bit that we will not return to any parliamentary activity until steps towards the implementation of the republic. well learned that was from the sea you keep party which is quite of key for the local parliament they form a majority of the pro independence parliament obviously backing the local government here together with the june spell c. coalition. the majority of parliament here two years ago which was seen as what would be the first step towards independence now with all of this really confusion and back and forth unraveling on the ground some politicians in madrid have been

saying they feel that puts them on really doesn't know where exactly he's currently had it. in this. speech that the president of catalonia made today is a speech of a person who does not know where he is where he is going and with whom he wants to go the catalan regional government cannot display the results of the referendum because it was an illegal act a fraudulent one and without the minimum guarantees. well it seems that at this point it's really a question of where not just barcelona but madrid are also headed together in which direction they plan to take it from here and we'll certainly be watching as events to continue unravel. thank you. and i thank you for joining us here on aussie international on this wednesday your worldwide headlines continue with my colleague. about thirty minutes.

los angeles the city of luxury and fame but also an alarming number of people living in the streets. the simple fact in l.a. is there's just not enough shelter even if people on the streets right now decided to come in there's nowhere to come in and it's been a struggle. to get this man from his own response of the problem and constructed dozens of tiny homes for people in need of shelter when you have nothing in order to go. you know having something like this may as well be a castle but do the authorities accept such solution tiny house on a city parking space is not a solution. someone wanted touring the site otherwise it'll be a free for all they're

a better alternative to end the homelessness crisis. with the old make this manufactured consensus instead of public wealth. when the ruling closest to protect themselves. with the famous. lifts only the one percent. we can all middle of the room six. million real new. the thing.

is it's. just. a company.