plates funded by the u.s. government are notified they may have to register as foreign agents in russia the similar requirements imposed on our. in the us. also ahead this hour to use our protesters rally in cities across from small to challenge to present controversial labor reforms. posed leader talks about his region's independence on the turmoil if they get their interview on r t he's from new talk show host alex salmond about how he felt violence erupted during the referendum. push a tragic day to. see. the file. to

my colleague there. live from our international news center in moscow this is r.t. good to have your company my name's elan o'neill our top story this hour they russian defense ministry has sent letters to two major u.s. funded media outlets and their subsidiaries notifying them that they may soon be designated as foreign agents the move comes in response to r.t. being forced to register as a foreign agent in america ok let's get some reaction to this and cross live to option who's the host of our team going on the growing show always good to have you on the program just on this your thoughts on russia's move to retaliate against

u.s. funded media outlets operating in russia tit for tat if you will. well u.s. authorities wanted a media war and russia is giving it right back to them obviously this russian announcement comes off the back of this new mccarthyite pharma federal reserve registering as a foreign agent rule in the united states we have got the full list but i presume that if radio free europe and voice of america are on this russian little one can only presume that the russian kremlin and the russian government they understand that these were well known as propaganda outlets well before that is decision so obviously it is just for tat no one in the world would think the voice of america is anything other than an american propaganda outfit it was used massively as propaganda against the left wing in the movement democratic movements in that

american central america and once america is seen as that just as radio liberty is a radio free europe we know that there has been a propaganda outfit for years the fact that the russian government is now saying it has to register is clearly a mark of the fact that what the united states has done has threatened free media all around the world and basically we now know where people of people stand just to get your thoughts on another aspect to all this option there's already been a significant amount of criticism over russia's retaliatory measures the response over r.t. america has forced racist ration was muted to say the least why you mean it was muted by other journalists and rights yes on journalism groups. well in fairness i was even surprised the committee for protection of journalists finally did come out eventually to support her r.t.

or at least to show concern that what the united states is doing is in effect to curb free speech and surely as has a lot of aspects to this the supreme court decision ironically could be made as regards whether it's even constitutional under the first amendment of the united states we've got to remember we're living through a very strange time at the moment in the past few days the british foreign secretary boris johnson said there is no not a sausage of evidence about russia meddling with elections and here in london we had the british prime minister saying that the whole world is being brought into disorder because of more sco so in this context it's no surprise there we're getting a ratcheting up of this media war this slope here is a slippery one is it not because what does ortiz designation as a foreign agent in the u.s. actually actually tell us about the state of press freedom there because i suppose

there are other are thinking if this can happen to two r t well who could be next there is no line there. well it's interesting also that in a week where ed herman died he wrote co-wrote manufacturing consent with the linguist norm trumps we showing how the us propaganda model manifest itself in corporate media and herman along with the herman urban died on sunday they were saying they live and needed to be actual strictures by u.s. authorities on media because the very nature of the us media system so theoretically it is a free media but actually through various structures it hasn't but that was written well before this decision as regards which is. jule attempt at trying to tar a news organization with a with a brush very similar to that that we used to see and j.

edgar hoover and joe mccarthy action thanks for your thoughts this hour afshin rattansi host of our t.v. show going underground. it's another of our news headlines this hour thought reasons of students and trade union members are marching in cities right across france they're voicing their anger over president mccracken's labor reforms the changes were signed into law in september under widely seen eroding workers' rights and power to employers let's cross live now to forest because our correspondent has been there for a number of hours just keeping track of developments what is helping there in the french capital charlotte. thousands of people have come on to the streets to protest against the changes the president might call months to put into the power here in france but i just want to bring you up to date with some of the latest that we've seen a nice some of the damage to the shops that we're seeing along the street where

this protest is going on this is a transfer western union shop and this is one of a number of shops that we've seen this small group of individuals taking part in this protest trying to break and smash what they're using around them is not just rocks on the street but it's when you take a look down here these are the great they're pulling up from around the trees and they've actually been trying to use those to ram into the shops to cool some of this damage this is a small select group of people but as you can see the great still in the shop door here where they attacked in fact that she went in and asked all the customers to leave before they attack the shop but this is what we're seeing along this street now but this is a small group of people at the front and not the union members who are trying to hold a fairly peaceful rally trying to get the parliamentary ariens in france to listen to their worries that concerns that concerns about the changes to the culture divide and what that will mean him france they say that this will

a road the rights of workers this was the one hundred twenty thousand people who lose their jobs and people saying they're just worried for their livelihoods. and for the future of france but right now this is one of the ranch wells amount of the station's protests that are taking place across france and as we've seen here on the streets of paris damage being caused by a small group of protesters the police are out in force there waiting to crack down on any unruly behavior but for the moment what we see is a number of shops being smashed up by those individuals as the unions are trying to hold this relatively peaceful protest here in paris against my bones reforms to the culture divide the working code here in france ok show just because there is the day turns into even trying to do one ski on their present reforms on the opposition to thank. a spanish parliamentary session has once again brought to the valar and in the country over the issue of

council on independence sharply into focus one council an m.p. in madrid has even suggested the spanish prime minister be arrested for his actions against the troubled region it comes during a sustained crackdown by madrid against cuts alone is the pose leadership. so you know many still you have made your prisons. mad sure you know we will make our ballot boxes in your nightmare you have beaten us with sticks who will be you without a boat and i hope that one day with the missile run horry in the army and look at me in india be doing his new show here in r t former scottish first minister alex salmond spoke exclusively with ice to castle and president carlos poods demand for a rare insight into the independence referendum puts them on was sacked as the catalan president and there's no facing charges of sedition rebellion spain issued

an international arrest warrant after he fled to belgium where he is currently on bail speaking to r.t. carlos put him on recall the region's referendum day until the exam and he views the future of castle. let me take you to that the extraordinary day in the first of october. tell me what your emotions were that the in the one hand there was the celebration of. millions of your fellow country people coming out to exercise or vote for self-determination on the other hand was that the violence that we all saw on television screens from the state police or what will the conflicting emotions that you felt as president of catalonia on that famous day there was a day of the victory of catalonia and the other hand of course there was a day of the extremely violent. i couldn't imagine the the direction like that from the democratic state in the european union it was

a tragic day today because i see directly the violence in my face school in my hometown there are a lot of injuries oh of injuries by the start of the next week the spanish judicial system or rolled into actual and took away the constitutional prize that catalonia had gained well this mistake in fact start a new era in the end of his era that will start a catalan republic because in these conditions is not possible is not possible there is no future at all and to remain misspending these conditions what is your message to the people of cattle warning we must to be confident resilient because we will win. we will succeed finally democracy will prevail.

on speaking to someone in his new show sweden is polarized over how to categorize suspects in sexual assault cases we have expert opinion on that after the break. make its manufacture consent to public wealth. when the ruling classes protect themselves. with the final. lifts and be the one percent. we can all middle of the room sick.

your back with are to international sweden's justice minister of house rejected a proposal by the country's conservative party to mark the ethnicity of people accused in sex crimes in official reports were can you hans it was pointed out that the main commonality among the perpetrators is that they are men he also added that

the party just tries to blame immigrants. meanwhile a controversial reports by a forty year old former truck driver has been published on the internet patrick surveyed more than four thousand rulings on sexually to crimes passed by swedish courts between twenty twelve and twenty fourteen from that he concluded that ninety percent of sexual crimes in the country were committed by people of foreign descent case a lot to discuss let's try to get through some of it now with roger gray rodgers former senior metropolitan police officer in london always good to have you on the program how rigorous do you think the investigation was was it solid enough from what you've seen and the examples we've talked about for a country to change policy. well i think we just got to bring this back to the fundamentals of policing and investigation. in order to investigate a crime you must gather the intelligence to the best effect that you can and the

demography of what's going on the geography of what's going on the origins of war going on all form part of the investigation so we must put this route racial issue ethnic issue all on one side you know if you do find the main force of a particular crime originates in one quarter of any particular society then that is where you must go look you know we have a good example in this country at the moment there is a very significant rise in knife crime in the capital in one's cap to linger and includes care to london i apologize and all the crime is very very evidently black on black and you know that doesn't tar the. that particular quarter of society in any particular why but it doesn't mean that you've got to go and look in a particular quarter of for further investigation that's what the swedes must do protect in unison is the most important thing that's always the debate around these

things is not mentioning ethnicity on official reports is that helpful is a damaging there are fears it could drive a right wing anti immigration agenda but equally i suppose is full disclosure to the facts not a right to swedish citizens. or full disclosure of to whom to the screenings themselves yaar. well i'm just thinking of the investigative body i think that if they are going to. trace individuals on the on the basis of their ethnic origin you know that does not have to be a matter of broadcast but i think it is an important matter as far as the investigation itself is concerned and they need to separate polluter says i'm from investigation of crime otherwise investigations will be forty eight if we believe the figures if we can take them as fact is there a correlation between ethnicity and sexual assaults in the country from what you've seen well i think from what we've all seen you know different cultures do on

occasions clash and in particular courses of behavior there is there is sometimes a conflict and perhaps a call to see women from a different ethnicity sort of guy in the next entirely unfair in most reprehensible but all of this follows by the wayside because we have to look at this in the purest sense in the purest sense is that of investigation to try to protect women from this kind of a saw and identify those that are perpetrating the crime so everything else becomes a secondary consideration sweden has some of the most wide reaching sexual assault laws in the world you know it seems to be it's categorized in the same division rape and groping for instance could that sway the figures as well. well i think i can only speak from a police officer's point of view and how people interpret it and what slight slant

they put on a particular cross of dickon reasons becomes irrelevant it is the mechanics and that we are talking about here the mechanics of trying to try to an individual who is committed to a particular cranmore group of individuals that are doing such things and on that by says that's the only basis really the judgment should be being made dealing with the political or social repercussions of the one thing for politicians to do not policeman or is an interesting insight from roger gray former senior metropolitan police officer thanks roger you have rover. the world anti doping agency has blocked recent russia's anti drug body from being reinstated after a lengthy scandal calling it non-compliant the decision comes less than three months before the winter olympics get underway as far as possible plead our fleet should be allowed to keep part in international sports competitions but in the

meantime the greedier roadmap for compliance for the russian one to do ph and she has been fulfilled in many ways but there are still two issues which remain unfulfilled however what also said it's cooperate ing with the russian agency in dealing with doping violations and meeting the roadmap requirements across developments for us today literature. the russian doping scandal has been playing out for years already every time we think has died down there it is again but despite the outcome of walter's latest announcement it appears to be pretty upbeat about the future and the steps needed going forward according to the world's anti-doping agency was only non-compliant based on two points out of twenty criteria one being that the refusal to admit to state sponsored doping claimed in the water back to mclaren report the other for failing to give water experts access to close labs as they want to test a russian athlete being only two points short of fulfilling the road map to

continue to spend has seen russian officials make their feelings a very clear first up the russian olympic committee chief alexander as you call. demands. relevance to restart his work the mclaren report itself created a clash of opinions it was contested by the russians who claimed that the report lacks sufficient proof to be deemed it legitimate and water itself did speak out when they cleared ninety five out of the ninety six russian athletes accused of various doping allegations in the report their reason being yes you guessed it lack of evidence and hence their cases were closed the russian sports minister has said his disappointment to these two demands are obviously of a political nature we want dialogue not addict out however russia has made it clear there is a doping problem and has since become one of only five year appear in countries that have criminalized doping austria france italy and spain being the others

president putin had a clear message on the issue in russia when he spoke out some of the main thing is that we have to listen to the results of the independent commission despite flaws in its work we have to listen to what his demands because we have to admit that we have confirmed cases of doping use which is absolutely unacceptable. this means that the anti doping control system which we had until now it hasn't worked and it's awful we have to be frank and admit it isn't. one of the reasons why russian officials could be implying that politics is embedded in this latest decision is possibly down to the timing and the upcoming impact games with the opening ceremony on the ninth of february twenty eighth. that leaves little time to resolve the problem and left the olympics committee under increased pressure as well ultimately they'll have to decide whether to ban team russia or not the worst case scenario

for russia and its athletes would be a blanket ban and we can't ignore the fact that in the last couple of months some negative press has reared its ugly head once again suggesting that russian athletes should take no part in the winter games but the i.o.c. and water say the decision on restart it will have no impact on whether russia's athletes will compete or not the final decision will be made by the i.o.c. the international olympic committee on the fifth of december but for now russian officials are angry having performed and the a miracle to meet nearly all of the road map criteria in a short space of time to them this latest decision would likely come as a bit of a slap in the face. r.t. . just a lot do you know the story we've been following for the past number of days the former lebanese prime minister has accepted an invitation from the french president to come to porous so it has caused

a political crisis in lebanon after flying to saudi arabia. resigning from his post lebanese officials say they believe he's being held against his will by riyadh now the lebanese president's official twitter account post about the government's next steps will be decided upon after aris return from paris emmanuel mccall has made clear that france's invitation is not an offer of political exile. i spoke with crown prince mohammed bill sammon and prime minister saad hariri we agreed that i would invite the prime minister in his family to france for a few days is also a gesture of friendship in the willingness of france to contribute to restoring calm and stability in lebanon that the french sort of is very curious i mean it's quite a thunderbolt what's happened just yesterday is that mr macron has offered her riri some sort of x. are they not using the word excel of course but they're stressing this is an offer to him and his family to come for just a few days that may well be

a euphemism for to come here indefinitely we just don't know there are more questions than answers at this point france would be the obvious country to make such an offer you have to understand that there's a history of course a colonial history with france and lebanon but also that hariri is had a home for a number of years in paris so this seems to be simple to quote a smart move so this all started on november the fourth when hariri arrived in riyadh and was a real initially surrounded by police and detained his phones taken away from him and he was told on that day that the saudis were very displeased with his one year premiership in lebanon when negotiate effectively nothink the meal e-mail a speech which more or less said that i'm resigning and i blame hezbollah for that and then just a couple days later after that you were on the record and did a live interview with lebanese television saying that he would be back in lebanon within a few days i think it reassured a number of people in lebanon that that that things could be things could calm down if we move on to just recently just yesterday the patience of the lebanese

president michel own snapped and he went public and stated that this was international law being broken only pollutes the lebanese prime minister was being detained by the saudis so the french of coming to an interesting moment we don't know for sure if he will go to paris with reuters or citing elise sources who has said he will certainly be there but there's a question mark over how long it will be. news agencies are using the words for a few days certainly i can tell you there's enough people in lebanon who are eagerly waiting for him to come back to beirut and to kick start negotiations which of not really move forward for a whole year now with hezbollah. well riyadh has long been a supporter of hillary whereas the country's president is an ally to hezbollah the militant group by buying tehran and although the current crisis risks worsening the sectarian divide in lebanon middle east analyst is only necessary sainz the government appears to be pulling together in the face of pressure. if not he is not

there somebody else will leave the government and all the leisure players in lebanon will still be in the government of the saudis trying to dictate their opinion on the lebanese government and today we find the lebanese actually united in no position to dictate from outside you know it's a shame that lebanon has to be forced to become a battlefield between the saudis and the and in fact if you do that look at what the saudis are trying to do is on their confrontations with us with the iranians whether in syria and iraq and yemen they seem to be losing these and they're just trying to open a new front which is why the mission was not accepted a while back. since

the cradle of jazz. america is still america we have. no love this jazz feeling. a city of climatic catastrophes of alligators on the loose of poverty and crime by the at least twelve members of my family close most. of street racing in the heat of the night this is new orleans. the best place in the world. to pick. our mad stars or oligarchies me once that bernie sanders does this.

call your attention to this headline from last week and this is a headline that could only be ripped from a conspiracy theory site but in fact it's from the guardian and it's bernie sanders saying it bernie sanders warns of international all the darky after paradise papers leak bernie sanders is one of the world is rapidly becoming an international oligarchic controlled by a tiny number of billionaires highlighted by the revelations in the paradise papers that was the first thing i thought when i saw about these paradise papers leaked because all of it is technically illegal all of this shelter and the money offshore you know you can do those venn diagrams of not even that just like connect the dots sort of rachel maddow esque sort of thing that there are all linked together

whether it's hillary clinton or donald trump or every single head of state and every single head of major corporations in that state or domus island in that state they're all connected through these the banking system that is like a separate banking system unique just for them the social justice network to study just recently it and they concluded that there was between twenty and thirty trillion dollars. sure this part of the parallel economy that's one of times the g.d.p. of america they conclude it's about two hundred thousand people they pay no tax they invest in assets that could go higher in value because the central banks print money. in a way that makes the assets that they own go up in price but no wages the wages don't go up that's financial engineering deregulation post rager reagan patch or so

it's like you have a huge field you're getting that field and the water as opposed to irrigate the crops it just is diverted only to the folks that are in that twenty to thirty trillion dollar offshore parallel financial universe so wage growth is not their job growth has been transformed to part time jobs. jobs actually and the taxes are born to pay for society by those people that are not. on par that illegal apartheid state you know of and i've said before it's apartheid in less you're committing fraud other says that it's legal.