what happens next door and fortunately if you do i can't guarantee the future but what i can do is guarantee you and i like salmon quick you know the drill oh yeah. your many close course i need a bigger one. thank you very much i think a lot. of the rock is not just about high politics and high property prices there is a thriving cultural into line the gibraltar i want its cultural icons joins me now david ben tata good afternoon welcome to our examiner show thank you there was something scottish about that lame brain matter almost almost no not quite originally the name comes from rock of from the mountains if used to be been sold on sons of sultan on the wrong side of the bed but that's who we were and then the family when you're born here who was born here. do you think there is a genuine cultural underpinning of the rock incredibly strong thanks to

franco before before the front problems and the the siege and all that we were like almost second class citizens here this is when frankel closed the border that separates. us right and we were very concentrated and all we could hear was the advertising the propaganda from from spain saying that we were. i don't know were immigrants prostitutes and everything you know drug smugglers it works and suddenly we turned and said hey hey they're talking about us through the day used to broadcast across the water to lose to broadcast in spanish radio spanish television and we didn't have television in those days so we would watch spanish t.v. and it was terrible the propaganda was like nazi germany but then of course. right back to the origins of gibraltar as a british territory in fairfield in them in those played in the various ornaments and in the hills of spain of the lot yes in fact. seventeen

o four we're not going to rip to. the queen of spain apparently had a little towel council built there and she sat there it's called the seat of the queen and she wouldn't eat or drink until she saw the spanish flag hoisted looked up and admiral rooke being a gentleman host of the spanish flag so she wouldn't die of hunger and how long the dollar last for those pilots flying back i think it was about ten minutes you know just. the cream to break a fast with yes yes but i must be a quiet gentleman. and she must have been a very silly woman. but she was a quick oh yes but that doesn't really follow does it they were ninety six percent of the people gibraltar voted to remain and as european union members but overwhelmingly the result. of these terms wallace the most of forces behind such a very silly woman was a very pragmatic vote the only way that we kept spain at bay was by all of us being inside the repeated union and the european union would keep spain more or less in

rain so that they wouldn't do any move problems with the front or all the things that they used to do politically so we voted practically to stay in the union my heart. and for many people terence we don't have much faith in the european union it was practical it worked sample recent events in catalonia would have reinforced that skepticism about the european commission is gets very complicated because the union the situation is very complicated and it's got legal connotations that work against that whereas we have the opposite we have legal constraints that cement being here the treaty of utrecht particular i would have thought the lesson from catalonia is that the european commission would side with the loyal european union members i.e. spain almost regardless of circumstance well it has to spanos

a lot of money to your group that you can just go in supporting the client you have to pay that back stay with us for bore fascinating insight from david ben tatar after the break. since the start of the world cup russian sports commentators have put cruelly sure on their list of teams capable of winning russians love to root for the underdog but will have sympathy for a rival impact on russia's quarterfinal time with croatia. is when the interest on the debt is greater than your taxes taxable base then you have to throw them all pretenses of quantitative easing and just. monetizing that bank is just printing and buying back its own. place then you get into what's

called a banana republic named after a countries in latin america that are in the but out of business. monetization of their own and have collapsed as well argentina come to mind this is now going to be contagious and going into america. welcome back to the alex thomas show. so tell us about this. head so i seem to remember that quote from somewhere. actually i like writing poetry and my friends told me what i'm going to do a book and i decided to do it i was thinking of of a title for it and in the reply that i got from david cameron in from when he was prime minister he told me that he had fought for a change in the european union and so i thought that's a terrific book and i used it but the book was more successful than the referendum

yes definitely it still is would you do the jury's out on that is it. you never would believe that. it was a referendum. campaign in a way perhaps it was in the school itself and the campaign though he was an instinctive unionist but he never got the impression during the european union referendum campaign that calamus absolute soul was a hammer and was right in what he did in one particular way the european union is a club if you don't like the rules of the club you change the rules and you should get people to support you to change the rules otherwise you have to get out and he was trying to get the rules changed that britain didn't have to get out it didn't work they would tell us a little about the people of gibraltar they know even why is that the mix here and . are people wanting more people want you brought to you but like some of folks a little more less well know that's about two three questions you've included there

basically gibraltar was a garrison garrison required food and drink and everything and from morocco the supplies were coming in from morocco that brought in moroccans and moroccan jews doing the trading then when the war was over there were several seizures but in between you had spaniards coming in here replacing the spaniards that left and went to a city called some on that side obviously english people british people english scottish irish stayed here and then moroccan started coming in later when the spanish workforce was taken away by franco and we have a great mixture here of of cultures and of people and thankfully there is a lot of not just tolerance but harmony between the different communities so draws are very proud of its ethnic diversity and its ability to rankle also i am very proud of it and what about. poetry and in a world where say the deep well in which you draw when you're writing about.

perhaps i don't know. hundred one poems are written about things that have happened to me the things that i've seen love stories. broken hearts and just put it down on paper and people love it i do recycles them with circles in spain in england. and people seem to like it so i enjoy it terrific another book perhaps left the court case to fly me somewhere about the dream we shall never have a god another book out already of short stories and now i'm working on another book and want to stay artistic seem like gibraltar amazing you would not believe that thirty thousand people could have so much art in them again thanks to spain for the great amounts by enclosing us here it made us concentrate on what we had so your argument would be david the job growth theory and identity was forged in the fire the ostracized by the throat totally and out of that at that what do you see the

future of of the. very bright except it doesn't all only depend on us we are a tiny pawn in the chest game and the outside forces of spain and britain we dictate whether we will be successful or not by ourselves we can be successful no question about. the people of the regional gibraltarian like yourself you are not all attracted by the elected state model you see below you've got your own football team could you hear we're going further than gibraltar is a very particular situation we cannot imitate the places we have different conditions it has to be our solution for our problems not somebody else a solution for their problems and adopted by us that would settle here. overlooking morocco and one side spain on the other side the rock why are before us and.

pushing eighty degrees of our lovely cooling. what would you say the main reason for people coming to gibraltar where it's a great little place is the center of the world believe it or not. if you live here you find that you know like in an extended family most people know each other off each other it's easy to get along crime is low. people are nice they would have a good program for the rock and you haven't come to all your poor through the cycles but what i can do is present you with the alex i'm in quick thought of being the sure thing you know the. only scars. i do pass about your close friends thank you very much that i do know is that right thank you. but there's more to gibraltar the politics of the economy interesting all these subjects are let's talk a bit about the people of the rock and see how these changing background influences affected the communities that make up gibraltar i'm joined by cruz poet

optus locally charting the the changing nature of the of the influences on gibraltar welcome to the show to know how to thank you very much how would you say the great economic changes have taken place affected the complection of gibraltar and its culture over the last generation. while it's been. interesting time which has had a big implications and certainly my generation i mean we've lived and they still peered with us it's a very good relationship with spain then a close or a border early in our lives and then you know fifteen years of more of an island life with very close relationship with the u.k. we turn towards u.k. and so i think the transition has also been social. that with. i think the cooperation of many new people into gibraltar actually specifically about the military footprint i mean twenty five years ago military spending was the

majority of the gibraltar economy sixty percent now it's six percent and it's been replaced by sadness economy what does that mean for the the communities to make up the rock what it means. really physical presence of the of the military forces dribble to was reduced dramatically and that was replaced over time between the i would say study the eighty's and ninety's in particular by a workforce for the new sectors that were evolving and these people came from all over the world and many of them are still here today so therefore that shift economically had massive implications in a social sense to build to suddenly change from being i would say. fairly stable community from let's say the original. components from mediterranean origins to the english. to the jewish communities the hindu communities and then evolved into

reading cooperating i would say mostly anglo-saxon individuals from study from the u.k. but you know from south africa from the english speaking world in the broader sense when general franco close the bald of back in the late sixty's didn't have the unintended consequence of. our gibraltarian identity against either vast city that certainly was the case i mean it was one of the most significant outcomes of that certainly wasn't a general plan no but certainly i mean before that i would say that the identity was a softer identity of anything then all of a sudden there was one major thing in common for all members of the community wherever they were you know from all social standing just such as i think all of a sudden that's emerged as one cohesive sort of. i think you know part of the identity which had big. implications for the future although they say

that living in interesting times still charity is cast as a great burden but op has been all these political changes you see that in your lifetime and gibraltar and the recent change of black the challenges that may cause headaches for. politician that is good news for the op this is it not certainly i think i mean as you go through these periods you don't realize to what extent they can be meaningful but certainly i mean what they have done is they have you know forced us to really be resourceful and as well culturally i think to really consider you know you know where we sit in a cultural sense and in my case you know i really over time come to the conclusion that you know to do. with his heritage and you know which is so rich and diverse serves as a wonderful sort of stepping stone you know into the much it's a broader world in a cultural and a human sense as well you know you're right you're putting the spotlight as the extent to which despite the political to the role and despite the complexity of the

population the growth of really is a spotless law and all of that more of an imperial i post in europe always the african influence still a very strong and good although what is gibraltar i mean obviously a concept for everybody but i would say that in my case i have chosen a part of my work to express myself in spanish and i think that's totally not only that just i'm a bit of a see you know in artistic sense it was something which was important for me to do i also write in english but it happens that i'm maybe close to a spanish cultural space and therefore i have published in spanish flu looking at it from the poetic sense and literary sense i would not jump to the conclusion from that towards you know it's a defining identity and i find languages are really you know a bit like dialects i mean poetry is a language you can express yourself you know in english and spanish and french you

know in so many languages and whether you write in spanish or english you know his significance but it's only part of the story you know i think it's not that i'm saying you know spanish culture to me is more important because in that of i have that. say the cultural heritage which is spanish speaking and somehow that's influenced me to. say to up to up till now for sure to express myself and mostly in spanish through because the political environment sunset and economic environments going to depend on the political outcome but they have to stick to the gibraltar is flushing is it not. it is flourishing and there is i think a lot of activity on many fronts i mean the on the artistic the literary the musical there are many initiatives and i would say that there is a big drive to actually build on our heritage very calm much more consciously than in the past i would say and is there anywhere else that you passionately would prefer to be walking not a tool i think i think that both the provide me with. a privileged vantage point

from which to really. look at the world at large today you know i mean without necessarily restricting myself to dribble one question i want to that you have been let's see what it here that's wonderful but. describe to us is the say that james joyce never actually came here i didn't even manage to capture of us were even visiting gibraltar. obviously a man of genius. no doubt but obviously very well informed because he i think he was receiving sort of regular correspondence from people living i think an aunt of his living here. but it's something which i have difficulty in believing that he never came here for well it was good enough for james joyce and it should be good off for any of us thank you so much for the it's been a pleasure thank you very much thank you. as well help today the rock of gibraltar the strives for you. as britain's i posted the point of the europe part of the iberian peninsula to start me here i'm only twelve miles from the top of africa

each of these factors how does substantial influence the making up there divest communities of this fascinating territory one thing's for sap job growth period identity has been for. in times of adversity that's going to stand them in good stead and the interesting times ahead join us next week when we will hear what the economy holds for the fascinating territory. from all of us here at the alex salmond show for from the whole of the crew as could by. next week we voted overwhelmingly to remain in the e.u. and now we have to see what effect the hard drugs it could have in the gibraltar economy the reality is we haven't had a hard to break that scenario it was still in the e.u. we're still functioning. as we were doing in twenty sixteen we're a small number diversified economy so we adapt the history of gibraltar speaks for itself i mean it's been understood to protect the u.k. but it's the resilience of the people as well here i think it will take is an

incredible entrepreneurial group and there's incredible group of entrepreneurial minds here. in twenty forty you know bloody revolution is here to clear the demonstrations going from being relatively peaceful political protests to be creasing the violent revolution is always spontaneous or is it. is. spilling needle the former ukrainian president recalls the events of twenty

fourteen. those who took. it invested over five billion dollars to assist ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic. u.k. home secretary says the couple who've been poisoned in southern england were exposed to not the chop the same agent used against a former russian double agent four months ago. now demanding that russia explains the situation. it is now time that the russian state comes forward and explains exactly what has gone on. the second night of violent clashes erupt in the french city of the death of a young driver killed by police at a checkpoint. plus the last eight nations of the free for world cup will begin their quarter final ties on friday we'll have all the news from on and off the page

a little later this hour. there is five in the afternoon here in moscow this thursday july the fifth column by welcome to this hour's global news update first for you the british home secretary is calling on russia to come clean about the use of in britain such demand comes after a couple were taken ill. the hospital they're in a critical condition right now they were taken in over the weekend having been exposed to the nerve agent of the pair fell ill in ames prevents a village that's just over ten kilometers from solsbury the city you'll remember where the poisoning of the former russian double agent group l. and his daughter that took place in march now the samples from the latest victims were tested by government scientists at the nearby government research lab porton down that's the facility that was also responsible for identifying the substance

used against the scruples the home secretary said a couple of hours ago that the use of toxic substances in the u.k. will not be tolerated it is now time that the russian state comes forward and explains exactly what has gone on it is completely unacceptable for our people to be either deliberate accidental targets or for streets our parks our towns to be dumping grounds for poison. well let's see what else was said in the past couple of hours live to westminster and of the situation is there either some angry accusation from the home secretary that. indeed call and while we're hearing these accusations being made against russia saying it's time for russia to come clean again we're not seeing very much evidence when it comes to not just the second poisoning but also of course the original script hall case the investigation into which is still ongoing and in this latest poisoning development to this highly dramatic and mysterious novacek saga all we seem to know for now from british officials is that it's said to have been the same nerve agent that was used on

sergei script hall and his daughter yulia on march fourth it's not yet clear whether or not this not a chalk aim from the same batch officials here have not yet clarified this they've also said that whichever they were poisoned with the second couple did not come from the original cleanup source they also said they believe that this couple was not specifically targeted unless of like of course they do think it was the case with scripts paul and yulia and there have not been very many specifics despite it's now been over twenty four hours that this has been declared a major incident and of course it's also been four months now since the original script called poisoning and while officials here are saying it's too early to jump to conclusions of course accusing russia seems to be quite clear clearly on the agenda yet again and this is something that the russian foreign ministry has reacted to saying they're quite surprised to be hearing all of this again because

throughout this whole entire time russia has reiterated who knows how many times saying that it would be happy to have a joint investigation and to cooperate with british officials to find out what it is that happened exactly what you see going to shock you and we were shocked today when we saw british officials stating that they're waiting on cooperation from the russian side it's possible that british media don't inform their citizens dead dozens of such first regarded in our countries working together worsened by us through on does diplomatic channels. well well here in the u.k. again the attention seems to be drawn to russia not just by officials but also by some of the headlines of course surrounding this latest second poisoning it seems that the concern of locals on the ground now and amesbury which is again very close to souls very is that they would like to know exactly what's going on because again it's been months of investigations and we do know that it's been millions and millions of pounds banter on the clean up operation and they want some clarity. for

a ten year old suddenly live victory two seconds away he plays out here with his friends very alarming we are with a major incident on your doorstep you know residential area it's if you just could not imagine this happening to you want to know is are you safety have to do anything is your family going to be say is it going to be a certain escalation everyone is extremely surprised and i guess. when you live in the area and the incident coming closer and closer to you it's a very worrying thing to happen. and well clearly now this whole saga takes a quite unexpected new turn in this months long saga again attention by some officials here seems to be pointing towards another direction. some pictures book troll for troops and the propaganda channel are already

gearing up to spread misinformation. couldn't we least do a little bit more to expose this and particularly members of this house from all sides not appear propaganda television show. i think this is speaker of the members absolutely right to raise this issue there have been far too many since were members of this house south who have supported the russian propaganda machine and r.t. for example is one way they have done that if any member of this house has an ounce of common sense they will realize especially after the second incident that the british public will not support any of them if they support president putin. and while of course there's so much attention seems to be directed at the misinformation campaign in this whole thing it seems that at least to me personally when covering this case for the whole four months and i think i speak on behalf of

all journalists who have russian and from around the world that it might be time for an actual information campaign from the officials that have been investigating this especially given this is something that's happened on british soil ok we'll let you keep watch on what's really coming out of that building behind them but for now anderson's interview and westminster thanks very much for that. we're picking up on some of the sea was saying is now explains a lot more questions than answers right now. so many questions first off locals terrified again last time the government promised they had cleaned everything up decontaminated and leaked everything clean and now this how could this have happened. retracted say the first floor it was possible and so three that it was possible to upgrade not a visit being kept in any information order place. it be notion that it's on the

give it. a little bit where we don't know what's going on because. we are but children come here and there are other parents who live around here and that was it being tempted and again the government deserving people not apparently everything is safe again second big question i spent weeks travelling meeting military chemists going to live bora tori's learning about the nova chalk's it's a group of different nerve agents sixty odd of them. the k. quickly so if the substance is left out in the open it decays. warts and loses its toxicity if it isn't a huge pot but the third and perhaps biggest question how have these two survived so far but if we can have symptoms that follows in minutes if

it gets in the skin symptoms and can take from minutes to. these is one of the dead years substances in the world look one drop of a new virtual in liquid form is enough to kill ten average weight men and now you have these two who were found untreated hours after being exposed so far it's all muddled baffling and downright bewildering. right now let's pick up on what's been said so far then get reaction from peter kirchen who's a former london metropolitan police officer he's in our westminster studio right now peter welcome to r.t. considering what happened in solved just a few months ago and this latest incident was reported straightaway yet we saw people not in protective gear does that sound odd to you. not really we had these

conversations before around the clean up of. where we had coordinates around the areas that were thought to be possibly contaminated and you had the officers involved in cleaning them up where in the faux or chemical biological protection suits but the other side of the cordon there were people just going about their business. we've had police officers standing outside houses and whatever not in full protective suits the full protective suit is important if you've got something that's a gas or you've got something that's a powder. or if you're going to be touching something that's a solid and all the indications are that the form of prison in this particular instance is some sort of i guess a greece would be the best way of describing it therefore it's not going to jump off whatever it's on and come and attack you even if you're standing right next to it it's going to be when you contact it that there's going to be an issue and so.

where in protecting.