probably the heaviest shelling since we arrived to the main city in. the conflict between armenia. is in the area. russian. militants from the middle east are being brought into the conflict zone in the. trade accusations. so ahead on the program the president trump is suffering. the 1st test positive for. the month ahead of the u.s. election. and his french counterpart to money will not. separatism through

a new law defending secular. life for most of the world are to international my names you know me 30 minutes of news on views start and. we begin with the deadly standoff between armenia and azerbaijan in the south caucasus a hospital has been hit by a large explosion in the disputed province of. there are on confirmed reports of casualties there earlier the region's main city was bombed from the locals have been hearing the regular raid sirens. several buildings were damaged including the emergency ministry where the windows were shattered on holes blown through the walls they are many and defense ministry

has blamed downs or by john for the earth strikes its army units on full combat alert i suppose john has not confirmed or denied the bombing raids r t z dollar for imports now from nagorno-karabakh. has come under probably the heaviest shelling since we arrived here 2 massive explosions in the very center of the city usually what we could hear at which we could see the smoke from the explosions which were on the outskirts in the suburbs this is the very city center and moreover this is the building of the ministry of emergencies so it has been obliterated i mean look at this everything is gone windows are gone the whole wall there's a hole in the whole wall and it's not just this building there's a whole complex it's a large it's a large complex and it's everywhere like this obliterated not raise to the ground but it's gone i don't see any way how it can be fixed all renovated we don't know what we don't know what exactly caused the explosion but we didn't hear any sirens

and sirens so probably wasn't a drone but some really heavy artillery and with a very long range as well but we have to go they are telling us it's not safe because sometimes as the azerbaijanis are using these so-called double tap so that they not only they destroy the building but also they kill soldiers who arrived here we've arrived here with the soldiers as well so we have to go this is the crater that was made by one of the rockets and this is a piece from a the military here is telling me that this is a 250 caliber 250 millimeter caliber so it is aim. massive rocket they don't know exactly what it is they're telling me they say these are not laws but that this one is also israeli made. itself is also seen sizable damage a border region was had by mortar fire and several buildings were destroyed in the

capital of azerbaijan citizens have been showing support for their military local journalist ishmael i tell you reports from back on. the long beach the night you see the curfew i believe what you were doing right now i ask you for one. hour you find you. and you go on this mission the line for me said the listeners are quite enthusiastic. including the one time i. see. on the cd there was a. negotiation process so i supported the army you can see the national march that the whole fight there were just here thank you all the cars.

let's listen to some of them will be asked recently it's been weeks since signal another i am originally from cairo by i am ready to defend my land i have been to areas where the fighting is if they call me i'm ready to go to war just like we will win all lands back as soon as possible and we will go to karabakh and put our flag there only our people and soldiers can take our lands back people are not tired everybody feels motivated and wants to help our troops. i have a negative to do to move were young people into the war their minions must surrender and leave. the service the mobilization and constancy of the. 1000 so young people. of the service. to decide to do into our. coverage of the national review through congress and

online. our parents we can see that absolute majority the coverage of the 1st president and. journalists in their corner cut a park or getting caught in the crossfire $24.00 were injured in a shell strike in whedon's to including 2 french reporters they were early if the 2 you're a fan for treatments were seeing here they are now back in france on thursday a car carrying 4 other reporters including russians was hit minor to reshelve but no one is injured let's bring you some background on this the con about conflict is one of several border disputes the long resolved since the collapse of the u.s.s.r. the enclave populated mainly by armenian christians broke away in 1988 from azerbaijan which is majority muslim but the area has not been widely recognized as a sovereign state another aspect to the conflict france and russia have accused turkey of funneling jihadi militants from syria into the conflict zone armenia has

backed up claims saying turkey is using terrorist to help azerbaijan along with direct military support denies the allegations saying it's armenian that's using foreign mercenaries. there is much historic evidence for minas use of terrorists and mercenaries during the occupation of nagorno-karabakh and adjacent regions of their beach on their menial leadership continues this policy today mercenaries are pumped into the conflict zone disguised as volunteers according to our information about 4 found militants have recently been deployed by turkey from syria to azerbaijan they are already fighting for azerbaijan they are trained in militant camps and then transferred russia france and the u.s. have urged the warning signs to end the fighting and on they've called for negotiations involving the o.s.c. minsk group which has been overseeing peace efforts for the past 30 years turkey though has rejected pleas for a truce president erdogan has said he hopes will continue its offensive until color

back is freed from what he calls the armenian occupation one more point in an already complex situation armenia has accused of using cluster munitions and cutting back on has published photos allegedly proving that the weapons are banned under international law and also by john has not yet responded to that allegation both sides have however released the string of videos to back up their claims of tactical victories under making contradictory claims about the damage inflicted r.t. saskia taylor looks at how dissent from ation has become one of the key weapons in the standoff. deception and full of military victories are as old as wolf heart south but in the digital age the distance from ation can't beat. the military propaganda machine of armenia which found itself in a stalemate after a series of successful hostilities by the us or by johnny army began a large scale provocation in the information space though the armenian side as always presents old video of battles as new ones the goal was to present their

failures to the population as successes the ongoing conflict in the want to care about is an example of how information is deployed just as powerfully and destructively as guns claiming victory come play as important a role as physically claiming territory it's all about the image you project so one surprise in that just as azerbaijan tried to discredit on me as claims of success yet on shot off its own attack. the enemy both at the front in the information space is making his last efforts is running out of steam and therefore through everything all possible weapons into battle and even fakes and falls over the past few days there has been a relentless stream of accusations from one side followed by denials from the other and this exchange of fire has made finding the truth almost impossible for example armenia says one of its su 25 warplanes was shot down by tucker's fighter jet talky

and as a by john denounce this is law is and with no footage or i want to says it's one side's word against the others so what is the truth but even when evidence is put forward the truth proves to be just as elusive the car back to france ministry both sit down and sorry helicopter a photo of a burning helicopter hurtling to the ground is posted on social media a small victory is claimed it turns out the photo was actually of a helicopter shot down over syria back in february but it doesn't matter because people thought it was a sari and that will stick as a point john uses the same tactics to post about a successful strike bridge honest i did not publish any images of the strikes and their mean in positions of military equipment it turns out it was for those from the war in syria these videos were shot thousands of times and so without being the truth they become a version of the truth so we're letting this has this war of information become the

journalists have been put on high alert. all members of the media in armenia and azerbaijan to not take part in the ongoing information war journalist should avoid manipulation and official propaganda. it is important to cross-check information even when it comes from official sources journalists should never become soldiers in the information war one of russia's most famous authors once compared finding the truth to looking for gold he said the only way is fast to wash away all that is not gold then you will find your signing not get well when it comes to car best still a knot of sifting through the muddy river of misinformation to be done before we even get close to the truth. president trump is suffering my all symptoms after contracting covert 19 according to the white house he and the 1st lady tested positive for the virus with just over 4 weeks to go before the election in the wake

of a diagnosis a number of top officials have been tested thing through vice president mike pence who has tested negative dollar terms rival for the presidency joe biden to his results came back negative along with his running mate come along incidentally if trump and pence were ruled out of action democrats house speaker nancy pelosi would enter the oval office she's now awaiting her results killam up and has more now on the shakeup caused by the announcement. the white house has now confirmed that both malani of the 1st lady and u.s. president donald trump have tested positive for coded 19 now according to the white house they are both starting to show mild symptoms at this point now this is pretty big news trump is in a high risk group as he is overweight and 74 years old now many are pointing out that donald trump has somewhat downplayed the danger of covert 19 over the past few months looks like by april you know in theory when it gets

a little warmer miraculously goes away i hope that's true we have it very much going to go right here in the united states is lowest in numerous categories were lower than the world they wanted me to come out and scream. well if . we did it just the right way now we're weeks away from a vaccine we're doing therapeutics already fewer people are dying when they get sick far fewer people are dying we've done a great job with just about a month left until the presidential election is to take place on november 3rd this is a pretty dramatic event to have the president of the united states testing positive for coded 19 now dozens of campaign rallies have been canceled as the president goes into quarantine 'd now a debate was scheduled to take place in the following 2 weeks a debate with joe biden in which the president and joe biden would debate issues of international and foreign policy however it's unclear what will be happening with

that debate as we proceed the democrats have been quick to criticize donald trump and say that he has mishandled the coded 1000 crisis and downplayed the very serious dangers posed by coded going into crowds unmasked and all the rest the sort of a brazen invitation for something like this to happen though they have not done so in the postes the administration must now full of the science and recommended health person in order to not put additional people who risk and they must be completely transparent media is rampant with speculation about how this could affect the election results now at this point if donald trump were to be unable to perform his duties as president fall ill or die he would be replaced by mike pence or if mike pence were unable to do so by nancy pelosi now both of those individuals are also in the high risk group for coded 19 so at this point the question remains will the u.s. public become more sympathetic to the president now that he has fallen ill or will

they become more outraged about his handling of the coded 19 pandemic that will be seen on november 3rd when u.s. voters head to the polls journalists or 3rd to list there's plenty of. interview over donald trump's actual condition right now. no one really trusting of action coming out of the white house you have no idea how sick is a 74 years old he's overweight he's in a high risk group and he may become us to be early 'd ill or may even die if it goes into intensive care the way force johnson did in april that could lead to a constitutional question as to who actually will run the white house and the constitutional mechanisms extremely slow extremely inefficient and. maybe faulty in design it's hard to believe nancy pelosi taking over the white house but if that's what the law says though it may very well happen the situation

is unprecedented the u.s. is that trying to a period of extreme turmoil things were already turbulent enough as they were now they are doubly so. the french president is proposing a new law to find drunk a little religious separatism money when mccrone made the announcement in a speech on friday r.t. charlotte dubin ski ticks off the story. this has been long awaited how the french government would seek to defend the country's secular values against radical islam present like on friday has set out his stall. increases islam is a religion that is in crisis today all over the world we don't just see it in our country it is a deep crisis that is linked to tensions between fundamentalism specifically between religious and political projects that as we have seen lead to radicalism even in countries where islam is the majority religion well the draft glory's due

to be presented in december and it will seek to strengthen the secularism here in france now present much ringback talked about france liberating is from foreign influences and some of the ways it intends to do this with this law will be for example more oversight in how mosques here off funded there will be stricter scrutiny of schools and associations that so really religious communities and when it comes to home schooling which is rather popular amongst the muslim community that will only be allowed when there are health related issues involved sometimes they do not receive any education but go to unofficial structures very simple structures walls with no windows children who arrive at 8 am every day and who leave a 3 pm women in the carbs welcome them and teach only prayers and certain classes that's their teaching. there was immediate reaction on social media to president

mark on speech with many decrying it. the destruction of france has been written by the hands of the president of france crown houses them in crisis all over the world today do you realize is the leader of a nation the ramification of your words especially on french citizens who follow islam mccann's latest comment on crisis and islam is nothing other than a shill to the crisis in europe of their identity and liberal is on the other hand many people feel that this who is needed to stop the slide away from francis secular values it has forced the country in the last few years with the terror attacks that france is seen to take stock of what its core republican values are and some of the things that have come out have been concerning to many french people for example a recent poll found that 3 quarters almost 3 quarters of the young muslims under the age of 25 thought that their values of islam were more important than the

french republic and that really worried many people just in the last week we saw fresh terror attack here in paris and the man who carried out that attack did so because he was unhappy with the satirical magazine charlie ever don't we publishing controversial cartoons of the muslim prophet mohammed and the idea of islam and how that sits with those values of secularism in the french republic is a thorny issue will this stir the debate or will it settle it well that's yet to be seen. we clearly see that the manual mark ron is trying to toughen his rhetoric on the values of the republic he's trying to please the traditional right but also the national bradley supporters who are concerned about this issue so this law countering islamic separatism is all part of his election strategy 18 months before the end of his presidential term. still ahead the e.u.

slap sanctions on bella russian officials over election rigging claims but leaves the question off the list all the details when we return. is your media a reflection of reality. in a world transformed. what will make you feel safe. isolation community. are you going the right way or are you being led. by. what is true what is faith. in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us

in the depths. aura maybe in the shallowness. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to us of the world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see you then. hello again the regional authorities in madrid have launched a legal challenge against the spanish government's new locked on order the a file an appeal in the national court claiming that the measures violate local laws on self will cause all necessary economic harm the madrid area has one of the highest corona virus infection rates in spain and the health minister insists the shutdown is on avoidable. what i can tell you is that we have to act with

determination to take control of the pandemic in the madrid region and this is the most important thing we have to do in this moment because health comes 1st. we believe this document contains decisions that concern the entire national health system and above all the fundamental rights and freedoms of millions of people the minister is imposing measures that go against the will of many citizens. under the new restrictions residents in madrid will not be allowed to leave the area unless they have to make an essential journey social gatherings will be limited to 6 people while bars and restaurants will have to close by 11 pm parks and playgrounds they are off limits to the measures have already led to mosque protests over 2000 people gathered to denounce them last friday protestors rubbish bins into road chanted slogans the mounding freedom as well we asked madrid residents what they think about the new lockdown. at the bridge to turn it into a political war they're playing with us and they should be aware that they have to

see this is a pandemic not a political war i think there is a real threat and this could be improved a lot if the necessary measures are taken with more transport put on to avoid grounding. if you lock people up. for the virus for the flu for a cold everything will get better but people don't have anything to eat you just have to take a walk through madrid to see the shops are all closed people will eventually have to grow their own potatoes because i don't know what we're going to eat if madrid closes again. the united states has imposed sanctions on 8 by the russian officials including the interior minister over the country's disputed election earlier the e.u. blacklisted 40 belorussians in response to allegations of election rigging and violence against protesters minsk responded in kind with measures against the list of european officials r.t. peter all of our reports from berlin. it was a long time coming but the european union have agreed sanctions on belorussian

officials following organists disputed election the reason for the delay was a standoff between cyprus and well pretty much the rest of the e.u. bloc cyprus wanted to see action taken against turkey over an kriz exploration for energy resources off its coast before it would agree to any form of sanctions against bella ruse that action against turkey that was agreed eventually and therefore they were able to proceed with the better russian sanctions so dozens of senior officials 40 in total will be. facing sanctions this is to do with them they being accused of falsifying election results and a crackdown on protests following not election back in august now notably absent from this list is you gaze bell russian president alexander shank and his name not being there is raised a few eyebrows however underlying the e.u.

commission president says these sanctions send the right message there will be no impunity for those who are responsible for the crackdown on demonstrators and opposition politicians sunni important is this a clue for the 3 student we are critical we repeat that we would like to to to consider the people of the has the rights to do to mean what's the only future french president emanuel microamp back not putting sanctions on belarusian president alyaksandr luka shank is saying that if they did that they could see he retreats into a bunker mentality and refuse any future talks angela merkel the german chancellor said the result came after a long night of discussions but called this a real step forward minsk for their part they aren't happy about this at all as you would imagine they say that no nation on. the plan it would've agreed to the demands that were being made of it by the european union and that they'll be

countering the sanctions with sanctions of they were saying sions have been imposed as a punitive measure for the belorussian failure to comply with a set of ultimatum requirements that not a single self respecting sovereign state would ever meet moscow which has a key role to play in the future of belarus to to the longstanding and close ties between the 2 countries has responded to the news of the sanctions to meet the press core of the kremlin spokes person less than impressed with the move made by brussels if these sanctions are a manifestation of weakness not of strength and could be included on the list that would have deprived the e.u. the chance to maintain dialogue including on topics of interest to both sides we have a very negative attitude toward sanctions in general the u.k. and canada both are out sanctions against belarus previously the u.k. issued a asset freeze against alexander lukashenko the reason for this delay from the

european side is a touch embarrassing and highlights some splits within the union it requires unanimity to impose sanctions for the e.u. to impose sanctions on a nation basically the baltic states and in particular lithuania were demanding action immediately while cyprus said no no no hang on there we'll get to your problem once ours is sorted so belorussian officials 40 of them in total will have sanctions placed upon them notably absent from that list though alexander lukashenko or geopolitical analyst ryan or right 1st says that any sanctions are likely to have a knock on effect on the public. so i think it's just a game of slightly stepping up the the tone against. against look i think oh and i see the difficulty that. usually when we have reached the stage of sanctions once it's like

a one way road and we will never never get out of it so we can take years and that was sanctions 1st may harm or amaze seem to harm the political elite but in the end we know from enough experience in this world iraq syria venezuela cetera that it's the normal people it's most of all the poor people who are hit very very severely by those sanctions as soon as they get really tough well if you'd like to have your say in any of those stories on plenty more besides why not check out our teams facebook page and leave a comment or 2 with a lively discussion going on there i hope to see you again in 30. always be polite gauge with confrontational.

don't get into any conversation or start answering questions just. to survive and. definitely don't want to. jump. you're more likely to walk free if you're rich and. poor and. you've got. one now. so you should be seen in here and a whole lot more than you're saying if you don't take that advice easy going to. seem wrong. to

shape out. because that's ok and in. the trailer. park. common ground. hello and welcome to cross talk there all things are considered i'm peter lavelle the.