50 percent of the time otherwise. probably heaviest shelling we arrived armenia and azerbaijan. over the disputed region of. russia. being brought. from the warring sides trade accusations. also ahead on the program the white house confirmed. the. us president. and his french counterpart of. separatism through defending secular.

october welcome wherever you're joining us from today. 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. there are unconfirmed reports of casualties earlier the region's main city was bombed from the air and locals have been hearing the regular sunday of. several buildings were damaged including the emergency ministry where the windows were shattered and holes blown through the walls there are many in defense ministry has blamed azerbaijan for the earth strikes and put its army units on full combat alert. has not confirmed or denied the bombing raids yet are down for

ports now from nagorno-karabakh. it 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 what 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 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 as there by johnnie's are using these so-called double tap so that they not only they destroy the building but also the 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 its head the military here is telling me that this is a 250 caliber 250 millimeter caliber so it is a massive rocket they don't know exactly what it is they're telling me these these are not laws but that this one is also israeli made. by john itself has also seen sizable damage a border region was hit by mortar fire and several buildings were destroyed and in the nation's capital citizens have been showing support for their military local journalist. reports from back. constantly.

pulling things knowing he'd be wrong. you'll see the. police what you would do is watch out might ask you for one. hour it's fine if they are late and you've got to go on the special line permission residents are quite enthusiastic. including the one time i. say they. will seek a. negotiation process so i support the army you can see the national flags that hang outside their house or just. thank you the cars. let's listen to some of them will be asked recently expectations signal now that i am originally from carroll 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 i think 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 our countrymen have a negative attitude to the war young people are going to the war their minions must surrender and leave our lands. they service the militia and consumption of a. 1000 young people. came to. our service. criticize you doing to our something because we can't make national t.v. or congress and online media. outlets where we can see that absolute majority of

the coverage. was crossed by john and paul who are. local reporting from but who will journalists in a corner cutting back or getting caught in the crossfire 4 were injured in a shell strike on whedon's think getting 2 french reporters they were lifted to your advantage for treatment which is what we're seeing here they're not back in france and on thursday a car carrying 4 other reporters including russians was hit by an artillery shell no one was injured just some background to all of this then the car a box conflict is one of several border disputes still unresolved since the collapse of the soviet union 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. and another aspect to the conflict from russia have accused turkey of funneling jehadi militants from syria into the conflict zone our media has backed up a claim saying turkey is using terrorists to help. along with direct military

support azerbaijan denies the allegations saying it's or mania 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 money and leadership continues this policy today mercenaries are pumped into the conflict zone disguised as volunteers according to our information about 4 families and 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 warring sides to end the fighting and they've called for negotiations involving the oas see minsk group which has been overseeing peace efforts for almost 30 years turkey has rejected pleas for a truce president erdogan has said he hopes will continue its offensive until

quarterback is freed from what he calls the armenian occupation one more point in an already complex situation armenia's accused of using cluster munitions in car back and has published photos allegedly proving it the weapons are banned on or international law azerbaijan has not yet responded to that allegation both sides have however released a string of it it was the back up their claims of tactical victories on are making contradictory claims about the damage inflicted ortiz taylor looks descent from ation has become one of the key weapons in this standoff. deception and full of military victories are as old as wolf heart south but in the digital age the dissent from ation can be tough charged the military propaganda machine of armenia which found itself in a stalemate after a series of successful hostilities by the johnny army began a large scale provocation in the information space though the armenian side as

always presents old video of past battles as new ones the goal was to present their failures to the population as successes the ongoing conflict in the corner is an example of how information is deployed just as powerfully and destructively as guns claiming victory can play as important a role as physically claiming territory it's all about the image you project so one surprise in that just as i was by john tried to discredit armenia's claims of success yet on shot off its own attack the enemy both at the front and in the information space is making its last efforts is running out of steam and therefore threw everything all possible weapons into an 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 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 talkie in azerbaijan denounce this is law is on with no footage or i want to says it's one side's word against the others so was the truth but even when evidence is put forward the truth proves to be just as elusive the car back to france ministry sit down and sorry helicopter a photo of a burning helicopter into the ground is posted on social media a small victory is claimed it tuns 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 necessary and that will stick as a boy john uses the same tactics to post about a successful strike the bridge on his side did not publish any images of the strikes and the remain in positions of military equipment it turned out it was for those from the war in syria these videos which had thousands of times and so without being the truth they become

a 1000 of the truth so we're letting this has this war of information become that 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 when it people asian 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 shining nuggets well when it comes to karpov best still a knot of sifting through the muddy river of misinformation to be done before we even get close to the truth. let's bring you to a story a lot of people are talking about today president trump is suffering mild symptoms

after contracting dean that's according to the white house even the 1st lady tested positive for the virus with just over an hour or weeks to go before the election in the wake of the diagnosis a number of top officials have been tested going through vice president mike pence tested negative donald trump rival for the presidency joe biden is results also came back negative along with his running mate come along horace incidentally if trump and pence were ruled out of action democrat host speaker nancy pelosi would enter the oval office she's now her results more on the. shakeup caused by the end it's been. 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 new 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 warbird miraculously goes away i hope that's true we have a very much good to go right here in the united states is lowest in numerous categories were lower than the world that they wanted me to come out and screw. with. so 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 don't agree 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 covert 19 now dozens of campaign rallies have been canceled as the president

goes into quarantine 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 covert going into crowds unmasked and all the rest to sort of a brazen invitation for something like this to happen though they have not done so in the postes good. ministration must now full of the science and recommended health person in order to not put additional people at 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 coated 19 so at this point the question remains will the us 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 $1000.00 pandemic that will be seen on november 3rd when u.s. voters head to the polls of journalists north are done evil is already told us there's plenty of uncertainty over donald trump's actual condition right now no one really trusts the information coming out of the white house you have no idea how secure is a 74 years old he's overweight he's a high risk group and he may become a severely ill or baby even die if he goes into intensive care the way boris johnson did in april that could lead to a constitutional question as to who actually will run the white house and the constitutional mechanism 6 dreamily slow extremely inefficient and

maybe faulty in design it's hard to believe nancy pelosi taking over the white house but it's that's what the law says though it may very well happen the situation is unprecedented the u.s. is that going to a period of extreme turmoil things were already true of the left enough as they were now they are doubly so. let's bring you to france where the president is proposing a new law to fights radical islam and religious separatism in the money will mccrone made the announcement in a speech on friday r.t. charlotte devinsky takes up 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 establishing a religion. 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 serve religious communities and when it comes to homeschooling 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 carbs welcome them and teach only prayers and certain classes that's their teaching there was immediate reaction on social media to president michel 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 as 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 shield 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 rally 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. charla dubinsky with the report still ahead on the program but e.u. slap sanctions on bell russian officials over a. election rigging claims but leaves to go off the list of all the details when we return. leg.

the 1st presidential debate exhibited lots of like but not much one can argue neither candidate last night was a perfect reflection of the nation's politics put the campaign coming to an end do the debates have any meaningful impact is there such a thing as an undecided voter. we start the program back in spain where the regional authorities in madrid have

launched a legal challenge against the government's new locked on order if filed an appeal in the national court claiming that the measures violate local laws on self rule will cause unnecessary economic harm there dude area has one of the highest coronavirus infection rates in spain and the health minister insists the shutdown is on affordable. ok 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 yeah the restrictions getting a bit familiar by now residents in madrid not allowed to leave the area unless they have to make an essential journey social gatherings them to 6 people while bars restaurants will have to close by 11 pm parks playgrounds they are off limits to

the measures have already led to protests this is last week over 2000 people gathering to the. protesters push rubbish bins into the road chanting slogans the freedom we ask madrid residents what they think about. the rescue of a turning 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 at home 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 beller 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 artie's peter all of a report 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 or 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 you to share 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 since we are critical and 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 planet 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 'd 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. geo political analyst ron arad 1st say 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 3 never get out of it so we can take years and that was sanctions 1st may harm or may seem to harm the political elite but in the end we know from enough experience in this world iraq syria venezuela and 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 got really tough and that is the latest global news update from our t.

hey q here in moscow more great programs get their start in moments and i'm back at the top with all the day's developments as they close. thank. you thank. always be polite never engage with a negative a good or confrontational. don't get into any conversation or start answering questions just. to survive and. definitely don't want to be in the jump. you're more likely to walk free if you're rich. or if you're poor and. you've got 2

eyes 2 ears and one mouth. 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 dig yourself. yanks this is what happens to pensions in britain. you watch kaiser report. us as american citizens in a device that's. bad and.