armenia and azerbaijan conflict over the disputed region of. our correspondent is in the area. probably the heaviest shelling since we arrived here 2 massive explosions in the very center of the city. has been moved to a military hospital after testing positive for corona virus the white house says it is a precautionary move. and the french leader. veils a plan to counter islamist separatism through a new log defending secular values. as

you live coverage from our studios in moscow this. thomas certainly glad to have you with us and we start with a deadly standoff between armenia and azerbaijan in the south caucasus a hospital has been hit by a large explosion in the disputed province of gordon and there are unconfirmed reports of casualties earlier the region's main city was bombed from the air and locals have been hearing the regular sound of air raid sirens. several buildings were damaged including the emergency ministry where the windows were shattered and holes blown through the walls the armenian defense ministry has blamed azerbaijan for the airstrikes and put its army units on full combat alert has not confirmed or denied the bombing raids are due to go to john are reports now from god no credible. 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 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 are these are not love. but that this one is also israeli made. about it on itself has also seen sizable damage in a border region was hit by mortar fire with several buildings destroyed while in the capital and citizens have been showing support for the military action local journalist is smile of the tally of reports from baku his piece includes image of military strikes as a bit of a warning. going to go and meet

the. monkey you'll see the. police looking for those who are now i think you would. be our fine lady and you can take on the special line for michele norris this hour why thank you she asked to keep the waiting for the full time. to see. who would seek a. negotiation process so much support of the army you can see the national flag that day i'll find that out or just the thank you the cards. let's listen to some of them will be asked recently expectations signal now that i am originally from carroll i'm 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 there's just too much i think we will win the 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 i have a negative attitude to the war young people are going to the war their minions must surrender and leave rowland's. the service the mobilization and consumption of a. 1000 young people. came to the. service. it's pretty decide to join the army or something because we think national t.v. networks and online media. outlets where we can see. absolute majority of the coverage of the most prosperous and cold war. the current conflict is one of

several border disputes still unresolved since the collapse of the soviet union young populated mainly by armenians broke away in 1988 from azerbaijan but the area has not been widely recognized as a sovereign state. switching gears the u.s. now donald trump has arrived to to a military hospital walter reed for quote a few days after earlier testing positive for covert 19 u.s. president is reportedly suffering mild symptoms and will undergo tests at the medical facility the 1st lady also has coronavirus and a number of top officials have now been tested as well democratic rival joe biden was among them his results came back negative white house says mr trump will continue in his role but what happens if situation deteriorates as he's come up in comments. this is pretty big news that donald 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 it very much going to grow right here in the united states is lowest in numerous categories were lower then the world 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've done a great job with just about a month the 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 now a debate was scheduled to take place in the following 2 weeks the debate. 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 this sort of a brazen invitation for something like this to happen 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 journalist and author daniel told us that there's very little certainty over donald trump's actual condition right now. no one really trust the infection coming out of the white house we 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 ill or may even die the fee 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 the extreme turmoil things were already turbulent enough as they were now they are doubly so. the french president is proposing a new launch a fight radical islam and religious separatism a man who micron made the announcement in a speech on friday show devinsky takes up the story for us. this has been long awaited how the french government would seek to defend the country's secular values against radical islam president lock 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 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 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 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 as 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 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 $25.00 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 still the debate or will it settle it well that's yet to be seen what we clearly see that the manual markram is trying to toughen his rhetoric on the values of the republic he is 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. still to come the e.u. slap sanctions on the belorussian officials over election rigging claims but lives were good friends. off the list all the details want to return this is our international. 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's his face.

in the world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the depths. aura made in the shallows. join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. talk about this is our to international now the regional authorities in madrid have launched a legal challenge against the spanish government's new lockdown order they have filed an appeal in the national court claiming that the measures violate local laws on self rule and will cause unnecessary economic harm the madrid area has one of

the highest corona virus infection rates in spain and the health minister insists the shutdown is unavoidable. but i can tell you is there we have to act with determination to take control of the pandemic in the majeed 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 are off limits as well and the measures have already led to mass protests over 2000 people gathered to denounce them last friday protesters pushed rubbish bins into roads and chanted slogans demanding freedom we asked madrid residents what they

think about the new law down. they have turned 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 then of sri 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. united states has imposed sanctions on aid belorussian 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 responded in kind with measures against

a list of european officials artie's 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 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 reuss 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 his name not being

there is raised a few eyebrows however underlying the 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 through since we are critical and we repeat that we would like to to to consider that the people of the have the rights to do to mean what's the only future french president to manual microamp back not putting sanctions on belarusian president alexander lukashenko saying that if they did that they could see him retreat 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 if 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 it 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 your political analyst rainer roughness 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 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 get really tough and there's a for me i'll be back with more news in let's say 38 minutes and such international stay with us. we just surveyed it just about

a month into the pandemic and found that people said they lost 35 minutes a day less to unwanted interruptions at home which was kind of a surprise because you know with all the things that are going on i know right now this is not the best of times to be to be doing it. and so that's one element the other element is they tend to give back 50 percent of the time that they would have otherwise spent commuting. is wrong with us as american citizens and i hate to blast off that's why. we're in a test file we have a fasting bag and i think. i would vote for a republican over trump i would vote for anyone to move not you and has half a great new defeat john john. please if you get. my 2nd

wife. she can handle it. she and i divorce because our trouble is a lot of the president and i floated for her and she could stand for. that when the most important election. in our history is less than a month to go before the next presidential election how is the atmosphere in the u.s. now. one of the highest priority programs how will they vote should they do next not. just some of the questions we put to the american. everybody's reaching for that you have political parlance as a president so key and i mean it's to russia and i think the resolution of this is there's going to be a gnostic war that's going to go on for maybe months assuming on ready projects

it's. almost as off to mediate because the fighting is too early on that people are now battling to see what territory they can get and i think when the fighting settles down and the lines are drawn and people realize that they're not going to move forward or backwards then they're going to turn to the other place. it's an amazing country with so many friends in russia and i'm very excited to be here. i love that idea i think i can do that. different nice to make a lot of money with. millions and hundreds of me.

he has a nice life. a great wall and nobody feels a lot better than me believe me and i'll build a very inexpensive like a great great wall. 'd and just in case you're worried about who's going to pay for it mexico will pay for . it we'll see what happens who knows i always say who knows what will seattle feel it will be a success. hello and welcome to cross talk were all things are considered i'm peter lavelle the 1st

presidential debate exhibit lots of light but not much heat one can argue neither candidate lost me neither one a perfect reflection of the nation's politics with the campaign coming to an end do the debates have any meaningful impact is there such a thing as an undecided voter. to discuss this and more i'm joined by my guest leon jones in panama city beach she is an attorney and a former state director for bernie sanders and 2016 and in dallas we cross to george c. he is a businessman conservative political leader as well as a former senior advisor to marco rubio's 2016 presidential campaign or across up rules in effect that means get in japanese if you want i was appreciated always go to georgia and dallas that as i said in my introduction you know one could argue

maybe you want to agree with me one can argue that it was a dead heat neither side won neither candidate won or lost in that debate but for very different reasons here i want to focus on this program the impacts of this debate and as it may impact the final results on november 3rd so obviously you're a supporter of donald trump how did he do in this debate. well i've i agree that this was a hard one to analyze i think if you look at the kennedy next debate which is outcome determinative and the rain in cardiff bay which is outcome determinative i don't think this one's going to do that i think it was so canny and so unprecedented in what i would say a negative stance you got the former vice pres in the united states calling the president a clown in a race. dog whistle blower and then you've got the president just being a bully the whole time and interrupting all it's time and it was not

a gentlemanly debate it was not a reasoned debate and i'm not sure who's going to change their minds if there's 5 to 15 percent of the electorate in the middle that might be willing to change their minds if they change their minds for vice president biden i think they're going to be the president strength in a negative sense and that it's it's overwhelming and it's intimidating and it's somewhat frightening and if they change their minds president trying i think it's going to be because the vice former vice president looks people and fumbles around sometimes and they want somebody strong and clearly in control of his faculties in the president in the oval office again but it depends on how they perceive man's behavior and it was very stirring and it was hard to watch even though it was like watching a train wreck replaying crash that's an understatement it was hard to watch i mean i obviously because i live in so many different time zones away. i saw the reporting of it and i had to stop many many times to get through it many times it was done i mean it that i was also wrestling ok in bad form ok in my opinion go

ahead. it was cringe worthy it was truly truly cringe worthy and it was embarrassing as an american it was embarrassing i don't care which side of the aisle you're on i had hoped as a democrat that biden would have come in prepared this is not unusual for donald trump to interrupt it's not unusual for him to go off topic and so i had hoped that president biden would have been prepared for that and simply stuck to the important part that the american wants to hear the policy issues yet he still get pulled down into trance mud pit and the name calling and even even saying should bother me right to speak in front of children's classes all the time and if you accidentally stay shut up in elementary school class has they will tell you shut up is a bad word is that we can even have our children watch this debate to get a good example of what american politics is supposed to be abashed and on.