Hello and welcome to aljazeera live from doha im martin denis also coming up in the program accusations and insults a traded by President Trump disini a puerto rican official as the u. S. Caribbean territory struggles to recover from Hurricane Maria a rare admission by the secretary of state to listen the u. S. Is in direct talks with north korea living in a climate of fear nigerians in the northeast mark Independence Day with subdued celebrations. The polls in catalonia opened just over two hours ago as voters cast their ballots in a controversial secession referendum just minutes after voting got underway scuffle. Broke out between police and voters at one polling station and within the last hour the castle and leader. Demand has cost his vote in what is a banned independence vote live now to our correspondent penholder who is in barcelona tell us where you are whats going on around. Martine where the same location that we were at forty five minutes ago this is the Education Department of the cat lang government which has been set up as a violent state forty five minutes ago this was the scene of intense duffels around fifty Spanish Riot Police came in here clad in helmets were dragging processional photos out of the building and out of the front of the building some very aggressive scenes there although it must be said that these voters have hogan eyes themselves in a Peaceful Campaign of civil disobedience we didnt see any fighting on their part but just to show you that what the National Police is doing right now has not proved very effective because forty five minutes later this polling station is open again just take a look around and see a number of voters there waiting with envelopes ballot slips and their id papers in line and although the National Police did seize one ballot box and take it away there have been contingency plans this is the ballot box that is now being used despite that police raid this is going ahead there seem to be multiple layers of contingency plan in place to ensure that the referendum is not closed down now weve seen those white Police Operating in multiple locations across but they come they spend ten or fifteen minutes on the ground and they leave again right now youll hear the crowd going choir. And that is because they put out of people to turn off their mobile phones so that theyre not sucking up the wife i signal because that wife i signal is being used here for the single computer here so that they can get access to the universal voter census and make sure that everybody who is registered to vote can vote and call it seems very much as they as the organizing will surratt is of this referendum of being quite meticulous about the manner in which its conducted especially in the face of so many efforts to shut it down. I think this is really something that is surprising me both now but over the last few days as well. Ill keep talking about take a look around but over the last few days as the politicians realize the breadth the potential Police Action bearing in mind that there were ten thousand Police Reinforcements sent to catalonia by the Central Government to close the vote down then what grew up was selfdefense committees defense committees by citizens who simply said no weve got a human cordons in front of the voting station to stop it and then as has been an offensive on the Information Technology front then not only of cattle and government officials popped up with contingency plans but also programmers private citizens who have invented was up publications thoughts mirrors proxy websites to ensure that people get that information and this is the result that information has continued to flow despite Spanish Government efforts to close down what they call illegal referendum and this is the result people of all generations who are out here to vote right now and counting i know this is a tiny bit new orleans but dont think its important to make the distinction that many many people in catalonia have been protesting and now a champion. Their right to vote this is the issue that many people are incensed about is about the right to vote not necessarily that they want to vote to secede from spain. Thats absolutely true this did start off as a campaign for secession in their words for independence but then as they saw the reaction from the government in madrid from the Central Government trying to close down web pages arresting Catalan Government officials threatening to arrest mares and seizing ballot boxes then a lot of additional people were stirred by that and said no what can be more democratic than simple white right to vote and many people have come and said we want to vote whether its yes or no to be truthful i believe the lot of the people here have made this effort because they want to vote yes yes so that catalonia becomes an independent republic but in two or three polling stations that weve been to this morning there have been individuals outside who stand there and say no we will not go and vote because this referendum is illegal as the Spanish Government says one gentleman even was saying that people like these voters here now were managing to stage a coup detat so this issue of the referendum certainly has been deeply divisive here in catalonia martin all right karl well leave you now at that polling station as people managing to cast their votes thank you and lets go to another of our correspondents in a different part of barcelona john hendren and john that weve seen the people. With origins where coal is have been shown a certain ingenuity by despite the police raid theyre still managing to vote they told everyone to turn off their mobile phones theyve got a little bit of of Internet Connectivity whats the situation where you are. Its very much the same here marty theres apparently been a lot of back channel conversations with Election Officials theyre all on the same page here we had the same amount of announcement outside of here to turn off their cell phones or they wouldnt interfere but you might see behind me. The line of people that man is holding a ballot hes about to cast his vote but what happens is that these people here the man looking at his phone behind me is apparently checking against the universal census this mans id now what normally happens in an election is you go to a polling place to which youre assigned they only have the information about the people who are supposed to vote in that area one of the things that the yes campaign here has done is connected all of these voting people with a universal census and that means anybody can vote anywhere so that if your polling places close down you can come to another one and you can see that these are the on the loach that the ballots come in and its plain you can see its not prestamped and thats because the Spanish Police have confiscated so many of them but inside what you see is the ballot in three languages a simple yes or no and thats the ballot that people are asking here in that box right behind me but there is a system to check that every voter is in fact registered if youre not in the census you dont get to vote i asked the president carlos speak to moan about this yesterday he said there was a system in place and they werent disclosing it to the spanish authorities well this is apparently what it is. But at the end of the day john five point three Million People are eligible to vote at what point does the results of this vote become illegitimate or become discredited by the numbers i mean thats going to be a threshold hasnt that. Well and thats really. In the eye of the bo holder martina i asked the president that yesterday in an interview and he said there is no threshold that if the Spanish Government is going to do this theyre going to go ahead and cast a vote in whatever number of people vote last time it was two point four million when they had a referendum previously but on that occasion that the Spanish Government did not crack down and tell the swedes to mark points out that understanding is she law there is not a structural support for votes there either so he says hell be consistent with spanish law so i asked him i said one million two million whats the threshold at which this becomes a legitimate election and he said it doesnt matter the spanish will consider this a legitimate an election what matters is whether the United Nations considers this a legitimate election whether they European Union considers it one and in his eyes as long as a majority of the people who do vote vote yes that they will declare independence within two days of this election all right john thank you very much. Live in barcelona. Now lets go to puerto rico because the mayor of the capital city san juan has accused the u. S. Government of killing people three in the efficiency of the u. S. Territory being without electricity and Drinking Water ever since Hurricane Maria made landfall and that was only two weeks ago locals say aid is not coming fast enough today is a bow is our correspondent in the sun one of. The generator went down in this hospital in san juan more than one hundred patients had to be transferred to other locations a lot of his mother is still inside hes worried about where theyre going to take her away they just several complications in the she is old and im not sure where we will go but she is not alone on site there are others who are recovering from surgery among other things who are not allowed inside. But we were told that most of the patients were transferred on time. Because pendant on the generator to figure out which was completely destroyed during the hurricane is just an example of how the situation for the police really deteriorate if immediate action is not taken this forward is playing a crucial role this days as it is where much needed aid has arrived. Says there are more than ten thousand containers here with goods even though the products were long to private companies they could easily help to restore the supply chain here right now in in all of our terminals there are merge and see supplies they are emergency medicine water food Construction Materials commercial materials so the terminal is full of goods its a matter of how we restore this. Part of the supply chain on the island distribution has been one of the biggest issues so far in getting aid out ten days after the hurricane people are still lining up for hours for fuel many are still in need of water and other goods some are desperate to get help to and most commonly see only we want my mother to live the house was destroyed she hasnt many years left and we want to live decently is that too much to ask who got a manger linguist is the mayor of san juan she has been pleading for more help from the United States government on saturday President Donald Trump accuse her and other Puerto Ricans of not doing enough to get out of the Current Crisis i think we havent been treated with the same sense of an urgency that other disasters have been treated and again you know im a five hundred twenty pounds mayor of a city in the caribbean a three star general. Said yes. We dont have enough we need to get more in order to be able to take care in this age. Home are to say that in general isnt saying the right thing right for most people here this fight is not a political one but one of survival and they hope those in charge well leave their differences aside and sort things out. And some one point. The u. S. Secretary of state is trying to ease tension on the Korean Peninsula by saying the trumpet ministration has no plans to force regime change in pyongyang this is a listen made the comments during a visit to china where he also revealed his country is in direct communication with north korea mike hanna has been following developments from washington d. C. This is the first public of knowledge meant by the trumpet ministration that it has been in direct contact with north korea the secretary of state saying that there are two if not three avenues that it is using for communication he also made clear that it is not through china in other words the u. S. Is using avenues of communication unilaterally separate from china this is very significant because it indicates that the secretary of state is Still Believes that there is a diplomatic resolution possible to this ongoing crisis this despite the hostile words that have been exchanged by the president of the u. S. And of the leader of north korea in recent months its also an indication of the growing warmth in the relationship between china and the u. S. In the past china has a deal of houston not fully implementing the sanctions that had been passed against north korea in the u. N. Security council and indeed these sanctions that have been unilaterally imposed by the United States but in recent months there has been a significant policy shift china has been implementing these sanctions as shown by the fact that its instructor. Its banks to no longer do business with north korea it is restricting the import of oil into north korea so this is something very significant in terms of the us stated policy of getting china to bring greater pressure to bear on north korea in an attempt to resolve this crisis but also what is happening is that it does not only pertain to north korea the relationship between the us and china is growing stronger through this ongoing crisis in wider areas such as trade. The former football star jason since being released from a us jail he served nine years for Armed Robbery the seventeen year old was released from the nevada jail early on sunday and will now be supervised by parole officers for five years in one thousand nine hundred five he was acquitted of murdering his exwife and her friend at a trial but gripped the world still to come here there as hundreds of thousands of refugees face a humanitarian crisis we speak to the head of the World Food Program about his tour of camp. Thousands take to the streets in the u. S. Demanding racial equality. Hello weve got the usual rash of showers across Southeast Asia plenty of crowds showing up on the satellite picture philippines borneo seeing some very heavy showers showers continue to drive their way across a smarter through the mill a potential epic lots of storms just around the gulf of thailand more showers there in bangkok then through monday and. If anything lining up a little by the time we do come to tuesday the showers lining up to across indonesia will see some rather wet weather there easing back into jakarta season rather wet weather making its way across central parts of australia thats all there pushing over towards the east coast the gold coast the Sunshine Coast not too much sunshine here over the next day or so blustery showers continue to stream in brisbane and its really wet weather over the next couple of days twenty degrees celsius maybe twenty four by the time we come to choose day for the south want to shouldnt be too bad in victoria melbourne at around twenty two degrees maybe just eighteen there for purposes sort of number we can look for. Would see in new zealand over the next day oh say maybe in the mid teens for christchurch in oakland as we go on through monday i lost some drier and brighter weather coming through a little on the blustery side yes but it should be fine and dry and temperatures at seventeen degrees but shes day. A new year and many new developments for this chinese religious fledgling democracy the Village Committee has retrieved peoples land but approval is fleeting prostration grips the villages and as the saga began over a year before result is a. Police car. Full of six parts spilled over five years. Chinas democracy experiment at this time on al jazeera. Trying to take a look at the top stories here at aljazeera scuffles are broken out between spanish for these invasions in catalonia succession referendum paramedics are treating some people whove been injured in the scuffles elsewhere people are casting their ballots. The mayor of puerto ricos capital found one has accused the u. S. Government of killing people through efficient inefficiency much of the u. S. Surgeries infrastructure was destroyed almost two weeks ago by Hurrican MariaPresident Trump is expected to go there this week. The u. S. Secretary of state says the trump of ministration has no plans to force regime change in north korea Rex Tillerson made the comments on a visit to china where he also revealed his country is in direct communication with pyongyang. The nigerias taking a rather low key approach to its Independence Day celebrations in the Northeastern State of foreigner this year because of fears of attacks by the. Theres been an increase in the number of attacks on civilians and security personnel of late as ahmed addressed reports. A member of a militia helping the army in the fight against the koran is now facing its own battle for his life. Iraq it tore through the patrol car he was in as he helped provide cover for workers two months ago. But was also part of that convoy that included soldiers who will be as if they be i. D. D. As i wish it was an ambush the surprise is that we were sitting there was safe we spent days working there that take happened in our last day. Their tank was a bloodiest so far this year in nigeria as in all the east a few kilometers away from here in july but quite on fighters a convoy of Oil Exploration workers being escorted by the military and vigilantes more than fifty people died in that attack that attack coincided with an increase in the rate of suicide bombings and abductions in the northeast the militarys response was an and ground offensive that lasted for weeks the Army Deployed more personnel and equipment and top commanders were ordered back to the region. Where a climate of fear has returned. The latest wave of violence represents a change in strategy by boko haram which suicide bombings and hostage taking being stuck but Security Experts say this has to be expected after the group lost control of territory Holding Ground is also makes you weak because if you hold the ground its ms you know the opposing force has something substantial to heat but when you attack iraq you know you you you you kind of dilute all that advantage in numbers advantage and put men and advantage in training a retired Group Captain said if you as an end to the fight is not yet in sight were probably. It was a very very long time. That you spent weeks here in that. Operation. Very difficult but. The military declined to speak about recent strategy and its own response. I renewed military operation may have calmed the situation but people in the northeast know that they have not heard the last from fighters in the last eight years have killed tens of thousands of people and forced more than two and a half million others from their homes. North east nigeria. And todays Unification Day in cameroon its fifty six years since the English Speaking section of the country voted to join the much larger french speaking but its not been a happy union the younger phone minority feel discriminated against and the thing protests. Have put down and now the government has closed the border with nigeria for fear of more unrest the English Speakers make up less than twenty percent of the country many say the region should be fully independent mohamed el. And a leader in waiting all the trappings of a potential new country but without any land because what these people want to call amazonia is at the moment the English Speaking part of cameroon its here the demonstrators have gathered momentum in the last year by saying that people suffer discrimination at the hands of the french speaking government most people just want reform but calls for independence are getting louder. At the end of the First World War cameroon was divided between the french and the british at its independence in one thousand nine hundred sixty one the English Speaking opted to join the French Cameroon instead of neighboring nigeria. These protests have been mainly peaceful but Cameroon Security Forces have cracked down six protesters were shot dead last year and hundreds arrested in apparent juster of reconciliation president paul b. Ordered that the charges be dropped against several detainees but that doesnt seem to have calmed the tensions the man who leads the separatists has been touring the us calling for a peaceful uprising we call for a nonviolent revolution we call for them violent protests we call for more involved and much this is what young people straight into the well and we have resisted. I mean you know i love this is a moment that we must continue to stand for this may leave the u. N. Secretary general has asked camerons government to address the grievances of the English Speakers but the u. N. Is unlikely to answer mr tavist prayers for a new country called amazonia Mohammed Omar d. C. Al jazeera. Prodemocracy campaigners have been rallying outside hong kongs Chinese NationalDay Celebrations police blocked a small group of protesters who march near the venue hong kong has been under chinese rule for twenty years now the selfgoverning territory has extra rights under chinas one country two systems structure. Dozens of footballs rotators were injured when a crowd barrier collapse at a stadium in france the incident happened at the league one match between legal and. Illegal supporters were celebrating the open goal when the fans collapsed under their weight three people were taken to hospital in serious injuries the match was abandoned thousands of people are marching in ireland there demanding a change to laws against abortion the socalled march for choice comes after the Irish Government said a referendum only issue will be Held Next Year and has some of the most restrictive laws on abortion in europe terminations are illegal unless the mothers life is at risk you see remains divisive in the country which has a large catholic population. At least fifty people have been arrested at a far right rally in the swedish city of gotham by members of the Nordic Resistance Movement have been fighting with counterdemonstrators a Group Promotes anti semitic ideas its said to have timed the march to coincide with the jewish holiday of young kapoor a Police Officer was among several people injured. Thousands of americans have joined whats being called a march for Racial Justice in washington d. C. Relatives of people who was shot dead by police were among the protesters demanding Justice Allan shuffler report. Ok. March to the federal department of justice several thousand people saying thats exactly what theyre looking for justice you do it because you die of the watch and. Refuse to die. And we refuse to be enslaved again. Valerie castiel came halfway across the country to participate her son fell lando was shot and killed by a Police Officer last year in the state of minnesota that latino officer geronimo yeah nez was recently acquitted of all charges. It happened these gas paid off no accountability no responsibility. This demonstration is actually to merge protests the march for Racial Justice and the march for black women drawing attention more specifically to issues facing minority women in a nation that has a majority white population were marching for our lives were marching for our health were marching for our for our sanity and were marching for liberation marches like they are and similar martyrs planted ten other cities around the country come if the u. S. Is struggling over aggressions of race and racism complex social issues being publicly debated here and this is very much social media all of it lame by tweets from the white house and controversial symbolic displays in the nations sports arena. It is a time of National Division american Football Players staging controversial pregame demonstrations tweeted condemnation from the president anger from some fans. White supremacist displaying nazi symbols this summer and opposing protester killed and a tepid response from the white house scrawled slurs found this week targeting africanamerican students at a military prep school and if you cant. Treat someone from another race or a different color stand with dignity and respect then you need to get out there is anger on the streets but diversity as well and hope says one march organizer on the street where we live with we live is one another we love each other and this is an opportunity to express that. An opportunity to sound off taken by thousands of americans allen job for aljazeera washington d. C. Thousands of People Living on the vanuatu island of by being forced to leave because of fears a volcano may are up more than six thousand people have been moved to emergency shelters others have boarded planes to get off the island than want to is a sprawling cluster of more than eighty different islands and it lies on the seismically active pacific ring of fire. Now dont forget that on the web site aljazeera dot com you can keep right up to date with days developing stories particularly of course today that referendum taking place in catalonia. You know without these are our top stories spanish right for this forcibly remove sit in protests as they try to prevent the will surratt is from stopping the vote paramedics are treating people outside polling stations whove been injured in the scuffles algis heirs karl penhall and camera operator also inman caught up in the clashes outside a polling station and also luna. Right there. But if you can see them down now starting to move. Into the crowd. That shot from the crowd from the. Photos haitian. Police from other areas. To catch a load of the specific crimes out on this rebel. The mare of fredericas capital san juan has accused the u. S. Government of killing people through inefficiency much of the u. S. Territories infrastructure was destroyed almost two weeks ago by Hurrican MariaPresident Trump is expected to visit her to rico this week. The u. S. Secretary of state says the trumpet ministration has no plans to force regime change in north korea Rex Tillerson made the remarks during a visit to china where he also revealed his country is in direct communication with pyongyang the former football star o. J. Simpson has been released from a u. S. Prison he served nine years for Armed Robbery the seventy year old was released from the nevada jail early on sunday and will be supervised by a parole offices for five years in one thousand nine hundred five simpson was acquitted of murdering his exwife and her friend in a trial that gripped the world dozens of football spectators were injured when a crowd barrier collapsed at a stadium in france the incident happened at the league one match between leland amiel the little supporters were celebrating the opening goal when the fence collapsed under their weight three people were taken to hospital with serious injuries and the match was abandoned all roger today those are the latest headlines from us here at aljazeera coming up next its. Al jazeera is a very important source of information for many people around the world when all the cameras are gone im still here go into areas that nobody else is going to talk to people that nobody else is talking to and bring that story to the forefront. Tens of thousands of demonstrations erupt across china each year driven by anger over corruption and the illegal sale of Communal Land most protests fail to make an impact but in two thousand and eleven one village defied the odds. Last const religious road