Welcome i just ticked past one am here in the russian capital my name is neil harvey this is r. T. International preliminary results from the catalan Regional Election indicate that Pro Independence parties could be set for an absolute majority in parliament the pro unity Citizens Party meanwhile has around twenty five percent of the vote results will be announced on january fifth is journalist Martin Roberts with more details. Seven parties in the elections are vying for votes cast by record turnout and this is all the more remarkable when you consider that elections were held on a working day like today rather than the usual sunday although this year holding them on a sunday would have meant conflicting with Christmas Eve so central authorities decided to bring the elections forward a few days the uncertainty seems likely to continue for several weeks now because while the three or four it Pro Independence parties do have a majority between them no single policy has anything like a majority of the folks and indeed they didnt Even Campaign together now cratylus puts them on the outgoing first minister of qatar and you who at the moment is in selfimposed exile in belgium because in spain he faces charges of rebellion and a possible jail sentence of up to thirty years tweeted to say this he hoped that voters would demonstrate the same pro independent spirit as they did when they turned out to vote in a referendum on independence held on the first of october now that was in defiance of a Constitutional Court ban as you can see it might with very violent resistance indeed from the authorities and the police. Told. Us. Its only to People Living in fear and this is not the first three people that deserve to be heard and taken from here by Ambulance Service people in the early hours of the morning in this incident. Now the Central Government called the snap elections when it decided to dissolve the council and parliament in late october hours after it unilaterally declared independence. Meanwhile also psyching the Regional Government now the International Community is going to be paying very close intention indeed to this because of the kind of tension that weve seen in recent weeks and the violence that weve just seen. It to see whether the push for independence has increased whether its remain stable or subsided because this is the biggest threat to spains Constitutional Order since the country returned to democratic government in one nine hundred Seventy Eight so the best heading for several weeks of protecting negotiations if they dont reach a deal then their actions will just have to be repeated so again. It looks like were going to have several interesting weeks ahead of us with what the high turnout many people who voted for independence from spain in october frustrated that they had to turn out and vote yet again. You know but it will be all that got us are more i feel bad because in the first we were very excited about the referendum but now we see the Spanish Government has imposed elections on us that are not the elections that we want to vote in and yet somehow we have been forced to vote because they have ousted a Regional Government and we want our form of government to be restored and not to be changed university or barcelona economics professor ellison the Palace Theater told us that voting has been painful for catalans given the violence they experienced on referendum day. Its been a subtle action in a sense because its been done under very very sad situation stances and. There are there are. Not. Very quiet conditions between the two blocs in this elections have been organized and there are very strange circumstances with two leaders of the independent this party is one in jail the other in exile in brussels and also after a Strong Campaign of fear by the Spanish State after a lot of repression and economic threat with this high turnout things in the final results my might be a little bit different it seems that things are very tight between the two blocks and then theres a small small little party that is immediately in the middle of the two blocks. You noted nations General Assembly hearing is wrapped up in new york after voting on whether to condemn americas recognition of jerusalem as the capital of israel and tensions flared at u. N. Headquarters. The use of the b. To obstruct the Security Council and made him a bill to perform his duties and do decades of work of the International Community it is considered a blatant violation of the rights of Palestinian People if you shameful that this meeting is even taking place must be resolved through negotiation between the two parties are un members. Threatened or the other members this is bullying and this jumble will not bow to the. New york correspondent killam open has been following the General Assembly hearing. Well the results are in one hundred twenty eight countries voted for the resolution with Nine Countries voting with the United States to oppose it thirty five abstentions and another number of countries that did not attend the vote and did not formally vote now at this point weve heard some strong words from nikki haley in the lead up to the vote nikki haley took the floor in the General Assembly hall and made some of these following comments this is nikki haley United States will remember this day in which it was singled out for attack in the General Assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation america will put our embassy in jerusalem now a number of countries that dont normally see eye to eye on International Issues came together saudi arabia and iran regional rivals voted together to condemn the United States and israel furthermore we saw in north korea and south korea two other countries that dont tend to get along voting together were seeing even some longtime allies of the United States voting against it and voting for this resolution we saw members of nato and European Union countries that generally support the United States and agree with it in International Bodies and Decision Making entities they seem to have voted against it so now in the lead up to the vote nikki haley was very vocal saying that the United States would be taking names we heard donald trump the u. S. President talking about how countries that voted in favor of the resolution may be losing foreign aid and assistance from the United States now a letter was circulated to one hundred eighty different country and to expect those weve helped to talk it tends to be a vote criticizing on choice the u. S. Aims. To those in favor of the draft resolution piece read. Those against. Foods. Well vote against. As you consider the vote i want you to know the president and the u. S. Take this vote personally he will be watching this vote carefully and has requested i report back on those who voted against us thank you for your consideration. Its the right thing to do it is absolutely the right thing to do so it appears that this is a repudiation of the United States largely by the International Community one hundred twenty eight countries around the world voted against the United States and against its decision to move the embassy to jerusalem this is a condemnation of the United States by the International Community in big numbers so discuss the hearing with former un special rapporteur on human rights john to god he believes such open pressure on Member States to sway the vote is unprecedented. Digital expectation was about one hundred fifty states would vote in favor of the resolution this really shows that the threats made by the Us Administration did have some impact growth in restrictor of the votes and it was the see should i think there are two issues here one of course concerns the status of jerusalem i think we are now are itching a new era in which a major power resorts to blackmail and broad green order to secure votes in the General Assembly. Obviously in most cases try to bring pressure used in a pretty subtle manner to support a particular position but this is the first occasion on which a state a major member of the Security Council has resorted to so much misery as i do think that it could be deplorable if the United States were to carry through and threats of this kind because theyre called indicator states in future situations or give to a vote against the United States they do so at their peril. Ten times more iraqi civilians may have been killed than previously thought to in the u. S. Led operation to Liberate Mosul from Islamic State now this is according to new Research Carried out by the Associated Press news agency obtained data from iraqi morgues as well as from nongovernmental organizations and it says that as many as eleven thousand civilians may have died during the nine month operation nearly a third of them allegedly died during u. S. Led Coalition Bombing raids but just a fraction of the number has been acknowledged by the coalition. Human Rights Group Amnesty International has joined calls to investigate the Liberation Campaign and to reveal the true cost in civilian deaths it added that the numbers cited in the report came as no surprise arties has visited the city of mosul both during and after the fighting. See the press is bodycount surprise anyone whos actually been to mosul and who has seen what has happened to the city you can also argue that the death count that theyve given become outdated already hours after they released their report we got a cool from mosul from rescuers there saying that three more children had been killed when an explosive device buried in the wreckage of a house that they were playing on dead today to ease explosions happen almost every day rescuers tell us and this is a direct consequence of the battle of mosul itself nevertheless e. P. A. s body count is a semi official milestone in the in and of itself because the numbers we previously had from official sources from the u. S. Led coalition iraqis even the u. N. Was a tenth of that barely a thousand civilians and an realistic number the Associated Press found that three to four thousand of those civilians killed in mosul died to ash strikes carried out by the u. S. Led coalition and the Iraqi Air Force the u. S. Led coalition had previously claimed responsibility for no more than three hundred or so civilian deaths saying that it didnt have the resources to send investigators to look at every reported incident susi the press didnt always numbers out of a hat they cited various human rights agencies as well as an official body count counts that monitored events in mosul as well as with tip offs from iraq he moves but as i say this number is unsurprising if youve been to move if youve seen what a city of two million has been tending to injuries and corpses. This is the reality of what you will likely havent heard of is the smell its new. Repulsive and its everywhere the sort of smell that makes us in stink sick the smell of rotting bodies this is what rescuers have collected just this morning three suspected isis fighters two women and two children. Thats an iraqi. Launching missiles. At isis targets in and you can hear isis small arms fire that the helicopter went. Over there six seven hundred meters away is the aftermath of strikes that hit minutes ago just before we got here this was a city of two million that had been. Annihilated during the nine months of the battle of mosul the rescue as we talk to tell us that this city the city the old city of mosul that bore the brunt of the fighting in the devastation its still reeks of decaying bodies thousands and thousands of corpses still buried under rubble mixed with them or explosive devices that continue to claim peoples lives. Iraqi kurdistan a suffer the fourth day of violence as mass and to give an protests continue in the northeast of the country five demonstrators have been killed just since monday. I. Was. Thats quite an unfortunate turn of events we know how it started it started because of a sure from the baghdad sort of government against the kurdistan region coding their budget and its best to pay as much as it can but its three months in a real and so we see now why. Public sentiment and civil unrest and what it will take i think itll take some real. You know brinkmanship from the carriage from baghdad to bridge the divide. Police in the u. K. Have detained four men in a series of raids aimed at suspected christmas attack authorities said the arrests for it came from intelligence that was received during an Ongoing Investigation one suspect owns a fish and chip shop which was raided by police and an Army Bomb SquadSecurity Officers evacuated residents from nearby homes police have until december twenty fifth to decide whether to charge the four suspects they are aged between twenty to forty one no connection with Islamic State has been made but the terror group has been threatening european cities including london with christmas attacks most of the terrorist atrocities the u. K. This year being claimed by Islamic State. We asked former London MetropolitanPolice Officer roger gray about safety tips for the Holiday Season and whether british authorities have adjusted to the new reality of the modern terror threat. Doing i think. Always in yours the public extremely well but obviously intelligence hungry and i always leave at this point any scrap of intelligence is worthwhile and its helped to save probably quite a few laws and much more going on out there but they do have a maze or not all of the time the scrap of information that we would normally have thought of that cant be real i think weve got to devolve the information put it forward and let the police the so i whether it has values as a small part of a greater picture or already. The Us Justice Department has suggested that this channel isnt facing restrictions on its operations in the United States that despite r. T. America being forced to register as a Foreign Agent back in november and congress then stripping the journalists of their accreditation on capitol hill. Continues to operate here continues to broadcast here without interruption as far as im aware. This channel didnt have to stop broadcasting but journalists losing their cretaceous on capitol hill good work of the same message ever since the channel was first registered ability to report when the United States tells someone to register under a Foreign Agent requirement we dont see impacts or a fact the ability of them to report news and information we just have the register its as simple as that however just a couple weeks ago our press credentials were revoked so doesnt this contradict your earlier statement i think i think press credentials may have been revoked by congress and not necessarily the members of congress but rather the association of reporters that handles who gets to come in and Cover Congress respond to dun kovalchuk human and labor rights lawyer he thinks arties reporting is alarming the u. S. Authorities this whole thing was designed to interfere with arties bill of the to do its work in the United States i think that there are people in the us establishment who are uncomfortable with a different view of the world that r. T. Is presenting particularly on issues such as ukraine syria. I think the us empire is under great strain i think it is in decline and i think those who are ministering the empire dont want people to see that the emperor has no clothes and i think news outlets like r. T. D