Prepares to stop them. The u. S. Reveals its been trying to talk to north korea despite increased his tell it a between the two but so far no response from pyongyang. And another storm of words is centered on donald trump over criticism from puerto rico over the u. S. Response to the devastation from how to can maria. Making their voices heard thousands take to the streets in the u. S. Demanding racial equality. Spains government insists its going to stop sundays plans to session vote in catalonia which its a coyote illegal madrid has described it. Of democracy reuters news agency. Is reporting that volunteers at polling stations could be fined more than three hundred fifty thousand Dollars Police have already begun deploying ahead of the ballot and theyve sealed off more than half of the schools designated as Polling Centers officers say theyre going to remove voters in the spanish capital madrid thousands of people in favor of a united spain have held a rally neither side shows any signs of backing down karl penhall reports from barcelona. Schools have become a decisive political battleground families and socalled defense committees are camping out to ensure school stay open and double as polling stations procession volunteers here in barcelona of information through an app. A few square metres at stake the spot where the ballot box will be placed its pretty exciting you know because its like. So many people here are united just. With one cause in common but police are under orders from the Spanish Government to evict citizens and shut down schools that are around on sunday if that happens the referendum could be in jeopardy in madrid Spain Foreign minister criticised the catalan all thora ts defiance we think the law guarantees the most. Pushing is not democracy its a mockery of democracy a travesty of democracy. Referendum. Do not. Democracy catalonia sprains wealthiest region its a bit bigger than belgium its economy larger than greece or portugal has its own language and cultural identity but the issue of secession has deeply divided society. With few impartial surveys the street is the only if imperfect barometer of Voter Sentiment on saturday thousands turned out in madrid demanding spain remain united. We dont agree on what catalans are doing they have no right to do what theyre doing were all spaniards catalonia in spain. Police raided the capital and governments Computer Technology center and shut down software due to be used for the final vote tally. Today we were informed that the organization of the illegal referendum suffered a blow when the facilities of the catalan governments telecommunications hold were blocked with the intention to prevent telematic voting and vote counting. Referendum for a new republic or a mockery of democracy the outcome is unlikely to hang on technology all the law but on the ability of citizens to defend the ballot box in schools that have become a battle ground. Zero spain not only berkeleys in madrid where thousands of people have held a pro unity rally outside the city hall. On saturday we see you know hardening about issues weve seen a hardening of language but weve seen no softening of emotions this whole campaign is now being shrouded in acrimony and hostilities become a war of words the accusations are flying between both sides so its going to be very difficult whatever happens on sundays vote to see what will happen in the long term to heal the wounds thats been created and i should say further wounds because wounds have been existing for a long time people in madrid i think a realizing how serious the situation has become many didnt actually believe it would get to this stage and on saturday we saw a big demonstration five thousand people turned out we were told by the organizers to show their support for cats only being part of spain they also are very angry about the position of the castro government they want the castle and government to be held accountable and sent to jail and therefore they are very supportive of the measures that the Spanish Government is taking of course the catacombs all say that the Spanish Government is being or thought tarion as far as government is saying that the castle and government is being undemocratic so whatever side youre on you will take whatever you can from what theyre saying but the question is what will happen after the referendum how will we get over the animosity and hostility created in this Campaign Many countries will be watching to see what happens in the referendum because the repercussions not only for spain but for them to countries like belgium france and italy so this holds very important issues for countries in europe not just pain but the Spanish Government is doing Everything Possible to stop that vote from going ahead it may be scare tactics it may be designed to make the people who are basically in the middle not go out and vote but we can only wait and see. Well of catalonia just hours away from its vote for secession from spain we went to the heart of the region to speak with the man behind that Independence Movement john hendren sat down with catalonia is president of the moment and i asked him why he thinks catalonia should be independent the pool they see the land of the west of us but the effort to be going on within spain has failed and now is the time to choose the only possible way to continue being cut and ends with dignity and equality of conditions an independent state will be honest i think that when they come to the last output of a delta friend there are lots of patents who want to vote and to create what i would call a democratic tsunami and people will see the world will see you know when that it is their secret plan for how to carry this out and then you tell us about it ill go into them and the rest of us but you know we dont know what the plans of this state are to stop their friend im theyve kept them on the ropes so we have no obligation to publicise how are we going to organize they were for and theyve got to say i will take that to mean yes there is a secret plan and no you cant tell me about it. On the front lines of this Quiet Revolution our children young people out in the streets and there are thousands of police in the street theres the potential for violence if it gets ugly. What we tell them what we tell their parents. So if someone has these temptation they will be doing been no favor they will be doing democracy no favors no one will accept or. Want how do you evaluate the response of spain. The Spanish Government has almost acted like a pyromaniac it has been putting boots on the fire its been acting totally responsibly and. Again when. Weve done everything its kind of to go its mostly for everyone to feel happy within this day but it isnt much but you know and if you dont succeed you face some pretty serious consequences with the Spanish Government they have accused the organizers of this referendum of crimes including sedition which comes with a penalty of up to fifteen years in prison are you willing to face that. We accept full responsibility but it would be very very responsible from the response to our political aspirations to be a reason sentence it would be a very severe mistake and they would have to live with the consequences. Im not screaming out im not responsible for sedition beast the. President of catalonia thank you for talking to here youre welcome. The u. S. State Department Says north korea has shown no signs of interest already in this for talks about its Nuclear Program state secretary Rex Tillerson has revealed washington has been in direct communication with pyongyang hes in beijing for high level talks on the crisis the u. S. Has been looking for chinas help to tighten an economic squeeze on north korea it in bronze in beijing. Well with tensions on the Korean Peninsula still at a very dangerous level rarely have relations between china and the United States mattered as much as they do now Rex Tillerson had been due to arrive in beijing on friday night but his visit was delayed because of mechanical problems with his plane on saturday he had a brief audience with president xi jinping that is significant because chinas president doesnt always grant an audience to visiting dignitaries from overseas thats a measure of the importance they place on Rex Tillerson presence in china and also of the importance they place on President Donald Trump visiting china in november that was confirmed by the white house at the weekend both china and the United States have a very different approach as to how to deal with north korea Rex Tillerson wants to make sure that china delivers on its promise to fully implement United Nations sanctions against north korea for its part china says its backing a whole slew of new sanctions against north korea for instance on sunday it will begin limiting the export of oil to north korea on friday it announced it was shutting down all north korean businesses in china in three months time the same applies to north korean chinese joint ventures so in a sense north korea in a strange way is bringing china and the United States closer together well mike hanna is joining us live from washington d. C. Mike what was significant about fortes Rex Tillerson was saying today because it struck me that we knew that there were probably lines of communication but we also knew that north korea probably wasnt responding why did Rex Tillerson do you think make a point of mentioning this now. Well it is a first public acknowledgement by the Trump Administration that there are direct lines of contact with the north korea Rex Tillerson made clear that it isnt a single current contact there are two or possibly three different channels that are being explored he did make clear as well that it is not through china so it is some kind of unilateral u. S. Channel of communication but we also heard from state Department Later after Rex Tillerson is comments that at this stage in north korea shows no signs whatsoever of wanting to at any stage engage in talks about denuclearization but what. The secretary of state appears to be doing is to indicate that china is a willing partner in bringing pressure to bear on north korea making these comments showing as well that the u. S. Is willing to engage in talk its not all talk of war hes also wanting to explore diplomatic channels if possible mike as we were hearing from adrian in beijing just a moment ago china is taking action and living up to as it puts it the spirit of the sanctions that were put in place particularly those just put in place recently by the u. N. Security council what more can the rx tell us in the u. S. Expect from china. Well it trying is doing exactly what the u. S. Had expected to do it may have been a bit delayed in acting like this but certainly in recent weeks there has been an apparent willingness on the part of china to bring pressure to bear on north korea importantly to ensure that sanctions already in place imposed by the u. N. Security council and those unilateral sanctions by the u. S. Are fully implemented this is being the criticism of china in the past that although it had agreed to the sanctions in the Security Council it was not playing its part in fully implementing them but in recent weeks we have seen a shift in this position weve seen china order that its banks stop doing business with north korea we hear that report that north korean businesses are to be shut down in china this is a massive shift in chinese policy and certainly as was pointed out in a support it is bringing the u. S. And china closer together mike hanna live for us in washington d. C. Mike thanks very much indeed the mayor of puerto ricos capital some one has accused the u. S. Government of killing people through inefficiency come on your include says help to the u. S. Territory hit by a how to can maria is not coming quickly enough the white house has appointed a general to oversee relief operations and aid is starting to arrive but the mayor says puerto rico isnt getting the same support as other communities in the u. S. Donald trump has had back via twitter accusing his political rivals of telling the mayor of san juan to criticize him in another tweet he said such poor leadership ability by the mayor of san juan and others in puerto rico who are not able to get their workers to help speaking to aljazeera as to suborn saturday san juans mayor shrugged off trumps comments. I think we havent been treated with the same sense of emergency that other to sas or sap and treated and again you know whom i am a mom of five hundred twenty pounds mayor of a city in the caribbean a three star general. Said yesterday we dont have enough we need to get more in order to be able to take care of the storage. Home are to say that a general isnt saying the right thing. This is a Convention Center thats been turned into an Emergency Coordination Center between federal authorities and local authorities to try to get this island out of the crisis disc people that you can see behind me lining up theyre here to ask for help some of them are offering themselves as volunteers in order to go and help out around this island that has been devastated in many many areas that the mayor of san juan. Has been very vocal about what this island needs in order to recover she see that much more government help federal help is needed in order to come out of the Current Crisis but her pleas were answered by President Donald Trump saying that puerto rican speak to start working as a community theres over ten thousand federal agents on these island trying to help out so obviously those comments were not taken well among people who were still trying to recover from the shock that the hurricane left in many areas around the country there is no water theres still no electricity all around the island it is completely relying on generators and thats why fuel is extremely needed at this point Puerto Ricans in general are saying that theyre being discriminated by the federal government theyre saying that theyre not receiving the same treatment that people in florida or texas that were also hit by hurricanes received and many of them here are demanding more help. But a lot of is joining us live on skype from washington d. C. Thank you very much for your time first of all whats your reaction to the way donald trump has responded to puerto rico i find it unfathomable that a sitting United States president would show such a lack of empathy for people that are suffering and would make a humanitarian crisis partisan its just that i cannot believe he would say the mayor of san juan has been told by the democrats to be nasty to him its unreal its as if were living in some sort of dream he should be stepping up to what a commander in chief should be doing at this very moment and talking about the reality of the situation and giving facts and figures and really mobilizing the American People to help fellow americans but in practical terms are we placing criticism for the american response in this in the wrong place if we try to attach it to the white house certainly the decisions that are made about an american response to this kind of crisis on made with agencies like the federal Emergency Management agency female or the military itself. Sure but again this president is commander in chief of everything thats related to the federal government he has the ability to touch and to really pop in times like this this is as republicans like me have long believed why our federal government exists the federal government exists to mobilize and act fast and be efficient in times of crisis so i think this administration should really choke up and live up to the fact that they have failed here its been more than a week and they look fresh water is scarce cell phone towers are knocked out and if farms are death a man it and it is up real to think that anybody could fix this overnight i agree this is something thats going to take weeks months possibly even years to fix especially in a place like puerto rico that was already having a weakened infrastructure whether it be when we talk about an energy grid or just agriculturally but i think this this Administration Needs to take responsibility and show real leadership making this a partisan fight and allowing this president anybody that part of the administration allow this president to come out and give this kind of response its unresponsible and its frankly disgusting donald trump is expected to be in puerto rico i think on tuesday what kind of response and reaction do you think hes going to get. Im really not sure i know the people of puerto rico given the the tremendous amount of reporting thats come out people are really still suffering i think theyre shell shocked by the devastation and i mean this island has really suffered so its hard to believe that it will be anything like the president and the first ladys trips were to texas for example down to houston i think this is a really unique situation there is a lot of bureaucratic red tape that has got in the way of these people receiving help basic needs have not been met as i described before so its really hard to believe how at all it could be helpful for the president to go there for say a day and hand out water bottle i dont know what the people will think from him and i dont know what the president will be thinking but