International

Alex Salmond has interviewed the deposed Catalan president, Carles Puigdemont, on the first episode of his show on Russian broadcaster RT.
     Mr Salmond spoke to Mr Puigdemont at an undisclosed location in Belgium, where he fled when the Spanish authorities filed criminal charges against him.
     Mr Puigdemont told Mr Salmond that "democracy will prevail" in Catalonia, and that "we will win".
     And he insisted that a "huge majority in Catalonia" want change.Mr Salmond opened the show by promising to speak to "people of ideas and answers", and said he wanted to find out about the personalities behind public figures.
     He then recited Robert Burns' famous line: "O wad some power the giftie gie us. To see oursels as ithers see us."
     But it was Mr Puigdemont who was the star guest, with the former president telling Mr Salmond that there was an "an intellectual incapacity" on the part of the Spanish government "to admit the possibility, the real possibility, that Spain could be different in future".
     He added: "The message is to be confident, passionate and resilient because we will win. We will succeed. Finally, democracy will prevail."
     The Madrid government - which opposed October's independence taking place - dissolved the regional Catalan parliament after it voted in favour of a unilateral declaration of independence, and called snap elections for December.
     Several members of the Catalan government were detained over allegations that the declaration was an act of rebellion and sedition.
     But Mr Puigdemont fled to Belgium, where he is currently on bail while a judge decides whether or not to execute an EU warrant for his arrest that was issued by a Spanish judge earlier this month.