wednesday morning the 1st of july in the headlines today then deciding russia's next chapter it is the final day of voting on changes to the constitution coming up we'll look at what's being offered and the reaction to it too throughout the day. i think that it's needed because the current constitution is out of date i think it is nonsense according to all legal logical and ethical norms along with all of the . intense scrutiny for germany's huge meat processing industry in other news after a major break among staff the biggest planters show the lights on working a living conditions for the mainly low paid migrant staff the. news considering our 7 r.t.

channels pulled off air in latvia which claims the network is controlled by someone on the blacklist even though he actually heads up a completely different news agency as we explain. good morning my name is kevin over here in moscow is just to learn when you're watching r t international and it's news from russia this dominating our coverage this hour is just mentioned it is the final day of the week of voting that's been taking place across russia on proposed changes to the country's constitution while many of already had their say by voting online today president putin has declared this day a national holiday so low voters who haven't yet done so a chance to cast their ballot. so it's a package of more than $140.00 of moments is pretty complicated many adding social

legal and economic guarantees to the constitution now one ensures the minimum wage would not be lower than the cost of living another secures no new law just meant to maintain the value of pensions and allowances and that also be tougher requirements too for civil servants such as burning key officials from having foreign citizenship or bank accounts abroad and there are some proposals as well see those controversial such as marriage it would be classified today as a union between a man and a woman only god is referenced to but the constitution will still defined russia as a secular state there are also some political changes proposed chiefly concerning presidential term limits lot of eyes on the expression abroad at the moment a president can serve 2 consecutive terms and take some time out and then come back for more if you she wants to but if the constitutional reform goes through then presidential 10 years will be limited to 2 terms in total and maybe the most contentious of members is the so-called zeroing out of putin's terms allowing in

the possibility of to run for another 2 terms if he wants to we're covering this today for keeping tabs of it all has to ask your morning so this is the last day of voting remember when it finishes the sebring is the house is voting to go and take us through it all. what this voting process has been quite unconventional in fact that it started on the 25th of june and as any wrapping up today almost a week later these are of course 19 times and that staggering was done in order to prevent the masses from flocking to polling stations on just one day i don't think we can underestimate the psychological toll that coronavirus has taken me for months we've been told that the home is safe and the outdoors is dangerous naturally there were people who were hesitant about venturing out in order to cast their ballot so well for it is did everything they could to give. options so that everyone could participate in a way that they felt comfortable unsafe so alternatives included voting from her or

in some cases in some cities voting online for those who wanted a cost up out of the old fashioned way in polling stations though well it was safety for us so i'm talking mosques clubs disposable pan social distancing a limit on the number of people at any one time and she would hear around the city of the past week i'd say that people adhere to it quite strictly i saw a number of sunday long queues of people kathy separated already mosque loved up ready to be let in in times of timeout at last count yesterday the central electoral commission said that we're looking at around 46 percent now it's probably what we were expecting to see something like the presidential election was a much bigger crowd but historically here in russia local parliamentary elections popular votes such as these tend to be around the 40 to 60 percent mark what russian people think about this big vote. well there is

wide consensus in russia that reform is necessary the current constitution dates back to 9093 and russia has undergone enormous changes since then i think people recognize that the constitution as a document needs to be my needs to show the capacity to take on new and challenging political and find some realities i will say it's been quite difficult to gauge popular reaction because of the all or nothing 13 scheme so russians are being also either to vote for or against the entire package of amendments and there are 147 i've actually got a trough ballot paper and you can see it's pretty simple one question do you approve of the changes and there are just 2 out says yes or no now that is obviously seen a lot of to ing and fro ing a lot of internal deliberation because what if you really back 145 but you really dislike 2 that's quite k'naan job i think the defining moment will happen. in the actual booth when the for you to go ahead and waste out all up and decide what's

the priority for me in the development of the country in terms of the political establishment we know that there's been vocal opposition from the communist party they say that this will strengthen not to make putin's power they also take issue with the mention of god they said last week that lenin would be tunning in his grave divides people to go out and vote against while another political party has people to boycott the vote all together but let's listen to what the people themselves have been telling us from all corners of the country. i think that it's needed because the current constitution is out of date it is a modern time and even the view of life is new. why have i come here to vote because i'm a citizen there is russia and i agree with all of them managements i am not ok with them and went about doing out of presidential term i absolutely do not agree with says i got acquainted with all of the amendments to the constitution and the

amendment that is the most important to me is the prevailing. over international head of the central election commission of says something about voting being like a meal deals you either take everything or you do not take it at all and i already do not like one dish in this meal deal so i will not take everything else i think it is nonsense according to all legal logical and ethical norms i love my country and you think everything that has been done is right i am going request your to vote and every command everyone has to do the same. to have also been reports that some people were pressured by that employers to vote not a particular way just to vote full stop now officials have been very clear about this and they said that any such irregularities will be investigated and punished accordingly. this is my fundamental position people should vote voluntarily. one should force anyone to vote those who force others to vote will be punished.

so when we got to know the result would. and. while at the moment harry must stay polling stations close at 8 pm but it's unlikely that we're going to get any official announcement or results until saturday morning let's not forget of course that russia has a fost territory and 11 time zones around 800000 polling stations $110000000.00 eligible voters so even if only 50 percent of them do decide to participate that's still tens of millions of votes that need to be carefully counted in the meantime though as we near the finishing line of what's been a mara said week long popular vote we can take a look back at some of the more well exotic or unknown to doc's voting scenes that have been snapped over the past week. but you chose the little. blue. blue.

blue. blue. blue. blue. blue blue. blue blue. blue blue blue blue soon could you please please you lose lose lose lose lose lose lose lose lose lose lose lose lose.

a huge country what a logistical headaches when they get all sorted mrs b. out when i was reporting that as she mentioned as well allegations of ballot stuffing and other voting violations been circulating widely online all of a verse to gated to the fair few have been debunked already is fake the electoral commission says that out of all inquiries it receives only about 2 percent or about possible offenses.

the system worked and didn't allow me a 2nd but i was marked as a result. my last name was not on the list i can honestly have never in my life succeeded in deceiving the electoral commission so i doubt all the stories. in both cases the members of the election commission were to police will be subjected to disciplinary action the votes of citizens will be counted but only once.

much. footage turned out that this person had put in the package for several hours ballot papers but were not when he was contacted he said he had filmed those as an artistic illustration of violations and he didn't mean it that the current constitution was adopted almost 30 years ago time of great upheaval of course with the remnants of the u.s.s.r. on cause for some big changes but there.

i i. i i. i i. i. i. i. think you know i. will back up today we talked to the cochairman of the team that drafted the amendment she says the just like many other countries have to do right now russia's foundation laws need updating for modern targets. with the moon the world is changing right now is so fast and so are constitutional laws human rights and liberties are constantly expanding and evolving as well as the mechanisms for their protection many european

countries france for example went through serious constitutional reforms in the last decade italy had several attempts to amend its constitution as well. and even the constitution of the us is changing rapidly and substantially every single country chooses its constitutional model and the moderation rules for itself look how many u.n. member states there are more than $100.00 but how many of them actually have full sovereignty in the sense the russian people understand it and many of them are really capable of carrying out internal or external policy independently based on the interests of their own paypal how many indeed we are introducing new restrictions on presidential term limits according to the new amendment the highest official will be able to serve no more than 2 tones overall and now look for example at germany is there any restriction for the chancellor who is the key figure in the german political system no there are no such restrictions now let's

take a look at great britain the position of prime minister the leader of the ruling party are there any restrictions on how many times one can be elected to preside over a government and essentially the executive of the country there are no such restrictions if there are new politicians to come and they will surely come to the federal parliament to the government and eventually to the presidency those politicians must share basic principles and so from this perspective this amendment is a guarantee that all of the achievements of the last 20 years weren't to be cancelled and the perception of the people is that this amendment is an additional guarantee for some it's even the most important one that when a new president will come history won't be rewritten crimea won't be returned and no other decisions will be new. that won't comply with people's expectations this is really very important. so as we've heard there's a long list of proposed changes in the package being voted on but is just one

element that's got much of the foreign media or wound up russia's parliament basically paving the way for vladimir putin to potentially stay on as russian president he's the longest serving russian leader since joseph stalin but a lot of the acute him wants to stay in power even longer addressing lawmakers afterwards said he backed the amendment allowing him to seek another term in office but where stone of the shorts. always do we. betting of anything that is against their own brigitta nurse and me agenda. constitution the changes in the constitution are tremendous and they are huge towards more democracy and more dividing up the power for example if they do mark has to has to get its approval for a prime minister or any other on any other thieves it is more their dividing up the

power and this is totally against the russian bashing so just concentrate on one of these in western world is regarded as there. so the news around the world know next the lockdowns when extended to the german meat factory in the surrounding town there after a huge number of workers came there with covert infections the bit smaller breaks in similar types of workplaces too and that's got unions and officials really concerned over safety conditions for stuff right now as peter all of the reports. germany was quite rightly praised for how it handled the initial wave of coronavirus now dealing with a potentially much trickier problem localized flare ups of the covert 19 virus we're on our way to a meat packing plant in the city good to slow which is being the center of one of

the things flare ups over 1500 workers tested positive at this facility the factory is currently closed down with the workforce in quarantine since corona was confirmed a lockdown that was imposed on the local area last week has been extended by 7 days and the federal government's in. calling on people to be patient this is. a hard situation for many people the restrictions cause a burden in the chancel thinks all people who take the situation with patients and follow the necessary restrictions they are all helping now to prevent the virus from spreading the reason for the extension of this local law down is 100 cases of corona in the last week detected in people that have no connection whatsoever with this meat factory the working and living conditions of staff at the other 2 are have been brought under the microscope low paid workers from eastern europe often

living in cramped conditions with social distancing is nigh on impossible being seen as the unfortunate catalyst for the spike people living in this area on top be that workers were forced to continue in these conditions during a pandemic. management should have been more careful these are people who came here to work they should have been tested before they were hired but when the virus was already in the factory and you don't know who has it then you cannot stop it. we have guest workers from romania and sometimes they live 10 people in this same apartment they were. as for nothing and that's the problem here they're blaming the meat factory but the virus is still everywhere one of the reasons could be that people are working there in close proximity without maintaining the necessary say distance officials in berlin and local governments say this is the responsibility of business owners. the company must have civil liability through behavior where

people obviously do not abide by rules corp took an entire region hostage it is currently being about you waited very carefully whether and against which rules the company has violated and where it can be held liable tasked with looking after workers' rights of buying the german government saying they're willing to open a dialogue on improving conditions they accuse perlin of being all talk no action they have already been enough in nonsense and promises who heard it all before but nothing ever happens the company operating this plan says refused all requests for comments when it comes to working conditions at the site this isn't the only code that 19 spike in germany.

this type of localized outbreak has been noticeably absent from germany's blue chip manufacturing the auto. back to work with the correct precautions being taken in a normal working week 30000 pigs are slaughtered here every day and while the low paid staff living in poor quality tauzin may allow for cheap 1st and schnitzel it also provides coronavirus with the optimum conditions to spread peter all over

r.t. . germany. used by the us no our t.v. was in latvia will no longer be able to watch any of our programmes we've been pulled off air along with 6 other r.t. multi-lingual news channels by the country's media council it says the network it's controlled by a broadcaster currently and the e.u. sanctions but the devil's in the detail here because the person in question is called dimitri kissel your factually he heads up or separate russian news agency with part of the same neighbors different morag as dave explains the confusion and . what you see here may look like news to you but others perhaps those that don't like the color green were made of soft stuff those working in latvian intelligence agencies all government this is hora the evidence we have obtained is very strong and we will call on the regulators have full other you member states to follow our example and garner teen their territory such programs

have no police in law to be or elsewhere in the you personally i've looked all over fare that is watched r t arabic with subtitles tried the spanish i even checked behind the pennies and know nothing just cables the very evidence that latvia has they literally made up and didn't try very hard perhaps it was just before the end of the working day and everyone iching to go home see there's a number of news agencies and russia who and i see a civil order which translates to english as russian today and this organization is led by a fellow whose own european sanctions list this organization by the way has nothing to do with that see that's been our name for more than a decade we're at sea and there i see a subordinate even our names are in different languages but the latvian special

agent or official is other than easily scared apparently a lazy thing given that a loaf is subject to sanctions throughout the u. the last be a national electronic must media will inform media regulators in other e.u. countries of the decision taken and considers did a similar ban and distribution would be acceptable throughout the u. book i'm sorry that was mean we just put last the other intelligence agencies on red alert agents running around their headquarters waving their arms and complaining loudly about our t. scaring them again. but if we is fighting even the fellow who in the sanctions list seems to think so this decision is an indicator of the level of stupidity and ignorance of the latvian austerities blinded virus a phobia we laughed at this announcement the last you know authorities got into a simple mess but seriously speaking the reason for the ban that they have stated does not have any legal basis therefore latvia should immediately return the

broadcast of r.t. and apologize to our colleagues to be honest it isn't hurting our feelings that they should be worried about you can censor things not in the modern world people will always find a way to find what they're looking for what they should be worried about is undermining the very foundations of the european union no country can join the e.u. without guaranteed freedom of expression as a basic human right far in their flat which seems to have a thing for trying to silence media have been able to come up with a good excuse to see a solid reason to violate a founding principle of the european union but they didn't they came up with a laughable excuse and even then managed to get it wrong then look stupid in front of their own allies the burning of our 2 channels and violence freedom of the press the wants of citizens to media pluralism and is

a clear case of censorship the member council's decision be lifted immediately at the end of the day if latvian special services and authorities are of this incompetent capable of confusing 2 different media organizations and everyone who leads them and in the process undermine the entire european union well there's really nothing to be afraid of. there are cynical as follows so it's a mistake to make or not let's get the thoughts from independent germans lucre of a want to hear your thoughts than on the fact that r.t. is not available anymore allowed via. well i think it is one way ridiculous because they can't even get the story right and on the 2nd point it is proved again that blood and it's the same in a stone and to a lesser extent in lithuania have a chip on the shoulder they have a problem concerning their minority in latvia russian speaking population is 35

percent of the population it's enormous it's huge and these people must have the right to educate their children russian and to have a cultural life to have access to russian media etc but of course the european union considers r t as the little stolen in the shoes you know it annoys them because many informations that obsolete truant put forward by r t not in the european press you know the appalling way the e.u. and the european commission dealt with the coronavirus crisis for example that doesn't please them that r.t. says in a different light and many people like r.t. precisely in europe because it's a different way of looking at things you know because pro europeans were all pro european leader in europe and that are things that are not acceptable and where you laugh you up treats its minority 35 percent of the population the russian speakers is an acceptable are they going to have any say in this you're going to be some kid

from these people and sort of is there going to be kick butt for this percentage of people there via the russian that speak russian except for i'll they get a myth they are they going to kick off about it. well i'm sure to come is r t because it's a source of information in their own language and they don't trust the government because the government in case the same again is starring in other places prefers to to speak of you know they refer to an attitude that is typically the attitude of the soviet union in the very old days it's not the same in the 21st century you know in a country like glad it should be a bilingual country officially like switzerland like belgium not so for the moment the mind the russian speaking minority. are the underdogs beavan can't have access to 2 things like r t use which are not perfectly acceptable in the west but of course you feel the

city you have to same trend everywhere in europe in france as your mom doesn't like r t r he said that in front of lucky me to putin so because it's again the little stone in the shoe that annoys the genuine mistake here is the more going on here i mean on the face of it r.t. and to me to kiss your ass news agency of color similar names as posed if you haven't done much research you could say one easy mistake to make or did they full well know what they were doing the media council here. well i think the international press will support this because this is not acceptable you know i think the international press and they have already hinted that they would support r.t. in those. may make it makes it that the support of the international makes it that . it will have to back down and to to stop this it's not acceptable you know if you have 35 percent of the population speaking one language you cannot treat them like

that. 27 percent or something it will look will follow will certainly go maybe it will be you turned on to be under the weight you never know pity the people in can't see it this morning but hopefully back on air there are so dependent thank you thank you and thank you for watching as well as 130 the morning here that is the way things are looking from russia so far this wednesday the 1st of july the big story here today is that we're into the final hours of a week of voting in this country on how its people see it developing over the coming years and a big vote on a potential constitutional change what across that you can bet your bottom dollar on that for the other for me kevin owen have a great day.