the next. wednesday in the lunchtime you know the 1st of july in the headlines deciding russia's next chapter it's the final day of voting on changes to the constitution coming up we'll look at what's being offered we bring you reaction to it throughout the day. i think it's needed because the current constitution is out of date i think it is nonsense according to all legal logical and the called norms. with all of the. other headlines today this intense scrutiny for germany's huge meat processing industry after a major break among staff of the biggest plant shut of lights all working and living conditions for the mainly low paid migrant staff that. were the news to

7 channels of pulled off air in latvia which claims the networks controlled by someone on the blacklist even though he actually heads a per different news agency as we'll explain. so let's talk about the day good afternoon my name is kevin owen here in moscow it's just turn midday here you're watching r.t. international and it is news from russia this dominating our coverage this hour it is the final day of a 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 president putin's declared today and national holiday to allow voters who have done so the chance to cast their ballot. so it's a package of more than $140.00 of moments many had doing social legal and economic

guarantees to the constitution one for instance ensures the minimum wage would not be lower than the cost of living then there's another that secures an annual adjustment to maintain the value of pensions and alone says that also be tougher requirements for civil servants for instance such as key officials from having foreign citizenship or bank accounts abroad then there are some controversial proposals to marriage as one of the most going to be classified soley as a union between a man and a woman and although god is referenced the constitution will still define russia as a secular state but there are some political changes proposed as well chiefly concerning the presidential term limits and those court of the news of course are broad of late at the moment the president can serve 2 consecutive terms then take some time out and then come back for more but if the constitutional reforms go through then presidential 10 years will be limited to 2 terms in total and the most

contentious amendment is the so-called zeroing out of president putin's terms of these had so far along here in the possibilities run for maybe another 2 if he wants to see us could tell is in central moscow keeping tabs on the voting reaction let's talk to her now how to go in turn out here take us through it. what this whole 13 process has been pretty unconventional in that it actually started all the way back on the 25th of june and it's only wrapping up today almost a week later the culprit is of course 2020 enemy it's 19 and say that staggering was done in order to prevent people from descending on mass to the polling stations i don't think we can underestimate of course the psychological toll that crane if iris has taken some months people have been told stay at home it's safe. if you go outside it's dangerous not surely than that while people who

were hesitant about censuring out into the streets to cause the still thirty's here in russia really did everything that they could and want to give people options such everyone could participate but in a way that they felt comfortable and in a way that they felt safe so alternatives included voting from home or in a number of cities voting online but if you still want to do the old fashioned way of searching in the polling stations it was all about safety so mosques to blogs disposable pens us social distancing a limit on the number of people in a polling station at any one time and not show up in walking around the city law enjoying the beautiful weather if the past week and i can say that people have been strictly it's harrowing to the rules i've seen sadly long queues with people kathy separated already mosque gloved up ready to be elected now as for that time out while the central editorial commission said that as all of the 10 am we are looking at just over 55 percent which is probably what everyone was expecting presidential

and prime ministerial elections and other countries of course will always dread a really big crowd whereas historically and russia the local elections parliamentary elections popular votes like this tend to be between 40 and 60 percent it also suggests that people are really actively voting today considering what the polls shot yesterday we were down to 46 percent so last minute photos really seizing the opportunity here. a lot in this proposed sort of a momentous $140.00 plus in the russian people been a reacting to it taking to exam of the day is going to be a yes a simple yes or a simple no to loathing isn't it. well that's absolutely right it's a false what i would like to say that i think that is wide consensus in russia that reform is necessary to the current constitution dates back to 9093 and russia's on to go on enormous changes since then i think. people recognize that the document the constitution needs to be madea point needs to to take on at top to to new and

challenging geopolitical realities but i will say it cause also being very difficult to gauge popular reaction precisely because of this all or nothing 13 scheme so russians are being ostracized to vote for or against an entire package of amendments there are 147 of them that's an astonishing number and i can show you the if comp with ballot paper it's a pretty simple question do you approve them all and it's a simple answer it's just so no undock has understand to be not to a lot of in tunnel deliberation what do you do if you really bought 145 of them but you really dislike 2 of them that's a conundrum i think the defining moment will come in the booth when the photo shows up he weighs this all up and he decides what's most important to me what to do i want to prioritize in the future of this country in terms of the political establishment has been focal opposition from the communist party they say that this

will only stop to strengthen president putin's power they also do take issue with the mention of god saying that lenin will probably be tunning in his grave they have people to go out and vote but to vote no whilst another political party doesn't she just such people not to vote at all to boy caught up let's now hear from the people themselves and what they've been telling us. i think that it's needed because the current constitution is out of date it is a modern time and even the view of the law is new. why have i come here to vote because i'm a citizen of russia and no green with all of them men minds and i am not ok with them that meant about 0 and out the presidential term i absolutely do not agree with. i became familiar with all of the amendments in the constitution of the amendment that's the most important to me is the prevalence of russian or over international the 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 with pleasure to vote ever recommend everyone to do the same. so as to be expected with political issues a bit of a mixed bag it will be the results which will give us a definitive answer on how people really did feel about these proposed changes years so when we go to know we just saw a lady there from kaliningrad the russian exclave so many times owns 11 time zones voted here in this area rome moscow is going to go on for another $8000.00 or so will we know tonight then or tomorrow the final result. well that's right so here in moscow polling stations close at 8 pm it's unlikely that we're going to hear any official announcement or results until thawed stay

morning as you said russia is a false territory 11 time zones around 800000 polling stations $110000000.00 adage vote says so even if 5060 percent of those people decide to participate that's still tens of millions of votes that need to be kathy counted in the meantime that as we finish the narrowing rather we near the finishing line of this martha in a week up to the popular vote we can take a look at some of the more unaltered ox snapshots that we've seen of how people have been helping that stay in the future of the constitution. lose which took the news to you just a. little loopy. q

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well allegations made some a ballot stuffing and other voting violations have been circulated widely online all being investigated apparently and fair few have been debunked already is fake the electoral commission says that out of all inquiries it's received only 2 percent or about possible offenses and there was reason a few hours ago to 2 electoral commission members have been suspended in some petersburg after video emerged of 2 women stuffing a ballot box there the box partly now sealed and no longer used for voting and investigations under way elsewhere to journalists as well claimed they managed to vote twice both in person and online others who also tried that though say their efforts failed police are investigating the journalists over administrative offenses voting twice is considered fraud and punishable with a fine the commission says only one vote will be recorded. in both cases members

of the election commission where it took place will be subjected to disciplinary action the votes of citizens will be counted but only once so why change and what's the point in history when the current constitution was adopted almost 30 years ago it's how the great upheaval back then with the remnants of the u.s.s.r. on course for some big changes.

we told the cochairman of the team the draft of the about months he says that just like many other countries doing right now russia's foundational laws need updating for modern times. we've just seen was that i mean the world is changing right now so fast and so 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 u.s. 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 terms overall and now look for example in 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 written crimea it won't be returned and no other decisions will be made that won't comply with people's expectations this is really very important you know as you heard the long list of those changes in the package being voted on but it's just one element this got much of the foreign media fired up. russia's parliament basically paving the way for putin to potentially stay on as russian president he's the longest serving russian leader since joseph stalin but a lot of you putin wants to stay in power even longer addressing lawmakers afterwards said he backed the amendment allowing him to seek another term in office

but there are dozens of interesting thought there should also be discussed and the one that caught my eye was on children the role of children and all that often as i explicitly mentioned in one of the constitutional a market which i think is worse while reflecting the russian federation of the year 2020 is in many regards i would say in a different situation than was the country in 1903 when we compare the international circumstances but also of course the national economic and political situation the early ninety's were marked by an implosion of the sort of union marked by the down group of criminals and. it was more about being effects of the then being the russian federation that we have today i think there is a need for. meeting this new circumstances because

a constitution is almost a reflection of a society and also after the circumstances of the country it is in saw the dealer did you cheer after the legislature the parliament in order to respond to do so newark fugitives had given thought about online of all to myself several times it's a global debate and i must admit. very personally i'm a bit old fashioned i've think it still makes sense the day of the vault to go out to go to the ballot box so you don't dress up and say tool to discuss with your friends before and after their tool to simply make it click on yourself up.

chose seemed wrong oh well let's just all. get to shape out just to become educated and engaged equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. you can be both with us you.

saw the news today the lockdowns been extended to the german maid factory and the surrounding town after a huge number of workers came down with covert infections have been small breaks in similar types of workplaces to it is got unions and officials concerned over safety conditions for stuff as peter all of the reports. germany was quite rightly praised for how it handled the initial wave of coronavirus now although it's dealing with something but hops a little more tricky isolated localized spikes of covert 19 we're on our way to a meat processing plant in the city of get it's law which has been the epicenter of one of those outbreaks over $1500.00 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 its calling on people to be page says. that's a hard situation for many people the restrictions cause a burden in the chancel thanks 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 lockdown 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 either 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 the same apartment they were. as for nothing and that's the problem. 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 save 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 for those tasked with looking after workers rights of buying the german government saying they're willing to open a dialogue on improving conditions they accused 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 plant have refused all requests for comment when it comes to working conditions they cite but this isn't the only code that spike in germany right now.

this type of localized outbreak has been noticeably absent from germany's blue chip manufacturing the auto industry is back to. work with the correct precautions being taken in a normal working week 30000 pigs are slaughtered here every day and while low paid staff living in poor quality. may allow for cheap 1st in schnitzel it also provides coronavirus with the optimum conditions to spread peter all over r.t. . germany. news about us next r.t.

viewers in latvia will no longer be able to watch our programmes we've been pulled off along with 6 other multi-lingual channels by the country's media council it says the networks controlled by a broadcaster currently in the e.u. sanctions but of course as ever the devil's in the detail because said person in question dimitri kissel the office actually heads up a separate russian news agency not ours more goes to explains the confusion. what you see here may look like news to you but to 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 horrible the evidence we have obtained is very strong and we call on the regulators of all other e.u. member states to follow our example and ban r.t. in their territory such programs have no place in latvia or elsewhere in the e.u. personally i've looked all over fairbairns watched r.t.

arabic with subtitles tried r.t. spanish i even checked behind the teles and know nothing just cables the very evidence that lad here has the literally made up then didn't try very hard perhaps it was just before the end of the working date everyone iching to go home see there's a number of news agencies and russia hauled but i see a civil order which translates to evolution as russia today and this organization is led by a fellow who's all. european sanctions list this organization by the way has nothing to do with our t. that's been our name for more than a decade we're r t and they're right here seaboard even our names are in different languages but the latvian special agent or official is other than easily scared apparently a lazy thing given the subject to sanctions throughout the u.

the national electronic media council will inform media regulators and other e.u. countries of the decision taken and considers that a similar ban on distribution would be acceptable throughout the e.u. blue i'm sorry that was mean we just put latvian intelligence agencies on red alert agents running around their headquarters waving their arms and complaining loudly about our t. scaring them again but it really is funny 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 or storage fees 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 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 ban a solid reason to violate a founding principle of the european union but they didn't they came up. up with a loss of bullets and even then managed to get it wrong then look stupid in front of their own allies the burning of arty channels in latvia violence freedom of the press the wants of citizens to media pluralism and is a clear censorship rooted member council's decision to 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. regard to if they want to mess a worse way things are looking for russia so far this wednesday the 1st of july as the country heads into the final hours a really big vote on its future constitution reporting from moscow it's kevin 0 in wishing you a great day. join me every thursday on the alex salmond szell and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business i'm showbusiness i'll see you then.

the primary purpose of history is to understand as a guide to understanding the present and future. because a lot of history is. so how should we find the right balance is that you saw the light. you were going on the ground on the brink of a new intifada sparked by u.k. you u.s. armed israeli annexation of palestine in violation of united nations resolutions coming up in the show just days after more israeli aerial bombardment of gaza one of the foremost voices in the and d.v.d.'s movement former world jewish congress general secretary dan dyker on why he backs indicted prime minister binyamin and

with britain the worst per capita coronavirus defamation in the world while belgium and amidst a new renewed english open lockdown what is the mainstream media not been telling us about covert 19 and why was the group. virus bestseller unreported truth is banned we speak to its author ex new york times reporter inspire novelist alex berenson always a ball coming up in today's going underground 1st today marks a potentially historic milestone as the world wakes up to what the u.n. declares is further illegal an extension of palestinian land in the occupied west bank israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is long been threatening further annexation greenlit by the trumpet ministrations deal of the century but there have been growing calls from the international community including the u.k. that annexation would destroy any notion of peace in the middle east and even threaten israel's own security joining me from jerusalem is the director of the project account to be d.s. and political warfare at the jerusalem center for public affairs in the former general secretary of the world jewish congress and i thank you so.