no day or. week to ask. deciding rush's next chapter it's the final day of voting on changes to the constitution we look at what's being offered on bring you reaction throughout the day. i think. because the current constitution is out of date i think it is nonsense according to all legal and ethical norms and. all of that it's. also a longer story still ahead intense scrutiny for germany processing industry after a major covert i prick among the biggest shines a light on working on living conditions for the mainly low paid migrants. rocking the boat from within draws from nato missions in the mediterranean sea with

turkey over a naval incident deepens tensions in the military alliance. with your latest global on domestic news developments this is you know me international team coming live from moscow a low and welcome. it is the final day of a week of voting that's been taking place in russia on proposed changes to the country's constitution while many are ready have their say by voting online president putin has declared today a national holiday to a lot of folders who haven't yet done so the chance to cast their ballot. yes. the polls are close though in other parts of the country aren't they in the far east and the idea of venture shipping up to date while all you need to do is

take one quick glance at a map and realize the extent of russia's territory it's close it's enormous and it's got numerous times there is a lesson in total so lost here in the capital there a still a couple of hours for 30 in the far east polls have closed on results are starting to trickle and at this stage they are indicating that with just over 5 percent of votes counted in nine's regions 69 percent of people voted in favor of the constitutional amendments not those numbers such a tiny quite closely to what independent pollsters what predicting last week but of course the far east is just one part of the much bigger picture so we are going to have to sit tight and wait to see why though fellow russians in all the corners of the country feel the same way what is clear though is that even with the clock running down rapidly people are still very active. eager you're there where there have been some protests i believe in moscow also since petersburg as well maybe

more demonstrations are expected what's know and what's happened we're about a few 100 meters away from the red square here the pushkin square as great as sort of a traditional venue for the members of the russian opposition to come to understand the anger and the good being here for the past hours still and i have seen people coming in here and government gathering there over the next to the statue and largely so far there is the feeling has been that there have been move bloggers and journalists around than just people who have come here to protest it's not the only though of venue approaches the even here in the russian capital just over there to the left agrees the red square is upset and several activists of their they've laid over the grass. around the lay on the ground there with the bodies forming that number 2036 it is essentially what the potential yaz to

the amendments into the russian constitution will allow glad macwhich know the russian president to stay in power and order 100 people showed up in st petersburg and they were allowed to show their opposition to the amendments as well as one person who was arrested was detained i should rather say they're all activists on the red square detained as well but right now we are all of them have already been released and now why most people who are angry with the constitution brought more than 200 the old amendments but mostly the amendments that would allow essentially would allow glad of a person to stay in power to get reelected for the 2 more terms as things are right now this would be his last year this will have to be his last term as the russian president the new amendments the most controversial ones the people that are speaking out against about are the ones that would allow him to stay in power for longer this bringing some of those points that leader was going through the

cell the amendments the main points is there a feeling among those who've been hitting the polls today about the the there's one overwhelming issue that voters are getting behind or it's a generally this is the constitution this is the package this is what we want to have our say all while there is definitely a white consensus here in russia that reform of some kind is necessary i mean the current constitution dates back to 1993 and russia of course ups evils and it's changed dramatically since that. and so people recognize that the constitution is a document it needs to be malleable it needs a bit of give and take you know you need to change and adapt to new realities geo political realities but i don't think it was an easy decision for everyone precise . because of this all or nothing 13 steve people lost either to vote for or against the entire package of amendments and there are an astonishing 147 of the dots quite

a tool what if the people what do you do if you really back 145 of them but you really disliked 2 of them i think that led to a lot of internal * deliberation a lot of to ing and fro ing in fact let's hear it from the people themselves and see what they have to say on the matter if i think that it's needed because the current constitution is out of date it is a modern time and even the view is that as far as new. why have i come here to vote because i'm a citizen of russia and green with all of them men mints in your i am not ok with them then meant about 0 out the presidential term i absolutely do not agree with. i became familiar with all of the amendments in the constitution of. the most important to me is the prevalence of russian or over international the head of the central election commission of said 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 if think everything that has been done is right i am going with pleasure to vote ever recommend everyone to do the same so what could have swayed it full of those yes votes has in the end it's the package of social and bad myths that really have got wide appeal things like making sure that the minimum wage never falls below the cost of living adjusting pensions in line with inflation outside the ring financial support for low income families and then of course you've got things like preserving historical memory of reiterating traditional family values those things would be particularly popular among the more conservative sectors of society and i think these were popular. because they really have an impact on the way people live on a daily basis so that's why we pulled people to the polling stations and actually polling stations as we await for some more results to come through let's take

a look at some of the more exotic while i'm most at all staycation is that people have been coming to and wanted to call that ballots over the past week. or lose. lose. lose. lose. lose. lose. lose. lose. lose sleep. sleep.

sleep. sleep. sleep. i won't talk about another aspect being spoken about today allegations of ballot stuffing and other voting violations they've been circulating widely online all our . being investigated with many already debunked this fake no the electoral commission says that out of all 'd the inquiries it's received only 2 percent are about possible offenses here is some of them to electoral commission members have

been suspended in some petersburg after a video emerged of the women stuffing a ballot box not boxes no sealed on will be used for voting an investigation underway elsewhere 2 journalists claim they managed to vote twice both in person and online others who also tried to minute that their efforts failed police are investigating the journalists over administrative offenses voting twice is considered fraud punishable with a fine. or we spoke to the cochairman of a team that drafted the amendments he say's that just like many other countries are doing right now russia's fine deshaun laws need modernizing. to mean the world is changing right now or so fast and so are constitutional laws like human rights and liberties are constantly expanding and evolving as well as the mechanisms for them protection long many european countries france for example went through serious

constitutional reforms in the last decade in 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 or look how many un the member states there are more than $100.00 but how many of them actually have full sovereignty in the sense the russian people understand in 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 and 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 a new politician 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. it 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 won't be returned and no other decisions will be made and that it won't comply with people saying they should you know this is really very important and i would indeed russian citizens are broad all across the world have been joining long queues in front of embassies to cast ballots particularly people in other european cities coming out in force

and to have their say on the possible changes to russia's constitution some told us they believe that even if they don't currently live in russia they still have a duty to vote. so as we have been going through there's a long list of proposed changes in the package being voted on but it's just one element that's got much of the foreign media fired 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 whatever 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 that 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 the implosion of dissolute union marked by the down brutal communists 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 of the circumstances of the country it is in saw.

their duty of the legislature mahlum and in order to respond to these new entity just as i have given the start of online vaulting 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. the big. show small seems wrong why don't we all just don't all.

get to shape our disdain to come to advocate and engage men because betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart. just to look for common ground. is you'll be via reflection of reality. in a world transformed. what will make you feel safe. high salacious fulcrum unity. are you going the right way or are you being led. by. what is true what is faith. in the

world corrupted you need to descend. to join us in the depths. maybe in the shallows. let's start the program back in germany where the covert locked owns being extended a meat factory a huge wall surrounding tyner's well in the west of the country after a massive amount of workers came down with infections there's also been smaller i breaks in summer types of workplaces that's got unions officials concerned over safety conditions for stuff and weather will spread as well peter all over has this . 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 good to slow 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. 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 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. that 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 is 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 almost for nothing and that's the problem. they are 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 local government say this is the responsibility of business owners. the company must have civil liability through behavior where people obviously do not abide by rules corporation took an entire region hostage it is currently being about he waited very carefully whether and against which rules the company has violated and where it can be held liable tasked with looking after work his 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 of 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 assaulted here every day and while low paid staff living improve quality crime towers inc may allow for cheap schnitzel it also provides coronavirus with the optimum conditions to spread peter all over. good to slow germany. from the knowledge that it will be temporarily suspending its role in nato as naval operations in the mediterranean sea belts amid a standoff between parlous and unca involving an incident with a turkish warship last. church joins us now from the french capital for more on this charlie good to see you it appears president mccrum is stepping it up against nato what more is known about this story. that's why for the last few months president macron has been questioning the organization of nato questioning

its effectiveness and its allies even questions one of its core principles which is article 5 this idea that if one nato members attack then the pool the others will come to its aid and he has repeated his accusations made last year and again made in the last few weeks that the organization is brain dead. let me to take you back to my statement from long. being brain dead i think this is the best example of it when 2 nato members are confronted with the situation we're living in not denouncing it it's intolerable. so what's going on here well this is to do with the latest incident between france and as you alluded to that this is an incident that took place in the last the weeks in the mediterranean sea a french frigate ship was out as part of the nato operation it wanted to verify what was on board a turkish vessel then from says that the turkish vessel to respond so france

couldn't verify that it wasn't breaking a u.n. simple go to libya it then says that it vessel appeared not take. the french fake it 3 times with its control radio and many people say this came so we incredibly close to the 2 ships firing on each other this is how serious that incident was now made to has been investigating this incident but only off the front stumped its feet and demanded an investigation take place now we understand that the preliminary investigation that has come up until he says front suspension of its part in this particular operation is sour grapes because that investigation doesn't show that what france said was actually true we have to wait for that investigation from nato but that's who took his position these days now michael has

been doing this with you for a number of issues recently but sickly own libya he's even talked about criminal responsibility. in libya. interventionist in libya is turkey today disrespecting me the commitments taken during the conference it strengthened its military presence in libya massively. combatants from syria i think it's a historic and criminal responsibility for a country which claims to be a nato member. in libya hours with other conflicts it seems that these 2 supposedly nato allies and members are finding themselves on very different sides of the fence at the moment and it is not clear what this suspect in all of that's and mediterranean operation temporary it may be or not what this means for france's role in why nato operations but what is pretty clear that france is

a founding member of the nato organization is stamping its feet it wants to be heard and it wants to make sure that it is believed this is helping push to the forefront. thanks very much for bringing us right up to date on the charlie in the french capital. the german chancellor is showing resistance in the face of u.s. sanctions berlin 6 to get the nord stream to gas pipeline project over the line i'm glad merkel dismissed the threat and possible effect of new measures. figo mother nature of extraterritorial sanctions that u.s. is willing to impose doesn't comply with her legal understanding the construction process is being complicated but nevertheless we still believe that the project should be completed and we will continue to act in accordance with this approach and all of you have a completed project will deliver russian gas directly to germany through the baltic

sea since its beginnings washington has been trying to stop or hinder the pipelines progress back in december u.s. lawmakers impose sanctions targeting companies involved in its construction no u.s. senators are considering tightening those measures. but that's no cross live to. an m.p. for the german left party and a friend of the program as well i'm very new u.s. sanctions against north stream too could block just looking at the figures here around 700000000 euro in vestment for this pipeline could the project be left incomplete. no i don't think so it's all 700000000 euros for the for the kilometer from both of the project all in all it's 212. 1000000000 euros and i think the project

completed it's not only a question of by the it's a question of florida t. of europe of that money and i think it should be completed until a merkel say it should be completed to germany and partly it doesn't consider north stream to a threat to its energy security your thoughts on the divergence between what's happening in berlin and washington. the question of threat to. the summer and it. should be decided in germany or. in europe and ok and one. so i think. of course there is a. dependence if you will get the cars from from russia but on the other hand russia is dependent from europe as well if they look at the gas and this kind of cooperation we had during the years of the cold war and this was not

a bad thought i think it's dependent relation but not a threat to the european energy security recent reports andrea have suggested that burlington could be preparing retaliatory measures in case the u.s. actually does move forward with sanctions do you see it coming to that what could happen in germany imposes penalties of it so. while we had a small today not only the. macro as model we had hearing in the economy committee with the for much and some of the gaps florida he was even calling for paid for retore measures. i think one measure could be to stop the. funding of the. import of. the fracking gossip which is even more it's more expensive by the more climate damage ng through all of these energy tom and this could be one

issue in all this energy term of the maybe both for for the us guys so i think i'm not a fan of sanctions and sanctions but i think in this circumstances there should be clear. of germany and european union it's becoming a question off of the summer and not only off of one project under a year time and thoughts always appreciate. it under a hunk 0 m.p. for the german left party. thank you that's rubbish lives across the us but opioids don't tend to get the headlines not the likes of heroin and cocaine do next we chronicle those out exciting to break free from its clutches it is a tough story it's a tough watch and that's next.