for failing to provide any evidence for germany's claim that russian opposition figure. was poisoned with a chemical nerve agent. if there was any data he would work with then there is no data there are only statements amounting to megaphone diplomacy and. the u.s. says it won't take part in an international cooperate of effort to develop a vaccine because it's led by the world health organization. and washington has imposed sanctions on senior officials of the international criminal court after it started probing alleged u.s. war crimes.

you're watching arts international coming to you straight from moscow 247 welcome to the program this hour. well scott says that it fails to understand what prompted berlin to claim that russian opposition leader of extent of all night was poisoned by a nerve agent the common spokesperson to me also revealed that the russian president and german chancellor haven't discussed the issue on wednesday berlin amounts of phone traces of novi chalk on the volley meanwhile the president of bellerose has claimed that the country's security forces have intercepted a call which casts doubt on berlin's poisoning allegations. we have intercepted a call as we understand between warsaw and berlin that clearly says it's all a full sophistication. didn't take place. they have done it to discourage

putin from interfering in the internal affairs of belarus. the kremlin says it has no details on the question goes claims as of yet and they have not been verified the german chancellor angela merkel also spoke about the case on thursday they are all over has more details on that. well i'm glad merkel speaking here in live alongside the swedish prime minister stefan levin briefly touching on alexina valmy and saying how germany would respond to russia depended on russia right now and how it responds to those allegations that came out on wednesday as it stands moscow is far from happy with berlin at the moment in the way that that announcement on wednesday was made what we've heard from the head of the fact that a press conference was called before the russian ambassador had been summoned to the foreign office before. being told that this was going to be this announcement was going to be made so to. have the russian ambassador said that once he was

summoned to the the foreign ministry he wasn't given any facts about the allegations being made now the kremlin spokesperson to me to the press golf has said on thursday essentially they can't comment on what they haven't seen in relation to the the evidence to back up the claims that alexei navalny was poisoned using a novacek nerve agent while the foreign ministry in moscow has accused berlin of what it called make a phone diplomacy. i would be very cautious when talking about any accusations against russia in this case after all there is no valid reason to make any we hope that we will be able to determine what happened and why we are interested in that we want it and we need the information from germany for that. if there was any dealer we would work with that there is no data there are only statements amounting to megaphone diplomacy because their view is by foreign ministry attacks many were waiting to hear what the doctors had to see the doctors in syria there's

a. wider fact indeed that's not something we see here is the why of why would novell need the poison has been raising a lot of questions in russia we've heard from the. heads of russia's foreign intelligence service who said that the situation regarding the family raises more questions than it does and says the statements coming out of lindh raising more questions than they do answers he also said that the tests carried out in russia were there as far as he was going sir and the kremlin spokesperson to me to the press corps of also saying that he's far from sure who would benefit it all from poisoning alexina volley. i can't answer the question of who would benefit from the poisoning i don't think anybody would benefit from it the tool. the german foreign minister heiko muss on wednesday said that day at demanding answers and they're looking to russia for those answers it's an informant soon it is obvious that one

of the leading opposition figures in russia has been poisoned especially islip were 3 of the armed forces came to a clear conclusion that aleksey never in the was poisoned with a substance from the north beach a group he's the victim for crime someone tried to shut him up. we demand an investigation into the poisoning of aleksey now while we condemn this boy's name and in the near future will hold consultations and how you can adequately respond to it it will also depend on russia's response to the case chancellor merkel has said that the eyes of the world are looking at the alexei navalny case right now alongside her on thursday speaking in the chancery was stefan love in the swedish prime minister he called for a full investigation into find they out what happened to mr lee that followed on from similar calls from british prime minister boris johnson from the underline the e.u. commission president also the french prime minister as well all saying that there

needs to be a full investigation in condemning what's being alleged by germany as the poisoning of alexei navalny we've also heard on thursday from the senior spokesperson for the age of. foreign affairs that's no he said that these the readiness of moscow to cooperate have pleased the foreign office so far also said that an investigation should be conducted by moscow during that press briefing he wrapped up was asked a question of buyouts potential sanctions against russia from the european union over the election of on the case he said that any sanctions were down the line from now that there needed to be an investigation 1st it was up to moscow to carry out that investigation and then anything further would be discussed once they had those results the global chemical weapons watchdog the o.p.c. w. has said the alleged poisoning of them on the is of grave concern and that they're

monitoring the situation as after several western politicians call for sanctions against russia are just more guns and digs deeper into the allegations. again they say the north korea's talks and that is heaped infamy on russia over talks a group of toxins by the way with slightly different variations of liquid gas powder one of the deadliest substances known to man rebel solves the huge operation launch there hundreds of people in full hazmat gear everyone afraid of exposure and here is apparently exposed to this new variation which by the way couldn't evaporate and become airborne at room temperature and these flying on a jet where he feels sick scores of people crammed together and no one doubts reports feeling the thing including the people he was with.

trigs hammond alexina county's biological fluids the study was carried out with an american aspect which contains $240000.00 standard sets of substances that correspond to the electronic database of the u.s. national institute of standards and technology no liquids organic phosphorus compounds or drugs that inhibit colonists were detected and no traces of other unknown substances were found. you see organophosphates compounds are highly toxic substances and as a rule it's impossible to use them just to poison a single person if there had been any interaction with this substance on the eve of the flight or during the flight then any accompanying persons were certainly have shown symptoms of poisoning that did not happen if the germans had got clear evidence of. something like perhaps being used they should give that information over to the russians and the russians and so that didn't happen with scruples on the soles and i doubt whether or happen again and there's many questions like you

know he was on the airplane then it landed why isn't anybody else i mean again another echo of this ripple case as far as i can see we need some transparency here . before we start escalating listen to any kind of sanctions trade war or god's help or any kind of military conflict there are a lot of questions now speculation and rumors and thinks this is a time to wait to let investigators collect the facts unless you want to use the moment the confusion the hysteria the anger to tear up russian german ties to stop a pipeline for example putin's regime is inhuman as the case of novell me and the support for a game show what's required is a clear and tough response that putin understands north stream too must be put up for debate anything less would only be a confirmation for him. the obvious murder attempt by the mafia like structures of

the kremlin can no longer just worry us it must have real consequences that is why a very clear answer is needed here north stream 2 is nothing that we can promote together with russia hope for the north stream to pipeline to hold the russians accountable germany says it will share its lab results and findings with e.u. nations and get this nato new response to russia's offers of a legal assistance and medical corp russia will learn that the value they have been poisoned not from the german government but from the news if the aim is to justify some previously prepared response measures that have already been agreed on it becomes clear why they're deploying megaphone diplomacy substituting normal corporation with an information campaign public appeals to the e.u. and they too and reference to the c.w. whenever such a thing which started diplomatic reaching the hazards they always have to us.

who is benefiting who does something was benefiting and we have as we have already heard as it were a ship there there are heavy forces would god want a closer relationship between russia and germany specially according to north korea to project but where also that the that you have to ask what could the russian government 1st of such a thing with this of poland politicians there was no danger for the russian government it would be an election they're already talking about sanctions guilty by default which is remarkable given the circumstances so the russian government out of the blue decides to poison an opposition politician who has been after the kremlin for years using one of the world's deadliest. substances which russia has

said repeatedly it doesn't have to the do this improbable and highly stupid thing and in these survives it he goes to a russian hospital where the doctors do everything to save his life get him stable and they succeed the russian government which just apparently tried to kill this fellow greenlights a private jet to said him to one of europe's best clinics to get help his body apparently for evidence locker treaty banned substances so far that it's the best version. of the trump administration has said that the united states will redirect funds it previously owed to the world health organization to other help programs comes 2 months after washington d.c. pulled out of the w.h.o. accusing it of being controlled by china meanwhile the u.s. has ruled out taking part in a global effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine as kilmartin reports. the united states will not be joining

international efforts to produce a vaccine due to political concern so many see this as yet another blow to health diplomacy the united states will continue to engage our international partners to ensure we defeat this virus but we will not be constrained by multilateral organizations influenced by the corrupt well told balkanization and china the global vaccine initiative known as oh that x. is co-lead by the world health organization 170 different countries are participating the goal is to get global distribution for several different vaccines after they've been licensed and approved by the end of 2021 the world health organization has repeatedly warned about the dangers of global just unity and yet a pandemic they are warning about the need to oppose vaccine nationalism and above all national unity. and global solidarity are essential.

this virus thrives when we are divided. when we are united we can defeat it when a successful new vaccine is found there will be greater demand then there is supply because the mind and competition for supply is already creating bucks emotionalism and risk of price gouging relations between the united states and the world health organization has been strained for quite some time despite his praise for the organization at the beginning of the pandemic donald trump made. and pulled the united states out of the global watch dark because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms we will be today terminating our relationship with the world health organization and redirecting those funds to other world wide and deserving urgent global public health needs latest decision united states

should not participate. global efforts for a vaccine have raised a storm of criticism or ologists and politicians have spoken out saying that the united states is essentially shooting itself in the book. trumps go it alone strategy has already given us the highest death toll in the world at his inaugural he spoke of american college and now seems to term and to make it a reality america 1st doesn't apply to condemn excess viruses don't observe national borders if anyone is at risk we all are refusing to cooperate with other countries on vaccines will kill people this latest decision from the united states to pull out of local vaccine efforts may be seen as just the latest example of donald trump's ambitious america 1st policy however i comes to a situation like this it might not be wise to put pride in politics over your population it would mark them artsy new york.

staying with the us washington has imposed sanctions on senior officials at the international criminal court secretary of state my pump aoe says the i.c.c. is corrupt and has no authority the international criminal court. thoroughly broken in corrupted institution. the united states has never ratified the rome statute that created the court and we will not tolerate is illegitimate have to subject americans to its jurisdiction washington is unhappy with the i.c.c. its current investigation into alleged us war crimes and afghanistan the court is also investigating america's close ally israel over possible crimes related to jewish settlements in the west bank and east jerusalem other the us nor israel belong to the i.c.c. and the court has condemned the sanctions. these coercive facts directed at any international judicial institution and its civil servants around president did and

constitute serious attacks against the court and the rule of law or more generally secretary of state compares announcement today marks a stunning perversion of u.s. sanctions devised to penalize rights abuses and kleptocrats to persecute those tasked with prosecuting international crimes the trumpet ministration has twisted the sanctions to obstruct justice not only for certain war crimes victims but for atrocity victims anywhere looking to the international criminal court for justice. human rights lawyer down complex as international laws apply to all countries with no exceptions the us for many. areas taking the position that because it is a mighty is military in the world. it doesn't have to be. so . to international. it's above international law and i think trump is just frankly taking in there to its logical the united

states's build a hose to the international criminal or it leashed as to the extent that the i.c.c. could prosecute western countries. from the very beginning and now trump is sanction because it wants to investigate us war crimes in afghanistan and is raving we're crimes in that. it would be fair for over the country say look us you know what's good for the goose is good for the gander the international law doesn't apply to you it doesn't apply to me. we're not going to go back to our top story as the global fall is continuing from germany is claiming yesterday that of extent of all the it was poisoned by a nerve agent from the group the russian opposition figure head is in a medically induced coma in berlin 2 weeks after being airlifted from siberia the

kremlin is saying that it still had no contact with berlin on the case and we're going to get live analysis from writer and journalist neil clark on this situation now we've heard from a specialist in acute poisoning who has said that he's analyzed samples coming from the volga he was at that moscow lab he said they screen him for every known poison including the class of nerve agent that now we choke belongs to and that they found nothing what do you make of that. well but i think very revealing isn't it and if the law is being pushed it would be in all of the western media that of course it was the equivalent response then why if he had the poison why then was the consent given for him to go to germany because if he had been poisoned with a truck then of course the germans would find that out so something doesn't quite add up does it really. western powers have so far more or less stopped short of directly blaming the russian government although demanding some sort of explanation

from them but it's clear there's a clear implication from most of the statements coming out of those countries do you think that the case against the kremlin that really stacks up. well you're right that what's happened is that they've just fallen short of saying well it was obviously the kremlin that did it saying that you know russian authorities must aren't so questions about this etc etc it seems that they've already discounted the idea that there could be other explanations for fault for what happened and clearly people we can see there's a political agenda at play with a number of people calling for example for more sanctions on russia because of this and. it was sanctions on russia and also bring me to question the north tuesday gas pipeline with germany so that tells us that obviously geo political agendas are being played out here people are going to use this to transfer those again does. not know we talk is back at the center stage again most people remember that this

is a military grade nerve agent this is a lethal and 2 of the scientists who actually created the nerve agent during the soviet period have been speaking to russian media and they're saying it's not possible for an apology to have been attacked with no a check or he would have died immediately and possibly those around him also would have fallen sick on the plane at the airport wherever this alleged poisoning might have taken place sure that's something that needs to be looked into. definitely if we think back jacqueline to march 28th when of course we were told by the british prime minister to resign ray that it was highly likely that not a truck or a poison over family was used to poison the scribbles we were told then that not a chop was quite the death this poison known to man it was absolutely toxic one little scrap of knowledge on you and you were dead and now we had now this is the case again we've had 3 people the script files and they've only who novacek has been allegedly used on but who have who have survived in the course of on these is

in a poor state of course still so that does sort of race one's doubts as to whether it was actually not a truck because of the dead yet you can't be told in one hand that it really is the deadliest nerve agent 0 demand the body gets anywhere near it or touch anything with it is going to die and the other hand it out obviously hasn't happened so yeah that certainly raises all questions to of course everyone has been discussing and discussing the scrip our case once against now that we're all talking about number 10 but there is a big difference in the fact that this is something that has happened to a russian citizen allegedly while on russian soil so why is this being made into an international issue. again geopolitics directly people there are there is a very strong anti russian operate in the west which particularly specifically wants to sabotage in order to the gas pipelines of what's basically to to prevent any reportable between russia and the e.u. or particularly close association between russia and germany there is an agenda

then of course america wants to step in and sell its natural gas. to to energy gas rather to to europe instead of the russians so there's a lot of money there's a gas war going on is a lot of money in this lot at stake course the russian threat has to be big up the arms sales as well so there is a lot be in the west that actually wants russia to be permanently in the scene been permanently sanctioned currently the bad guy wants to prevent our program of between russia and europe the rest of europe so i think clearly obviously people at the electron to the straight away and use this and say wow that we can really get into this now and use this to further our our anti russian campaign. you touched on the north stream to pipeline project there and that's something that germany has thrown billions of dollars into that's almost completed and yet we have german politicians both already yesterday and today calling for that to be scrapped we have u.s. politicians doing the same although to us that had that stance for quite

a while now do you think it's fair that these 2 stories these 2 issues are being mixed together and how far could this escalate past the nordstrom to pipeline project your question i don't think it is fair because as you say we haven't yet established firmly what happened to not only if he was poisoned. then if it was it was certainly boys and then there were other explanations he was actually corruption campaign a lot of oligarchy may have wanted to take him out it could have been relegated elements of the f.s.b. it could even have been somebody from another intelligence services who wanted to blame to put blame on russia we don't know it of course it could have been. the russian authorities or so so there's a number of explanations and i think it's totally wrong at this stage certainly to be trying to link what happened to develop the 2 things like pipelines contracts etc that people who do that tells you what they're about that tells you their agenda because they didn't have an agenda they would be saying now look let's examine this further let's have. a lot more research done on this lot more

investigation but it would not at this stage be coming out saying well that's it we've got to scrap not to germany's got to move away from russia and that tells us what their agenda quite clearly is there's also the question of timing people have been leveling not only bad teeth putin's biggest enemy that he's a kremlin critic which of course he is but why now he has plenty of enemies he's been working and putting out videos for 10 years now so why would he need to be filing quote unquote that's what merkel said now. i think the timing is crucial in this the timing that's what makes me question. the narrative that it was definitely was a crime and because the timing is bad the timing is right back to the kremlin because germany and russia getting closer nor to the association there that's in russia's interest russia relations have improved gradually over the year so it's the worst possible timing and think back to the script was that 2 was the worst possible time for russia because the world cup remember was going to be held the football world cup in russia that summer so it would have been really

a very stupid thing to do for the rational dorothy's to boys of this cripples in march 2018 when they used the n.t. were probably were looking good excuses to try to get the world cup were all taken away for russia so the timing is important why now and i think that certainly makes me have my doubts who benefits is the question was asked from this and yes the volley was a critic of the kremlin and of course he was someone who the russian authorities might be very keen on but the actual you know if they were to have they done this why now why not another time this is probably the worst time to have done it for russia just when things were beginning to look as if relations were improving with the west to have this it makes no sense unless it could be of course somebody renegades in the f.s.b. who want worse relations with russia in the west but it doesn't make sense the timing from the kremlin perspective it's already been more than 24 hours since germany came out with their thirst statement saying that they found another chunk

about 20 words responsible for pneumonia illness and yet we have reports from the kremlin saying that there still been no communication between chancellor merkel and putin how is that possible. it is it's very strange again you would have thought wouldn't you that chancellor merkel would have got on the phone to president putin they have focused on types of asleep she would have said to him look we've got investigation we found of a job here what do you say about this rather than just the kremlin learning about this from a press conference so to speak so that is quite strange and of course we've also heard the allegation made by president lukashenko belarus that he they've intercepted the belarus intelligence services conversations between i think polish and german officials in which they make no mention of of number 2 that's what he's alleged so it doesn't really it debt again it raises a lot of questions if if if the case was that of a truck was found and he was poisoned by another top there will surely the logical

thing to have done would have been merkel to stray away the line to president putin say look what's going on here but she didn't do that and that again is something that concerns me we've been speaking with journalist and writer neil clark thank you for finding the time to join us on the program today thank you very much actually. a pregnant woman in the australian state of victoria has been arrested and handcuffed in front of her children for allegedly inciting an illegal protest police came to the house of 28 year old zoe biller after the woman shared a facebook post calling for people to protest against local anti coronavirus measures wasn't bringing any fight with you are you sure you are right that's what . you can reckon you race day that. time you just say to take the price down like everything really. police have defended the a rustling the officers acted appropriately although they admitted that the optics of arresting someone who is pregnant are terrible so you bill are will be tried in

court in january she was among 4 people who were detained for inciting an upcoming anti lockdown protest in the state more than 80 others have been given official warnings police are stressing that public rallies would ruin the entire lockdown strategy in the country. we share the frustration that is shared by the whole community but the police here is that. leaving home to protest under the current conditions it's absolutely not dark coming into the city and on the moment all the hard work and sacrifice is putting. the majority of laura border citizens we heard from gideon ross our police director at australia's institute of public affairs he sees no justification for the way the police behaved. this is not the way a free society should operate this is not the way a democratic society should operate this is really really scary even if zoe had broken the lord even if it was worthwhile to have that law enforced they must mean

better wise than the doing of doing it than what the police did from the video that we've seen that they could have just charged her on summons without actually even going to harm at all it seems like this wasn't just about enforcing the law it was actually about intimidating people people who are speaking out against the government what i am afraid of is that this suit will become a normalized pattern of behavior in victoria the laws that are made not by the palm of but by government bureaucrats and enforced in extremely unfair and traumatic was to not want to see another emergency declared like these in victoria or anywhere in australia again. that's been your global news breakdown for now and that's all for me as well today but we're not you know neil will be here at the top of the hour with all the latest.