let me see if one sign they were. breaking news this hour a british drug giant astra zeneca agrees to cooperate with the makers of russia's sputnik movie job to study the effect of this of combining their respective run of our sex scenes. also this hour the international criminal court drops a probe into alleged war crimes by u.k. forces in iraq despite having quote a reasonable basis to believe that the atrocities actually took place. by russia gates hello china gate with u.s. intel chiefs branding beijing the greatest threat to washington today. spying scandal unfolds. and as the u.s. struggles with the pandemic and its i can mama consequences the nation's

billionaires have increased their wealth by more than a trillion dollars some big enough to cover a major relief bill our guest get their teeth into the issue. except that she is already of the system spinning out of control so that it's just in the quote of the . large corporations are all for it and people were rescued from these heavy handed government policies which never had to be strong have you had. a very warm welcome to the program from all of us here at r t h q and moscow let's get started with your live news update we begin with our breaking news astra zeneca has accepted an offer of cooperation from the developers of russia sputnik of the vaccine the company said that combining different coated shots could lead to a better immune response the clinical trials program is expected to involve adults

age 18 and over and our correspondent richard national will be joining us in the studio a little bit later in the program with more details on that. in other news the international criminal court has dropped a probe into alleged war crimes by u.k. armed forces in iraq that's despite the prosecutor having a quote reasonable basis to believe that offensive took place according to plan this isn't by pointing to the fact that the u.k. had investigated the matter itself although investigations into more than $3000.00 cases resulted in 0 prosecutions in the trunk takes a closer look and of story after 6 years of what was called a preliminary examination of allegations of war crimes by the u.k. motel in iraq the international criminal court says it's not going to proceed and so just before calling the british justice system one of the best in the world this is the way you case proud defense secretary reacts their statement today indicates

our efforts to pursue justice were allegations have been found i'm pleased that work we have done and continues to do in improving the quality and assurances around investigations has been recognized by the international criminal court what i suggest though is reading beyond the 1st 2 lines of what the i.c.c. prosecutor ruled it will only take a few seconds to get to the part that says the office has previously found and today confirms that there is a reasonable basis to believe members of the british armed forces are responsible for the following.

i'll continue reading out bits from pretty much every paragraph one after another civilian supervisory and military command famous contributed to the commission of crimes against detainees the initial response of the british army and theater at the time of the alleged offenses was inadequate not a single case being submitted for prosecution today a result that has deprived the victims of justice i could keep going but it's already clear that these conclusions sound like they're from a different report not from one that leads to a major case being dropped or a senior cabinet member bragging about an amazing justice system need seems to me. each almost incredible to think that thousands of allegations not won over those thousands has been regarded as justifying coming in from typical we need to push

forward with demands for serious and proper investigations and what i believe is a scandal and as the record stands you know the evidence is there is reasonable evidence in the words of the i.c.c. prosecutor there is reasonable evidence of all hugs to patrol cities carried out by members of the british armed services the british army will seize against iraqi detainees however if that's the way things are in the world of international criminal law london tick the boxes by launching domestic probes and the i.c.c. couldn't prove any ceiling or deliberate covering up so the rest is out of the tribunals jurisdiction which only makes you wonder following up on the i.c.c. zone statement does it all mean the iraqi victor. will never get justice the u.k. government has repeatedly shown precious little interest in investigating and prosecuting atrocities committed abroad by british troops the prosecutor's decision

to close a u.k. inquiry will doubtless fuel perceptions and an ugly double standard in justice one approach to powerful states and quite another for those with less clout the news from the i.c.c. comes as london pushes for a controversial overseas operations bill it's supposed to quote unquote protect british troops in overseas called flights from fixations litigation and repeat investigations critics though say it would allow more offenders to escape the law the overseas operations bill will do nothing to address the issue of repeat investigations of u.k. armed forces personnel list will do is make arifin cases like the death of iraqi national by homuth the even more difficult to prosecute. the u.k. would also be violating numerous human rights treaties by not ensuring abuses are properly dealt with but even without the bill as we now know the international criminal court has pulled the brakes on probing the british military earlier when

the court was going to look into potential abuses by the us troops in war zones washington simply paid back by sanctioning senior staff members at the i.c.c. what if after that the tribunal does didn't want to go too far with investigating uncle sam's number one ally in iraq well there's no way of knowing. top u.s. politicians are calling for heads to roll after a member of the u.s. intelligence committee was targeted by a suspected chinese spy it comes as the u.s. until she is identifying beijing as washington's number one adversary. so trumps out and the russia good thing is slamming shut behind him because there's a new scare story in town china you know it doesn't take long to dig up dirt in the town like washington q us democrat representative eric swalwell until now

moved well this crist so far the evidence is one contradicted that the president used taxpayer dollars to ask the ukrainians to help with an election this time around his links to a suspected chinese spy causing the stink not least because at least awkward he sits on the house intelligence committee not be removed from the intel he should be removed from congress as well yes house minority leader kevin mccarthy there spotted an opportunity to claim his 1st victim so the background in a nutshell swalwell hod a chinese national called frank fag in his early political career and this person quickly started raising suspicions within the intel community he got real. but his recently refused to answer whether he slept with her which probably means yes but before we burn mr swalwell at the stake at sea we're out might have to join him once this chinese witch hunt really gains momentum you've got

a feel for mitch mcconnell he survived the title most good mitch but can he now survive the fact that is wife secretary of transportation elaine chao is from one of china's most prominent political families that would be one hell of a honey trap and you and jean shall have served on the board of the holding company for china's teach to build in a state owned enterprise that makes shapes for the chinese military and your show is also on the board at the bank of china a top lender to the ship builder remember also the former speaker of the house john boehner aka the original orange man is days the house republicans actually give john boehner a harder time than they give me. which means orange really is the new black. these days the former speaker of the house just happens to be a low b. is for a certain people's republic of china is this guy aggie purdie chief security officer

who are way the u.s. is ready china on a number of issues and they want to hurt one way to hurt china very afraid of the competition between china and the u.s. so they're focusing on hurting while way before getting professionally agri for you our way for a living and you purdy was a member of the white house stuff team that helped draft the u.s. national strategy to secure cyberspace this is just the tip of the iceberg therefore the head of u.s. intelligence has declared open season on beijing calling it threat number one. if i could communicate one thing to the american people it is that the people's republic of china poses the greatest threats to america today and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom worldwide since world war 2 what they might find is that there aren't many politicians left who don't have links to this new enemy because they used to be friends we is getting hard to keep up.

more americans have now died of kobe that than were lost fighting in world war 2 the death toll is now close to 300000 all the total number of cases is over 15000000 the pandemic may be the country's worst crisis in decades but that hasn't stopped the rich from getting richer and that worth of american billionaires has soared by one trillion dollars since march according to a new report as tens of millions of americans suffer from the health and economic ridges of these pandemic a few 100 billionaires to their massive fortunes their pandemic profits are so immense that america's billionaires could pay for a major corporate relieve bill and still not lose a dime of their provider it's reaches the updraft of wealth to the billionaire class is disturbing at a time when millions face eviction destitution and loss billionaires are extracting wealth at a time when essential workers pushed into the viral line of fire. the campaign

group americans for tax fairness found that the extra wealth accumulated by billionaires during the pandemic would be enough to dish out $3000.00 to every single american that's roughly equal to the entire amount spent by the federal government on health care in 2019 and nearly 4 times more than the stimulus payments made earlier this year to $159000000.00 americans now the report included $651.00 billionaires and let's take a look at just a few of them the wealthiest would be jeff bezos who is now worth over $180000000000.00 which is more than the g.d.p. of iraq elon musk's wealth grew almost 6 fold during the pandemic while mark zuckerberg almost doubled his both musk and are worth more than $100000000000.00 now are guesstimated profiting from a pandemic. this is capitalism on government life support and the side effect

of that is to make those who own shares the overwhelming bulk being owned by the richest people even richer and while everybody else is in trouble in the way that they blame capitalism for destroying the poor and and creating great inequality these government policies do exactly not have lockdowns crushing small medium businesses we have stayed homeowners which drove people into an unemployment largely virtual existence we don't wait a month for policy which drove a crisis in financial markets i always love these kinds of analyses is it the government has a day or 6 not going to the drugs from the government there's nothing naive here the government isn't doing something then as a result the government is itself the result of the way this is science he works which puts enormous wealth and therefore political power in the hands of a very small number of people who turn out to have a government policy that makes them richer this burst of new wealth 'd is just as purely a product of government policy and was unnecessary you know the unintended consequences

of lockdowns and such and in this case that they call them non-pharmaceutical interventions but there's also capacity limits on businesses are going to be almost the opposite of what we hoped for the draconian policies they've increased the gap . between the rich and poor that created new controversies of wealth this tremendous consolidation going on right now let me be clear here we could have been prepared for this virus the way other countries where we could have handled it better the way other countries hand it's a pathetic sad story of a system spinning out of control so that it's unjust inequality keeps getting worse we have a monopoly in this country have had it for a century we have 2 parties we don't allow 2 businesses that dominate most of our industries but we allow these 2 parties to dominate our politics that's very convenient for the computer they. the class of corporate directors who donate the bulk of the money to both of them will pull the strings from both of the bodies and

you can't really have a monopoly without government help because innovation never stops you have you would you need to have a monopoly as richard said is you need government controls you need artificial controls like patents and i copyright all that sort of thing health care is a perfect example of that's a business and it's a sector which is super regulated and it therefore you have entrenched interests there and for that reason we shouldn't be surprised that those costs are rising rising rising and you know $2.00 jujube with no end in sight i mean i think that is . what one of the one of those maybe maybe the picture perfect examples of what happens when government gets up to its neck in an industry to think of this is a government policy is strange the beneficiary ear our corporations they are at the rate with floor industries doctors hospitals device and drug makers and the insurers they've got us by the throat we have to pay those prices that they control

yes peter is right they use the government to cement their monopoly as monopolists always but the impetus the desire that need to control the market to squeeze more profits that's what drives the government to do what they do in support of these interests trying to maximize the money they can squeeze out of our health care if you look at these lockdowns how many people i mean if you think of people locked in home people with nothing to do stores being closed what was keeping people alive what was keeping people fed was keeping people's minds saying right facebook google amazon netflix things like that those no service providers and as many of the businesses to me is but large corporations are offering people some some sort of refuge from these heavy handed government policies which never had to be so heavy handed. just before the break we bring you another developing story coming from russia a suicide bomber has blown himself up in a small village in the caucasus region attack happened near

a federal security service building and 6 people have been reported injured including 5 f.s.b. of officers and one civilian now russia's anti-terrorist committee said that the man detonated the bomb as he was being detained at all the information we have on that right now but we'll be bringing you more on that as it comes then for now a short break.

join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to us of the world of politics or business i'm show business i'll see you then. welcome back we return to our top story now russian and british scientists are ready to put their heads together and their vaccines to tackle the coronavirus

pandemic britain's astra zeneca said in a statement that it is ready to work with the developers of russia's sputnik. today we announce a clinical trial program to assess the safety and immunogenicity of combination of the $1222.00 developed by astra zeneca and oxford university and sputnik 5 developed by a russian research institute. as we promised earlier our correspondent richard knox not now joins us live in the studio with all the details on that story so how important is this development and i think is very important and i think it is a very good news you know at the time of global call the 1000 vaccine race we hear about this use collaboration between the developers of the bridge swedish and the russian drugs new chapter of vaccine development as the russian side says by the way it was their initiative they made an offer back in november and early on friday they posted on social media that their offer was accepted and this is what the

press release by the company behind astra zeneca says about why is it so important collaboration with the gamma layer research institute is important to explore the potential of vaccine combinations unlocking synergies in protection and accessibility through a portfolio approach. they will soon begin rolling adults volunteers aged 18 years and older and earlier today we heard president putin spokesperson saying that competition is a good thing of course but not when it comes to vaccine production vaccine aimed at protecting the nation's you know these processes he added cannot be politicized and i think this cooperation that we hear about today is a good example of that as this cooperation will be monumental how did the vaccine developers come to this agreement that oh as i said it was a russian initiative and they made this offer after asters anika announced interim early results of their clinical trials showing that their vaccine is safe and has

an overall effect efficacy of 70 percent in percent protection against call that 19 so i think it is a good thing you know to unite the after it's to boost the efficacy of this vaccine and this is what we also read in the press release published by the company behind us resign and meanwhile in russia a mass vaccination is going on and we hear from russia's authorities that. it will become the epi center all vaccine. vaccine production because there are other russian vaccines as well and they are going to build a huge factory here in the russian capital ready to produce 10000000 doses of these vaccine a month or we will be following about cooperation very very very closely thank you very much for that report. all right we can now bring in line simon clark who is a microbiologist the u.k.

is reading university now is it common to combine different vaccines like this. i know it's not but when we've had problems in the past they haven't been on such a grand scale as they say and it really will be i'm coltan to work out how we can get the best from our global production facilities so if we can find a way of putting together vaccines that make them work better or just as well then we can use to the most sort of degree global production facilities to make sure that we get a global vaccine roll out as quickly as possible because everybody around the world needs access to these vaccines of course that everyone is waiting this is very time sensitive but what kind of timeframe do you think we're talking about here when it comes to combining 2 different vaccines from 2 different countries. when it would take a few months to find out whether it works or not that's that the most important thing

to do but there's no sense in combining vaccines if they don't work or if they don't work very well so the trials would be to be conducted 1st like they have big faster than it already and we'll have an answer to that in a few months time but this is a. long day and this is not something that's going to be a green a few months and if we get everybody in the world covered within a few years that will be a success so just because it doesn't happen immediately is not something to worry about i don't think are you surprised at all by this joining of forces. no it was suggested by by the russian researchers and obviously they've made a compelling case to astra zeneca ash that it could know what they're doing and wouldn't accept that unless they thought it was the real deal something that they should do. we it's a very interesting scientific question to see whether we can use different

strategies against effectively the same thing to get a more effective more red cross to be response as our correspondent was saying there the kremlin spokesperson was saying that competition is a good thing but not in this certain case that it is more important for everyone to come together in order to find the perfect or as much as possible perfect taxiing against come in 1000 do you agree with that. yeah if we were going to back say for 5 months people are accused of competing and it wasn't really competition because it was pete different people trying different things some of which will work some of which words now we've got so we're starting to get some answers about things that work people need to come together and find a way of getting those things that work maybe to work better or to be able to produce them more quickly or in greater amounts that's what's important now and do you expect any of the other main vaccine developers to follow suit. but it's entirely possible yes particularly if the astro straight russia collaboration

works that yes people are the people i'm sure looks look at it well there's also the fact that as our correspondents pointing out the astra zeneca vaccine initially came out with an efficacy of 70 percent but then there was also the 90 percent when there was 2 different doses is that something that might have spurred the idea of cooperation. yeah i think it's actually it's either 60 percent or 90 percent or 70 percent but is really unobtainable it's a sort of halfway house between those 2 regimes with a still a lot more work to be done on that 90 percent regime see whether it works or belts but yes it may have stood them all but i think really the most attractive areas to be able to get more will go south so everybody around the world quickly so that's probably the driver i would think do you think this news will boost to confidence in the sputnik of a vaccine we've heard quite

a bit of skepticism. yeah the more data that is produced on any vaccine doesn't matter where it's produced or by whom is a good thing and it provided of course the dates there is positive then it could only. quell any public fears that people might have about actually. we've been speaking with simon clark microbiologist at reading university thank you very time and your comments you're welcome. and lastly some more breaking news this time from london where a car has reportedly rammed into a number of pedestrians and no information about the extent or nature of any injuries and the incident is currently not mitri being treated as a terrorist attack on may bring you more on that as it comes in as well. that's been our breakdown of the day's top news for this hour thanks for tuning.

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